We had left from St. Albert's early, at six o'clock in the morning, which allowed us to arrive in London at a quarter to nine. Just in time to enter the British Museum – the first on a long list of museums, exhibitions and places that our teachers had planned for us to visit. One hour later, we were finally allowed half an hour to have breakfast in a small cafeteria located near the museum.

Most of the other girls were not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of taking a lengthy guided tour of the most important sights and museums, with our teachers acting as guides. To put it plainly, my classmates were bored, which was not so surprising seeing as how they had taken a similar excursion to London only half a year ago. I figured that there was also a good chance that they had visited the city many times before already together with parents, relatives or friends. All that kept these girls going was the anticipation of the afternoon, when we would be granted four long hours to spend as we liked. My classmates were planning to go shopping, or at least, window-shopping, at places like Harrod's, or, as in Natty's case, to browse through the multitude of London's second-hand bookstores and record stores.

It was different for me, of course. I was thrilled at the chance to see and visit all the famous sights, such as Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Tower of London.

Now, please don't get me wrong. There are, of course, excellent virtual reality walks you can take to explore each of these famous sights and landmarks, at least to the degree that our historians have been able to create digital 3-D models of them based on the sadly oftentimes only scarce data that survived the Cataclysm. But it is one thing to experience such a place within an however excellent VR environment, and quite another thing to actually experience the real London-that-was, to touch the stones and the leaves and the blades of grass and to talk to the real, non-simulated Londoners and tourists of that time as you walk there.

As you probably know, many cities destroyed in the ME2 wars or in the other conflicts and upheavals that preceded the Cataclysm, such as San Francisco or Casablanca, have been painstakingly reconstructed and rebuilt in the late 22nd century. Not so the City of London. One of the reasons for that is the unfortunate fact that, as is the case for so many other big cities, its remains literally have been buried under tons of rubble and debris. Thus, even in the early 23rd century archeologists are still busy organizing carefully planned digs and excavations of the most important landmarks of London-that-was.

In fact, I had a plan of my own for our free afternoon in London. I remembered the name of the London park where archeologists had found the famous Red Notebook, the one my roommate was going to put into a small metal box and bury there, some time in the near future. There had been a few other things enclosed in that box, too, plus a brief note written in the first person plural, indicating that a few of Natty's friends had participated in that endeavor. It occurred to me then that I might turn out to be one of those companions of hers. Anyhow, the name of that park was Hyde Park, and I intended to go there and have a look at the spot where Natty would bury the Red Notebook. I knew that Natty Fogg's journal had been found close to pieces of what must have been a huge bronze statue of some ancient Greek hero. I had seen photographs of parts of that statue, as well as sketches of what it must have looked like before its destruction, so I was confident that I would be able to find and identify it on a casual stroll through Hyde Park.

Thus was my plan. As it turned out, I never got the chance to go through with it.

When it was time for lunch, our teachers granted us those precious four hours of free time, to do with as we pleased. Natty took Nancy Kerrington and me aside.

"Look, there is something I need to take care of. Hopefully I will be back in less than four hours. If not, could you guys try and cover for my absence, in case that there are any problems?"

"Sure," Nancy replied. "I can't guarantee that this is going to work, though."

"Where are you going, Natty?" I asked.

Natty shrugged evasively. "It's kind of personal."

"Right." I considered my options. "Look, if you don't mind, I would like to accompany you. All that sightseeing stuff is kind of boring, anyhow."

Natty hesitated. "This could get you in trouble too, you know."

"I will deal with that if and when it comes to that."

"Alright. Come with me, then."

Natty led me on a swift route through the crowds of pedestrians. Shortly, we reached a bus stop.

Almost immediately, a bus arrived, and we got on it. I wanted to buy a ticket, but Natty waved it off.

"Don't bother," she told me, without further explanation.

At the next stop, we got off the bus and changed onto another line.

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked her.

"The orphanage," Natty replied. "We are going to pay a visit to my old orphanage."

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A / N :   As always, I thank you for taking the time to read this chapter, and I would ask you to post any thoughts, questions or ideas related to this chapter as comments or to send me a PM if you prefer that.