WaterMage Rising

Chapter 15

Father led them down twelve flights of stairs, onto a deck deep in the underbelly of the ship. The stairway ended, so they must have reached the bottom level, below even the crew quarters and gangway. Selena frowned. What were they doing all the way down here? Instead of the elegance and luxury found on the passenger decks, this level was metallic, industrial, and spartan, with nothing but metal doors, beams, exposed ductwork, and machinery. As Selena inhaled, the stale, smoky air from the engine room made Selena wrinkle her nose and long for fresh air and sea breezes. She could hardly wait until the ship surfaced, but that would not be for another several days yet.

Why Cunningham would allow his team's primary work space to be relegated to an ugly, windowless place like this was beyond Selena. At least here they avoided the crowds found everywhere else, but Selena could spot no other advantage to the remote area. Nobody, not even ship's crew or other members of Cunningham's team, wandered these hallways.

"You didn't start out as an intern, though, did you sir?" Adam asked Father. "I thought Cunningham hired you outright as part of his inclusiveness initiative."

Father smirked. "Of course I did. Consider it a probationary period of several months that everyone has to go through, but once I passed the internship level, I was hired full-time."

Selena tuned them out as Adam enthusiastically asked Father for pointers, and Father replied with the same drivel she'd heard from him a million times over the years about becoming a good employee. Work hard. Impress the boss. Take initiative. Volunteer for extra duties. Follow the rules to the letter.

It occurred to Selena to wonder how long Adam had already been an intern, or whether he was just starting out, but she didn't care enough to voice the question. Her mind went in the direction of plotting distractions to get the two of them out of whatever room they would be working in. She'd need time alone so that she could make copies of important documents she came across.

She could get Father and Adam involved in one task, while she retreated to another area of the room to work on another, and use the environment to cover her sleuthing. She could use her water magic to create a disturbance of some kind outside the work room, but then she'd have to explain it away as normal crew activity or the vandalism of random isolationists wanting to scare them off. Better yet, she could come up with some sort of compulsion spell, an air magic that would whisper into the ears of anyone in the room with her. They'd experience a sudden, urgent need to leave the room, whether to use the restroom, stretch their legs, get a snack from the buffet, or check in on someone else. Yes, that could work.

"Here we are." Father stopped in front of the last door on the left. A burst of red light emitted from the entry panel and swept over his lapel pin. The light changed from red to green with a high humming sound, and the door slid open.

Stepping inside after Father and Adam, Selena found herself in a spacious storage area the size of a small library. Boxes upon boxes were stacked high against the walls as far as Selena could see. Shelves arranged in neat rows around the room, each crammed with more boxes, further reminded Selena of a library or an archive. In the center of the room stood a wide rectangular table, with four chairs arranged around it. Selena was surprised to find they were the only three in the room.

"We have to go through all of this? In five or six days, assuming we want to leave ourselves enough time to incorporate the relevant findings into the presentation?" Selena gaped at the hundreds, if not thousands, of boxes. Even with a hundred people working nonstop in shifts, it would prove an almost impossible task, and they had in comparison a mere handful of employees to handle the workload.

Father snorted. "Thinking of giving up already, lazy girl? Don't look so scared. We only have to go through the boxes on the shelves. The ones against the walls have already been searched and unpacked."