Short Story | Speculative Fiction | Environment | Society

Field Trip — Part 1

A lesson to the past from the future

The high-speed shuttle came to an abrupt but safe stop, and everyone felt their guts moving in the way they do when you drive over the brow of a hill too quickly.

‘Before I open this, let me be absolutely clear about something. There’s a reason we don’t do these field trips very often. Out there,’ and he pointed to the rear of the carriage, where the exit hatch was situated, ‘is dangerous.’

The hum of private conversations simmered down, and silence enveloped the space as all eyes, and ears, focused on Mr Kasowski.

‘It is a life-threatening environment. Students have died on these trips. You do not touch anything or wander away from the group. Our route is carefully planned out, and even a deviation of just a few metres could get you killed. Am I clear?’’

‘Yeah, man,’ Ed oozed from the corner seat before anyone else got a chance. Kasowski cut in.

‘Ed, are you high?’

‘Sorry, Mr Kasowski.’ Ed smiled sheepishly, as he did in any situation where he needed a get-out-of-jail-free card.

‘You’ve all seen the videos,’ continued the form tutor, addressing the rest of the group. ‘Didn’t we spell it out in plain English? Do not consume alcohol or other psychoactive substances before the field trip.’

He returned his attention to Ed, whose mind was clearly drifting.

‘ED! Yes, you! You’re going to have to stick to me like glue. Do you understand? It’s too late to take you back. We only have a short window.’ Ed nodded in agreement, but I’m not sure he knew what he was signing up to.

‘Mrs Williams, I’m going to need you to be even more vigilant with the rest of the party, OK?’

Mrs Williams looked over at Jed, whom everyone called ‘Beefy’ down to his Adonisesque physique. Jed was also breathtakingly handsome and looked much more manly than the rest of us, and he was often mistaken for a lecturer. ‘I’m going to be keeping a close eye on you, Jed,’ cooed Mrs Williams, hardly able to hide the fact that she was attracted to him. There were a few groans and an ‘oooh’ from some of the party.

‘That’s fine by me, Christine,’ Jed jousted, ‘if you don’t mind me running my eyes over you and your…’

‘Hey, that’s enough of that, and it’s MRS Williams to you,’ she fired back, trying to emphasise her marital status but with very little conviction. Kasowski gave Williams a look that said a thousand words, but he silently mouthed an extra one for good measure — REALLY?

‘Right, gang,’ he commanded, ‘Let’s get back into the spirit of things, shall we? We have to take real care out there, starting with your eye shields. You need to slide them down now and do not, I repeat, DO NOT take them off for any reason.’

He put his hand on Ed’s shoulder. ‘Did you hear that, Ed? Slide down your eye shield, and don’t remove it for any reason until we’re back in the shuttle. Got it?’ Ed nodded.

Kasowski turned his attention back to the rest of us. ‘I don’t care if your eyeball’s falling out of the socket. You call either myself, Mrs Williams or Professor Scott, and if we need to remove your eye protection, we’ll set up one of these,’ and he pulled out what looked like one of those silver blankets they put over marathon runners at the end of a race. ‘This unfolds into a two-person tent,’ he explained, ‘a mobile first-aid unit.’

‘If you don’t, and you just go ahead and scratch that itch or whatever,’ and he paused, looking around to get good eye contact with everyone in the shuttle, even Mrs Williams, whom he got to after everyone else, ‘you can kiss goodbye to your eyes. They’ll be toasted in less than a second.’

Everyone looked at each other, recognising the gravity of Kasowski’s words.

‘OK, shields down now,’ he ordered.

I gave Monica a final glance and brought down the reinforced glass eye protection from the top of my head until a clicking sound assured me that it was locked into position. Everything went very dark.

Scanning the room, Kasowski asked Williams and Scott to check if everyone’s visors were down. Satisfied that we were all safely protected, he approached the large hatch and started turning the wheel.

A couple of seconds later, after turning his head to double-check that nobody’s visors were up, he pushed open the hatch.

We were hit with a blast of intensely hot air, which I could feel even through my highly expensive fire-proof suit, and the room lit up so brightly that a couple of my friends held their hands up to shield their faces. A shushing sound filled my helmet from the integrated comms unit, and Kasowski’s voice burst in over the top of it.

‘Can everyone hear me? Thumbs up. I need to see eight sets of thumbs,’ and he followed up with a comms check to ensure he could hear each of us. Our eyes had adjusted to the light.

‘OK, when you first step out there, it will seem even brighter, maybe even blinding for a few seconds. These visors are photosensitive, so they will darken to compensate. Let’s go. Single file. Ed, you’re straight after me,’ and he led us into the light.

It felt as though we were stepping into the sun, but as Kasowski had promised, our reactive lenses adapted quickly.

‘Over here,’ came a voice from my left. The mixture of gravel and sand crunched beneath my boots as I slowly approached the others who were standing tall with their backs to me in silence. Protruding from the ground, some ten metres or so away from us, was a large metallic head. Its classical Roman features made its face easy to recognise along with the halo of seven spikes sticking out from its forehead.

Kasowski broke the silence.

‘Libertas, the Roman Goddess of Liberty. This is all that remains of a statue built to honour her. Welcome to New York!’

British writer