Page 115 of The Island

“I think it’s good, kids. It’s not going to taste like the bottled water you’re used to, but it’s fine to drink. Drink up. Slowly.”

Olivia hesitantly leaned forward and scooped a little of the water into her hands. She poured it into her mouth and looked at Heather and smiled.

“It’s good!” she said. “I like it.”

She began scooping handfuls into her mouth.

“Careful, not too much, you don’t want to overload your system,” Heather said. “That’s it, slowly, take a little break now.”

Olivia nodded and leaned back on the cave floor with a big happy smile on her face.

Heather had thought that Olivia would never smile again.

“That was awesome,” Olivia murmured.

Heather turned to Owen. “OK, kid,” she said. “Now you.”

“What if there’s poo in it?”

“It’s good, drink it,” Olivia said.

He dipped his finger in and licked it. “It’ll do,” he said.

Heather smiled.

“It’s cold down here. I’m actually cold,” Owen said.

“Are you ever happy?” Olivia said.

“I’ll get our stuff,” Heather said. “We’re going to hide here. I’ll start a small fire and then I’ll go try to lay a scent trail for the dogs. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Heather got a quick fire of moss and eucalypt going for the kids and went back outside. She got the rifle and the canteen and put them in the cave mouth. She rearranged the moss over the hole and ran down into the heath away from the hill. She rolled around in the grass, trying to get as much scent on the ground as possible, and then she ran to the beach. She left a ton of prints on the sand and was about to wade into the surf when the drone came zipping in from the sea and found her.

It hovered ten feet above her head.

She threw a pebble at it, but it just moved out of the way.

She wasn’t going to lead it back to the cave, and she couldn’t lose it on this damned beach.

It buzzed and zipped above her.

She could imagine Matt looking at her through his laptop or phone or whatever it was he used to control it.

She sat down on the sand and looked at it.

She wasn’t going to panic.

She was going to think.

Those four little rotor blades must use a lot of energy keeping that thing in the air. And the battery couldn’t be very big. How long could one of those things stay up there without needing to recharge?

She had no idea. An hour? Twenty minutes?

More likely closer to the latter.

The drone looked at her.

She looked at the drone.

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