Raven's Flight

Chapter 5: Part 1 - Lee

I'm a sitting duck. I have no way of knowing when the tsunami will crash into the outpost. In a way, it reminds me of waiting behind a curtain in order to scare someone, except you never know when they're going to finally show up. You wait for what seems like forever and right when you step out, they walk into the room. If the tsunami doesn't affect the outpost, will I even know when it hits? I'm only supposed to have minutes, so how long do I wait? When I finally step out, will it then hit?

My heart pounds, and I wipe my sweaty palms on my shirt.

The room groans. The lights flicker. I may have not felt the tsunami, but I'm pretty sure the outpost did.

The lights shut off.

I jump and sink deeper into the feed container, the darkness, to be frank, frightening me. Animals squeal from beyond the room. I'm hoping the drones are already getting to work.

I maneuver my legs out of the cylinder and carefully hop down. My feet cause a plink, and water splashes up my legs.

A red light comes on, presenting me with a blurred image of the water that flows into the room from various crevices. I slosh through it toward the door, the water level growing higher. My heart pounds with each slosh.

I grab the door and pull. The door budges a few inches and water pours in through the crack, knocking me over and sending me sliding across the room. I stand, watering dripping from everywhere on me and now freely pouring into the room.

I push forward, a blast of water sending me crashing to the floor with a resounding splash. Summoning my strength, I surge forward and grasp the door and yank it back, holding on tightly as water rushes in. Slow but steady I make my way to the animals where the water is not as deep as it spreads throughout the room— somewhat equally it seems. I need some of the drones to repair either leaks or pump water out of here.

I pull out my phone to call Ava, scrolling through the apps to locate the phone application. Seeing a folder labeled Raven, I freeze. I click it and a group of apps pop up, many of which pertain to the drones. I've used some of these when Ava was training us how to use the drones.

I open up the app I know I need to use for this situation. A list of the drones on the outpost is displayed to me, every drone saying that it is active. I select half of them and assign them to remove the water flowing onto the outpost. On my phone screen I can see the drones helping the animals, and while they do that, I find higher ground on a crate. Using the Raven app, I am able to prioritize the injured animals by their needs, thanks to the information the drones gather. Once that is organized, I can get to work attending to them.

None of this would have been possible without Ava. She's the one who taught me how to use the drones, and she's the one who programmed them to help the animals I stayed behind for.

That girl gives me hope.