Cassie Alexander - Deadshifted

No. Not in the least. But ahead of us, Marius was using the hand sanitizer station, and Nathaniel was determinedly stalking off on his own past the restaurant’s entrance entirely. I ran to catch up to Marius and hold him back from going into the Dolphin. “Marius—give me the master key. Please.”

He tsked. “It’s no use. The ships will be full with the patients we have already. Those who didn’t make it downstairs will have to wait for the next round.”

“They’re not going to make it. Don’t you see? This isn’t anything normal! This whole ship has been infected somehow—” I looked over my shoulder to make sure that Nathaniel was gone. I couldn’t see him in the hall anymore, but I didn’t know where he’d run off too, so I lowered my voice as I pleaded. “Someone did this on purpose. They’re testing things on us. I’ve got to find my boyfriend—”

“Testing things?” Marius repeated. It’d been the wrong thing to say. I could see his eyes glaze over in the way I knew mine did every time a patient at work told me the CIA had put a radio transmitter in their head.

“What else explains it?” I tried, realizing as I said it that it only made me sound more mad.

Marius shook his head and sliced both his hands through the air. “I cannot take any more crazy talk!”

“But it’s true—”

“No!” he interrupted. We were right in front of the Dolphin’s entrance. He straightened his shoulders, and it was clear he was scraping the last of his cruise-ship-employee diplomacy from the bottom of its barrel. “If you’ll both excuse me,” he said, including Jorge and I, “I have an actual job to do. Raluca needs me.” He turned and then disappeared inside, leaving Jorge and me alone in the wide hallway with the Dolphin’s wafting smell. It hadn’t gotten better in the meantime.

Jorge gave me a side eye. “That … is not the direction I thought you were going to go with that.”

“Me either.”

“Is it true?”

I nodded. “I can’t prove it, but it is. And that other man—Nathaniel—he’s in on it. And he knows that I know. It’s why he tried to pop my arm off like a Barbie-doll head.”

“How did you find out?”

I had no idea how to explain. I gave him a wan smile. “Would you believe I’m psychic?”

Jorge snorted. “I’d believe anything for a shot of whiskey right about now.”

Raluca’s megaphone came on inside the Dolphin. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was giving orders. “She’ll need our help to get everyone on the rescue ship.”

His eyebrows rose. “Call me back when it’s called a cure ship.”

Jorge was right. What would the rescue ship be able to do for the dying people anyhow? What was the cure for people who wanted to drink so badly that they’d throw themselves overboard or drown in tubs? What a cruel place they’d inadvertently chosen for their sickroom, with water painted on every wall. Dolphins, indeed. I snorted, and for the first time in my life I wished I was a doctor—not that the cruise ship doctor had seemed to be having much luck.

Why was Nathaniel here among us—just to watch? He’d let his own kid and wife die. What kind of man could do such a thing?

A man who’d known all along he wasn’t going to get sick.

He’d been here with us, exposed to all the same environmental factors. He must have access to some sort of cure.

Jorge and I walked into the Dolphin’s entrance partition. The doctor had abandoned his post, probably to help Raluca, but there were still printouts scattered across his makeshift desk all marked up like homework.

“I’ll be there in a second,” I told Jorge, and gestured to my slinged arm. I wasn’t going to be good for lifting anyone anyhow.

Jorge made a face but let me be. Once he’d left the doorway, I started rifling through piles of paperwork. What was it Asher had said Nathaniel’s last name was? Tannin? Some of the sheets were sorted by restaurants eaten and at what times—but one sheaf was alphabetical. I furiously flipped through these until I got to the T ’s, and as I did so I heard a rustling beyond the curtain. I grabbed the papers five-deep so I’d be sure I got them all, and shoved them into my sling. Dr. Haddad appeared, looking gray.

“Did you figure anything out?” I asked him, so I looked like I had a reason to stay behind.

“I tried. I sorted by restaurant, by dining time, by hometown, by recent travel, by airlines, but I couldn’t find any commonalities—other than everyone affected being here.” He sat down in his chair and breathed like someone with heart failure, his lungs searching for, but not finding, enough air.

“You don’t look well.”

“That’s no concern of yours.”

Outside of the curtain’s Raluca’s megaphoned voice was getting quieter as it moved farther away. “You should get on the rescue ship—”

“Just as captains go down with the ship, doctors should go down with their sickrooms.” He stirred the papers in front of him restlessly, seemingly more out of habit than need.

I prepared to back out of the room to inspect the papers I’d swiped, but then I paused. “Where … is the captain?”

“Isolated above. All the officers are quarantined off by floor—the ones upstairs are taking shifts manning the ship.”

“You’re sure?”

“They’re still on the radio with me. Luckily when the quarantine went in place, we had a good crew.”

“And all of them are still well? None of them is sick?”

“Not last time I radioed, no. What are you getting at?” He didn’t sound angry, just exasperated and tired, and took another wet-sounding breath.

I shook my head. I didn’t know, yet. But the utter destruction of an entire ship full of people was a tall order for any single man. Nathaniel must have had help, and it made sense for that help to be on the inside. And if Asher was right, he’d held the right patents to afford it.

Dr. Haddad didn’t notice my distraction; he was too busy staring off behind me. I turned to see what he was looking at, and saw where the curtains had parted and a slice of the ocean was visible through the window outside. Shit. Him too. I stepped in front of the window, blocking his view, and knelt down to be in his field of vision. “I’m sorry, I lied to you earlier. I am pregnant, and I cannot have this baby alone. I need to find my husband. Do you have another master key?”

His eyes focused on me slowly. “I gave my last one to Raluca.”

“Where’s Raluca going now?”

“First floor. Where the tender boats dock.”

“Which side of the ship? How can I get there?”

“The freight elevator and down. It’ll be aft.”

Which the fuck way was aft? “Down by the morgue?” I guessed.

“Yes.” He tilted his head so that he could see past me to the window.

I knew what was coming for him, and I knew I didn’t know how to help. Should I do what he’d done to the others and tie him to the table bodily, or should I just leash him by his foot?

“Before you go, can you get me a glass of water?” he asked.

“I’m sorry—” I stepped away from him. “I’ve got to go.” If Raluca got on the medical ship, I’d lose my chance to snag her key. I closed the curtain so he couldn’t see out anymore. It felt like the only thing I could do. Then I ran into the Dolphin to follow the volunteers down.

Every jogging step jostled my arm in its socket, and the manifest papers I’d swiped and hidden chafed. The wait on the elevator seemed interminable. I paced in circles trying to figure out how I’d get Raluca—or Marius, as a distant runner-up—to give me a key. I couldn’t exactly go and get into a fistfight with anyone in my current state.