How to Date an Android

How to Date an Android, Chapter 16 Part B (revised! & Announcement!)

The helicopter pilots' planned route looks like it had been coming back from... some unlisted island owned by said certain corporation to the west. The hidden Site B location to get to this local branch office. That unlisted island to the west was the same one they'd also found records for of previous flights but a strangeness in why it wasn't listed with the contractor company's holdings seemed odd.

The flight path was supposed to come here to the local branch office here. Then they were supposed to connect with a super yacht here at this island before going back to the mainland with a larger group of passengers.

And they were supposed to do that obviously with all passengers on board and everything intact.

When the drone operators were here looking for what happened they saw some weird things themselves. First, the yacht wasn't here. Nor was anyone on the island. It was like all the islands inhabitants had disappeared overnight.

"Is it possible the yacht left early?"

"There should have been a layover. And I'd asked about that too but the place on the mainland where the yacht was supposed to go hasn't shown up. And they can't reach the yacht either."

"This whole thins is weird. And where's all the island people anyway?"

And there wasn't any festival. At least not that they could see. The whole place looked completely abandoned.

"This island looks like a nice place to retire. I like the look of these housing units. And the climate seems ideal, a nice cool ocean breeze."

"I wouldn't mind it either. But focus please. What about the festival? Could we be in the wrong place?"

"No. We're at the right place. This is the village center."

"Maybe they were too poor to put up decorations for the festival?" the one operator said.

"I don't know. People have jobs and stuff to do. They wouldn't just close down the whole town. Even if they did we should see somebody, the die hard types that are too insane to take vacations and want to work to death. Every village or town has one. And its weird that they forgot to lock the doors on some of these buildings. Everyone locks up now days. I suppose some rural places might be able to do that but it still seems weird."

"Man this stinks. The electricity was out in that gas station. And they left the side door completely open. I had leave money on the counter for beer that isn't even cold. I'm getting pissed off man. I can't wait to get back to home," he told the other guy.

"Oh. You have a work break after this?"

"Yeah but it sucks because its the wrong time of year to go back to Wisconsin."

"Oh that's where you are from? I thought you were from New Chicago?"

"Oh no. That's just for my uh... tax planning documents. You should do it too. They let you claim to be a resident of New Chicago for less money on taxes. Its a pretty big % taken off. You just have to rent a mail box or something and pay like 50 dollars a year to do it. But most of the time I'm back home in Wisconsin see?" the other said.

"So you aren't one of those loons that live in Chicago huh? I think I trust you more already."

"Haha, very funny."

"You save very much doing that? And what about your pension fund? Can they get you with a pension tax later if you aren't in New Chicago or suddenly move when you retire?"

"Hell no. No pension tax gouge. And yes its worth it to do. But that is something you have to check for. Lots of places do a pension tax to try to keep people from leaving when it gets too costly to live there. After California ruined itself decades ago, everyone's checking for pension tax pitfalls now."

"Yeah that happened to my uncles when they fled California too. Almost broke them."

"Uh. Back to work. Anyway this beer is gross. Why don't they have their refrigerators running in this dump?" he tossed his beer bottle over to break on some side cement, shattering loudly.

"Let's call the contractor company again. This place is like dead. I don't like it," the one said.

"While you are doing that I'm going to get a drink. Water this time."

"Sure. But watch out. I don't know if the tap water for the locals is safe here. You know how these tropical places are. Only drink bottled water with seals. That's how it should be anytime you leave developed society by the way. Oh hey did you know you've got a cut on your hand? Your hand is bleeding."

"Ah come on. Its not that big a deal..." then he's also swearing about the cut on his hand that he's not even sure how he got. "Weird. When did that happen...?"

And again for the 12th call today, they couldn't reach anyone that worked for the company branch office located on the island, with the helicopter contracts. Normally they would at least get a secretary and a voice mail. And after walking around for 2 hours straight they still couldn't find a single person.

Now he was getting nervous. They can't come back empty handed or without talking to someone. This is expensive to send 2 people this far away out from the mainland also. So they had to have a report and ask questions. But to do that they had to reach real people.

There should be people on the island. But nobody was there.

There was supposed to be a petro station here that boats used for some tourist company nearby. But when they'd driven up to that it had the closed sign up.

Yet online it was listed as 'open'.

The island was small, having only about 90 inhabitants. And there were other islands also nearby in a very loose archipelago. And virtually all of the island inhabitants and their industries were involved in yacht and tourism businesses, except for mystery Site B.

"I want to go home. This place sucks," the guy swore while lighting up a cigarette.

Hey what's that?

Nearby there was a young lady walking towards him from the road. But it was strange that she was walking right in the middle of the road. Plus, it looked like she was injured or something with a really weird stiff limping posture...

And there was something wrong with her skin. It looked sort of gray and washed out like she had hepatitis K.