Taterskin & The Eco Defenders: Book 2, Chapter 33
Book 2 ("Tell It to Future Generations"), Chapter 33 of 56
CHAPTER 33
We were overjoyed to hear of the resounding success of our plan. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire never happened, and the people who would otherwise have died there lived long, prospered, and brought many children into the world.
Clara Lemlich, along with Buzz Beesnees, was left in charge of any future work that needed to be done. As they knew and we knew, a victory today doesn’t necessarily mean future victories won’t also be needed. Vigilance must be maintained, and diligence must be practiced. Carelessness on our part could lead to a return to “the bad old days,” as Clara referred to them.
We trusted Buzz and Clara, though. We were ready, especially after our long hiatus in the park, to get back to work.
While meditating on our next and final operation before returning to Zenia, Albert realized that he needed to modify the JNGs. As we wanted to land on the Amazon River, he told us he first needed to fashion and construct some floats to attach to the bottom of our JNGs.
To make a long and — for most of us — boring story short (Albert revels and “geeks out” in that kind of thing, but the rest of us just watched and rather impatiently waited), in a matter of a few days the work was done, the floats attached, and we prepared for departure.
So it was that early one morning in late Spring we left Central Park. As we lifted off, the display on the GPS/CPS read:
Location: -2.926496, -60.546356 (these were the coordinates for the exact spot on the Amazon between Serra Baixa and Novo Airão where we intended to land)
Date: 1978
It only took us a little over three hours to reach our destination from New York. We flew low, in order to enjoy the scenery. Our course took us mainly over the Atlantic Ocean, but an especially interesting leg of the trip was when we flew precisely between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, with the former on our right (to the West) and the latter on our left (East).
Albert told us about how Hispaniola, which is divided into Haiti on the western third of the island, and the Dominican Republic on the eastern side, was invaded by a guy named Kris Colombo or something back in the 15th Century. He had horrifically abused the people there. Maybe we’ll have to come back another time and do something about that.
Shortly thereafter, we reached the northern edge of South America, near Caracas, Venezuela. We switched our JNG-Fs (JNGs with Floats attached) into manual mode and flew around the perimeter of the continent, on a southeasterly tack, until we reached the mouth of the Amazon River. Then, turning to the west (or right), we followed the river inland. We first passed over Marajó Island, which is approximately the size of Switzerland, then continued following the blue serpentine ribbon below us for a good 20 minutes before we reached our destination between Serra Baixa and Novo Airão.
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