Hello hello,

It’s excerpt Wednesday! Ready for a short trip to 2061?

Thank you, LaLine, for the amazing artwork to go with this excerpt!

Sigrid

Louise couldn’t help but smile while taking in the beauty surrounding her. The ocean lay before her, bright and blue with orange light glittering across it. The setting sun gave the wild bushes and trees around her a warm glow.

On her right, Louise could see the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge. Parts of it still stood tall at both sides of the bay. Its legendary red paint was barely visible under the plants and dirt that had taken over the structure.

Louise followed a large seagull that was sliding through the air and making its way to the remainders of the bridge. She somehow felt more at home standing here. The coast at the other end was no longer Fireblue territory.

Not that anyone lived there. Everyone had been relocated to places with less extreme weather conditions. It was pretty much no man’s land. Tonight, it was hard to understand why, though. The bay was calm, the heat bearable enough and everything here was so damn beautiful.

“Thomas!” Hobbs’s voice cut through the peaceful moment.

Louise sighed and turned around, reluctantly turning her back on the view. The dull throb behind her temples was getting worse. She wouldn’t be able to ignore it much longer. “Yeah, coming,” she groaned.

Hobbs was entering coordinates into a computer that was about to transmit their first report to the teams back at the army base. A portable satellite was set up next to it.

“Nothing or no one in the neighborhood. If they’re trying to block the signal, it has to happen from inside the building,” Louise said.

Hobbs stepped away from the rugged terminal. “Let’s hope they’re not that stupid. I seem to have a full signal for now. But it’ll take a while to send. It’s a lot.”

Louise peered at the screen and nodded. “Let’s get started then. The sun’s about to set. I don’t want to be out here in the dark.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Hobbs agreed. He looked around, taking his time to make sure no one was coming.

“They’re still inside,” Louise said. “I saw them on our way out.”

“There have to be other people around somewhere. It’s been too quiet,” he replied.

Louise rubbed the back of her neck. She too had noticed they had encountered very few other people in the last 24 hours. Woodward and Lucas were doing an excellent job of keeping them hidden from view.

“I’m still surprised we haven’t seen anything to do with Biden’s death,” she said. It was so much easier to have a conversation now that there was less to hide.

Hobbs nodded. “Should be a big fuss.”

“Yeah,” Louise mumbled, “Maybe they’re just making sure we don’t see it.”

“Like I said, maybe there isn’t any,” Hobbs said.

She grimaced. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Hobbs glanced back at the small building about 500 feet away and she followed his gaze. It was a low structure with just one door and a few windows. Louise thought it was an old observatory. She had spotted remnants of antennas nearby.

Inside, there had been no sign of any equipment, though. Louise had checked. The 2 rooms she had searched had been stripped of all electronics. But the electricity still worked and there were desks they could work on.

Louise and Hobbs had split up the work of writing the first report. She had typed out the chronological timeline of their journey and first inspection. Hobbs had focused on creating schematic images of the harbor at the border.

Then they had worked on the conclusions and recommendations together. There had been so much to report, they had struggled to prioritize. It had taken them almost 3 hours to get the whole thing ready for transmission.

Luckily, Hobbs had not brought up including a code red in this report. He had been very keen to request a verification of Monique Biden’s death, though. Louise hadn’t argued. She too thought it was odd they had not seen anything indicating the Fireblue rebels were mourning.

“Let’s get started,” Hobbs said before he squatted down next to the satellite dish.

Louise walked over to the terminal. “Ready when you are.”

“Go right ahead,” Hobbs replied after a final inspection of the dish.

Louise’s finger hovered over the screen. Once she hit that button, they would connect with the global coalition’s network. It was possible that updated instructions were waiting to be delivered to their machine. Louise frowned when she realized that this bothered her.

She should be happy to connect to the teams back home. To their own world. To the place where things made sense. To Michelle. “Wow, I haven’t really thought of her since I got here,” Louise thought.

She quickly tapped the screen to connect. Hobbs joined her and they stared at the terminal together. After a few seconds, a green alert indicated they were able to reach the global network. The signal wasn’t being jammed.

“Looks good,” Hobbs said softly.

Louise nodded, her eyes squinting at the progress bar that had now popped up. It moved in the right direction slowly, but surely. If there was information waiting for them, a new progress bar would appear immediately after their own file had been sent.

A silver crack suddenly split her vision into two. “Shit,” she thought. “Not now.” Louise started massaging her temples to take some of the pressure off. She knew that if she ignored it, the migraine aura would go away soon enough.

2 tense minutes later, the screen finally confirmed the successful transmission of their report. Louise leaned forward, holding her breath, wanting to see what would happen now. Would a new progress bar pop up? Hobbs got closer to the screen too.

 

See you Saturday! 😉