Departure(47)

Our plan is to rest the entire day and strike during the cover of night. It’s about our only chance.

The cramped room is dark save for a narrow sliver of light that seeps in between the bottom of the closed door and the floor. Grayson and I lean against opposite walls, an old oak desk between us. I can just make out half of his bruised, haggard face, one of his exhausted eyes staring at the floor.

“In the video, you said your dad was a diplomat.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I say between bites of apple, wishing we had something more.

“You didn’t follow in his footsteps?”

“Nah.”

“You’re what, an investor?”

“Venture capitalist. Early-stage companies, technology, mostly IT.”

“I’ve had ideas for companies. Tons of them. Figured, what’s the use, though? It’s not like I needed the money. And any company I started would be measured against my father’s empire. I’d always come up short. No-win situation. Plus, once you’ve been to a few parties and heard the way the gossip machine feeds on the failures of the rich and famous, once you’ve . . . joined in on the feeding, it becomes nearly impossible to put yourself through the grinder. Who wants to try and fail, when you can drink and laugh with no consequences?” He takes a bite of apple. “I bet that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not. Not even close. I grew up with people just like you, Grayson, in boarding schools all over the world. It sounds crazy from the outside, but everybody’s scared of failure and being seen as a disappointment. The longer the shadow is, the farther you have to walk.”

“You made it out, though. You did all right for yourself.”

“I guess.”

“How’d you do it?”

“Changed the scorecard. I opted for a career different from my father’s. No comparisons that way. After college, I got on a plane to San Francisco, got lucky, won the IPO lottery, been placing calculated bets ever since. Still getting lucky.”

“Being in a plane crash wasn’t lucky. And it wasn’t luck that got the people out of the lake or kept the camp out of chaos. That was skill: strategy, leadership, real-life action-hero stuff.”

“Yeah? You want to hear the crazy part?”

Grayson waits.

“Until four days ago, I had no idea I had it in me.”





Just after sunset, we set out again, pedaling harder this time. If we can’t make it there tonight, we’ll lose a lot of the element of surprise.

People who’ve never been to this place don’t realize how far outside of London it is. It’s our only play, the only place I have reason to believe there may be people—verified humans—who actually want to help the passengers of Flight 305.

The second day at camp, after Bob and Mike got the cockpit door open, the pilot said something I didn’t realize was so important until now. After the first bout of turbulence, the plane lost all outside connectivity: satellites, Internet, communications. The pilots were flying blind on their preprogrammed course. When they got closer to Heathrow, however, they received radio contact again. The controllers at Heathrow said a global event had affected communications. They told the pilots to maintain their course, and that the controllers would guide them in.

My working theory is that the device Yul created in 2014 allowed the plane to travel into the future—that the turbulence and radio blackout happened when the plane jumped forward in time. Whoever brought us here must have intended for us to land as planned at Heathrow. But something went wrong. Maybe the suited figures intervened. Or maybe there was a technical problem with the device Yul built, or an issue on their end.

Either way, someone was at Heathrow, a human voice at least, and it was trying to get us there six days ago. That’s really the only clue I have. In fact, it’s the only place on the planet where I have reason to believe there are still any people left.

But as Grayson and I pedal past the road signs for London Heathrow, I feel my nerves winding up. We’ve expended the better part of twenty-four hours on this little adventure. What if I’m wrong?

I draw the binoculars and scan the sprawling airport, looking for a sign, a literal light in the darkness that proves someone’s there, waiting for us. The view isn’t promising. The side closest to us is dark. But on the other side of the sprawling airport, a dim glow lightens the night sky.

Someone or something is here.





27





Half an hour later I do a closer scan of Heathrow—or what’s left of it—and then hand Grayson the binoculars.

The airport buildings lie in ruins, caved-in heaps of concrete, steel, and glass. Here and there shards of the color-coded signs that once directed passengers around Europe’s busiest airport stick out, fragments of red, blue, and green dotting the gray mounds. A different shade of green predominates, though. Vegetation is slowly retaking the land. Grass, weeds, and moss creep across the lumpy ruins, but trees have yet to take hold. Perhaps they’ll rise in the coming years, when the wind, rain, and snow have pulverized Heathrow’s remains into something more like soil.

Beyond the buildings we spot the source of the light—three long white tents, apparitions glowing in a sea of tall grass. It’s hard to tell from here, but I’d guess that, put together, they’d be about the size of a football field. A halo of light rises softly above them, giving them a hazy look in the night.