Duran headed over to the hole in the deck and made his way down steps that were at such a sharp angle he had to go down backwards like they were a ladder. Duran let his magelight guide the way down a narrow corridor and, at the end, he found Hamish and a very naked Slone standing in front of a door.

“I smell people inside,” Slone explained as Duran approached. “Door’s locked, but I reckon I can bust it down.”

Hamish stepped back. “Do it.”

Slone turned his body and rammed his shoulder against the door. There was a loud crack as it burst open.

“Oh, hey,” Slone said as he saw whatever was inside, then sent a quick glance down at his large and very naked body. As he stepped aside to let Hamish through, Duran approached and peered inside.

Four people sat on a bench that ran along the far wall, their wrists attached to it with chains.

Duran stared at them in shock. “That bastard was planning on trafficking me, wasn’t he?”

On the far right of the bench sat a teenage girl who looked mostly human except for the leaves that sprouted from her arms and the flowers that bloomed in her hair. Was she the girl Skye had heard scream?

Next to her sat a man who Duran might have thought was extremely dead if he weren’t very clearly moving. He had eyeballs, but otherwise his head was just a skull. The rest of his body had skin, but it was a light bluish-green colour and it looked like it was shrivelled in against his bones. The fluffy pink sweater he was wearing did a lot of heavy lifting when it came to softening his appearance.

On his left there was a child with skin so pale it was almost white, rainbow hued hair that stuck up into the air, and pointed ears.

The final person on the bench was a woman with green skin, stick-thin limbs with barbs that stuck out along them, and a long, thin neck that led up to a sharp, angular face. She had no hair atop her head, but she did have two antennas. There was a hole in the back of her tight leather shirt to let out a set of large, translucent wings.

“It’s okay,” Hamish said, holding his hands up to show he meant no harm as he slowly approached. “We’re here to help.”

The child with the rainbow hair leant his head back and said, “Thank fuck,” and Duran was abruptly not so sure he was a child at all. His voice wasn’t that deep, but it was extremely scratchy, and it held the weariness of an older person. 

“The keys to the cuffs are on the hook by the door,” the green woman said. Her voice was surprisingly smooth and sonorous. 

Duran was closest, so he grabbed the ring of keys. He released the teenage girl first, because she was the least confusing, but then the skull headed man was next. When Duran’s fingers brushed his wrist as he was removing the cuffs, his skin felt dry and cool.

“Thank you,” the skull-faced man said once Duran had released him. He held out a hand covered in a worn, white satin glove. His other hand was bare. “I’m Perry.”

Duran shook his hand. “Duran.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the child-who-was-possibly-not-a-child said. “Let’s hurry things up. I’m Everett, the bug lady next to me is Sera, and I guess who gives a fuck about the girl because she’s already gone.”

Duran looked around. The teenage girl who he’d uncuffed first was nowhere in sight.

“I’m Hamish, and our naked friend who’s hiding behind the door is Slone,” Hamish said as Duran started uncuffing Everett. “Why did Declan have you lot down here, anyway?”

“Duran already figured out the answer to that one,” Sera said. “Trafficking. He was going to sell us.”

“You would think that would be the one thing I’d be safe from,” Perry commented as he adjusted his glove. It was a little loose on his fingers. “I wouldn’t have thought I was a very marketable product. This is not how I had hoped to gain a sense of self worth.”

“Yeah, well, we take what we can get.” Everett hopped up from the bench and headed for the door as Duran finished uncuffing Sera. “Any of you see a robot around anywhere?”

“Uhh… can’t say we did, no,” Hamish said.

“Well, we better go find it,” Everett said as he led the way out of the room. He glanced at Slone, who had his hands covering his crotch, as he passed. “Buddy, you made some bad fashion choices if you didn’t want people to see your dick.”

“More about what other people maybe don’t wanna see,” Slone said, though Everett had already continued walking past him towards the stairs that led up onto the deck. Duran hurried to follow him.

By the time Duran made it up onto the deck, Everett was already standing over Declan while Skye continued to hold him down. “Where is it, then, you piece of shit?”

Declan remained tight-lipped and averted his gaze.

Everett gave him a swift kick in the ribs. “If you think I didn’t ask nicely the first time, just wait until you see how not-nice I can get.”

Declan sighed. “It’s in the captain’s cabin.”

“Makes sense. It’s more of a captain than you are.”

“And that is part of the problem,” Sera said as she led the way towards the cabin. “He couldn’t have sailed this ship without the robot’s help.”

“Look, we’ve had this fucking argument back and forth for weeks,” Everett said. “How about we wait two fucking minutes and just ask the robot what happened before we go through the whole thing all over again with no new information?”

“Yes, let’s do that,” Sera said before turning and marching towards a door that sat near the front of the ship. 

She opened the door and, as Duran moved closer, he saw some sort of mechanical man standing in the middle of the room. It was copper in colour and around the height of a typical person, which made it nearly twice as tall as Everett. It looked like an extraordinarily complex piece of machinery. 

Sera folded her arms over her chest. “Robot, why did you help Declan sail my ship?”

A light spun on the side of the robot’s head. “I apologise if that was the incorrect course of action. He said Everett would be harmed if I did not follow his instructions. One of my primary goals is to protect Everett.”

Sera held her arm out towards the robot as she turned towards Everett. “You see? I told you making that thing too complicated would backfire. That it would end up behaving in ways you never intended.”

“And I listened!” Everett said, throwing his arms in the air. “That’s your simple robot right there. You didn’t want it to be able to think for itself and you definitely didn’t want it to be capable of violence, so there you go. That’s what you get.”

“A simple robot couldn’t be manipulated.”

“Much simpler and it wouldn’t need to be.”

“A simple robot can still have security features around who it obeys.”

“Bah!” Everett brushed the idea away with a wave of his hand and approached the robot. He ran his fingers over the joints on one of the elbows. “Look at you. I told Declan where the maintenance kit was, but he didn’t even bother to get it for you, did he? Didn’t even let you take care of yourself. This ocean air on your joints…”

Perry stepped up beside Duran and gave him a smile that was surprisingly gentle considering his face was a skull. “They’re like this all of the time. This was supposed to be a three day trip for me…”

“I’ll get you to where you were going, as promised,” Sera told him. “I can’t make up for the rest, but I can at least do that.”

“As I don’t have the money to pay anyone else, I suppose I shall accept.”

Slone had finally gotten his pants back on and then taken over keeping Declan under control from Skye. Slone didn’t need to do anything as dramatic as hold Declan down; he just had a hand firmly gripping the back of his shirt. Declan had his arms folded over his chest and was looking away like a sulky toddler.

Skye already seemed to have disappeared off somewhere, perhaps to check on the girl who had run off or perhaps to raid their room for more vegetables when he knew they would be unattended. With Skye, those two possibilities seemed equally likely.

“Anyway, where are my manners?” Sera asked as she turned to Duran, Hamish, and Slone. “Thank you for your help. This rat,” she shot a look at Declan, “slipped something into our food and took over the ship. The dangers of running such a small crew, I suppose.”

“Skye’s the one you should be thanking, though he seems to have disappeared already,” Hamish said. “He heard the girl scream and wanted to investigate. He’s a bit strange, but I can’t deny he has good instincts and a drive to help people.”

“What’ll you do now?” Slone asked Sera.

“Drown the rat?” Sera suggested, nodding at Declan. She sighed. “I don’t know. Where are we?”

“Uh… Skye said Saltwater, I think,” Slone said.

“Saltwater,” Sera echoed. “A bit outside of my normal waters, but I know where it is. We’ll sort out what we need to sort out here, pick up some supplies, and head out.”

A group of people in uniform were approached from down the other end of the dock, and it was only as they got closer that Duran realised Skye was with them, walking beside a woman in a wheelchair. Sera walked over to greet them at the boarding ramp to the ship.

A woman with a long, furry tail and the fanciest uniform stepped forward. “We were told there’s… something going on? The young man was a little unclear, but Mirriam insists he’s reliable.”

“There’s something going on, all right. This man,” Sera pointed at Declan, “volunteered to cook everyone a nice meal after being a passenger on my ship for a few days. Eating that food is the last thing any of us remember before we woke up in chains. If you’re the law around here, perhaps he can be your problem. If not, I’m happy to drown him myself.”

“We generally prefer you don’t do that,” the woman in uniform told her with a smile. “We’ll need to get statements from everyone, see where you were held, all of that.”

Sera sighed. “Yes, of course. Let's get to it, then.”

The interview process took a long time, but it wasn’t boring. Duran had always enjoyed watching people in novel situations, studying how they responded to things and how others responded to them in turn.

As they were starting to wrap up, Skye reappeared after having been absent through most of the process, soaking wet and with a chewed up sweet potato in hand. He held it out to Hamish. “You can have it back.”

Hamish stared at the sweet potato in confusion. “Did you jump into the ocean to get that?”

“Yes,” Skye said, and then, when Hamish still hadn’t taken the sweet potato, he prodded it against his arm.

Hamish took it from him. “Thanks? I wasn’t actually mad about you taking it, you know.”

“Skye, was it?” the female officer with the furry tail interjected. “Everyone is telling me that you were the one who discovered this situation. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“No,” Skye said, not even bothering to look at her.

“Just… it’s okay,” the woman in the wheelchair said as she rolled over to them. “He’s not trying to be difficult, he just is difficult. You don’t have anything important to add, Skye?”

Skye shrugged. “He picked up the girl. I followed them back. I heard her scream. That’s all.”

“And then you went to get these boys for help?” the officer asked as she jotted a few things down in a notepad.

“I went to get a knife. They offered help.”

“Well, you saved multiple lives tonight. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Okay,” Skye said.

The officer didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so she said nothing and went to round up the other officers and get Declan ready to be hauled off the ship.

“I’m Mirriam, by the way,” the lady in the wheelchair told them, her eyes mostly on Sera. “I’m sure you and your crew haven’t been eating well and these boys deserve a good meal after all their hard work. Why don’t we all head back to The Wave Watcher? Food and drinks are on me.”

“That’s an offer I’ll gladly accept,” Sera said.