To Be A Leader

Chapter 36: Under Pressure

I flinch, but I don't have time to ask her what she could possibly mean by that. I'm not sure I want to know either way. Veronica's mind is a web of scientific facts and hypothesis and dark knowledge that even I am too afraid to try to explore.

"...four, three, two, one. Time to go! Up the gangway onto that ship, before the gaurds spot you."

We do as told, our footsteps tapping along the rusting gangway in sync. For a split second, I swear the ship doesn't look as terrible as it is. For a split second, it looks nice, beautiful. There's no rust or barancles or sea kelp. It's feels... familiar.

Comforting.

Happy.

Then it's gone, slipping from my mind like smoke between my fingers. I blink and shake my head. My hand grips at my backpack strap, and Veronica gives me a sideways glance.

We reach the deck of the ship, quickly finding the first door we can, going down, down, down into the long hallways. I see flashes of the ship during its prime-long carperts and smooth floors where rotten wood and soiled fabric now sits, chandeliers where broken fixtures sway.

I try not to let out any noise as I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing through my nose, trying-desperately trying-to fight my way through the haze of a lost memory. No answer comes, the pieces of my shattered memory scattering to the edges of my mind, just out of reach.

I mutter a curse.

"Uh, wow, yeah," Sam says. "I've got a couple cams in there."

"Not a pretty sight, is it?" Milo asks, looking at the barnacle covered walls and rusted doors. "Be careful here, Ronnie. The floor's half eaten away with rust."

He hops over one of the holes in the floor, and the ship creaks in response.

"The Minister dredged the ocean floor for this ship," Veronica states. "She told me she thought it was important."

"Did she?" I ask, rubbing my temples.

I pause when I see new equipment here among the rusting stuff in one of the rooms. There's a brand new audio mixing desk in here. The sight of it makes me cringe. It's new, foreign. It pulls me out of the comfort, that happiness, that pulls at the edges of my being. I don't like it.

It shouldn't be here.

Veronica heads over it to examine it, and Milo isn't too far from behind. He's the one who points it out to Sam, telling him how odd it looks compared to the rest of the ship.

Sam hums in agreement. "Intel from the Laundry says that people are still being brought to this boat ocassionally. We've picked up a little bit of chatter via the transmitter Jody built. And Ellie's been helping us. In all the confusion, the Minister didn't guess a thing about her helping us escape.

"Anyways, yeah. We think this boat is one of the places she did experiments on people with Moonchild Syndrome. I suppose she would have done experiments on you too, Five, if she managed to find you, her Alpha. Kytan said she was looking for a special one amongst the Moonchild sufferers. She must have been trying to work out how to do what she did to get Moonchild to take you over."

"But she doesn't know I'm the Alpha," I reply, frowning. "She can't. Moonchild said after I passed out and she took over, no one could really tell. Plus, if she knew, why would she infect me with the zombie virus?"

"We're beginning to think she would have given the cure as soon as you started to turn. Moonchild may have thought she didn't notice, but is Moonchild always accurate? And like I said, we've heard a bit more chatter, and from the sounds of it, Sigrid knows."