OPEN THIS AND READ THE CONTENTS BEFORE DOING ANYTHING, it reads on the plastic envelope. My head is spinning but I can still read. My fingers shake as I open the envelope. I hadn’t realized I was shaking. Mark hasn’t got up. Is he okay? I’m torn between the note and Mark. I need to read the note. I need to understand.
You must read this note in its entirety before doing anything else. This is a message from the Icelandic Coast Guard. The package we have delivered to you contains food and other essential supplies including desalination equipment, antibiotics and rehydration salts. The package has been sterilized. You are not at risk of contracting the Plague from this package.
If you have not eaten solid food in over three days you must start by drinking the powders in the RED BOX at the top of this package. Mix one sachet of powder into each bottle of water. It is a nutrient-dense powder you must mix and drink slowly. The food in the package and the nutritional packs have been selected by medical professionals. There is enough food here for fifty people to survive on for two weeks. We will provide another package every fortnight until there is a vaccine.
It is still not safe for you to reach land. The Plague has killed 90 percent of the world’s men. There is no vaccine yet, although scientists around the world are working to find one. As soon as Iceland has access to a vaccine, we will provide vaccines to you as a matter of priority. I hope you are managing and I apologize for the delay in providing food to you. Iceland has experienced extreme food shortages.
Please see enclosed a message for Toby Williams from Frances Williams. Frances has been instrumental in the organization of these supplies. She is a wonderful woman.
Heida Reinborg
Icelandic Coast Guard
Frances did this. The thought of her makes me weep. I have a message from her. It feels like a message from God.
Toby,
I’m not going to bother asking how you are because it must be awful. I miss you so much but hopefully things will get better now that you have food. You and Mark have to be okay, because you’re both fighters and so you’ll have survived. I’m certain of that.
Don’t be annoyed at Heida for taking so long to deliver food. It’s been a journey getting here but she’s a nice lady. She’s going to show us around Iceland when all of this is over.
I’m fine here in London. Still working in the library. They tried to assign me to work as a care assistant and, no offense, but I said the library was more important. I had to do a campaign but eventually we had over five hundred signatures from people saying the library had to stay open and so my job was deemed to be a “necessary form of work” and I don’t have to do something else in the draft.
Maisy, Ryan and Isabel are fine. Ryan’s immune, thank God. We’ve been so lucky, Toby. I know it doesn’t feel like it but honestly, we have. You’re probably thinking that’s easy for me to say with all the food and warmth and time with Maisy and Isabel I have, but you can be alive on the boat. You probably wouldn’t be alive here. They’re working on a vaccine. Lots of people in London and Canada and France and China and America. All over, they’re trying to find a vaccine.
Hang in there, okay? Everything’s going to be all right, I promise.
I love you.
Frances xxx
DAWN
London, United Kingdom （England and Wales）
Day 339
How is it that my latest promotion has resulted in me earning about 10 percent more and attending 80 percent more meetings? I’m now operations director of MI5, which is a title so senior I still jolt slightly every time I see my e-mail signature. My resentment of my packed diary is building as my long-suffering and wonderful assistant, Polly, passes me my schedule for the day. If I’d known how much work I was going to have to do, I’d have . . . oh, who am I kidding, I’d probably still have gone for the job. I’m enjoying being in charge （and I now have a corner office on the fourth floor with floor-to-ceiling windows）。