Newton’s Fire

‘It won’t be strong enough.’

‘Newton built it to protect the Ark,’ he told her. ‘It will be strong enough.’

She nodded and climbed inside, fitted her feet into the hollow at the far end. The plane was hurtling downwards, wreaking havoc on the hold. He picked up the mirror half of the Ark’s protective moulding and made to enclose Rachel in its protective womb, but she fought him off. ‘No! You have to get in too.’

‘There isn’t room. Not for both of us.’

‘There is if we use life jackets.’

He felt a fierce surge of joy and pride and hope. The overhead lockers had all tumbled open and spilled their guts onto the floor. He grabbed life jackets from all around and tossed them into the chest. Through a window, the sea was rushing up fast. No more time. He grabbed the chest’s end panel, fitted it into its grooves then climbed inside and let it drop down like a portcullis behind him, enclosing both him and Rachel in its protective walls. The chest was too short for him and he had to bend his knees, adopt the brace position. The life jackets were all around them. In the darkness they felt for and pulled toggles, inflating the jackets like balloons, creating a buffer between themselves and the chest walls, packing themselves tighter and tighter until they couldn’t move, and his chest was pressed against hers, and his chin was on her shoulder. The screaming of their descent grew louder as it echoed off the water. Any second now. Any second. He wrapped his arms around Rachel and hugged her hard, felt her hugging him back with equal intensity, and if it had to end for them both, then best like this, best like this, best like-

A deafening crash. The fuselage jumped and shuddered. The oak chest was flung forwards, spinning and tumbling like a die cast by some outraged god. They crashed into and through the internal bulkhead, would surely have broken apart had the Ark not already smashed a path for them. The impact was still so violent that Luke banged his head hard even through the life jackets, leaving him dazed and only vaguely aware of hideous noises all around him, of shrieking metal and things breaking and popping and splintering. Their forward motion stopped abruptly. He felt utterly disoriented and for a moment wondered whether this was what death felt like. But then he realized he was merely upside down, that blood was rushing to his head and pain was reporting in from the various parts of his body, telling him that he was very much alive.

Rachel was still in his arms, still pressed against him by the swell of life jackets. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. His voice was slurred and disembodied, but the biggest surprise was hearing it at all.

Rachel didn’t reply. His hand was pinned behind her back but some of the life jackets had punctured and were slowly deflating, allowing him to work it free. He touched her throat, felt nothing. His heart twisted. ‘Rachel!’ he cried.

He tried her wrist instead and this time felt something, not strong but steady. No time to celebrate, however. Metal groaned outside, stretched beyond its capacity. The chest lurched and tipped onto its side. He heard splashing. His right hip grew wet; then his thigh and calf. And he realized, belatedly, they were shipping water fast through the hole Newton had cut in the chest’s floor in order to accommodate the base of the Ark.

III

Benyamin had vowed to attend every minute of the trial of the four young Palestinian men who’d murdered his wife, two daughters and seven others. But it had proved a farce. They hadn’t even offered a defence. At least, their defence had been a simple political statement: they were soldiers fighting a war in which they themselves had lost parents, brothers, sisters, children and friends. And there’d been no trials for those killings. No justice for their bereavements.

To his surprise, Benyamin had found this line of defence deeply disturbing. It had troubled him enough that he’d skipped the foregone conclusion of the verdict and the sentencing. It was easier to hate people when you didn’t know them; it was easier to believe that your lust for vengeance was somehow different, nobler. But it wasn’t different. He saw that now. He saw it in the sheer ugliness of Avram’s expression as he released the safety and made to press the trigger.

Benyamin didn’t even think. He simply hurled himself at him and they tumbled together onto the Foundation Stone. The impact knocked the remote from Avram’s hand and it skittered away across the Kevlar blanket. They both went after it, scrambling on their hands and knees, while everyone looked around to watch.

That was when it happened. All the windows burst open at once, raining glass on the floor. Stun grenades exploded in midair, a compressed storm of light and thunder. Figures swathed in black swarmed in through doors and windows, firing as they came, punishing each and every hint of resistance with instant death. The shock of it made Benyamin falter, allowing Avram to reach the remote first. He raised his hand and was bringing it down to slap the trigger when the fusillade of high velocity rounds shredded him and flung him onto his back, his eyes wide and staring upwards, so that the last thing he’d ever have seen was the Dome towering high above him, still standing.

IV

The seawater was already up to Luke’s chest. He put his hands above his head and fumbled through the deflating life jackets for the sliding end panel. He’d been twisted around so much that he couldn’t be sure which way was up, which way to push. Panic got to him; he kept trying different directions, hoping one might work. None did. Maybe the impact had jammed it. Maybe he was only making it worse. He forced himself to calm down, to think. He felt around and quickly found the hole in the chest’s floor. Now at least he could orient himself with confidence. The end panel slid upwards. He pushed it hard. Nothing.

Water reached his throat. He had to lift up Rachel’s face so she could breathe. He remembered Jay finding this chest earlier, how he’d struggled to open it until he’d tried pushing the panel inwards and then lifting it. There was nothing on the inside for Luke to pull towards him. He tried to grip its edges with his fingernails, but it was useless. Water rose above his mouth. The pressure was building on his sinuses too. As the chest had enough air in it to float, the implication had to be that they were still trapped inside the fuselage, and sinking with it.

He let go of Rachel. The only thing he could do for her was to get them both out. He took a deep breath from the small pocket of air, fitted his right foot through the hole in the floor, felt fuselage. He pushed the chest along until something outside stopped him. He took another breath then pushed as hard as he could, using whatever obstacle he’d encountered outside to depress the end panel. It yielded and slid upwards, but only a little way. And it let out the last of the air, so that the urge to breathe became almost irresistible. He pushed against the chest’s wall until it tipped onto its side, allowing him finally to slide the panel free.

Luke hauled himself out, dragging Rachel with him. They were already deep enough underwater for it to be almost dark. His eyes were so blurry that he could only gain the vaguest impression of his surroundings. The tube of the passenger cabin, a carnage of dead bodies strapped into white leather seats in a doomed effort to survive the impact; but also a jagged-edged ring of lighter blue above him, where the jet had sheared in two, offering a glimpse of surface high above.

He kicked towards it, fighting the screaming of his lungs, and finally he breached the surface and opened his mouth and gasped the air and kept on gasping until his need was sated. He turned belatedly to Rachel, lifted up her head. He’d never had CPR training, had only seen it in the movies, but he understood the principles: chest compressions and assisted breathing. He couldn’t lay her down on her back to press on her chest, so he hugged her tight three times instead, pinched her nostrils, put his mouth to hers, breathed into her. He hugged her again. On the second hug her mouth opened and she coughed and choked and spluttered and then vomited out a small stream of discoloured seawater, and then she gasped and began breathing by herself, replenishing her oxygen- starved body.

Life jackets were bobbing all around them, rubber ducks in a giant bath. Luke grabbed the nearest. It was a struggle to fit it around Rachel’s neck and clip in the straps. He cursed himself for all those safety demonstrations he’d ignored over the years. But finally she was in. He blew into the intake valves to inflate it as far as it would go