Speaker 1: The wind is always a little larder at midnight, especially
above open water. That what I told myself, as my
sneakers thuded lightly along the empty promenade deck. The rails
sleep beneath my palm salt air, kneeling my face. As
I squinted up at a strange scattering of stars, I
could smell burned ozon and spilt gin in the air,
some rament of aile of festivities. The ships hull shuddered
every so often, deep seismic, almost like the vessel itself
was warning me off. Not that I intended to listen.
I'm beginning this audio snapshut frequency self anonymous. While pacing
what should be a locked and silent deck, I sidestepped
a tangle of deck chairs arranged too neatly, their plastic
feet screeching faintly if brushed. I was supposed to be
at dinner with other wellness retreat guests, chewing over iceberg
salads and watered down wine, but my mind couldn't settle.
Since the echoes began. I paused, wrap my scarf tighter,
a camouflage against the shell or the sense of being observed.
I'm not sure. The night isn't my first time tracing
the loop. What dragged me out this time were the footsteps.
I heard them from the elevator lobby, echoing when they
shouldn't have been anyone else up of deck, too fast
for the usual late night revelos, too regular for security
on their rounds. I followed a caffle distance. She was
nearly silent as it passed an empty shuffle Boer court,
my shadow doubling behind me in the yellow ship's lights.
Those footsteps always posed between the lifeboats and vanished nearer
the exit to the Musto deck. I almost missed the
small rectangle on the slatted bench. It was a keek uart,
crisp and white, its laminated face glinting with the stark
black in print four hundred fourteen. I turned it over
in my hand and wiped off a smudge with my thumb.
Whoever dropped it hadn't just mislaid their access credential. This
was administrative level odd at Musto at The cards should
have been deactivated the moment the passenger checked off the attendants.
I remembered the drill earlier, precise, almost cold. Everyone could
rub like sheep. Security scanning cars at every checkpoint, lobbed
and time stamped. Yet here was Cabin four hundred fourteen's
key abandoned. I glanced around for any quick movement, but
saw only the flicker of Cci TV in the buckhead
and the shiver of bunting strong nap for Bingo night.
No crew, no party, just me in a hole way
with thin blue carpet stained by old spills. Somewhere above
metal banged a loose hatch, or maybe just the ship settling.
I edged past the staff entrance and stepped up to
the old wall panel, framed and brush steel. Out of curiosity,
or maybe something like justifying the creeping chill up my spine,
I slid the keekout through the scanner. The led flashed
green that shouldn't have happened. After a moment's stut at
the door relented, my breath clouded in front of me.
As I hovered in the stale air, I did not
step inside. Instead, I pulled the card back, hearing the
faint to sound of a muffled argument below, a quick
slight of angry, urgent voices in a language I couldn't catch.
Abruptly smiled, turning, just as a pair of crew appeared
at the stairwell. I pretended to be photographing the empty
mustice station for my diary. They noticed the keykout in
my hand. One the shop featured man with the crew
badge reading Jernimo, fixed me with a look. I was
not supposed to have found this, it said his compare,
all hawk like tension barely concealed their anxiety, shooting me
a pleading glance as if to suggest, don't mention it
or put it back behind the silk glass. I caught
my reflection, pale and tired eyed scarf, and even a
falseterist at the edge of something deliberately hidden. I pocketed
the card and kept walking ghostly footsteps. I came mine
when carrying the faintest whiff of kerosene and regret across
the promenade deck. Day three of the crews found me
in the portside terrace, feigning comfort with the plate balanced
on my lapskin, toasted by a son that looked kindly
only from a distance. I'd agreed to this triforsa back
or more than a vacation, expecting stillness, not routine. Stillness
wasn't coming easy. The endless buffets, the living top fortis
sound track. The clatter and cheerful monotony and sea sickening
repetition all pried into the cracks of my tired mind.
My job, such as I called it, was to decompress.
That's what my editor insisted when I threatened to resign
after my last string of exposies. Immotion journalism is glorious
until you come up for air and realize you no
longer trust your surroundings. This was my sabbatical assignment, supposedly
just audios newtapshots of cruise subcultures, retirees plodding between triviune
matches newly with posing and SPA pensioners in oversized sun
hats complaining about Wi Fi speeds. My days were intentionally bland,
but a catalogged at all with a methodical detachment recording
Geirristache discreetly in a drawstring bag bluetooth receiver, always quietly blinking.
It became a little ritual duck into a quiet corner let.
The low hum of the engines and clatter of cutlery
form of backdraw record stray thoughts and odd moments for
later assembly. My diers were digital short audio memos and
field notes, software tagging every date in location, formal routine,
and formal obsession. The scene repeated everywhere, polite couples, chattering families,
groups of amiable strangers orbiting the poor area. Everyone settled
into rules. The cruise director's starch pressed permanently. On was everywhere,
making jokes about sunburns and reminding guests to hydrate. The
bartender in the Sapphire Laune poured more soda than gin,
his accent smoothing out as a shift wore On sometimes
had catched a purser at her glass topped desk in
the atterroom, always apologizing for her inconveniences with a controlled smile.
It was hyper organization. Every aspect quantified the ship, attractoring credits, appointments,
some preservations. Key cards were essential. They opened doors, summoned staff,
cattle of the every movement almost too efficient, I murmured
into my recorder. One night I found a refuge in
the soleaium lancha domed overlook where the older passengers play
complicated card games of dozed in dome chairs. There, reading
next to a vending machine was Helen. She looked to
be in her late fifties. Silver at the temples, quick
in compact, a batted crosswood book perched on her lap.
She spotted me glancing over, and with the dry arch
of her eyebrow, beckoned me to the next on chair.
You're that only one here not playing can esta, she noted,
scribbling a nine letter word. Her voice was dry as cork. Guilty.
I'm here to observe. Mostly I kept my recorders out
of sight. Travel writer, she asked, more amuse than curious. Oh,
exel somewhere between. I left it vague. She introduced herself anyway.
Helen Kaffer, retired detective from Humberside, now a predictable pain
in the asked to her kids. She'd booked the Crusolo
after a bad divorce, she explained, and occupied her days
with cross words, the occasional yoga, and watching the people
who don't fit in. She gestured towards the pool as
a middle aged man and gerstrunks failed gracelessly at Backstrock.
Watch the staff, she muttered, they're all nervous about muster.
I laughed it off, but Helen was keenly observant. She'd
watched the muster assembly with professional detachment earlier, noting how
one passenger sprinted from the deck before roll call, his
absence hurriedly glossed over by the staff. If their attendants
were a call was any slicker, she added dryly, they'd
be scan in our retinas. Her presence was a relief,
accounterweight to my own nerves. She'd always found a half
wooded riddle for me, cut through cochet with the glance,
and didn't ask questions I didn't want to answer. Over
a scalding cup of ship's coffee. She commented, he look
like you're ready to bolt half way to Halifax. Relax,
nobody's watching you. But she was wrong. I felt watched
all the time. Still, there was comfort in the daily predictability.
Morning Buffett walk in the upper deck, observational recording, gentle banter,
guard games, routine force pleasure. The safety of predictability makes
he notice when something slips. When Helen mentioned odd looks
at must at the first time, I tried not to
dwell on it, but I found myself for tracing the
steps in my mind of wondering what could possibly bother
such an ironclad rehearsed operation. On the fourth evening muster
droll Day, I followed the jostling crowds down through the
tiered walkways do our assined assembly station. I felt both
companionable and separated, A deliberate nonchalant's disguising the sense of
being countered. Inventory processed. An assistant cruise directed with a
perfect smile, guided everyone to seats, waving a scanner over
each keikot as guess piled onto the narrow benches. I
chose a neutral seat at the end, watching Helen's gribble
quietly beside me. Part Way through the process, I noticed
a single empty spot two rows ahead. It wasn't the
typical someone's in the lute absence, you could tell there
was a small navy windbreaker slung neatly over the bench
but pressed flat beneath it, and a bottle of water
embossed with the cruise's logo, sweating gently in the heat.
The wall call began. A junior crew member barke names
for tablet checking blips as each passenger responded, some board,
some friendly, so mildly confused Calvin four hundred fourteen, he announced,
looking pointedly at the empty sea. Nobody replied. He frowned,
checked the app again, then typed something. His superior railed
in woman with the tense look of someone assigned too
many drills leaned and for a muted consult. The exchange
prickled with urgency, but the final tally announced to all
was all present and correct. Everyone clap but for a beat.
I watched the junior creuse them dance uncertainly over the
tabot's green, checking and un checking something. The group dispersed
with great foot chatter. As Helen and I filed out,
I saw the windbreaker and boocket disappeared, but the condensation
ring from the water bottle remained. By night, the empty
feeling in my chest gathered weight. I wandered the ship
after most guests had turned in, drawn by the biting
wind and relentless hum of hidden machinery. Down nearer the
crew stairwells, I caught sight of a familiar flash. Some
were moving quickly, sliding a white cart through the service
elevator panel by the casino. I didn't see their face,
only they uniformed. The service tabarred in discos eat staph leonard.
Without thinking, I urged into the alcove, just far enough
to see the panel except the card a green light,
the elevator pinged, doors closing behind the staff member. I
could just make out the numbers and the keeek out
and the mirrored surface as the door was slid shut.
Four hundred fourteen was it the missing guest? Returning to
the cabin, I checked the ship app out of habit.
The activity lock marked all passengers as accounted for, but
I couldn't shake the image of the bench at Muster,
how delibered it felt, the neat placement, a careful absence.
I left another voice memo late that night, skepticism dripping
into wariness. I might just yet lagged, seeing patterns where
routine mistakes explain everything, or with someone quietly erased, removed
from the surface but kept in the system's shadow. The
next day, routine offered familiar comforts, the heated pool, the
low shuffle of passengers shuttling between trivia and spaw appointments,
but my mind circles. I logged into the ship app,
glancing over the cabin list, hunting for evidence of Cabin
four hundred fourteen's occupant. The system listed the cabin as occupied,
but tapping for details caused the APT to freeze for
half a second. My fingers tingled with static ins I
come through events and locked locations that odd midnight keekoard
entry at the gym near the boat, even though the
gym should have been locked. Then a phantom swipe at
the casino at two thirty seven a M and I
of both venues were shutter. I checked transaction records, crowling
for botabs, meal reservations, too many blank lines, strange gaps
like some one had forcibly de lead its single entries
but left out the cross references by mistake. I prowled
after IROs, leaping the quiet decks and checking for maintenance
doors propped just to crack open. My presence drew looks
from the cleaning staff. Most were indifferent, but Yasmin, the
housekeeper with the pink scarf tied at her throat, wouldn't
meet my eyes when I asked about the cabin four
hundred fourteen. All guess happy, she murmured, voice just above
a whisper. No problem must be your key. Them retreated,
pushing her curt faster than before. Back by the main elevators,
Helen materialized a crosswood and dry humor intel. You've got
your tracking face on, she said. There's something wrong with
the records, I confided quietly, I keep seeing the same
cabin number. Nobody ever answers the door. Helen tests slightly.
I I saw odd behavior yesterday by the staff entrance.
Two stewards almost tussled over some paperwork, kept glancing at
the camera's crew. Politics maybe, but there was a shadow
of concern, refusing to give up a corner the purser
at a station just before dinner. Can you double check
was any one missing at Muster? I asked, as he
tapped at his console, all toothy grin and carefully practiced empathy.
He chuckled light impersonal, No, no, all present. Perhaps you
miss your row crew's manifest Sometimes make mistakes. Maybe you'd
like an extra dessert, and said When I insisted, his
smile never wavered, but he stopped making eye contact. All
guess a happy sir. We see to everything. Later, passing
a cocktail set up for Captain's night, a run into
mister Clark at all fidgety man who'd been assigned the
seat beside cabin four hundred fourteen zonner at Muster, I
probed with an attempt at nonchalance. Did you notice if
your neighbor came back after the draw? Cloke shook his head,
then stared out to see. Can't say I saw any one,
he muttered. His tone clipped, everyone looks the same in
those damn vests. Maybe got sick crew nose. He excused
himself before I could press further. Stymid, I retreated to
my own cabinet, spelled all the anomalies onto a sheet
of paper. I made a timeline. Time's cabin four hundred
fourteen's cards showed up at off limits venues, with seats
disappearing from my account for drinks. I hadn't order split
second frames of faceless people moving down staff corridors, visible
only into valence dead spots. The patterns would blur, then
snap into sharp relief, as if deliberately encoding something beneath
the surface. Near midnight, I stationed myself by the crew
break room on sea deck. The walls were thin enough
to let snipice of argument drift through a digital backful.
Someone hissed, are you sure it's covered? Another voice where
he rasped, nah enough, make sure it doesn't get out.
The door thudded voices scattered as an emergency announcement routine test.
A captain's voice too bright shattered the quiet. By the
following night, resignation transformed into obsession. I started prowling the
darkest corners, envy for those bloodly asleep, immune to the
undertow of the ship machinery. I barely slept, only my
crodosing rest between audio locks. On the fifth night, the
day after the second suspicious muster, I met Lucas. He
was pale, jumpy, and clearly another insomniac. I found him
in the stairwell, nervously flicking through four doors on his phone.
You're watching, too, he asks, I, starting up and down
the corridor. You're the only person who even looks at
the notices. He showed me the photos, a series of
candid shots going in the phones, blue like, taken during
what looked like a theme party. Yes pose, Some in
blue shirts, beaded, drinks in hand, umbrella, skewed in neon cocktails.
I recognized faces, the man from Muster's empty seat. Others
were just a blur, arms up, frozen in laughter, blue
wave cocktail night. Lucas whispered, I was sure it happened Tuesday,
but the schedule, he japped at the ships up, nothing listed.
I checked photos. Now it's all gone. No event stuff
says it never happened. Look he was there. Look at
the time stamp. He pressed play on a short video,
hushed music in the background. But as I watched the
play by clitch, the audio growing choppyat the face is whipping,
as if blowed by a digital eraser. I scrolled for
a blue wave on my own app. No trace, not
last night, not ever. The hall we grew colder. Lucas
glanced around, anxiety, rising, I have an audiophile a recorded
part of it. Listen, you'll hear them call his name. Ay.
He broke off five, snapping left as a staff member
rounded the corner. The crewman nodded, and Lucas stuffed his
phone in his pocket, whispering as he hurried off. Don't
ask them about the cameras, please. I stood for frozen,
heart beating in my throat as the ire slipped toward dawn.
I returned to my cabin to discover a push notification
manifest of dated seventeen eighty two passengers on board. The
number was smaller by two than it had been at embarkation.
No fanfare, no message. The app's passenger manifest was smooth, unbroken,
as if the absent names had never existed, as called
for cabin four hundred fourteen. The entry was blank, cavern occupied,
no photos, no history. My own reflection flickered on the
dark screen, Still there, but for how much longer? That morning,
Helen met me by the Solarium's window, newspaper folded at
the sports section. I sharpened than before. You look like helch,
she said, voice softer. I slid my phone across the table.
They are racing people, whole nights wiped out, pruned. The
ship's clock chined the ire a bellacking down the still corridor,
as the shadow beneath the Veneer of Hospitality twisted and
notch tighter, drawing both of us further from certainty. Closer.
I feared to whatever was truly missing. The ship's clock
chimed the ire the beller going down the still corridor
as a shadow beneath the Veneer of Hospitality twisted the
notch tighter, drawing both of us Freda from certainty. Closer.
I feared to whatever was truly missing. Helen was studding
me with quiet calculation. She reached out, cover my phone
with her hand, top to me, not the recorder, What
exactly do you think? He saw? Small words? But waity,
I watched condensations slip down my untouched glass. The rest
of the solarium Tarsi and scatter paid us no notice.
I recount to the sequins, the gaps in muster, the
keekouts used on impossible. IROs Lucas and his photos showed
her the phone a ghostly blue wave party, shimmering in
digital fragments. Helen happed the glass were the measured. They
scrubbed the event from the schedule, so maybe it was
an official but wiping people that's not. Some staff grew up,
either their forging data or earth. She trailed off, lips
pressed in a fresh then started again with professional briskness.
How many are missing? I counted four since Monday till
I saw myself empty seats. Two more last night. Some
subtle nudge, the app keeps shifting. I slid my gaze
to the luminated deck plan up of the magazines. It
feels like the dotted lines move when I turn my back.
She muled that, her attention drifting to a pair of
crew and Navy tunics who were posting new notices on
the door. A shuffle board tournament another theme BUF all
minor destructions. We need all list not just numbers, names, faces,
Forget the app. If they're changing everything digital, start analog,
draw it out. Why now? I was tired of the game,
but her insistence cut through the fog. If someone wanted
to hide a disappearance, why not just send that person
off at a ten to stop claim seasickness. Let them
drift away unnoticed. Helen's expression shifted to something like restrainfity.
You've never worked missing persons, pay for trail's linger memories,
linger even am a ship. If a walk off happens,
sore spiral this, she waved at my phone feels organized.
My appetite for toastin eggs are gone. I gathered my
notebook to night. I'll review the roster's again, he talked
to the old timers. I'll try the staff perimeter. If
don't make yourself the next entry, she said, masking seriousness
with a thin smile. If one more solo traveler vanishes,
some one might finally notice. I left her with the
sun glinting red off her glasses, the ship's white noise
more grating than ever. With a mission, the ires crawled faster.
I spent the afternoon at the cafe ager tablet propped
up as an excuse. I watched a crud serge and
abscribbling notes. Miss Cess Beale always with her crossword. The
sand wisins arguing about bingo cards, A little Dutch boy
with tangled hair always underfoot. I tried to fix them
in my mind, a counter which to the shifting records.
I noticed, too, the odd detachment of some stuff. Once
the muster question emerged, I waited at the espresso bar
and tell the sawmer burrs to A big shouldered man
named Kuro, busied himself with were stocking cups, leaning in.
I tested the waters. I heard you had a problem
with the muster scanner, I said softly. Someone's keekoud wasn't deactivated.
I think he paused a beat too long, then smiled
blight practiced always a little slit with Wi Fi, Sir technology, eh,
I pressed, faking a laugh. I used to work in it.
Sometimes old day to sticks around. Makes you wonder if
someone could use a key card after muster. He nodded,
not really hearing me, but not denying either. Best not
to think much about it, Just relax, sir. Was there
ever a blue wave night? A theme cocktail party? I
tried his stair, flicked up, then returned to polishing. No, sir,
maybe on a different line. This is femily cruise, lots
of children. I changed tactic. You've worked on many ships,
all the same after a while. Weeks at sea, always
new faces, sometimes old faces too. Something in his manner, clothes,
faint echo of a warning. I let it drop. Ordering
a coffee I didn't want. I sipped, watching the gold
and blue uniforms turned brisk circles in the atchrim below.
Later I found Helen on the sun deck, apparently casual,
but position by the lifeboats for a steady view of
the muster's zones. She reported the same Stowe Moll staff
denying passengers, befuddled old couples, too busy with the trivia
contest for g Nolly to give a damn about who
belonged onwards deck. She hooked a thumb towards the promenade.
Two more people didn't come down for dinner yesterday, seats
filled by dessert crusad, last minute upgrade. There's always an
empty chair that gets filled. Later, we walked the rails,
the wind, biting conversation kept deliberately bound for the benefit
of passing staff over the bow. The ocean gleamed as
if nothing inside the ship was amiss, but inside things
were tightening. That evening, I returned to my cabin to
find the welcome envelope already opened and discarded yesterday, placed
carefully uprayed on my pillow as if recently replaced. Inside.
The map of the ship was new Dick six, my own,
now labeled with one more service cabin near mine, a tiny,
careful correction. Was it an honest update or something more?
The next round of investigation drew me to the maintenance deck.
Excuses ready, I wore my lanyard backward and claimed I
was looking for a friend's lost steering. Most staff ignored me,
but one yasmin again face drawn brush by the mouth
of a staff corridor. She glanced at my badge, then
at the door locked to authorized personnel only. Some one
dropped as near the elevator, I said, showing the four
hundred fourteen card again. Now dojured at the corners. She
flinched as darting that's not for passengers. Please give to
it to desk who was staying there. Oppressed tremor in
her lip, she whispered, don't keep at camera see everything,
then Lauder, please, sir, you can't be here, and rolled
her card away at a shocking clip. Watchful, I slipped
back to the public corridor. A staff member, Joan Nimer
from last night watched me from the next bank of
a lift's expression neutral posture, almost too erect. I dapped
into the library. There Helen was flipping through a guide
to a Northern Atlantic wildlife How cover for this new
round of reconnaissance. You look like you've swallowed a ghosts.
They're afraid, I murmured, I'm not sure of what, but
the lower staff housekeepers, they know. Helen nodded with heavy resignation.
Crew look out for each other. Must be something serious
if they are worried about passengers seeing too much. We
split up for dinner. I joined the usual shuffle in
the main dining hall, making more mental notes. Two programs
overlap tip performance in the forward lounge and Captain's table
for select guests. The count didn't match the passenger manifest
At the last minute. A woman had seen every day
at breakfast was now gone, her seat reserved with the
staffs dinner napkin. It was easy to miss one person
among nearly two thousand, easier still to explain it away
seasick or perhaps just early to bed, but I locked them,
noted each face on my sketchy roster, marking with a
question mark any one whose absence felled out of place.
At night, Between passing the shuttered casino and peering down
into the mirrored stairwell, I caught a new anomaly. Crew
clustered around an open panel cable snaking on to the
carpet screen showing lines of shifting green coat. One ducked away.
As I approached, mumbling about routine diagnostics. The display fleckered.
A repeating block of text to backfell card four hundred fourteen,
lock cleansed. I barely had tied snap a photo before
the monitor went black. Returning to my cabin, I found
an automated message in the app please Radio guest experience
so far it had a single button grate, no option
for anything less. Resigned, bone tide and a little hungry,
I went to the buffet. The crowd was thin and unexpected,
but as I circled the salad bar, I caught sight
of Lucas again. Hair rumbled, skin, pale, eyes nervously flicking
over shoulders. He waited until I was free of the line,
then sidled up phone ready, he's still tracking them. There
on to me. I have to show you this quick.
He tapped through shaky thumb nails. Look the same faces
at that party, she he jadded, A woman frozen middle laugh.
I saw her at breakfast to day. She's not on
the app. Her cabin's lock. They say she never checked in.
The photos were time stamped checkable. But the party itself.
I shook my head. Maybe they called it something else,
Maybe he got the day wrong. No. Look, He held
up his phone, thun trembling, and played the short video again,
behind a tiney pop, a familiar laugh. Helens she was
there too, Now she's different. He checked his notification's face blanching.
Now the photos went upload. My card says file is inaccessible.
A staff member, the crew's erector, herself drifted by, face
a model of concern. The everything all right here, mister
Lucas snapped his phone screen off, mumbing some road excuse
and slipping away with the hunched caution of prey. The
Cruis director is attention lingered on me. Is there anything
you'd like to report? Her tone all velvet and steel
made my blood yell. No thanks, just great food. She
allowed herself a thin smile. Splendid We pried ourselves on
seamless experiences. I left for the upper deck, watched the
lights of distant passing ships drift in and out of
the haze. A pressed record whispering the change in the manifest,
the quiet subtraction of lives. They disappeared two passengers in
the last forty eight hours, I said, voice wavering, We're
being watched, and I think even my phone isn't safe
upupdate manifest count drops names a race. How easy am
I to erase if I seat too much? When I
returned to my cabin that night, yea, somehow colder. I
found my door slightly ajar. Everything looked untouched, but some
intangible sense of disturbancehun in the air. I thumbed the recorder,
listened to earlier notes. One clip last Night's reflection ended
with a short burst of static and then silence. The
file corrupted. I recognized my own voice, then garbled overlay,
then a hiss like breath exhaled through clenched teeth. In
the morning, an announcement, bright, too cheerful, came from hidden
speakers early short tenders will depart to day at seven zero.
Please keep key cuts with you at all time. I
glanced out at the restless rolling steel gracie, no shore
in sight. At breakfast, Helen found me pouring over a
hand drawn list. She looked tired, her normal composure freight
at the edges. It's happening again, she said, voice barely
above a whisper. I had a chat with the bridged
staff about cabin counts. They daubed, said manifestat consolidated nightly
bait y minds. Next, I eyed the crowd at table.
Someone knew at one, someone missing from another. We need proof,
something physical off the network. Helen shook her head, lip set.
They too careful. I even had mc crosswood mac moved
in my cabin last night. It was beside the lamp.
Now on the table, somebody wants me off balance somewhere
near the staff entrant's glassware crash, nervous laughter. Then sharp
words drifted above the fragments. A flash of blue uniform
and a badge half twisted Torrah's oighty assistant. He looked up,
guilt and calculation flickering in quick succession, then docked away,
muttering to himself. I followed a short distance hot. He
moved fast, but stopped briefly at the closed casino entrance,
fumbling with a silver line out on what looked like
another mark key card. Can I help you, I called,
making my voice as casual as I could. His lips
twisted into a not quite smile. Official business, sir, best
not to linger here. We're abating security was that manifest
changed again last night as missing some names. He hesitated
but didn't break stry ahaps always buggy, he sat then
more quietly. Sometimes the fixes fixed too much. He vanished
behind an employee's only door of the heavy lock, thunking
after him. Lucas's nervous energy lingered all day. More than
once I saw him shadowing a staff meeting on the
fringe of a closed deck. He nodded at me once,
but then retreated. Something was churning under the skin of
the ship's staff, more visible in pairs. Passengers hurried along
more ennouncements than usual for a coming evinced all routine
security adjustments. An hour before dusk, I passed the Krewe
brick room again. This time the door propped open. I
planted myself far enough away from Clawswood and nobility. Noteokout
pretending to scribble a review of dinner. The voices inside
added between English and several other languages. Two blow to
decipher until one nearisterical cut through. We're not patched the feed.
There's coverage gaps. Some one walked through the guess corridor
to raise zero with no entry locked. Keep it quiet,
you'll get us shut down. Digital Backful takes care of it.
If it looks last year's incidente not enough. If adman
vine's a pattern, it's over. The exchange faded, drowned out
by the shipboard music as a pea announcement overroad. The
background archiewed over every word, every implication. Digital Backful coverage
gaps the memory of Lucas's phone, the cocktail party. The
faces in the photo are now vanished, all converging on
a truth the ship was desperate to erase. Back at
the Solarium, the sun long set. Helen's lumped into the
empty chair beside mine, eyes room with a new fatigue.
One of the Dutch passengers, the boy with the curly
haired parents, are looking for him. Crew told them he
was a children's club event, but I checked. There was
no club meeting. The parents are angry, going up and
down decks. If something big goes wrong, that'll be the break.
I felt the ground shift beneath the steady engines. What
if it's more subtle and authorized parties, secret meetings. They
are gone. She corked an eyebrow or something else entirely
not everything is digital. Sometimes people just go missing for
reasons you can't count. The night was winding down when
Lucas found me once more. He looked worse than ever,
cheeks flush, hands trembling. It's starting again. They are watching
I my photos. Something's wrong, All fas corrupt, blue wave
is gone. The only proof I head was an audio clip.
He pulled out ear but to press one into my hand.
You need to hear this. Through the ship's white noise, hiss.
I made out strains of music, background chatter, nothing out
of place. Then under the hum a voice cabin four
hundred fourteen, drink ready, a clink of glass. The voice muffled, eerie,
then another different voice, calling Lucas. His breath caught. No
one remembers that night. They are writing everything in real time.
He stiffened, suddenly hunched. They know, I think, I think
I'm being watched. Every minute his phone buzzed. He jumped visibly, Sorry, aye,
I have to go. Don't don't talk to them about
the cameras, okay please. He pushed past into the crowd,
vanishing in the traffic of deck chairs and towels. As
he rounded the corner, a staff member in a Gulf
shirt with a Cruisers swirling logo pulled a walkie talkie
to their mouth and spoke in low tones. The device
flaffed briefly, and I was sure the message was meant
for general crew. I followed after Luca's but couldn't find him,
Just an empty spot where he disappeared, A shade in
the crowd, gone before I even realized what was happening.
When tight, I ducked back to my cap'in. As I
closed the door, I notification pained app update available. I
checked the manifests of reefects. The number of passengers was
well lower them before. No fanfare, no warning, just the
ghosts of subtraction. CAP'N four hundred fourteen now absent from
all lists. I scrawled a message in my note put
there eliminating digital traces, people, events, even questions, so only
the surface remained smooth, frictionless, safe. If you're too visible,
you're necks on impulse. I pressed record once more, reviewing everything,
a shuffle berdicko, the drope of app notifications, the list
that wouldn't stabilize. I laced again, yah the timeline, fighting forgetfulness.
But as I spoke, my phone camera snapped a photo
and bid in the flash, reflecting in the mirror, catching
my startled face. I stared at the image, hot pounding.
I hadn't touched the shutter. I copied the file to
two separate devices, insurance, more evidence. Still, I had the
growing sense that the more I documented, the less sol
of my reality became. That night, a new message on
my cabin TV Guest satisfaction is our priority. For assistance,
please visit the Guest Services desk only at welcome screen
now listed my cabin as appending reassignment, a blank space
where my name had been wery. I headed to the
guest service's desk. The purser on duty was not the
usual one. This was a younger woman with a badge
that read sorrow pee. She greeted me with a brittle
smile and a stiff formality. Can I help you, sir.
My keycode sometimes gotchas says not authorized from my own room,
and the passenger manifest seems to have changed again. Do
you know what's going on? Saua's eyes went a little
wider than her smile narrowed though sometimes our system does
an update of a night housekeeping must have fled your
car due to a cleaning request. I can reset it
for you. My hands flicked over her screen, but I
could tell she was distracted, tense reciting a script I
heard there was some confusion with muster attendant Cabin four
hundred fourteen. Was there a guest moved? She shook her head.
All guests are properly lowered, according to the daily manifest.
Sometimes cabins are unoccupied due to last minute cancelations. Nothing
to worry about, sir. Her words settled over me like
a shroud. Somewhere behind the desk, another crew member, a
burly security officer, watched me. Hands forwarded tightly. I thanked
her and left the air outside of cold weight Helen's
warning echo. If one more solo traveler vanishes, someone might
finally notice. But for the first time I doubted they would.
The machine was too smooth the surface too polished. I
returned to my cabin and locked the door, heart hammering.
In the silence, I conned to my breast, counted the evidence,
counted the steps it would take for someone to quietly
empty had my own presence, first from the app, then
from memory, And as I sat staring at my flickering
reflection in the cabin's cheap convex mirror, the ship's engines
thudded beneath, shivering through the furniture, each pulse like the
blinking cursor of an erased wrecker, waiting for someone to
overwrite my name. When poles through the slot beneath my
cabin door, carrying faint hints of lemon polish and the
coldness that didn't belong to air conditioning, I'd become very
familiar with the cabin's dimensions, the nicks in the desk,
the precise roughness of the blue will carp at each detail,
tracing lines in my brain like a crew map I
might use if the digital one failed completely. Now each
detail fell tenous, underwritten by uncertainty. The lightest push notification
on my phone just blinked insistently, manifested date at seventeen
eighty passengers on board. My name was no longer visible
in the AP's profile section. The booking reference i'd usd
since Southampton returned an invalid guest error. The strip on
my keek had felt sticky from overuse, and I couldn't
help running my thumb over the numbers, as if to
press reality back into them. In the wake of the
manifest revision, every process, every face had begun to rely on.
Every technological nudge became suspect. Paper attention stretched across the ship,
and I felt it even back in my hiding spot,
voice members multiplying unanswered on my phone. I led the
last interview with Lucas, every half sentence echoing in the
silent breath. Had I missed something in his sphere, a
detail that explained how he knew I might be next?
I ran my hands over my back, chicking again for
the spare recorder. The extra stecard buried with socks at
the bottom. The list of nanes faded where my thumb
had been tracing possibilities all night. Helen's notes cribbled and
blocked Capital's backful erase, staff coerchiefs, passenger logs were just
another patch on the holeg on thin sleep became impossible,
even in fitful intervals. Every sand and knock, a flutter
of paper, a footful in the corridor tugged me awake.
I pulled the curtains wide and watched our ship plow
through nothingness. Only the white shown at our stern betraying movement.
The carnival anthem held its forced chair, blaring pop music
filtered into every corridor, dowled a tour faint, tiney whine.
I imagined even that it couldn't erase. After the app update,
every human contact tightened with suspicion. The crew, as if
awakened by a silent alert, began to treat me differently.
At breakfast, the buffy staff averted the eyes as I
filled a paper cup with watery coffee. Four days before
the crew called me by name, mister Elliot Espresso again,
and now I was simply a checked wristband met with
the hollow good mornings, Sir, a subtle emotion, as if
processing a file gone in complete. Helen was late to
our usual rendezvous at the Solarium. They circled the lunges,
pacing between newspaper stands and soft chairs with tepetee cooling
in my palm. The passengers, once discreet but familiar as
chess pieces, blurred it as the tall woman in the
red scarf a fixture, or had a retrofitted memory to
suit a survivor's narrative. My list of fellow solo travelers
was down to two, as best as I could reckon
myself and Missess Hewing, a gaunt retiree from Vancouver who
hadn't spoken more than a dozen wars, but whose cabin
door now bore a maintenance sticker. The Captain's daily letter,
slid under every door, was more perfunctory than ever. Remember
to keep keykods with you at all times, for both
safety and convenience. The lines that followed could have been
written for a hotel, or a theme park or a
detention center. No hint that the human costs picked uPAR
every night, or that those who left want always the
ones who chose to do so. My restlessness became more
pronounced after an aborted attempt to send back up files
to my editor. I composed five variations of the sun
emergent garbled email, attaching audio and photos in a desperate
spray and prey. Each bounced, flagged by the ship's content
filter network undergoing routine maintenance. Please try again later. The
phrase repeated at intervals, as if the ship's backbone was
reconfiguring minute by minute, cutting off outside air as efficiently
as it could. Physical traces became treasures. I checked over
the object's anchoring me to the world. My notebook still mine,
although the spiral edge cut my thumb whenever I opened
it too hard. Helen's crossword left in my back after
our lost strategy session four hundred fourteen k cut, rough,
edged and bending at the corners remained mine. Spoken ticket,
but a cold, delightless one. The corridors outside grew less,
busy by the eyre. Twice as I walked past, I
watched Strewds open a cabin to find it already empty.
The sheets increased, the room unlived in. This spoke quietly,
almost in code, then wheeled laundry carts away, as if
taking cautionary tales for burial. Helen's absence grew impossible to rationalize.
By midday, her seat in the solarium lay empty. The
crosswood and touched her half empty water bottle, growing warm
in the filtered sun. I checked in vain for her
in the card room. In the library outside the Musta station,
her name was gone from the dinner seating plan, replaced
by sticker reserve. I hesitated at her door, noting the
overlaids sticker, anonymously color coated. No cabin number. Inside her
room was already in transition. The bed sheet corners half
pulled up, the reading lamp unplugged, Her branded pen missing
from the night stand. I rifled through half packed drawers
and fan scraps. Her handriton list of crews events with
three colored through in black pen. Tapped between folded napkins
was another key card slip bearing the name TORROSI t
on impulse. I pocketed it. The hallway was strangely quiet,
only the distant cline of rooms service breaking the meniscus
of anxiety. I had never felt the ship so empty,
or myself so visible. A cleaning cop passed with barely
a gnaw. The housekeeper's uniform seemed too bright, the logo
out of register. Something had changed, an invisible bell run
in the system's core. Back in my own room, I
found it subtly wrong. The blue bladed razor I always
kept by the sink was now in shower, my charges
rearranged a pair of socks missing from my back. The
key card lost red at verse, then relented and let
me inside. The app when summoned in desperation, spun the
loading icon, then offered no details at all. At dinner time,
I tried my luck in the main dining hall. The
crowd was subdued, clumps of travelers eating in polite silence,
Their collective unknees now inescapable, but even there pattern shifted
an empty seat that had always been filled a group
at the next table, who now spoke French not Dutch.
Staff asked no questions about absences, simply weset the silverware
and poured water to where no one would drink it.
Not until the next morning did the stake's truly sharburn.
The captain summoned me a mezzis tip to my door.
At special breakfast, observer guests only eight a m s gallant.
I weighed the options, then attended. The captain welcomed me
with the bland theaser reserved for potential trouble makers. The
breakfast was spasquassos, anurn of undrinkable coffee fruit arranged like
a Dirama. Most seats were empty save for two honeymooners
from Sweden, too busy holding hands to notice anything off.
The captain, red cheeked and in sincerely attentive set beside
me and spectator should tift into something sharper. This is
your trip going smoothly, he asked, wielding his butter knife
like a gavel. I inclined my head, smooth as silk.
I allied. Except for the passenger count, my app shows
a different number every day, he smiles, a businesslike Sometimes
our system makes adjustments late at night. Servis sync with
the hum office. We were a very modern ship. Pause.
He met my eyes with the glint of someone who
ne everpart meant something. I would recommend enjoying what's left
of your trip. Most of our guests rate is highly
We want to keep it that way. I nodded tightly.
He poured more weak coffee. Every move a demonstration of
professional calm. Security is very important, he added softly. We
understand that some guests imagine patterns. Relax, enjoy yourself. All
will make sense. By the end. I didn't endure myself.
I left breakfast on edge, tracing back to my cabin.
The keycoat failed at my door, took three swipes to
recognize me. Inside half my udeophiles were just gone, corrupted,
the fine lanes replaced by strings of gibberish. On a whim,
I checked my phoness chemera roll and found new images
blurry shots of a hallway, of cleaning trolleys of a service,
all time sumpt after I last slept. If the system
was watching, it had started actively participating with no Helen,
no was safe. I made my way back to her room.
As twilight descended. A sense of lawlessness hovered to Passengers
kept to their cabins. Crew worked with heads down, and
the all shape announcements had shifted to piped in jazz,
too bright and abrupt. Helen's cabin bore the same anonymous sticker,
but under the door I spatted a flash of paper.
I took it carefully and folding a no himbrisk blocky script.
They record everything, trust the noise, no signature, but it
smelt faintly of Helen's peppermint gum. Inside her itinerary was
torn with five events crossed out. Movie night, shuffle board finals,
the bingo japput and in a wriggling hand blue wave
at the bottom. Someone had scolled a new word beside
the deleted ones, torres. I t the only concrete link left.
Intent on tracking tors I wanted the public areas after dark,
hoping the right question to the right person would expose
a chink in the ship's digital armor. Nothing only a
sense of surveillance thickening behind every camera, microphone and access pan.
Toward midnight, a cleaning cut block to service door on
deck five. As Yasmin came out. I caught her eye
and appealed, I'm just looking for a friend, Helen. She's gone.
Did you see anything, Yasmin's lets compress. She shook her head,
but pressed something into my hand of folded napkin with
a Wi Fi password and a time scrolled on a
three fifteen deck two Crewe lounge. She ducked away before
I could say another word that ire. I wandered down
to the forbidden depths, the staffsy C TV cluster's hum
behind glass, red lights blinking. The corridor was paved and Vinyl,
the paint ship with carts, had knocked the trim. Year
after a year at the crew lounge door, I found
myself mirrored of ficher lens pinched face, clutching back, half
ashured demeanor. Torres immerved caught off guard, the lineard fell
from his pocket. I caught it, handed it back. You're
looking for the wrong person, he muttered. I'm looking for
anyone who still remembers Helen, I whispered, and Luca's he hesitated,
visible struggle passing through his features. His shoulder slumped. Why
did they disappear? Press desperate, he closed his eyes as
if seeing the decks around him. Its management order from
the top. They want tranquility. Anything that disrupts, that makes
people ask questions, gets white events, passengers breakdowns. Data goes first,
then keys, then stuff reassigned. Sometimes it's easier to just
erase the event where coded as a maintenance window. Blue
wave was a test and unlisted party got too rowdy,
fight maybe after passengers couldn't agree on what happened to.
Management said back, will patch the lugs, delete the names.
Most never notice, but the people, I said, clutching Helen's note,
he grew pale. Some just get moved, some are paid off,
flown home from the next port. Others that he grimaced.
Nobody really knows if someone fights they get marked. If
you are too visible, the system overwrites your excess, blocks
your transactions, raises your activity behind us. The corridor shuddered,
an alarm whial to dissident, jarring sound designed for internal emergencies.
Torres's eyes widened. Hide, something's happening again, it's starting. Another
one's being backfled. I docked into a janitor's closet as
crew thundered by miss echoed. Who's missing this time doesn't matter?
Will erase it, patch the incident. If there's no record,
there's no problem. I could see through a crack in
the door. Blowd CCTV feeds looping midway through time, pixel
smear the same person walking past the same doorway ad infinitum.
One screen showed deck to a passenger ran pleading a
security corner them. Another blinked off as if nothing had happened.
Some one stepped out of the feed room. Keys jangling
through the half open door. A glimpse terminal's codes grolling,
new overlays applied lock clean's passenger. I de revoked a
cabin reassign. One little black curso blinked, waiting for an
operator to enter the next victim My hand shook, mind racing.
I checked my phone battery inexplicably drained by half. The
app flashed to pop up user not found, Please contact
guest services. Panicked, I checked my own cabin, now listed
on the app as vacant. My booking reference scrubbed the
room safe, locked itself, demanding a code. I never set.
Even my name on my luggage. Tack had been scripled
over in pencil. Tours found me after a tense few minutes.
You have to go, he said, shoving a paper into
my hand, a phone number scrawled in bowink. If you talk,
be ready the higher ups. They wants mew journeys. He
turned away. Honted crew swept past, erasing another face from
the public. Monitors shifting schedules and adjusting the manifest while
passenger's dose one deck above, I slipped up the stairwell,
hort frobbing a falsefied calm on the entertainment deck of Stark,
contrast to the panic below the casino Salidi flash. The
band played Don't Stop Believing too loud, a girl's thrill,
a lugh punctuating there. These were the sounds that management wanted, sticky, perfect, forgettable,
I tripped the lock on my own cabin. Where my
toilages had been, there was only a new welcome kit,
tiny two paste, soap, and a folded pamphlet in four languages,
Welcome guess, Please enjoy your stay. The space inside the
closet was empty, my shirt on in other sizes polos
with tags not my own, as if the room had
already forgotten me. Even my shoes were missing. I scrambled
from my recorder, pulled out the SD card and hid
it behind the baseboard next to the vent. I scrawled
a note and bob pointed truth inside and wedged it
beside the car, aim this hand shaking. I dragged my
phone connections through every wife, I shadow pining signals off
the restaurant's rudder, and stashing emergency was notes as drafts
in my email. The files blipped bounce, but a few
left helte uploaders a single fred back to the world
if some one somewhere could see it. The last night
was thick with threat. Passengers subdued, watched me sideline if
they saw me at all, Some avoided my eyes deliberately.
Others new and unlisted in my notes seemed out of focus,
as if they'd been pasted into phil seats recently vacated.
Crew worked in wider more of his pears, muttering under
the constant past the lighting. Jeronimmer, the security officer, never
broke from his patrol within line of sight of my table.
By morning, as the sky over the Atlantic went from
pitch to a wash gray, the ship announced its disimbocation
process in tons, both brighter and more hurried than usual.
Crew swabbed the decks, removed stray evidence with clinical speed.
I waited in the muster station again, every sense vibrating
with suspicion. Torres found me one last time, slipping me
a folded paper. If you talk, be ready. His hand trembled.
Last warnings he said was rugged. Don't trust staff at Customs.
There part of it. I caught a last glimpse of
Helen in the quy for the Gangway. She wore a villian, clothed,
now hair, different eyes empty. When there raised a hand,
she looked straight through me. No sign of recognition, Just
another body urgent to leave a ship built to dissolve
people as thoroughly as it did secrets. Security at Customs
ject my passport twice, scrutinized the face the id, the
uniformed officer badge and readable stared a full beat longer
than comfort alayed before passing me through on the manifest.
By the door, my name had become Eliot, missing an L, misspelled,
and growing at the edges. The gangway was a bottleneck
of confusion and cheery, of staff playing fancy adult contemporary.
As passengers filed past the entire shipboard, sand truck blowed
an aggressively bright canned version of walking on sunshine, played
too loud to be accidental. As we poured into the terminal,
I glanced back through the windows. Security camera domes tracked us,
and beneath every smile a layer of control that ran
colder than the steel beneath outside. In the open airport,
the feeling almost but never fully lifted. I could taste
engine oil in sunlight, half reel, and the instant agg
of not belonging anywhere in particular. The world wasn't the
same shape, gravity felt unfamiliar. My legs wabbled with a relief,
too cautious to trust theif For the moment after leaving
the terminal, the sun's heat pressed down, reassuring almost but
my skin prickled with memory. At my borrowed hostel, I
sat on a strange bed and let the last IROs
replay and exhausted, skipping waves. I unpacked everything, methodically, double
checking that the evidence was still there. My BACKUPASTI card
from Helen's cabin had survived, but a third of the
audio was missing, replaced with blocks of static or blank
time eve for my digital notes careful redundant contained seams
caps in memory, a cluster of time stamps that refused
to match time zones or reality. In the bath room,
I locked the door, replaying footage frame by frame, every
piece of counterpoint to the neatly tailored emails from the
cruise company that arrived minutes after darking, thank you for
choosing anthem. Your feedback is valued. See attached for your
personalized journey summary. The pdafettash showed the smiling, manicured docovar
success for vacation, a mention of missing passengers. No hinder
manifest ever changed. I never heard from Lucas again, his
phone number passed by tours on that last night. Tossed
each cult of horsemeil a flat tongue followed by a
language I didn't recognize. Helen, if she existed in any
digital trace, wasn't reachable. Her social vanished emails sent a
permanent error. It felt as if someone had swept a
digital hand across existence and left only a a week end,
an emails subject line flashed on my burner account. We
were never there, no sender, just one black eye, conesset
of overlapping silhouettes, like a passenger muster, simplified to reduction.
I did not open it. With every passing hour, the
uncertainty grew, not just about what happened on the carnival anthem,
but about the veracity of my own records. Was his
ghosted and clips that I couldn't place, fragments of announcements
popping into timelines where they didn't belong. Some evenings, I'd
listened to the empty air in a WI file, Sure
I could hear the faint echo of party music, or
name my own repeated distorted by a dozen this match voices.
As the lines between experience and record faded, I debated
whether to send my file to contend desks, to authorities,
to anyone who might see and believe. But for every
impulse toward exposure, a countervailing dread tied up with digital erasure.
Retaliation as subtle but permanent and jewing pulled me back.
If the machine could erase facts on the Anthem, what
could it do to lone voices far from the sea.
For now, the evidence slept where only I could find it.
For now, I weeded. It was late, but well pressing
in it. The seamed When I sat at my desk
and queued up the last most precious sound file, my
final secret recording from the Anthem, hidden on a drive,
stashed inside a sock, beneath bland jazz and a digital
clock stubborn beap. There was a hum, a loop of
two soft sound in the background, faint but bone certain
surface noise meruded into laughter, A distant hint of party music,
familiar chords. I recognized the melody. Then a woman's voice,
clear of strange Helen's register, but not her Cadence cabin
four hundred fourteen. Drink ready, mister Elliott, Would you like another?
There was gas clinking overlapping, voices mingling. My name makerd
there clipped and replayd by a dozen seen mouths. I
scrubbed back and forth across the file, shells crawling my
skin paulse hammering with the fear of knowing, while wishing
I could forget. The party's music sharpened and faded, skipping,
just as it did in the corrupted file from Lucas's phone.
In every pit shifted layer, I could hear my name
called over and over, sometimes gently, sometimes as if warning,
sometimes as if it belonged to someone else altogether. When
I closed the laptop, A notification poles on my phone,
the photo's folder had recincd, populating silently with dozens of
new images. Each one showed me profole or head on,
snapped in corridors, lounges, even sleeping in my cabin, taken
from un natural angles. I couldn't have managed. My reflection
wavered behind glass thinner. Then I remembered, caught in pixel bloom,
like a glitch and bad security footage. I reached for
the pab button, thumb press hearts green painted with the
dim glow of the blue waves forgotten party. The music
bled into the room, artificial joy tumbling out of the
tiny speaker. For a moment, I stared at my hands,
knowing that whatever could be concealed or changed on that
ship could reach farther than any one believed under my palm,
a fabric of reality felt newly fragile, and I recognized, quietly,
bit only, how easy it would be everything familiar to Vanish.
I lingered on that final realization as the recording played
out to silence, the cursor, last creeping to the end.
I lingered on that final realization, as the recording played
out to silence, the cursor, at last, creeping to the end.
That night, as at my phone, face down on the desk,
caught battering in a space that should have felt safe,
but didn't. Every surface in the room seemed altered, as
if the world outside remained permable to the atmospheres and
algorithms I'd left behind. I moved slowly, listening for footsteps
in the hallway downstairs, the familiar plumbing noises that mark
the passage of other normal lives. My mind edited itself,
seeking indexing Mark's proofs of physicality evidence. I was still
anchored where I claimed to be, amitty washed, steam, hail
of the window, forcing myself to inventory ordinary things, blue
tailed counter humming for age, neighbors laughing beneath the street light.
Yet even these felt intangible, dated easily. Backfold of called
for I caught my reflection in the glass a little
thinner than memory. The overlap of my own face, real
and digital horned the edge of every device. It was
after one the s D he did quiet when my
laptop pained, No sender, just a bubble of text review complete,
thank you for helping us optimize guest satisfaction. As I
read the recorded voices from the ship's final night seemed
to echo new from nowhere and everywhere, layered with the
synthetic melody of some impossible enlisted party. Pulse racing, I
followed my own breadcrumbs back, pulled of the files, copied
off the SD, checked email drafts, reviewed every back up
device i'd hidden inside socks, shoes, sippered bags. Where there
should have been hundreds of megabytes of sound, voice and evidence,
many were blanks. More the remaining files netted themselves into
new missakes, familiar events, but with strange incisions. My own
voice howking upward in tone, laughter that was mine but
not mine, overback around, tracks that shimmered with the cocktail
bared saxophone of the subtle two perfect claws from a
trivia final. I never attended some of the images now
loaded in my photo folder were composite, with all digital
seems over contrasted edges, like something cut from a Green's
Green commercial. My face repeated by the solarium, by the
promenade rail, by the breakfast buffet, always looking sideways, as
if half aware I was already being duplicated. In one
I was in motion midturn a shot from behind that
I could not have taken. Hair must stride off, bounce
in a way that showed vulnerability I thought I'd concealed once.
I might have rationalized glitch date, a corruption, paranoia, now
post anthem. Such justifications felt hollow. What had played out
on the ship, covering the cracks, smoothing each fault line
with a grim scene to flow out into the rest
of the world without effort. My nerves spiked whenever my
full notification chirruped, reading out as unknown contact file receive.
The audio, when I dared to listen, was more of
the same band, filtered laughter, echoes of a cab in
four hundred fourteen, Your drink is ready or eclipped welcome
from the cruise director. I first subtle a background hum,
then more explicit voices, addressing me by name, again and again,
as though pulling me into some endless guest list. One afternoon,
a package arrived at my door. Signature required no return address,
just embarcote in a seal with the familiar anthemotif stylized
an ocean blue. I opened it more out of red
than curiosity, inside a thank you card from the cruise line,
complete with a souvenir photo. My image, posed the Gerish
digitally imposed sunset back drop flant by two smiling anonymous
crew members, was capped off by the text we look
forward to welcome in you again on the back, a tiny,
unnatural version of my own signature. I hadn't written it.
By the fair day home sleep was as fragmented as
the files I tried to rescue. I left my phone
switched off in a kitchen, tempted more than once to
hawl it from the window, but to aware the data
did not die so easily. Instead, I folded notebooks, the
old fashioned kind, with less of names, times, faces, everything
I could reconstruct, and always, no matter how I traced them,
the patents collapsed, bent by invisible corrections, details slipping away
when I looked too long. For a while, I tried
to reach out Torres's number went straight to static. As before,
Helen's contacts scrubbed. Even Lukes goes to provile erase with
bound females and foreign error messages. When I persisted online,
no mention of the incidents are missing passengers, forums about
the Anthem hustle, trivia, food complaints about delayed baggage, nothing more. Meanwhile,
might irall routines quietly derailed Twice Strangers greeded me in
the supermarket as if we were old friends, knowing my
name unsolicited. One morning, I turned over a loyalty card
to coffee shop to find a stylized C four hundred
fourteen written in looping hand beneath my stamp number. That
same day, my credit card statement flagged an authorization error
and Marina had never visited times damped. At three in
the morning, I called the Cruise Lines customer service from
a bonavone after a half fire of maddening hold music
tropical but with undertones that harold I was connected not
to a human but a cursp Befeppa script thank you
for contacting Anthem guest's loyalty. Due to our privacy policies,
we are unable to provide details regarding past manifests or
individual guest activity. For future bookings, please visit our website.
I listened, searching for any break I proof call, but
the system allowed no deviation, no human weaklink. A surveillance
bled into every facet. My remaining faith and analog reality flickered.
If I closed my eyes, I could summon the fugitive
after taste of antiseptic soap, the minute shift of four
plates under my feet, the off temper of piped and
swinging music going through empty corridors. None of it proved
had survived, only that the act of remming was a
self suspect. After one especially restless night, I switched on
my recorder for a new audio diary. My hand shook.
I spoke softly. This is for the record, I have
not disappeared, but I broke off breath catching as I
heard my own voice, young fearless played back from another
file with perfect reacal, only the words diverged and toning.
All guests accounted for. Sometimes. Thinking about it late in
the day, I entertained the possibility that I interpolated everything
that my mind had folded t from into fiction to
avoid a blunder terror. But that would be the world
on the wonted seamless were codable, a fetch without trace.
Torreses won and drilled into me whenever I felt myself
slipping back into the surface world. If you talk, be ready,
ready for what was it? Exposure or erasure? Management had
learned too well that the only true disaster was the
visible one. One last sign the hotel where i'd stay
posted invocation, sent a loyalty email the head of Reed
thank you for being our guest. No name, no date,
just the word rendered in monochrome, the g capitalized as
a fur proper noun. My account details were wrong. The
cha how time listed as three hours before I'd ever arrived.
After that, I stopped reaching out, preserving energy for a
single goal, survived with memory intact. Each morning I checked
richalistically that my voice at least still echoed with the
odd warble of wakefulness and gravity. Keeping my world stubbornly
unedited became an act of revolt. The world turned on,
but always if I let myself drift the outlines fraid.
Some days memory seemed to play me a highlight reel
that skiit seconds and always at the edges, faint undertones
of a party I'd never wanted and could never leave behind.
It had become impossible to tell whether I was living
the personal consequence of a systemic sin, or if my
paranoia was now a well heeled program leaping in silence
across every encclaimed bit of technology. To night, I set
a new password on my back drive, wrote it in
archaic cuss if on actual paper, I repeated my name
aloud carefully. A late The late could not help recalling
how on that final manifest the spelling had slipped, letting
some other version of me steal out through a side door.
A little after midnight, I opened the photo archive again.
Every muscle tensed. Among them was a single new image,
time stamped for a date in the near future, snapped
in the hall of washing, gold in my face, staring
straight into the lens, eyes vacant behind me, A mural
of waves and sun in the corner, a cluster of
names Mussess, Hewing, Torres, Helen, Lucas, all blurred faces stretched
as if processed were an algorithm that never quite finished
its work. The final folder, new poor label. Guess experience
continues for now. I leave it closed. I put the
phone in a drawer, rolled a chair away, and press
my fingers to my temple. The curve of the wall
feels familiar. The faint, salt tinged breeze from an open window,
never truly the same as being at sea, but a
reminder all the same. Somewhere in the city, a train
horn pushes through silence, shunting me forward. I sought to
make tea again, distracted, and when I returned, the rooms unchanged.
The laptop's power like, clowing steady and blinking, as if
waiting for the next prompt.