MAX to SKYE: Why didn't you tell me Arnold was Arnold Fortune? THE Arnold Fortune? Halcyon Defense Arnold Fortune?
The question answers itself but nevermind.
MAX to SKYE: He wants to invest in my studio! He keeps talking about something called a "convertible note", do you know what that is? Where are you?
Oh my god. Well, at least I know they're safe enough to be texting me.
I have to assume that Scott has access to Max's phone, and everyone on the island knows everyone else's business seemingly ten seconds after it happened, so I have to act as though I don't know anything. I need to tell Max something though...
SKYE to JOHN DART: Hey. I'm telling Max that I went over to your place and got drunk and I'm recovering from a hangover. Cover for me if they ask.
SKYE to MAX: hey. im at jhons place. pretty hung over tbh. dont sign anything. meet me back at the pb tonight.
The "PB" is their shorthand for the Portobello.
JOHN DART to SKYE: Roger
Skye gets up off the toilet, pulls the handle, and realizes belatedly that of course there's no running water. The ghosts of the base's fallen janitorial staff are going to haunt her for sure now. More pressing concerns, though. She closes the door, sealing the piss in its porcelain tomb.
She walks back to the office to check on Tinkerbell. Flopping on the office chair its piston nearly blows a gasket. This makes Skye realize how tired she is. She wiggles the mouse to make the screen turn on. About half of the path Skye drew on the map is colored gray, indicating that Thinkerbell already traversed it, with about half to go. There isn't enough bandiwdth on the wireless link to download all of the recorded data so she'll have to wait for it to come back and dock to be able to look at it.
She turns to her backpack, which is perched against the side of the desk. It's a full sized hiking backpack, about three feet long and one foot wide, made of a sort of purple mauve synthetic fabric that's a little threadbare where it comes into contact with the elastic cord that's stitched around half of the outside. Hanging off one section of that cord, on the bottom, is a spool of green and red striped paracord with a knot tied at one end to stop it from unraveling. On the right, in the water bottle holder, is a thermos. On the left, a rock hammer. This is the first time Skye used this bag to break into an army base, and on its normal duties of mountain hikes she uses the rock hammer to hammer rocks. Inside the bag is Skye's normal hiking fit-out: a change of clothes, a few changes of socks, 30 degree sleeping bag (the real heavy one would take up almost the entire pack and this is the summer configuration), butane camp stove and gas canister, bivy, a few packs of instant ramen, a bag of trail mix, half a dozen mint clif bars, empty water bladder, "life straw" water filter (so that stream water doesn't give you brain amoebas). Next to it, similarly perched, is a pair of red (painted, enamel) bolt cutters.
Not able to think of anything better to do she opens the backpack, takes out the sleeping bag and three pairs of socks to use as a pillow, sets her phone alarm for 30 minutes, closes her eyes and promptly sinks through the floor into the netherworld.
Through the concrete pad under the base, through the black sandy earth under that, through the thick gray cloud layer, out into the open sky. The island is below her, and at this altitude she can barely make out the base, but what is easy to see is the giant gothic cathedral standing where the cannery is supposed to be. Flying forward towards it, its spindly spires emerge into her vision, branching into the gray sky like a dead tree. Nesting among the center spire is a kind of treehouse covered in arched church windows. As Skye gets close enough to look through the windows she sees rows of wooden columns, each with a beating heart near the top of it, veins running down into a series of central pipes that go to the front, where the altar would be if this were a church. Standing there is Scott, with his slender frame and white hair, the tube running into his ribcage. A black aura emanates visibly from all around him.
Skye is still falling, past the windows now, past the bristling lattice of what looks like burn scarred bark, the wind now whistling in her hears, buffeting, rhythmic, scree, scree, scree, scree, through the ground, beep, beep, beep. She reaches over and shuts off the alarm.
Up, over, into the chair, look at the screen, Mission Complete. There's a notification bell icon next to Tinkerbell's row in the effector list on the right of the screen.