Costa Concordia: A Fictitious account of it's capsizing.

I waited impatiently in front of the empty receptionist’s desk. The hotel was interesting, I had to admit. Marbled floors in dizzying patterns, pillars rising at interval from the floor to the domed roof. Well padded chairs surrounded short antique tables. In a side corridor which I could not quite see were, I knew, some lifts and the restroom.

The two flights of stairs at either side of the glass door circling to the next floor, and restaurants, were crowded with a group of laughing middle-aged persons. I scanned the queue forming behind me. Three teen-aged boys with spunky green hair, earrings and tattoos that seemed to be everywhere stood directly behind me. They ignored my glances and talked loudly among themselves.

Standing a little apart and behind them stood a balding man in his forties. He wore a dark green top, slippers, and black jeans and appeared quite distracted. Behind him a couple stood caressing each other. I smiled and raised my wristwatch to my mouth. “Target is four bodies behind me.” I whispered.

My ear buzzed with my handler’s reply. “Good, coming round.”

The receptionist, who was about middle height, jet black curled hair, light brown eyes, and sparse eyebrows, walked briskly over from the restroom and gave us a nervous smile. Quickly taking her place, she asked me what I wanted. “A room, one night.” I said monotonously.

I slipped my credit card over the counter and it disappeared into a card-reader. She smiled and handed it and a key-card back to me. I awkwardly made my way to luggage I had left at one of the tables. Extending the bag’s handle, I ran my hand through my hair and began walking towards the lift, glancing occasionally back towards my target.

I unceremoniously slapped the lift buttons, heading to the seventh floor. It was covered with greenish carpets and had weird silica walls. The rooms fled down the corridor, both left and right.

If my handler handled things, correctly, our target would be in the adjacent room to ours, which was the last on the right-hand-side. All we needed done was to capture him while he slept. As we did not have an extradition order for him, which, by the way, we never got for anyone, we had to do things the way secret service always do it.

I slipped into my room and dropped myself onto the bed. “Move. Room is on the left of ours.” The voice jarred my ear.

“Copy that.” I smiled.

Wearily lifting myself off the bed, I dragged myself to the window. I creaked the glass window open and stepped out onto the ledge. It was about three quarters of a feet wide and I inched slowly towards the left. It was dark out there. The lights from the street below just made things seem darker. I looked at my watch and sighed, [i] 7:50 [/i]. “Target has moved off premises.”

“Should be back before midnight.” I yawned.

“Set ambush. I’ll track him.” She ordered.

“In that dress of yours?”

“I’ve changed, stupid!”

I rolled my eyes and inched nearer to my destination, wiping perspiration off my forehead.  Ten minutes and seven meters later, I stood with my back to the window of choice. Her voice came blaring, again. “Target buying ticket for cruise. We’ve got ourselves a holiday!”

“What!?” I almost screamed into the mike. “What about the ambush?”

I was furious. [i] Sweat and, well, sweat, wasted, just, for, for, a cruise? [/i] “Abort that! It’s an order!” She hissed and I began creeping back towards our room.

Around midnight my handler crept back into the room, where I had retired to sleep. Slipping into my hand a reddish glowing cuboid object, she slipped back out again. I stretched myself. Mission accomplished. How she managed to find it, I had no idea. The only thing that mattered to me was the excitement and money that came along with the missions, usually.

I sat back on the bed and turned the cube over and again in my hand. Something drew me towards it. The words of our mission commander came back as though I was playing a spoilt tape on repeat. [i] Once you get Theodore, he pompously pointed towards the target’s file, with a fuzzy photo I was unable to recall, you will force him to reveal the location of the energy cube, by hook or crook. All I want is the cube. This mission is of vital importance to any future world war. Is that understood. [/i] It ended there.

I shook the sleepiness from my eyes and concentrated on the cube. My guts told me, somethings not right. Somehow, even though it looked exactly the same, it was not what we were looking for. I trusted my guts more than even, well, my handler. I stopped revolving it, and smiled as inspiration filled me.

Walking to the window, I held out the cube and dropped it, attaching a tracker at the same time. After waiting there looking down impatiently for a few hours, I saw my target walk back. He looked like he had just come from a marathon, sweat dripped from his coat like raindrops.

He walked nonchalantly towards the cube, and after a few furtive glances towards his back, he picked it up and hid it in his coat pocket. I smiled, and raised my wrist to my mouth. “Handler, it’s me. Chandler.”

“What is it?” She sleepily demanded.

“The cube you gave me.” I dramatically paused, “It’s back in our target’s hand.”

She calmly ordered me to get it back, informing me that she wouldn’t be there to help if I ran into trouble. Slapping myself a few times, I pulled a remote insectoid from my bag. My favorite spy tool, it looked like an over-bloated floating ant. It was about half the size of my thumb, and appeared to be edible, if I was hungry enough. I thumbed a small switch on one of it’s legs, humming it to life.

Removing my controller, which was a highly modified iPhone, i opened the flying app. Through the camera on the eyes of my insect, I could see where it went, controlling it at the same time.

I flew it cautiously to Theodore’s window. The mandibles on the insect began to retract and convulse, revealing an impressively effective, yet small, drill. It created a hole about a quarter of an inch in diameter and stretched itself thin enough to crawl through.

Once inside, one of its legs split into a mini-infra-red sensor and began scanning the room. I preferred to use other than lethal force to get what I wanted. The energy readings from the cube would be picked up, I was sure.

Soon enough, a dark orange glow appeared on the green-red screen, signalling intense light. Well, invisible light. With a smile of satisfaction, I turned to my tracker, and frowned with dismay. The fake was not. I ground my teeth in frustration.

I swiped the sensor to night-vision, three figures sat with their eyes transfixed to the cube. I paced to my suitcase and took out a plastic sniper air-rifle. I hurriedly assembled it, glancing occasionally at the iPhone’s screen. In the place of bullets were three small, which was an overstatement, disk-shaped pellets.

When it hits it’s target, it burrows through the person’s clothes, gnawing it’s way to hook itself to the skin of it’s host. It was undetectable except through close inspection. If and when a target was to be terminated, an even smaller vial of poison was injected into the carrier.

Three pulls of the trigger sent the three disks speeding into their targets. Non of them moved. That was a good sign. I tapped a line to my bug and leisurely took apart the gun. The bug was ordered to inform me when any of my targets moved.

One of the them got up and move towards my handler’s room. I focused on it. She brandished a key-card confidently when she reached the door. I anxiously sent a good-morning signal to her. It was meant to be the alarm, but my hand slipped. The target’s hand came to her mouth and my handler’s irritated voice came over.

“What is it?” She yawned. So did the target.

I swallowed my shock, and boyishly told her it was past midnight, and therefore, morning. Her reply came back as a harsh scolding, which posture the target assumed. I was certain now, but to atone for my previous mistake, I peered out of the peek-hole. There she was, standing agitatedly for a while, and when I did not reply, she glanced angrily towards my door and entered her room.

I shut my dark brown eyes and slammed my back towards the wall in pain. My mind reeled, and my mouth fell open. A jutting concrete stub ripped my dark brown skin. I thought nothing coherent except trying to make some plan of revenge against her. For the first time in my life, being a spy held my interest no longer. My world was shattering around me. I felt betrayed, badly.

Resolutely, I put the pain behind my orange hair. Balling my fist, I swore to bring them their deserved deaths. I got up and washed my face, watching the other two targets lie down to sleep, one on the floor, the other on the bed. So did I.

I stood and stared past her, hoping she could not read my thoughts. She relaxed somewhat, and tossed me a small roll of papers. “Ticket for a five day cruise, see you don’t miss it.”

I nodded my understanding and turned to slip away. My phone began to buzz an alarm pattern, indicating potentially harmful effects stationed behind me. I turned again. She still stood there, quizzically staring down me. “Nothing,” I said, confusedly, “Just a reminder to call home.”

“Oh? Don’t do it, not till we come back.”

“From?” I asked, looking mystified.

“You’ll know.” She enigmatically responded.

I left the room and headed to my free breakfast at the restaurant. Sitting lonesomely in a corner, I took out the iPhone and began monitoring the targets, as well as looking through the cruise brochure. My handler’s voice came over the earpiece, “Boarding for lunch.”

“Copy that.” Or was it this.

The food, I could not honestly say was good, but the advertisements in the brochure sure was. I took about an hour to get through my food, at which point, I was asked to leave, which I happily did. I quickly checked out and headed for the docks. It was crowded with people, strays and otherwise. I kept my bag near my person till I reached a small booth. The man inside “hello-ed” me with impressive vehemence and directed me to the appropriate berth.

The amount of people there was, immense. I could hardly move and had to follow the every whim of the crowd. We moved left, forward, back, right. I stopped keeping track on that. After half an hour, I tiredly displayed my ticket to the ticketing officer, who proudly bid me welcome to the Concordia before directing me to a cabin near the starboard and bow end of the ship, deck ten.

It was elegantly furnished. More so than my hotel room, which, by the way, I have not described. It, being the cabin, had a red carpet covering the whole floor area. A queen sized bed with gold colored, or was it real gold, posts, rose from the frame. To one side of the bed head, a small table with a vase-lamp stood. Mirrors adorned the wall on two sides, one wall had window which opened to face the pool, and I mean the Big pool. Cupboards adorned a small portion of the mirrors.

I carefully secured my bag in the safe and walked up to the Polonia deck. On the deck below, the twelfth deck, my handler and the other two targets had cabins. After an hour of wandering around placing surveillance devices so small they could be stuck up my nostrils, randomly, I sauntered away to get a meal, which I did, in course, a weird Italian dish whose name I do not recall and the taste, interesting.

It was around three thirty in the when I returned to my cabin, where I slept till around six, when my handler rang me up, informing me to keep track of our target. The order seemed natural enough, but since I knew she was a traitor, I suspected traps. I took out my bug and let it fly away on auto-pilot. It was to discreetly track the third target. My handler had told me our, for now, my, target, was gambling at the casino.

I couldn’t gamble, as I hadn’t yet learned the art off playing cards. I stood pensively outside the casino, poring over my iPhone as though communicating with someone. I was, sort of. I was looking through the video feed of my bug. It was hovering about fifty-three meters from me and stuck to the roof. The target he was watching, who turned out to be my target, was standing, talking to my handler, about thirty meters from me, I pretended not to notice as my handler took a circuitous walk towards me.

I concentrated even harder on my iPhone, switching it to a game of angry birds, of which I hated. That fact, I forgot. “Strange,” Her voice came over my shoulder, “You never change your opinions, and this game is something I know you’d never play.”

I looked up and stammered hesitatingly, “Uh...I..uhh..can’t..gamble, so yeah, I’d stay out here and play and watch the target.”

Here I pointed nonchalantly towards Theodore. She smiled evilly and entered the casino parallel to him. I exhaled a long breathe of exasperation. I flipped my bug on to track the second target, and headed for the cube. I stopped in my tracks. They were in the same place, Theodore’s cabin. My bug was already outside the door and I utilized it’s drill to gain a visual in the cabin. Gagged and bound, someone looking just like my handler slept uncomfortably next to a small box, which contained the cube.

My lips flattened into thin lines. I felt like throwing up. I switched the bug to autopilot, instructing it to return to my cabin, to which I also retired. I sat on the edge of the bed re-enacting the events of the previous night, mostly. I gritted my teeth, vowing to unravel this seeming mystery.

I ripped my bag open, revealing my war-drobe, which housed everything I needed to finish this mission. Hopefully. I suited up. Tri-blades, left pocket. Pocket knife, strapped to boots. A thick leather jacket, dark brown. Pockets lined the inside. Inside: Three pistols of .35 Calibre. Sixty rounds of ammunition packed into my back.

It was now about 7:30 p.m. I zipped up my coat and went for a dinner, where I was joined by my handler’s impersonator. She was good. Good enough to deceive even Director, if he saw her. Every last detail, physically, was correct.

We sat across each other at the table. Our talk was limited to the food and the cruise, of which I had not seen much. Feeling uncomfortable, I excused myself as soon as I could and vacated to a less-frequented portion of the ship, where there were only about thirty people standing enjoying the early night. It was 8:45. Exactly.

I uneasily shuffled to the rail and placed it at my back. I raked over plan after plan, and finally hitched on one after about fifteen minutes. Subtly making my way to the captain’s quarter, I knocked silently on his door. With slightly greying hair and an intriguing hooked nose, he stuck it out to inquire what I wanted. Pulling his nose, and him with it, out into the open, I whispered the part of my plan pertaining to him, covertly slipping a largish bribe into his hands. He accepted after a little hesitation, and pulled out his communications device.

Confidently, I strolled out towards Theodore’s cabin, reactivating my bug with the flick of a finger. Tasking it with unlocking the door, I went on in search of Theodore. I had to delay him for at least thirty minutes for my plan to work. Catching up with him at the casino’s entrance, I side-tracked him to the nearby chocolate bar, of which substance both of us were fond of.

We sat across each other at a small table at the corner of the bar, in the relative comfort of the shadows. I smelled the impersonator near, and swivelled in my seat. There she was, sitting nonchalantly at the main bar. Polite chit-chat wafted between the Theodore and I. He was willing to talk, just as I to foot the bill.

After awhile, he casually asked me back towards the casino. I obliged him. Fifteen minutes. We entered the casino, me with a fake identity, and began playing a game of whist. I had bad hand after hand, losing small sums to him. About ten minutes later I decided I had to begin excusing myself, and laid in a larger bet than before. He perked up. I slouched, and grumpily informed the dealer that I would only be having one more hand, due to an affected sleepiness. I lost, as usual, and picked myself up to go. Theodore offered to accompany me to my cabin, which request I acceded to. I shuffled out of the casino with him walking closely behind.

I shook my head as though ridding the drowsiness from it and crossed my arms onto my jacket. Onto the butts of my pistols, two of them. Squaring my shoulder, I smiled to him and began confidently walking towards his cabin. After awhile of suspicious silence, he inquired my cabin number. I responded with the one next to his.

He smirked visibly, and took the lead. Heeling him all the way to his cabin, I thumbed my bug to open the door, whereat I shoved him in and shut it behind me. I looked around me. It was similar to mine own, almost the same layout. I forked my hand through my hair and knelt besides my handler, unbinding her, pocketing the cube at the same time.

She opened her eyes, dazed. “Are you real?”

I winked significantly, “We have to go.”

All this time I had had my gun trailed on Theodore. He looked like a ruffled puffin deposed of his fishes. Now was my time to smirk, as I handed a pistol to my handler and told her to get a life-boat ready. “Tricked you, Theodore. Care to throw up all those chocolate?” He did.

I smiled as I watched him and slipped out of the cabin, locking it from the outside. I checked my time-piece. Five minutes to reef. The smirk swam off. I pocketed my bug and raced off towards the evacuation area. If my handler had followed instructions, one of the life-boats would be ready to depart when I arrived.

I was about a hundred meters from the boat when I was thrown clear from my feet. It had hit the reef. I growled a malediction and picked myself from the floor. Sitting calmly in the boat, my handler looked unlike the chaos around. People were rushing around wildly, like ducks and hawks. The vessel began listing slightly. I reached the boat as the evacuation klaxons began blaring. Boarding the vessel, I sat calmly beside my handler as people scrambled for the boats.

The boat swung out over the rail and began descending. It was the only one. The others were still filling up. I pulled out my guns onto the crew members and ordered them to move towards a nearby island. As I sat there in the stunned silence of the crew and passengers, I looked back towards the scene of confusion that was the Concordia and wondered how different things would have been if my handler had indeed turned-coat.