In the last hour before dawn, Porter and the last group of evacuees left the cannery.

He locked the gates from the outside as Charlie had instructed, leaving just Charlie and Merlin in the spaciousness within.

Seeing that the cannery had been basically restored to how it had been before, Merlin sighed as he said, "I have to say… The armed cavalry guards and the dead soldiers are supremely efficient. No one would have known that ten thousand people had passed through this place."

"To be fair,