Every time I’ve posted one of these stories on r/HFY I get the inevitable comments: “More please!” “When do we get Part Two?” To be honest, I wasn’t planning on doing Part Two of any of them, but the pleas for another part after Shipwreck seemed especially vocal to me, so I went ahead and continued the story as best I could. I have no idea if I’ll keep going with this or not, but if I do, I’ll keep posting it.
With all of that in mind, I hope you all have as much fun reading this as I did writing it, so without further ado, I’m very happy to present, Survivors.
~~~
Anjali didn’t know what to think. They sat in silence in the waiting room outside the medical clinic: Phineas, the young man Thiago, and herself, all of them probably wondering some variation of the same thing: was it true? Was this real? She had been working with Harold long enough to get a sense of when something major was in the wind. There had been late-night meetings before the Kowloon operation two years before. The cabinet had given an emergency briefing in the aftermath of B’s disastrous affair in Vladivostok. There had been operations both large and small over the years- she would ferret out the truth eventually, whether directly or by piecing it together herself.
She could never have imagined this, though. The first contact from North America since The Excision, centuries before? That was beyond the realm of mere espionage and politics. It was- or had the potential to be Earth-shattering in every sense of the word.
There’s still a chance that this could be an elaborate hoax of some kind, she thought to herself- not for the first time that day. She and Phineas had examined the boat they had towed back in from the North Atlantic and if this was a hoax, it was a damn good one. She knew nothing about boats, but Phineas was convinced that the boat was powered by an internal combustion engine powered by fossil fuels of all things, which seemed ridiculous if this was a hoax. Who would go to all that trouble? Who had the money, the power, the time, she asked herself.
“Cui buono?”
“Hmmm,” Phineas looked over at her. “Did you say something, my dear?”
“Cui buono?” Anjali replied. “It’s from old Italian. It means ‘who benefits?’”
“Who indeed?” Phineas asked. “One would hope that if this turns out to be genuine, it would be to the benefit of all humanity, but-”
“You mean you’re not sure this is real either?” Anjali asked.
“Oh, my dear, as exciting as this might turn out to be,” Phineas said, “and as exciting as I might hope it winds up being, I have to temper myself. I am here as a Representative of my government after all and-”
The door that led through to the patient rooms and the rest of the clinic crashed open and they all jumped. B staggered out, face as white as a sheet, looking around frantically. Phineas cocked an eyebrow at him. “My dear boy, are you all right?”
“No,” B gasped. “I think I’m going-” he found what he was looking for and made the garbage can just in time, retching violently into the can. Anjali and Phineas watched in silence until he was done and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and straightened up.
“Thiago, voce tem agua?”
Thiago nodded and walked out of the waiting room.
“B,” Anjali said. “What is it?”
“Are there actual survivors?” Phineas added.
B nodded.
“Are they awake?” Anjali asked.
B shook his head, still looking very pale.
“So, what do we do now?” Anjali added. Thiago returned with a bottle of water that he handed wordlessly to B. “Obrigado,” B said, unscrewing the top and pulling some into his mouth. He vigorously swished it around his mouth to get the remnants of his vomit dislodged and then turned and spat it out into the garbage can again.
“What do we do now?” B asked Anjali. She nodded as he took another swig from the bottle of water. “Now, we tell everyone.”
~
In the end, they didn’t tell everyone. B called Harold and within an hour, the school at Sagres was placed on lockdown and a communications blackout. An hour after that, they were all watching in a conference room that overlooked the main courtyard and watched as an airship landed and disgorged its passengers. B grimaced, as he saw them.
“What is it?” Anjali asked.
“He brought Sister Catherine with him again,” B sighed as he walked back over to the conference table and sat down.
“Do you have a general dislike for nuns, dear boy, or just this particular one?” Phineas asked as he creaked over in his grav suit to the table. “I need to adjust the settings on this,” he muttered. “My knees are killing me.”
“I don’t have a problem with nuns,” B said abruptly. Phineas blinked in surprise. “I meant no offense, dear boy. Nuns have been nuns for time immemorial and I thought like many of us who had misspent youths, you must have been schooled by them.”
B shook his head. “No, I just… it’s agendas. I don’t like agendas I can’t understand. I don’t like people playing games. She’s playing a game.”
Presently, the door opened and the Director of the School, an old sailor with a salt and pepper beard, and an eye patch with skin so salt-brined and sun-burnished it looked like leather came in first, followed by Harold, and behind him was Sister Catherine. B tried not to grimace.
“Thank you, Director Carvalho,” Harold said.
“Please,” he growled. “Call me Arinca. Everyone else does.” He limped over to a seat at the conference table pulled out a chair and sat down. Harold and Sister Catherine did the same and no one said anything for a moment until Harold cleared his throat. “Are we all here?
“Thiago should be fetching the others,” Arinca replied. He frowned. “They should be here right about-” The door opened and Thiago held the door open to usher the two women from the communications hut, Leandra and Marin into the room. “Now,” Arinca finished. “Estava na hora,” he said to them. Marin rolled her eyes, apparently used to Arinca’s cantankerous grumbling, but they obediently made their way to vacant chairs around the table and sat down. Thiago closed the door and joined them.
“Now, we’re all here,” Harold said. “We can get started. I received your initial report and forwarded it to the appropriate authorities and shall we say, it has caused…consternation.”
“That might be an understatement,” Sister Catherine murmured. “It took a great deal of persuasion on your part to prevent this school from being under a complete military lockdown right now.”
Harold shrugged. “They still might. The Generals are nervous.”
“Nervous about what?” B asked.
“You’re not that naive,” Sister Catherine replied.
“I’m not being naive,” B snapped. “We genuinely don’t know what this is yet. If the Excision was caused-”
“What was it caused by?” Leandra broke in. “Do you know?”
Harold exchanged a long glance with Arinca who shrugged. “It’s up to you, Spymaster, but if what you told me is true, then these are the people who will need to know.”
Harold sighed and reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a pen. He pressed one end and it lit up with a bright green light. “There. Now we are assured of some privacy. The answer to your question,” he said to Leandra, “is somewhat complex, but we are confident enough to say that The Excision was caused by a mass breakout of an artificial intelligence of unknown composition and origin.”
“An AI?” Marin asked, incredulously.
“Who is ‘we’?” Thiago asked.
“The governments of the world, dear boy,” Phineas said. “But B is correct in his assessment, I think. We don’t know what this and I appreciate some paranoia, but the military descending en masse on this school will undoubtedly attract attention.”
“And questions,” Harold said. “I should be able to hold them off until the world leaders take the final decision at Guernica, but you should be prepared.”
“For what?” B asked.
“A voyage,” Sister Catherine replied.
Stunned silence greeted those words and then everyone began to talk at once.
“Across the Atlantic?”
“It won’t work! It’s never worked!”
“What if it turns us back?”
“What if it sinks us?”
‘What if-”
A hand slamming down on the table silenced everyone. “Dez mil tufoes travejantes!” Arinca bellowed. “Would you all shut up! Thiago, Leandra, Marin. You know better. You have been trained better. No more of this. If there is to be a voyage, nos iremos.”
“Yes, sir,” Thiago muttered. Leandra and Marin subsided as well but didn’t look happy about it.
Arinca nodded to Harold. “If there is to be a voyage, I have your captain.”
“Who?” Marin asked.
Arinca grinned. “Guess.”
Leandra, Marin, and Thiago exchanged a long glance before Leandra’s eyes went very wide. “Her?”
“Her,” Arinca replied.
Thiago put his head in his hands. Marin sighed heavily. “Really?”
“Really. And I want you three to go and fetch her.”
Thiago pushed back from the table and stood up. “Come on,” he said to the two women. “We may as well get started.”
Leandra sighed and stood as well. “He’s right. Come on, Marin.”
“But-”
“Marin,” Leandra said.
“But I don’t want to go to Spain!” Marin pouted. Leandra just rolled her eyes and walked out of the conference room and Thiago waited patiently for a moment longer before Marin too, pushed back from the conference table and stood, following Leandra out the door.
Anjali stood as well. “I have a few communications I should make with headquarters if that’s allowed?”
Harold nodded. “You know the codes to use,” he said.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” she said to them as she followed the others out of the conference room.
For a long moment, no one left in the conference room spoke, until, finally, B broke the silence. “There’s another possibility we need to consider. Well, two, really.”
“What are they?”
“There’s a chance that this could be a rather elaborate hoax.”
“You don’t believe that,” Sister Catherine said. She adjusted her habit and then smiled at the expression on B’s face. “You may dislike me all you want, but my order has kept the secrets of your people for centuries now. Your people have always been skeptical of moments like this, but you’re not. You want to be, but you’re not.”
“There have been other moments like this?” Phineas broke in.
“A few,” Sister Catherine admitted. “A fishing boat washed ashore in Newfoundland about eighty years ago. Almost had us fooled until we discovered the engine parts were too new and manufactured in Kerala of all places. Before that, there was the Havana Incident about a century ago now, and the Diomede Incursions a hundred and fifty years ago now. All investigated. All revealed to be hoaxes.”
“I know,” B growled.
“You’ve seen the signs, your people know what they’re supposed to be and I’m betting they’re all present, otherwise you wouldn’t have contacted the Director here,” Sister Catherine nodded to Harold. “So, why do you doubt?”
Phineas looked confused. “Your people?”
B ignored the question. “It’s my training, I’m afraid, Sister. Skepticism is baked in. With something this big, I also worry about… agendas. I don’t like being a pawn on somebody else’s chessboard.”
“I assure you, my son, we serve and protect any who ask, freely-”
“-and without the requirement of payment or fealty to our creed or order,” B finished. “I know the line. I also know the Church has a shiny new Pope and not one, but two anti-Popes to deal with and this could be… helpful.”
“The Church will be fine, my son. If there is one thing we have gotten very good at, it’s survival.”
B snorted in amusement. “I’ll give you that one, Sister.”
“You did dodge the question, though,” Harold put in. “We had you come here to evaluate this incident for a reason and now you’re urging caution. That it might be a hoax?”
“It might be,” B said. “We have to allow for that possibility.”
“If it is,” Phineas said, “It’s a damn good one. Haven’t seen an internal combustion engine that good since I was in University.” He crinkled his nose in thought. “Director, can you scan the engine- thoroughly, for any evidence of modern parts?”
Arinca shrugged. “It should be possible. I can check with my teams, and see if they’ve done it yet.”
“Please do,” Harold replied. “If the scans come back clean, will that satisfy your skepticism?” The question was directed at B.
“For now,” B grimaced. “It probably will. As much as I hate to agree with the good Sister, she wasn’t wrong about the signs. They are all there, as promised.”
“Thank you, my son,” Sister Catherine replied with a faint smile on her face. “I know that was difficult for you.”
B rolled his eyes.
There was a buzzing noise from the communication panel and Harold blinked in surprise before pressing a button on the panel in front of him. The main screen in the conference room flickered on, revealing the annoyed-looking face of Dr. Miller.
“Doctor?” Arinca asked. “You have news for us?”
“Yes,” Miller replied. “One of the sailors we recovered from that ship is awake.”
B shot to his feet. “I’ll be right down.”
“I wouldn’t bother rushing if I was you,” Miller replied. “We can’t understand them. The language has shifted and the translators can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“What do you mean you can’t understand them?” B asked, slowly sitting back down. “They should speak English, right?”
Miller shrugged. “It’s been a few centuries, I guess. Must have been a language shift. It sounds like English, but it’s so old the translators can’t break it down.”
Harold sighed. “Keep trying, Doctor. If the translators can’t hack it, we’ll have to find you someone.”
~~
Professor Nigel Rupert-Ayres, Chair of the Linguistic Department at the University of Coimbra was trying to eat his sandwich, read the latest research on the emergence of neo-Nigerian dialects in the city-states of Venus, and walk across the beautiful Paco das Escolas that looked southward towards the River Mondego and the rest of the city. A part of him knew this was a bad idea. It wouldn’t be the first time he had tried to do too much at once. As a young professor back in Cambridge he had been deep in a treatise on the meteoric rise of the Welsh language when he had walked into the Master of Trinity College, dousing him in wine. As an undergraduate he had fallen down stairs, broken his nose on a door, and nearly walked into the river, all while being thoroughly engrossed in various books, research papers, and treatises on dialects, languages, and phonology.
Nigel Rupert-Ayres loved his job. He had a beautiful apartment not far from the University. He had a cat, and a partner and appreciated being in a country that had more or less unlimited access to large quantities of port.
He swallowed a bite of sandwich and stopped, suddenly considering the implications of the sentence he just read. “So, Ijo and Igbo are possibly blending? But…” he thought hard about the map of African dialects he had in a book somewhere in his office. “That would mean… they’re from different language groups though. How is that-” He shook his head in wonderment and kept walking, taking another bite of the sandwich as he did so. Humanity’s spread out into the solar system was leading to an explosion of new dialects and potentially new languages and linguistics was more fascinating than ever. “This research bears further investigation though,” he muttered to himself around a mouthful of sandwich. “There are so many different factors to consider. What is the role of English in all of this? Is there a crossover with French? Is it-” A dull roar in the distance began that he ignored as he approached the statue of Dom Joao III. The roar grew louder and louder and people began to stop and look around, to see where it was coming from he looked up just as an airship thundered over the top of the clocktower and hovered for a moment before descending to the courtyard below, kicking up dust and causing people to scatter.
Nigel frantically took another bite of his sandwich and shoved the remains of it into his pocket before raising his arm to cover his mouth as the wind, dust, and noise whipped at him. The doors to the airship were flung open and two soldiers came rushing out, glancing around. One of them looked down at a padd they were carrying and then looked up, directly at him and pointed. He froze in shock as they began to walk towards him and for a brief moment, he considered running away, but by the time he had just about decided to (do soldiers have weapons? Could he outrun them? Would they follow him?) it was too late.
“Professor Rupert-Ayres?” One of them shouted above the noise of the airship engine.
“What?” Nigel shouted back.
“Are you,” the second shouted, “Nigel Rupert-Ayres?”
“I am,” Nigel shouted back. “Why?”
“You’re a professor of linguistics?” The first one shouted.
“I suppose I am.”
“We need you to come with us.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really, no.”
~
About an hour later Nigel Rupert-Ayres was thoroughly confused. He had assumed that their destination was Lisbon- that someone in the government needed an urgent translation of something or another. There were trade deals all the time, cooperatives from the city-states of Venus or Mars that couldn’t quite grasp the niceties of Portugese. There was a generation ship being built, far out in the orbit of Neptune, which was to house a wave of colonists from Portuguese-speaking countries. They came back, as well, mainly to lobby the government for more funds, but the airship had kept going south.
They flew south over Setubal and hugged the coastline. He saw the long elegant curve of the beaches and then Sines and then more cities whose names he couldn’t recall and eventually, the airship began to descend and although he thought was all but convinced they were heading for Lagos on the south coast, they bore southwest and as the promontory at the end of the coast came into view, a long, narrow, crooked finger, dipping out into the Atlantic, he finally knew their destination.
He had heard of the great navigation school at Sagres, but he had never been. Nigel Rupert-Ayres had an inherent distrust of boats. They seemed small and ridiculous. Why bother sailing on the water when you could travel in the relative luxury of an airship? Why bother sailing around Terra’s oceans when you could take a fusion pulse shuttle anywhere in the solar system? It seemed antiquated and ridiculous to him, but that’s where he was going. The airship descended over the main compound of the school, kicking up dust as it settled onto the courtyard. The engines began to cycle down, fading to a dull roar and then one of the soldiers flung the door open and Nigel got a face full of dust for his troubles.
Spluttering, coughing, and choking, he was helped down out of the transport by one of the soldiers, who led him to the edge of the courtyard, where three people were waiting: one looked like an old sea captain from ancient Terran literature, the other had the look of a government functionary of some kind and the third and most surprising of the three, was a nun.
The government functionary spoke first. “Professor Nigel Rupert-Ayres?”
“Yes, that’s me,” Nigel replied. “Who are you and what I am doing here?”
“All in good time, Professor,” the functionary replied.
Nigel set his jaw. “No, not ‘all in good time’,” he said. “I was eating my lunch, trying to read some exciting new research on neo-Nigerian dialects emerging in the city-states of Venus when your soldiers swept down, flung me onto an airship, and took me here.”
The old sea captain chuckled. “I like him.”
The functionary cleared his throat. “Professor, we… have a situation that requires your linguistic expertise.” He raised a hand to forestall further objections. “We need your objective assessment of the situation, Professor. If I tell you anymore, it will… compromise that goal.”
“Or think us mad,” the old sea captain added.
Nigel paused. “All right,” he said slowly. “I am… intrigued. But… who are you?”
The functionary sighed. “I am Harold Smythe-Mansfield, Director-General of European Intelligence and I should probably tell you that everything you are about to see is classified.”
That silenced Nigel and for a long moment, he considered insisting on more answers, but instead, he nodded his assent and followed as Mansfield led him inside the school. He did his best to keep his face expressionless, but inside, his mind was whirling. What on Earth was going on here? He didn’t know much about Sagres, but he knew it wasn’t a government installation. There weren’t soldiers patrolling the hallways so it wasn’t- outwardly at least, under any kind of a military lockdown.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Nigel said quietly to himself as he walked. They walked through the hallways, passing the administrative offices and then classrooms before going down a set of stairs and emerging into the waiting room of what turned out to be a medical clinic. There was an anxious-looking young man and a Doctor waiting for them.
“Is this him?” The young man asked.
Mansfield nodded. “Best expert we could find. Straight from the University of Coimbra.”
“I want to say again that I object to this course of action,” the Doctor interrupted. “I don’t think they’re stable enough and I don’t want him or anyone distressing my patients.”
“We have noted your objections, Doctor,” Mansfield replied. “But I think your patients will be considerably less distressed if we can figure out how to understand what they’re saying.”
The two locked eyes for a long moment before the Doctor finally nodded his assent and Mansfield stepped over to the double doors and pushed one open, gesturing for Nigel to precede him into the room. Nigel stepped through the door. It looked like any other hospital room he had ever been in, but behind him, Mansfield said. “Behind the curtain.”
Nigel stepped over to the curtain and peered his head around the corner. An old man with grey hair and a craggy, weathered face perked up at the sight of him. “Fahynilee, suhmwuhn hoo mayt speek reeuhl ingglish!” He paused at the shocked expression on Nigel’s face. “Pleez, tel mee yoo kan uhnderstand mee?”
Nigel frowned for a moment, trying frantically to remember his seminars in old vernacular English before, hesitantly, he replied. “Yes, eye doo.” He raised an eyebrow. “Yoor aksent iz streynj too mee. Wair ahr yoo fruhm?”
The old man looked surprised. “America.”
“Wuhn mohmunt, pleez,” Nigel said. He ducked back behind the curtain and somewhat shakily made his way over to a stool and sat down. He looked up at Mansfield. “Please tell me this is some kind of joke.”
~~
“It’s nearly fourteen hundred,” Marin grumbled as they left yet another dockside bar in Cadiz. “Shouldn’t these places be closing by now?”
“The dockside bars never close,” Thiago grunted. He looked to his right the way they had come and then to his left up a stretch of the Avenida Duque de Najera that contained a stretch of bars that seemed to go on forever. He sighed heavily. “Come on, you two. On to the next one.”
“We’re never going to find her, are we?” Leandra asked.
“We’ll find her,” Thiago said.
“But will she come?” Marin asked.
“She will,” Thiago replied. He grinned. “She’s built up quite a legend as a Pirate Queen, come to life. But a few people know the truth.”
“What is the truth?”
“She’s a grocer’s daughter from someplace in England. Her marriage imploded in a very public way, so she came to Sagres. Reinvented herself and became the best Captain Arinca’s ever trained. But now…”
“Now she’s built up this legend, she can’t go back?”
“Something like that,” Thiago shrugged.
“I hope we find her soon. We come all this way and have to go through all of these god-awful bars.” Leandra shuddered.
“I suppose you like drinking a nice clean tapas bar,” Thiago said as they walked up the road to their next destination. “Nothing wrong with a little ambiance.”
“Ambiance? My shoes were nearly glued to the floor at this last one, Thiago.” Leandra shuddered.
Thiago just rolled his eyes and led them further up the Avenida until he stopped under a sign that the was creaking slowly in the breeze. Marin looked up at the sign. “La barba del rey?” She asked. “The King’s Beard?”
“Strange name for a bar,” Leandra replied.
“She’ll be in here,” Thiago said.
“That’s what you said about the last seventeen bars,” Marin pointed out.
“Trust me,” Thiago said with a sigh. “She’ll be in here.” Then, he stepped forward, pulled the door to the bar open, and stepped inside. With a shrug, Marin followed him, holding the door open for Leandra who, scowling and hoping that this bar would be at least cleaner than the last one they had been in, stepped through as well.
They all stopped dead, their mouths hanging open at the vista that greeted them at the far end of the bar. Flags were everywhere, some of them recognizable (England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland) and some of them not (a white cross on a black background and a weird conjunction of three legs all joined together on a red background). A comm panel was showing what appeared to be football but any commentary was drowned out by the song being belted from half a hundred throats.
“I will not…cesae from… mental fight…”
At the center of a crowd of sailors, perched on a stool was a woman, who was using what looked like a cutlass to lead the crowd in song.
“Nor shall my sword… sleep in my hand…”
A tricorn hat hung askew on top of her head and a cascade of auburn curls seemed to explode from her head in a ginger cascade that ran down to the small of her back.
“Till we have built… Jerusalem…”
Thiago looked over at Marin and Leandra and smiled. “Told you.”
“In England’s green and pleasant land…” The song came to its triumphant conclusion and a great cheer went up as the conductor swept off her tricorn hat and bowed deeply to the crowd around her, which made another great cheer go up and then she placed her tricorn hat on top of her head, tucked her cutlass away and was helped down from her perch on the tabletop to general applause.
Thiago made his way forward into the throng, Leandra and Marin reluctantly following in his wake. It took some doing, as the crowd was thick around the Captain and everyone seemed to want to offer her a hug, a kiss or to buy her a tankard of ale from the bar, but eventually, after squeezing through a particularly sweaty and odorous pair of burly sailors, found themselves square in the path of the Captain. She caught sight of Thiago and for a moment, irritation flashed across her face, before it was replaced with a broad smile.
“Thiago! Come to get that berth aboard my ship I promised you? Get tired of the old man, yet?”
“No, Captain,” Thiago replied. “He’s got a job offer for you.”
She gesticulated around at the crowded bar. “I’m a little busy.” Glancing past him, she noticed Leandra and Marin for the first time. “But where are my manners!” She swept the tricorn hat from her head and bowed to Leandra and Marin. “Welcome, ladies, I am Captain Francesca Isabella Drake of the good ship Golden Hind. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“You know where we’re from?” Leandra asked.
“Of course. The fabled dusty dreary school of Sagres,” Francesca replied.
“You know who the Director is?”
“I do,” Francesca said. “I’m surprised Arinca hasn’t drunk himself senseless by now, but I know him.”
“He’s got a job for you.”
“Like I told Thiago,” she replied. “I’m busy.”
“You’re going to want to take this job,” Marin put in. “He wanted you because he said you’re his best Captain.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Francesca replied. “Well, not unless you buy me a drink first.”
“How about this,” Thiago put in. “You agree to come and hear him out and he won’t release your personal file to every contract merchant from here to Bordeaux.”
That brought her up short. “He wouldn’t.”
Thiago merely arched an eyebrow at her and she crossed her arms and jutted out her lip in an outrageous pout. “Fine. I’ll go to Portugal.”
~~
Anjali followed Harold and Sister Catherine out into the courtyard, where the airship engines were roaring to life. Dust was starting to kick up as they approached the transport and the door swung open. Harold gestured for Sister Catherine to precede him and she did so with a polite nod and a gentle smile.
“Anjali, did the Professor update you on anything yet?” Harold shouted over the noise of the engines.
“Yes!” She replied. “It will take a bit of work, but he says he can adjust the translation matrix to allow for what he seemed to think was a previously unseen vowel shift in the language. He’s very excited about it-”
“Good! Call me immediately if you get any pertinent information from the survivors.”
“Yes, sir,” Anjali replied.
“Any word from Arinca on when this famed Captain of his is going to get here?” Harold asked. The engines were almost at their fullest peak now and Anjali shook her head.
“All right,” Harold bellowed above the noise. “The leaders are gathering at Guernica for a final vote on whether to authorize a voyage or not, I can’t imagine this will take more than a day or so and then I’ll be back. Hold down the fort, will you?”
“Yes, sir!” Anjali shouted back. She snapped off a crisp salute, which Harold acknowledged with a grin before climbing into the airship and sliding the door shut behind them. Anjali backed away slowly and watched as it began a slow climb into the air until, once clear of the roof life of the school, it arched up into the sky and powered away.
As she turned to go back into the school, the comm device in her pocket buzzed once. She pulled it out of her pocket. The reply she had been expecting had finally arrived:
“Make sure you’re on the boat. Await further instructions.”