REND

The scientific method was the process of finding out stuff through experiments. Tonight, I, Erind Hartwell, was going to be a scientist, experimenting with what the Domino mask could do—cue sci-fi-ish intro music. Make sure there’d be atoms and planets, maybe a lion and a dolphin too, in the opening theme of my show.

It had been ages since my last science class. The second year of my undergraduate, was it? I feel so old.

Fortunately, law school didn’t have mandatory science units except the ones related to Adumbrae forensics.

Pesky general education requirements. Who cared for the wholistic growth of college students if they were destined to be cogs in the capitalist machine saddled by debt? The president of our debate club would say that whenever she’d get drunk during the rare parties I attended.

And she had a point.

It’d be better if colleges offered practical subjects like taxes, starting a business, or how not to become an Adumbrae. The last would’ve saved me the exorbitant cost of a five-day cruise ticket from New Los Angeles, California, to Ensenada, Mexico—six hundred freaking dollars.

I had to pay a bit more because I wanted a room with an ocean view. A window was handy for an emergency, instead of getting boxed in by four walls in the middle of the ship. It was prudent to assume something terrible would happen on this cruise by my mere presence alone. History often repeats itself.

I could’ve stayed in the same room as Deen, splitting the costs with her—she even offered an upgrade to a suite with a balcony and to pay for the entire thing herself—but I went a separate way to find elusive solitude. I couldn’t stand another night in the same room as my best friend. Sharing the bed with her while Mom was at our Vegas condo was torture.

That, and I couldn’t go on my personal mission if Deen could check on me.

A bunch of pillows covered by a blanket wouldn’t work. This wasn’t a prison escape movie. Once Deen realized I was missing, she’d tear this cruise ship open to find me. It was for the safety of everyone that I spent those six hundred dollars.

People better be grateful.

Back to the scientific method. I remembered it had five or six steps. Precisely what those were was fuzzy, but there should be hypotheses and experimentation steps. That was enough to go on with.

Hypothesis: Domino mask was for infiltration.

SpookyErind told me to use this mask. There had to be something to that.

I wasn’t barging on this ship guns blazing—fangs and claws out, to be precise. There’d be much sneaking around before I bared my sharp teeth. Blanchette probably wouldn’t get an appearance until we reached Red Island in a couple of days or so. That was if this ship was actually heading there. If the Domino mask was supposed to help, it’d be for snooping.

When transformed, I was essentially human. The bio-scanners thought so, anyway.

Islas de Sangre was a luxury cruise ship. It wasn’t among the super luxury ones—my ticket would probably cost double if it were—but it had enough well-off passengers that the company felt the need to have scanners inside the ship itself, not just when boarding.

The first order of business when our team—the whole La Esperanza group, plus the two remnants of the Las Vegas group—boarded was to look for all the places with scanners. We only had a limited number of Suppressor vials—I was mooching off Deen and Myra’s supply—and it was a five-day cruise. We needed to be thrifty and wise about using them.

Reo almost cried when we found that the buffet was bio-scanner free. Most of the ‘commoner’ areas didn’t have any. The expensive restaurants and bars, the stairs and elevators to the suites—go figure—and the paths to the engine room, crew quarters, and the bridge were guarded by scanners.

Surprisingly, the scanners couldn’t detect the black crystals on my palms. They were so obviously inhuman, but there was no issue.

“I probably shouldn’t have done that experiment. That was stupid.” I berated myself for going to the ‘rich people’ floor to test it. Then again, I was a scientist tonight, and I had plenty more experimenting to do. Here comes a test subject.

A cabin steward with a pushcart rounded the corner of the corridor. Someone had ordered a midnight snack—a second dinner, from the looks of it.

“Excuse me,” I said as he neared.  

I hesitated after hearing the sound of my new voice. It was stronger than my original, with a hint of patronizing kindness, perfect for reading books to children, though nothing out of the ordinary. Just that I hadn’t adjusted to it yet. I found it far easier to get used to Blanchette’s growls and Pino’s robotic words.

The cabin steward raised both brows, jerking back a bit. I was an inch shorter than him and about eight inches taller than my Erind self. His mouth slightly opened as he processed how I looked, blinking a few times.  

I bet he was surprised by someone wearing a mask from a masquerade ball or secret society gathering roaming the ship at midnight. While understandably out of place, the domino mask was nothing drastically conspicuous. It was mosaicked with tiny gems—different shades of blue sapphire. Its crescents sides hugged my face, the right curving down to my cheeks into a point and the left going up to my temple.

Other than the mask—okay, maybe my blue lipstick, too—the rest of me wasn’t so weird. This cruise employee should’ve seen much more bizarre crap during his work.

I had my long brown hair, streaked with ashy strands, in a high ponytail. Nothing outrageous there. My blue blouse, form-fitting around the bust, was quite normal, except for its sleeves extending to cover my hands, my fingers poking out. It was fashionable… I think. I had my palms turned away from the cabin steward so he wouldn’t glimpse the avocado-sized black crystals on it.

My lower body was in all black. From my bell skirt with a subtle flare ending above my knee to my leggings and ballet flats. There was nothing wrong with me, was there?

The cabin steward’s eyes settled on my neck. No. At what was on my neck.

Dammit, the choker. My blouse had a high neckline topped by a black metal band around my neck, secured with a golden lock. What made it worse was that the lock was worked into the shape of a horrified human face with a mouth wide open mid-shout, likely the keyhole.

I dipped my chin, attempting to cover it. Did he think I was into some kinky stuff?

I pointed a finger at him, thinking with all my might, ‘shoot,’ ‘fire,’ ‘power.’ Still nothing? He stared at my finger. Before words left his mouth, I asked, “Can you please tell me the way to the bar?”

After hesitating, he turned around and gestured down the passage with a small bow. “It’s on the sixth floor, miss. You can take the elevator in the middle of the hallway, by the stairs, and…” As he explained, facing away from me, I stretched my arms, palms opened outwards at him as if casting a magic spell.

Again, nothing happened. I hastily put down my hands when he turned back to me.

“Not that one,” I said. “The fancier bar. I’m doing a vlog about my trip and looking for interesting things to include. I saw on Snippet that one of the bars here has this drink topped with purple flames.”

I knew the cabin steward was directing me to the much bigger bar because we—me and the hero-wannabes—had been there an hour and a half earlier, having a few drinks while discussing our next steps. I got a non-alcoholic beverage because I planned to stay up late being a scientist. We had a pleasant time as if friends chilling, not people who’d betray each other soon—I know I got a lot of betraying lined up.

In any case, the cheaper bar didn’t have the people I’d suspect to be customers of the Supplier, Adumbrae-hopefuls. They should be rich and self-important people, looking down on humans. They could also be jittery and anxious about getting transformed on Red Island, looking for a more exclusive place to get plastered.

The cabin steward told me how to get to the bar I sought. I touched my mask while he talked, thinking of taking over his mind, causing him to sleep, or making hallucinations. Any power at all. He didn’t react to my thoughts.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, miss?” he asked, trying to meet my eyes.  

“Nothing else.” I stood aside, gesturing for him to pass. He was probably trying to look sincere, but he creeped me out. “Thanks for the directions.”

With the cruise employee’s back turned to me as he continued the opposite way, I pointed at him again. Then I tried waving my arms like swimming, then wildly kicking the air. I did random crap in a vain attempt to activate Domino’s mysterious ability. Thankfully, no one else was around to witness my shenanigans.

All I accomplished was giving whoever operated the security cameras a good laugh.

My face heated up at that realization, and my heart beat faster. “What’s going on?” I cupped my cheeks and fluffed them. Frowning, I looked around the hallway until I found a security camera by the corner. “Am I… embarrassed?”

Please focus on the mission, I scolded myself, lightly slapping my cheeks to get a grip. Then I checked the crystal on my right palm.

The number ‘52’ written in gold seemed to float inside of it. I discovered it was a countdown in minutes after timing it with the clock in my room before I left. Counting down to what, I didn’t have a clue. Now, it turned ‘51’. The crystal on my left hand still displayed a big fat zero.

I hurried to the bar—the really fancy one.

Islas de Sangre was one of the older ships of the Royal Ceressa Cruise Lines. It underwent heavy renovations three years ago, including the addition of dozens of cabins, restaurants, and a new deck. Could they have added Adumbrae and mutants holding cells and other facilities for evil experiments? Possible.

Last year, the ship had a new route of New Los Angeles, Catalina Islands, and Ensenada, Mexico. It was around the time 2Ms operation started in La Esperanza, and Dario formed his team—this was my pitch to Dario about why we should infiltrate Islas de Sangre.

As further proof, I looked up many of the suspected Adumbrae who died in the Eve raid—their families were currently involved in quite public cases, so that wasn’t too hard—and counterchecked if they had taken any cruises in the past few months. Some were active on social media, sharing their travels on Snippet, including photos and videos.

Sure enough, I found that a couple of them had been on the Islas de Sangre last year. This was just surface-level research. Someone with tech-savviness, time, and resources could dig up much more.

Still, it really wasn’t much to go on. The rest of the hero-wannabes thought so. I couldn’t tell them that I suspected Bianca had tipped me off.

But with no lead after the Tea Party in Las Vegas seemed to have disappeared—I ate and buried most of them—and the 2Ms laying low, I persuaded Dario that he might as well check on it. He didn’t know that I knew that he knew I was Blanchette, and I was acting like I was pretending to be the perfect teammate so he wouldn’t outright declare war.

Wow, that was hard to keep track of.

Bottomline was that I didn’t want to disappear like Kelsey, so I aimed to maintain the status quo until I could make the first move. Offering the possibility of finding Red Island was my solution. If Dario thought we were still on the same side—though just pretending—he’d postpone making me an enemy and instead use me against the 2Ms. He should know that I, as Blanchette, was instrumental in bringing down the 2Ms and the Tea Party.

My enemies wanting to use me against their other enemies was a common theme nowadays. Big Marcy thought it was a good idea. 

A few days passed after my suggestion, and Dario declared we were going aboard Islas de Sangre. His main reason was that Bianca Ceressa was rumored to be on this trip, filming an episode of her show.

I didn’t know that. How the fuck did he? The same intel source as when he told us Bianca would become the 2Ms’ client?  If so, this confirmed that it was really Bianca who sent me the flyer. But I should take care when meeting because Dario’s spy might be onto her.  

And so, we were all here, our La Esperanza team plus Jubjub and Imani.

I had thought of asking Vanessa if this ship was passing by Red Island. She didn’t know its location—an Adumbrae erased their memories every time they went there, she had mentioned—but maybe she could ask Big Marcy about it. Would he know?

According to Vanessa, Mark and Big Marcy were having a little fight for power, and the latter seemed to be at the losing end. Mark might have been taking over the family business at Red Island. If Big Marcy knew how to go to Red Island, he wouldn’t tell me anyway.

It was kind of obvious what I was going to do if I reached it.

“If we don’t pass by Red Island,” I muttered, “at least I can vacation in Mexico.” I heard there were fabulous beaches in Catalina. Maybe this was finally the time to get a tan.

An elevator ride and a few minutes of walking later, I found myself on the ship’s starboard, gazing at the mainland USA. A sprinkling of lights in the distance traced the shore.

Wait, was this port? Starboard? Which meant left, and which was right?

I couldn’t even tell if this was still the USA or if we had already crossed into Mexico. My suckiness at navigation and geography made me belatedly grateful for Auntie Dora teleporting us from the Tea Party base back to Las Vegas. If not for her, I’d be dead in the desert with Deen and Vanessa.

I couldn’t bear the guilt of Deen and Vanessa dying because of me. Huh? What are these thoughts?

“Man, I can’t wait for it,” came an annoying, whiny voice.

“A few days, and it’ll happen,” said another.

“It’s going to be awesome!” the first voice continued. “Once we are—”

“You’re too loud,” cut in a third voice.

Four guys in their late teens or early twenties exited the corridor I was going to enter. They stopped when they saw me, expectedly surprised by my get-up. All were above average in looks, especially the one in the lead, who had a few buttons of his beach shirt popped open to display his carved pecs.

Handsome Guy, I decided to call him. He looked like he could be the lead actor in a romance movie. Strands of his copper hair curled about his eyes. The sides of his face squared into a strong jaw. He regarded me with a smile, a cute dimple on his right cheek cratering. His blue eyes, deeper in color than my light sky blue, searched me. My heart fluttered as our eyes met.

Brain, excuse me? What the fuck?

I broke off our eye contact, shyly staring to the side as I walked to them, trying to stick to the walls. I could also walk left and jump off the ship.

“You guys go ahead first.” My eyes peeked up for a moment. It was Handsome Guy who spoke. He nudged his head forward as his friends protested. “Go on,” he loudly said, overriding their complaints. “Don’t wait up for me.”

Handsome Guy? The hell? Couldn’t I come up with a better nickname?

“Excuse me,” I said, looking away again. “I’m going to-to the…”

“The bar?” he finished. He combed his hair away from his face. “What a coincidence. I’m going there too.”

“No, you’re not!” shouted one of his friends, walking away.

“We’ve just been there,” another said.

“Don’t mind them.” Handsome Guy waved his hand to shoo his friends. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Bu-buy me a drink?” I stammered. There was something wrong with me. My heart was pounding, and my stomach was in knots. I should remove my mask and abort this mission.

No! I stuck my arms to my sides. I hadn’t done anything yet. I would get inside that bar and uncover the secrets of this ship. Stupidly, I forgot to bring my wallet after I transformed. Excellent timing that Handsome Guy was here to pick up the tab.

Right… That was my plan. “Okay…” I squeaked. “I’m okay with a drink.”