But there are no dents or damage from someone trying to get in—or out. No piles of chairs or carts floating around as potential barricades.
Just the regular detritus you’d expect—random shoes, a suitcase or two, a room service tray still surrounded by a halo of glass and flatware.
The only unusual object is a long, shiny strand, floating in midair, which, when we get closer, turns out to be a loose dog leash. The diamonds on the leather are catching the light from our helmets.
Voller pauses long enough to snatch the leash out of the air and stuff it into one of the biohazard bags.
“Stop,” I say.
“What?” he asks. “It’s not like anyone else is using it.”
I shake my head. “Put it back.”
“Why?” Voller demands. “If you think we might not get our percentage, then why not take a little something extra for ourselves? Just to be sure.”
“Because it’s grave-robbing, asshole,” Lourdes hisses over the comm channel.
I grit my teeth. I knew this was going to be an issue. “Voller—”
But my words curl up and die as we pass one of the last rooms.
Words are scrawled across the door and onto the wall, in sloppy, unsteady handwriting from a dying marker. The loops and lines of the letters cut in and out, like a transmission interrupted by static.
i see you
leave me alone
“Jesus,” Voller mutters.
The words are eerie enough. But the bloody handprint smeared beneath the words, like punctuation at the end of the statement, raises goose bumps over my skin even with the heat of my suit.
The message is old. Not for us. With the environmentals off, blood would freeze far too quickly now for anyone to write a message in it.
And yet…
Voller shakes the leash loose out of the bag.
“Hurry up and get back to the LINA,” Kane says, tension threading through his voice.
We locate the central stairway at the end of the hall.
“Okay, take these stairs to the Diamond Level Atrium,” Nysus says. “That’ll put you on the entertainment concourse and then you can take the main staircase up to the Platinum Level suites and beyond. I think we’ll have a good shot at finding something up there for our claim. The bridge is up that way, too.”
“Two different staircases?” I ask.
“Uh. Yeah. The Forum thinks that it was intended to subtly distance first class from the other classes.”
I snort. Pretty sure the money did that all on its own, but okay.
Voller and I begin pulling ourselves up the stairs via the railing. We’re getting deeper and deeper into this ship and it feels like we’re marching farther into the gullet of something that has yet to decide whether it will digest us or spit us back out.
We ascend several flights—each one more spacious and increasing in luxury. On the Sapphire Level, most of the space appears to be taken up by a theater. Double doors—made of gleaming, polished real wood—stand open at the entrance, and a quick look inside reveals a sea of empty red-cushioned seats, with matching plush curtains on either side of an honest-to-God stage.
Thanks to the lack of gravity, though, the curtains now stretch out over the stage horizontally, like invisible arms in swooping velvet sleeves grasping for something just out of reach.
On the Gold Level, we find a closed dining room—La Fantaisie—one of several on the ship, Nysus tell us.
“This one was for the Platinum Level guests who elected not to dine with private service in their suites,” Nysus says.
