Tom nodded, glad he’d never gone through that sort of party scene when he was younger. He watched as Elise picked up a needle from the drawer of a small medical cart and felt for a vein. She waited until it swelled with the backflow of venous blood and then anchored it with her thumb. A moment later she inserted the needle. Blood flushed into the little chamber of the needle. He stared vacantly at the blood. He’d never had a problem with blood, but the sight of it being drained from a person who was tied and unconscious seemed wrong.
Elise looked up at him. “Can you pass me that black vacutainer, please?”
“Sure, what is it?” Tom asked.
“It’s that little sample tube with a black lid sitting on the top of the medical cart. It has an additive that will stop this blood from clotting until I can take it down to the ship’s medical center, and test it for drugs and alcohol.”
Tom handed it to her. “How did you learn all this stuff?”
She took the vacutainer and said, “Youtube.”
Tom laughed. “No. Really, how?”
“Youtube.”
“You learned how to take someone’s blood from an online video?”
“What can I say? I’ve always been a quick learner.”
“You’re a freak, you know that?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
It took three hours to complete the multiple journeys required to move all twenty sedated persons. Tom, Elise and Veyron stared at them all lined up in four rows of five chairs. They were positioned at the end of the main restaurant facing the computer hub Elise had set up. That way she would be able to watch if any of them tried to move. Any one of them could be the person responsible for the attacks. More frightening was the thought it might not just be one person, there could be multiple people in the group who were responsible.
Tom tried to see if any of them were fidgeting, blinking, or showing any other signs of having difficulties holding still. “It seems strange to think one of those zombies is still awake, waiting, planning their escape.”
“A scarier thought is all of them could be responsible,” Elise said.
Veyron smiled cheerfully. “No, a scarier thought is none of them is responsible and the rat is still loose aboard the Antarctic Solace.”
“No. There’s no way we have a loose rat.” Elise pointed to her open laptop on the desk beside them. “The cameras would have picked up the movement and my program would have notified me. There are more than two hundred CCTV cameras recording every aspect of this ship.
“Do we know for certain those bags even contain sedatives?” Tom asked.
“Yes.” Elise spoke in her usual air of confidence. “One person might be able to fake it, but not twenty.”
“When will we know about the blood samples?” Tom asked.
“A couple hours and I’ll have the results on my laptop,” Elise replied. “I also have my computer running a program to see if any of these faces were recognized in the earlier security recordings. It will then cross reference what they were doing before the attacks in order to determine who really works for the Antarctic Solace.”
Veyron stood up to leave. “All right, now that’s done — I need to get down to the engine room to start the diesels if we’re going to avoid spending the winter trapped in the ice.”
Elise opened an App in her computer tablet and began scrolling through the schematics of the lower decks. She looked up at Veyron. “Go.”
“What do you need me to do?” Tom asked.
“According to the Antarctic Solace’s shore side security team, there’s a redundancy data hub downstairs. I want to go check it out. Maybe it will provide the answers that have been erased on the other security tapes.”
“You want me to go retrieve it?”
“No,” Elise said. “You stay here and guard these people, will you? I’ll go and get it. I know what I’m looking for.”
“You want to go down there on your own?”
She grinned. “Of course. Why not? The only people on board this ship are now sedated right here in front of us.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Elise descended to the second level where Tom and Veyron had discovered the twenty people lying like drugged out zombies in recliner chairs. The elevator doors opened and she entered the crew and entertainer’s deck. An eerie silence pervaded the dark hall. Elise shined a flashlight along the wall until she found the light switch. It struck her as odd that Veyron and Tom hadn’t bothered to switch the lights on when they moved all the zombies upstairs.
She followed the hall until about midway, passing the first three side passages before taking the fourth to the right. She reached the first access hatch to a maintenance area which housed much of the electrical wiring and communication conduits. Elise unlocked the hatch with a key the on shore security IT staff informed her could be found in the ship’s main security office on level three. She removed the hatch and then slipped inside. She carefully maneuvered her way through the narrow series of maintenance conduits and passageways which formed the labyrinth between the lower crew and the passenger decks. She lithely shuffled and crawled through the tiny maze of electronics without checking her computer tablet for the schematics. Her memory was photographic; always had been, so she had no need to check that she was taking the right routes.
At the end of the fourth shaft she reached it — a large, immaculate, stainless steel cabinet. Numerous wires and fiber optic cables streamed into it. Elise took a second key from a small chain and carefully inserted it into the lock. It turned freely and she opened the cabinet door.
Elise grinned as she stared at the Antarctic Solace’s backup digital storage device. A five terabyte external hard drive capable of housing every image, video and sound recording absorbed by the ship’s two hundred plus security cameras for the past twelve months. Elise unscrewed the device from its alcove and quickly backtracked through the tunnels to the main crew lounge again.
Tom looked up at her when she walked out of the elevator and on to the sixth deck. “How did it go?”
She smiled and plugged the five terabyte external hard drive into her laptop. “Good. It’s time to find out what this is all about.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Elise’s powerful laptop worked to process the enormous amount of data it was being fed. She brought up a search query and entered the main passenger entertainment security footage, followed by the time and date range commencing the hour before and after the other CCTV recording had been tampered with.
The computer then began sieving through millions of hours of data recordings until it downloaded the one she was after. It was taken from a single camera on the port side of level six and looked outwards towards the ocean.
She pressed play and the digital video started.
It began the same as the other ones she’d watched where people casually walked along the promenade and decking. Some of the people walked slowly, talking to friends and family while drinking something alcoholic; others had a brisk pace, as though they had somewhere to be. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary for a cruise ship.
Then the alarm began its signal. A two minute continuous ringing from the ship’s bell sounded like a fire alarm that should have woken the dead. When it stopped, the calm voice of the Captain was heard over the ship’s loudspeakers.
“This is an emergency. I regret to inform you the Antarctic Solace has struck an iceberg and is taking on water rapidly. There is no need for concern and you will not need lifejackets because another tourist ship is on its way and will be here within five minutes. I must please ask everyone to move to the sixth level in preparation for departure from this ship. Do not bring your belongings — the Antarctic Solace will reimburse you for your losses.”