By the time we got to the Curiosity Bay station, the fog had mostly burned off. Erick had told us to meet at the bus stop just past the front gates of the school. A group of students clustered in front of a short, carved marble sign that read Kimbal University and Institute of Science and Technology in gold letters. Henry, Tamara and I awkwardly positioned ourselves a couple of meters away from them and waited for the shuttle to appear.

It didn’t take long before one of the college kids meandered over to us, a tallish, relatively curvy Asian girl with black hair in a pixie cut. “Hey,” she said, “are you guys here for Professor Gomez’s survey?”

“Yup,” I answered.

“Fresh! I was hoping we’d get some more people signing up. It’s been getting really hard to manage all the digging with only the group we had.” She thrust her hand out at whichever one of us would take it. The three of us stared for a moment before Tamara finally moved to shake her hand.

“I’m Scylla,” the girl announced.

“Is that the name your mama gave you?” asked Henry.

Tamara jabbed him in the ribs with her left elbow, hard enough to make him flinch. The girl, on the other hand, seemed unfazed.

“Technically, it is. Priscilla. But I shortened it in high school, because, hello! Did you know there’s a huge monster named Scylla in the Odyssey? She’s got six arms and four eyes and she devours all the unwitting sailors that venture into her realm. And her best friend is a monster whirlpool. I mean, what’s not to love there?”

Henry nodded agreeably, apparently deciding that Scylla had passed the test.

“So, are you guys freshmen? Do you know what you’re majoring in yet?”

I looked from Tamara to Henry before finally saying, “Actually, we’re high school students. We go to the Academy in Tierra Nueva.”

Scylla grinned. “Fresh! I graduated from there last annum. Hey, hey, does Mr. Aguilar still do the announcements over the intercom every afternoon? Like, ‘Haaaave a nice day!’?” Her voice squeaked on the last word, in imitation of our vice-principal. Then she laughed, and, not waiting for an answer, chattered on, “Aw, I’m so glad you guys are here! I didn’t know they were opening the dig up to high school students. I guess they couldn’t find anyone else from Kimbal to volunteer? We really could use some more people. I wonder if they’ll open it up to other schools. My sister goes to Central—”

“They’re not here because they volunteered, Priscilla.”