Adrift (Book 1) (4 page)

She had only ever been abroad once—on a holiday with her girlfriends to Greece when she was eighteen—and had spent most of those two weeks drunk and dancing.

Elaine had never seen anything like the opulence that dripped from every surface of the Oceanus, and the first sight of the ship's interior was incredible and awe-inspiring.

She stood there for a while, watching the tiny stick-figures scurrying about on the other side of the ship, and thinking that she already wished she could stay on board forever.

"I wonder why they don't fly away."

Elaine had been so lost in studying the ship that she hadn't noticed Dan moving alongside her at the balcony.

She looked at him inquisitively.

"The ducks," Dan said, and pointed at the distant pond. "What's to stop them just flying off?"

"Take a
look
at this place," Elaine said in a voice light with breathless wonder. "Would you fly off?"

Dan grinned.

"You have a point, there, Mrs Bellamy. Now, let's go and find our cabin." He held up an electronic keycard with the number
217
stamped on it. "And then I think it might be time to try treating that addiction of yours."

Dan exaggerated a wink, and Elaine giggled helplessly.

Security hadn't been a problem, despite Herb secretly hoping that the guards who waved them through the staff entrance and onto the ramp that boarded the ship might become suspicious.

In the end, the guards had given a cursory inspection to the Rennick brothers' bags, and only one item piqued their interest: a small silver satchel that Edgar carried inside his larger workbag, and which the x-ray scanners had trouble with.

The satchel was important to the mission; beyond vital, but when the guards opened it up they saw only safety goggles and a radio; nothing that looked out of place among the other tools and mechanical supplies that filled the brothers' bags.

The Rennicks were dressed as engineering staff, after all, and bags full of tools were to be expected. Safety goggles and a radio probably didn't look suspicious in the slightest. Maybe, Herb thought, if their IDs
hadn't
checked out, the guards would have taken more than a glance at those tools, and might have spent a little time wondering just why that small silver satchel wouldn't scan properly, but Edgar had been right.

Nobody gave the Rennick brothers a second glance.

After all, their names and faces were on the list, and if the computer didn't have a problem with their presence, then why should anybody else?

Extraordinary wealth gave Herb's father incredible reach: inserting four people who shouldn't be there into the database of a cruise ship was as easy as snapping his fingers and writing a cheque.

They made it aboard, and Edgar led them directly to the target location, while Herb's faint hope that fate would intervene and somehow prevent them from boarding withered up and died.

*

The Climate Control Centre on deck three was just a large metal box; far less impressive than its name suggested. Lots of pipes, lots of exposed metal. Compared to the rest of the expensively-appointed ship, the control centre looked like a wound; like someone had peeled back the Oceanus’ perfect skin to reveal the steel skeleton underneath.

All around the main room, metal veins snaked away, large and small. Vents that disappeared into the walls, delivering the purified, warm air to other parts of the ship.

Even those who were familiar with the ship could get lost in the metal maze that comprised the Climate Control Centre, but Edgar had memorised the turns he needed to take to reach a secluded part of the deck, and he led the way unerringly.

The target location had been Edgar's call, and Herb had to admit it was probably the right one. Remaining undiscovered on a ship like the Oceanus was difficult, but not impossible. The air conditioning system was the closest thing the ship possessed to a
dead zone
.

Deep in one of the labyrinthine maintenance areas that clustered around the engine room like arterial fat, the spot Edgar had picked out, after many hours spent poring over blueprints and schematics, represented their best chance of avoiding people for long enough to get the job done.

The job
, Herb thought bitterly. It sounded so mundane. So
ordinary.
A job was exactly what Edgar thought of it as. The duty. Their oath. As necessary as breathing and eating.

Yet Herb couldn't see beyond the horror of what they were about to do. It wasn't a fucking
job
. It was a life sentence. It seemed that Edgar was confident they'd get away clean, but Herb thought that even if they did escape the Oceanus after their work was done, none of them would ever be
clean
again.

Edgar's choice of venue proved astute. After dropping into the guts of the ship following the security check, the brothers encountered very few staff, and when they reached climate control, it was so deserted that it was almost possible to believe they were the only people on the ship.

Air con was one of those systems that people only paid attention to when it stopped working. There would be checks, but they would be infrequent. All the brothers knew the staffing patterns by heart, and the first routine check of the Climate Control Centre was scheduled for twelve hours after departure.

By twelve hours in, Herb thought darkly, air conditioning would be the last thing on anyone's mind.

The spot Edgar had picked was a junction room connecting several of the ducts that spread out like a web throughout the ship. The room itself was almost featureless, save for the air con control units that dominated one wall. The room was small; Herb guessed it was probably no more than twelve by twelve, and the ceiling had to be six foot, max. Herb was the only one of the brothers that didn't have to stoop, but even at five-ten, he felt his hair grazing the ceiling when he stood up straight.

Edgar nodded at the others, and slung his bag from his shoulder, beginning to unpack. Herb followed suit, but removing the bag from his shoulders didn't make him feel any less heavy.

The weight of guilt
, he thought.
Or fear
.

Both.

Getting aboard the ship—and then reaching the target location—had been the part of the mission that filled the brothers with the most apprehension, and now that they had made it, Herb felt the tension in his brothers dissipate, even as it continued to grow inside his own thoughts like a tumour.

Edgar wore a satisfied expression, and Herb knew his brother was focused only on the completion of the task. The work began as soon as they slung the bags from their shoulders.

This part, the team of brothers was good at; beyond professional. They had rehearsed the construction of the device a hundred times, maybe more. Their record for completion had been five hours, twenty-four minutes. It hadn’t taken them more than seven hours in their last thirty attempts, and the brothers had started to joke that they could build the damn thing with their eyes closed.

Edgar was the lead in the construction of the device, just as he was the lead in everything else, but each of the brothers had their own set of tasks to complete.

Herb's main job was to construct the detonator. Wiring and soldering work that required steady hands. Not for the first time, he considered deliberately making errors; dooming the device and the whole goddamned plan from the outset, but Edgar was thorough, and he would check every part of Herb’s work, just as he had on their trial runs. If Herb made mistakes, it would simply slow them down, and that could not be allowed.

Nine hours.

After that, device or no device, there would be trouble.

The four men worked quietly for several minutes, unpacking the contents of their bags and laying them out across the floor, carefully arranging the tools and mechanical components around Edgar, until finally he stood at the centre of huge blueprint.

Edgar looked down, surveying their work, and nodded in satisfaction. The steps he needed to take were laid out at his feet, left to right. Everything in its place. What had looked like a random collection of tools and engineering supplies to the guards who had checked the bags at the gate would shortly look like something very different indeed.

He reached into his own bag and pulled out a welding torch.

Step one.

Herb felt the words tumbling out of his mouth unbidden.

"Are you sure about this, Ed?"

Edgar stared at him coldly, and heaved out a weary sigh of resignation.

"Always the same, Herb. Ever since we were kids. Always objecting when it's too late. Don't you think it's a little late to ask if I'm
sure
?"

Herb felt anger scorch his cheeks.

"No
shit
it's too late," he snapped. "But I'm talking about the extraction, Ed. We both know nobody has ever been extracted before."

Edgar gritted his teeth and rubbed at his temples.

"Nobody has done this for over a century, Herb. The technology for extraction didn't exist. It wasn't even remotely feasible, for fuck's sake. Of course nobody has been extracted before. We're capable of it now, the resources are there, and this has all been planned out. What possible reason would he have not to come and get us?"

"You act like you don’t even remember who we’re talking about," Herb said in a voice that dripped with sarcasm. "Sure, it’s
Dad
. Of course he’ll come and extract us. It's not like he's some fucking sociopath or something. Not like he cares more about his books and his theories than his own damn flesh and blood."

Herb rolled his eyes.

Edgar shook his head bitterly.

"I’m not going through this with you again, Herb. Trust Dad, or trust me. Whether the chopper waits for us or not, I’m not fucking dying on this ship, you understand?" He grabbed Herb’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. "So you don’t need to worry about extraction. You just need to stick with me. One way or another, I'll get you off this ship. Right?"

Herb searched desperately for a response; for some way to talk Edgar out of proceeding. Some way to persuade him that their father might just be a raving madman.

But Edgar had always had a very different relationship with their father. Hell, all the others had. Only Herb had ever voiced opposition.

He let his eyes drop to the floor.

"Good," Edgar said. "So let’s get this thing built, eh? We beat our record and then we get out of here. The sooner, the better."

Edgar reached into his bag and carefully pulled out one final item. The most important of all. The silver satchel. It was about the size of a large hardcover book, sleek and reflective. The satchel looked almost as if it was constructed from the same material as the suits astronauts wore to complete space walks. He placed it on a ledge that ran around the wall to his left gently, making sure there was no chance that it might fall, and flipped down the protective visor on his helmet.

"It's not too late, Ed," Herb said quietly, almost to himself. "We could steal a lifeboat. We could warn the crew, get the ship turned around. Fuck it: we could
swim
. It's
not
too late; not yet."

Edgar paused, but he didn't lift the visor.

Didn't respond.

Moments later the air in the control room hissed like a startled cat as the welding torch fizzed into life, and the room filled with flickering light.

*

The brothers had been working for a couple of minutes when Herb felt the rumbling, shaking his bones like a distant earthquake. The Oceanus wasn't just big; it was fast: powered by a unique engine that delivered something close to two hundred and fifty thousand horsepower to six enormous propellers that were capable of rotating fully three hundred and sixty degrees beneath the hull.

The result was a system that offered unparalleled maneuverability for a ship the size of the Oceanus; it moved almost like a gigantic hovercraft.

The sheer power the engine produced made cruises such as the one the ship was about to take—right across the Atlantic from the UK to Florida, and then on to the Caribbean—more viable than any previous vessel. The journey time to cross the ocean had been cut almost in half by the engineers that developed the Oceanus' revolutionary propulsion system.

With a dull roar, the ship eased away from the land, and for a moment, as the engines hummed at full power to build some momentum, Herb stopped his work and focused on his balance. After a few seconds, when the ship had pulled clear of the choppy waters its own enormous propellers had created, he felt the floor begin to settle beneath him. It didn't take long for the violent rocking to cease, and it once more became difficult to believe that they were on a ship at all.

He cast a glance around his brothers. All wore ashen expressions, and Herb thought he knew what was going through their minds.

Edgar, Phil and Seb believed implicitly in what they were doing, but even they looked like they were suffering a moment of doubt. There was little they could do once they were out in the open sea, even if they did change their minds about the mission. The roaring of the engine was the sound of the Rennick boys passing the point of no return.