Aberrant: Infinite Earth - Fiction - [A&A] Fire From The Sky

[Slither]

City of London Air Raid Precautions Office. December 29th, 1940, 5:45 PM

A gentle hand shook Claire Kincaid awake. “Here now, Miss Claire; you’ll ruin your reputation, getting a bit of sleep like that!” The young Scots woman opened her gummy eyes and saw a lumpy grinning face floating over her.

“Hullo Graeme.” Grinding her eyes with the heel of her hand, she raised her head up off her cot and peered around the small ARP office set up in an abandoned storefront. “Any other witnesses?”

“Nah, your secrets safe with me, miss.” He held out a steaming cup of tea. “Here, I made you a nice cuppa.” Graeme Albertson was the head of Claire’s Rescue Services team; before the Blitz, he’d been a mason, and now he led a team of fellow masons, carpenters and electricians who hit the streets almost every night, helping to drag victims out of the rubble after a raid. To say that she was the oddball would be an understatement; the only female, the only university graduate (and from Oxford, no less!) and the only member of the upper middle class. And at a mere twenty-one, she was clearly the youngest; sometimes she looked like a child playing dress-up in her dark blue coveralls.

Claire smiled. “Cheers, Graeme!” Pushing aside the rough woolen blanket, she swung her bare feet down to the floor and eagerly accepted the delightful handful of warmth; the small office was sparsely finished,
most of the original furniture having been hauled off. There were two desks, several chairs and of course a radio set, as well as several maps of London pinned to the walls. A handful of electric lamps threw a few bleak pools of light around, but somehow the whole place was oddly homey, at least to Claire; it smelled of pipe tobacco, sawdust and freshly brewed tea.

As she sipped her Earl Grey, Claire noticed other members of the team starting to trickle in; Nigel, Alistair, Bob Fuller. The volunteers all fixed themselves tea and murmured to each other. The young Scot frowned at Graeme over her tea. “I don’t like the look of this; are we expecting company tonight?”

The big man sighed as he poured himself a cup. “That we are.” He indicated the dull black Bakelite phone on the wall. “The Home Office just gave us a ring; Fighter Command picked up several hostiles on their
way across the Channel.” He shook his head. “Bombers, and lots of them.”

Claire felt a sinking feeling in her stomach; she took one last sip of tea, and then set her teacup aside. Graeme sucked in a bit of air as he watched her bare feet snake out and fetch her laced-up boots from under the cot, her toes as nimble as fingers, and then slip inside them like they were cozy slippers. Would he ever get used to such sights? Probably not, but the odd young woman had certainly been a godsend these last few months; she could squeeze into the narrowest cracks in the rubble and bring help to the injured the rest of his team might not reach in time.

“How long?” Her soft Scottish burr brought the big man out of his reverie.

“Oh fifteen, maybe twenty minutes?” He smiled and jerked his head towards the converted basement shelter. “Come along; plenty of room downstairs.”