Thorne let the Lady Eglesia‘s systems bring it into the harbor while she dozed on the deck, barely moving from where she slept through the night. She headed out to deep water after hallucinating being back home and visited by her people’s mythical water being, the Bunyip.
Those hallucinations were becoming more frequent.
Usually a quick trip home cured such things. She’d take AirCon’s corporate jet and be there and back in four day’s time. One day to get there, two days with her people, one day to get back.
But who to leave in charge?
Shaul. Not here next-in-command but capable never-the-less.
The Eglesia’s alarms sounded. A shoreside distress signal. Somebody breaking into AirCon HQ and caught in her team’s latest tech gadgets?
She sighed and her eyes fluttered open to the Boston skyline, the the morning sun at her back.
Something bobbed in front of her boat. It looked like a man in the water. It faced the same direction she did.
It turned towards the Eglesia as if suddenly realizing it was there. The sunlight shone off the water making it difficult to see.
Thorne shaded her eyes then opened them wide. “What the – ”
Her mobile alarmed.
The thing in the water dove and was gone.
Thorne read the message on her mobile. She shaded her eyes and looked towards AirCon HQ.
A cloud of gray smoke climbed the thirty story Innovation Square tower. Swirls of denser smoke pulled and pushed the cloud up the side of the building like some Wind Spirit King Kong waving its arms and legs.