And Then There Was... One [Part One]

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There was a click, and the ten people present – eight passengers, two crew members – heard a low voice over the loudspeaker. “An announcement to all passengers and crew members: Due to hazardous weather, your flights have been cancelled. That is, the 10:30 flight to Paris, France, and the 11 o'clock flight to Brussels, Belgium. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.” The voice repeated this once more, then again in multiple other languages.

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Velvet Anderson raised an eyebrow as she listened. She turned to her companion. “I knew this wouldn't go smoothly. Never expect things to work perfectly if you're given an invitation to a private airport from some millionaire you've never met.” She said it with an experienced air, as if she had been in that exact situation at least once before. She seemed not to be in the least upset or even frustrated by the change of schedule.

Ivy Kent bit her lip nervously, looking around at the empty seats of the terminal. “What if something happens? I mean, we're practically alone in a dark building, at night, in the middle of a storm. What if...” She trailed off, unable to conjure up anything that wouldn't sound silly if she said it out loud.

Velvet looked at her. She felt an odd sense of affection towards the shy young woman who'd attached herself to Velvet so promptly upon their arrival. “Don't worry about it,” she said with a light laugh. “It's not so dark here – only outside – and we're not alone, anyway. You heard the announcement, didn't you? Two flights were cancelled. Which means there are other people here besides just us.”

“There are?” Ivy perked up almost visibly, like a dog hearing a cat approaching.

“It's only logical. Why would they schedule a flight if no one was taking it?” The light above them flickered slightly, making Ivy jump. Velvet noticed this, and took her hand reassuringly. “How about we go and walk around, see if we can find anyone else?”

Ivy looked at her and nodded. She kept close to Velvet as they walked out of the terminal, through the empty security gates. The airport was quite large, having been public before Edward Ransom had bought it and began systematically approaching strangers with offers of free flights. The man himself was rather an enigma – never seen, rarely spoken of. The public had long since taken him for granted, only gathering interest on an individual level, when those they knew were involved in his enterprises. Questions from those the lucky individuals were travelling to visit on the subject of how early they had arrived were commonly answered by 'I took Ransom's flight', and nothing more was thought of it.

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“Hazardous weather?” Paul Traherne scoffed. “I don't believe it. The sky's as empty as this airport. He's using it as an excuse for something... maybe one of the pilots died on the last flight, and he doesn't have the guts to tell us outright. I always knew this was a bad idea.”

The two others sitting near him refrained from pointing out that he wouldn't have come if he had really thought it was a bad idea. Carl Norton, ever trying to 'make peace', made the unwise decision of leaning forward and saying earnestly, “If you can find a window, and look up, I'm sure you'll find mammatus clouds. They're often a sure sign of incoming bad weather – storms and such. I think it was very considerate of Ransom to postpone our flights until he can be sure there won't be any... uh... casualties.”

“Casualties? Keep your voice down, you'll scare the woman.” This was said sarcastically – the only female present was Nora Shaw, a stern woman who looked as if she would be perfectly capable of standing under a tree in the middle of a thunderstorm without turning a hair.

With a glance at the woman in question, the young man leant closer to Norton and lowered his voice. “I don't know what's up with that woman. I tried talking to her earlier and she just gave me a look and went back to reading her newspaper. I don't know what you would call it, but I call it plain rude.”

Norton have a non-committal gesture, anxious to avoid a bad relation with either Traherne or Miss Shaw – although it was doubtful whether Miss Shaw was even listening. She seemed absorbed in her newspaper, content with – maybe intent on – ignoring the two men.

Traherne continued, leaning back and crossing his legs. “Well, in any case, we're going to be stuck here for a while,” he said, as if he hadn't just commented on their female companion. “Might as well make ourselves comfortable.” He got out a cigarette and lit it, then offered one to his companion.

Norton shook his head. “No, thank you. I don't smoke.”

“Suit yourself.”

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Joseph West's brow furrowed with worry as he heard the announcement. He exchanged a glance with his business partner. He ran thoughts over in his head – surely the others would account for the weather, and forgive them for being late. He shared his thoughts with his companion.

Kaleb Benson nodded in acknowledgement. “There's nothing we can do about it. I'm sure they'll understand.”

West felt somewhat annoyed by his partner's casual attitude about it, but he didn't comment. Instead, he turned to his sister, trying to take his mind off his own predicament in favour of hers. “How do you feel about this, Lottie?”

“I don't know what to do,” Charlotte Roann answered, her brow creased with worry. “The children will be so worried. And Charlie will be wondering what's happened to me. There's no way I could contact them, is there?” She looked at her brother as if trusting him to produce a magical solution to all her problems.

He sighed. “There's no phone signal here, I'm afraid. Short of sending a pigeon with a hand-written message, I can't see that there's anything we can do aside from waiting and hoping something will be sorted it.” As nice as it was to be looked up to and relied upon, he thought that forty-two was certainly past the age where that would be acceptable behaviour. Privately, he wished his sister would just grow up – she never could cope on her own, always needing either him or her husband to support her.

Charlotte sighed. Her brother was right. There was nothing they could do...

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