The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  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.

  6

  Patrick Smith had lucked out, and the stroke of fortune felt like it had been a long time coming.

  He had always hoped to join the police, but having repeatedly failed the entrance exams, Patrick had finally given up and accepted a job in private security, figuring that maybe he could work his way up to becoming a bodyguard for a high-profile VIP. Maybe, one day, he would be Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard.

  But private security turned out to be anything but exciting, and five years into his career he hadn't even graduated to guarding people, let alone Very Important ones.

  Instead of the heady rush of being a cop patrolling the streets, dreaming of one day being the kind of officer that had actual cases to deal with—maybe even murder cases, Patrick had found himself spending his nights walking the perimeter of a tiny storage facility. Instead of carrying a badge and a gun, he carried a torch that he used on every shift and a baton that never once left its holster.

  Round and round he went, patrolling the endless route, circling aimlessly like a goldfish. The money was decent, but job satisfaction turned out to be two words that definitely did not belong together.

  He had spent five years drowning in that tedium when the opportunity to provide security for a newly-built cruise ship had come up. An old friend had worked on designing the ship, and one night over a reunion beer that friend had off-handedly told Patrick to apply. Patrick had nodded politely, assuming it was just one of those things people said when alcohol loosened their tongues. The offer, of course, wouldn't extend beyond last orders at the bar.

  And yet, something had persuaded Patrick that he should just go for it, and so he applied for the job, and namedropping the designer got his foot in the door.

  Getting the job was like winning the lottery. In the end, the woman that hired him told him that she was impressed by his dedication, and his loyalty to his position at the lock-up. She knew full-well how boring it was to guard such a place, she said, and the fact that he had stayed for so long showed just the level of dedication that she wanted on what she called my ship.

  Patrick didn’t mention that he had applied for dozens of other jobs over those five years, and had been rejected on every occasion.

  So it was that Patrick went from guarding the most boring place in the world to perhaps the most exciting, and he suddenly didn't regret one minute of that time spent traipsing around the dull lock-up facility. It all led here, to the Oceanus.

  It wasn't exactly Patrick's first day on the job, but
it sure felt like it: this was the first time the ship would be carrying passengers, the first time it would head out onto the open sea. Patrick could barely contain his excitement.

  His shift wasn't supposed to start for hours, but Patrick was unable to wait and determined to make a good impression, and so he began his patrol early. He was one of several security personnel whose duty it was to ensure that the lower decks, which comprised the engine room and maintenance areas, didn't receive visitors who weren't supposed to be there. Mostly, he had been assured, the only time he would have to actually turn people away would be if drunken passengers got lost on the enormous ship and somehow found their way down to the engineering decks.

  Of course, the chances of anybody being there at that moment were slim: most of the passengers were still getting checked in and making their way to their cabins, and the crew was mostly preparing the upper decks, ensuring that the passengers were dazzled by their first impression of the enormous ship.

  That was why Patrick’s rotation wasn't even due to start for a couple of hours: his sector of the Oceanus was deserted.

  He had almost completed a full circuit of his zone when he heard the strange noise emanating from a vent set high in the wall, an odd sort of mechanical hissing that he could not quite identify. It brought to Patrick's mind long-forgotten memories of visits to fireworks displays as a kid, listening to the fiery hiss of a catherine wheel. It was probably nothing, Patrick thought, but he was determined to be the best security officer on the whole boat, and that meant investigating. If he found something that needed to be found, some engineering issue, perhaps—especially when he technically wasn't even meant to have started his shift yet—it could only bode well for his career prospects.

  He cocked an ear and listened.

  A strange fizzing, popping sound.

  Something in the air con system was making a noise. Probably just some technical hiccup—the ship settling like an old building—but the noise was strange enough to pique Patrick's interest.

  With a mental shrug, Patrick started toward the Climate Control Centre.

  *

  "What are you guys doing down here?"

  Herb froze.

  Lost in their individual tasks, working at maximum speed and concentration, none of the brothers had even noticed the approach of the man who stood in the doorway.

  Herb looked up, and felt his heartbeat stutter. The man who had spoken wore a security uniform. Nobody was supposed to be patrolling the area for several hours yet, but fate had intervened. Herb knew that Edgar would consider it bad luck, but Herb felt differently.

  Maybe he'll detain us, Herb thought. Or have the ship turned around. Maybe we'll get out clean after all.

  Edgar flipped off the welding torch, and silence fell on the room as the echo of the hiss receded.

  Herb looked at the guard, and then shifted his gaze to Edgar.

  And felt his stomach lurch when he noticed Edgar's fingers clenching around the handle of a large screwdriver.

  Oh no, Herb thought weakly. He wouldn't...

  Herb's mind raced, searching for a way to defuse the situation before it got out of hand. Judging by the icy look on Edgar’s face, if it was left to him to resolve the problem of the guard’s appearance, blood would be spilled.

  Herb had to intervene, and fast. The best place to hide a lie was behind the truth, wasn't it?

  "Just building a bomb, mate," Herb blurted out, surprising himself. "You know, we're gonna set it off before they begin what they are calling the entertainment."

  He aimed for an ironic grin.

  The security guard snorted.

  "No kidding," he said. "Guess I can't blame you for that. I heard they dragged that boyband out of retirement, and they're gonna croon out all their 'hits' on a nightly basis. God help us all."

  Herb nodded enthusiastically, and for a brief second started to believe that the security guard might allow himself to be distracted.

  "Seriously, though," the guard said, the polite smile fading away, "what are you guys doi—"

  The security guard's eyes widened in shock, and he took a half-step backwards. The question died on his lips as Edgar sprang forward like a striking snake, roaring as he drove the point of the screwdriver deep enough into the guard's throat that Herb saw the skin on the other side of the man's neck stretch and split before the tip of the tool reemerged.

  Blood flecked the pristine metal wall behind him, and for a moment the guard just stood there, staring at Edgar in dumb shock, gurgling pathetically as a river of blood pumped out onto his chest.

  He fell slowly; an incremental collapse that reminded Herb of demolition charges bringing buildings to the end of their lives.

  The guard's eyes never left Edgar, not even when the light behind them flicked off. He died with an accusatory, confused look on his face.

  And the air in the room itself seemed to take a breath.

  For several seconds in that bloated silence, the four brothers stared at the corpse splayed across the floor.

  Herb squeezed his eyes shut, feeling despair welling up.

  "Oh, Ed," he said quietly. "What the fuck have you just done?"

  When Herb opened his eyes, he found Edgar staring at him, and the face that had been as familiar to Herb as daylight suddenly belonged to a man he did not recognise. Edgar's eyes were wild.

  "He knew," Edgar spat.

  Herb surprised himself by roaring a response. Surprised Edgar, too, judging by the way he backed up in shock.

  "He didn't fucking know anything, Edgar. He was asking," Herb yelled. "There are a hundred different ways we could have answered him. Killing him wouldn't have been in my top fucking fifty."

  Edgar stared at Herb blankly for a moment before seeming to recover his senses.

  "What does it matter, Herb? He was going to be dead in—"

  "It matters to me," Herb roared, "and it should matter to you because we're not murderers. How does that," Herb jabbed a finger at the leaking corpse, "tally with your spiel about us being the good guys and doing what is necessary, huh?"

  Edgar's cheeks flushed a dangerous crimson.

  "Watch your tone, little brother," he said in a low voice.

  "Or what?" Herb growled. "You'll stab me, too? That's how we do things now?"

  Edgar had two handfuls of Herb's collar before the final syllable even left his mouth. He pulled Herb close, and whispered in a dangerously low voice.

  "You weren't there in Brighton, little brother. You haven't seen them. What they can do. If you had, you'd know that I just did that poor bastard a favour. If we're not murderers, it's only because nobody has a word for what we're about to do. Murderer doesn't begin to cover it, really, does it?"

  Edgar released Herb's collar and pushed him away. Herb felt his foot slip on the blood pooling on the floor, and his gorge rose.

  "We could have aborted the mission," Herb said weakly. "We could have—"

  "No," Edgar thundered. "Running away from this is a fantasy, Herb. And even you must understand that, because you're here. If you wanted to run away, you left it a little fucking late."

  Herb stared at Edgar and felt tears welling up in his eyes. He blinked them away angrily.

  "I'm here for you, Ed. For all of us. I'm here because I won't believe it's too late until we push the button."

  Edgar grimaced and turned away from Herb.

  "We all know the routine," he said. "Security checks in every thirty minutes. I don't know why this bastard was down here, but I do know he won't be checking in any time soon."

  Edgar drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes. Herb couldn't be sure, but he thought his big brother was counting to ten, trying to calm himself enough to calculate the best route forward.

  He's losing it, Herb thought. We all are.

  "Okay," Edgar said finally. "What's done is done. Someone's going to miss our leaking friend here, and sooner or later they're going to start searching for him. We have to be ready when that happens, or
we have to be gone. Yes?"

  No response from Phil or Seb. Herb kept his lips clamped shut and stared mutinously at Edgar.

  "Yes?" Edgar roared. His raised voice bounced and echoed off the thin metallic walls, making Herb flinch.

  Seb and Phil mumbled their agreement.

  "You two," Edgar said, jabbing a finger at them. "Get rid of the body. Herb, clean up the damn blood."

  He picked up the welding torch, and flicked it back into life.

  "Uh...get rid of it how, Ed?" Phil said warily. "You want us to stash it somewhere?"

  Edgar grimaced.

  "The ship's moving, isn't it Phil? So no, I don't want you to stash it somewhere. Weight it down and toss the fucking thing overboard."

  Herb couldn't look as Phil and Seb hoisted the body from the room, searching for something to wrap it in.

  He retrieved some rags from his bag, and focused on scooping up the worst of the blood, and cleaning the tools that were now drenched in gore.

  He studiously avoided looking at Edgar as he worked.

  What's done is done, he thought.

  7

  Dan woke up still feeling a little tired, but happy. Happier than he could ever remember being. When he and Elaine had finally located their cabin—after a lengthy search through narrow, identical-looking corridors, they had made their way to the bedroom by unspoken agreement and, after making love for the first time as man and wife, had let the exhaustion of the previous day's activities overwhelm them.

  Elaine had put up mild resistance, insisting that they should get dressed and start exploring the ship, not waste time sleeping, but she had delivered the plea with a yawn, and had fallen asleep before Dan.

  When he awoke, she was still snoring softly.

  Warm light filtered in through the window. Not the cold, grey light that had washed around the terminus in Portsmouth. This light was a brilliant orange, and when Dan slid from the bed and stepped to the window, he saw the last embers of a dazzling sunset bleeding across the horizon to the west.