"The Island" (Primary IC Thread)

A young boy ran up the side of the Inner Cone with the excitement and energy that only a child could exhibit. He stopped just short of the small group inspecting the coffee bushes and fell to the ground, trying to simultaneously speak and catch his breath.

"Doctor ... Brown ... there ... is a ... boat," was all he got out before he flopped onto his back and stared up at the clear sky, gasping.

Robert Brown excused himself from the group, instructing one of the participants, "Check the rest of this row, then move onto the Meat Nut trees. We need to plan harvest dates."

The 64 year old American Expatriate headed down the hill at a comfortable pace, flanked by two members of the farming community with whom he continued to talk shop. At the bottom of the hill, he jumped into an awaiting electric cart, instructing the driver, "Tell me about it, Akio."

"Motor yacht, forty, maybe forty-five foot," the man began as he shot the six seat transport down the dirt road. "They responded to our hails immediately, adjusting course and speed. They seem to be cooperating."

"ETA?"

"Forty minutes," Akio answered, shifting the electric motors controls to enable the vehicle to begin the climb up the long, steep road ahead. "They've been told to hold station a mile out and await further instructions, and their Captain acknowledged the order."

"Very good."

Brown grasped the vehicle's hand holds tightly, knowing that the urgency of the situation would result in a rougher than normal climb up the switchback road. Ten minutes passed before Brown saw the agricultural lands of the crater's interior disappear over his shoulder and the small town on the volcano's exterior appear directly ahead. It was another seven minutes before Akio pressed his foot to the electric brake and skidded the electric cart to a stop just short of the cliff overlooking the docks 80 feet below.

Brown entered a small shack with a sign over the top identifying it as the Port Authority building. He moved with the same easy pace with which he'd descended the inner cone. His exterior calm, though, was only a façade: inside, his heart was beating with excitement.

The island of Ashima hadn't seen visitors in almost three years. Two decades ago, when Brown first arrived at the South Pacific island, there had been as many as 20 boats a month and even an occasional float plane. There were so many people flocking to this remote rock in the ocean -- certain that there would be safety here from the Plague that was spreading across the globe -- that the Islanders had had to build three additional quarantine buildings at the Port.

As he listened to the Radio Operator giving instructions to the Captain of the vessel -- now less than three miles from shore -- Brown considered the irony of being this excited about visitors. Once the virus had reached the islands of the South Pacific and nearly every boat had cases of the Plague, newcomers were turned away without question, sometimes with lethal force. Yet today, Brown and the others were prepared to welcome these new arrivals with open arms, once they'd endured the standard quarantine period and battery of medical tests.

Because of you, Robert, Brown thought to himself. Because of you, we need these people.

Doctor Brown had saved the people of Ashima twenty years ago with a vaccine that could only have been created here on the island. Most of the islanders considered Farmer Brown to be their savior. But at the same time, there was a bit of regret that ran through the community, the result of a vaccine side effect that Brown could never have anticipated: every woman on the island who'd been immunized -- which meant all of them, young and old alike -- was now infertile.

The last child to be born to an Ashiman native had recently turned 19 years of age...


I will be creating a "Seeking Writers" thread shortly.

If you are interesting in writing a character -- male or female, breeding stock or not -- you are welcome to PM me now for more information. It will still be many days before we are ready to actually begin posting, but we can at least begin creating characters and their backgrounds.

Please do not post to this RP yet.