Plans Changed

Paul Smith had been waiting near the Bixbus Drop Zone with a laptop in his hands. The device had been prepared for a specific purpose: Luke was to use it to establish a video call with their parents in Craigmore, a first step toward contact. The physical transit of Noah and Greta Smith through the Portal was not the agreed plan. When Paul saw his parents materialise at the threshold, still in their nightwear, his first reaction was profane and involuntary.

Noah Smith arrived in his dressing gown, Greta Smith in pyjamas printed with happy Jesus faces. Neither carried luggage. Neither had been given time to change. Jerome Smith came through behind them, nineteen years old and entirely without context for where he was or why. Paul jogged toward them, calling out, and was met with tight embraces and the immediate, familiar machinery of family. Greta's first words to Paul were not about the Portal, or the landscape, or the fact that she was standing in another world. She told him that Claire had been looking for him.

Luke came through the Portal last. He asked where Charles was. Noah, Greta, and Jerome answered in unison: Seminary. The synchronised reply drew a brief laugh from Paul before the scene turned.

Greta rounded on Luke. She demanded to know what he had done. Luke told her he had done what was necessary. Paul, noting that their parents were standing in an alien landscape in their sleepwear, asked whether it had not occurred to Luke to let them change first. Luke said it had not crossed his mind.

Noah's next question exposed the second fault line. He asked where the New Jerusalem was. Paul had not known that Luke had framed Clivilius as the New Jerusalem to secure their parents' consent. The question landed without warning, and Paul's reaction — a sharp look at Luke — went unanswered. Luke told Noah it was just over the hill.

Luke then announced that Paul would take them there. Paul's objection was immediate. He had not agreed to guide his parents toward a destination that did not exist in the terms they understood. Luke cut him off. Plans had changed, he said. Dad had wanted to go to the New Jerusalem instead. The deflection reframed Luke's own deception as Noah's preference, and Luke offered no further explanation.

Jerome broke the impasse by pointing toward a woman pushing a shopping trolley through the dust near the Drop Zone. Karen, a settler already established in Bixbus, had been moving garden supplies when Luke called her over. He introduced his parents and brother with a theatrical sweep of his hand. Greta stepped forward and wrapped Karen in a tight embrace. Karen did not reciprocate. Her arms stayed at her sides, her reply polite and brief.

Noah, still in his dressing gown and visibly self-conscious in the heat, drew Luke's acknowledgement that he ought to fetch them something to change into. Jerome, his gaze fixed on the still-active Portal, asked whether they could go home. No one answered him directly. Karen excused herself to return to her trolleys.

Paul placed his arm around Jerome's shoulders and told him it was not quite that simple. He offered to explain on the walk to camp. Luke agreed and gestured for the parents to follow Paul. Paul told Luke to bring their clothes to camp and not to leave them at the Drop Zone again. Luke stepped back through the Portal and was gone.

Paul led his parents and Jerome away from the Drop Zone. Behind them, the Portal's colours faded from the air, and the connection to the Smith family home closed.