“What’s that for?” asked Arima.
“You’ll see,” he said.
He used the patch to stick the cord to the bottom corner of the door, on the side away from the hinges. Then he led her around the corner, the cord in his hand.
“What,” she said, “are you going to pull it open with the incredible magic string?”
All he said was “watch my back.”
They waited in silence for a long time. Arima took to fiddling with her ribbons, and Squiz started to chew his toenails. Even Soro was beginning to think about forgetting this skulky business, and taking a hammer to the door, when one of the ship’s officers, a man with classic good looks, a smooth, firm jaw and a white shirt that did not conceal his powerful chest, walked out through the door. He paused outside it, and Soro felt his gut tighten as he thought the man would come their way. If he did, they’d be in real trouble. But the officer turned off, and walked in the other direction, soon to vanish into the lower decks.
They breathed a collective sigh of relief, and then Soro waved Arima to run up and grab the door handle; he’d been holding it ajar with the nylon cord, but the door was heavy, the cord thin, and his hands were being strangled.
“Nice trick,” she said, holding the door open. “May I make a suggestion? Next time, try it with gloves.”
They found themselves in a suite of offices, which they crept through like intrepid mice delving into the cat’s terrain. The carpets were once soft and pink, but they’d been worn down by years of service, and the air had a mixed aroma, in which coffee predominated.
Soro marvelled at what they could do on sheer audacity. And luck. He couldn't deny the value of luck. They threaded their way through the tight maze of offices, and discovered, to his horror, that even ships have cubicles. Soon after that, they came upon a room labelled HM.
“Hotel Manager,” said Soro.
“Hell's Master,” replied Arima.
He cocked an eyebrow, and offered the door handle to her. She offered it right back. He narrowed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and gripped the handle. If they failed here, they'd have to come up with a whole new plan, as well as some way to explain their presence in the restricted area. He sure couldn't use the string trick in the crew's offices. To his surprise and pleasure, the handle turned, and the door opened on yet another office, the desk piled high with guest room status reports, cleaning requests, and other hotel type stuff. He didn't care about that. He cared about the key cards that hung on one wall.
“That's it!” said Arima, and she grabbed the master key.
“Eek!” said Squizzle, and he leapt in the air, snatched the card from her hand, and ran out of the room.
“No,” said Soro, and they raced out.
Right into the path of an oncoming crewman.
***
Imagination and fear would have painted him as a husky eight foot terror, with shark's teeth and troll hide. He was not troll-born. If any mythic creature had played a part in his ancestry, it was most likely a boggart. The crewman who stood blocking their escape wore what would have been a neat, crisp white uniform on a man with the right proportions, but as he lacked the square shoulders and the long arms and legs, as he, in fact, had a shape best described as a potato with twig limbs, and a grey, sardonic face with sagging jowls and a salt and pepper hair cut that looked rather like the spines of an aged and balding porcupine.
"Whaddya think y'r doin'?" he said, in a voice that rasped and warbled.
For once in his life, Soro had no idea what to do. He'd been acting under a tremendous strain, spied on, hunted, and now betrayed by Squizzle, his constant companion, the one person... The one being in his life he could always rely on. And then, to be accosted by this weird, weird little man, like a creature out of a horror story, it was more than he could deal with.
He stared at the apparition, his jaw sagging, his hands grasping at the air, as if he could pluck a story out of the dry, recycled air.
Arima had no such problems. She spun around and wrapped her arms around him, clamped her lips to his, and gave him a kiss that did not belong in church. He stiffened at first, and then, as he felt her warm, firm body press against him, he began to experience feelings he had neither expected nor planned for. He didn't want to take advantage of her, but he had to trust her intuition, and act the role she'd handed him. He wound one arm around her back, and one hand came up to stroke her hair.
She leaned against him, pushing him back against the still open door, and their combined weight closed it with a snap. Then she continued to ravish him.
After a pause, the crewman cleared his throat.
Arima unwound herself from Soro with exaggerated care, gave him a grin, and tapped the end of his nose before she faced the crewman, her face flushed, eyes wide. "Oh, hey, good... This ain't the karaoke bar," she said.
Soro knew something was off the moment she spoke. In truth, he'd known as soon as she'd clasped her arms around him, and clamped her lips to his. But when she spoke, it was different. Her words came out slurred, with a wavering edge that suggested she was on the verge of giggles or hysteria. She stood with her weight on her left foot, and put an unsteady hand out to support herself against the wall.
The crewman frowned suspicion at her and then at him. His brow knotted and his lips pursed, uncertainty written on his face.
Arima leaned forward and touched his chest. "Aren't you the cute one," she said. In the same motion, she reached back with her left hand, concealed by her body, and prodded Soro.
He jumped, and then began to sway himself. "Join us," he said, affecting an extreme southern twang. "We got the best of the King, all the day and all the night."
The potato shaped crewman shuddered. "Why do I get the crazies, every single time?"
"Crazy for karaoke," said Soro, gaping a grin.
"I don't have time for this infantile idiocy. If you two want to pickle your liver, fine, but don't do it outside my office!"
"...You mean this isn't the karaoke bar?" said Arima.
"Get out of here! Just go down that- Oh, forget it, you'd probably pass out and choke on your own vomit. You're supposed to do that sort of thing in the passenger areas! Go this way. Go, go!" He herded them back the way they'd come, and when they got to the door, he didn't bother to say goodbye; he just shoved them out, and slammed the door shut.
They stood silent, gazing at each other with wide eyes and slack jaws. At length, Soro rubbed his brow, and shook his head. "I thought we were dead," he said.
"I don't know," she said. "You seemed pretty lively to me."
He spluttered. "Me? You had more life than Frankenstein's-"
She coloured. "Oh, so I'm a monster?"
He threw out his hands. "No, that's not-"
"You think kissing me is like sticking your tongue into a reanimated corpse!"
He felt the floor fall away, and the world spun in a crazy whorl. "Nonono! Kissing you is great. I only meant-"
Her anger vanished, and she put her fingers on his lips, to shut them. "That's settled, then." She grabbed his arm, and led him away. He followed her lead, more confused than ever. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea," she said. "I only did that to get us out of there."
"Right, I-"
"It's not something I do every day."
"No, you-"
"Or with just anyone."
He chewed his lip. "Uh..."
"And it's not important right now. The essential thing is to find that mini monkey."
"Yeah..."
She paused, and scowled at him. "This doesn't mean I approve of your professional ethics." Then she softened. "But it was a nice kiss."
***
Soro didn't know what was going on in Arima's pretty beribboned head, but he did know one thing. "They're going to miss us at meal times."
They stood once again in the gift shop, pretending to be entranced by the miniature pink elephant in a bottle, and the wind-up singing skulls. Squiz had returned to his perch on Soro
's shoulder, once they'd found him capering along the rails on the upper deck, master key card safe between his teeth.
"Lunky munkles," said Arima. "They wouldn't notice a green gorilla unless they were getting paid to shoot it."
"A green gorilla, hey? That sounds too interesting not to shoot."
"Yeah, I figured you'd say that." She toyed with a Weeping Minny doll. "You're not like them."
"I'd like to swell up like a balloon, but I sense you've got a needle to pop my pride."
"You're not like them. You're the opposite."
"Sounds good."
"Does it?" She flashed a look at him, and went back to Weeping Minny, teasing and tilting the baby doll. "They get a job, they get a target, and they shoot it. Straight up contract work. You wander around all wide eyed and star struck, and when you see some shiny bauble, you whip out that camera and zap snap! You're not trying to achieve anything. You don't want to change anything or, God help us, preserve anything. You ache for the shot, and when it's done, you move on. Maybe you sell the pic, maybe you leave it in a dusty cabinet, or on an aging memory stick. Whatever uses it might have had, you leave to someone else, or you leave it to fate."
He didn't say anything for a while. He peered into the bottle, and tried to figure out how they'd got the pink elephant in there. Maybe they popped it in while it was still in the larval stage...
"Wow," he said. "You've spent a lot of time thinking about me. Perhaps I should be flattered."
She rolled her eyes. "That's it? I meant what I said. Dammit, Soro, I want to like you. You're intelligent, gifted, you're kind to animals, oh, and you saved my sweet little self a couple of times. You're not stupid or callous, so why can't you see the effect you've had?"
"I can see the effect you've had on that doll," he said, pointing at the trickle of water weeping from those painted plastic eyes.
"Groggin skogs," she said, dropping the thing on the shelf, and wiping her hands on her top. "Back in the jeep. Did you mean it when you gave me that little speech? Sell to the evil corporation, sell to the protestors? That balancing act is dumb. Don't you want to stand for something? Don't you want to be remembered?"
"I know one thing," he said. "Someone will remember this." He tapped the key card in his pocket. "I want to finish our detective game before they miss it. And one other thing; the restaurant's full. Or anyway, I saw Jack Johnson go in with Typhoon just now, and Triolet is on the way up the corridor. Time to go."
***
They went back to the living quarters as fast as they could. Soro paused halfway, and struck his head. “How could I have been so stupid?” he said.
“Hard work, luck, and a hereditary predisposition,” said Arima.
“It's the hunger making me hallucinate,” he said. “Not you saying bad things. That's not you at all.” He explained himself; he'd got so caught up in the plan to search the rooms, that he'd forgotten he didn't know where each of their targets was staying. “So what the hell do we do?” he said.
She smiled at him. “I wondered how long it would take. Don't worry, I can find them.”
“Huh? I'd like to see you achieve that.”
“I found you, didn't I?”
He couldn't argue with that. He didn't know what to think about Arima. At times she seemed a drag, a hindrance. He didn't appreciate having to fence with snarky comments all the time, and she had a habit of getting into trouble. But at other times she showed remarkable presence of mind, and great compassion. He didn't know what to make of her, but just then he was glad to have her along.
They got to the first room, Jack's quarters. Soro searched it, while Arima watched the hall, ready to warn him if Jack came back early.
***
He found nothing suspicious in Jack's stateroom, and he hadn't expected to. Neither had Arima. They had agreed to search his room first, just to clear him off the list, as they both felt he was a good guy, although Soro still thought he was a little too sensitive about his more famous namesake, someone Arima had known of and told him about. In truth, that knowledge had made him a little closer to Jack; he knew all about growing up with an unusual name.
"Who's on second?" said Arima. But she didn't give him a chance to reply. "I bet it's that frosty momma. Let's hit her place."
He raised his eyebrows.
She shrugged. "I'm just saying. You don't think that's fair? Rock, paper, scissors, bro."
"...are you trying to put on an American accent?"
She looked guilty.
"It makes you sound like a twelve year old. But okay, rock, paper, scissors."
They played, he lost, they went to Triolet's stateroom. They had a spat outside about who should go in. "It's a girl's room," she said. "You shouldn't be in there."
"A girl who's maybe involved in kidnapping."
"Innocent until I find a blood soaked hammer!"
She looked serious. They didn't play rock, paper, scissors this time. He waited in the hallway, and told himself that he'd let her have her way. But he knew the truth. He hadn't 'let her' have anything. She was tough, in spite of the pink ribbons.
"No blood soaked hammers?" he said when she slipped out of the door.
"Not even a sharpened hairpin." She looked disgusted.
They came to the last door. "I don't like this," he said. "Tigh was nice to me when I first came aboard. I didn't know anyone, and he showed me around. I wouldn't have met Jack Johnson or Triolet. I wouldn't even know who they are."
"You'd still have met me, right? Helped me?"
He shrugged. He couldn't deny it.
"And Jack, too. He would have helped me, I mean. Maybe he reacted badly when you got him confused with that boxer, but that didn't stop him from helping out when he could."
He had to agree with her, but he didn't feel comfortable about it. "Maybe this plan is cockeyed," he said. "Maybe we missed someone else, someone we wouldn't have thought to take seriously."
"Now you're just making excuses," she said. "I've got a passenger manifest."
"How did you get that?"
"It's not important. Hey, you're not the only one who likes to sneak around in the dark. Anyway, that's how come I knew where these guys were staying."
And how you found my room, he thought.
"We're wasting time," she said, stamping her foot like a petulant little girl. "You came to me with a sad story about your brother and about a bunch of Gell Shield monkeys, no offence to Squizzle."
He thought she'd got some of that backwards; he didn't remember going to her, or asking for her help. He chose not to mention it.
"I've been risking my neck all day, and I've missed a couple of meals to do it. I'll help you find your brother, and I'll help you put the Gell mob back in their box, but I can't do a thing for you if you lose your nerve the moment we get outside your happy place. Are you serious about this, or has it all been a gronking game?"
Her words didn't make him feel happier or more comfortable. Instead he felt the added pressure of her expectations and her safety, as well as the subtle fear he had for his brother, and, more immediate but less worrisome, the concern he had for the sanctity of his own personal skin. However, this was not a weight he could throw aside, something he could dump by the road, and roam on in his usual carefree manner. In the past, his choices had affected no one but him, or perhaps he was wrong, and they'd always affected other people, and he'd turned his head aside, eyes fixed on the next shining image. Now he was responsible for two people and himself again, and even though he hated the anxious tension it brought, he had to bear up.
"What's that look mean?" she asked.
He felt tightness in his eyes, lips and brow. He hadn't realised it, but the feeling told him he'd been glaring at her. He eased his features into a smile. "I just had a rare lucid moment."
"Hmm?"
"You'd make a good drill sergeant."
He unlocked the door and bolted through it before she could attack.
***
The waiting
was beginning to fray Arima's nerves, so that when the door shot open and Soro poked his head out, she almost jumped out of her ribbons.
“For the love of-”
“Shh,” he said. “I need your camera.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “What happened to your camera?”
“I need yours.”
“But-”
He gave her rolling eyes and an exasperated grin. “There's really no time, unless you want to wait for our visitor to come back, so I can ask him. Oh, wait, I already have his camera. He dropped it when he broke into my room last night!”
“So take the jubbling thing!” She thrust it at him. He snatched it from her hand, and vanished back into Typhoon's stateroom.
She couldn't be sure it he could hear her or not, so she let loose a torrent of her choicest curses, and she said them as loud as she could. He could be so good and kind, and then he could treat her like some kind of amoeba. It was frustrating.
She paused in mid-scream when she saw someone come around the corner at the end of the corridor, and begin to walk towards her.
Triolet...and Typhoon.
She paused, her train of thought a flaming wreck. They were some distance down the corridor, walking with the hesitant steps of people who've hunted up some live conversation, and don't want to let it get away. They made an odd pair, the skeletal figure of Typhoon, with his gleaming jewellery, gleaming bald head, and long, gleaming teeth, taking slow strides beside the beautiful woman with the majestic air and the cascade of blonde hair. They could hardly be Death and the maiden, but Typhoon looked every inch the reaper man. She was surprised she didn't hear the rattle and clack of bones as he moved.
She eyed the door, and half-raised her hand to give a warning rap. She paused, afraid the movement would attract the approaching pair's attention. They seemed not to have noticed her yet, and she wanted to avoid their eyes. But even as she felt that desire, she realised it was futile. They were coming this way, and she knew, in her gut, they would stop at Typhoon's room. Perhaps they would settle in and stay there for the rest of the night, and perhaps they would instead pause to pick up something, perhaps an album or some medicine for Typhoon--he looked as though he could use it--and then continue on their way. It didn't matter. If they entered that stateroom, they would discover Soro, and she knew that could have terrible consequences for him and his brother Sam.