“Captain said,” Gabe spoke up, “This isn’t a busy terminal, so maybe we’ll luck out.”
“Let’s hope,” Delaney replied.
To Owen it was a strange irony that his brother would use such wording as ‘luck’ in Vegas. But like the last time Owen was in Vegas fourteen years earlier for his twenty-first birthday, luck wasn’t there.
They emerged from the bridge to the gate area and opened the door.
Two airline employees lay on the floor in a roped off section by the counter.
The gate was empty, no passengers were in the seats. But the gate was one of many and in the area at the edge of the gate were slot machines.
A man sat at one, his hand on the button, head forward against the screen of the machine.
Another woman lay on the floor by him.
The captain and Gabe were right, it wasn’t busy and there weren’t that many bodies, but there were bodies nonetheless.
They talked about moving them, but they hadn’t decided where.
Another gate? It couldn’t be too far.
They didn’t think that far ahead. At least Owen hadn’t.
It was obvious Gary and his father had.
“I’ll go see if I can find a luggage or security cart,” Gary said. “Gabe, you want to come with me? You’d know where to find them better than anyone.”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
Owen looked at his father. “Where …”
“We’ll start making a removal plan,” Delaney called out as they walked away.
“Dad?” Owen questioned. “Where are they going?”
“Oh, to find a luggage carrier or security cart,” Tom replied. “Or wheelchair. Something we can use to move the dead.”
Owen acknowledged that, sort of. Hands on hips he nodded. “And move them where?”
“Out of the way,” Tom answered.
“Out of sight,” Delaney added. “So people can relax, decompress.”
Everyone but Owen seemed to be in a focused mindset of moving bodies as if they were just going in and cleaning up after a party.
Give the illusion that all was fine and normal.
But it wasn’t.
Slot machines singing musical tunes, the smell of death and burnt coffee filled the air.
They had been in the air for so long, the event that occurred below seemed like a nightmare. But landing wasn’t waking them up to a better place.
It was still a nightmare.
Bodies out of the way and out of sight were still multitudes of bodies and to Owen at least, they would never be out of mind.
<><><><>
Gainesville, FL
With one good push, Alex Armenov rolled his chair across the lab floor to Warren’s computer station. Not that Armenov was a lazy man, he could just get there faster in the chair, then getting up with his bad knee.
The previous several hours had been a shit show, nature bound and determined to hit that reset button as best as it could.
Nothing was making sense, estimates and predictions were as off as the weatherman on the local stations.
Predictions came down to the last minute and that was dangerous.
As far as the methane eruptions, the west of the United States seemed to be stabilized. But Armenov knew it wasn’t for long. According to Gene Taylor only a few hours. Armenov wasn’t all that sure at first whether there would be more eruptions out west or not. He thought perhaps it was done there. The readouts he was getting from Billings and the old Nevada nuclear testing site were relatively calm and close to normal. They hadn’t changed in hours and that hadn’t happened since before the chain reaction event.
As the clock ticked by, the levels in Nevada and Texas began to rise, slowly, but they still climbed.
Armenov had just took a sip from his sixth cup of coffee when Warren, with a wavering worried voice, called out, “Professor A, you need to see this. And hurry.”
In a swift movement, and rolling thunderous sound of wheels on the flooring, Armenov was shoulder to shoulder with Warren.
Warren was watching three computer screens, and it could have been anything. But it was the East Coast, of that Armenov was certain, because Warren had the east.
He thought for sure the young grad student was going to inform him of some immediate spike in the methane, another budding storm surge or a buoy from the NOAA was putting out a bizarre reason.
Armenov expected to ask for an explanation on what he was seeing, instead, as soon as he arrived, he knew.
He didn’t need Warren to explain any numbers, it was clear, or at least it seemed to be.
“Is that what I think it is?” Armenov asked.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Shit.” With another push, Armenov rolled back to his station and lifted his phone, dialed and put it to his ear. He cocked back some, confused and looked at it. “Warren are the phones down because of the incoming storm?”
Warren picked up his phone. “I got a signal.”
Armenov looked at his phone. “I do, too.” He tried the call again, only this time he placed it on speaker. He watched the screen of his phone read that the call was dialing, then it stopped and the call was dropped. “Warren see if you can make any calls.”
Warren immediately dialed. “It’s ringing,” he said. “Oh, hey, Bev, just checking the phone. Okay, thanks.” He hung up. “Are you calling Director Diel?”
“Trying. It won’t go through.”
“Maybe the towers are down, if power went it is possible. Try a landline.”
“Good idea, I guess I’m just not thinking.”
It wasn’t a number he dialed often, if at all, and Armenov, hating to take the time to do it, had to look up the number for the Reston USGA office. He wasn’t even sure he’d get a person or what the right extension was. He’d give it a try. He had
