by Ben Farthing
“I’d like to get to our cabin,” Riley said.
“Can’t,” Marjorie said. “Didn’t they tell you? Gotta give the porters an hour or so to deliver everyone’s luggage.”
Riley bit her tongue, so she wouldn’t tell the old lady to get lost. “Okay, well, where’s this bar?”
“Who knows?” Krystal said. She approached an ice cream shop to ask the man behind the counter, “Where’s the Cloud Club?”
The man chewed his lip. He spoke with an eastern European accent. “I’m not positive. I think on deck nine or ten.”
“Shouldn’t you know?” Riley asked.
“Whoa,” Krystal pulled Riley away. “Go easy on him.”
Riley insisted. “Why don’t you know? Are you new on the ship? Or is the ship new?”
His eyes went wide, then he grinned. “I only serve ice cream.”
“Come on, little miss Sherlock.” Krystal dragged Riley past a closed candy shop—the elderly passengers likely didn’t give it much business—and to an elevator. “We’ll try deck eight first.”
“Sounds good to me,” Marjorie said.
Riley jerked her arm free from Krystal’s grip. “I’m telling you, that guy was guessing where the bar is because this is a new ship. It’s not the Aria.”
“My ticket says it’s the Aria,” Marjorie said. “Although, now that you say it, my sisters and I did go on the Rhapsody of the Seas last year, and that’s supposed to be a sister ship to this one, but they do seem pretty different.”
“See?” Riley said.
Krystal shrugged. “Okay, you’re right. But what does it change? I’m still here to get drunk and help you with… that other thing.”
Marjorie raised a pink eyebrow in a conspiratorial smile, but the old lady knew to bide her time.
Riley wanted to explain that all her preparations to steal her dad’s pocket watch started with knowing the layout of the Aria of the Seas. Now she’d have to learn a whole new ship. But she couldn’t say all that in front of Marjorie.
She couldn’t say that her plan felt like it was falling apart already. Her only chance at finding some purpose in life was on wobbly ground unless she could quickly reorient herself to this ship that definitely was not the Aria. “You know what? I think I’ll wait until dinner to start drinking. I’d like to stretch my legs some first.”
“You’re going to poke around, aren’t you?” Krystal shook her head. “I’ll be in the Cloud Club until dinner. You do you. Don’t let your uncle see you.”
“Uncle?” Marjorie asked. “I’m so glad I left my sisters. Sounds like your cruise will be much more exciting than mine.”
“Hopefully not too much,” Riley said. “I’ll come find you in a while.”
Riley left Krystal and Marjorie waiting for the elevator. Her first step was to check the lowest decks. Those windows she saw from the outside definitely weren’t part of the Aria.
She entered the stairwell and headed down.
4
As the door shut behind Riley, the stairwell fell silent.
Not even muffled conversation leaked through the door. That was some serious soundproofing.
Inside the stairwell, a fancy blue and gold carpet complemented the gold handrails.
Heading up, a small chandelier hung on each landing. But looking down, the lights were dimmer. That didn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be dark anywhere.
Nerves tangled in Riley’s belly. The real Aria of the Seas had two performance halls on Deck Three, along with conference rooms and the disembarkment station. The first aid station and the vault with lockboxes were also down there. Deck One was all crew and maintenance and whatever to keep the ship running.
The point being: guests, crew, and staff all might have reason to go downstairs. It shouldn’t be dark.
Something was malfunctioning, or there was something really weird about this Aria replacement.
Riley took a deep breath. She squeezed the fancy wood handrail.
If she let some burnt out lightbulbs slow her down, she’d never get back Dad’s watch. She’d be stuck in her dead-end jobs, only now she’d be weighed down by $3,000 in credit card debt from the cruise ticket.
She started downstairs, into the shadows. Her heart pounded in her throat.
Footsteps tapped on the stairs below.
Someone was there.
“Hello?” Riley called. She leaned over the railing. With only dim lights, Riley could just make out the shape of the stairs and the railings. She didn’t see anybody.
Nothing to worry about. Just a crew member going about their duties. If anything, someone being down there meant that it was perfectly safe to explore.
Riley circled the landing of deck four. If this were the Aria, this whole deck would be guest cabins. But she didn’t bother checking the other side of the large wooden door. She knew this wasn’t the Aria. She wanted to start from the beginning to map out this new ship in her head, starting with the bottom. That’s where the vault should be. She continued downward.
Again, the tap of footsteps below her. This time, they were rapid and light, like a child running.
Riley froze. She hadn’t seen a single kid today.
She rolled her eyes. That didn’t mean a thing. There were probably a bunch of families on board. She’d barely seen anyone yet.
At the next landing, the chandelier was so dim she could barely make out the abstract paintings hanging on the walls or the blocky patterns on the carpet.
The hairs on her neck stood up. Carpet. These stairs were carpeted. Then what was that tapping noise? It couldn’t be footsteps on a soft carpet.
Maybe somebody was tapping their fingernails on the walls or on the stair railings. But that’s not what it sounded like.
Riley paused at the top of the next staircase.
Only the bottommost deck below her. Unless Deck One wasn’t really the bottom? Riley realized she wasn’t positive about that.
The stairs descended into absolute darkness. The dim chandelier hanging above her barely revealed the walls and floor of the Deck Two landing.
Riley fumbled for her cell phone in her purse. The screen blinded her. She swiped to find the flashlight, then turned it on.
A wrinkled old man scowled up at her from the bottom of the stairs.
Riley gasped. She fell backwards. She held up her phone’s flashlight like it were a crucifix warding off the devil.
After a moment, Riley crawled to the edge of the landing to look back down the stairs.
It was a painting, an old guy in a tuxedo. He looked like the skinny guy who ran the Death Star in Star Wars, except he held a gold pocket watch.
Riley tiptoed down the stairs, still rattled from the scare. She took a closer look at the pocket watch in the painting. It was familiar.
She opened her photos app and scrolled back over a year until she found one of Dad. He never wore his old pocket watch—just kept it in a display cabinet with his favorite books and airplane models. But Riley found a photo of his living room and zoomed in on the cabinet.
It was grainy, but there was no mistaking it.
The pocket watch had a chain with links of varying sizes. One link in the middle was shaped like a diamond. Then the watch itself was round like a normal watch, but the cover that flipped open was also diamond-shaped. When it was closed, you could still see the numbers 1, 5, 7, and 11. She’d always thought that was weird.
Riley held her phone up next to the painting.
The old Death Star general was holding Dad’s pocket watch.
She took a photo of it. She had no idea what this meant, but she wanted to talk it through with Krystal.
Maybe Uncle Nathaniel took it on this ship with a purpose.
Except, this wasn’t the original Aria. This painting wasn’t here before.
It all suggested that Uncle Nathaniel knew the Aria would be switched out. Didn’t it?
Riley’s head hurt trying to figure out what was going on.
She took
a breath. It was hard to calm herself when she was standing in the pitch dark, on the bottom of a ship, with dim light trickling down from overhead, while her little phone’s flashlight strained to banish nearby shadows.
There were no more stairs downward—if this wasn’t the bottom deck, the way down was somewhere else.
The old man in the painting looked over a claustrophobic corner of the stairwell, with just a single wooden door to decorate the walls.
If this were the original Aria, then towards the bow of Deck One would be the vault where valuables could be stored. But she was somewhere in the middle of the ship. Through that door should be areas reserved for crew and staff. The guys keeping the ship engines running. Probably the engine itself. But if that were the case, how could it be so silent down here?
Riley wanted to see.
She pulled open the door and shined her phone through.
It reflected back at her in a thousand shimmering beams of light. Riley swallowed a scream.
5
Riley held her phone’s flashlight out closer.
But she refused to step through the doorway.
Deck One was an open, low-ceilinged room.
Mirrors made up the ceiling.
Goopy strands of mirror dripped down from the ceiling. They reflected Riley’s light back at her.
Riley’s mind raced, trying to figure out what she was seeing.
The dripping stands varied in thickness from the width of her thumb to as big around as her waist.
She could reach out and touch the closest strand if she wanted—she didn’t—and the farthest strand that her flashlight revealed was at least twenty feet into the room. The light could have gone farther, but the strands were packed in too tightly. It was more crowded than the concourse upstairs. She could find a path through without bumping into the strands, but two people couldn’t do it walking next to each other.
Riley took one step into the room, then stopped herself. None of this mattered. Dad’s watch mattered. Getting money to become a nurse mattered. Making enough money to have a real life mattered.
She wanted to know where the vault was, and it wasn’t here, so she should go upstairs, then find some stairs closer to the bow.
But this goopy funhouse was bizarre. She shined her light at the ceiling. The light bounced around to return to her split in a thousand pieces.
Even as the liquid glass dripped down, the mirrored ceiling didn’t seem to be losing any of its substance. And the floor didn’t seem to be gaining any. The mirrored strands connected with the dull gray floor, but the spaces between the strands remained rough tile.
The strands themselves looked like they were flowing downward, like a faucet turned on with the water pouring down smoothly. But they weren’t flooding anything.
Mirrors and glass didn’t move like that. Not unless it was extremely hot, but it was chilly down here.
This didn’t make sense. Riley held onto the door frame for support. Maybe stress was making her hallucinate.
If she really wanted to know what was going on, she should explore down here. Or on the deck above. What was on Deck Two that was leaking down here, but not really leaking?
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. She shook her head. When she opened them, Deck One was still a goopy funhouse mirror maze.
But she couldn’t let it distract her.
She needed to find the vault in case Nathaniel decided to lock away the pocket watch. That was the next step in reorienting herself and stealing her life back.
She turned around and let the door shut behind her.
The watch mattered. Not this weird Aria replacement.
She wanted to rebuild her mental map, and she’d started it. Deck One, midship: creepy goop. Time to keep moving.
As she walked up the stairs, a terrible thought occurred to her:
Nathaniel ran a billion-dollar fracking company. He raped the earth to make money. What if this ship—this replacement—was a new venture? Something so dangerous and harmful to the environment that it had to be kept secret?
That made perfect sense. Of course, Nathaniel wasn’t taking a six-week vacation to go on a minimal amenities cruise. He was a jerk who lived and breathed his corporate life. His company had probably funded this whole trip. Of course, it was designed to make him money— and probably kill half the ocean at the same time.
Riley reached the Deck Two landing, happy to at least have the dim chandelier to augment her phone’s light.
She considered what might be on the other side of this landing’s door. Something that caused the mirror to melt and drip below. Something that would hurt the ocean and make Nathaniel richer.
Maybe she should care.
If she could get Dad’s watch back and also collect info to give to the EPA and get Nathaniel shut down, that’d make this trip doubly worthwhile.
Riley smiled. Nathaniel might even go to prison.
Maybe she’d even find purpose in protecting the environment from men like her uncle.
Yep, her goals for this trip just got upgraded. Steal Dad’s watch. Collect evidence to put Nathaniel in an orange jumpsuit.
A few photos of whatever was in Deck Two would be a good start.
She yanked on the door handle. It was locked.
Something tapped rapidly on the other side.
Riley jumped back.
It was the same noise she’d heard before and thought was footsteps.
She fought the urge to flee upstairs. It was just somebody on the other side. “Hello?” she called.
The tapping came again.
She tapped her own fingernail against the wood door.
It sank into soft wood.
Just enough to get under her nail. Goopy wood grain.
The door itself was losing firmness, like the ceiling below.
Riley backed up. She wiped her finger on her jeans. She didn’t want that stuff against her skin. Whatever it was.
Something tapped louder this time, more urgent.
The door shook. The dent her finger had left in the wood filled in and smoothed over.
The tapping turned into banging.
“What do you want?” Riley called. “Are you okay?”
The banging stopped.
Someone answered in a language she hadn’t heard before. A short threat, a female voice distorted like the physical door.
A ripple went through the door like a stone splashing into a pond.
“Forget this.” Riley fled upstairs.
6
Chris found a lounge chair to enjoy in an outer deck of Deck Eight.
The ship hadn’t disembarked yet, and he still had half an hour until his bags should be in his room.
Might as well relax. Pretend to relax.
He’d chosen the side of the ship pointing away from the shore. The sun reflected sharply off the ocean. A sailboat lazily navigated the open water beyond the harbor.
A seagull landed on the nearby railing. It chirped at Chris.
“I don’t have anything, sorry.”
“Excuse me?” said a man approaching him.
Chris jumped.
It was Bobby, the ex-military porter. Shouldn’t he be delivering bags?
“Did you ask me something?” Bobby looked suspiciously at Chris.
They’d found the hidden pockets in his luggage. This was it then. Arrested. Stopped in his tracks before he could get started.
“Sir?” probed Bobby.
“No. I was talking to the bird.”
“Ah, well. Did it say anything back?” He gave Chris a mocking smile.
“Yeah, he asked for a basket of french fries.”
“Funny,” Bobby said in a tone that was anything but. “Sorry to interrupt you…”
Here it comes. About to be labeled a terrorist.
“…that young man back there asked me to give you this.” Bobby handed him a folded note.
Chris took the note and sat up to peer down the ship. “Who?”
&n
bsp; He saw four retirees playing shuffleboard and two more enjoying the lounge chairs.
Bobby looked over his shoulder. “He must have gone back inside. He seemed in a hurry. Generous tipper, though.”
“Uh-huh.” Chris opened the note.
Bobby cleared his throat.
“Oh, right.” Chris fished a dollar out of his wallet to shoo Bobby away.
His fear of his luggage being searched had been upgraded to fear of who was sending him notes.
Only one other guest knew he was here, and Chris wanted to avoid him.
He read the note.
“I’m glad you made it. You should lie low. The others in my group still blame you for Micah. But I know you’re a fellow believer. I’ll come get you when it’s time so you can witness it, too. But until then, LIE LOW.”
Shit. He’d already been spotted.
He didn’t know the guy’s name, only that he was in some kind of organization with Micah Rayner.
Cult, more like it.
Last year, a skyscraper had appeared in Richmond overnight. Billionaire construction genius Micah Rayner had tricked a team into exploring it. She’d claimed it was to reverse engineer how it was built. But she’d been expecting it, waiting for it. She worshipped some other-dimensional entity she called the Deviser. She believed the Deviser had sent every major breakthrough in construction and architecture for the betterment of mankind. Everything from plate glass to air conditioning hadn’t been invented but had been discovered in structures that suddenly appeared.
Micah wanted to find the next breakthrough inside the new skyscraper and use it to get even richer. But the Deviser had only been prepping mankind for slaughter. Perhaps not slaughter, but maybe capture and slavery. Chris wasn’t sure. All he knew was that three men who explored that building were yanked away to an overlapping dimension, and when they’d managed to press their face against the glass, so to speak, they’d begged for help that Chris couldn’t give.
Micah had pressed on. She went insane, trying to demand the Deviser’s attention. But she was too broken, so it didn’t want her. She died, Chris escaped, and then a few weeks later, the skyscraper disappeared, just like every other “gift” the Deviser sent over.
