Newton’s Fire

III

There was no time for finesse, for working out in which order to do things. Luke and Rachel tore open crates of bottled sulphuric acid and distilled water, uncapped them and poured them in roughly equal measures into the Ark’s cells. The liquid vanished as fast as they glugged it in, seeping through into the cells beneath. The floor quickly became littered with empties, and still it wasn’t full.

‘What will it do to the plane?’ asked Rachel. ‘Aren’t they built to withstand lightning strikes?’

‘Only because their outer hulls are insulated from their inner hulls,’ said Luke. ‘So lightning can’t get through. But that also means that an electrical surge inside can’t escape so easily. Everything could get frazzled.’

‘Including us?’

He grimaced. ‘It’s our only chance.’ The air was thin and vaporous. Their movements grew increasingly clumsy from lack of oxygen, their eyes watering with migraines. But they kept disgorging bottles until finally the Ark was full. They heaved its lid back on, then Luke stooped by the electric motor. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready,’ said Rachel.

He flipped the switch and took a step back, fearful of something extraordinary. But nothing happened. Rachel looked at him. ‘It’ll take time,’ he said.

The Ark began to steam and smoke, filling the hold with noxious fumes. Then it seemed almost to crackle. The air, despite its thinness, became increasingly charged. Luke’s skin began to tingle. The tingling turned to itching, his skin infested by swarms of invisible insects that now burrowed inside him, squeezing his organs, pumping his heart, making his blood fizz like some madcap experiment.

‘What’s it doing?’ asked Rachel, rubbing her forearms.

He looked down at the floor where threads of cheap carpeting stood up like wires. They needed to get off it. They needed insulation. He was about to tell Rachel when the Ark unleashed a violent spark that jolted up his arm and into his chest like some angelic taser. He fell to the floor. Rachel tried to catch him but he took her down too. His limbs wouldn’t work. He couldn’t breathe. Something was lodged in his throat. He began to gag, fighting for breath. Rachel turned him onto his back and hooked a finger into his mouth, pulled his tongue free. He rolled onto his side. ‘The pallets,’ he gasped. ‘Wood.’

She nodded and helped him onto their insulated sanctuary. They turned to look at the Ark, flaming and sparking wildly. An electrical arch sprang up between the twin golden cherubs kneeling on its lid, glowing and fizzing like the filament of some impossible bulb, so that they had to close their eyes and turn away. Then a brilliant single blaze of light burst forth, bright as the sun, so bright that Luke could see it even through his tightly clenched eyelids and the noise it made was like nothing he’d ever heard before, a crackling kind of boom that made the whole aircraft shudder.

Both engines instantly sputtered and then failed. The plane began to plunge. The humpback-bridge moment of weightlessness went on and on and on. Everyone shrieked, in the hold and in the main cabin, a feedback loop of terror at the certainty of imminent violent death. But the pilot was still fighting and he managed to wrest back some measure of control. An injured engine whined as it strained heroically against gravity and momentum. The wings and fuselage shuddered as they fought horrific loads. Lockers fell open, disgorging their contents. The oak chests rattled and empty bottles danced crazily. Then gravity returned with a vengeance, pressing Luke and Rachel down on the pallet. Their trajectory flattened and they pulled up level. They’d lost so much altitude that the air was thicker here and began to reverse its flow, making breathing easier, blunting the sharpest edges of their headaches.

It was Rachel who heard the noise. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘What’s what?’

‘That whining,’ she said. ‘Can’t you hear it?’

Luke looked at the electric motor. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he said, as the Ark began to glow once more. ‘It’s recharging.’