Departure
From the author of THE ORIGIN MYSTERY – the trilogy with ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD. En route from London to New York, Flight 305 suddenly loses power and crash-lands in the English countryside, plunging a group of strangers into a mysterious adventure that will have repercussions for all of humankind.Struggling to stay alive, the survivors soon realize that the world they’ve crashed in is very different from the one they left. But where are they? Why are they here? And how will they get back home?Five passengers seem to hold clues about what’s really going on: writer Harper Lane, venture capitalist Nick Stone, German genetic researcher Sabrina Shröeder, computer scientist Yul Tan, and Grayson Shaw, the son of a billionaire philanthropist.As more facts about the crash emerge, it becomes clear that some in this group know more than they’re letting on – answers that will lead Harper and Nick to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy involving their own lives. As they begin to piece together the truth, they discover they have the power to change the future and the past – to save our world . . . or end it.
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HarperVoyager
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First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2015
Copyright © A.G. Riddle 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover designed by Damonza and Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration © Damonza
A.G. Riddle asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Designed by Paula Russell Szafranski
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008156862
Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008156886
Version: 2015-09-25
For those stubborn enough to dream
Contents
IN ONE HOUR, THIS PLANE WILL LAND, AND I’ll be forced to make the Decision, a call that I may regret for the rest of my earthly existence. Depending on how it goes, chaos and poverty may follow. Or pure bliss. Fifty-fifty odds, I’d say. Not dreading it all. Barely even thinking about the Decision most seconds.
Like most writers, I don’t get out much. Or get paid much. I fly economy, and nine times out of ten I’m sandwiched between a feverish person who coughs when I least expect it and a married man who inevitably asks, “So how’s a cute little thing like you still single?” I suspect the airlines have a flag in their system for me: “Not a complainer, reassign to misery row.”
Not this flight.
Approximately six hours ago I entered a magical world, a place that only exists for brief periods of time forty thousand feet above Earth’s surface: first class on an international flight. This joyous land that pops into and out of existence like an alternative universe has its own strange customs and rituals. I’ve taken it all in, knowing that this will likely be my last glimpse. The ticket probably cost two months’ rent at my microscopic flat in London. I would have rather had the cash, but the ticket was a gift, or, more precisely, an attempt at manipulation by the billionaire who presented the Decision at our meeting in New York.
Which I’m not thinking about right now. Yes, at present, I exist in a Decision-free zone.
The flight time from New York to London is just under seven hours. Every fifteen minutes I switch the screen to check where the plane is, willing it to just keep going, to fly until we run out of fuel. Maybe I’ll slip the flight attendant a note: “Drop below 40,000 feet and it blows!”
“Hey, who do I have to kill to get a refill here? And what’s the deal with the Internet?”
Trouble in paradise. As far as I can tell, there are only two unhappy inhabitants of First Class, Pop. 10. I call this pocket of unrest the Aisle of Brooding and Snide Remarks. Its thirtysomething residents have been waging a drinking and sarcasm contest since takeoff. I know one of them, the individual currently pressing his drink request, and I know what’s eating him because I’m involved in it. His name is Grayson Shaw, and I’ve made every effort to avoid him.
