April receives this news with a noncommittal grunt, which is how she's been responding to most things since they left the house.

By the time the plane takes off, it's getting later. The first leg of their flight, she is informed over the loudspeaker by the captain, will be about 4 hours and 30 minutes. 

Can she spend that time grumpily cuddling her cat?

Pippi has already found her lap and curled up in it. She's purring and has one eye closed, the other is only open a slit. 

Success.

The second leg of the flight, after an hour's stop in the Caymans, is about as long. The captain, over the loudspeaker, wishes them a nice night, telling them they'll be landing in the morning. 

Between sleeping on the plane and arriving without having slept, April very reluctantly chooses the former.

When they land, a customs agent comes onto the plane to ask her for her passport, though it's pretty clear that her papers are only being checked over in a perfunctory way. 

A car waiting at the runway drives the three of them to the marina, where they board the Jennifer Lawrence to head to Saint Genevieve. 

The boat is sparsely populated by crew (though the ones she does run into greet her warmly), and on the observation deck there's what appears to be a plastic holder for tourist flyers, half-empty, with brochures welcoming her to Saint Genevieve. 

Sure, she'll take a brochure. It beats staring moodily at the horizon, which is her other main option for entertainment at this point.

The brochure is actually more of a several page long booklet, intended as an orientation guide and welcoming packet to new or temporary visitors to the island. It has a map of the island (complete with a name-and-number sort of legend that you'd find at amusement parks, though in a much more corporate style), a map of the surrounding area of the island and the paths that the Jennifer Lawrence and her sister ships the Tilly and Lopez take to the surrounding islands (the map places Saint Genevieve about five miles north of Grenada and five miles west of Ronde Island), and a surprisingly long and in depth The History of Saint Genevieve section. 

Oh, do tell her all about The History of Saint Genevieve.

The volcanic island of Saint Genevieve was populated by British settlers until the year 1784, when a massive volcanic eruption destroyed about half the island, and killed about 300 people. Due to continued volcanic activity, the British government declared the area off-limits, a restriction which remained in effect for 150 years. 

 

In September of 1940, Winston Churchill ordered that the island be occupied by the Royal Navy, as place where it could be used for research into developing military technologies, due to its distance from German spies and other populated areas. Within a year, "Marlborough Park" was up and running, with the scientists and military taking advantage of the enriched soil and abundant geothermal energy provided by an active volcano to make the scientific outpost entirely self-sustaining. 

So it's been Crime Island for a while now, has it.

In August 1942 the British invited the American Military to join Marlborough. The newly formed United States Office of Strategic Services got expanded the size and scope of the facility significantly, adding a deep network of subterranean rooms and tunnels, as well as a service port that could accommodate a Gato-class US submarine. By the end of the Pacific stage of WWII, Marlborough had created or assisted in the creation of dozens of "spy toys" and clandestine Military weapons, helping end the war cleaner and faster. 

She snorts.

Pippi perks up her head to to see what's going on, and when it's clear she's reading the brochure, puts a paw on the page to keep her from turning it so she can read alongside her. 

"Sure." Lil scritch.

Pippi nuzzles her hand. 

Post WWII, the United States military and intelligence services took over Marlborough entirely, leasing it from the British and renaming it Donovan Station. There, they continued the tradition of innovation and research, to build various advanced technologies that could be used in a variety of clandestine applications. This work, plus providing a  useful place to keep an eye on nearby communist Cuba, kept the facility well-funded until the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR in 1992, at which point operations were wound down and the base was vacated. 

"Uh-huh..." She makes sure Pippi is done with this page before turning it.

In 1993 the island and all remaining infrastructure was purchased by a group of real estate and entertainment investors, the Genevieve Development Partners, who had the idea of converting the island into a theme park. They renamed Donovan Station to a more friendly Jenny's Bay (the name which it has held to this day), and planned a high-end hotel, casino, and amusement park, with moorage for cruise ships and yachts. They went so far as to approach Universal Pictures to license some of the characters for use in their rides, including Woody Woodpecker for a wooden roller coaster and a Chilly Willy toboggan ride. However, due to competing visions, high development costs, and graft, the plans fell apart, and to cut their losses, the Genevieve Development Partners sold everything on the island of Saint Genevieve to Albany Hospitality, the current stakeholder of the island -- most of it for pennies on the dollar. 

Ah. So a brief stop in attempted tourism between Spy Crimes and Regular Crimes.

Rather than attempt to continue to develop Saint Genevieve as a tourist destination, Albany Hospitality decided to take the island back to its roots, refurbishing the old labs and power systems with modern equipment, and inviting various science and technology companies to work there in an environment full of abundant clean energy, relative solitude, and with less regulatory impediments to their endeavors than they might find in other places, allowing for accelerated growth. In only a year, several companies had moved a large portion of their R&D departments to Saint Genevieve, working in a wide variety of fields such as biotech, security software and hardware, satellite and telecommunications development, agricultural innovation, and alternative power. Over time, further companies and independent interests have also invested in the island, leading to the environment you can find there today. 

Thus ends the history section of the brochure. 

"Crime Island, Explained," she mutters, hopefully quiet enough that only Pippi can hear.

Pippi meows gently, nuzzles against her again, and hops out of April's lap, wandering off to take a short walk around the ship.