She smiles back. "Mabel Caldwell, very new, forgive me if I fumble your name at some point. It's nice to meet you. I haven't heard a lot about you, but I'm sure it would be good if I had."

"Aye, you're new to us all around here. We'll be doing our best to welcome you. I hear you have some kind of... What did he even call it? Anomalous ability?"

"I know some tricks, but it's figuring out how to get the most use out of them that's the important part."

"Well, our Captain's a diligent and clever man. Bet we'd all be frozen solid in London if not for him."

"I think not sailing off and abandoning your people is important in a leader and he doesn't seem like the type to do that at all. I'm sorry to hear you used to be ruled by people who would."

He shrugs and grimaces. "The Lords were gits, but I don't think it's quite that simple. Fear does terrible things to you, and I'd know. Fought the French. The front lines make you desperate, stupid. This winter's the same. But all we can do is our best, aye?"

"Aye," she agrees. "How long has the world - been like this?"

"It's been... Four, five months since it got really bad? Yeah, about that long."

"Anyone have an idea about why?"

"Didn't the scouts find something about volcanoes?"

"Yeah. But I don't know if it's true or not."

"Sorry, we don't really know. Everything fell apart pretty quick."

"It's hard to imagine. I'm glad you were able to - build something organized, here. Do you know how the rest of the world is doing?"

"We have no idea whatsoever, unfortunately. I know the equatorial regions were even less prepared than our Lords were... I know there were supposed to be hundreds of these cities, hundreds of generators... But we don't know. That's part of why we have the scouts looking around."

"When you say supposed to... how far in advance did anyone know about what was going to happen? How long did you have the Generators?"

"Sorry, you'll have to ask the Captain that one. I just know that it's been maybe two months since the Lords got worryingly paranoid and controlling, and three weeks since the big escape."

"How did power work, before - was it mostly only the Lords who governed, or were there others?"

"Lords, rich people generally, the police, the army brass... I was more in charge than most, but still answered to a lot of folks."

"Could you tell me more about how the big escape happened? What went on in between people finding out and them stealing the boats?"

"I'll tell it from my perspective. I don't think anybody has the full story. So one day the Lords handed out guns to everyone they thought was loyal - what was left of the local police included. We were told to 'subdue the rioters' and 'restore order so the city can survive'. But we knew something was seriously wrong by then, so we argued. They wouldn't budge. Sent us out and told us we'd get lynched if we didn't disperse the budding riot. Then, they tried to head for their ocean liner. Sounded like it wasn't quite ready but they were running for it, thinking staying any longer was too risky. Someone overheard them heading out and the rumor spread like wildfire. Then the mob came, and us guards and police... Tried to talk them down, but not very hard, then most of us joined them. Some stuff started burning, some people started shooting. I ended up guarding four families huddled in a janitor's closet until a friend of mine found us and told me the Lords were gone and there were commandeered evacuation ships for all us workers, but we had to go now, no going home to pack or anything, since some kind of storm was coming. And then we ran and got on the boats, and came up here."

She listens intently, then nods. "Thank you for your story. I don't know very much about what's happened here, so I'm trying to ask the right questions to build a picture. I heard rumours about the Lords trying to come here with weapons - is something like that is likely to be happening?"

"...Well, I don't want to frighten you, but they definitely had some. The Royal Navy had quite a lot of guns. I don't know if they'll manage to bring those if they're following us. We'll hopefully find them before they find us and we can figure out what to do then."

Hmm. "What sorts of resources do we have, if it comes to blows?"

His expression closes down. "Well I'd say you let us worry about that. We'll deal with it. Unless the Captain says otherwise, that is. You'd better go grab some breakfast and eat up - shift's starting up soon."

She… looks worried for a moment, then nods. "All right. Thanks for talking with me, Mr. Kant. I'll see you around."

Quickly digging into her untouched breakfast, she looks around for Mary Sheffield.

She's talking with the cooks and writing on a clipboard.

"-Last of the biscuits, just to get them out of the way. It won't affect the perishables schedule, we're making sure you get the oldest stuff first."

She eats her breakfast and waits for the conversation to end.