Journey 2 of 9 · After midnight · 00:40 · Alder quay, and the low town by launch

The Rescue

Where does your circle end?

After midnight the water is in the low town, and one launch goes out from Alder quay. Lucy has been calling the quay for an hour from a roof in Ferry Row; six people on the Low Streets have no radio at all. Then the night goes on, roof by roof: a school and a lock house, a promise at the footbridge, an arch with the water at its crown, and, with fuel for one more roof, the street where your nephew is.

Seven calls about how far your circle reaches, and what a promise is worth when keeping it costs someone else.

Play The Rescue →Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.

How it opens

The first scene, in the game’s own words. In the game each line is written into the drawing as you tap.

1. Twenty to one, Alder quay. You step down beside the coxswain into a launch already running, and the kettle has not boiled.
2. The water is rising fast, and the launch can reach one roof before the way across is shut.
3. Five people are on one roof in Ferry Row. One of them, Lucy, has been calling the quay for an hour.
4. Mara hands you the radio. Lucy tells you about her children, fast, and keeps saying your name.
5. On a roof in the Low Streets, which sent no word, are six people, and you know only the number.
6. Both roofs are in the same water. The launch can reach one, and the other waits until dawn.

Where do you send the launch?

The seven calls

After the first, each call is a new roof at the next place of the night, as the water climbs, and one of them turns the question on you.

1. Lucy on the radio
2. The school roof
3. What the coxswain asks
4. You are on the roof
5. You gave your word
6. Certainty or reach
7. The promise and the ten

The long night

When you have finished the journey you can play it whole: all twelve calls. These are the other five.

• Your own town
• Your crew
• A promise you inherited
• The mill owner’s offer
• The ones who stayed

It happened

The valley is invented. This is not: The Carpathia and the Titanic: would you race through the ice?

What the research says

This journey adapts questions that have been studied. These pages say what the studies found, with their sources.

• The identifiable victim effect: one voice against manyOne named person moves us more than a number, however large the number.
• In-group favouritism: your people firstPeople favour their own group even when the group was made up a minute ago.

Play The Rescue →Free. No account. Your place is saved on your device.

Next journey: The Distribution What does fairness require?