The duo had traveled quite far and fast for the remainder of the day until the sun started its descent behind them. They had reached and were now moving beyond where the coast had been once upon a time. The ocean seemed to have vanished entirely. Some remains and ruins were still visible where once there had been coastal towns and cities. It now formed an easy to follow line that indicated where the coast would have been about 200 years ago. With the sea gone all they could see was a beach extending as far as the eye could see.

Melissa was getting both sleepy and cold, so LRU_NULL made the call to head down to the seemingly infinite beach before the sun went down entirely. This way Melissa could get some sleep and they could seek shelter for the night. In doing so they wouldn't have to worry about how long the journey would be to reach the mainland on the other side, nor how long this endless waterless ocean stretched. Having no trust in the ability of its robot body to keep Melissa safe in an uneven area, DrOS had consciously flown past the city ruins and was now seeking flat ground among the peaks and valleys that were once the ocean floor.

Flying low DrOS found a decent spot, in a very slight valley, close enough to shipwrecks. With both wooden and metal scrap available they would be able to start a fire and build a shelter for the night.

Before long a makeshift camp was made by the robot while Melissa was dozing off. As she was falling asleep she mentioned that she could hear indistinct ruffling and some howl-like noises all around, she was however uncertain about distances. The robot could hear nothing so it flew up a small distance and scanned the region all around with both its optical and infra-red eyes. No movement or heat patterns were detected even at its most finely tuned settings. Having found nothing, DrOS set up another set of specialised sensors to work, which detected the same as it always did. These were the same readings as it got in the colony: some form of radiation that didn't seem immediately harmful to humans and had been present ever since DrOS was put in charge of colony 147.

Convinced there was no immediate danger, the robot lowered itself back to the ground and proceeded to patrol the immediate area until Melissa awoke the next day. Throughout the night LRU_NULL did pick up creaking noises from the nearby shipwrecks akin to material contraction. Since the noises remained at a fixed distance throughout the night, they assumed their initial assessment on the origin of the noise was correct. Though DrOS and Trisha were both convinced they were entirely alone, they remained on high alert all night as a precaution; nothing happened all night.

Melissa woke up and was greeted in a cheery manner, this was definitely Trisha. She was a little surprised as DrOS had seemed to be the front-personality on all occasions except on their first encounter. She decide to make a remark about it.

"No DrOS today?"

"Our AI guardian is rather busy right now, we're still both in control of this machine, though." Trisha replied with a soft smile, attempting to sound reassuring.

"What's it busy with? Did anything happen while I fell asleep?"

Trisha lowered the machine to Melissa's level.

"It is plotting our course for the day, it is convinced we can reach our destination before the end of the day." Trisha told her.

Melissa, knowing her teacher well, felt she was holding back some information.

"So, what aren't you telling me?"

Despite being mechanical, some mannerisms unique to Trisha were shining through and her unease as well as her surprise were showing clear as day.

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"It's hard to explain in any human form, but something about our sensor readings doesn't make sense; it's too consistent." Trisha hesitated on whether to continue explaining but decided to leave it at that.

"Miss," Melissa began, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what is it?" Trisha replied.

"What's it like, you know, in there?"

Trisha couldn't hold her laughter in at this question, although in reality she hadn't thought about it much up till this point.

"It's nice not to be dying," Trisha said offhandedly and without thinking, "Although I guess the real me is already dead..."

Trish went silent for a moment. Melissa started feeling slightly ashamed of having brought up the question and went quiet herself.

As if to break the silence, DrOS came back to life at that moment from its meditation.

"Whenever you're ready we can leave."

The silence continued for a few moments.

"What is wrong," DrOS asked, surprisingly aware of the situation, "What did Trisha say to disturb you?"

Melissa was reluctant to reply straight away.

"Ehm... " she began, "Something is wrong isn't it?"

The robot extended its arms so Melissa could jump in and they could start the next part of their journey.

"Get on," DrOS stated, "I'll explain on the way, but it would be best if we don't stay here for much longer."

Melissa obliged and they started to ascended in preparation for their travel across to the eastern continent.

While traveling up into the sky Melissa notices that all around them, thought some distance away from the campsite, there were multiple quite large slithering marks which she pointed out to DrOS. Neither of them was sure whether they had been there the night before, though both were certainly glad to be moving away now as quickly as possible.

"Since you were wondering," DrOS began as they started travelling eastward and before they reached speeds at which communicating would be hard, "As control AI of the colony I have access to an array of sensors that help me determine, if not what is going on on the surface, at least what the threat landscape to humanity is. What I've measured to this day does not correspond with how scared the first colonists were, nor how scared the current residents are."

DrOS paused to observe the landscape below. They had finally reached some water in what had essentially been an empty ocean. The knowledge that this should have been a vast ocean was based on his knowledge of olden maps as well as many recorded archives. From this high up they could see that what little water was present, was concentrating around the boundary lines between tectonic plates. It made little sense, such large quantities of water don't just disappear nor does it travel into the earth via the fault lines.

"The only measurement I could find that signalled threat across all my available sensors," DrOS continued after snapping out of his fascination with the ocean, now traveling over and past it, "Is the Davidson-Robina counter. It measures a form of radiation that was discovered around the time of the great migration. My programming tells me that as long as that radiation stays above a certain level, humanity is in danger above ground."

"So what about the levels? Is this radiation dangerous? I've never heard of it." Melissa shouted as the wind grew loud around them.

"I was never told what the radiation means, just to keep monitoring the levels. I was also instructed only to bring up the radiation to the colony if it dropped below a certain level. But there is a catch and this is why we need to find out more about what happened. This radiation never varies. This radiation stays at a constant level, and has remained at said constant and invariable level since humanity started monitoring it. Every form of detectable wave should fluctuate, but this one doesn't, this uncertainty makes me uneasy."

They were now going too fast to have any conversation, the wind was raging past them as they flew over to the other continent.

What was left of the ocean quickly turned back into desert, deep ravines and oddly shaped mountains, until the landscape eventually turned softer and smoother as they drew closer to what had once been coastline once more. This journey did take a while and there was little in the way of entertainment so Melissa spent the time watching the landscape below her change. The coastal cities on this part of the ocean had a quaint charm to them compared to the cities they had passed before. From the few buildings left more or less intact she could tell the houses were smaller in height but larger at their base and more widely spread apart. She tried imagining what the large spaces around each standing foundation was used for. Unfortunately for her she couldn't connect landscape with the concept of gardening like they would have had in the olden world.

As they moved away from the coastal areas she could see great remnants of dense greenery, covering creeks, valleys and mountains alike. All along the dried up remnants of rivers were periodic conglomerates of manmade structures, all rubble and certainly vacant now.

The mountainous terrain continued for quite a while, going flatter for a short period where all green had been replaced by yellow and brown. As the sun was starting to set, DrOS started slowing down before they reached the next mountainous area.

"We're close," DrOS announced, "I'm not sure exactly where we need to be though. After 200 years guidance is inaccurate, without humans to periodically adjust orbit that is."

Melissa didn't really understand what he meant, but DrOS suspected she wouldn't even before he said it.

"So, is there something I can do to help?" She asked desperately pretending she knew what was going on.

"From what little information remains of that time, I know we need to look for a valley between three mountains. It will likely be the most destroyed area we've seen till now." DrOS told her, almost confident that what they were looking for would be immediately recognisable.