The flight to Japan was customarily long. They landed in Okinawa during the local evening and stopped just long enough to rest and have a meal before boarding a helicopter for the last leg of the journey.

No one spoke to Levi during the trip aside from the necessities. This was not a problem on the plane, spacious as it was, but on the helicopter it resulted in lengthy awkward silences. Wilkeson tried to get a few conversations going, but no one seemed interested. Most of the team were getting into the "zone", Wilkeson reasoned. He was partially correct.

Ryder passed out the parachutes.

"Are we ready?" Wilkeson asked.

"We're ready," Hector replied with a side glance at Levi.

Levi nodded.

"How should we proceed?" Wilkeson asked Levi.

"Stick as close to me as possible," Levi replied in his typical distant tone. "And don't deploy your parachutes until after we've cleared the force shield."

"You heard the man," Wilkeson said. "Close formation, hold 'chutes 'til you're inside. Pilot, bring us 'round to the dome."

Indeed, for miles and miles, one could see only the North Pacific Ocean, even in the place where Antemyst's atoll was supposed to be. But, up close, one could see the thin, glimmering sheen of magick arcing over several square miles' worth of ocean.

"A literal trust fall," Evelyn muttered.

Levi pointed the pilot to a particular height on the slope of the force bubble and had him hover. Then, securing the parachute on his back, he jumped out of the helicopter.

"Let's go!" Wilkeson shouted. He gestured to Hector while remaining in his own seat.

Hector went next and was followed closely by his team. Wilkeson remained aboard the helicopter, which would return him to the Vanguard base in Okinawa.

As Levi dived, he focused his magick on a small stretch of the force shield. He sectioned off a bit of his magic to keep the team invisible as well. The force shield in front of them thinned and thinned until it was fully burned away. Below, the atoll became visible, as did its seastead and a number of other curious buildings.

The team soared through the hole. Levi let go of the bubble, and it repaired itself immediately.

He kept everyone invisible as they pulled their parachutes and came in to land on a lonely stretch of the atoll. No one was in sight. He dropped the invisibility spell.

This part of the atoll was only a third of a mile wide and consisted solely of a two-lane highway. The ocean was behind them; the lagoon, deep and blue, was ahead of them. A few small buildings, mostly shops and fueling stations, could be seen up and down the highway, but ahead of them was the true sight.

Anchored in the middle of the lagoon was a tall, immense seastead. It was large enough to hold a small city, and it was adorned with skyscrapers and high-tech energy sources, windmills and PV towers and other things that Levi couldn't fathom. In the distance, presumably along the diamond-shaped atoll, were other tall structures that could only be described as "silos", though they did not seem to hold missiles or grains. And beyond the seastead were structures that unmistakably belonged to a spaceport, including a rocket-propelled spaceship.

"Holy shit," Evelyn whispered.

Everyone agreed in stunned silence.

"We have a plan," Levi said, his voice cutting the wind. "We stick with it." He started to fold up his parachute.

The others did the same.

At a fueling station, they changed into business-casual attire. Each had a fresh identity. None of them, aside perhaps from Ryder and Grant, were meant to interact with the locals much, but they took the precaution all the same.

Then they walked down the highway a bit to a small surf shop.

"Hello. Where can we find the ferry?" Grant asked the shopowner in Almajoyese, which was also the local language of Antemyst.

The shopowner offered to show them, and while pulling out a map, he asked a few casual questions about where they were from and what had brought them out to the highway. Grant answered them just as casually (businesspeople from Almajoya, sightseeing on the coast). Once the map was unfolded, everyone took a look at it, and everyone noted something different on its face.

Thus directed, they found their way to the ferry that would take them from land to the seastead. The seastead, they learned, comprised Antemyst's capital city of Qumenee. It was where nearly all of the atoll's population lived.

In Qumenee, they found a hotel and booked a suite of four rooms. Evelyn would have one to herself, as would Levi; the other two rooms would be shared by Will and Grant and Hector and Ryder.

The hotel was itself a skyscraper, and the twenty-second-floor suite gave the team a gorgeous view of the city, over which the sun would soon rise.

Their bodies were still on Texan time, though, so no one slept. The team, sans Levi, gathered in the living area that connected the four rooms. Everyone assumed Levi was in his room.

"Did you notice how the surfer interrogated us?" Will asked. "They're suspicious of foreigners here."

"That's not news. There's practically no tourism here, apart from Almajoya and the Gifted Diaspora," Evelyn pointed out. "They can probably tell we're not from here just by looking at us."

"Yeah, which brings up my concern," Hector said. "How the hell are we gonna get close to that spaceport? If it was part of the seastead, that would be one thing, but it's on the atoll. No way we can get there without someone questioning us. Just being on the beach got us the Surfer Inquisition."

"What if...." Will put up his hands. "Hear me out. What if Levi can hide us again?"

Everyone answered at once:

"We really shouldn't ask him for more than he's already doing," Evelyn said. "Then we'd owe him."

"Would that be enough?" Grant wondered.

"We could use our identities," Ryder suggested.

"Fuck no," Hector opined.

"Whoa. Overload." Will waved his arms. "Why shouldn't we ask him to do it? This is his mission too."

"For one, there's a precedent we would be setting," Evelyn replied. "Is that gonna be our go-to solution? When all else fails, throw a little magick at it?"

"That and there's still somethin' I don't trust about him," Hector added. "I don't wanna end up relyin' on his creeper ass."

"Let's just be creative with our identities," Ryder said. "The backstory is vague on what sort of company we work for. We could make it something related to aerospace, and ask for a tour. It might take a day or two, but it'd be pretty secure."

Will's shoulders sagged. "Seems to me we ought to go with the least complicated option. I still say we ask."

"I think you've been outvoted, Will," Evelyn said. "Ryder, do you think you can sort that out? Or will you need a touch of creative coding?"

"I'll probably be fine, but I'll let you know otherwise."

"Let's work on that tomorrow," Hector said. "Grant, why don't you and I walk around and get acquainted with this place."

"And Will and I will get set up in here," Evelyn added.

With a detailed plan of action in place, everyone felt much more settled, and after a bit of small chat, each of them fell asleep on the sofas and recliners around the living space. Resting soundly, recovering from their travels, not a single one stirred when Levi slipped into the suite and crossed into his room.