Ron bravely rushed in and tried an inexpert karate chop to the neck. The gamer shrugged off the blow and whacked Ron in the shin.
Ron grunted in pain, stumbled backward, then fell on his butt on the floor.
I circled left, drawing the gamer’s attention away. “Knock him down the stairwell, and we’ll sue,” I threatened.
“Come on, let’s just go,” the actress whined. “I hate snakes.”
“There is no snake!” her partner snapped. “And even if there was, so what? It’s just VR. Help me think of a way to incapacitate them.”
“We’ll let you have the mail,” I negotiated. “We’ll take our souvenir from Luggage. We both win.”
Something brushed the back of my calf. I shied like a nervous horse, moving forward until the crowbar barred my way. What had that been? Some sort of trick? I refused to look behind me.
“I don’t trust you,” the gamer said blackly. “You—”
Simultaneous screams from the actress and Ron rent the air. A hugely long snake, as thick around as my calf, had struck Ron’s hand and wrapped its body around his torso. It was dark brown with a pattern of beige circles.
The actress bolted up the stairs. Ron shoved the coil off over his head, but it was already looping a second coil around.
I kicked the gamer’s wrist. When he dropped the crowbar, I seized it and struck the snake’s body. It writhed, but didn’t release its prey.
“Get it off!” Ron hollered. Another coil had tightened before he could shove it over his head. His right arm was now trapped beside his head. It was all that kept the snake from crushing his windpipe.
I hit it again.
Again, it shrugged me off.
“Angel!” Ron’s face turned red as the second loop tightened around his chest.
Desperately, I stabbed downward with the crowbar. Not only did I fail to pierce the scales, but the snake didn’t even seem to notice. It looped Ron again. I swung for the head, but missed. A jarring reverberation went up my arm as the crowbar struck the deck.
“Can’t. Breathe,” Ron wheezed. That’s what boa constrictors did: squeezed the air out of their prey’s lungs until it went limp and stopped struggling. Then swallowed it.
Stab it again? But whoever had programmed the snake seemed to have tinkered with it to make its scales invulnerable. I needed to find a weakness, something the programmer had missed.
Reptiles were cold-blooded.
Time for a desperation move. I shoved Ron down into the stairwell. He fell back with a splash and an astonished expression.
I threw myself flat on my stomach, reached out and caught a handful of his hair when he bobbed up, my grip viciously tight. I held his head above water. The snake thrashed underwater, and I worried that too much of it was still above deck, but then the thick coils loosened as it went torpid in reaction to the change of temperature. The weight of its numbed body dragged the rest of it into the dark green water. The tail whipped by me, scales slithering against my neck. It dropped down into the flooded depths. Gone.
I pulled Ron up far enough to get my hands under his shoulders, then heaved him out of the cold seawater, bumping up the steps. The front of my clothes soaked through from the contact. His lips were already blue, his body shivering with shock.
“We have to get him warm!” I started peeling off Ron’s wet clothes.
The gamer snorted. “You mean you do. You’re screwed.” He casually picked up the crowbar and a bag of mail and sauntered after his partner.
If I’d had a gun, I would’ve shot him in the back.
“Tad!” I yelled. “A little help here!”
Tad slunk out of the luggage room.
“He needs dry clothes. Start opening up trunks. Now.” My voice whip-cracked with authority.
Tad vanished again.
I removed every stitch of Ron’s clothing, feeling relieved when the VR protocols fuzzed my perception to preserve his modesty.
“Cold, so c-cold.” His teeth chattered. “Going into sh-shock.”
“Postmaster,” I addressed the VR persona, who’d backed himself up against the wall and out of the way, “do you have anything to warm him up?”
I meant a heater of some sort, but the postmaster produced a cup of tea from behind his counter. I wrapped Ron’s fingers around it, and he gulped it down. The warmth restored a bit of his colour, but he still needed help to dress himself in the brown wool suit Tad produced.
While we struggled to stuff his stiff limbs into the appropriate holes, I lectured Tad. “You showed good instincts to remain hidden at first, but you should’ve picked your moment and come out. The element of surprise would’ve really improved our situation.”
Silence, then, “I hate snakes.”
I curbed my anger and kept my voice level. “I’m not a fan of them myself, but we’re your teammates. If you want to pay off your debt, you have to help.”
I paused to let that sink in, then changed the subject. “Where did the snake come from?” I asked Tad. Surely, someone hadn’t had it in their luggage?
Pause. “How would I know?” Tad said.
Great. He was going to sulk. So be it.
The mystery of the snake nagged at me, but I shoved it aside for the time being. We needed to vamoose. Now. Five minutes ago would’ve been better. Water had begun to trickle over the stairwell.
I retrieved my cap, which had fallen off during the fight, then pulled Ron to his feet. He winced but didn’t scream, which meant his leg was only bruised not broken. While I supported Ron, his arm slung around my shoulders, Tad carried the bulky tarpaulins up to the next deck. We said goodbye to the distraught postmaster, then headed back toward crew quarters.
The hallway had acquired a distinct tilt by this point, the bow end of the ship lower in the water.
Thirty minutes wasted, Ron’s life almost lost, and all I had to show for it were two tarpaulins. I had to do better.
Chapter Eighteen
MIKE
Where was Angel? Mike’s chest felt hot and tight. He’d fought his way up and down the crowded decks of this stupid floating hotel from stem to stern at least three times, but hadn’t spotted her.
It was now 1:00 a.m., and the Titanic was clearly sinking, slanting down toward the bow. The last two lifeboats had almost finished loading. A seaman armed with a pistol held back the crowds so that ‘women and children’ could board first. It was obvious to all that there wouldn’t even be enough spaces for all the women, much less any of the men.
Mike loitered nearby, but it seemed less and less likely that Angel was going to show. She must have a different plan. He began to move through the crowds again, keeping his eyes and ears busy sorting Non-player VR characters from contestants.
“I can’t believe they’re just going to let all the men drown!” a man complained, exposing himself as a player. His face looked familiar—a sitcom actor maybe? “Don’t they know women and men are equal?”
“Women, the equal of men? What? Are you a suffragette?” another man demanded. Rough laughter broke out.
And then he heard a voice call, “Angel? Angel?”
A short, brown-skinned young man in a plain brown suit waved, trying to attract someone’s attention. Mike recognized him from the Golden Ticket Event coverage as one of Angel’s team members. Rising on his tiptoes, Mike strained to see over the hat of the man in front of him. There. No, wait, that wasn’t Angel, it was Dev.
With a yappy, white dog on a leash.
He tensed. What was she doing? Scratch that. It was obvious what she was doing, but why was she doing it? Helping those who’d hurt her partner in the vain hopes that they’d relent and release him from his coma? Disappointment settled on his chest like a fifty-pound weight. He’d thought she was smarter than that.
Mike ducked his head and back-pedaled, trying to lose himself in the crowd, but Dev wasn’t after him.
The little dog strained at the leash, yapping at a woman in a black dress seated in one of the life
boats. She wore a large plumed hat, instead of a veil, but Mike recognized the Widow Vincent.
Dev pointed dramatically. “That woman’s an imposter; she’s really a man!”
Immediately, a space opened up around the Widow Vincent as all his seatmates except Leona leaned away and looked askance. Penny Howenstein hid an amused smile.
“Well, I never!” Widow Vincent said in a high, quavering voice. “The nerve of some people!”
The burly seaman who’d been assisting ladies into the lifeboat frowned at him. “Take off yer hat. Lemme see yer face.”
“This is outrageous,” the Widow Vincent sputtered. But he removed the hat. He’d obtained a wig somewhere and drawn it back into a bun, but his jaw was quite masculine.
“I dunno,” the seaman said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve known Violet for years,” Leona said, fire in her eye.
“Liar! He has an Adam’s apple!” Dev yelled.
That did it. “Out of the boat with ye, and for shame!” The seaman grabbed Vincent bodily by the arm.
Vincent resisted. The lifeboat rocked in its cradle, making the other ladies cry out. Leona hit the seaman with her parasol.
If not for the dog, Mike would’ve laughed.
He hesitated, trying to decide if he should risk himself in an attempt to save Leona and Vincent or slip away. Maybe—
Dev let the leash slip. The little dog raced forward, yapping hysterically, and laid its front paws on the side of the wooden rowboat.
The world flickered. For one frozen instant the crowds vanished, replaced by navy seamen purposefully loading cargo. Pearly dawn light bathed the deck. And then night crashed back down on the Titanic’s deck.
A rangy white wolf replaced the dog, jaws slavering in a growl.
“Wolf!” All the real contestants—ten of the ladies on board, plus one officer with sideburns and a suspiciously ill-fitting coat—scrambled out of the way as the wolf jumped inside the cramped confines of the raft. It rocked even more wildly.
The VR characters looked bewildered by the screams. “It’s only a little dog,” one said.
“Help! That’s my dog!” Dev called. The crowd parted for her. Mike hesitated, then cursed under his breath and plunged after her. Vincent might be a surly git, but he didn’t deserve to fall into a coma. Besides, if he didn’t stop Dev now, she could well attack Angel next.
“Get it off me!” Vincent yelled. No falsetto this time, just raw panic. He struggled to hold its muzzle away from his face.
Bullets didn’t work on the thing. Leona wasn’t having any effect with her parasol. If it couldn’t be hurt, maybe he could tangle it in a net, trap it—?
In a flash Mike knew how to counter it. The wolf was running free, but the dog had had a leash.
He raised his voice and made it crack with command. “You, there!” he spoke to the burly seaman. “The dog is rocking the boat. Grab its leash and return it to its owner.”
It worked. The sailor scooped up the wolf as easily as Mike would a small dog and carried it toward Devon. It squirmed, but didn’t even try to bite him.
Faced with a snarling wolf about to be deposited in her arms, Devon fumbled out the coding device and depressed a button.
The wolf vanished.
“Where’d it go?” The sailor looked down at his empty arms in astonishment.
Devon tucked the device back in her pocket and blinked up at the sailor. While she played innocent, Mike eased up behind her. He dipped his hand into her pocket, then faded back into the crowd.
He only made it three steps before a gasp from Dev revealed that she’d discovered the theft. “Give that back!”
Having no intention of being arrested as a thief, he winged it overboard as if it were a baseball. He grinned at the despair on her face. “Lose something?”
Dev slugged him in the ribs. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He grabbed her fist, still smiling despite the incipient bruise. “Beating you at your own game.”
“Vincent? Vincent!”
Leona’s raised voice stole Mike’s smile. The fake widow had fallen out of the lifeboat and lay limply on the deck, black skirts rucked up to show pin-striped trousers underneath. Mike’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t been quick enough to save Vincent from the same coma that claimed Gabriel.
Leona didn’t sound frantic yet, only angry. She thought Vincent had merely Game Overed. Her tears would start when the Immersion ended.
And it was all Dev’s fault.
He glared at her. “The question is, What were you doing?” They’d had a plan, damn it. She was supposed to pretend the device was defective, not use it on other violet-eyes.
Her chin came up, onyx eyes flashing. “Protecting my partner.” She shoved past him, moving away from the lifeboats.
Disgusted, Mike let her go and resumed his search for Angel.
He could keep pushing through the crowds, shouting her name, or he could make himself easy to find.
*ANGEL*
Hands on hips, I surveyed my little raft-making factory with satisfaction.
Gerry had not only found the carpenter and persuaded him to lend his skill, but together they’d recruited others and picked an excellent place to build the rafts: just below the poop deck at the ship’s stern in the third class common room with a built-in supply of tables and benches to serve as the raft’s basic foundation. In total five rafts were underway, with two just completed.
I ran over the launch checklist one more time.
Two rafts covered with tarpaulins to disguise their shape. Check.
Three men to carry each raft, sideways for ease of maneuvering through doorways. Ron and Gerry were positioned on the back corners. Check.
A screening force of four men, including Tad, armed with makeshift oars, cobbled together from table legs and chair backs. Check.
I rubbed my hands together and turned to Maryanne. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Maryanne said with alacrity. Her glow of accomplishment from playing steward and waking the 3rd class passengers had worn off a little. She looked eager to take action.
I nodded to her. “Go.”
Maryanne exited the common room and wove her way across the open deck of the 3rd class promenade, an outdoor area between the poop deck and the main superstructure, on the same level as C deck.
I’d originally hoped to launch the rafts straight off the third class promenade, but a little scouting had dashed that hope. Not only was it very crowded, but a quick glance over the rail showed the ocean to be several stories below. Nor could we wait for the waters to rise; the Titanic sank nose first, its immense weight pulling the stern up out of the water and nearly vertical.
I waited until Maryanne reached the doors to the 2nd class promenade before calling, “Ready, boys? Here we go!”
I flung open the door and held it while the men rushed out with the raft. “Make way!” they bellowed.
Once they were through I took up the rear position. A wet chill immediately seeped into my clothing, the night raw.
Surprise helped. We made it two thirds of the way across, before someone shouted, “Raft! By God, they’ve made a raft!”
The crowd surged forward, eyes avid, faces desperate. My screening force held their oars in front of them like horizontal bars, pushing them back. Things got a little rough, as a few people knocked into other people, but we got the rafts to the first set of doors. Now to keep the mob from following us.
I stood in front of the door, put two fingers in my mouth and gave a piercing whistle. In the short pause, I yelled, “There are more rafts coming and supplies to make your own in the common room!” I pointed.
Half the crowd reversed and pushed toward the common room. I winced and shouted some more: “Don’t panic! The 2nd and 3rd class dining rooms are still above water. You there!” I pointed to a couple of brawny men. “You look strong. Bring up the tables! There’s still time! Use it!”
“She’s right! Let’s make our own
rafts!”
A mad rush for the stairs ensued. I slipped into the promenade. Maryanne was waiting for me.
“This way.” She pointed to the stairs that led up to B deck. Even though I wanted to launch from C deck we couldn’t go straight because a wall stood in the way, separating second class from first. Heaven forbid that the two mingle.
We dashed up the stairway, through the second class library and continued down the hall at a flat run until we caught up to the rafts.
Fortunately, B deck’s interior was mostly deserted, and we made swift progress. The downhill slant helped.
After passing the Grand Staircase, we hit a snag. The corridor ended in a window. We could see an open half-deck, with a solid waist-high wall, perfect for launching the rafts, but there was no door and the rafts wouldn’t fit through the window even if we broke it.
“Way to go, dummy,” Ron muttered, glaring at Tad, whose job it had been to plan our route.
Anger flared in my veins, but I didn’t have time to berate Tad for his carelessness. At a guess he’d relied on the blueprints in his Augment instead of actually scouting it. “We’ll have to retrace our steps to the Grand Staircase,” I decided. “The promenade on A deck will connect.”
“But A deck’s really crowded. We’ll be mobbed,” Maryanne said quietly.
She was right. I straightened my shoulders. “Give me ten minutes to scout things out and plan a diversion.”
“I’m coming with you,” Maryanne said. “But first…” She untucked her blouse and pulled down her wrinkled skirt overtop her trousers. “People won’t push a lady,” Maryanne said confidently.
We joined the steady stream of people going up the Grand Staircase, but while everyone else continued pushing up to the boat deck, we made for the covered 1st class promenade that ran the length of A deck.
We made decent time down the length of the boat, and the passage looked wide enough to carry the raft through, but I counted thirty-some male passengers gloomily staring out the windows at the rising waters. More than I would’ve liked.
Angel Eyes Page 20
