jwbullfrog

I look at all of this in a slightly different way.

I do not have much in the way of time or resources to devote to the more active side of our revolution, but I can do the one thing I always have done...

I can play my game.

I'll be signing in as many days as reality allows for and playing for as many hours as I can devote to it. Why? Because this is the biggest way I can show my support for the game.

Besides, I have too much still unfinished.

I still have several characters in the 40's that need pushing forward. I still have several zones that I have not visited yet. I still have hours upon hours of content to play.

I'm not done yet! I may never be but, if the worst should happen and the world ends, I'll be right there offering to sweep the floors and take out the trash and stack the chairs.

Even if I cannot save the game, I will have played it, and played it well. And I will be able to walk away knowing that I had one hell of a run.

We're not dead yet people.

Be it NC soft or someone else, whoever keeps the game running gets my money on a steady, monthly basis if they'll have it. Also, I'll most likely buy more stuff than usual from the store. I kind of already wanted to but... well...

Should the worst happen and these forums close, there is an alternative for your fiction over on the Titan Network. It's a section of their Sister site - Oroborous portal.

Now I know that most of you probably already have your fiction saved elsewhere but, if you need a place, you can always go there.

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2012/...s-is-might-be/

An interesting piece dealing with the innovative features CoH introduced to MMO's.

Just ran across this.

http://www.uzergames.com/news_content.php?news_id=157

As far as I can tell, it's the same story we've been seeing over the last few days but just seeing it in an entirely different language is kind of interesting.

I've seen posts in French and German and that shows me that our European players are still with us (Thanks Gang!) but would somebody be able to tell me what language is used in the link?

The word is spreading. Keep up the good work folks.

Even if nothing else comes of it, that was a truly epic piece of work.

It would work really well as a victory video...

And just another thing to think about. If we are not successful, what will you have to complain about then?

There has always seemed to be a vocal element of our community who exist solely to cry "DOOOM!!!" They may be naysayers, but the are CITY naysayers and I ask them to pitch in as much as they are able, if they have not already done so.

Once we have saved our game, then you can go right back to doing what you do. In fact, we'll kind of miss you if you don't. But you'll be able to look around and think "It's all DOOOMED... but not today."


Just a thought.

---Sorry folks. I got a bit distracted the last few days (haven't we all) and I'm a bit late with this week's episode. --JWB




Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.


Running full speed downhill through thick brush and trees is not something I would recommend for anyone who wasn't a member of a special forces unit, an extreme sports competitor... or a completely desperate investigative reporter.

My thoughts were pretty straightforward. Get back to the Katana. Get the men with guns. Get back to the hillside. Save Caridad. It became kind of a mantra. Every step was punctuated with the thought:

Save Caridad.

I had a mission that I couldn't let myself fail, but the pain in my lungs and legs were becoming far too much. On the hill top I had taken one too many hits to my still damaged body and what little energy I had to spare was running out rapidly. When my foot hit a tree root there wasn't anything I could do to stop myself from falling and even less I could do to stop myself from rolling down hill.

Now if this were a movie, you'd be expecting me to roll for several hundred yards crashing through plants, scaring colorful tropical birds into flight, and generally leaving a trail of destruction down the hillside. If it were a movie from certain directors, you'd be expecting me to roll right off a cliff or a waterfall or something similar, while explosions lit the scene behind me, plunging to what should be my certain death only to escape by a minor miracle.

Sorry to disappoint you.

As it was, I only rolled about fifteen feet or so before landing at the base of a broad leafed plant that smelled faintly of melon. I decided to lay there in the shade for a moment before trying to get back to my feet. I was pretty certain that I hadn't broken (or, more importantly, re-broken) any bones but I couldn't draw a decent breath.

I mean to look up whatever plant that was and see if I can get it to grow in my apartment because it was responsible for saving my life. Not by stopping my fall, but because it gave me enough cover to hide from the zombies that followed me down the hill.

I couldn't figure out where loincloth got more zombies from. I know he couldn't have reused any; Caridad hadn't left any pieces large enough to reanimate. I suppose he could have summoned more from whatever extra dimensional closet that magicians keep their zombies in, but that should have taken some time. I'd have to make a note to ask my magical contacts about things like that but right at that moment, the details weren't really important; staying out of sight was.

It took several minutes for the zombies to shuffle past my hiding place and I waited a few minutes more to make sure they were gone. I took a few more deep breaths and crawled out from my hiding place. It took me a few moments to reorient myself but, fortunately for me since I was still feeling a bit scatterbrained, downhill is an easy direction to find.

I went a little bit slower since I didn't want to trip over any rocks or roots but, more importantly, I didn't want to trip over any zombies. Also, despite what the doctors said, I wasn't quite sure my ribs were ready for something like this. As I headed downhill, I was sure I was making enough noise for six people but I guess the zombies never noticed.

Another thing I mean to ask my magical friends is how, exactly, zombies sense things. I mean, they are dead. That means, by all usual medical definitions, brain activity has ceased which implies (as far as my junior college biology goes, anyway) that nothing relying on nerve impulses should function. I admit I skipped a few days of biology in college so I might have missed that one. But ... still.

I made it back down to the beach and it was wonderfully free of any reanimated corpses. Unfortunately, it was also completely free of anything resembling inflatable boats. I did find some foot prints and a small piece of cut rope tied to a tree that looked suspiciously like the one I had used to tie my boat.

Ok, important note, undead does not mean stupid. Now I know better.

I pulled my Blackberry out of my pocket and stared at it for a moment before dropping it back in. Without access to either satellites or a convenient cell tower, it was little better than a Palm pilot from the late 90's. Most of its more exotic functions were still perfectly fine but the one I really needed, the one that would do me the most good, was completely useless.

I wanted to call the Katana and have them send another boat (and three or four heavily armed men) but that wasn't going to happen from my Blackberry. I remembered that we did bring one of our short range radios with us but, at the moment, it was in Caridad's pocket where it didn't really do me much good. I could see the Katana sitting at anchor a few hundred yards out and I was entertaining the idea of swimming out to her when a sharp pain in my ribs reminded me why that probably wasn't a good idea.

To help you get a better idea of my aquatic abilities I'll borrow a quote from The Princess Bride; "I only dog paddle." I can manage to keep myself afloat and moving but managing several hundred yards across open water with damaged ribs and weak lungs, working through tides, and waves and hoping that the local sharks had taken a day off; even with the assistance of adrenaline driven desperation, was completely beyond me. I would have to figure out a better way.

Years of reading adventure fiction gave me the idea of a signal fire. It wouldn't have to be very big since the Katana wasn't all that far away, but it would have to be big enough to really get the crew's attention. All I needed was a big pile of wood and a few dead leaves for tinder. I can already hear you saying, "thats all well and good Alexis but how are you going to light it?' Easy, I have a Blackberry.

I keep mentioning the fact that my Blackberry is a bit beyond average. Well, one of it's non standard features is that it doubles as a Taser. I figured I could use the arc from the Taser to ignite the kindling and use that to get the rest of the fire going.

I wasn't going to be given the chance.

I was dragging the last piece of wood onto the pile when I heard the zombies approaching. I held on to that last branch as they shuffled out of the trees about ten yards away. There were a dozen of the corpses; all massive in build. I had no illusions that I could take them all but they weren't the thing that worried me most. They were accompanied by a ten foot tall walking Tiki idol with flaming eyes.



Banished Pantheon. That I understood. See? Sooner or later all of the weird gets explained.

And, if nothing else, we're still providing amusement for the Devs.

Sounds wonderful but I can see one, very significant, hitch in this plan...


I may have missed this detail in your video but, do you have permission to use the IP? If you do not, and anyone at NC Soft notices, you could be Legalized straight into oblivion.


Other than that, I like the idea and what I've seen so far. I'm not sure it will be a solution that works for me (kind of difficult to Solo a PnP/tabletop game) but please keep working .

I think Freddie and the boys can say it best...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADh8Fs3YdU



We're not dead yet.

In the words of Dorothy...

I think I'm going to miss you most of all.

Starting over, or not being able to go on at all????


Why is this even a question?

There's an old saying in our community that, I think, applies very well to this question...


"Shut up and take my money!"

Well, I have two games that will help 'wean' me from my CoH addiction.

I am quite fond of LoTRO (Lord of the rings Online) since I'm an old, old fantasy fan. It's not my beloved City but if I have to settle for second best, I can do worse than Middle Earth.

On the other side of the scale, I have 'The final Frontier' of Star Trek online. Suitably epic and BFGs galore.

I might even (if I must) try, once again, to play Champions Online.

Hopefully, I'll never need to go that far.

Try this.

Hold down your Page up button on your keyboard. This should let you move the camera around with your mouse.

To take an actual screen shot, press the F12 key.

The pictures will be saved to a folder on your City of Heroes directory called 'screenshots"

Assuming the worst does happen...


There is a certain street corner in Atlas Park where, on the day the world comes to an end, a certain gypsy will be making one last performance.

Although you won't be able to see them, there will be tears in her eyes as balls of fire whirl through the air in front of her. The tears are not just for herself but for all the people around her. She knows that she will, most likely, never see them again.

As for herself, she knows she is immortal. Sure her face and name may change as she walks between worlds, but she will always be there, somewhere. Wherever there are people to entertain.

A sad smile will cross her face at the memory of those people, the ones she'll miss. They were the reason for her existance, and her reward.

On the day the world ends...

Once there was a way
to get back homeward
Once there was a way
to get back home
sleep pretty darling
do not cry

and I will sing a lullabye

Golden Slumbers fill your eyes
smiles await you when you rise
Sleep pretty darling
do not cry

and I will sing a lullabye

Once there was a way
to get back homeward
once there was a way
to get back home
sleep pretty darling
do not cry

and I will sing a lullabye...





in comics, nobody stays dead forever......

a quick note before we begin....

With the recent news, it would be far too easy to throw my hands up and walk away from this. Believe me, it's very tempting. After all, there doesn't seem to be much point. But I hate to leave a story unfinished and perhaps, in my small way, this will be my final tribute to the game. So I will continue to post these episodes and try to wrap the story up before the lights go out. Thanks to all of you who have followed along and who have most graciously agreed to be a part of the story.

Thank you all. --JWB

With that having been said...






Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here with my continuing report.


Zombies to the left of me, Zombies to the right of me, Zombies in front of me shuffled and moaned...

Ok so I suppose I'll have to answer to to the ghost of the late Lord Tennyson for that horrible paraphrasing but it was what was going through my head at the time. You see readers, assuming you've had some kind of basic fighting training (or skill with a baseball bat or chainsaw) classic zombies really aren't all that hard to fight. They are slow, quite literally mindless, and really have only one attack- grab. This normally isn't a problem except when there's twenty or thirty of them around you.

Thank the Gods of Journalism for Caridad. I'll admit with some pride that I was holding my own but I was only able to take on one or two at a time. After about a dozen or so, my ribs were really beginning to hurt and I was running out of breath. Fortunately, Caridad was taking her position as bodyguard seriously. Even before her feet touched the ground behind me she had ignited five more zombies. Her UV blasts were taking the corpses all the way from rare to overdone to charcoal in record time carving a circle of severely sunburned bodies around us.

Even then the zombies kept coming.

"Get down low," she ordered as I could feel the air around us heating up. I'd never heard her say anything in that tone of voice before and I figured it would be a good idea to make a very detailed examination of the local grass.

I buried my face in the dirt as the air above me superheated. It was the heat of a thousand summers and I could hear Caridad growling a little as she built up to whatever it was she had planned. I was sure I could feel my own skin starting to crisp and char when Caridad's growls became a full fledged shout and the world exploded around us.

Caridad was breathing raggedly as she dropped to one knee next to me.

"Get up quick" she whispered. "I need to you help me to my feet."

"What did you just do?" I asked as I hooked her arm around my shoulders and pulled us both up. Her legs had no strength at all and mine weren't much better.

"Desperation move," she mumbled. "Tell me I got them all."

She looked bad but, as I looked around, I noticed that the hilltop looked worse. With the exception of a circle about 5 feet around us, everything on the hilltop was either burnt or burning. For thirty feet or so in every direction there wasn't any part of a zombie larger than, maybe, a few very burnt pieces of flesh. I wasn't really concerned about which pieces they were.

Outside of that thirty foot ring the grass was brown and even the trees that were adapted for blistering island summers were wilting. If there were any more zombies, I could not see them. As an act of sheer willpower Caridad brought the sun closer to Earth for a moment and paid heavily for it.

"All clear," I panted slightly. "You might have set the island on fire though."

"Oh, is that all? Ok." If she was concerned she didn't have the energy to do anything about it. I could understand how she felt.

We stood there for a few moments and tried to catch our breath. My lungs burned from the exertion and I could feel the muscles in my legs beginning to cramp. This, readers, is why I never considered a career as a professional crimefighter. It hurts way too much.

"Your kicks were a little low," mumbled Caridad.

Now? She was giving a critique now?

"And you could have put more power behind those punches."

I couldn't help it readers, I just had to let go and let her fall to the ground at that point. She was correct in her assessments but she was also giggling. I suspected fatigue poisons had something to do with it so I figured she'd recover faster lying on the ground. That and she really deserved it.

While she laughed quietly to herself, I decided to take a look around the clearing. I know what I said earlier about expecting zombies but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn't really expecting them. According to a magician friend of mine, zombies do not usually appear at random. Someone has to put in a fair amount of time and energy creating them. Even then they're not self guiding.

That's what I was looking for readers; a clue about the living mind behind all of the corpses. The odds of twenty or thirty zombies just happening to be standing in a random clearing on a random island (that wasn't even supposed to be there, I hadn't forgotten that point) were pretty slim. There had to be somebody close by.

They were a bit closer than I expected.

I didn't recognize the language, but I knew from the tone of voice that somebody had just said "surrender or die, you pitiful fool." As I turned around I noticed that Caridad was in the arms of a very tall, very dark stranger. Normally she would be enjoying that except for the fact that he was also very obviously dead. I figured she still hadn't recovered enough to fight back since she wasn't surrounded by a pile of ash where a zombie used to be but it might have been something else as well since she looked defocused and disoriented.

Standing next to them was, I assume, the speaker from the moment before. He was a well built, dark skinned, bald, man wearing little more than a strategic loincloth, a few tattoos, and odd grass neckpiece and a faint but unmistakable purple aura.

At that moment I knew there was something wrong with Caridad. A man in a loincloth (with or without an aura) would definitely have gotten her attention. At the moment he had mine. To be honest readers, I didn't have the slightest clue about what to do next. He shouted something and made a downward slashing motion with his arm. I was guessing that translated into something like 'grovel before me' which, I will admit was on my list of options at that point.

He continued to issue demands (I assume) while I weighed my options. I had to cross about fifty yards of turf before I had even a chance of getting Caridad free. On top of that, the zombie that had a grip on her had arms like a python. There was a good chance he would crush her before I even got half way. Given the glow surrounding the one in the loincloth, I had no illusions that I would even make it ten yards but I had to try.

I had taken three steps when I saw Caridad snap awake. Her eyes met mine and I even if I could not hear her voice I could see her mouth moving.

"Alexis, get away!" her lips were saying. "Please run," her eyes were saying. I didn't have a chance and she knew it. She was still being my bodyguard and had already decided to sacrifice her safety for mine. Swearing softly, I turned sharply and sprinted for the trees. I didn't want to abandon her but I would be useless to her if I got killed or captured. If I could get back downhill to the Katana I could get help.


I'd be back, Cari.

Hiya Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here from somewhere that shouldn't exist.


I know what you're thinking readers. And I don't blame you one bit. Bermuda Triangle, strange storms, mysterious island, it's all just so cliché. You'll be expecting me to start talking about ancient conspiracies and cryptic numbers and smoke monsters next but, as much as I hated to admit it, things were getting weirder than I was comfortable with.

And for a girl who grew up in Paragon City, thats saying a lot.

It wasn't a big island, maybe only two or three miles across at its widest point. It looked pretty much like you would expect any Caribbean island to look with white sand and green trees and all of the usual things.It was a bit taller than most islands in this part of the Caribbean, but otherwise it was fairly unremarkable. If it weren't for the fact that it just wasn't supposed to be there, it wouldn't have drawn a second glance from anyone on the crew.

Caridad was fascinated.

"Let's go take a look," she chirped.

I believe I've mentioned her lack of impulse control. Actually, she has perfect control, she just chooses to ignore it most of the time. She can be perfectly serious about things but she has a catlike urge to pounce on anything that catches her interest.

She had decided that the inconsistencies that had popped up in reality really weren't worth worrying about. Or, perhaps, it was her way of dealing with the weird. In either case she was determined to get a look at that island.

"Come on slowpoke." she shouted from her perch about three feet above the bow of the Katana.

"Some of us need a boat," I replied singsong under my breath.

"What?"

"Nothing, " I called back. Jean-Paul had already lowered a small inflatable boat over the side and was steadying it while I climbed down from the main deck. Notice readers that I was already making plans to explore the island. After all, how could I pass up a mystery like this? I'd have to give up my reporter's notebook if I let something like this pass. I was more annoyed by the fact that she was flittering around like a six foot Tinkerbelle while us mere mortals had to take the time to do things the normal way.

It was simple enough to operate the small boat and, in fact, it had been designed with this sort of thing in mind. It didn't need much water to operate and could be beached fairly easily. The motor was powerful enough to move it at a nice clip through the bay so, once I had gotten clear of the anchored Katana, I'll admit to doing a little bit of flitting of my own.

Caridad and I chased each other around the bay for about a half an hour. We didn't have a plan, we were just looking things over. It all seemed harmless enough and I suspect all we were really doing was terrifying the local wildlife before we aimed for a crescent of white sand that looked like a good place to pull the boat ashore. We were both giggling a bit as we tied the boat to a tree and took stock of our surroundings. Hey, how often do you get the opportunity to explore someplace that doesn't exist?

The sand on the beach had the rough quality that was almost unique to the Bahamas. The tideline was outlined by seaweed and dotted by shells of all shapes and colors. It was a very picture postcard image, and one that just looked too wrong.

As sad as it is to say, I was expecting the usual beachside sights of a beer can or a cigarette or some small thing that said 'humanity was here'. As it was, the lack of those things was making my skin crawl just a bit. It could just have been that nobody had ever picked this spot but, considering that this island wasn't supposed to be here, it just added to my list of wrongnesses. Before I could say anything about it, Caridad had already started making a path through the trees.

A few feet off the beach, the land started a shallow but steady rise. We'd seen from the water that the island had quite a bit of elevation and might even rival the 200 feet of Cat island. I'd have expected this was the work of a volcano but that wasn't how the geography of the Bahamas worked.

It wasn't a hard climb (In fact, although I would never mention this to Caridad, I suspect it was a lot easier for me that it would have been months earlier) but we did have to work our way around some fairly thick plants and trees. The whole time my sense of unease was growing. I would have felt better if there was just one thing that didn't feel wrong about this situation.

"Come on Lex, You're getting lazy," called Caridad from somewhere ahead of me. Oddly, her cheerfulness was just about the kind of thing I was looking for. How wrong could things be if Caridad was enjoying herself?

We were near the high point of the island when we broke out of the trees and had our first good look around. I'll admit readers that it was an impressive sight. We could see down into the cove where the Katana was and, beyond that, we could see the green waters of the Caribbean sea. The clearing itself was a wonderful sight to take in, full of flowers, and green grass, and bright tropical plants of a dozen different varieties.

And zombies.

Now that, readers, was something I understood. There's something comforting in knowing that your mysterious island in the Caribbean has zombies. It just adds the right touch of the exotic to any vacation. And, admit it, when you travel to the Caribbean don't you half expect to see one zombie?

Now I know that there are some of you out there that are saying "You consider zombies normal?!" Well, yes. Remember, I live in Paragon City. Currently there are five distinct varieties of zombie found in the city ranging from the patchwork brides and grooms of Frankenstein that follow dear, mad Doctor Vazhilok, to the basic shambling corpse used by magicians citywide. The real trick is to know which is which and react accordingly.

Caridad obviously figured that blasting them to pieces would be the best method. Admittedly, that is usually an effective way of dealing with them, but it does seem a bit... I don't know... unsubtle.

Three of them had burst into flames before I had even really had a chance to react and a fourth had just ignited when I snapped a kick into and through the knee joint of one that had gotten a bit too close to me. Now, unlike the somewhat overpowered zombies that have become a favorite of moviemakers recently, your typical zombie is slow and fragile. They can be effectively disabled by destroying their legs and then just staying out of their reach.



Of course when they outnumber you about twenty to one, that's not easy to do.

Hiya, Paragonners. Alexis Alexander here, with my continuing report.


Readers, for those of you who haven't been following my previous reports, I have something of a Guardian Angel. Actually, it would be more accurate to describe him as a darkly obsessive, intensely wealthy, avenger of evil who, for reasons that he doesn't really understand, continues to associate with a much more cheerful, one could even say, cheeky, reporter.

I think its because he's scared of me. I'm one of the few people in the world that isn't intimidated by him. In fact, I've made it my personal mission to stick sharp pins in his ego every chance I get.

Maybe it's just because I amuse him. Or I haven't annoyed him enough. I don't know.

In either case, he rebuilt my Blackberry some time ago and added several features that the manufacturer never intended. At that moment, the most important of those features was the ability to bounce my cell signal off of a privately owned satellite in a geo synchronous orbit over the Atlantic Ocean. On any normal day, this gives me an almost unlimited coverage area (without even any roaming fees) but, more importantly, it was designed to reach him if he was anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard of the US.

The fact that I wasn't even getting a dial tone worried me, but it gave me a clue.

"We've lost the satellites."

"What?" said Caridad.

I dropped my Blackberry back in my pocket and leaned back against the counter top holding the radar. "That's why we're blind," I said, testing out the theory. "This ship is state of the art which means it has satellite uplinks for everything. GPS, Radio, internet. Since we don't seem to have any of those available that means that there's nothing for them to bounce off of."

"Or they've been taken offline," Jean-Paul said.

"Another invasion?" asked the Captain. As I've mentioned before elsewhere readers, Alien invasions are a lot more common that most people think.

"Too soon," Caridad answered. "We're still waiting to see what the latest one has in store." I had to agree with her readers. It was just too soon for that. Besides, the last few waves of alien invaders had been a lot more media savvy. They usually just hacked into the satellites to give the world the standard "Cower before us, Humanity" speech.

They still haven't quite figured out why there always seems to be several thousand brightly dressed human beings waiting for them when they land.

"But that would explain why we still have radar and our onboard systems," said the Captain. "If it were some kind of global EMP effect we'd be completely dead in the water. Right, first things first. We need to find out where we are. Once we know that, then we can figure out what to do next."

I had a sneaking feeling that we were seeing only part of the picture. It wasn't just that we'd lost touch with the satellites, it was something...more. Now readers, you know as well as I do that, in our world, the concept of more can be anything at all. We could have been under the influence of Magic, or sufficiently advanced science, or just a really powerful telepath making us think weird things.

If you ever find yourself in one of those situations readers, the best way to deal with it is to act as normally as possible until a better solution presents itself. Don't worry. Sooner or later, all of the weird gets explained. You just have to put up with it until it does.

We were fortunate that the Captain seemed to have been well trained in that very same philosophy. It didn't seem to bother him that he'd lost fifty years of navigation technology as he and Jean-Paul spread out several charts and maps and had weighted down the corners with what looked like modern versions of the same tools that took Magellan around the world.

He waved Caridad and I over to the table and made a rough circle on the map with his finger. "I'm operating on the assumption that we are in the same rough area of ocean we started in. If we are, then Mayaguana should be about twenty miles to our South. That would be a good place to hold up for the night and figure out or next step."

"Now," he said indicating the brass and wood devices on the table," I've got a clock and a compass and a few other ways here of getting a fix on our location. That will take a little bit of time but it'll be accurate enough. If you're willing to wait until nightfall, I could use the stars or I could just turn us in that direction and hope to get lucky. But that might just get us even more lost if I'm wrong."

"I think I have away to improve the odds," I said. "Do we have any portable two way radios?"

"Yes." said Jean-Paul. They're only good out to about five miles or so but they should be just fine."

"Great. Cari, get your flying shoes on. You're going to be our eyes in the sky."

The plan, as I saw it, was pretty simple. Caridad could get out in front of us and, like the man in the crow's nest from centuries before, would be able to shout as soon as she saw land. Since she'd be able to get more than just a few dozen feet off of the water, she would be able to direct us to land fairly quickly.

It took a little longer than I had anticipated but otherwise it worked nicely. She had flown out to the limits of the radio's range and gotten a few hundred feet up. After about thirty minutes, she had spotted land and talked the Captain onto the right course.

I was waiting for her on the foredeck when she landed. I don't think I was doing a good job of hiding my anxiety.

"So," she said as soon as she saw my face, "what's the bad news?"

"According to the Captain, we're only a few miles from where we should be."

"And that's bad because?"

"That island you spotted isn't Mayaguana."

"Ok, so which one is it?"

"One that shouldn't be there."