This part of Canada was different, in every way, from her home in Pahrump. The terrain was flat as a pancake, and ever so green. Humidity was in the air, even as they drove along at 12:00 noon, in the middle of May. If she had been in Pahrump, or Las Vegas, Danielle knew that she would have to be inside somewhere, glad of the air conditioning. Here in British Columbia, it was barely 65 F. They passed the last highway junction before the ferry facility and followed the road out onto a narrow causeway built of large boulders. Tickets paid, they took their place in the line up for the ferry. It took about an hour for the Queen of Burnaby to arrive, unload, and take on the vehicles and passengers for their trip to Duke Point, on Vancouver Island.

  Up on the passenger deck, the five travelling companions took seats on the outside deck, with a full view of the remarkable ocean scenery, surrounded by snow capped mountains. Danielle was deeply affected by the experience. She could see more potential in the world than she had ever imagined before in her life. The city of Vancouver was framed so remarkably by the mountains, the forests and the ocean. On board the ferry were so many happy travellers, most of them families with children. 'This is the life!' thought Danielle.

  Kenji headed off to explore the ship, and see if there was anything else for the children, which left Malaika and Danielle, to watch over Angelica and Haruto.

  "What do you think of Canada so far, Danielle?" asked Malaika. "Kenji and I have visited B.C. every summer since Angelica was born."

  "It's amazing!" answered Danielle. "So different from Nevada. All I can think of myself, is: How can I live here too?"

  "I feel that way too, sometimes. Kenji and I are pretty established with jobs and a house in San Bernardino. Getting immigration status in America, and gaining citizenship was tough enough. I don't think we will ever try to live in Canada, but we do love to visit," explained Malaika.

  "How did you two get your status?" asked Danielle.

  "Well, we really took advantage of our positions in our factions. Both of our faction bosses were able to pull some strings and get us to the head of the immigration queue. Kenji had his green card by the time we met you, and mine came in a few months later. We got married to speed up citizenship, and never went back home. We met several ex agents who advised against returning. Family members visit us here, in California. I guess you could say that we turned against our factions, as soon as we had our lives secure here in North America. Not exactly what our boss AIs had in mind when they sent us."

  "Yes, I have a feeling that I might be doing the same thing. At first, the excitement of doing something so unusual and being paid well for it was all I needed, but it didn't take long to have second thoughts. Talking with you two brought my misgivings to a whole other level, and I started to see through some of the material given to me by Arachnid. This trip is also changing the way I think. You two have such a lovely family, and seeing Washington and B.C. makes me think that I should move. Just hanging out with your children has taken a huge load off my shoulders. I was really getting overwhelmed by the thought of taking on another time mission. This trip has given me something else to think of, and I like these thoughts way better than my old ones!" Danielle took in a big breath of the fresh ocean air.

  "I know where you are coming from, Danielle. You haven't seen even half of it, either. We land just outside Nanaimo, which is a nice small city. From there, we go north and the cities get smaller and smaller. Half way up Vancouver Island, and it really is the boonies. Grizzly bears, cougars, hardly a building for miles at a time. Port Hardy is small, and feels like you are back in time forty years. We get on the ferry there, and the fun really begins. You won't believe how exotic and remote the coastline is. They don't even have access to the power grid in the few communities that exist. No road connections either! That is why our team members chose to live up there. It's cloudy all of the time, and has hardly any people, especially in the winter. They have made some serious progress in determining what happens in the future, and building the machine Kenji was telling you about," explained Malaika.

  "I am genuinely curious about what is up there, but I have to warn you. Right now, I am pretty star struck by this part of North America. Hanging out with you two, and seeing all these other families on the boat, I am imagining doing the exact same thing here myself. Washington and Oregon look great if I can't immigrate to Canada, but somewhere up here in the Pacific northwest looks like a place to call home, to me. I have saved enough to establish myself here, I think. This air is so fresh, and I love all the green! I will meet your people, but keep in mind the possibility that I might be asking you two to let me off in Vancouver or Seattle, on the way home! Well. I guess that I would go back to San Bernardino to pick up my car, but you know what I mean." Danielle was really experiencing a life altering moment on this ferry.

  "Warning received, and I can't say as I blame you. We will take you to our destination. The name of the place is Ocean Falls and I am sure you will be amazed by everything there. Decades ago, Ocean Falls was a big town with thousands of people, but it was abandoned in 1980. Everything is still there, but mostly left to rot. If you don't want to take part in the mission, they will just have to find somebody else. I know that they are working on some other candidates. Truth be told, they have the next thirty years to find the right person, if it isn't you."

  Suddenly, some children at the guard rail started pointing down towards the ocean about 500 metres from the ferry. Danielle stood up to look at what they were pointing at, and was amazed at the sight. "Malaika, bring the children, there are whales!" said Danielle with glee in her voice. Sure enough, four big humpback whales were sounding on the surface of the choppy blue water. Danielle could even see the huge tail flukes of one of them, and several columns of white mist shooting up from their blowholes.

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  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  At the end of the ferry trip, the family returned their motor home and they drove down the ramp into the Duke Point terminal. From there it was another three days driving until they reached the northern tip of Vancouver Island, and their next ferry terminal. They stayed overnight in beachfront campgrounds and played with the children in the ocean. The whole trip was eye opening to Danielle. The communities were so varied! The largest cities were set up like most cities Danielle had been to. Franchise businesses and such. But the small communities were all so different! Some places were just island communities with or without ferries of their own. Fishing ports, logging operations, farming communities and retirement towns. Some places seemed incredibly cute and appealing, but had no obvious ways of making a living other than tourism. Danielle wondered just how a person could sign up to live in such places. She even found herself wondering if there were many single guys available.

  Port Hardy, the location of the west coast ferry terminal, really was the end of the road on Vancouver Island. The ferry to the central coast of BC departed just 3 times per week, and the departure time was quite late in the evening. It was already dark, and the children were sleepy, when Kenji guided their motor home over the ramp and onto the rather battle worn ferry. Kenji carried Haruto to the elevator, and Angelica needed some encouragement, but eventually all five made it up to the passenger seating. There was no chance of sitting on the outer decks on this trip, as it was quite windy and rainy outside.

  "It's always like this up here, Danielle. I don't think I have ever seen a daytime temperature over 70 Fahrenheit, in Ocean Falls. It's always cold and damp. The forests are unbelievably lush,' explained Malaika.

  "When do we get to Ocean Falls?" asked Danielle.

  "It takes a while. Almost a day, and we will be arriving in the dark. Try and get some sleep tonight, here in the lounge, and tomorrow night we will be able to sleep the night in the motor home. I brought a blanket for each one of us."

  "Sounds good," replied Danielle. Their boat was about as far as you could get from cruising on a luxury ocean liner. Apparently, the Ocean Falls ferry visited a half dozen different remote communities. It was a repurposed old ship, that originally carried vehicles and passengers to Vancouver Island in the 1970s. Ironically, Danielle saw several such luxury cruise ships, that night, making their way up the same coastal route as their BC ferry. The only trouble with them was that they never stopped in Ocean Falls. From the sounds of it, almost nobody stopped in Ocean Falls. Less than fifty people lived in the community year round, including just 6 children. This was going to be quite the place.

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  Theirs was the only vehicle to depart the ferry at Ocean Falls. Being that it was cool, raining, and totally dark out. Danielle couldn't see much of the town. There were some street lights, some smaller buildings and one big one that looked like a large hotel. Through the mist and rain, she could also see some lights up on the side of the closest mountain. "Its Derrick," said Kenji.

  A man with a large flashlight signalled for them to stop in front of him, and he walked to the drivers side of the motor home. "Kenji! You guys made it! Welcome back to Ocean Falls. He even shone his flashlight towards the back window where Danielle was sitting. "Danielle is with you too! We are all so excited to meet her. That is so great! Hey! I cleared a nice spot for you up in the driveway beside my house. I will drive up with you and show you how to park in the space. I even have septic and power connections set up for your vehicle."

  They drove along the paved road for about a mile, to get to Derrick's house. With some difficulty Derrick and Kenji managed to swing the motor home into the parking location. They levelled things out and connected up the power and septic lines. Haruto and Angelica slept through the whole experience. By the time everything was all done, it was midnight. Derrick's wife came out to greet everyone, but since it was so late, the adults were also ready to sleep.

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  The next morning Danielle was the first to wake up. The two children were still sleeping soundly when Danielle decided to dress herself and go outside. She had to see this place in the daylight! Doing her best not to disturb Kenji and Malaika in the forward bunk, she quietly opened the exit door and stepped onto the crumbling pavement of Derrick's driveway.

  "Oh my God!" she said to herself, as she caught her first glimpse of the Ocean Falls fjord. The whole of the Pacific Northwest had been humid compared to Nevada or California, but this place took it to a whole new level. Danielle had always wanted to see a real jungle rainforest, and she had imagined hot damp conditions with tropical vegetation. Well, this was definitely a rainforest but not a tropical one. Huge coniferous trees grew everywhere that wasn't sheer rock. Shrubby vegetation and ferns covered every square inch of the ground underneath the trees. The water of the deep ocean fjord was dark blue, almost black. Just like most of the coast, there was very little usable coastline except at the head of the valley, where the bulk of the town stood. Even from this distance, most of the town's buildings looked abandoned. Looking up the slope into the subdivision Derrick's house was a part of, yielded the same results. More than half of the houses looked as if they hadn't been lived in for many years. Moss covered the fences, moss covered the asphalt shingle roofs, and moss even covered the staircases leading up to the houses. "What a place!"

  Danielle took a walk around the neighbourhood. Aside from some roosters crowing there wasn't much going on at 6:30 am. Eventually she saw a few households stirring so she made her way back up the hill towards Derrrick's place. Derrick's wife noticed her from her kitchen window, opened the door and invited her in.

  I'm Michaela," she said, introducing herself with a noticeable Australian accent. "Come on in and I will get you something to eat! I am so glad you made it up here to Ocean Falls. Derrick will take you downtown to meet the team, when he gets up."

  "Downtown?" asked Danielle.

  "Yes, I guess that we exaggerate when we say that, but there was a time when it was downtown. Not much is left of it nowadays, except for the post office and a tiny store. The project building is up by the power station. Do you know much about Ocean Falls, Danielle?"

  "Not really. Malaika told me a few things."

  "Back in the day, they wanted to build a big pulp mill and a saw mill. They dammed the big lake up above town to raise the water level, and build a hydro plant. Fifty megawatts! When the mills shut down there just wasn't any use for the power. Three disgruntled Arachnid agents got up here in 2005. Derrick and I moved here in 2011. I'm ex Serpent in case you hadn't figured it out from my accent. Kenji met Derrick in California just before we met you and heard about their idea: Use the dam to power their own time machine! It's pretty much ready to go now. We've been keeping a low profile here in Ocean Falls. It's kind of an ideal place for that. No cameras, no surveillance, and it's so cloudy all the time even the satellites can't watch over us. Oh, there he is, Derrick's getting up. You'll be at the project before you know it!"