The Channels Between Us

It's all quiet on the western coast. Too quiet. A lot quieter since the Strangelove disappeared.

The news first struck the nearby Alaskan town of Seward, its last port of call, before traveling like wildfire all the way to the national capital. No one knew what to make of the story: an innocuous fishing vessel suddenly vanishing without a trace, with no distress call sent and no wreck discovered. Luckily, the investigation lies in good hands: the Anomalous Response Command, or ARC for short, is already on the case with a quickly dispatched vessel to the scene of the incident.

This mission is the chance for six young cadets to prove themselves capable of standing up to the paranormal and belonging among ARC's ranks, this time without a commanding officer among them. Two will remain securely on land in a radio outpost on the island of Maui, acting as strategists, backup, and the primary communicators with the vessel. Four will sail to the front lines, prepared to uncover the mystery and fend off whatever sea monster or supernatural force is at work. It's the perfect opportunity to make a name for themselves and return as heroes.

But return isn't guaranteed in this line of work. And for a team divided by great distance, with nothing but thousands of miles of ocean and a feeble radio signal between them, it's not enough to merely hope the waves will bring them all home. They'll have to fight for it.

Night shift at A.R.C. wasn't glamorous. It was fluorescent lights that buzzed way too loud, the stale and unbearable tang of burnt coffee, and an ocean of glowing monitors. By now, I'd learned every tick and whir of the machines, every small sound that marked the difference between routine drills and actual emergencies.

Most nights, nothing happened. Just me, a headset, and the occasional ship-to-land check-in from Phoebe before she finally gave in and got some sleep. She pulled the short straw often enough-- she deserved the rest. That left me here, covering the graveyard hours while the rest of the floor dimmed down, leaving me alone with my thoughts and screens that made my eyes ache.

I didn't mind the solitude. Talking weather patterns to a half-conscious agent or listening to static-laced ocean reports was easier than silence. Silence left too much room for memory, y'know?

So, I sat there with one boot up on the desk, the headset snug against my ear, keeping my eyes trained on the shifting streams of data: sea pressure, cloud formations, barometric oddities, all of it scrolling in neat little lines. Out at sea, the team slept, and for once, the weather looked calm enough to let them.

Or so I thought.

The line crackled once, twice. I leaned forward automatically, adjusting the dial, expecting to hear Maddox grumbling something half asleep about course adjustments.

Instead, a familiar voice-- bright, playful, and very much awake-- sounded in my ear.

"Howdy, Mission Control," Colin drawled into the microphone. "Anyone awake? I'm bored."

"I shouldn't be surprised that you're awake, but somehow I am every single time," I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in my chair, letting out a long, slow sigh. "Colin. What did you break this time?"

"Aw, come on, West," Colin said, feigning hurt. "Can't a guy call up his old buddy without cause nor reason other than to have a pleasant late-night chat, no ulterior motives involved? Have some faith in me."

I scoffed, holding back a smile, "Faith? In you? At three in the morning, over comms, with the entire ship asleep except for you?"

"Well, it's not like I can join them!" Colin huffed. "Plus, you're one to speak. You're an actual night owl with a messed up sleep schedule. Time is all the same to me."

"Mhm," I yawned, stretching slightly, "Spill. What is it? Is there a leak, caused by you? A... uh, what was it earlier? Did the engine make a weird sound again?"

There was a pause from Colin, and I could imagine him leaning back in his chair with his legs hooked over the armrest, the way he did when he refused to sit like a normal human being. "Wow, you are not buying it, huh?"

"Not at all, to be honest," I let out a heavy laugh, "I can usually tell because your voice gets all funny. Like... it goes up an octave. Phoebe noticed it first, it's kinda funny, y'know."

"No, it does not!" Colin's voice only turned more shrill, and he must've noticed it, because he fell silent again.

"You were saying?" I grinned, leaning even further back in my chair.

"You've not my favorite teammate anymore," Colin grumbled. "The honor has been revoked. That position is now going to... uh... I'll get back to you on that, but they're totally cooler than you. Take that."

"That's not possible," I looked at my reflection in the dark computer screen in front of me, "And you know, you shouldn't say that when you're mere yards away from Maddox. He'll get a big head about it."

"Good thing he's asleep, then." A pause, filled by crackling static. "For now."

I raised an eyebrow, tempted to glance behind my shoulder in case Phoebe just happened to be awake. Which, at this point, wouldn't be a surprise.

"Be careful, if we talk about him too much, he'll be summoned. Like the devil," I sighed at Phoebe, who was asleep on a lousy chair a few feet away, "Speaking of, did you know I had to fight Sleeping Beauty over here for comms? She was about ready to lose it. Eyebags and all. Maddox would be pissed if he found out."

"And thank God it's you instead," Colin sighed. "She'd have told me to shut up four times by now."

I couldn't help but smile. He wasn't wrong. Phoebe was known for being all-about-work, and way too stressed about what happens in ARC. It wasn't until I was grouped with her that I realized how intense she can really be-- especially when it matters. But when it came to Colin, Phoebe wasn't very patient.

"Definitely," I sighed, stretching, "So. Let me ask again, since we've had our small talk. Why are you calling me at three o'clock in the morning, Colin?"

More silence on the other end. Coming from Colin, that alone was suspicious.

"...I need an alibi," Colin admitted.

Oh god. What is it this time?

I rubbed my temple, bracing myself for what came next. "For...what, exactly?"

"First of all, I'd like to remind you of my extremely likeable nature and award-winning personality, before I say anything further," Colin said brightly.

"Uh huh. Very likable indeed. Did you blow something up? Did you draw a mustache on Maddox while he's asleep?" I raised an eyebrow.

"No, and no, but I will be trying that second thing tomorrow. If I survive tonight, that is." Colin cleared his throat. "So, someone, not naming anyone here, got really bored tonight while everyone else was off sleeping-- how lame of them, imagine wasting your time that way-- and decided they wanted a midnight snack. Or a 3am snack, I guess. They also had a sugar cookie recipe they wanted to try, so they decided to kill two birds with one stone and do some baking." Another heavy pause. "Unfortunately, the oven on board has a very hateful heart."

I rest my head lightly against the back of the chair, "Colin... don't tell me you--"

Colin groaned. "No, I didn't set anything on fire! Those days are over, I promise."

I let out a slow breath of relief, "Good. Because if you burned cookies at three in the morning and set off the fire alarm onboard, Maddox would actually kill you. Or rather, make you disappear. I think that's his thing now."

"I'm not worried about Maddox. I'm worried about Flick." There was a crunching sound.

"Oh?" I raised both eyebrows this time, surprised, "and... why is that?" I thought about it for a second, and before he could respond, a lightbulb went off in my head. I shook my head, "The alarm. The alarm on the oven. That's it, isn't it?"

"Oh, hey, you're breaking up." Colin made some rather unconvincing static noises. It sounded like his mouth was full, which made it all the more laughable. "Can't we just talk about how good these cookies I made are?" More crunching followed.

"Colin, how many seconds are left on the timer?" I ask, ignoring his antics, "If you have time, you should shut it off."

"You don't think I tried that? It's got a mind of its own! The buttons don't work!"

I sighed as Phoebe stirred, and my heart basically dropped to my legs. "Colin."

"Look, I know you know I'm better than this, so--" Colin paused. "Okay, maybe not. But you don't get it. The timer turned on automatically, I swear, and you've never heard it go off before. It's serious."

"You're on board with two people that have the capability to kill, and another who gets frightened by a leaf rustling. Any alarm, to any of them, is not going to end well." I stated, rubbing my thumbs together, "How many seconds are left?"

There was mumbling on the other end of the radio that was too faint and shameful for me to hear.

"What was that?"

"...Forty seconds," Colin said reluctantly. "Give or take."

"You called me eight min--- you know what, okay. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do from here. I'd start digging your grave. Leave comms on though, because I wanna hear. I don't get much entertainment nowadays." I rolled my chair back slightly so I could kick my feet up on the desk.

"Hey-- no, you were supposed to be my alibi!" Colin protested.

"You made me a witness!" I laughed, "You aren't trapped in a lighthouse with Phoebe. I'm not going down with you, but I do support your justification. Cookies are needed every once in a while."

"I'm taking you out of my will," Colin threatened. "Which would be a great thing to stay on, considering how likely my imminent death is."

"You would never," I joked, "Because you like me too much. Plus, who else has the patience to sit here and help you justify your stupid actions? I mean, they're brilliant... but stupid, nonetheless. Respect, though."

"Damn you, Calloway."

No sooner had Colin spoken than a shriek-- the alarm-- tore through my headset.

I flinched so hard I nearly fell out of my chair, hands flying up to claw the earpiece away. The sound was apocalyptic, what I'd imagine a Banshee's wail to sound like. I immediately glanced at Phoebe, to find her staring directly at me, hands pressed over the headset she'd fallen asleep wearing. The unfocused, groggy look in her tired eyes as she roused did nothing to hide the sharp accusation behind it.

"For fuck's sake," she muttered, shaking her head to clear it and rolling her chair quickly toward the comms bench.

"Wasn't me!" I threw my hands up, ears still ringing, "I swear! And why the hell would ARC install an oven that loud on a vessel?!"

"I'll have a word with them about their supplier." Phoebe rubbed her eyes with one hand, lowering her microphone and twisting a knob to dial in on the channel in one smooth, practiced move. "Put those on."

"Hell no. I need to see a doctor after that, and maybe sue," I rubbed my ears, opening my mouth slightly to see if that made it any better. The ring got slightly better, but the remnants were still there.

Phoebe turned her head to stare me down again, and all sense of tiredness in her gaze was gone, replaced by dead seriousness. The air suddenly felt charged with static electricity. "Headphones, now."

I was tempted to test her, but instead I sighed heavily and dramatically before grabbing the headset, "You know, you're cute when you're mad. Or upset. So, I will put my headset on. But keep in mind, if my ears get worse, you're paying for it!"

"Get a lawyer," Phoebe said dismissively. "Make that their problem."

I snatched my headset out of my lap and placed it halfway on my ears, wincing.

"--more like thirty seconds," Colin was saying, clearly through a pained wince. If it had been loud over the radio, the timer on board must have been staggering. "My bad. If it helps, it's fine that I probably lost my hearing. I'll lose my life soon enough probably."

"Colin," Phoebe interrupted. "Was that you?"

A pause. "...Oh hey, Phoebe! How's it going, girl--"

"Bad," Phoebe said bluntly. "Bad."

"Sorry to, uh, hear that."

I was surprised he could hear at all after that.

Scuffling, indistinct sounds crackled over the radio, a bit like footsteps if the person was stomping. Which they probably were.

"I'm going to kill that little Texan freak!" Though her voice was clearly coming from far away from the microphone, the sheer rage in Flick's tone was palpable.

"I'm not little," Colin mumbled.

"I heard that! He's in the comms booth!" More stomping followed.

Colin sighed. "Nice knowing you, West."

Somewhere behind Colin came a hammering knock, and then Maddox's unmistakable voice boomed over the radio, even through the static. He didn't sound happy.

"You woke the entire damn ship!" his deep voice came in and out of the transmission, "--Do you know what time it is? Do you know how long it took for Phoebe to knock out? And Flick--" there was a frustrated growl, and I pictured Maddox running a hand over his face, "You can't just screw around in the kitchen like it's a toy set. What if you'd actually triggered an emergency system?!"

"What if, and hear me out," Colin offered, "I give each of you a sugar cookie and we forget this ever happened?"

I sighed heavily into the microphone as Maddox slammed his hand on -- what I think was a table? His voice boomed through the other end, "Colin. We've only been at sea for two days. We're here to prove ourselves. So far, it's not looking very promising!"

"What am I supposed to do while you're all asleep, curl up into a ball and not touch anything?" Colin protested.

"That'd be fantastic, actually," Flick snapped. "But since you find yourself utterly incapable of it, I think it'd be best if you found your way overboard."

Before Maddox could add fuel to the fire, another voice-- gentler, a little uncertain-- cut in.

"Wait, wait, wait! -- You can't just... throw him overboard." Thalia. I could practically picture her half-burrowed in a blanket somewhere, wide-eyed and wringling her hands, "That's... um, murder. And it doesn't exactly scream 'teamwork', does it?"

"Thank you!" Colin exclaimed. "See, someone gets it!"

"Not the time, Thalia!" Flick retorted.

I looked over at Phoebe, "Do we just... let them continue?"

Phoebe shrugged. "Unless we hear them actually installing a plank for Colin to walk, sure."

"Can't you just like, tell your boyfriend to back off of Colin? And you and Flick get along-- do that thing you do when you lower your voice slightly like a mom. That always works," West narrowed his eyes at her, "Because we know if you don't, Maddox and Flick will have Colin hanging upside down, tied by the feet, over a swarm of sharks. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Mmh..." Phoebe gave it thought, staring off into the dark tropical landscape out the window. "Maybe in three minutes. Colin can squirm for a bit."

I rolled my shoulders back and turned the microphone to my mouth, "Guys. Let's not do this now."

But alas, that didn't work. Maddox's voice cut through, "Quiet, Calloway. We're trying to figure out what the next course of action is. I suggest we tie him up at night."

"Agreed," Flick growled. "Now open the door, Colin!"

"See, I think I won't be doing that," Colin stated. "Slight matter of preference."

"Nobody will be tying up anyone at night," I spoke loudly into the microphone.

"Phoebe, I know you're still here. Tell your coffee assistant to shut up, respectfully," Maddox shot back.

Coffee assistant. That's a new one.

Phoebe gave me a not-so-apologetic shrug and the gesture to zip my mouth shut.

"The door or else, Colin," Flick threatened.

"You'll never take me alive!" Colin hollered in reply.

There was a faint, high-pitched humming for about one second. It was the sound Flick made whenever she phased through something-- which, unfortunately for Colin, was a locked door in this case.

"Well, I don't know why I thought that would work-- Ow! Stop!" Colin's voice carried loudly over the background noises of a door being unlocked, thrown open, and a person being violently dragged through it.

"Abduction! Abduction!" Thalia's distant, frantic voice sounded from the other side of comms, "You are abducting him! That's illegal! Hold on, let me record this! The conservatives will have a field day with this one!"

I shot a look at Phoebe, "Would you say now is the time?"

Phoebe still looked unconvinced, but then Flick said, "Okay, there's rope in the starboard side closet."

"Oh, she's for real," Phoebe muttered.

I couldn't help but feel proud of myself for guessing their way of execution, "Ah, as I said. The 'hang upside down over sharks' trick."

Phoebe cleared her throat and pulled her microphone closer, but not without shooting me a warning look first. "Colin, would you say your life is being threatened?"

"Are you blind-- I mean, deaf? Yes!" Colin yelled.

"It's okay, Colin! I got it all on video. You will be avenged!" Thalia's voice came through again.

"Okay, just checking," Phoebe said, her voice lowering in the exact same maternal way I'd described. "Because if that's the case, I'm going to have to put out an distress signal. After all, ARC will want to know if one of their agents is about to suffer a horrible death. They'd also probably be interested in hearing that said horrible death was instigated by a fellow crewmate-- right, Maddox?"

"I couldn't agree more, Phoebe," Maddox chuckled through the comms, "Isn't she smart? She's so smart."

I mentally rolled my eyes.

"Thank you," Phoebe said evenly. "Since you're in agreement, how about someone saves me the trouble of getting us all in trouble with ARC and liberates Colin?"

I heard an expected, loud sigh from Maddox, and a scruffling noise. I smirked, never surprised by the hold that Phoebe had on Maddox. Anything she said, he did. What a joke.

"Okay, time to let the guy go, Flick. We've had our fun."

A sigh came over the line. "Have we, though?"

I didn't need to listen to the comms to know that Maddox raised his eyebrow. "Now."

"Sir, yes, sir," Flick said, almost boredly.

"Hey, I'm just trying to save you from the wrath of--"

The radar above me started blinking, and as I looked up, I noticed two large masses moving towards the team's ship, "Okay, guys. You should get back to sleep," I held down the button on my headset to speak. "Storms are rolling in. You won't get much sleep later."

"Oh, I forgot he was even here," Maddox scoffed, "Why so quiet, squirt?"

"Observing." I sat back a bit in my chair and glanced at Phoebe almost annoyingly. She sure seemed to think it was annoying, because the look I got from her was deadpan, even for her.

There was a soft grunt over the radio, which I assumed was Colin being released from his near-death. "Yeah, observing my misery."

"It's pretty entertaining," I shrugged, picking at my nails, and pondered for a moment, "I was serious about the storms."

"He is serious, for once," Phoebe said. I shot her another look.

"We know. We can practically feel the humidity in the air," Maddox responded with an annoyed tinge to his voice, "Weatherman here thinks we're dumb, apparently."

"Your girlfriend backed me up." I bluntly stated.

"She has a name," Phoebe deadpanned, and I curled back in my seat slightly.

"West, I'm gonna --"

"Okayyyy! Sounds like someone needs to get some sleep," Colin's voice cut in. "And by someone, I mean everyone but me. For obvious reasons."

"Sounds like a good idea. Especially since Mr. Big Man might rage since he can't touch me from over there. We all know what happens if he doesn't get his beauty sleep." I smirked wider, "Nighty-night." I took my headset off and kicked my feet back on the desk.

Phoebe shot me yet another one of her looks, but kept her headset on. She handed out a couple more instructions that I didn't really listen to, then gave a softer good night to someone-- probably Maddox. Finally, she went silent, which meant she'd ended her conversation with the boat.

"You guys are gross," I mocked them, "Goodnight, Maddox, my sweet little pumpkin munchkin!" I pretended to turn into Maddox, "Oh, goodnight sweetie muffin!"

Phoebe didn't even bother to give me a glare. "That is not what we said."

"I know that," I straightened my face, "Why are you together anyway? He's gonna lose his temper one day and disappear or something. I heard some recruits talking about it in the lunch hall a few months ago, back at HQ. Pretty juicy stuff."

"Since we're asking dumb questions now, why are you here with me instead of literally anyone else on the planet?" Phoebe muttered. "You're no better than Colin."

"Because I'm lazy. Simplest Answer." I shrugged, throwing both my hands behind my head, "And your excuse? I know Maddox fought for you to join them, but you and A.R.C declined. Why? Thalia would've seemed like the more obvious choice."

"I'm the technician and communications officer," Phoebe said with a shrug.

"But you have more talent than someone who stays in a lighthouse miles away from the action," I blankly said, "You could be a weapon out there. Yet, here you are. Thalia, on the other hand, would rather die than see an anomaly get killed, which is exactly what we sent them out there to do."

"Actually," Phoebe corrected, "we don't know what we've been sent out there for. We don't know what we'll find."

"I don't think it's a coincidence that there's a disturbance and they picked an anomaly communicator to go on the venture. Do you?" I asked, "It's a test. It won't be easy."

This seemed to actually give Phoebe pause. She leaned back in her seat, staring distantly out the lighthouse window, where palm trees swayed against the dark sky-- a far cry from the cold shores the rest of our team was navigating.

"It's a test," she said. "But we'll be fine. We always are."

I studied her profile in the dim light of the monitors. The worry etched on her face didn't quite match the words she was saying. I almost called her out on it. Almost.

"Fine is relative. Personally, I think the definition slides a little with every minute they're out there. Going into the unknown." I pursed my lips, "Like you said, we don't know what we're getting into."

Phoebe finally glanced my way, and I caught a hint of surprise in her eyes. "You're worried about them," she said, more of a statement than a question.

"No," I scoffed, "I don't... worry." But in reality, I was worried. This was our first real mission. And I, personally, didn't think I was ready. I couldn't say that to Phoebe. That's a weakness. So, instead, I glanced lazily down at my torn-up fingernails.

"Right," Phoebe said, though she didn't seem interested in pressing me, because she looked out the window again. "No worrying here."

I didn't respond right away, but I did follow her gaze. The seas were stirring.

"We'll be fine. They'll be fine." I rubbed my hands together, "Yep. Perfectly fine. You should get some sleep, too. I'm good to stay up."

"You sure?"

"I don't think I could sleep after that. I still hear some ringing," I lied, getting comfy in my chair. She looked exhausted. "Plus, you'll be needed in the morning, I'm sure."

Phoebe looked unconvinced, but she finally nodded. She kept her headphones on, but leaned back in her chair, curling her legs up to her chest in a way that almost looked comfortable.

"Yeah," she murmured. "There's always the morning."

That was the last I heard from her before she closed her eyes. My gaze drifted towards the glass windows. Outside, the palm trees bent sharply in the wind, and the sea churned. I rubbed my thumb against the edge of the desk. This was supposed to be simple-- watch, report. Wait. But the more I listened to the wind clawing at the lighthouse walls, the more I felt uneasy.

Phoebe shifted slightly. I glanced at her, then back to the moonlit sea.

"Fine," I whispered, "We'll be fine."

But I didn't believe it. Not tonight.

Not a day went by on the Harbinger that I didn't wish I was in Hawaii instead.

Sure, West was perpetually moaning about the heat, and even Phoebe seemed to spend a substantial amount of time fending off mosquitoes, but I'd take that anytime over forgetting what it felt like to be warm and dry the moment I set foot on the deck. It wasn't like we didn't have mosquitoes either. The saying about how everything's bigger in Texas holds true-- except for a certain short Colin, obviously-- but Alaska's bigger than Texas. So the mosquitoes are large enough that they could fight off a hawk if they so chose. Given their aggressiveness, I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

And the company... Well.

"Why can't West just... tell the weather to go away?" A squeaky voice-- Thalia's voice-- flooded my airspace. "Because, like... we need that right about now. And I don't know how you all are going to lift those ropes, but count me out. Too heavy, plus I'm getting sick because of all this rocking!" she screamed through the wind.

"We all have to help, Thalia," Maddox yelled back from across the soaking wet deck. At this point, his clothes were more than wet-- they clung to his body for dear life. "Everyone, get over here and help me secure this thing! All hands on deck!"

The storm West had warned us about had struck just after five-- the hour I'd normally wake up in, if I hadn't been violently roused by that tornado siren of an oven. I'd just barely managed to get back to sleep before the battering and shaking of the boat woke me up again. I've decided I didn't like the ocean very much. I didn't like much about anything here. Still, the work needed doing, even and especially if the world couldn't give us a break.

Feeling like a wet dog, I shook seaspray out of my hair and made my way across the slick deck, keeping one hand on the railing. The salt in the water stung my one working eye, blurring my vision, but I angled my face away from the waves and kept blinking until the sensation eased. I was freezing, and it was barely fall here. How did anyone live here past September? For some reason, that was not the mystery we were sent here to unravel.

"If I may," I muttered through gritted teeth, catching a rope Maddox tossed me, "I suggest we locate the nearest dry land and stay there. Preferably forever."

"We'll talk about it once we make sure the vessel is secure," Maddox paused, wiped his eyes, and shook the water off his hands. It didn't do much good, because a moment later, another wave crashed against the side of the boat and showered us both. "Preferably under a roof."

I grimaced even further at the contact of more cold water soaking through my uniform, but didn't say anything else as I helped secure the ship. Somewhere else on the deck, Colin commiserated with Thalia about the conditions. Neither of them would last a day in the military, I knew. Complaining was only fine as long as you kept it in your head. At least Maddox was made of different stuff.

Maddox continued to pull multiple ropes up before turning back to me. He looked exhausted, hands raw and mouth open from heaving, "Gather," he breathed, "everyone. Let's meet in the kitchen. I need to... change."

"Yes! That's where I left the sugar cookies!" Colin cheered.

I resisted a deep sigh. The cookies had better be fucking fabulous, or I was going to reconsider the mercy I'd shown him earlier for the stunt he'd pulled with the oven alarm.

We were all too breathless to speak any further as we made our last checks, retreating indoors to the shelter of the boat. Thankfully, we had some dry towels hanging on a rack near the door for situations just like this, and we all took one as we huddled in the kitchen, dripping water like rain on the tile floor. I pressed it to my hair first, then wrapped it around my shoulders for warmth. It looked stupid-- like I was some newborn swaddled in a blanket-- but fortunately, everyone else looked even more stupid.

"I reiterate my earlier suggestion," I said plainly.

Thalia let out a long, whiny groan from where she'd plopped into a chair, "Yes, please. Land. I don't care if it's a patch of rocks with a single bush on it. I'll kiss the dirt if it means we're not getting drowned every five minutes."

"Well," Maddox leaned against the kitchen counter, "We definitely can't just ride the storm out. We'd have to consult with Phoebe and West on where the best place to port would be."

"We have this fun little thing called an intercom that will patch us over on the radio," Colin said brightly. "Consulting has never been easier."

"Are you good for anything besides pointing out the obvious?" I asked plainly.

"Yeah, I'm also a damn good baker, if I do say so myself." Colin grinned, holding out the cookie tray in Maddox's direction. Even soaked to the bone, he was still visibly chipper enough to give me a headache. "Cookie for you, Captain?"

Maddox gave Colin a look that said he was somewhere between grateful and entirely done with him. He took a cookie anyway, though, biting into it with the kind of weary hunger only storms and stress could create.

"Has anybody spoken to Phoebe and West since the storms... encapsulated us?" He asked, pacing the front of the room.

"No," I said with a shrug. "But they obviously know about it, since they predicted it. I doubt they're too worried."

"Right," Maddox nodded, pointing in my direction approvingly, "Of course. Thank you. Uh..." he put a hand to the back of his head, "Listen, guys, I'm not sure what we should do. I don't wanna make the wrong call and mess this up. Does anyone have ideas that don't involve--"

I did have an idea, but it involved jettisoning Colin off the boat as a sacrifice to appease the ocean.

"No," Thalia inturupted him. "And how don't you know what to do? You basically shoved yourself in here as captain. Do you even know how to steer a ship? Who's controlling it right now?"

Maddox shot her a dead stare, "Take it easy, Thalia."

"I'm the navigator," I said plainly. "We're doing fine." Had she never heard of autopilot?

"Still didn't answer my ques--"

"Thalia, enough!" Maddox's voiced raised slightly, before he took two fingers to his temple and started rubbing it ever so slightly, "We'll port. Skagway. It's the closest, and it'll give us cover from the worst of the winds. We'll dock, take stock, and wait for the weather to ease up."

"That rhymed," Thalia remarked, almost mocking him.

Maddox ignored her and looked to me instead, "What do you think, Flick?"

"Skagway," I murmured, trying to recall its location on the Inside Passage. Right. It was one of those old towns that had once been a hotspot during the Klondike Gold Rush-- now it was just a tourist trap. It was off-season by now, so I doubted there'd be many people there to help us.

But we didn't need help. Just solid land.

And maybe a bit of a break from each other.

"Yeah," I said at last. "Skagway's fine. Just don't expect much."

Just as Maddox was about to respond, Thalia's head quirked to the side slightly, and her ears twitched. The girl's facial expression changed exceptionally fast, and her left hand appeared to be visibly trembling.

Ay Dios mío. She had so many nervous reactions to things that I didn't know if it was ever as urgent as she made it seem-- but this one actually seemed to mean something.

"Thalia?" Maddox noticed too, his voice lowering to a whisper, "What is it?"

Thalia didn't respond right away, instead standing and walking towards the circular window in the corner of the room, "We need to port. Now."

I frowned. "...Now? In a hour, maybe, but-- why now?"

Maddox straightened from the counter, half-eaten cookie forgotten in his hand. His eyes tracked Thalia's every movement like she might detonate at any second.

Thalia pressed her face close to the glass window, her breath fogging against it. Her shoulders were taut, every muscle tight. She brought a hand to her chest and started pulling invisble threads.

"Somethings wrong," she whispered, "It's not just the weather."

"You mean danger?" Maddox's eyes went from worried to terrified, as much as he tried to hide it.

If danger wasn't weather, that only meant one other thing out here. Or rather, one other very broad category.

"They're here." She moved quickly to the door and slammed it shut, locking it urgently, "We need a definite plan, now. Or we're goners. I have a really bad feeling about it. All I feel is... anger. Like something's trying to warn me. We're in someone's-- something's-- territory."

"What?" Maddox shook his head, "We can't just... dock now. As Flick said, an hour at least."

"Are they angry and like... doing to do something about it?" Colin asked, which, for once, was a relevant question coming from him. "If they're angry but also harmless, that's fine. But if they're angry and going to capsize us, that's less fine."

Thalia looked confused, "I don't know. They're not like anything I've catalogued. They don't move so much as... rearrange the water. There's a rhythm to it. They react to noise, to fear. To rage." She shot a look at Maddox and I. "Right now, they're angry. And territorial."

"I still can't get us there faster than an hour," I replied. "So, whatever's out there is just going to have to deal with it."

"We can't wait an hour," Thalia said, "If they're circling, if they--" she swallowed, going almost pale, "if they take the bump out of the hull to get at us, we won't be inching to Skagway. We'll be patching holes in a lifeboat."

I stared at her, deciding it was beneath both of us for me to explain the physical limitations of our boat's engine and my inability to magically shrink the distance between us and the nearest land. There was only so much I could do to dilate spacetime.

Maddox moved before anyone could speak. "All right. Change of plan. We head to Skagway, now, we're not telling comms anything until we know for sure what we're dealing with here. Flick, do your thing. Thalia, feed me everything you feel-- every twitch, anything you think could be necessary. Colin, be on lookout. I'll get the weapons on standby. Yes? Everyone in agreement?"

Colin cleared his throat. "You said... we're not telling comms anything?"

"Nothing. At all. Until we know," Maddox was halfway out the door, "And if you guys say anything, I'll throw you to whatever's out there. Lets get moving."

Thalia chuckled, covering her mouth with her non-trembling hand.

Colin sighed. "Whatever you say, Captain."

"He wishes he was one," Thalia blurted.

"That's why I call him that," Colin said. "To remind him he isn't."

"I can hear you!" Maddox distantly yelled.

"Good!" Colin hollered back.

Thalia groaned and reluctantly followed behind him, "Maddox, why are we using weapons for..." her voice trailed off.

Colin turned to me and held out the cookie tray with hope in his eyes.

"Pass," I said. "Not a hard pass, either."

"Your loss," Colin said. "If this thing kills us all, I bet anything your last thought is going to be Man, I wish I'd gotten to eat one last cookie."

"I will think no such thing," I said plainly, already on my way out the door. Maybe the bridge would offer some peace from the resident gremlin.

What I wasn't about to say was that honestly, I was hungry, and the cookies looked good. But a watery death sounded magnitudes more pleasant than admitting that.



Twenty minutes later, everyone was at their proper stations. Of course, not everyone can be trusted to be doing their job on this ship, so Maddox had to run the rounds to check that we were all actually following orders. He always checked on me last, naturally. I was right where I needed to be, manning the wheel at the bridge, when he came in, looking stressed and sweaty like usual.

"Got everyone wrangled?" I asked.

"Wrangled, threatened, bribed-- take your pick," Maddox said, shutting the door behind him with a metallic click. His soaked jacket clung to his shoulders, and his hair-- normally neat-- was plastered to his forehead. He leaned against the wall beside me, gazing out through the rain-streaked glass of the bridge window.

Outside, the sea churned wildly. It wasn't getting much better as far as navigating this thing went, and Thalia wasn't being helpful when Maddox asked for an update five minutes ago.

I wouldn't have gone so far as to commit mutiny and "kidnap" Colin-- which was really just leaving him in a locked room with a working TV and a lifetime's supply of potato chips-- but I understood why Maddox had fought so hard to get Phoebe assigned to be on board with us. Some days it felt like the two of us were the only sane, competent people for miles.

Scratch that. It felt that way every day.

"It's an embarrassment, honestly," I muttered. "The fact that this is who they're putting us and our talents with."

Maddox huffed what sounded like something between a growl and a laugh, "Tell me about it. It's more than an embarrassment. It's a liability. If Thalia's reading is even half right, the second they panic, we're screwed. I mean, I can try adjusting the air pressure so that they pass out and we can have some... productive time to assess our situation. But hell, I think we..." he shuddered, "need their gifts. Thalia was picked for her empathy with the anomalies. Colin is... Colin. He's a great engineer. It's tragic."

I wrinkled my nose, but I couldn't disagree with either of those points directly. On paper, the two of them were qualified, as much as I hated to admit it. But Thalia had the assertiveness of a field mouse whenever it came time to doing anything of importance, and Colin seemed to be having fun coming up with ways not to be using all his qualifications. How they had managed to pass rigorous rounds of interviews and psychological checks was beyond me-- and that was all even before the training we'd gone through together that had weeded out most of the people we'd started with.

"Maybe they'll be useful as bait for whatever's out there," I said. "Too bad they're both so small. They're probably not a great serving size."

Maddox let out a chuckle, "Thalia might try to talk it to death before it gets close enough. And Colin..." he sighed, "Would just try to feed it cookies."

"Were they any good?" I asked.

"They were amazing, sad to say." Maddox smirked, "Don't tell Phoebe, but Colin might have her beat."

I'd never had Phoebe's cooking, so I had to take his word for it. I also had to make sure Colin never knew someone had complimented his baking. He'd never shut up about it.

"Well, if they save our lives, maybe it'll make that ordeal we went through at 3am more bearable." I rested a hand on the captain's wheel, turning it slightly to the starboard side.

"Yeah," It looked like something was bothering Maddox, because his smirk disappeared and his facial expression turned deadbeat, "...Do you think Thalia's right this time?"

Even though it narrowed my vision to almost nothing, I squinted at him for a second. It was unlike him to ask that sort of question-- I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard him express doubt.

He threw his hands up at my look, "Hey, just trying to cross our P's and Q's. That girl is strange, but I've never seen her face drain of color like it did in the kitchen."

"It depends what you mean by 'right', probably," I said. "Right that there's something out there? Sure, I trust her to determine that much. Right that it's of any more danger than a cranky sea lion? Less certain."

"I don't know," He lowered his voice, "You're right. Remember that one time during drills when she saw a lightning-bug and swore it was a prophet and that it was going to kill her?" he couldn't help but smile, "But that just makes it that much harder to realize when she's being serious. What if one day, we come across some... huge threat, and we don't believe her? What then?"

"I don't know, Maddox," I said sarcastically. "Maybe one day the fireflies will actually be out to get us, and then we'll all be sorry we didn't listen to her. Wouldn't put it past this world to pull something like that on us."

"Wait," he straightened from the wall, pursing his lips, "You just said firefly."

I stared at him, unaware of what he was getting at. "...I did," I said finally. "Your point?"

He narrowed his eyes, "Aha! Nobody east of the Rockies called them that. That's a western term. Don't tell me you're--" he stopped himself, studying my face as if it was a map, "You're from west of the Rockies... aren't you?"

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. "No. No, we are not playing this guessing game."

"Oh, we already are Ms. Navigator," Maddox sat beside me, turning the chair to face him as he straddled it, "Hold on, let me guess. California? It has to be. You have that disappointed look of someone who just paid fourteen dollars for an oat-milk latte and never recovered. Or... Hm, maybe Washington? You into hiking?"

"You sound like Colin," I muttered.

"Don't you dare compare me to Colin," Maddox scoffed, "It would've never clicked in Colin's brain. He's too worried about... everything else," he paused, "And also, I think we've been teammates with each other long enough for me to know where you're from, Flick."

"Nope," I replied. "You guys know too much about me already."

Maddox leaned forward like a bloodhound who caught onto a scent, "Oh, no, no, no. I'm not letting this go. We've been training together for years, and now I finally get a clue about the mysterious Flick? This is like Christmas for me. Utah? Idaho?"

"No one lives in Idaho, Maddox."

"So it's not Idaho. That narrows it. A little," Maddox leaned back slightly, "Don't worry. I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll give that to Phoebe when she gets bored-- 'find out more about Flick'."

"She's tried," I said. "It was pretty unsuccessful."

The only thing she'd found, if she was telling the truth, was my sophomore year GPA. Not even the institution it was at. And I could live with Phoebe knowing I'd gotten a 3.8.

"Of course she has," Maddox smiled slightly, "She never rests."

He sighed heavily, and the silence encapsulated us for just a moment before he spoke again.

"Any advice how how we handle this thing? I'm guessing it's water-borne if they're threatening us even out here."

"If it's not avian-- which it still could be-- it's not really my jurisdiction." I shrugged, glad for the change in subject. "Floodlurkers, maybe?"

"Can't be, I've only heard of cases like those near shores and waterbanks," Maddox bit his lip, "Thalia said it's something she hasn't researched, so I doubt we have. Maybe we should do a three-sixty and see if we can spot something."

"And have Thalia freak out even more about the delay? She was upset enough that I couldn't magically teleport us to shore."

"We're out here to go to our target location, yes, and we should definitely stop, yes. But... hear me out," Maddox brought his voice down to a whisper, "This is a test, right? What better way to prove ourselves to A.R.C. than to bring back even more possible intel and research? If they don't even know about... whatever this is, it could boost our performance rating."

I wanted to wave him off, but I hovered my hand over the wheel, not turning it just yet. In my mind, there wasn a single thing on this planet, land, earth or sea, that A.R.C. didn't know about. It felt like they'd mapped the surface of everything that was once a mystery, to the point that even the anomalies they were named for felt almost commonplace.

At least, that was what I'd used to think. This mission felt like the first time I had the sense that A.R.C. had no idea what was going on.

"You think it's linked to the Strangelove?" I asked at last.

He seemed shocked by my question, and then his expression quickly turned to intrigue, "What do you know? Or think you know?"

"You said it yourself," I said. "There's only so many things out there A.R.C. doesn't know about, and we're here to find a particular one. We don't know what this is; they don't know what happened to the Strangelove. It's not..."

I deliberated for a moment. He was clearly over-excited, and I wasn't sure indulging him was the best course. But I had to admit the idea had wormed itself into my head.

"It's not impossible they're the same unknown thing," I finished.

"Maybe that's what Thalia's picking up on," Maddox's eyes flickered with slight light, "Residual energy, feedback, hell, maybe even the crew. If we can record even a fraction of that? That's data A.R.C would kill for."

"...Is that a thing?" I asked doubtfully, and then remembered how weird our lives were. "No, better question. Is that a thing we can actually, qualitatively pick up on with our instruments?"

"What, residual energy?" he asked, "West might be able to from his end. Probably Phoebe too. The anomalies are traces, kind of like magnetic distortions, electromagnetic spikes, psychic signatures. Thalia's whole job is to feel that, and back at HQ... we might not have the proper instruments to read all of that. But West and Phoebe, they do. Probably."

"Never thought you'd be asking West for help."

"He has no choice," Maddox grinned, "Right before we left, I did him a favor of not burying him alive after he called Phoebe a 'smoke-show'. He owes me."

"You're both weird," I said plainly.

Maddox shrugged, "I like weird. Better than being normal. That's boring," he finally said, standing, "So, what do you say? We can just hover... for a few moments. Tell the crew we are having technical difficulties-- hopefully Colin doesn't try to actually work--and see what we find?"

I scoffed as I turned off the engine and reached for the intercom. The constant rumbling of our motor, the white noise that "Colin? Work? You're worried about the wrong things."

Before I pressed the button to start transmitting, I double-checked that Phoebe and West weren't on the frequency. That would be a dumb way to get discovered.

"Sécurité, sécurité, sécurité," I started. That was the procedure word for low-level warnings over radio-- the French word for security, repeated three times, signified the safety information that was about to follow was the least urgent of any distress call. The highest level, of course, was a mayday call. "Crew of the Harbinger, we are currently experiencing some technical difficulties, and our engine has stalled. I expect to have it running again within the next..."

I looked to Maddox for a timeframe he'd like us to be idle for. He held up a three with his right fingers, and a zero with his left.

"Thirty minutes," I continued. "No action is needed. Remain at your stations." I ended the transmission.

"Perfect," Maddox's expression turned from anxious to... well, excited. "What now? Do we arm ourselves? Lock Colin and Thalia in the supply closet while we investigate this thing?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind that--"

Static crackled, preceded by a beep-- the telltale sound of the intercom.

"Engine's not stalled," Colin said, sounding like he was both eating another one of his cookies, and speaking way too close to the microphone.

I gritted my teeth. "Didn't you hear me? Yes, it is."

"Is not. The engine makes this sound when it stalls--" Colin imitated a slow, mechanical-like whine. "And it makes this sound when it gets manually shut off." Another awful screech of dying equipment followed, this time lower and more hoarse. "And that was the noise I just heard."

Damn it. Of course Colin would pick this time to be a mechanical prodigy.

Maddox shifted his stance and grabbed the extra mic, "Colin, mind your business. It's stalled. I'll pay you five bucks if you go make another batch of cookies and forget this conversation even happened."

Colin paused. "...Make it fifty and I'll throw in a batch of brownies."

"Forty and I don't throw you in the ocean," Maddox wagered, "And this is generous. You know too much."

"Uh-uh. You still haven't paid me back for that time you kidnapped me-- you know what? I'm not accepting a cent below eighty."

Maddox sighed, "Eighty... and you make two angel food cakes with buttercream frosting. That's my final offer."

Silence. I held my breath.

"Two, huh?" Colin asked, clearly giving it thought.

"With homemade buttercream frosting. Not that store-bought crap they have in the pantry." Maddox gave me a thumbs-up.

"Well... I think I've got enough flour..." Another pause. "You have yourself a deal, capt'n."

"Nice working with you.... engine...eer?" Maddox stumbled as if he couldn't believe he was saying it, "Also, I don't owe you money for kidnapping you. It's only kidnapping if you didn't agree to it. It was merely a favor. So, therefore, I owe you a favor."

"A favor?" It was as if I could hear the dollar signs in Colin's eyes. "In that case, angel cakes with buttercream, coming right up." The transmission crackled out.

"...Are you really giving him eighty dollars?" I asked.

"No," Maddox scoffed, "He's getting five, like I originally offered. I just got an extra two cakes out of it, though."

"Remind me never to negotiate with you."

He winked and walked towards the door, "You coming?"

I gave one last look back at the wheel before following. "What's the plan? Stand around in the rain and hope we see something?"

"Exactly," Maddox said, already halfway down the deck, "Rain improves the aesthetic. Makes it look like we're doing something heroic... and things like that."

"No," I said plainly. "It makes us look like wet rodents."

Maddox laughed, the sound almost swallowed by the rain pelting against the deck, "Wet heroic rodents," he corrected, throwing me a stupid grin over his shoulder. Typical Maddox.

I rolled my eyes, stepping out into the rain with him. It was as if we were never dry-- the weather swallowed us up. The world blurred to gray and silver. The sea and sky were one thing now, moving and churning like a single living mass.

"Storms like this stir things up. If there is an anomaly out there, it'll move closer to the surface. I think," Maddox and I reached the railing as he continued to speak, "Ugh... I'm starting to sound like Thalia," he muttered.

"That, and you've probably just jinxed us. Now we'll never see anything."

Just as the boat rocked dramatically to the left, West's voice came through the deck intercom. "Land to Sea, check in. I see you guys are stationary, and the turbulence is... not good. What's going on?"

I exchanged a look with Maddox. Why was this the time our resident team slackers decided to be helpful.

"Shhh," Maddox brought a finger to his lips.

"Maddox, we know you're there." West followed up a few moments later.

I sighed, trudging my way to the nearest microphone and kicking up water with every step. As much as I hated to do it, it would only be more suspicious to ignore it.

"Harbinger to land," I said, pressing the call button. "I don't know what you're seeing, but things are under control here."

To be fair, that wasn't a lie. I'd turned off the engine myself, so the problem at hand was of my own making and I was the one who could end it.

West's voice came through again, "Roger that. Just make sure you're keeping your signal steady. You're drifting a few degrees of course."

It was probably more than that. "Noted. We'll keep you updated." We would not.

Maddox gave me a thumbs up from across the deck, "Just in time! I see one! Look--" he pointed to the waves.

I darted back to the railing, looking to where he pointed, but I couldn't see anything. I gave him a few seconds of waiting and watching, just in case I'd missed it, but it became clear there was nothing to see soon enough.

"One... what?" I deadpanned. "One water?"

"I swear, it was just there." Maddox furrowed his brow and dropped his hand, spinning around, "It's under us, I think. That's why it keeps tipping."

"See, I've humored you these last few minutes, but I'm starting to think you're just sleep-deprived and over-excited," I said. "Not your fault. Colin's."

"I got plenty of sleep last night, thank ya very much," Maddox countered, "Maybe we should get out of here."

"You think?"

My question was punctuated by the boat suddenly rocking so far to the port side that I briefly forgot how to stand.

I flung my hand out on instinct, barely grabbing the rung of the ladder that led up to the top deck next to me before my feet could slide out from underneath me on the slick surface. I barely had time to take my next breath before another wave crashed over me. Gasping, I furiously blinked water out of my good eye in time to see Maddox tumble back in the direction we came.

Right on queue, West's voice came through again, "What the hell is going on over there? Things are not fine."

I lunged for the intercom with my free hand, gathering my wits enough to heave out, "Again, I don't know what you're talking about. You sure your instruments are calibrated?"

"Yes, and something's wrong with your intercom too." Phoebe. Of course she was paying attention, too. "Your audio sounds... wet."

Maddox, who was thrown halfway across the deck into some supplies, immediately jumped up. His body noticeably stiffened as he made his way over to the intercom. He went to grab it, but hesitated and withdrew his hand, shaking his head. He gave me... was that a terrified look? Or possibly regret?

Great. I couldn't believe I was going to this length for his pride.

"That would be the rain," I said plainly, as if it was obvious. "From the rainstorm."

"From the rainstorm--" West's voice cut in, "Right. Because that explains why your readings just spiked to--"

I was about to tell him where to shove it when the world tilted again. Fortunately, I didn't lose my grip on the ladder. Unfortunately, I was less in control of the rest of my body, and my shoulder went slamming into the wall. It hurt-- way more than it should've-- but I gritted my teeth through the searing pain that radiated through my arm. Soldiers didn't complain. They didn't protest. I was still one of them.

Unfortunately, while I could cover that up, the rest of our situation was rapidly becoming impossible to conceal. Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, Thalia's voice came through the intercom-- definitely connected to the radio.

"I just threw up... Twice! All over myself! And this thing won't shut up. Where are you guys?!" Thalia. We forgot to bribe Thalia. Not like it would've mattered, but still.

"Thalia? Was that you?" West's voice sounded panicked.

"Who else would it be?! SOS! SOS!" Thalia yelled into the comms.

"Nope!" I hollered back. "Making false distress calls is a felony! And it's Mayday!"

Maddox was now on his stomach from the last wave, sliding across the deck like an airborne fish, "Now you sound like Thalia!"

I saved my breath and told him what I thought by relying on the use of my middle finger.

"Mayday? Did I hear Mayday?" Phoebe's voice pitched higher, and I realized too late she'd probably only caught half of that, what with the audio quality. And with my luck, of course that could be the part she heard.

"No!" I said firmly. "No."

"Save our Mayday!" Thalia was still hyperventilating, of course. "We're going do--"

Suddenly, Thalia went silent, but it didn't sound like she'd stopped talking. Instead, it appeared her entire audio had cut out. Perplexed, I stared at the speaker, as if that could reveal the cause of her silence to me.

Then a door creaked open, and I saw Colin step out from inside, covered in... flour?

"Huh," he remarked, far too calmly. "It appears the comms in the supply closet have mysteriously malfunctioned. Strange. Oh well."

I had to give it to him. That was exactly what we needed right now.

"You guys need to tell us what's happening, right now! Where is Colin?" West's agitated tone -- which we rarely ever heard-- was palpable.

I gave Colin a look that said if he blew this, he'd find himself overboard. He waved me off with a lazy gesture of his hand as he cautiously manuevered his way to the intercom, staying close to the wall.

"Hi!" Colin said brightly, right as another wave crashed over us, and I experienced a brand new kind of freezing. "This better be important. I have cakes in the oven."

"Cakes--you're baking right now?" West asked.

"Sure am," Colin said, brushing a plume of now-wet flour off his sleeve. "Which really goes to show just how fine things are going here, no? I couldn't be baking if they weren't."

"Colin, listen to me very closely. We're getting feedback on seismic activity on the ship. Tell me where Maddox is, and tell me the truth."

Colin hummed innocently. "See, I could do that, but he's actually paying me to bake for him, so..."

"Why would he ever pay you? You know he never follows through with--" Phoebe sighed. "Never mind. You have way more important things going on right now."

"You're right!" Colin agreed. "Like eighty whole dollars."

"Colin, how could you say no to me? I thought I was your favorite person? Come on, I'll let you borrow my Grandma Gertie's Recipe Book when you get back. I know you've always wanted to use it..." When I heard West's charm come through, I knew Colin would most likely fold. He always did with West.

Colin's eyes lit up. Yep, we were doomed.

"Can I get that in a written agreement?" Colin asked coyly.

"There's no need for that--" I interrupted.

"Yes." West snuck his answer in before I could object more.

"Well!" Colin grinned. "In that case--"

I made an executive decision in the form of tackling Colin away from the intercom. He tried to shout, but I clapped my hand over his mouth before he could be heard and pinned his arms to his sides.

"...In that case what?" Phoebe asked.

"Sorry about that," I said, ignoring Colin's attempt to elbow his way free. "Colin has been... reassigned."

There was a little grumble and static over the intercom before an nearly-unintelligible murmer came through, "They're... lying...".

"Obviously!" Phoebe hissed.

Maddox threw his hands up in frustration, "For fucks sake."

I glared at him while Colin wriggled uselessly. He'd gotten us in this mess, and now he was complaining? I had to do everything around here.

Maddox was halfway to the microphone before another wave hit, and I let go of Colin to grab onto the ladder again. However, Colin had no time to hold on to anything so soon after being liberated, and the only thing I could hear while the crash of waves blinded my view of the deck was a startled yelp and a thud against the railing.

Maddox whipped around at the sound, gripping the handle of a locked door with his life. He stumbled slightly, dripping wet, hair plastered against his forehead as he made a run for Colin, who was hanging onto the railing for dear life, dangling above the roaring ocean.

"I am not getting paid nearly enough for this!" Colin hollered, barely audible over the next crash and rumble.

"Hold on!" Maddox' voice ripped through the rain. He didn't hesitate-- in three long strides he nearly lost his balance. When a smaller wave hit, it slammed into him hard enough to stagger him sideways, but he caught himself on the railing and launched forward again.

By the time he reached Colin, the idiot had both hands white-knuckled around the metal rail, his feet skidding against the slick floor. He threw himself down beside him.

"That's got to be the least efficient way of saving someone I've ever seen," I snapped, as Maddox grabbed Colin's shirt and attempted to haul him upwards onto the deck like a toddler. After the third attempt and wth one last pull, he lifted them both up and they collapsed onto each other in a soaked, tangled heap against the deck. For a second, neither of them moved-- just lay their breathing hard.

Finally, Maddox forced himself up, "What the hell happened to our deal, moron?"

"Your cakes are fine," Colin muttered, peeling himself up from the deck. "Also, this doesn't count as my favor."

"You were about to give us away!" Maddox wrang out his shirt, which was pointless, considering it was still raining and we could capsize any second.

Suddenly, the door to the hull came flying open. We all turned to find what looked like Thalia, but her eyes bulged and she looked like she'd just seen twenty murders right in front of her very eyes. Honestly, no matter how timid she usually was, this was an extreme.

"Where the hell have you all been?" she attempted to tie her curly red hair into a bun, but as she was walking towards us, she slipped on the wet floor and landed face-first in a bucket.

I hated my job.

"Never mind that," I snapped. "Have you been doing anything useful this whole time? Anything?"

She struggled to remove herself from the bucket, sliding on the floor two fifths of the way across the deck before hitting a crate.

"Yes, actually! I was distracting them; they wouldn't leave me alone! I am traumatized! Do you even know how many times I threw up in there? Nine! Nine times! And where were you guys-- poking it? I heard them saying to capsize us! I felt it in my bones!"

"I'm not sure that's a proper use of the word 'traumatized'," Colin said, "but whatever floats your boat."

"We are barely floating," I grumbled.

From the intercom, I could hear Phoebe mutter something about how at this point, we all deserved to sink to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And I honestly agreed.

"Phoebe!" Thalia found her way to her feet and ran to the speaker, touching it with her left hand, "Thank god! Get me off this damn boat!"

"I can't do that," Phoebe said blankly. "Especially not if no one is being honest about the life-threatening incident you appear to be in."

"West!" She ran to the other speaker across the deck, as if that was the only way to talk to him, which was odd. Then again, everything about this mission so far was odd.

"Oh--", West's voice crackled through, and it sounded like he was eating something crunchy-- maybe chips? "Can't help ya there, Thalia."

"Guys, look!" Colin shouted.

"Not the time, Colin," I barked.

"No, I'm serious! Look what's at our five o'clock!"

I had the feeling I was about to regret giving him my attention when our lives were all at stake, but I turned my head anyway-- then froze.

I'd only seen it in illustrations and grainy photos-- barely a footnote in our extensive training on various anomalies. At the center of a raging whirlpool, a pair of slender, smooth tentacles poked out of the vortex. Despite the violence of the water surrounding it, there was something... gentle about it. Maybe it was the radiant, white light that floated up from the depths, or maybe the grace the tendrils waved with in the turbulent air. I didn't know. Whatever it was, all I could do for a moment was stare, mesmerized by the heavenly sight emerging from the ocean to greet us.

Then I remembered; this Riptide wasn't here to greet us. It was trying to force us out.

"Okay!" I shouted. "We've seen it! We're leaving now!"

Before anyone, least of all Maddox, could object, I flung the door open and dashed back to the bridge.

"I need to get a picture!" Thalia hovered near the railings, "Someone get my camera!"

That was the last thing I heard before the heavy metal door slammed shut behind me.

My boots stamped water across the floor as I beelined for the wheel, hurriedly flicking the right combination of switches and buttons to reignite the engine. My thoughts raced as I yanked the wheel and started to speed us away. Of course. Riptides were fiercely territorial and only attacked when they felt threatened; so territorial, in fact, that they tried to avoid humans and were rarely spotted. Still, they were a registered and documented anomaly. Hardly the mystery we'd hoped to catch a glimpse by stopping the boat.

I didn't slow us down until I couldn't feel the tilt of being pulled side to side anymore. The radar showed no blips in the water beneath us. I took a deep breath, pushing aside the dark, wet hair that had plastered itself to my forehead.

The radio crackled to life again, snapping me out of my haze.

"That was a Riptide, wasn't it," Phoebe said calmly.

I sighed. No point in hiding it anymore. "Yeah. Yeah."

Those jerks.

My heartbeat had finally returned to a normal pace two hours later, but I could still feel the tension in my hands, like I was itching to do something. Probably slapping someone. Someone like...

I sneaked a glance at West-- who was oblivious, still staring at the ceiling and leaning back in his chair-- and decided against it. He'd given it a shot, I guess. Which was just sad. I could understand the results if he hadn't put any effort into it, but the fact that he had done his best and still floundered around was what really did it for me.

West finally looked over at me, green eyes widening like he'd read my mind. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I tried. I can't fix the conditions when they're that far away."

"I know you tried," I muttered. "That's the worst part."

"What more would you have liked me to do?" He flailed his left arm, bumping his wrist on the floating light fixture between us in the process. It swung around wildly, sending the moths flitting around it into a distressed spiral. I had to swat one out of my face.

"Almost anything. But you want specifics?" I grabbed the lamp and held it still, while pointing at the fallen chip crumbs lying below his seat with the other hand. "For starters, you could learn a thing or two about when to initiate a snack break. Emergencies are generally frowned upon."

West raised an eyebrow and glanced down at where I was pointing as if he was just now realizing the disaster zone around him even existed. There were crumbs on his lap, around his shoes -- even some radiating into my area. Disgusting.

"That is unrelated to the current mission," he blankly stated.

"The current mission is happening all the time. Not just when you feel like it. Not just when it's convienient for you." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Sometimes, that means-- heaven forbid-- you have to put your wants aside for the greater good."

West's jaw locked for a moment, but amusement still lingered on the edges of his expression. He brushed some crumbs off his lap with complete disregard for where they landed -- namely, my side of the floor. I stared at them like I was hoping for them to combust.

"Right," he stated, "because clearly the biggest issue today was me eating chips. Listen," he continued, leaning down more to rest his elbows on his knees, "I get it. I do. But they're alive, aren't they?"

"No thanks to you."

West sighed and moved around again, standing to walk towards the coffee bar at the opposite side of the room. It wasn't even really a coffee bar. Just a table with a coffee maker, a minifridge, and some sugar. West drank the rest of the creamer two days ago.

Just the creamer. Like some kind of psychopath. Sure, I drank my coffee black, and I wasn't fighting him for it, but it was still a matter of principle.

"You need to relax. Your boyfriend will be back before you know it. Is that why you're so upset?" His voice was slightly blurred by the sudden growl of the coffee machine.

"No," I deadpanned. "Leave him out of this, would you? He's fine, and I'm fine. You're the one who values this mission at slightly lower than a fun-sized bag of Sun Chips."

And yet, depressingly, he probably still cared more about it than Colin. Ugh.

"You know," he said, pulling a mug from the cabinet, "Most people actually enjoy morale support during stressful situations. And my morale support happens to be chips. Sorry not sorry."

"I'm sorry, did we get an official sponsorship from them that I missed?" I asked plainly. "Chips are not support. We are the support."

West turned to look at me and leaned back against the table, crossing one ankle over another. "Do you think I don't care because I don't show it like you do?"

I didn't have an answer right away, so I stared him down for a few seconds. That usually did the trick. Unfortunately, he just stared right back. Damn it all.

"What else I am supposed to think?" I retorted at last.

"I don't know," he admitted, shrugging. He adjusted his glasses. "I know I don't react as you do. I know you think if someone isn't visibly stressed, then they're not taking things seriously enough. But Phoebe, if I let myself feel every single thing at full volume all the time, I'd go into psychosis."

I pursed my lips. Something in me wanted to ask if it would kill him to express a little bit more, but I didn't. Not yet.

"The chips thing," he glanced down at the abandoned bag by my chair, "it wasn't because I was being greedy or because what I thought happened out there was funny. In reality, it was because sitting here listening to radio static while the Harbinger nearly disappeared off our readings made me feel completely useless."

I dared to uncross my arms, letting just a little of the venom leave my glare. Just a little. I didn't want him to think he was off the hook, but... I couldn't recall the last time he'd spoken as freely as this, and it didn't grate my ears like all his offhanded words had been doing before. I could stand to listen to a bit more.

"You know what the worst part of this job is, Blackout?" he asked, "Not the anomalies. Hell, not the damn storms. It's the waiting. Hearing something go wrong and not being able to physically do anything except sit here and hope your friends don't die before the signal comes back."

I sighed, raising a hand to rub my face. I could feel a headache setting in.

"I know," I said finally. "I hate it too. But I find it easier to bear when I know everyone else is doing the most they can-- when I don't just have to hope they will."

And most days, I felt like I was spending them hoping.

A pause hung in the air for a second, before West spoke again.

"You accepted this position for the good of your team. Why? You could've... been there. You're valuable in the field, and Maddox is there. Why were you okay with staying here?" he asked.

I blinked, not sure if he was serious at first, but he sure seemed to be. Seriousness didn't look right on him. I felt like I was in the room with a stranger.

And I didn't normally talk about this kind of thing with strangers.

"I was asked to be here," I said, deciding it was true enough. "And I do what I'm asked."

West knew better than to press me further. He just nodded his head once and turned back around to face the coffee maker once it beeped, but he didn't seem to be actually looking at it. "Touche. I'll try harder next time. I think. Depends on how I'm feeling that day."

And just like that, whatever solemn spirit had taken over the room dissipated in a heartbeat. The person standing in front of me wasn't that stranger anymore. It was West, who didn't ask big questions, never cleaned up his messes, and drank creamer in a way that made him a freak. Except that didn't feel right either.

"So," I said, after a long silence even I was getting uncomfortable with, and after spotting something in the corner of my eye. "Your coffee is overflowing."

But before West could react-- or rather, react about how he was not going to react-- a chime sounded throughout the lighthouse. It was the same tone that rang back at headquarters. We had an incoming call. West hurried back to his chair, knocking his piping hot mug over in the process.

"Shiiiiiiit," I muttered, looking distressedly at the second rapidly spreading coffee stain before also launching myself back into my seat.

My heart sank even further when my gaze darted to the caller ID on our large display-- it was Commander Fox. And it was a video call, too. I carefully nudged our camera so the spill was out of frame.

West flipped some random switches -- some to the lights, others to the projections of the weather patterns on the back wall. "He could at least warn us before he decides to give us both heart attacks," West muttered.

"He's Commander Fox, West. He doesn't have to do anything for our sakes." I quickly glanced his way to make sure he was presentable-- or as presentable as he would get-- before accepting the call, being sure to sit up straight as I did.

With another chiming sound, Fox's face filled the screen, making his chronic hard stare even more inescapable. He was seated at his desk in the office I knew so well-- stacks of neatly organized papers on either side, countless awards and medals hanging on the wall behind him, and a framed family photo he kept close to him. I couldn't read his face when it was resting in his default expression, and so I had no idea if we were in trouble. Or rather, how much trouble we were in.

"Greetings, sir," I said politely, hoping it was still possible to stay on his good side. "What can we do for you?"

"Blackout. Cardinal," Commander turned his stone-cold attention to West, whose leg wouldn't stop uncontrollably bouncing, "You both look... exhausted."

West wiped his eyes, "No. We're fine. And actually, before we start... whatever this is, I'd like to clarify something. Phoebe was the mastermind, and I was just simply the emotional support. For the record."

I glanced at the space between our chairs-- nope, I was too far away to kick him in the leg. He was bleeding in front of a shark if he was going to actively admit to his own uselessness.

"We were both on task, sir," I said evenly, as if West hadn't just said otherwise. "And we're both getting what rest we can-- though one of us is always on duty, naturally."

Fox gave a slight nod at that, though his expression remained completely unreadable.

"I should hope so," he replied, "Because according to the telemetry reports I reviewed twenty minutes ago, the Harbinger spent approximately six minutes without stable tracking during peak storm conditions."

Beside me, West stopped bouncing his leg, but he didn't respond.

I had to fight to keep a calm face. I'd transmitted the report myself, as protocol demanded, wincing all the way. I didn't think they'd actually get scanned, or even flagged. Technical difficulties were expected and given some grace, but I had a bad feeling that we weren't about to get off so easily.

"Then you must have also read my analysis of the incident, sir," I said as evenly as I could. "The Harbinger's principal GPS unit doesn't respond well to strong angular accelerations, like the ones the ship experienced getting tossed around by the storm, which can cause the loss of a position lock. The problem was exacerbated by the lack of satellites in the region, and there was a delay of several minutes before one moved into position and reestablished a lock. While it was mostly bad luck, I recommended the crew recalibrates its gyrometer. It was handled well, under the circumstances."

I hadn't said anything false, or even bent the facts my way, but guilt still sunk to the bottom of my stomach like a stone. It felt like I'd just spewed a heap of inconsistent excuses.

Fox didn't blink. Not once, "That explanation," he said calmly, "accounts for signal instability. It does not account for a complete engine shutdown. I can't wait to recieve the Harbinger's full incident report," he turned his attention to West again, who was now staring blankly at the desk infront of him.

"Cardinal."

West looked up immediately like a student being called on in class. "Sir."

"You monitored the weather patterns personally."

"Yes, Sir."

"And your assessment?"

West hesitated and sighed, breaking eye contact with Commander for just a moment. "It wasn't a normal storm. Pressure readings underneath the vessel were fluctuating independently from the front moving overhead."

Fox's expression remained completely neutral, "And did either of you communicate this concern directly to Graves?"

Another pause.

West winced, "... Not formally, sir."

"With all due respect, Commander," I interjected, "Graves and his crew were being dishonest about their end of the situation, limiting our ability to respond to their problems. The engine shutdown was an intentional action, made in the hopes of getting better observations of the phenomena causing the storm, which we only learned after the incident was resolved. While it was unwise--"

West shifted in his chair and put his hand up. I looked to him, almost shocked that he actually cared enough to add to my point, "Sir," he said, "if I can be honest, I think we both knew something was wrong before the Harbinger lost tracking."

Fox looked to him, "Go on."

I pressed my lips shut, knowing this would either offer a surprising insight, or dig our graves just that much deeper. I couldn't muster much faith for the former, though. West glanced at me, then back at the screen.

"The storm wasn't the problem. It was everything underneath it. The pressure readings were changing too quickly and too locally. I flagged them because they didn't correspond with the weather we were tracking." He paused. "But Maddox and Flick didn't tell us what they were doing with the engine. We assumed they were making adjustments based on conditions."

"And you didn't question that assumption."

"No, sir."

"Why?"

West sighed, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.

"Because he's Maddox and she's Flick. Maddox has gotten us out of worse situations than this. I've watched him make decisions with half the information we had tonight and still bring everyone home. And Flick... is Flick. I am not sure what else you want me to say. She's the most reliable person in our whole group. Sorry, Phoebe..." he swallowed, "So when the engine went down, we assumed they had a reason."

"You trusted their judgement."

"Yes, Sir."

"Even when evidence suggested otherwise."

"Yes."

Fox looked to me. "Is this true?"

I frowned. "Sir... we're meant to trust each other, are we not?" It certainly wasn't the thing I was best at, but I'd managed to keep that goal in sight.

"Trust," he responded, "Yes. But that's not what I asked. Trusting your team does not mean assuming they're right. It means trusting them enough to tell them they're making the wrong calls. If Maddox makes a bad call, you question it. If Flick withholds information, you call her on it. If West tells you the ocean is behaving differently, then you investigate it instead of assuming he's being dramatic."

It took everything in me not to wilt. Would jumping into the ocean to escape this shakedown count as dramatic?

West raised a finger, "In my defense, the ocean was being dramatic. I have readings to prove it."

Fox rolled his eyes and looked to something on the side before making direct eye contact with me, "Needless to say. You have a job to do. If you can't execute this job, maybe I'll send in a team that can. Not only will you fail this mission, but you will be reviewed and challenged by the Wardens."

West straightened. But I couldn't allow myself to bristle, to show him how deep the words had gotten under my skin-- because that's what Fox wanted to see. The mind was the commander's favorite battlefield, even when he wasn't using his powers. I had no desire to let him in without a fight.

But still... the Wardens? Really? The insulting part was that Fox knew our team was better than theirs-- our training scores had proven as much. The thought of being replaced by them made me physically sick.

"That won't be necessary, sir," I said firmly. "We'll make sure of it."

"Good," he nodded contently, as if he'd won, "I will be in contact."

His image disappeared. West let out a long whistle and leaned back dramatically in his chair before obnoxiously throwing air punches. What an idiot. I buried my face in my hands.

The shame was still there. That wasn't going anywhere. But I dared to poke at the feeling hiding just behind it and found a quiet fear unrelated to our performance. We'd never been grilled this hard before-- at least, not over something this small. Which meant they were watching us a lot closer than I'd initially assumed, given this was supposed to be our first hands-off assignment.

Just how important was this mission, really?

"You know, sometimes I see that guy's face in my dreams. It's a real problem," West looked to me and stood. "Speaking of dreams, I need sleep. So. We'll deal with this tomorrow. Captain Foxypants gave me the meanest migraine."

I huffed. "You wish you had Colin's powers, don't you?"

"That would suck, actually. I wish Fox had a family or something so that he'd leave us alone for once. I wonder if he has a wife. I bet not," he winked before disappearing into the side room.

"He did," I said before I could stop myself, and then cringed.

West stopped and peeked his head around the corner, "Since when? How didn't I know this?"

"Because you don't pay attention?" I sighed, shaking my head. "No, that's not really the reason why this time. I just-- I went looking through his specs one day. He's been a widower for eight years."

West's full body came back into view; his facial expression looked puzzled. "What happened to her?"

I chewed my lip, trying to summon the finer details to mind, but I only remembered streak after streak of black marker. "I don't know. A lot of it was redacted... but I gathered it was the work of an anomaly. Their son was mentioned in the same passage."

"Hm. I wonder if that's why he's so hard on us about this mission. Maybe he assumes we'll find whatever killed his wife," West shrugged, "Either way, the man needs a drink. And a couple naps."

"Family man from Colorado suspecting an anomaly in the Northern Pacific is to blame for deaths in a landlocked state? Somehow I doubt it. As for the cause of his harshness overall, though...?" I sighed, letting that thought go to rest. "His file also mentioned a love of whiskey, and recurring insomnia, so I fear it's a mixed bag on him getting either of those things."

West moved a hand to the back of his head, "Damn. And... why exactly were you looking through his file?"

"I've read everyone's." I paused. "Well... everyone's that I have access to, in the version that I have access to. Which obviously isn't of the highest clearance, but it's something."

West blinked twice, "That's so weird, Phoebs. Didn't know you were a stalker," he joked, "Noted."

"I am not!" I protested. "And if you were half as diligent as me, you'd have done the same."

"I'm sure," he smiled, "Goodnight, Phoebe. Try not to overthink."

"No promises."

I watched as he slipped out of sight again, back to the ladder leading up to the small corner of the lighthouse that served as our sleeping quarters. It was really just two hammocks, and I'd barely spent any time in mine. What few moments I'd spent with my eyes closed had mostly been right here, legs curled up to my chest and headphones still pressed to my ears.

Honestly, I didn't see why West thought it would suck to have Colin's powers. I'd love to go without needing sleep-- and I'd be so much more productive with that gift than him, too. Too bad.

I turned back to my equipment, focusing on the feeling of the power within them, the electricity creeping from wire to outlet to wire again to screens and speakers and rigs. The Harbinger had made it to Skagway, by the looks of the tracker. If I sent a message, would there be anyone still tending the boat to hear it and answer? More likely than not, they were making the most of their time on land. But I didn't like the thought of not reaching out-- not after that threat.

I sighed as I reached for the call button, double-checking the transmission frequency. Fine. Time to be annoying.

"Land to Sea," I said clearly into my microphone. "We see you as docked, with your port of call as Skagway. Is anyone on board?"

From the silence that followed, it sure didn't seem like it. Disappointed, but not surprised, I shook my head and moved to end the transmission-- but then garbled audio that couldn't mask the familiar voice behind it sounded in my headphones. Maddox.

"Blackout." His voice came through with a burst of interference, followed by what sounded like someone dropping something metallic in the background. "Sorry. Took me a second to get the thing working again. Colin built this monstrosity out of whatever he could pull from the Harbinger, and every time somebody moves more than three feet away from it, the signal starts cutting out..." he paused, sighed, then continued. "We're in Skagway, by the way. We're all here. Nobody's dead, nobody's missing, and before you ask -- yes, I know that's an unnecessarily low bar for a status update."

I couldn't help but let out a slight laugh-- it was good to talk normally with him, without alarms or emergencies in the background, even if the quality sounded like he was radioing in from Antarctica. "I'll take whatever good news I can. Why couldn't you just use a walkie-talkie, though? I know you have them."

"About that," Colin cut in, his Texan drawl still clear as ever despite the static. "Although your dearest boyfriend over here may have saved me from going overboard in the storm, the same could not be said for the hand radios clipped to my belt. So we had to... improvise."

"I have the feeling I should be glad I can't see it. Or feel whatever current is running though it."

Colin huffed. "Actually, it is a marvel of modern engineering. Wouldn't you agree, Maddox?"

"Marvel might be pushing it. It works. That's good enough for me. We've got a signal, we've got power, and nobody's had to climb onto the roof yet, so as far as I'm concerned, we're doing pretty well. Although I do have to stop Colin from connecting it directly to the tavern's breaker box. Apparently that was his next idea."

"Colin, with all due respect," I started, "there's a reason I'm the electrician and you're the mechanic."

"I knew my talents were wasted on you non-believers," Colin murmured disappointedly, and I barely stopped myself from scoffing.

"Don't encourage him," Maddox's voice came through again. This time, I could almost hear the smile in his voice. "We've already spent the better part of an hour arguing over whether something that sparked twice and smoked once qualifies as functional. Colin thinks it does. I think it qualifies as a fire hazard."

"It can be both, if you're not a coward."

"For once, I agree with the cowbaby," Flick's voice came in, albeit more distantly than the men's.

"Heh, cowbaby. I'm stealing that," I said.

"Do not," Colin warned. "Or I'll think of something worse for you."

"Sorry, cowbaby, can't hear you, you're breaking up. Must be something wrong with whatever you've rigged up?"

"I'm getting bullied by Phoebe?" Colin complained. "Nothing makes sense anymore."

There was a small pause over the radio. I allowed myself to grin.

"Um," Thalia finally cut in, "I don't think that's what bullying is. I mean, technically she was just making fun of the fact that your equipment is malfunctioning. Which you did make out of, um... scrap. And it did spark twice."

"Yeah, Thalia, you would know a lot about bullying, wouldn't you?" Flick muttered.

Thalia went silent for a moment, and I knew that comment probably went a little too far. I sighed and leaned back, preparing myself for the rebuttal from Thalia, but it didn't come. She was bullied a lot during her training modules, and I wasn't always sure why? Maybe it was because she kept to herself, or maybe it was because she didn't really try to prove her skill. It just kind of fell in her lap.

Finally, Thalia spoke again, "I--well," she seemed to stumble over the words, "I don't think my experience with bullying really qualifies me as an expert. I wasn't-- nevermind."

"Too far, Flick." Maddox's voice broke through once more, and this time it was less aggressive and actually more... paternal? It shocked me for just a split second-- and it must've shocked Flick, too, because it took her uncharacteristically long to respond. Only a heartbeat, but for her, that counted as long.

"Come on," she sighed. "I was just saying she's used to it, surely she can handle hearing that, right?"

"I think that's kind of the point," Maddox said. His voice had lost the humor it had carried a moment ago. "She shouldn't have to."

I could hear the faint crackle of the transmission, followed by some distant noise on their end -- something being set down, maybe a chair scraping against the floor. "I'm fine," Thalia finally said. "I'm going to go and try to find some flowers to make a headband. I think I saw some in pots at the bar, and if I do this correctly, I can make small talk enough to steal them. Wish me luck."

"Get me a beer," Maddox yawned on the other end, "Or two. Probably two."

"Hey, no drinking on the job," Colin protested, and somehow, despite not having a camera, I could imagine him withdrawing from an active blatherer to a wallflower during those last few moments. I could count on both hands the times I'd witnessed him go quiet, and most of them seemed to happen when Flick crossed a line. But I never knew when I was onto something with that or simply charting an imaginary trend.

"If there's no drinking on the job, I think that rule also applies to baking."

"I don't even bake for me anymore, just for you," Colin retorted.

"But you enjoy it. Or you wouldn't do it."

Colin groaned. "Phoebe, is there a record over there? Never mind, of course there is. Can we have the record show I am giving your boyfriend the coldest death glare right now?"

"Request denied," I said politely.

"Death glare? Maybe that counts as cold in Texas," Flick noted.

"Texas?" Maddox's tone changed, this time more exaggerated. "I would've never guessed you were from Texas, Flick. Unless you're throwing us a curveball."

"Maddox, you idiot," Flick sighed. "He's from Texas. And while I'm not normally one to confirm or deny guesses about myself, I will disavow Texas with my last breath just so I am crystal-clear I'm not from the same state as this freak."

"I'd object, but there really aren't too many good things to say about it," Colin added.

"Never been," Maddox said. "New York City couldn't be much better, though. Just... instead of cowboys and death-laws we have old men dressed up as Spider-Man in Times Square trying to charge children thirty dollars for a picture."

"At least you have a Times Square," I said. "We just have the entire nation's supply of grandparents who spend their retirement seeing how much sugar they can fit into tea and grilling brisket well-done. It's like Florida on a budget."

Maddox chuckled through the comms. I could almost imagine him shaking his head at me with that ridiculous smile of his. I missed it. His hair would fall into his face constantly, and I could tell by the swish of the transmission that he'd spent a few seconds throwing it back out of his vision. "You always did make the best sweet tea and barbecue, Phoebs."

"No thanks to my grandparents." I cracked a smile.

"Boooooooooooo," Colin bellowed into the microphone, making me jump at the sudden change in volume. "Get a room!"

Maddox audibly sighed.

"And... wildly enough, the cowbaby's right again," Flick agreed. "Two once-in-a-lifetime moments, so closely together? I should buy a lottery ticket with my luck."

I scowled at the speakers, wishing they could see it. "I'll get a room when you get a grip."

"Just stop listening. Go take showers or something," Maddox groaned.

"Or go after Thalia," I suggested, before either of them could retort, most likely rightfully so, that a tavern generally didn't come with showers. "I'm doing you all a favor by not adding in the record that it's been several minutes and you let her wander off into one of America's most remote towns in the middle of a storm."

"Really? You'd put that in the record, but not my impressive glare?" Colin complained, but I heard his stool screech as he stood.

"I suppose we should make sure she doesn't get carried off by a bald eagle," Flick said. "They probably think she's a squirrel."

"That sounds like a marvelous idea, Flick," Maddox added.

"Here's your room then," Colin said, sounding like he was talking over his shoulder as he and Flick walked away. "Don't kill your liver."

Maddox waited a few seconds before testing the waters. "Testing for spies. If you're here, I think Thalia's being picked up by the eagle as we speak."

"No spies here," I said. "And no lies either, unfortunately for Thalia."

Maddox chuckled again. "How's Hawaii treating you and..." I just know he scowled at the thought of West's name, "West? Has he tried anything with you? I'd assume after the last time, he wouldn't. But. You know him."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes playfully. "Yes, I do know him. Well enough to know it's as unserious as the rest of him is. Please stop threatening to dye his hair pink."

Maddox gave a very unserious hum on the other line. "That sounds like a very diplomatic way of saying he's probably already done something stupid. Or close to it."

"Stupid, sure. Worthy of your concern or mine, no," I said, then softened my tone. "Just... leave it be, Maddox. He's got enough going on, and besides, I'm not the one he's looking at."

"Oh? Do I even want to know?"

"If you can't at least guess, I'm going to tell Fox you need to retake your situational awareness test." Fox. I'd almost forgotten about him, and I honestly wished I had.

"I'm not the best at noticing flirtatious behavior. I didn't know you liked me until you smacked me in the back of the head after practical field training for stepping on your boot. And even then, I didn't know if you wanted to kill me or if that was your way of saying I was worth smacking. So. Yeah. No clue."

I grinned. "It was a little of both, honestly."

There was a relatively long pause. Then, Maddox continued, "Speaking of Fox. Have you talked to him at all... about the uh, incident?"

"Yeah. It's... well, what I wanted to talk to you about, actually, before we all got absorbed." I rubbed my eyes, perching my chin on my palm. "He threatened to bring in the Wardens if we don't get our act together."

Another long pause. Then, a sigh. Maddox's voice became a bit more defensive, "And we don't think he's bluffing?"

"I'm not interested in finding out." I sighed. "I mean, he could be since he knows it's an effective threat, but if it were true... Even if we could work with them without someone getting thrown overboard-- which we probably couldn't-- it would look bad, Maddox. This is supposed to be our first real mission. How are we just going to let our boot camp rivals waltz in and take the wheel from us?"

Maddox sighed. "If they do, we'll handle it. A whole other team wouldn't fit on this boat, I don't think. Plus, Wraith and I are close. I'm sure we'd figure it out. Don't worry, I will fix what I started."

"You better," I said, allowing myself to relax a bit. "Because there's only room for one micromanager over here."

"Understood." He paused. "I'm sorry if you got the brunt of it. He did call us once, but he couldn't hear us because it was while Colin was doing his little... experiment with the comms."

That wasn't good. I grimaced, grateful I could hide it. "He's... I don't know. Obviously this mission is to be taken seriously, but I got the feeling that... it matters to him. More than it would show by making it a rookie task."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Maddox explained, "I would rather he be more concerned about our mission than anyone else's. Maybe he sees something in us."

"Maybe. Or..."

I couldn't shake the thought that had been plaguing me ever since I'd left that call. What if he knows something we don't? But I couldn't say it, either. I just had to hope that he would read my mind, and he did.

"You think he's..." Maddox stopped himself for just a second, surely forgetting that he was communicating on makeshift wires and not comms directly attached to the monitored ship. He hesitated before continuing, "You think he's planning something? Or looking for something... unrelated to the disappearance of the Strangelove?

"He could be. Or he could just be our same old Commander Fox who nothing gets past. I don't know, and that's what's bothering me." I sighed, rubbing at my face again. "Ignore me. My brain is clearly dying from too much exposure to West."

"Phoebs. Last time you had a feeling like this, you regretted not following it. Do what you do best. Dig deeper. Do what you have to. Ignoring this feeling may be the one thing that kills us. If he's acting strange, let's find out why."

I paused, looking back at up at the speakers. "...Really?" I asked, with hope I couldn't hide.

"You're the smartest person I know. If you're saying you're getting weird feelings about this, then investigate it. But do it cleverly. You're far from HQ, and you're monitored. Oh, and don't tell West. You hear me? I know I don't like the guy, but it's not about that. By including him, you'd make him a liability."

I considered it. I liked investigating, but it was a hard thing to carry out when all I had was a gut feeling without a direction to start digging in. Then again, when had that ever stopped me before?

Even if I didn't get very deep, I knew how to cover my tracks. I might find nothing, but no one would ever learn I'd even gone looking in the first place, and that was almost as important.

"Alright." I took a deep breath, drumming my fingers rhythmically on the desk. "I'll see what I can do. No promises."

"That's my girl." I could almost see that grin on the other side. "I have to get some sleep, so I will talk to you tomorrow. Oh, and stay safe. Digging isn't safe. I know you will be, though. You always are."

I smiled, ever so slightly, but I meant it with every bit of my heart. "Good night, Maddox. Watch out for eagles."

"Will do," Maddox chuckled. "Goodnight, Blackout."

And then, the line went mute. But my thoughts stayed spinning for hours.