True to his word, David has the cargo plane waiting for them on the runway when the bus finally hits the airstrip. CB has to swerve to avoid a curiously man-shaped indentation in the road, causing all the passengers to shout in alarm and protest. Once they pass the strange pothole CB eases off the accelerator, allowing inertia to slow the bus a bit before he tries the brakes. He’s a little worried about those brakes. He suspects they might be holding a grudge.

The bus shudders, the brakes squeal, and the strong smell of the wrong thing burning fills the interior. The bus finally stops fifteen feet from the cargo plane, and the loud bang and clatterclank that immediately follows suggests that it will never move again under its own power.

Street Ronin is sitting at Robert Thorpe’s desk, directing traffic.

It’s the most logical place: Thorpe is already connected to the island, has access to everything, and his office has enough room to accommodate some of the extra gear Crossfire brought along to allow their communications—specifically, the equipment that makes it possible for Red Shift to communicate when he’s moving at high speeds—to work properly with everything else.

Doctor Thorpe is not currently in the room—he’s overseeing the second phase of the evacuation—but a few of the other Thorpe Institute techs are sitting at other ad hoc stations set up in the office. Overmind and Lieutenant Bernard—despite the earlier levity, Street Ronin isn’t quite ready to start calling him “Doctor Enigma” just yet—are there, both trying to look calmer than they feel.

The “ad hoc stations,” Street Ronin notes, don’t actually look ad hoc. They look like they were intentionally designed to be used in the room. He also notes that they’ve stopped calling the room “Doctor Thorpe’s office,” and they’re now referring to it as “the bridge.”