“You’ll need to set the secondary GPR enhancer by those limestone outcrops, two hundred meters South – South – the other South-”

With a sigh, I pulled away from my complex monitor setup, and reached for my cup of lukewarm tea. I watched in disapproval as four men drilled holes into solid basalt. Shards of black volcanic glass few around, bouncing off their body armour and protective helmets. Once they were done, they inserted a pole into the hole that should have served as a reference point had it been placed at the correct location, before making sure it was perfectly vertical and securing it in place as two of them filled the irregular hole walls with cement.

“How’s it going, Rose?” A male voice distracted me from the sad spectacle.

“Oh hey, Frank.” I spun on my chair to face the new arrival. The old thing creaked under the action, making me somewhat regret it. I did not know how to ask for a new chair in Cushitic, although with a few seconds of hindsight I reckoned this was something easy enough to explain with gestures. “It could go worse honestly. It could be cold and raining.”

Frank smirked in response. He pushed aside the heavy canvas that made up the closed half of the door to my tent and walked in. Making sure not to step on any of the cables connected to my monitors and fan, brushed aside some reading I had printed out from a nearby crate, and took a seat on it.

I turned off the radio transmitter, and gestured towards the kettle and half-empty box of bagged tea sitting on another nearby crate. Other people used furniture; drawers and chairs. I liked for my stuff to be easy to pack up and move around. Plus, having a few large portable batteries on hand was always, well, handy.

In response to my offer of tea, Frank shook his head. He had an opinion on what was and wasn’t proper tea, and my ‘British crap’ very much wasn’t.

“So, got bored of chatting up the guards?” I joked.

“Yeah. They just won’t budge, no matter how hard I pry.” He replied. “What about you then, any luck accidentally hearing or seeing something you’re not supposed to?”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head to convey to him where I stood on that matter.

“I’m paid to do my job, and to pretend the brief they gave me is true to reality. And so are you, so get back at it.”

Frank was a good guy, but his need to know more than needed got him places, and not necessarily the right ones. However, his knowledge of Arabic and a few of the local dialects did get him places. It helped that he looked the part as well. He had dark skin and was of average build and height. Ever since he’d grown out a beard, the only thing that betrayed him as American was his English accent which, unlike mine, had never gone away.

To be fair, I wasn’t too far from being mistaken for one of the locals either. I had tanned a lot, just from being outside most days, in the past eight years. And my brown-dyed-black with red highlights hair did many things but scream ‘foreigner’. Perhaps that was why the two of us kept getting hired by more and more shadier companies. Me on the surveying side of things, Frank on petrochem testing.

Except there were no oil reserves anywhere near this area, both he and I knew that. But unlike me who was just happy to take the extra pack of cash, Frank had set his mind on getting to the bottom of this.

Anyone from the outside would have guessed military ops. Something illegal, and against the states. But that would have been solely based on the number of armed people in our outpost, which was almost as big as the number of beds.

Maybe a part of me was curious and just too afraid to look into it. Not afraid of getting shot, but rather of what I might find. Perhaps that was why I didn’t kick Frank out, and let him watch as I played around with the satellite imagery, enhancing it to the point where it made its host computer angrily hiss and fill the room with hot air.

“Why do they need it there?” Frank asked, pointing to a point on a map displayed on an adjacent screen. “Like, the resolution they will be getting will be crazy.”

“Eh. Only spatially. They only have two satellites up there, so a scan every two days I’m assuming.”

“That what you’re watching now?”

“No. This is broadcast is brought to you by the united states of America.” I said, imitating the tone of an old radio host. “Every day, every hour. Except on every second Tuesday of the month because Josh from engineering can’t screw a rotor on right.”

“Seriously?” Frank asked.

I smiled, proud of my own joke.

“No. I don’t actually know what they have gaps with the kind of tech that they make.” I explained.

“No, not that. I meant that it’s from the states.”

I nodded. That part was true.

“They sell it with anyone with money. After all, someone has to finance their next big military op, and it sure isn’t going to be their own economy.”

“I guess in a way this is part of their economy.” Frank shrugged.

We spent the next few minutes quietly observing, each our own thing. When the team on my screen reached the next antenna position, I turned on the radio once again to remind them of where they were supposed to put it. This time, they did as they were told, and the radio was shut off soon afterwards.

“I wonder what they’re not telling us.” Frank broke the silence once again.

“My running theory is geothermal,” I replied. Was it really? I could not say, as I didn’t care enough. But it was enough to keep the conversation going. “Look here,” with a few clicks I overlaid a geological map over the antenna placement sites “and if you add it to this,” I opened a 3D model I had been working on in my own time of the rock density of surrounding sites.

“The earth is hollow.” Frank jokingly concluded.

“No, I’m just bad at coding. Look at the part that is there.” I replied.

“Hmmmm. Yeah, I guess that’s a possibility. If they make a plant here and the piping would go here …” Frank started pointing around the map, before his eyes landed on my mouse, which he promptly snatched. “Then if could go North … it could work, but why?”

I shrugged.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

We, or rather mostly Frank, continued our speculations into the late afternoon, with only the occasional interruption from the team of builders I was tasked with supervising.

At one point we must have been called to dinner.

And at one point I must have shut down all the stuff that didn’t require 24h processing, turned the fan towards my bed, and fallen asleep.

Or perhaps Frank had left and I had fallen asleep at my workstation.

Or maybe I had tripped over one of the many cables that I had never bothered to mark with yellow tape, hit my head, and passed out.

Perhaps the unimaginable had happened and State troopers had taken our outpost because of whatever illegal mining or construction they were preparing to do there.

Either way, that did not change the fact that I was not in my tent. Judging from the fresh, spring-scented breeze coming through my window, I was not even in Sudan.

Curtains fluttered gently in the wind, as filtered rays of sunlight came into the room I was in. I was laying in a baldachin bed, a big fancy one that looked like a museum piece. But, the only thing I could focus on was the semi-translucent screen before my eyes that read:

Welcome!

You are now Lady Leticia Avene Vandreik-Hoffen, soon to be named duchess of Alliarè, after the tragic death of the previous title holder. That is quite a responsibility to carry, but worry not, I will guide you each step of the way, a far as my powers allow.

I do not know what relationship your kingdom (or equivalent thereof) had with magic, so I apologise if this sounds confusing at first. I assure you, the body you are now in is most suited to support casting, rituals, and the likes.

I do not wish to overwhelm you with information, but you will need to adapt fast. First, please press, or choose, or select the option below.

Option Below (choose this)