REND

Reo whistled. “I always thought I’d be the first to crack. Looks like someone beat me to it.”

“Don’t mention anything to her, Reo,” Dario said as he pulled additional seats to our table for a total of nine. “Everyone, act like Imani is fine. Allow her space to pull herself together. Jubilee’s best to console her; they know each other more than we do. I’ll also try to talk to Imani later and see what I can help with.”

Pretending like he has no idea what’s going on, I thought while keeping my face passive. Did this bastard really have a morning workout? Or did he and Jubilee ‘convince’ Imani to spill what she knew about me?

Either way, I sent Domino on a fool’s errand trying to catch Dario earlier because he wasn’t in his room anyway. Oops.

“Aye, aye, captain!” Reo saluted. “I’m not going to point out the obvious.” He pulled an imaginary zipper across his lips.

“Poor, Imani,” Deen said. “She shouldn’t have gone on this trip. She doesn’t have pow—she’s not like us.” Deen shot me another subtle glance. Then she flicked her eyes at Dario before wearing a concerned face for Imani again. Minus one member for our side, she meant to convey through our telepathy of friendship.

I gave her a slight nod as I clenched my fist under the table.

My morning wasn’t going well. First, Domino was a pain in the butt, attempting to say goodbye to the world and trying to bring me with her. Next, Imani seemed to have betrayed me… or was on the verge of it. Like, what the fuck? As preposterous as it sounded, I was more trustworthy than Dario and Jubilee. I looked more trustworthy too.

I even had these cute fingerless gloves! How could anyone think pretty innocent little me was the bad guy?

In comparison, Jubilee, codename: Jubub—sounds funny—wore all black from head to toe. From neck to toe, I mean. Would be weird if she covered her head too. Talk about the wrong outfit for a cruise. It wasn’t goth or punk or whatever fashion style wore too much black. Rather, Jubilee looked like she was going to a funeral, donning a high-collared, long-sleeved blouse and slacks, both as dark as the night, matching her hair tied in a bun.

I suspected Jubilee dyed her hair given that she had blue eyes. I knew it was genetically possible, black hair with blue eyes, but quite a rare combination. Could also be natural because she had black eyebrows. Or maybe she dyed them too, I supposed.

Did wearing black have something to do with her powers?

Jubilee had shadow-something abilities. She could hide in shadows—like, literally melt into darkness—confuse enemies with them, and make shadow creatures to fight or spy for her. I didn’t know the extent of her powers, but I fortunately discovered her weakness—direct bright light.

I witnessed it during her fight against Finlay. She got trapped with flashlights. What the pitiful silliness was that? She escaped only because I arrived and distracted Finlay.

If that dummy-making dummy caught Jubilee, I should win against her easy-peasy.

When it came to Imani Nanda, her hair was naturally black, even blacker than mine. Her complexion was a beautiful honey, her face showing prominent South Asian features. Easy for me to recognize because I had traveled around that part of the world when Dad was still officially alive.

Imani’s situation must be like Reo and Everett's. Our country was one of the safest in the world when it came to preventing and controlling Adumbrae attacks, so it wasn’t surprising many wanted to migrate here. The population’s mental health was quite stable due to government programs—sometimes heavy-handed they may be, but they weren’t intrusive enough to cause the stress they aimed to prevent. It was a delicate balance; the environment and the citizens’ likelihood of becoming Adumbrae, one affecting the other and vice-versa.

Other countries, particularly poor ones, suffer Adumbrae seeding outbreaks on the regular. They would’ve been wiped off maps long ago if it weren’t for Corebrings.

Though Imani had no superpowers, she wasn’t a completely pathetic regular human. She had a bioaugmentronic arm she could outfit with weapons, though it was unlikely she brought anything lethal on board. It’d be difficult to sneak it past security. Her aug-arm was well-made, looking all normal except for its unnatural sheen when catching the rays of the sun.

Curiously, Imani had a codename—‘Tove’—even if she didn’t have an artificial Core. For our group, the codenames they picked were related to their powers, with Johann using none. Maybe the Las Vegas group had a different thing going on.

Why Imani hadn’t Melded with an artificial Core? She didn’t seem to have issues with it, unlike Johann. Dario gave out artificial Cores without any loyalty test or probationary period—Deen Melded with hers the day Everett rescued her from the fire he started—so why didn’t the Las Vegas group immediately turn their members into superhumans? Did they lack artificial Cores or was Jubilee picky with choosing her teammates?

The codenames of the Vegas people were supposedly from the writings of Lewis Carroll, Imani had explained. I was familiar only with the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because my grandma had a copy; I read it while vacationing at her house. Imani told me that their codenames came from Carroll’s other works, not the famous book. Too bad their creativity was wasted because I couldn’t recall the codenames of their other two members—neither their real names, for that matter.

They were dead anyway, so who cares? If a side character didn’t make an impact during their short appearance in a show, viewers would forget about them. Maybe I should’ve gone to film school?

“Hello, everyone,” Jubilee said in a monotone, matching her perpetually bored expression.

Imani didn’t say anything. She rubbed her face as if to wipe off traces of her distraught. It just made her puffy eyes look worse. I pulled the chair beside me, but Imani instead sat far from Deen and me.

“Good morning.” I tried to catch Imani’s eyes. She was intent on staring at the tablecloth, hiding behind her hair. It made me more suspicious. Dario and Jubilee weren’t showing any indication they knew I tried to turn Imani on them.

Like, duh.What was I expecting? I wasn’t familiar enough with Jubjub to recognize her tells. Dario, on the other hand, was adept at masking his thoughts.

After I rejected Dario’s artificial Core offer and stormed out of our first meeting, he sent Myra, Reo, and Johann to capture me. It was a pure coincidence the 2Ms kidnapped me first, becoming the ‘reason’ that I changed my mind and joined the hero-wannabe group. Dario acted like he deeply appreciated my change of heart and didn’t originally want to erase my memories. It was only because of Myra that I knew the truth of what happened. Part of the truth.

Dario left our table to get food, heading to Myra and Johann to greet them as a proper leader should.

Imani mumbled she didn’t want to eat. I thought this would be our chance to talk to her, but Jubilee stayed in her seat too, saying she wasn’t hungry either. I thought of inviting Imani to try this or that food so I could get her alone with me, but decided not to. Jubilee would go with her anyway.

The time’s not right. I should wait to glean more information about what Imani told Jubilee. No rush. The possible betrayal of Imani was inconsequential to my plans.

Eventually, all of us gathered around the table, and it was fucking cramped. The armrests of Deen’s and Myra’s chairs bumped against mine. It didn’t help that more people were arriving to eat breakfast as the morning marched onward. Some assholes passing behind me inadvertently pushed against my seat. Too much clinking of silverware and plates annoyed me more.

We could’ve met in a room—Deen’s was spacious enough for us. Moreover, we’d have privacy compared to here. Privacy… the thing that was important for secret planning.

However, during our pre-trip planning stage, Dario insisted we shouldn’t gather in any of our rooms—ehem, cabins—because it’d look suspicious to anyone watching. He reminded us to always assume someone was manning the security cameras, or spying around the corner. If we were a group of friends on vacation, he explained, we wouldn’t pack ourselves in a cramped space for an hour or two. Instead, we’d be out exploring the ship, drinking at the bar, or lounging by the poolside, the usual tourist stuff.

I wasn’t sure if Dario was right about that. Who cared if a bunch of people were inside one room? They could be just telling each other ghost stories. But in the end, we followed his instructions.

The challenge was how not to get overheard discussing secret stuff in the open. And the solution was… just not to discuss them at all.

“Good job yesterday, everyone,” said Dario, over-enthusiastically clapping his hands. Reo snorted on his drink. I agree that it was funny seeing Dario act all upbeat. Dario frowned at Reo for a blink before returning to his character. “I’ve reviewed the files you guys sent me. Thanks very much for your hard work. I spent all night just watching clips of your segments—”

“Did you even get to sleep, man?” Reo asked with a twinkle in his eye.

Deen raised her hand. “I’m sorry for sending my part late.”

Should I join in? Would it be too suspicious? Yesterday, Deen told me she’d play along with this bit so Dario wouldn’t suspect that we knew that he knew that we knew he wasn’t to be trusted. Pretty convoluted and vague summed up our situation.

“Most of the shots gathered yesterday are great for our cruise ship episode,” Dario continued. “I’m impressed. As for today—”

“Really?” said Myra. “I thought Reo’s clips totally sucked ass. We might get censored on Snippet because our vids would show so much ass.”

“I poured my heart and soul into my craft!” Reo threw his hands up. “Tell me I didn’t review the hell out of the main lobby and the three theaters. I want to see you do a better job. But I’m not going to see anything because you can’t do a better job than I did.”

“You can’t see anything because you’re blind to great filmography,” Myra shot back, her voice wavering as laughter threatened to burst out.

They’re all really into this bit, I mused, grinning. I could relate. Wearing other faces was fun.

“Need I remind you I was a film student?” Reo stood up, his hand melodramatically on his chest.

This was the opposite of not drawing attention to ourselves. Reo just couldn’t help but clown around. For a fleeting moment, Dario looked annoyed. Did this confirm Reo didn’t know the actual truth? That he wasn’t in on the real plan of Dario? Probably? Hard to tell.

“But you didn’t finish film school,” said Myra. Was this the real backstory of Reo?

“Yes, you’re right,” Reo replied. “However, let it be clear that I was kicked out not because of bad grades. In fact, I was running for honors.”

“You were kicked out because you were selling—”

“I was an enterprising individual. And that doesn’t negate the fact that I’ve been to film school, in contrast to you.”

“That’s enough, you two,” said Dario. “Our collab video isn’t going to get done if we waste time bickering. We’re yet to cover many more places, and we haven’t even interviewed anyone, no crew or passengers. With them, our video is going a step above the usual cruise vlogging.”

“Yes, we need the people to share their experiences for authenticity,” said Reo.

“Now, let’s go over what areas we need to film today,” Dario said. “We have to speed things up because tomorrow we’ll go down the ship and shoot in Catalina.”

And that was our cover story—we were fledgling vloggers collaborating to document our cruise in the Islas de Sangre. Essentially, we were copying what Bianca was doing here.

Our goal was to search the ship for clues about Red Island. Since we didn’t know what those clues might be—that was before Big Marcy told me—we didn’t need to talk about anything important. We could be out in the open, filming locations and stuff. If we found something, then we’d go into secrecy mode.

But was this all necessary? Did Dario really think the 2Ms wouldn’t have any idea we were here?

Maybe he did know, or at least assumed that the 2Ms were already aware of our presence. This could all be a show to pretend that he didn’t know that they know that—I’m not going to bother continuing this.

Even then, why did Dario not leave me on dry land? The 2Ms knew who I was—they had kidnapped me and also attacked my condominium. No way the 2Ms wouldn’t notice I was on board, this being the way to Red Island and all that. I shouldn’t be here with them if Dario wanted to be all sneaky. Also, wasn’t I a great liability, being an Adumbrae? I was a straight-up enemy.

For the others, Dario could just tell them I was a normal human so I had to sit this one out. What was I supposed to contribute that the rest of the hero wannabes couldn’t do? They had Suppressors if they needed to be normal humans, and Reo had spying powers.

The only reason I could think of why Dario didn’t oppose me joining their mission was that he planned to use me for… something. I should watch out for it, whatever it was.

“To cover more ground—” Dario started to say.

Reo chuckled. “To cover more ground?”

“To get more clips, since we’ll have several episodes on this,” Dario said, “We’ll have to split up, the same as yesterday. I want everything about this ship done by today. Our whole day tomorrow is reserved for the Catalina content.”

So, that’s his plan? And then, tomorrow, we’d act like we weren’t done with shooting on the ship, so we’d have a story about why we’d stay. It would be suspicious if a group of young tourists didn’t want to go down to the resort island.

“I’m excited for it,” said Deen. She looked at me. “Aren’t you?”

“Super excited,” I replied. The urge to roll my eyes was strong.

“For our assignments,” said Dario.

Okay, this is it, I thought. How do I go about this? I couldn’t say I wanted to pair with Reo. Dario would immediately be suspicious.

“First, Imani,” said Dario. “I think it’s better if you take a rest for now.”

Imani said, “But you’ll have fewer people—”

“It’s okay, Imani,” I said. “We’ll cover for you. I’ll take on a more active role.” I didn’t check Dario and Jubilee’s reactions.

Yesterday, I just roamed the safer parts of the ship—a token duty for me because I was supposed to be a normal human. However, if I was a normal human, I should be assigned to look for the bio scanners on board instead of the others. Deen argued against it, wanting to keep weak me safe. Surprisingly, Dario agreed, which, to me, was further confirmation that he knew that we knew… and so on.

“Where do you want to be assigned?” Dario asked me. There were so many layers as to why he gave me the option to choose instead of telling me where to go. He probably thought he was being clever about it, but it just made my job easier.

So how do I get to Reo? Simple. “I can go with Deen today,” I said. “We can explore the lower parts of the ship. With Deen’s charms, I’m sure we can access many places.”

“Deen has many charms, alright,” Reo said, nudging Everett. “Do you know what the future holds for the two of you, my good old chap?”

“Be serious, man,” Everett mumbled. “We’re planning here.”

“I think it’s better if Erind went with someone else,” said Dario.

As expected, he’d want to break us up. I was sure he suspected that I already had Deen on my side, so it was difficult to move against me with her power on guard. He didn’t know what Deen and I were up to, but at least he’d try to stop it.

“Why can’t Erind be with me?” Deen asked.

“It’s probably better to have a guy and girl pairing to host each segment,” said Dario.

Idiot! Dario gave a very plausible reason, but he played right into my hands. “Both of us aren’t going to host,” I said. “I was thinking it’d just be Deen. I can be her cameraman… camerawoman.”

“The host pair is a good idea,” said Jubilee, backing up Dario. “It’s different from what we did yesterday.”

“So, who’ll go with me, if not Erind?” asked Deen.

I looked at Reo. He spotted my gaze. I blinked, as if surprised he caught me. Then I turned to Everett. Reo shot his hand up in the air.

“I volunteer Everett for the job!” Reo said.

“Then Everett and Deen will be our first pair,” said Dario. He must’ve thought he won with that, but he was so wrong.

Deen tried to protest. I also complained a bit but didn’t let it go on long. Deen took it as a sign we shouldn’t be so obvious about it, so she stopped as well. Everett was blushing as Reo teased him. Onto the second part of my plan.

“Then what about me?” I said. “I need a guy pair, so who would it be?”

I didn’t need to have a pair—I already volunteered to just be filming them. It was obvious that Deen needed to be a host, but there was no need for me to be one. Even I wouldn’t pick me. Dario could either say to my face that I shouldn’t have my own segment, or he’d pick a partner for me. If the latter, he had three choices—Reo, Johann, and himself.

“I’m going with Johann,” said Myra.

Thank the Mother Core. I wasn’t sure if Myra knew of my plan or if she just wanted to be with Johann. Perhaps Reo’s rumors had some truth to them.

“Then I—” Dario began.

But Everett cut him off. “I volunteer Reo to go with Erind!”