Arriving guests—whether they came by boat, plane, or chopper—were all funneled into a cozy red-cedar reception hall where they sat by a fire and enjoyed a complimentary beverage while filling out bland but bloodcurdling waivers and getting a stern talking-to from a rugged senior guide. The guide had been picked out for his impressive physical presence, his authoritative voice, and a certain thousand-meter-stare quality in his blue-eyed gaze suggesting he’d seen shit you wouldn’t believe. He had important things to say, yes, about grizzly bears and slick footing, but his talk began and ended with remarks about water safety. These were bolstered with statistics and festooned with anecdotes, but essentially what he wanted you to know was that if you went into that water out there you would die. Even ankle-deep, the tidal surge would kick your legs out from under you with the remorseless precision of a jujitsu champion. As your upper body contacted the water you would go into shock from the intensity of the cold. You would gasp for breath rather than taking this one last opportunity to cry out for help. Within seconds your hands would be useless. The muscles of your arms would shut down in less than a minute. Some would simply go under and never come up, others would struggle to fight the current for a minute or two before hypothermia rendered their limbs useless. The resort abounded in hot tubs and swimming pools. Visitors who insisted on going into actual seawater would be directed to a sheltered, supervised cove five minutes’ walk away. But no one should go anywhere near the main channel without a survival suit and a rescue team.

Having driven that point home and made eye contact with each arriving visitor, the senior guide would then tack on a couple of footnotes about bears and excuse himself. A younger and more bubbly staff member would then prattle on about the spa and the indoor tennis courts while the ancient mariner would, one presumed, totter off to a dark corner of the bar to drink straight whiskey while gazing out over the chilly and violent waters of the strait and ponder death.

The only visitor who managed to avoid this introductory session was El Shepherd. As always, he stayed home in Zelrijk-Aalberg and shipped a telepresence robot to the site. It arrived a day early, hoisted out of the hold of a supply boat along with the resort’s usual supply of beer, broccoli, and laundry detergent. It was in a fetal position with a shipping label stuck to its back, blazoned with the name METATRON. For, having found these devices useful, El had executed a roll-up, purchasing a few companies that had been competing in the telepresence space, merging them into one, and giving them a snappy new brand name.