REND

“Something?” My mind turned to the small ships to Red Island. Could I have found them this easily? Reo seemed to be a lucky charm. “Hang on, where is this bulbous bow thingy?” I giggled. “Sounds funny to say.” A touch of airheadedness to soften my inquisitiveness.

“The front of the ship is like a wedge, see?” Gaming Guy placed his phone on the table and then formed a triangular edge with his fingers. “To cut through the waves.”

“Yep, and that’s called the bow,” I said.

“And the rear end of the ship is called the aft,” Reo said, exaggeratedly tapping his temple. “I know some boat terminologies too.”

“In a regular bow,” said Gaming Guy, “the top is the farthest point.”

I nodded. “Where Joseph and Beatrice stood in the Titanic movie.”

Gaming Guy laughed. “That’s right. From the topmost tip, it’s a straight edge going down, with the bottom part recessed—uh, how do I explain this? It’s a diagonal line going inward to the bottom—ah, I’m doing a bad job at this.”

“I sort of get it,” I said.

“In some cases,” he said, “the bottom part of the bow extends outwards in a bulb or a sort of protrusion. Think of it like—”

“Like the dick of the ship,” Reo interjected. Laughter. Sarah slapped his shoulder. Very predictable joke. “Hey, it does look a dick, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be childish,” I told him. “You’re always so immature.”

Reo’s eyes, the window to the soul, told me that he got the assignment. Make light of the situation while I pursued my line of questioning. These people wouldn’t take us seriously and be suspicious, in contrast to if we played this straight. We make a good team.

Gaming Guy continued his explanation about the bulbous bow. Something to do with changing how the water flows around the ship, adding speed to large ships. He might be a ship mechanic. At least someone knowledgeable enough about it. He explained that the bulbous bow of this ship was of a design he hadn’t encountered elsewhere, disproportionately way larger than normal, both in length and height above the waterline.

“That’s what she said,” Reo chimed in, chuckling.

“She said what?” I frowned at him. “Penis joke again about larger than normal bow?”

“I’m going to start calling my dick the ‘bulbous bow’!” Everyone laughed again, except me. I noticed Sarah leaning against him.

“At least the bulbous bow of this cruise ship is useful,” I huffed with a disapproving glare. “Compared to you. Would be even more useful if it stored a large tender ship so we could just hop in, and it’ll open, and we’ll be on our way to Catalina. I hate boarding tender ships while they’re swaying.”

“It’s possible with enough money,” Gaming Guy said. “But an unnecessary expense. At that point, just install a helipad on the cruise ship. But that takes up a lot of space on the upper deck, which could be another pool.”

“Can’t get enough of pools,” Reo said. “By the way, I heard Bianca is here. Bianca Ceressa? She’s shooting a show on this ship, isn’t she?”

Is he seriously trying to find her? When Dario told us we’d investigate Bianca for a possible connection to the 2Ms—the first mission for Deen and me—Reo outed himself as a huge fan. He followed her shows on TV and knew random tidbits about her.

I was avoiding Bianca even though she had been helpful to me. I seriously didn’t know what to tell her about becoming an Adumbrae the ‘natural’ way, in contrast to the 2M’s procedure. Like, what the fuck? Even scientists couldn’t agree on how people turned into Adumbrae. Not only that, Bianca wanted to be an Adumbrae who’d retain her own mind.

I could con her. But what would even be a believable ritual to make her do? Steal candies from babies? Tell her if she collects a hundred candies, she’d mutate?

“Yeah, she’s here.” Sarah’s smiling face abruptly turned into a scowl. Guess Bianca didn’t have a good reputation with her family’s employees. “But we don’t know where. Only specific people attend to her, and they keep their mouths shut.”

“Snobby pricks,” Bottle Guy One said. “Think they’re higher than us because they serve the princess.”

Bottle Guy Two tipped a bottle to his friend. “You know that does make them higher than us?”

“If you’re planning to get Bianca’s autograph, the best chance is at Catalina,” Sarah told Reo. “It might be next to impossible to find her on the ship unless she’s shooting in the open, as she did by the main pool yesterday. But when down at the island, just follow the crowd. She’ll probably do a meet-and-greet thing there. If on this ship, she only has a few fans.”

“Got you, babe,” Reo said, winking at her.

With the topics trickling to a halt, we made our exit. Reo was impeccable in his timing for social interactions, making me a tad envious of his skill. It was like being envious of another person if a dog preferred them to you. There was a difference in how we dealt with people. Reo was a people person. I was a not-people-person, but very good at pretending to be one. This piqued my curiosity about what illusion would Domino generate for him.

Such a fun power Domino has; it became more and more apparent as situations like these presented themselves. SpookyErind played a prank on me by presenting such an enjoyable ability but placing it behind an idiot, ship-jumping, crybaby gatekeeper.

“Are you going to look for Bianca?” I asked Reo as we walked down the corridor.

“Oh, that? I just asked about it for a clean exit. The last thing on their minds about us won’t be your questions about hidden ships. It also would’ve been awkward if we left right after the bulbous bow thing. Makes it seem like we were after that.”

I blinked. Wow, he’s more reliable than Deen. I should pretend to be clueless about how intelligent he was. “But you’re a fan of hers, right? Bianca? You don’t want to meet her?”

“After knowing she’s trying to become an Adumbrae—or maybe she’s already one now—still yes!” Reo snickered. “A hot Adumbrae’s still a hot—hang on, no. I’m not sure where I was going with that.”

“You can try to get her autograph,” I said. “It’s not like her handwriting will change if she really becomes an Adumbrae. Also, a picture. If she ever becomes a monster, you’ll have a remembrance,” I added with a chuckle. “Want to go looking for her?”

“Probs later, when you’re not around.”

“Worried I’ll ruin your style?”

“You’ll never ruin my style.” Reo pointed a finger at me, his face suddenly turning stern. “And did you forget Bianca knows who you are?”

“Oh, right…” Of course, I didn’t forget that, but I was checking if he did.

“It’s suicide if I try to see Bianca with you beside me. Actually, even without you, I’d rather not dare be in her line of sight. Or her bodyguards. Especially them.”

“Shouldn’t you be fine without me?” I said, continuing to play clueless.

“Too dangerous, man. People have seen you and me together. We’re together now! I shouldn’t risk going near Bianca ever—no autograph for me, or a handshake, or a hug ever. That’s it for my life as her fan. Thanks for that, Erind.”

“Really sorry. There was the mission and Dario told us to—”

“Just yanking your chain. You were very brave doing that mission despite being a normal human. I mean it. But I don’t know why Dario brought you along for this mission, though, no offense. This is much too dangerous for you.”

“I want to do my part,” I replied, channeling my inner Deen. What the fuck? I didn’t have Deen inside me—pretending to be Deen. There. “Imani’s here too, and she’s a normal human.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” he said, his face strangely somber. “Both of you shouldn’t be here. I have this—” he placed his hand on his chest “—and even I think I shouldn’t be here. You’re so reckless too, like tailing the McHunters.”

“I didn’t spy on them. A coincidence I saw Raphaela McHunter, that’s all. She was in the elevator with me one time. I didn’t know it was her at first. Only when she got off her floor and met with Yara McHunter, who’s quite recognizable—”

“Probably hotter than Bianca,” muttered Reo.

“—did I realize who she was. Raphaela seemed nice, unlike her daughter. I didn’t even suspect she was a McHunter. Not a surprise they’d be here. More confirmation that we were right to investigate this ship.” I said ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. Hopefully, Reo forgot it was my idea to come here.

“Too bad for hoping we were wrong. You make it sound great we’re sure there are Adumbrae on board. Personally, I think you should stay behind at Catalina tomorrow. Buy a plane ticket back to La Esperanza and forget about all of this.”

“I’m not doing that!” I snapped with conviction that could make Deen proud.

“You’re still human. Just continue your life.”

“I already said I’m staying.”

“Suit yourself,” said Reo with a sigh.

“Anyway, we should continue this thread of investigation,” I said, wondering if he truly cared about my well-being or was just being bitter about giving up his humanity. “Good call visiting the crew bar. We learned a lot from them.” I learned a lot.

We have a candidate for the hiding spot of the ships to Red Island. If we couldn’t find it, tailing the McHunters was our next bet since they’d certainly head there when it was time for their trip. That was Yara and his brother visiting Big Marcy’s office when I was in Domino’s Jeffrey illusion. What else could they be talking about other than becoming Adumbrae?

A new problem dawned on me just now—what was the departure time to Red Island? I just knew it was the last night of the cruise, but not the exact time.

I couldn’t wait for hours at the bulbous bow—that phrase sounds nasty—because that’d be boring and risky.

But I had a clue. Same as when tender ships would pick up the passengers to go to Catalina, the cruise ship had to drop its anchor when disgorging its baby ships or risk ramming or sinking them with its wake. It’d take place late at night or way early morning when most of the passengers were asleep to minimize getting noticed. Though the crew would most likely know about it. Probably not a fast process. I doubted the rich people would be quick boarding and so on. And given the cranes on the ships, I expected there was cargo too, some of them of a monstrous nature.

I could've asked those guys if I only thought of this five minutes ago.

The more I thought about it, the more questions cropped up.

Like, why did the cruise ship bring its own transport to Red Island, instead of ships coming to fetch the 2Ms’ clients? I guess they wanted to lessen the trips? And was the cruise ship going to wait for the return of the monsterified passengers? Probably not because that’d be too long.

“Yeah… we did learn a lot,” Reo replied.

“Where to next?” I asked. It’d be awkward if we returned to the crew bar to ask more questions. Maybe there were other of Reo’s newfound friends we could interrogate so our intentions wouldn’t be obvious. Employees talk.

Reo didn’t answer me. Instead of returning to the elevators in the middle part of the ship, he headed forward.

“Uh, Reo? Where are we going?”

“To the front of the ship,” he finally replied.

“Oh, we’ll investigate the bulbous bow?” I said. “Shouldn’t we be going down?”

“There’s another set of elevators up ahead if you want to go down. As for me, I’m going up.”

“Wait a minute.” I hurried walking so I’d be beside him. “You’re not coming with me?”

He placed his hands behind his head and took a deep breath. “That was enough for a day’s work, don’t you think?” he asked, still facing forward. “You said it yourself. We learned a lot.”

“Yo-you’re just going to stop?” Was this piece of shit serious?

“We have info that the McHunters are on board. We also have other rich people's names for Dario and Johann to research. Most importantly, we have your bow-penis tidbit.”

“That was you comparing it to a dick. You can’t just bail on me.”

“I can. And I will.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“I’m going to the bow of the ship,” he said. “The crew pool is supposedly there. Just a small pool away from the passengers. Sara without an ‘h’ told me about it yesterday. Wish me luck I’d find some chicks there.”

“You can’t do that!” I was only partly faking annoyance. Which meant I wasn’t. My pawn was abandoning me? Reo was asking to get thrown overboard. He’d get his wish of swimming to shore.

“I’m going to enjoy my last days because I might not survive until the end of this cruise.” He stopped walking and looked at me. “As for you, go back to your room and watch TV or something. Don’t show your face around here as much as possible. The 2Ms know who you are. I don’t understand Dario’s decision to bring you along.” He shrugged and went ahead. “But I’m not the leader.”

Such a peculiar person, this guy. Hard to pin down his true personality.

Did he agree to go with me, intending to make me avoid danger? Or was he using me as an excuse to not do anything dangerous, and all his yapping was a cover by making him sound concerned about me?

Before I could think about how to convince him to continue our assignment, my phone vibrated. This is going to be Deen, I thought before checking. It was.

My fingers flew over the screen as I typed a reply while stomping after Reo.

He was approaching the elevators. There was a family—husband and wife and two screaming kids who should probably be at a different type of cruise than this—waiting for a carriage to arrive. How did they even reach down here? A ding and a set of doors opened. I was prepared to lunge and grab Reo, but he didn’t go in. The dad gestured if we were going to come.

“We’ll take the next one,” Reo said. After the doors closed, he told me, “I hate loud kids.”

“Be serious here,” I said. “Are you just giving up?”

“Giving up what? I’m not giving up anything. I’m taking a break after a job well done.” Another ding. “Here’s my ride. Or is it going to be ladies first?”

“I-I’m going with you.” I could see for myself what the bulbous bow looked like from above. And if my luck continued, there’d be employees to interrogate. Then I’d try to convince Reo to go to the bottom levels of the ship.

“Good for you to pick life,” he said. His hand hovered on the elevator buttons panel. “Huh, that’s weird.”

“What’s weird? Did you forget the floor we should go to?”

“There’s a button for zero.”

I leaned left. True enough, there was a number zero. But there shouldn’t be because this wasn’t a numpad. What was floor zero supposed to be?

“Should I press it?” Reo grinned at me. “Maybe it’ll lead to a secret floor.”

Secret floor?

What numbers did Jeffrey’s friend press to make the elevator go to Big Marcy’s secret floor? Four, four, two, and… eight or nine. Only one elevator could reach it. What if this one led to the secret ship storage?

Reo pressed the number zero several times. The doors didn’t close, and the carriage didn’t move. He laughed. “Nope, nothing.”

“Quit messing around. What floor to reach the bow so you can finally reenact the Titanic? Four or something?” I nudged him aside, partially blocked the view of the panel with my body, and pressed four twice. “Or maybe three?” I pressed three and quickly pressed zero, hoping he didn’t see it.

“Woah, Erind! Don’t press random numbers! You’ll make this thing stop at each floor.” He pushed my hand away and chose the floor where he wanted to go. But the doors were already closing.

Four-four-three-zero. Was this the answer to the riddle?

Well, it wasn’t a riddle. Just a message that I didn’t understand. If this was truly the way to the three small ships, then Big Marcy probably assumed I was some genius who worked out the secret of the elevators as I infiltrated his hideout on my own.

“The numbers…” Reo nodded at the display on top of the door. “There’s nothing… Shouldn’t it count up?”

“Maybe it’s broken.”

He placed his hands on the door. “We’re moving down, not up. Quite fast.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Did you break something?”

“Why are you looking at me?” I said. “You’re the one who kept pressing ‘zero’. Maybe we’re going to a secret floor.”