The helicopter did not come down smoothly.
It fell--so hard as to make Giulia aware that it was no journey. It was a draw, transferring one world to another.
The door was opening when the blades were lowered. Heat rushed in. Salt. Dry air. Something natural and unmodernized.
Giulia lowered herself to unequal sand and surveyed about her.
The ocean was inexhaustible behind her.
Far before--dry ground, harsh and implacable.
A desert island.
Isolated.
Controlled.
Just the sort of place things had occurred in, without a sound coming out... and they had been buried.
Matteo came down next to her, and it was not the first time he was scanning the perimeter.
You have been here before, she said.
“Yes.”
“And you brought me anyway.”
A glance at her. “You insisted on staying.”
Giulia fol
