Ash looked over from the chair squeezed into the corner of her small room. “Maybe, maybe not. We need to go through everything.”
She glanced at the unfinished pile of journals. “I don’t think I can read another word.”
“I’ll finish them, then,” he said.
“Don’t tempt me.” She picked up the next journal and opened it.
They had been at it for hours, painstakingly going over each page to see if Matt might have written down something that would help them figure out what Augustine dream sky meant. So far, Ash had made a few notes about things that probably had nothing to do with his friend’s final words, while Chloe had come up with zilch.
He hoped the answer would be here somewhere, but he was beginning to think Chloe was right. Still, Matt must have felt Ash could figure out the message. Otherwise, he would have tried to give Ash more context, right?
Augustine dream sky.
What the hell did you mean, Matt?
Someone knocked on the door. Chloe jumped up to answer it.
From the hallway, Ash heard Crystal say, “Oh, good. You’re here.”
“What’s up?” Chloe asked.
“Bobby Lion just called in. He wanted to talk to Rachel, but…well, you know. I tried to find Ash, but I’m not sure where he is. Could you talk to Bobby?”
Chloe took a step away from the door. “Ash is in here.”
“Oh.” Crystal poked her head inside. “Good afternoon, Captain. Bobby Lion needs to talk to someone. Are you available?”
Ash stood up. “Sure.”
As Crystal disappeared back into the corridor, Ash set down the journal he’d been reading.
“I’d be happy to talk to him, if you want,” Chloe offered.
“What? And stop you while you’re on a roll?” He smiled. “I won’t be long.”
Ash followed Crystal through the maze-like tunnel system to her station in the communications room. Leon and Paul were manning the other two desks, each giving Ash a nod while they continued with the radio conversations they were having.
“Here,” Crystal said, handing Ash a headset. She donned a second pair and brought her computer screen out of sleep mode. “Let me get him back.”
After she made a couple taps on the keyboard, Ash heard ringing, then—
“Bobby here.”
“Bobby, it’s Daniel Ash.”
“Captain, how are you?”
Bobby and Ash had never met in person, and while Ash had tried to get Bobby to call him by either his first or last name, the former PCN cameraman, like most of the people in the Resistance, called Ash by the rank he’d held in the army prior to Project Eden’s test outbreak the previous spring.
“As good as can be expected. How are you guys?”
“Well, it’s finally happened. We’re jammed.”
Bobby and his colleague, Tamara Costello — the PCN reporter he had worked with before anyone ever heard of Sage Flu — were near Washington, DC, at an NSA facility. A few days earlier, they had been able to highjack the signal Project Eden was using to broadcast to the world, and replace it with Tamara telling everyone the truth — that there was no UN left, no worldwide vaccination effort, and the ironically named survival stations were meant to collect and terminate people the Project felt were no longer needed.
“They’re back on the air?” Ash asked.
“No. Either they couldn’t swing that or decided it wasn’t worth the effort. My guess is that they uploaded a virus that shut all the broadcast satellites down. Well, not all of them. We’re still broadcasting to parts of eastern Africa, central Asia, and South America. Otherwise, though, we’re done.”
“No way to get you back up?”
Bobby hesitated. “Hell, I don’t know. There might be a way, but my skill level only goes so far.”
“We’re going to want to get the satellite system working again at some point,” Ash said. If nothing else, it would be a good way to get messages around the world in a hurry. “There must be someone here who could figure it out. I’ll look into it.”
“If you can, that’d be great. What I really called about was to find out what you all want us to do. Stay here or…what?”
Ash glanced at Crystal, raising an eyebrow. She shook her head and mouthed, “Nothing for them right now.”
“Bobby,” Ash said, “I’ll have to look into that, too. For now, why don’t you two just hold there?”
“If that’s what you want, we can do that.”
Ash was about to sign off when he had a thought. He put a hand over his mic and looked at Crystal. “Can you give us a moment?”
“Um, okay,” she said, and removed her headset. “I’ll, uh, grab a cup of coffee.”
“Appreciate it.”
He waited until she was gone before taking her chair and leaning forward so that the computer blocked him from Leon’s and Paul’s view. In a low voice, he said, “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, not as good as before but—”
“I want to ask you a question, but I need you to keep it to yourself, all right?”
A pause. “All right. What is it?”
“You and Matt talked a lot, didn’t you?”
“On and off,” Bobby said.
“Did he ever mention the phrase Augustine dream sky?”
“That’s a phrase?”
“Did he ever mention it?”
“I’m pretty sure I’d remember that, which,” he said dramatically, “I don’t.”
Ash had assumed that would be Bobby’s answer, but felt it worth a try. “All right. Thanks.” Raising his voice to room level again, he said, “You guys rest up. We’ll get back to you.”
Crystal returned, holding a mug, as he was removing his headset.
“Any problems?” she asked.
“No. Thank you. Sorry I had to kick you out.”
She shrugged. “It’s not the first time. And quite honestly, I’ve got enough going on in my head right now, I don’t need any more crap crammed in there.”
“Fair enough.” He paused. “Have you heard from Pax lately?”
“Paul did, I think.” She glanced over at the other stations. “Paul?”
His head bobbed up. “Yeah?”
“You talk to Pax today?”
“Yeah, this morning.”
“Can we call him back?” Ash asked.
“He’s pretty tied up today. They’re trying to get everyone off that island and over to the mainland. I could try him, but I doubt he’d answer.”
Ash shook his head. “It’s okay. I can wait. But if he does call in and has a moment, I’d like to talk to him.”
“You got it.”
Bobby hung up the sat phone and set it in its portable cradle to keep it charged.
He glanced at the computer monitor. It was displaying status readouts from the various satellites. Six still showed the green OPERATIONAL tag. It had been seven before he’d started talking to Captain Ash. If the rate of attrition kept up, all of them would be in the red OFFLINE category by morning.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Tamara asked as she walked into the room carrying two microwaved burritos and two cans of soda.
“They’re not sure,” he said. “I think everything’s kind of a mess now that Matt’s gone. Captain Ash told us he’d let us know. Until then, I guess we camp out here.”
“Well, then, we need to look around for some better food because I swear this is the last of these I’m going to eat.” She plopped the burritos on one of the desks. “Beans and cheese? Or cheese and beans?”
“The latter, I think,” he said, picking up the one closest to him. After a few bites, he said, “Tam, did Matt ever talk to you about something called Augustine dream sky?”
“Is that a place?”
“I have no idea. Captain Ash asked me about it. Was kind of secretive, too. Told me not to talk to anyone else about it, but I assume he didn’t mean you.”
“What was it again?”
“Augustine dream sky.”
“Augustine…dream…sky,” she said, then shook her head. “I’ve got nothing.”