A World Apart (6 page)

There was an ultimate explosion…

The scribe behind the viewing glass awoke from sleep rapidly and saw Frankie cowering in the corner of the right hand side of the invest room, his helmet severed and blood stains on his midriff and face. The observer pressed a half yellow button on the counter and then followed by a red. Frankie and Stephan felt a substantial movement beneath their feet as the room moved. The wall they were nearest suddenly lifted into the air, where they saw more colleagues although they were in a red overall. The people emerging walked over briskly to Frankie and Stephan and guided them into a small chamber where their overalls were decontaminated. The contraptions that held them are cone shaped, trapping them in side and removing their clothes after decontamination. They were both showered and new clothing was provided in an efficient manner. Stephan watched as their clothes were disintegrating in the fire. Frankie followed Stephan’s eyes as he became absorbed to the flames licking the dangerous substances with the occasional bang and clatter inside the cage. Frankie’s mind wondered into the deep orange flame, it was then that he realised within a matter of hours the UK would be in a serious state of alarm.   

As the announcement is made the country stands in silence, adjusting the volume to clarify the points being made, gasps and cries can be seen heard across London, Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff and Dublin and Belfast, people taking to the streets stunned instantly. The streets were deserted ten minutes later, litter rapidly zooming around. Bridges and motorways overcrowded with people trying to escape. Horns beings pressed as the traffic piles up like collecting rain. Some people look astonished at the build up and leave their car to ascertain a better view of the problem. The UK is now in a mass state of panic and uncertainty at the possibility of war. The siren longed into the night declaring war and echoing around the capital like a drifting current.   

Frankie took off from work and headed home nauseated and distressed to his apartment and his dog Miles. He awoke the next morning slowly trying to figure out where he was. He heard the letterbox rattle so he proceeded down the stairs and through the corridor to find a medium size pile of letters on the floor. He bent down to collect them when he was interrupted by the telephone cackling away in the lounge. He went to answer; in hindsight he may have wished he had looked at his mail first.

‘Hello Sir is this Frankie Marvel of the London Intelligence Alliance?’ enquired a sweet woman’s voice.

‘Yes, speaking’ said Frankie quietly.

‘It has been asked for your presence in Iran sir, the prime minister has seen your work and would like you right away to make further readings’ said the woman eagerly with a wisp of hope that he will accept without fuss.


                                  
 

Lensa struggled to carry Alexandra as she looked pleadingly towards Eric, whom insists on carrying Alexandra for the rest of the journey home. It was getting late Eric thought, noticing punters and louts on their expeditions for the night ahead in the city.  The family carried on walking briskly, chatting about what they had seen in Mr Biggles’ shop around half an hour ago. Jessica was so excited she was bouncing around the road occasionally skipping, thinking over the answer to the riddle. Eric undid the strap of the baby attachment situated across his ribs and shoulder blades, and passed Alexandra over to Lensa who held her in her arms in a slanted position, stretched out over her body. He then searched his lightly faded jean pocket for the keys to the apartment, where he found them, pulling them out along with fluff and a small piece of paper that fell to the floor unknowingly. As the family entered the apartment and settled down for the night they had almost forgotten their trip tomorrow to the natural history museum, of which Lensa reminded Alexandra whose face lit up as soon as she was told, reaching for the brochure underneath her toy chest and reading.

The light lazily squeezes through the keyhole of Alexandra’s bedroom, shining onto her toy chest creating a beam of light blue around her room. The alarm clock on her desk just clicked over to six fifteen as Alexandra yawned and stretched and then turning over onto her other side to sleep some more. There was a noise coming from below her room in the kitchen, which sounded like a cooking noise, the hissing and spitting sound of eggs and the squelching crackling sound of bacon under the grill. Eric was wide-awake cooking breakfast for the family at an unusual hour. He always found that because his work involved an early start he could not get out of the routine. Lensa is showering, steam folding out of underneath the doorframe as she continued to wash. Alexandra was sound asleep still, although her parents knew that they didn’t have long before she awoke with a lovely morning scream for them and their neighbours to endure.

Eric slowed down the food and placed all into the oven and headed upstairs to wake Jessica, it is four minutes past seven now. Eric heads down the hall and enters a room with a sticker positioned on the front, that of a girl waving her finger addressing persons to knock before they enter, of which Eric briefly looked at and tutting is his usual way implying that she is just like her mother.

‘Come on sweetie pie, time for breakfast and then to the museum’ said Eric to the duvet crumpled up on the bed in front of him. Jessica opened her eyes slowly and looked up, seeing her father positioned near the door. A vast amount of light now beamed in, making her pupils retract and waking her.

‘Ok daddy I will get up now’ replied Jessica rubbing her eyes and switching her bedside light on. Eric left the bedroom door lightly open as he marched back down the hall and into his and Lensa’s bedroom, to find Lensa getting ready in front of her make up dresser, hair wet as she was drying it with a towel, as Eric shouted over the hairdryer that breakfast was cooked. Lensa looked over with an outrageous grin.

‘Be there in a minute hunny’ said Lensa loudly as the hot air swarmed from the dryer flicking her hair around spontaneously.

Eric served breakfast onto the plates as Lensa came down the stairs carrying Alexandra and soon following was Jessica. The family sat and ate their breakfast whilst watching the television news, which Lensa switched off before they had time to see the topics. Eric looked over at Lensa who did not reply and regained eating once more.

‘Twelve fifty adults, five pound children, three pounds fifty pence for concessions and students’ echoed a skinny man with a strong cockney accent selling London touring tickets at extortionate prices, as the Platts family walked to the underground station. The family bought their tickets and continued down the escalator reaching the northern line, which they boarded and Jessica counted the number of stops on the overhead map located in the train’s carriage. The rickety sound of the train began as it set off slowly, gradually getting faster, swishing around the people in the carriage from side to side. The carriage really did seem unsafe and very claustrophobic to Lensa, she always seemed to clam up when she took the train anywhere, desperate to reach her destination. The train growled with a screech of metal on metal indicating that the train was coming to a halt. Jessica vaulted to attention; only for her father to indicate that it was the next stop they wanted. Finally reaching their destination Jessica was the first to be off the train on what seemed a capacious platform compared to the carriage moments ago.

The museum was a grand building with mosaics, statues and monuments situated evenly around the grounds. The British flag waved in the light drizzle on the roof of the building, as the family looked up in unison. As the family entered and made a donation to the guard and old worker, they slowly wondered down to the right where there was the war section. In the vertically surprising room tanks, planes and guns and all kinds of gadgetry that dated back into the 18
th
century. The area that caught Jessica’s eye was that of the 20
th
century, the basic robotic wartime surveillance and normal hand pistols from the 19
th
century.

‘Daddy, these look very complicated, what are they?’ asked Jessica in an desire to uncover there usage.

‘Some of veze are going past my time so I cannot say. Let’s have a look at the information of zis board’ said Eric feeling slightly out of his depths unable to assist his daughter. As Eric and Jessica looked closely and read on of the signs for the board about World War One Lensa took Alexandra to the seating area where there were pamphlets and books regarding the wars, crime and violence of the last 300 years.

‘It says here zat zhe British vere bombed repeatedly in a number of terrorist attacks from 1991 to 2007, protests about vars in Iraq and disagreements about America invading Afghanistan. I can vemember zis as if it vas yesterday, seeing zhe news clips’ said Eric with a saddened look as he viewed the pictures and it bought back horrible memories for him.

‘Really, I didn’t think you would have seen that daddy?’ said Jessica inquisitively.

‘I’m not zat old you know!’ cried Eric with a smile pitched across his face. The family look around the museum casually, picking up leaflets as they see something of interest. Eric was a big fan of prehistoric animals and creatures around millions of years back, such as land mammals and pterodactyls, his favourite being a tyrannosaurus. Eric looked for this on the coloured map he had been handed at the start of the visit.

There was a loud thud, as if something had flown into the building. Eric looked to his family as they turned in curiosity. Before he could say a word the room was filled with darkness. The shutters on the windows have all been locked down.

‘Vat is going on?’ said Eric fully aware his family didn’t have the answer. The family managed to see slightly their outline of each other, so they huddled against one another checking to see if none of them were injured. There was a second thud, and then a thin thread of light beamed behind the closed double doors, which have a torch or latten. Out there for all of them to witness was a man attaching something to a wall, soon after the figure retreating downstairs in a flash.


                                  
 

Liona jolted as she received a silent bleep from the inside of her left leg, it was an input message from Joseph. Liona raised herself from the airborne dust and soil as she attempted to read the device, wiping away the residue as she stared patiently. The rectangular clip-on L.E.M.O.N.D (Longitudinal Electronic Mapping of Neurological Data) device displayed that of her health status on one side, the time and her location, along with a phone and messaging service worldwide. Liona was in Johannesburg, South Africa on a missionary project of construction, design and flood prevention for a small town on the outskirts that for legal reasons Liona has to keep it quiet. She eyed the device and in blue letters it stated: 003476338821103-Hi, how are you? Are you coming home soon, Ed is growing fast and Neville needs a clip around the ear, Hope your well, Jo. 3342’. As she read the message a small revealing smile etched from the corner of her mouth as she began thinking of the birth of Edward and the good times when they were all together along with a deep sense of regret for leaving Joseph.   

Liona eyed the device, feeling her heart race emphatically as she was concerned for Edward’s health, due to him having problems in previous years.

Edward was perched in the garden of the worn-out converted farmhouse in the countryside, playing with Neville a game he thought of just for fun as Edward was too little to understand and spent most of the time staring at the world or sitting listening quietly. Joseph is organising documents in the study at the top rear room of the house, which was an extension on the dilapidated building he remembered purchasing just three months after finding out Liona was pregnant with Neville. Joseph looked out of the study window clocking the high hills and low clouds first then his children playing happily by themselves on the gloriously green grass.

The telephone outrageously echoed around the study, making Joseph stumble with his piles of books, folders and jotted notes flying off the top drifting to the floor like a feather seeking the air. He rushed to place the things on the desk in front of the window; all piled with computers, antennas, radios and scatter details of African origin, paper-cuttings and usual writing equipment. As he dashed to away from the desk to the third ring of the telephone he caught knocked a few books onto the green-carpeted floor, making a lazy thudding sound, opening at a random page on doing so. He was expecting a call back from Liona and answered the rectangular thin receiver as quickly as he could. Even though him and Liona have gone their separate ways now, Joseph still feels the same way hid did the very moment their eyes laid upon each other, that she was full of enthusiasm and credence. The feelings she made him feel seemed to leap onto him, although feeling in a state of regret and desire for the very feeling she used to give him. Now he felt that this had all eluded him and that his intentions were all directed towards his children’s upbringing, to make her proud. The telephone piece began making a rhythmic consistent beeping to be replaced seconds after by a voice.

‘Hello there would you like to accept a call from South Africa sir?’ suggested the old lady in a deep southern African accent on the other end of the receiver.