Henry stepped outside the building followed by Jacob, fishing rod in hand, and Kenelm.

The sub stood right behind the building at the moment making it cast a long shadow over them. It was warm but not nearly as hot as Henry had imagined the desert to be.

"Let's try that dune over there." Said Henry, pointing at the sand dune right next to the one they were standing on.

They walked over and tried to make a flat circle on the top of the dune.

"Have you done this before or something?" Jacob asked.

"Not really, I just imagine it can't be that difficult." Henry answered. "Now put the fishing rod kind of in the middle please." He looked at the compass, it took a second to focus itself and then it pointed north. Henry started walking in a circle around the fishing rod, then marking the most north and south point of the circle, then east west and after that filling in the spaces in between.

"Well it kind of works, I mean, I get it." Said Kenelm.

The three men stood there for a second with a misplaced feeling of pride for the terrible sundial they had just drawn in the sand.

"But like, aren't day and night circles a thing though the earth curving, I mean this doesn't really work unless it's noon." Kenelm continued.

"Well yeah, but we don't need an exact time right? Only an estimation. And comparing it to mine, let's see." Henry took a quick glance at his watch. "Seven forty-five it seems that we are like what? Somewhere between 5 and 9 hours later? Also we are in the northern hemisphere, since the sun is south of us. Either that or this thing did not work at all."

"Well it does narrow it down quite a bit. Are there deserts in Asia?" Kenelm asked.

"Yes there are, there is one in China and one in Kazatsdan." Jacob said.

"Sorry, what was that second one?" Henry asked.

"Kazatsdan, you know from that Borat character."

"Kazakhstan Jacob." Kenelm corrected him.

Henry chuckled a bit and Jacob was about to turn a bit red when he heard a scream back from the building.

"Linette." He exclaimed and started running back, immediately followed by Kenelm and Harry, leaving the fishing rod stuck in the sand.

Before Henry and Kenelm reached the stairs Jacob had already disappeared behind the first flight of stairs. "I am coming darling." Henry heard him scream.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

When Henry and Kenelm arrived upstairs they saw Linette crying in the hallway, Jacob was holding her and trying to comfort her. Still in Robert's hallway they found Fiona sitting on the floor. Neneh was in the apartment, she had covered Robbert's body with a blanket. The smell of blood still tainted the air. They stood there in silence for a bit, just looking at eachother. A few moments later Garry also came upstairs.

"What's going on?" Garry asked, entering the apartment.

"Well, Robert is dead." Neneh said rather matter of factly.

"What? How do you mean dead?" Garry asked.

"So I am going to wait outside if you don't mind." Kenelm said leaving the room.

"Dead as in not alive anymore dead." Neneh said. "If I had to guess I'd say he was killed."

"How do you know that?" Garry asked with an offended tone in his voice like he was being accused.

"Well I am a nurse in real life. You know, when we are not playing in the desert, and I am guessing from where the knife was sticking out of his neck he didn't stab himself. So he was either cutting something behind his back, whilst walking halfway towards the living room or somebody stabbed him."

"So you don't happen to be by any chance a detective in real life are you Henry?" Garry asked.

"Sorry, I'm an accountant."

"So what do we do now?" Garry asked.

"Well, I am going to clean this mess up a bit and then look for an Atlas."

"Can I help?" Garry asked.

"Well the cleaning I can do myself, not the first dead person I have seen this week. But you can go around the bookshelves over there to see if Robert had anything with timezones on it?"

Henry stood there still, a little bit in shock. He knew Neneh was a nurse but he was not expecting her to react so calmly to the entire situation. After a moment he, without speaking a word, sauntered towards the book case where Garry was looking at the back of the books. Garry was looking at the top shelves so Henry decided to start searching at the bottom and kneeled down.

"Ah, I think I found it." Garry said just before Henry started checking the second shelf from the bottom.

It was a big blueish book with a picture of the globe on the front of it.

"Is the cleaning part going to take long?" Henry asked while standing back up.

"Well the body is gonna start smelling bad pretty soon. I don't know if you or Missus Frost are any good at detective work or if we feel like we need the body a lot longer but I suggest we get this out of the building as soon as possible." Neneh said.

"What?"

"Well missus Frost was clear about you two hearing a thud this morning, and that was after you went outside and found out that we were misplaced. So you two have a pretty strong alibi together, the rest of us were unaccounted for except for spouses in the cases of Jacob and Linette and Garry and Anna. And since we are in the middle of the fucking dessert. Kya bakchodi chal rahi hai. One of the other people living here must have done it. That or somebody else stabbed Robbert and I don't know what idea I like less so let's go with the most likely one."

"Well, when you put it like that." Henry said, kind of dumbfounded. He did not realize there was only a very small list of suspects until Neneh just said it.

"So I suggest we meet back up at missus Frost's and see if we are all having the same idea about this situation." Garry said. "Because, honestly, Neneh has got a point here. And I really want to get out of this situation, but I also have a kid and a wife to keep safe."

Henry let out a sigh, he still hadn't had breakfast but thanks to the situation he also completely lost all his appetite. "Well fine, in the meantime, you all can look around in this book and see if there is anything helpful in there.