Donovan Aeon

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62675-163-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 297 Seiten

If you could travel a year into the past, what would you do? Mac's forced into the past and finds himself trying to unravel his own future, with each decision leading him further from the life he remembers... The future is just a memory...

Autoren/Hrsg.

Donovan, Peter

Leseproben

Aeon Chapter 1 Mac was woken by the sound of bells. He slowly, carefully, opened one eye, then dared to open the other. He could feel sheets around him which meant he was in bed, but the ceiling wasn’t directly above him as he’d expected. He was back in his own bed in the luxurious master cabin aboard Aeon. It was clean and ordered, not the chaos of broken wood and overturned bedding that he remembered. His memories began to return. Frantically he grabbed at the sheets, pushing them down to look at his chest, all the while holding a breath. He was fine. There was no blood, no bullet hole and no pain. He lifted his hand and checked the time. His watch showed ten thirty. He guessed it was morning as the light shining through the partially open blinds indicated a pleasant day outside. He lay still, listening intently, taking everything in, but with an ever-growing sense of failure. It hadn’t worked. He could hear water lapping gently against the hull behind his head and the gulls outside the window were lazily calling to each other. Then from somewhere inside the boat he heard the deadened sound of conversation; it was coming from the other side of his cabin door. He tried to suppress the building excitement until he figured out when exactly he was. After checking his chest again he thought it safe to get up. He swung his legs round to the floor, feeling the thick woollen carpet beneath his feet, all the while looking in the direction of the sound of conversation. He finally pinpointed a voice, higher than the others and with a definite Australian accent. “Alice,” he whispered, almost crying. Mac grabbed a robe which this time fitted exactly, then paused with his hand on the door handle, trying to imagine what he would find on the other side. Slowly, he pressed down, pulling the door towards him, holding his breath expectantly. Mac blinked. He must have been daydreaming as he slouched on one of four stools in the Tongan Airport bar, three of which had been recently vacated by a group of very loud, suited businessmen. They’d finally decided to board their waiting flight after repeated last calls, announced in broken English by the airport dispatcher. Luckily, Mac’s stool had not been in use and the brightly coloured velour upholstery was cold to the touch. He hated sitting on other people’s warmth. The two other people in the bar sat at a white plastic table, clearly waiting for separate parties being privately flown in, or so the electronic Pads that the smartly dressed agents had in front of them indicated. As Mac pulled the dregs from the locally brewed, unpronounceable bottle of beer, he slowly scanned the ceiling of the room, thinking back to the daydream, noting the stained watermarks between the false ceilings tiles, where presumably, the recent heavy rains had found their way through the terminal’s metal roof. The daydream had almost felt real. He must need more sleep. Mac waved his empty bottle at the uninterested bartender who was deep into solving the day’s crossword. “Another of whatever that was,” said Mac, ordering more out of boredom and to keep himself awake than actually liking the beer. The bartender glanced up at him and slowly put down his Pad. He strained out of his chair and managed to make the two metre walk across the bar look a long way. “TeynDalla,” said the bartender, holding out his hand and not releasing the new bottle of beer from its fridge until the appropriate monies had been exchanged. Mac took a swig from the cold bottle, then went back to his observations of this now old, and slightly dilapidated, airport lounge. Anyone who happened to glance in Mac’s direction would have taken him for just another tourist. Typically British in appearance, his pinking skin and unhealthy posture spoke volumes. He wore a dark blue polo shirt which looked tight around the waist, and light cotton trousers, with the obligatory open toed sandals to combat the outside heat. If they’d taken the time to study Mac a little closer, they would have noticed the small label on the neck of his polo shirt read Gucci and the titanium watch on his left wrist was a genuine Rolex, its large white face with small red Daytona tag occasionally catching the light. They would also have noticed a pair of one-piece, carbon fibre Oakley sunglasses, which Mac had carelessly thrown down on the short wooden bar, next to his beer, a solid aluminium Princess Transponder key and his now out of date but coveted electronic Pad. Mac enjoyed noting little subtleties around him. Someone had been spending money quietly upgrading the IT facilities, if not the building itself. It was equipped with several of the latest interactive advertising screens. The interested consumer could now ask questions about the range of products that were endlessly rotating on the two-metre high displays and if they were really lucky, they may even learn something. The far end of the lounge, next to the small customs counter, was devoted to Internet terminals, each terminal projecting its crystal clear image onto the whitewashed wall behind and consisting of the now common docking station for each person’s Personal Access Device, or PAD as everyone now seemed to call them. The water-stained ceiling was equipped with the latest projection speakers, cleverly concealed above the roof tiles every metre or so. They allowed the listener to hear music or advertising in a cone of sound which was literally projected downwards from the ceiling. Mac had deliberately placed his bar stool on the edge of one of these cones of sound, trying desperately to avoid listening to an advert for the latest shampoo filled with fruit, nuts and elements he wasn’t even aware existed. Not much use on my grade one haircut, he thought before moving his bar stool slightly to the left. The normal inactivity between flights had made the terminal’s intelligent lighting switch off in several unoccupied areas, but it was ultimately unnecessary, as outside the day was warm and the sun shone high in the cloudless blue sky, bathing the terminal in light. The large arrivals screen to Mac’s left flashed an update, informing him of the now overdue aircraft’s arrival time. That should be about a bottle and a half of beer, he thought. As he mindlessly sat watching the world outside, he began to get hunger pangs. He wasn’t sure if this was brought on by the beer he was drinking, or his receding hangover from the previous night’s exploits, but he glanced across the bar at the selection of food that looked as if it had been hastily prepared and certainly randomly displayed in the cabinet behind the counter. There were several varieties of sandwiches, all on white bread and all seemingly with cheese, to appeal to the international tourist. There was also a small selection of chocolate bars and foil wrapped bags of nuts. Next to these were a selection of dried fish and breadcrumb coated balls which were the equivalent of local Tongan fast food, none of which looked very appetising. He decided to wait until they were all back on the boat. He hoped Alice would have a full welcome brunch organised by that time. Mac had only been in Vava’u for a week, having taken the same hour-long transfer flight that he was now waiting for. It was the last leg of a long trip, and had flown him to Vava’u from Fua’amota Airport on Tongatapu, the main International Airport for the Tongan islands. He’d spent the week relaxing, drinking, eating and generally getting over the trip from London and catching up on the sleep he’d been deprived of on the flight down. Even in World Airways Superior Class, with luxurious soundproof cabins and a private flight attendant, he still found he couldn’t sleep. Instead of sleep, he’d managed to watch several of the 3D projection movies that the airline had on offer and drink most of his private bar during the flight. Mac had relaxed into his large, fully reclinable suite and remembered making a similarly long trip many years before; he must have been in his early teens. He’d flown down to Australia in ‘cattle class’ as he now called it, watching the seat back movies and playing computer games with his knees pressed against the back of the seat in front, the whole time spent desperately trying not to use his elbows, but much the same as this flight, sleep had escaped him. The memory made him smile, he realised that even though he was older, and his life had changed in so many ways since then, he hadn’t really changed that much at all. As he sat mindlessly staring through the large terminal window at the empty runway reliving the trip, the white, whisper quiet bisjet slid past his view in almost total silence. The landing aircraft disturbed the veil of shimmering heat which seemed to hang like a fog over the bitumen, making the dense green vegetation of Vava’u natural forest appear to shimmer. The aircraft reminded Mac of a landing swan as it gracefully passed out of sight to touch down on the grey, tyre stained runway. Now Mac could hear the crackle and noise of the aircraft as it rapidly reduced its speed, the sound of tearing air bouncing off every solid surface within the terminal. He could hear the thunderous roar of the engines and imagined the heat from the large brakes finally stopping the aircraft before the runway’s end. Out of Mac’s view, the jet turned in a pirouette and slowly bounced its way back to the terminal, sunlight playing off its polished white surface and catching the...