ARIA by Geoff Nelder

Teresa frowned then reddened.
    Maurice rubbed the thermometer like Aladdin’s lamp. “Perhaps their loony answer-phone message is a cover. They could be onto it already and Brendon already knows.” Ryder had now met a fly-in-the-face-of-danger optimist.
    Maurice walked over to a corner of the lab, nattering into his mobile phone. Teresa glowered at Ryder who shrugged back. He was in trouble, again.
    Maurice turned from his phone. “Three p.m. with the PM. At the Foreign Office, not Number 10.”
    “Did he say he already knew about it?” Ryder asked.
    “Not as such, but Brendon didn’t sound shocked. He was in a meeting with the US Ambassador who’d flown in from the States this morning. What?...Why are you looking at each other like that?”
     
     
    “I AM NOT GOING YET .” Ryder responded to Teresa’s tearful pleas for them to run from all the problems and not go to see the government now that ARIA was in the city. “Let’s try the NIPB once more.”
    Teresa used a computer in the lab and discovered that a request had gone to the NIPB counterpart in the US for a twenty-four-hour hold on external travel.
    “That’ll help,” she said, brightening. 
    Ryder smiled at the limited progress. He picked up the temperature probe Maurice had then remembered what it was for and put it down. He coughed then said, “Okay, so diffusion of ARIA by air can be slowed down, but how can it be policed? Even if all the major ports and airports were closed, thousands travel to Mexico and Canada—small boats, you name it. And we’re assuming the people doing the enforcing remember their orders.”
    Teresa placed a hand on Ryder’s arm. “I know where we can go.”

Thursday 23 April 2015:
    Transatlantic flight New York (LaGuardia) to London.
     
     
    T HE D REAMLINER 7E7 cruised so sweetly, co-pilot Linus Bingham had to keep reminding himself they were travelling at 600 miles per hour, six miles above the Atlantic and that he and Captain Gilmore Drayton held the lives of 250 passengers at his fingertips hovering over touch-sensitive controls. The airplane didn’t need pilots at all. The damn thing preferred to use its own computers and navigation system from take off to landing. Even to taking emergency re-routing around violent weather systems. Engineering didn’t need the human touch. Even the cabin crew had less to do since health and safety regulations and price wars ruled out hot meals and drinks.
    Linus admired the sky and sipped illicit hot coffee. The sun, setting behind the plane, sent illuminated ripples under the highest of the ice crystals making up the cirrostratus in front. He’d find no birds at this height, but he saw another airplane spew out its condensation trail, a long, elegant river of ice, pink with the low sun, and the crystals already drifting down like lace curtains.
    “Isn’t this the cushiest of jobs, Gilmore? We take over from auto when we feel the need to practice, but otherwise, we’re here only to make passengers feel safe.”
    “I’m not worried, Linus. If they want to retire me, let them, as long as the pension lets me go to the Hawaiian beachside homestead I’ve invested in.”
    Linus glanced at the captain’s neat-but-grey beard. “Cap’n, I’ve not heard you look forward to ending your flying career before. You ill?”
    “Hell, you’re right. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve had a funny head all day. Got a feeling that LaGuardia Airport has sick-building syndrome.”
    “I know what you mean. Do you want to have a lie down for ten? I’ll let you know if any gremlins try to take over.”
    “I’m not tired. Just can’t wait to get to...Paris.”
    “Paris? When’s that then, Gilmore? I thought you were booked to fly the return trip tomorrow.”
    The captain, confused, tapped the flight schedule.
    “Of course, Heathrow. You know, Linus, maybe I will take a nap. I should wake up as sharp as this Dreamliner’s nose.”
     
     
    L INUS LOOKED CONCERNED for the pilot