The Ninth Passenger

 Chapter 1. The Charterer

The vibration of the deck shifted from a measured tremor to a deep, low hum. The M.V. "Protagoras" was picking up speed, leaving the dirty port waters and the last, fog-melting silhouette of the mainland in its wake.

In the ship's main lounge—a room finished in expensive but impersonal teak and matte steel—a thick, awkward silence reigned. It consisted of ten pockets of silence.

In the corner, her back to everyone, a teenage girl (Chloe) was tracing the rivets on the wall with her finger, her lips moving soundlessly. At the central table, a middle-aged woman (Eleanor) methodically laid out cards; the shuffle of the deck was the only sound she made. A man (Sajlas) sat in a chair by the bulkhead. He was so still he seemed part of the interior.

Only one person disturbed the atmosphere. A young woman (Mia) by the porthole, clutching the strap of her backpack, was rhythmically flipping a coin.

A man (Arthur), sitting opposite and trying to read, flinched. He looked up, his face twisting as if from a toothache.

"Excuse me," his voice sounded creaky. "Could you... stop that?"

Mia jumped, blushing. The coin disappeared into her fist. "Sorry. I'm... nervous."

"We're all nervous," Arthur muttered, returning to his book. "But the contract I signed clearly stated in clause 11.4 that there would be 'acoustic comfort'. Although, judging by the seams on this upholstery,"—he ran a finger along the armrest—"the word 'comfort' is interpreted very... loosely here."

The lounge door opened silently. A man in a first officer's uniform entered, holding a tablet. Conversations—even those held in whispers—died instantly.

The officer glanced at the assembly and nodded to a man who, until that moment, had been standing apart by the panoramic window.

This tenth passenger was not sitting. He was watching the ship's foamy wake, slowly swirling a glass of wine. Elegant, in an impeccably tailored jacket, he looked as if he had mistaken the expedition vessel for his own yacht. This was Julian.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the officer touched the screen. "Allow me to clarify our journey." Everyone instinctively leaned forward.

"The 'Protagoras' is operating on a private charter route. Mr. Julian,"—he nodded briefly toward the window—"is the primary charterer. We are transporting his personal, highly delicate cargo. Your presence on board is his private initiative."

A pause hung in the air. The nine passengers slowly exchanged glances. A guy with shaved temples (Kenji), who had been quietly mimicking the coin clicks, froze. A man with calloused hands (Finn), who was weaving a complex knot from his shoelace, raised his eyebrows. They thought they had just bought tickets for a strange, exclusive voyage. No one had said they were guests.

Julian turned around. His smile was warm and utterly disarming. "My apologies for the formalities," his voice was velvety, reassuring. "My cargo... yes, it is indeed delicate. But it seemed criminally wasteful for such power,"—he patted the teak paneling affectionately—"to cross the ocean empty. I am glad to share this journey with you. Consider it... an invitation to an exclusive club."

The officer coughed, drawing attention back to himself. His face was emotionless.

"Thank you, sir. As per the charter agreement, and due to the special security requirements for Mr. Julian's cargo, in ten minutes all external communications on the vessel will be completely disabled."

A new wave of silence, this time icy.

"This includes satellite internet, cellular service, and personal terminals. Communication will not be restored until arrival at the port of destination. Please complete your calls. Thank you for your understanding."

Without waiting for questions, the officer turned and left. Nine people stared at the closed door. The hum of the engines suddenly became deafeningly loud.

"But... in my ticket..." Arthur began, frantically flipping through his papers. "Clause 4.1 clearly stated the shutdown was supposed to happen after twenty-four hours, not ten minutes! This is a direct violation..."

Click-click-click-click—Mia had lost control of the coin again.

Kenji, his head bowed, quietly but perfectly reproduced the officer's voice: "Thank you for your understanding."

Julian slowly walked to the center of the lounge. He was the only one who looked completely unperturbed. He raised his glass, addressing his stunned, alarmed, and suddenly very lonely fellow travelers.

"Well, then. To complete privacy."

---

Chapter 2. The Doldrums

The fourth day cut them off from the world not just by distance, but by silence. The loss of communication affected the passengers worse than being locked in a room. The ocean was empty. Endless gray water merged with an endless gray sky. The "Protagoras" moved through this void, its engines the only proof that time still existed.

The passengers had adapted to each other's quirks, much as one adapts to a creaking door or a dripping faucet.

Leo ("Marathoner") had become a running ticker on the deck. Dawn, noon, dusk—he lapped the deck with metronomic precision, paying no mind to the wind or spray.

Eleanor ("Pattern Queen") had turned her table in the lounge into a permanent branch of a 'Spider' Solitaire game. Stacks of cards rose and fell, but her expression remained unchanged.

Arthur ("Nitpicker") walked the ship with a notepad, making entries. He had already compiled a three-page list of violations: from an incorrectly fastened brass plaque to the wrong blade angle on the dining room knives.

Kenji ("Echo") was driving everyone to distraction. He had learned to perfectly imitate the sound of a crack in a porthole, making Mia ("Coin Flip") cry out every half hour.

And Julian ("Curator") observed. He tasted wine, held conversations with the laconic captain, and seemed to enjoy this society of eccentrics, as a collector enjoys a rare, ugly, but fascinating collection.

And then, at 2:30 PM ship's time, the hum of the engines ceased.

It didn't choke; it didn't stall. It just switched off.

An absolute, cotton-wool, unnatural silence enveloped the ship. Everyone instinctively froze. Leo stopped running. Eleanor dropped a card. Arthur stopped writing.

The silence lasted a minute. Two. Five. The ship lost headway and now only bobbed on the dead swell.

The loudspeaker crackled to life. The captain's voice was calm, but the steel in his tone was more frightening than panic.

"Attention all passengers. We have a total failure of the main engine. We are dead in the water. Please remain calm."

Passengers spilled into the lounge.

"Dead in the water? What does that mean?" Mia fumbled with her coin.

"It means we're stationary," Arthur hissed. "And we're being carried by the current. The question is—where."

An hour later, the captain appeared in person. His face was gray.

"The engine isn't the main problem," he snapped, cutting off questions. "We have a total failure of the steering hydraulics. We've lost control of the vessel."

"But we aren't moving anywhere," remarked Sajlas ("Statue"), speaking for the first time that day.

"We are moving," the captain replied grimly. "Drift speed is four knots. We're being carried directly onto a reef,"—he slammed his fist on the chart—"that, damn it, wasn't on any chart!"

"Time until impact?" Julian asked quietly, setting his glass aside.

"Six, maybe seven hours." The panic, which had been smoldering, ignited.

"There's an emergency system!" the chief engineer interjected, running in after him. "Manual steering. But we can't engage it. It hasn't been used in twenty years. The instructions... they're meaningless!"

He threw a thick, greasy binder onto the table. Several pages were torn out. "We tried following the diagram, but it won't hold pressure!"

Arthur pushed his way to the table. He didn't ask; he simply snatched the binder from the mechanic. His eyes devoured the text. His fingers flipped rapidly through the pages.

"Idiot," he hissed.

"Excuse me?" the mechanic bristled.

"Idiot," Arthur repeated, not looking up. "The one who wrote this. Of course it doesn't work. Here, in paragraph 3.1, it says: 'Turn valve A-12 before applying pressure'. And your 4-B diagram shows it being turned after. That's a logical conflict!"

He jabbed a finger at another line. "And this? 'Pressure 1.500 psi'? Do you see the period? That's not one thousand five hundred! It's one-point-five! You would have blown the line! And here..."—he turned the page—"there's a typo in the valve's serial number. You don't need '30-B', you need '3-0-B'! They are different mechanisms!"

The mechanic grabbed the binder from him and stared, stunned, at the lines.

"Quickly!" the captain roared.

Forty minutes later, there was a screech of metal, and the ship shuddered. The emergency system was engaged. But it was too early to celebrate.

"We're not fast enough," the captain said, returning from the bridge. His gaze was heavy. "The system is working, but it's a manual pump. To turn the rudder, you have to constantly crank the wheel. The emergency wheel requires monstrous torque." "My men,"—he pointed to two burly, heavily sweating sailors at the emergency wheel in the wheelhouse, their muscles seizing—"they 'burn out' in 15 minutes. At this rate, we're barely changing course. To clear the reef, we need to maintain maximum rotation speed for..."—he looked at his watch—"six hours. Without stopping. I don't have enough men. They'll burn out."

Silence fell. And in that silence, Leo, who had been standing quietly in the corner, stepped forward.

"Step aside."

The sailors looked at him, stunned, then at the captain.

"Step aside," Leo repeated. He placed his hands on the wheel. He braced himself in a solid stance.

Leo closed his eyes—and for a second, he heard nothing but his own breathing. Click—his body switched to 'aerobic mode'.

And he began to crank.

The first hour, they watched him with hope. The second, with amazement. The third, with superstitious dread. He was lean, wiry, not built like a weightlifter. But he didn't stop. His rhythm didn't falter for a second. He just breathed. Deeply, steadily. Leo wasn't fighting the wheel; he had become part of it.

When six hours and ten minutes had passed, the captain's voice cracked:

"Clear. We're past it."

Leo let go of the wheel, as if he'd just finished a morning jog. He picked up a bottle of water and took a sip. The sailors parted wordlessly.

For the first time, Julian didn't raise his glass or make a note. He simply took off his coat and draped it over Leo's shoulders—who, despite his endurance, was trembling slightly.

"First, rest—for those who kept this ship afloat," Julian said, his voice surprisingly firm. "Then we'll think."

---

Late that evening, they sat in the lounge. The ship was adrift, but safe for now. The engine was still dead, but no one cared anymore. The shock of the ordeal had given way to bewilderment. They looked at the two people who had saved them all.

"How did you..." Eleanor looked up from her cards for the first time in four days. She was looking at Arthur. "You just... saw that? In that chaos of numbers?"

Arthur snorted, though he was clearly pleased.

"It's not chaos. It's code. People think language is something ephemeral. Nonsense. A word is code. Same as in Python. You say, 'Pardon impossible, to be executed'. A single comma... but it's the difference between life and death. People write instructions carelessly. They write 'Press A, then turn B'. But a lawyer... or a programmer... knows that 'then' is a condition. And what if somewhere else it says 'Turn B only after signal C'? That's a code conflict. The instruction cannot be executed. Most people will read it and ignore it. But I see... a system failure."

Everyone was silent, processing this. Then Finn ("Weaver"), who had been quietly tying his knot, looked at Leo.

"And you, kid... I was at sea for twenty years. What you did today... it's impossible. You're not human."

Leo shrugged.

"People think muscles are about strength. No, they're not." He twirled the water bottle. "Muscles are about energy management. About mitochondria. They're microscopic 'power plants' in your cells. A normal person has X amount. I have five times that. And you know what 'failure' is? It's not the muscle failing. It's your brain panicking because of lactate buildup. It screams 'Stop!'. I spent ten years learning to ignore that scream. I can switch my body from glycolysis to aerobic respiration at the snap of my fingers. My body is a hybrid engine. What you saw... that wasn't heroism. It was pure biochemistry."

In the shadows of the lounge, away from the others, Julian took a sip of wine. He took out his expensive leather-bound notebook and a fountain pen.

"Test 1: Uncontrolled Loss of Steering." "Subject A-9 (Nitpicker): Reaction nominal. Threat analysis—excellent." "Subject A-1 (Marathoner): Reaction nominal. Endurance—exceeds projections."

He closed the notebook, smiling faintly. "A remarkable Chablis," he said into the silence. "Slightly excessive minerality, but what character."

---

Chapter 3. Flashpoint

A day of drifting had turned the "Protagoras" into a Pacific ghost ship. Passengers and crew, forcibly united by the disaster, divided the duties. The crew worked without sleep, trying to revive the dead engine. Some passengers got in the way. Others tried to help: Leo hauled heavy equipment. Finn helped the mechanic splice cables. Arthur drove the engineers to madness, pointing out every incorrectly tightened nut, until he was politely but firmly asked to return to the lounge.

Irritation mounted. It hung in the stale, recirculated air.

No one felt it more keenly than Marcus ("The Tracker"). He paced the corridors like a caged animal, his nostrils constantly flaring.

"This air... it's dirty," he complained to Eleanor, who ignored him, laying out her eternal solitaire. "I don't mean CO2. It's... greasy. Like rancid oil."

"It's the engine room, Marcus. What else would it smell like?"

"No, it's not oil," he sniffed a ventilation grate. "It's something else."

At 16:40, he was walking down the main corridor past the technical bays. Suddenly, he froze. His face went white. He didn't shout; he didn't look for confirmation. Marcus lunged for the red panel on the bulkhead and slammed his fist on the fire alarm.

The siren wailed deafeningly. Two seconds later, the first thin, acrid-yellow smoke snaked out from under the door of the electrical panel.

Chaos erupted.

"Fire! Fire in electrical panel 'B'!" the captain shouted over the intercom. "All hands, evacuate the lower decks!" Sailors with fire extinguishers ran to the door. "Don't open it!" the first mate yelled. "Wait for the CO2!"

The automatic fire suppression system hissed as it activated. But the smoke didn't stop. It got thicker.

"Damn it!" the first mate slammed the bulkhead. "Polymer insulation is burning in there. The smoke is toxic, and at this temperature, the CO₂ is useless!"

"Open it!" Marcus shouted, pushing the sailors aside.

"Are you crazy? It'll flash over!"

"It won't! It's not wood!" Marcus inhaled the air at the seam of the door. His eyes widened in horror. "It's... Dibutyl phthalate! Polyvinyl chloride! The insulation is burning! But... there's something else..." He dropped to the deck, where the air was cleaner. "...Acetone! God, there's acetone in there! Someone left solvent! Don't use water! Don't you dare! You'll cause an explosion!"

The sailors froze.

"What now?" the first mate asked. "If we don't put it out, the fire will reach the fuel lines in ten minutes!"

"Inside!" shouted an engineer, running up with blueprints. "There's a manual foam system lever inside the compartment! But the smoke is toxic. It's blind in there! We can't send men in blind!"

Thick black smoke poured from every crack. It was no longer a corridor; it was the antechamber to hell. Everyone stood, hesitating.

And then Kenji stepped forward. He had been standing quietly to the side, recording the sound of the siren on his phone. He looked ridiculously calm. "How far?" he asked the engineer.

"What?"

"The lever. How far from the door?"

"Ten meters. Maybe twelve. Immediately on the left wall. Waist-high. But there are shelving units, you'll get lost..."

"Hold this," Kenji handed his phone to Mia. He grabbed an extinguisher from the wall, but not to fight the fire: he discharged it into a corner, grabbed the foam-soaked rag, clamped it over his mouth, and nodded to the first mate. "Open it."

"Are you nuts, kid?!" "Open it!" The first mate hesitated for a second, but a look from Marcus—"it's the only chance"—made him decide.

"Unseal the hatch!"

The hatch opened. A wall of black, acrid smoke flooded the corridor. Kenji ducked low and dove into the darkness.

"He's dead!" Mia screamed.

Absolute, eye-searing darkness, filled with the roar of fire. Kenji took two steps and knew he was blind. He closed his eyes, held his breath.

He didn't panic. He listened. His echolocation, honed to perfection, was working. Kenji made a short, sharp click with his tongue. The sound went into the dense smoke and returned almost instantly, reflecting dully and flatly. He sensed a solid wall to his right, very close.

Kenji took another step and clicked again. This time, the sound wave returned as a complex, jagged echo. He identified multiple surfaces—it was a shelving unit, dead ahead. Kenji carefully moved around it.

The next click—and the reflection shot back too quickly, from below. The clear sign of a low obstacle, most likely a pipe. He stepped over it.

Kenji sent out a rapid series of clicks, probing the space before him. The sound, absorbed by the wall directly in front, simply died. That was his target—the left wall.

He moved along it, feeling the cold metal. His fingers brushed against something protruding from the wall. It was a large lever. He gripped it with both hands and yanked down.

With a deafening roar, tons of foam flooded from the ceiling. Kenji, black as pitch, tumbled back into the corridor. He tried to exhale—but only a rasp came out. His lungs felt seared from the inside.

And he lost consciousness.

---

Two hours passed. The ship was saved, though the electrical panel was completely gutted. Kenji sat in the lounge, wrapped in a blanket. Marcus stood at a porthole, trying to breathe the clean sea air. The others stared at them.

"How did you know?" the captain asked Marcus. "My sensors only tripped when the smoke was already thick. You... hit the alarm before the signal." Marcus shrugged. He still felt nauseous.

"Everything you can smell, you call a 'scent'. For me, it's a chemical formula. Your nose is a primitive receptor; mine is a gas chromatograph. You smell 'fear'; I smell tiglic aldehyde—a byproduct of adrenaline decay. That cable wasn't 'burning'; it was decomposing. I caught the scent of dibutyl phthalate ten minutes before it would have ignited. And the acetone. Some idiot left a can of solvent in there. If you had doused it with water, as you wanted, we'd all be at the bottom right now."

All eyes shifted to Kenji.

"And you..." Mia whispered. "You couldn't see anything. We wouldn't have found it in five minutes."

Kenji coughed, spitting black saliva.

"I wasn't seeing. I was listening." He looked at them.

"You think I'm just mimicking?"—he clicked his tongue, exactly like a dolphin. "No. I control the sound wave; I control its frequency and amplitude. Did you know our brain determines the distance to a sound by the microsecond delay between the ears? I can 'deceive' your brain. When I was in there,"—he nodded toward the corridor—"I wasn't 'looking'. I was sending out short waves and listening for their change. It's called the 'Doppler effect'. I heard the wall. I heard the shelving. And I heard the lever."

In the far corner of the lounge, where the smell of smoke didn't reach, Julian made a new entry in his notebook.

"Test 2: Internal Threat (Fire). Initiation—Subject A-4." "Subject A-4 (Tracker): Sensory reaction—excellent. Threat identification prior to system failure. Secondary disaster (explosion) averted." "Subject A-3 (Echo): Navigation reaction—excellent. Overcame sensory deprivation (smoke)."

"Note: Engine dead. Panel 'B' destroyed. Ship completely dark, save for emergency lighting. Perfect."

He closed the notebook. The "Protagoras" sank into darkness, bobbing on the waves.

---

Chapter 4. Contact

The "Protagoras" was dead in the water. The dim red emergency lighting turned the corridors into the arteries of a sick, dying beast. It grew cold. Without functioning life support systems, the ship was rapidly losing heat.

The passengers split into two camps: those who had already "performed"—Leo, Arthur, Marcus, and Kenji—became the involuntary center of attention. They were tired, drained, and they didn't like how the others were looking at them. The other "random" passengers—Eleanor, Chloe, Finn, Mia, and Sajlas—now felt not just frightened, but useless.

"What now?" Mia whispered, huddled in a blanket. Her coin lay on the table; clicking it in this oppressive silence felt like sacrilege.

"We wait," the captain answered. His face was a mask in the red light. "We're adrift. We managed to send a distress signal right before the panel burned out. Though, it's too early to celebrate: the transmitter is weak. So, maybe a week. Maybe a month."

Hope is the first thing to drown in a cold ocean. At dawn the next day, a shout woke them.

"On the horizon! A vessel!"

Everyone who could, poured onto the deck. The morning fog was tearing apart, and through the gaps, six or seven miles from the "Protagoras," a silhouette was indeed visible. A small dot, heading toward them.

"They saw us!" Mia laughed and cried at the same time. "We're saved!"

The captain looked through his binoculars. His knuckles turned white.

"Everyone. Inside. Immediately," he ordered in an icy voice.

"But why? It's..."

"Those aren't rescuers," the captain snapped. "They're flying no colors. And they're moving too fast. Those are scavengers."

The word "scavengers" hung in the frosty air.

"Modern pirates," the first mate explained quietly, herding the panicking passengers. "They prowl these waters, looking for dead ships just like this."

"But we're alive! We'll tell them..."

"If they think the ship is abandoned, they'll take the cargo, fuel, and leave. If they find us here..."—the first mate drew a finger across his throat—"They don't leave living witnesses."

They were herded into the lounge. The captain sealed the steel storm shields over the portholes, plunging the room into near-total darkness. Only a single narrow viewing slit remained.

"Silence," he hissed. "Not a sound."

They heard the approaching engine. It was loud, brazen, roaring. The vessel pulled up flush with the "Protagoras." It was smaller than the M.V., but it looked aggressive: rust spots, hastily welded armor plates, and a heavy machine gun on the bow.

The ship moved slowly along their side. Men on its deck were shouting something in an unfamiliar language.

"How many of them?" the captain whispered, not leaving the slit.

"Can't see..." the first mate strained. "Ten? Fifteen?"

At that moment, the teenage girl, Chloe ("Calculator"), whom everyone had thought was autistic, suddenly spoke. Her voice was flat, emotionless, and frightening because of it.

"Twenty-three." The captain spun around.

"What?"

"Twenty-three men on deck," Chloe repeated, staring at the wall. "They passed the slit. It took four-point-seven seconds. Twelve have assault rifles. Seven have pistols. Four have knives. Two on the bridge, I didn't see them. And one is on the mounted machine gun."

Everyone froze, staring at the girl.

"You... counted them?"

Chloe shook her head.

"I didn't count. Numbers just collapse into form for me. I just saw 'twenty-three'. Like a word."

The captain swallowed. Twenty-three. This wasn't just a gang; it was a boarding party.

"They're preparing to board," he said. "We have no weapons. We have to hide."

"Where?" Arthur asked. "They'll sweep the ship from stem to stern!"

"Two options," the captain thought quickly. "The engine room. It's hot, it stinks, plenty of cover, but only one way out. Or... the main cargo hold."

"The hold!" Julian said immediately. It was the first thing he'd said all morning. "My cargo is there. It's sealed." "

Sealed?" Arthur scoffed, already looking at a seal. "These aren't wine seals. The markings are lab-grade. Who packs 'personal cargo' like this, if it's just valuable?"

"They won't dare open it," Julian repeated stubbornly.

"These people don't care about your seals," the first mate sneered. "It's cold in there, but there's lots of space."

"The engine room!" Arthur insisted. "We can barricade ourselves in there!"

"The hold has an emergency hatch to the deck," the first mate said. "It's an escape route."

"Which they will find!" Arthur parried.

As the argument quietly flared, a metallic scraping sound came from outside. Grappling hooks.

"Quiet!" the captain roared. Panic paralyzed them. Where to go? Death to the right, death to the left.

"Enough!" Mia jumped up. Her eyes were wild. "Your logic isn't working!" She pulled the coin from her pocket. "Heads—engine room. Tails—cargo hold."

"Are you insane?!" Arthur hissed. "Deciding our fates... with a coin?! That's superstition!"

"No," Leo countered. "It's Bayes. When you have no data, you just cut through the uncertainty."

"She's right," he added. "Any choice right now is better than indecision."

Mia looked at Julian. He nodded almost imperceptibly, like a connoisseur approving a risky wine choice.

Mia tossed the coin, caught it, and slapped it onto her wrist. In the red emergency light, everyone stared at her hand. She lifted her palm.

"Tails. Cargo hold."

"Move!" the captain ordered.

The group bolted down the dark corridors, but they were too late: the thud of boots and shouts already echoed from the deck above. They had almost reached the hold when three armed men in dirty clothes emerged from a side corridor. They saw the group. For a second, everyone froze.

"Alarm! Alarm! Pasažieri!" one of the "scavengers" roared.

Panic erupted. The group lunged for the hold hatch; the captain and first mate tried to open it. Two passengers fell behind, they were grabbed. One of them was the quiet, phlegmatic Sajlas, whom no one ever noticed.

They grabbed him by the jacket, spun him around roughly. And in that instant, Sajlas... shut down. It wasn't an act: his body instantly went limp, losing all muscle tone, as if life had left it. His eyes glazed over, staring at a single point. Sajlas began to fall, not like a person, but like a mannequin whose joints had given out. The pirate holding him couldn't support the "dead" weight, and Sajlas collapsed onto the deck with a dull thud, like a sack of potatoes. His arm twisted unnaturally.

"Damn it!" The pirate kicked him. "This one's dead! Probably from fright!"

The second captured passenger was screaming. The pirates ignored Sajlas's "corpse" and dragged the screamer away with them, toward the rest of their gang.

"Find the others! They're here somewhere!"

The captain and the remaining eight passengers managed to dive into the cold, cavernous darkness of the cargo hold and seal the hatch from the inside. They heard the pirates stomping above their heads, trying to break open the lock.

They were trapped in the dark, and the enemy knew where they were. But their situation was not entirely hopeless: thanks to Chloe's precise count, they knew the enemy's numbers, and Mia's intuitive choice had saved them from the deathtrap of the engine room. Furthermore, one of them, the "dead" one, remained outside.

Julian sat down on one of his sealed containers. His face was invisible in the dark, but he could be heard taking out his notebook and writing something.

"Test 3: External Uncontrolled Threat." "A5 (Calculator): Instant tactical analysis—confirmed." "A8 (Coin Flip): Decision-making under zero-information conditions—confirmed." "A7 (Statue): Infiltration—in progress." "Subject A-9: Lost (kidnapped)."

"Note: Variable has escaped control. This is... fascinating."

---

Chapter 5. The Dead Knot

The cold in the cargo hold was unlike the cold of the sea—it was the dead, stagnant cold of a crypt. The only light source was a lone red emergency lamp. Eight passengers, the captain, and the first mate huddled behind Julian's huge, sealed containers.

From above their heads came a hellish screech. It was the piercing, high-pitched sound of an acetylene torch cutting into the steel hatch.

"How much time do we have?" Leo whispered.

"Ten minutes. Fifteen, if we're lucky," the captain answered. His face was ashen. "This steel can stop a bullet, but not a torch. As soon as they get in..." He didn't finish, but everyone knew what he meant.

They were trapped. Their only weapons were a wrench the mechanic had dropped earlier, and fear.

---

Outside, in the dimly lit corridor, Sajlas lay on the floor. He was dead. At least, that's what the two pirates guarding the hatch believed. They sat on crates ten feet away, smoking, lazily watching the sparks fly from beneath the hatch.

Sajlas wasn't breathing or blinking. His pulse was barely perceptible, just forty beats per minute. He had entered the state he had perfected over years on tourist-filled cobblestone streets.

The pirates weren't looking at him. Why watch a corpse?

And then Sajlas began to move. His movement wasn't human; it resembled the shift of a tectonic plate: a centimeter per minute. He wasn't moving his hand; he was relocating it, sequentially relaxing one muscle bundle and tensing another. After three minutes, his deathly-white fingers touched the cold steel of the bulkhead. Two more minutes, and they found what he was looking for. It was a small plastic cover—the manual fire alarm panel.

He pressed, slowly, gradually, smoothly and evenly increasing the pressure, until the plastic flexed and closed the contact.

The siren wailed again, but from the other end of the ship, two decks below. The two pirates jumped up.

"What the hell?!" "Another one! Are they setting the whole ship on fire?" One of them spat.

"Go check it! I'll stay here." The second one ran toward the new alarm, cursing.

---

In the hold, the torch's screeching stopped instantly.

"They stopped!" Mia whispered.

"He distracted them!" The captain looked at the ceiling. "Sajlas is alive!"

"This is our chance!" Leo grabbed the wrench. "We have to attack while there's only one!"

"No!" Finn pushed him back. "You don't understand. We can't open this hatch. It's red hot. And even if we do, whoever's waiting on the other side will fill us with lead."

"So what? We wait for them to come back?!" the first mate exploded.

"Not wait." Finn wasn't listening anymore. He was looking around, his eyes gleaming predatorily. "We have to seal it."

He pointed to the coils of steel cable and cargo nets securing the containers.

"I need strong hands! Leo, Captain—move!"

Neither Leo nor the captain understood his plan yet, but desperation forced them to obey.

"Drag this cable! Run it under the winch!"

While Leo and the captain strained to drag the heavy, greased cable, Finn's fingers danced. It didn't look like work; it was art. He wasn't tying a knot; he was weaving it.

"What is that?" the first mate asked, staring at the incredible tangle of loops and turns.

"A 'Lumberman's Hitch'," Finn muttered, "or a 'Dead Knot'. Used to catch logs in rivers. The harder you pull, the tighter it gets."

He looped the complex knot onto the hatch's internal locking mechanism. The three of them wrapped the other end around the base of the nearest container—a multi-ton machine.

"Done!" Finn exhaled.

Hurried footsteps sounded from above. The pirate was back. The screech of the torch resumed.

"Too late!" Mia whispered.

"No," Finn smiled. "Right on time."

Another five minutes passed, the screeching stopped, and there was a loud bang.

"They've cut through the lock!" said the captain. Shouts came from above. The pirates were trying to lift the heavy hatch. An earsplitting screech of metal rang out. Finn's "dead knot" worked: the cable went taut as a bowstring, and the knot itself cinched tight from the tension. The harder the pirates above pulled, the deeper the cable, tied to the multi-ton container, bit into the mechanism, locking it solid. The hatch wouldn't budge.

Furious shouts, and another blow—likely a crowbar. The cable strained so hard it seemed ready to snap, but the knot held the mechanism. The footsteps above quieted.

"Did they... give up?" Mia asked hopefully.

"No," came Eleanor's quiet voice.

She wasn't looking at the hatch; she was standing by the bulkhead; ear pressed to the cold metal. In the red light, her face looked like a mask from a Greek tragedy.

"They didn't leave. They split up."

"How do you know that?" the first mate growled.

"The sensors," she said. Everyone looked where Eleanor was pointing. An old analog panel for the hull's list and pressure sensors, with a dozen gauges. Most of the needles were dead, but two or three were vibrating minutely from the activity above.

To everyone else, it was just noise. To her, it was something else.

"You see chaos, but I see a system," she whispered. "It's 'Spider' in four suits. Their steps aren't random; it's a pattern. Two heavy groups. One is three, maybe four. Heavy steps—they've gone aft, for explosives." The passengers went cold.

"And the second?" the captain asked.

"The second group is five men. Lighter and faster. They're heading to the port side. There..." Eleanor looked at the captain.

"The emergency hatch," he finished for her. "The second exit from the hold." They had sealed the main entrance, but now the pirates were going to blow it open, while simultaneously cutting off their only escape route.

---

In the farthest, darkest corner of the hold, Julian sat on his container, listening. He took out his notebook and began to write.

"Test 3 (continued): Reaction to containment." "A7 (Statue): Diversion successful. Caused separation of enemy forces." "A6 (Weaver): Position held (unexpected solution). Hatch blocked." "A2 (Pattern Queen): Tactical analysis (micro-vibrations). Enemy maneuver revealed."

"Note: The group is functioning as a single organism. Excellent. Time to raise the stakes. Introducing external factor: 'Weather'."

Julian raised his head and listened. For the first time in days, he heard a new sound, one that drowned out even the pirates' footsteps. A low, rising howl of wind.

---

Chapter 6. Displacement

Without taking her ear from the bulkhead, Eleanor closed her eyes. Her face was focused, like a musician catching a false note in an orchestra. "They aren't cutting. They're... prying. With crowbars. And they're fast."

"And the ones at the main hatch?" Leo asked.

"They've stopped. They're waiting," she said.

They were trapped in a no-win situation: an attempt to break through the emergency hatch would inevitably lead to a clash with five armed pirates, while inaction doomed them to certain death from the explosion at the main hatch.

"We have to do something!" the first mate paced frantically in the hold. "We can't just sit here..."

"Quiet!" the captain hissed. And at that moment, the "Protagoras" shuddered. This jolt was unlike the previous ones; it wasn't just a wave impact. The movement was accompanied by a deep, basso groan from the hull, as if a giant creature had grabbed the ship by the keel and shaken it. The M.V. immediately listed so sharply that the floor dropped out from under them, and an earsplitting screech of metal rang out.

"A storm," the captain stated, grabbing a ladder. "It's caught us."

The ship began its death dance. It would fall into a black abyss between waves, then be thrown upward with incredible force.

All voices instantly fell silent, but not from the rocking itself—another sound broke through: an earsplitting metallic screech, which was louder than the howling wind and the groaning hull.

"What is that?!" Mia screamed.

"Cargo!" the first mate yelled in reply.

One of Julian's huge, sealed containers—not the one anchoring Finn's knot, but another, weighing twenty tons—had broken free of its restraints. In the red emergency light, they saw it slowly slide several inches across the deck as the ship listed.

Everyone recoiled toward the far wall.

"It'll crush us!" the first mate screamed.

"No," said Chloe, her small voice cutting through the noise. "It's moving along the vector of the list. It will hit the bulkhead."

"The emergency hatch is there!" Leo exclaimed.

The ship rolled again. The twenty-ton machine slid another foot, crushing other crates in its path like cardboard.

"They're still there," Eleanor whispered, pressed flat against the wall. "I hear them... trying to pick the lock..."

And then they all saw the full picture: the container, sliding slowly but surely toward the emergency hatch, and the five pirates on the other side, trying to break in.

The ship listed again. The container rolled back.

"It's not reaching!" said the captain. "The angle is wrong!"

"It will be there on the next cycle," Eleanor said calmly. "It's a rhythm. See? Two small lurches... and one strong one. It will strike precisely at the peak of the strong lurch."

"It won't," Leo interjected. He wasn't looking at the container, but at the deck. "It's sliding on the same trajectory. It's missing the hatch by three degrees."

Near Leo lay a heavy steel wedge—a hundred-pound chock block that had previously been bracing the container.

"...on the third lurch, it will strike," Eleanor repeated, as if in a trance, but Chloe, having instantly calculated the trajectory, finished her thought: "...six feet to the left of the hatch."

Leo looked at Eleanor.

"When is 'two'?"

She looked at him, her eyes wide with fear.

"Leo, no! It will crush you!"

"When?!" he roared back, as the ship pitched again and the container rushed toward the passengers and crew with a groan.

The ship rolled again. The container rumbled toward them.

"One!" Eleanor screamed.

The ship paused at the crest of the wave.

"Two!" she yelled, as it began its reverse motion.

And in that second, Leo dashed forward. He didn't try to stop the container. He grabbed the hundred-pound steel wedge and, as the machine rolled back, threw it onto the deck. The wedge landed right in its path.

"Three!"

The ship shuddered and listed hard to port. The twenty-ton container shot forward like a locomotive and struck the steel wedge Leo had thrown.

An earsplitting shriek of metal. The wedge acted as a guide, and the container's trajectory shifted by exactly three degrees.

It smashed into the emergency hatch bulkhead with enough force to breach a bunker wall. The entire "Protagoras" shuddered from the impact.

And then, from the other side of the hatch, came sounds: not screams, but the crunch of bones and joints, and a short, gurgling cry that was instantly cut off, followed by silence. Only the howl of the storm and the groaning of the hull broke it. The threat from the emergency hatch was gone. Five pirates had been eliminated.

The silence after the impact was deafening. Only a rusty bolt, shaken loose, rolled across the deck, and everyone knew: they had survived.

None of the survivors could speak. They stared at Leo, breathing heavily, and at Eleanor, who was sliding down the wall. Mia sobbed quietly.

"We... we killed them."

"Otherwise, they would have killed us," the captain snapped.

And then, as if in response, a new sound came from the other end of the hold—from the main hatch. It was no longer the screech of a torch, but the hurried, furious drilling and banging of metal on metal.

"They've stopped waiting!" the first mate yelled. "They're setting charges!"

The team had eliminated one threat only to provoke the second. And now they were locked in a hold with a twenty-ton machine rolling across the deck in time with the storm, and a bomb on their main door.

Julian hadn't moved from his spot; he only adjusted his cuff.

"Test 4: Complex Threat (Enemy + Environment)." "A1 (Marathoner), A2 (Pattern Queen), A5 (Calculator): Successful resolution of multi-factor problem. Skill synchronization—excellent."

"Note: Threat (Emergency Hatch) neutralized. Threat (Main Hatch) has entered terminal phase. Group reaction?"

---

Chapter 7. Wave Function Collapse

The howl of the storm outside mingled with the rumble of the rolling container inside and the hurried, ominous drilling at the main hatch.

"They're setting charges! We have minutes!" the captain's shout was lost in another groan of the hull.

Leo immediately lunged for the emergency hatch the container had struck: "This way! It's the only way out!"

"It's blocked!" the first mate yelled, uselessly yanking the mangled mechanism. "The impact jammed it shut!"

"It's not jammed!" Finn countered, shoving the first mate aside. His fingers quickly but confidently felt the warped metal. "It's... wedged. To open it, we have to move the container."

"Move it?!" the first mate laughed hysterically. "That twenty-ton beast?!"

The container roared past them again, nearly crushing the first mate, and slammed into the opposite wall.

"We can't!" Leo yelled. "It'll cut off anyone who gets near the hatch!"

"No," said Eleanor. She pressed her back to the bulkhead, focusing completely on the rocking, her eyes closed. "It's not moving randomly. It's obeying the rhythm."

She began to speak in time with the ship's rocking, describing the cycle: "First, the wave rises... the container rolls toward us. Then... a pause, it stops. And next—the fall... it rushes toward the emergency hatch. Another pause."

She opened her eyes. "We have a window. Exactly seven seconds. That's the time between when it stops there,"—she nodded to the far wall—"and when it starts moving back here."

"Seven seconds to open a wedged hatch?" the captain doubted. "That's impossible!"

"What if we're wrong?" he whispered, making everyone turn. "They're planting a bomb because they can't get in. My knot is too good. They can't cut it or open it, so they decided to blow it."

"So, what's your plan, Weaver?!" the first mate roared. "Ask them not to blow it up?" "No," Finn pulled out his knife. "The plan is to let them in."

In the ensuing silence, only the quiet thk-thk-thk of the drill from outside was audible.

"Are you crazy?!" the first mate shrieked. "You'll let them in here?"

"It's a choice!" Finn yelled. "Guaranteed death by bomb, or a chance in a fight!"

"It's no chance!" the captain argued. "There are four of them, and they're armed!"

"It's 50/50!" Mia interjected, her eyes burning with a feverish light. "It's our choice. The bomb is 100% death. The fight is 50/50." She looked at Finn. "He's right. It's the only 'move' we have left."

Mia's hand was still shaking, even after the decision was made.

At that moment, the drilling outside stopped.

"Too late," the captain whispered. "They're finished."

A muffled male voice was heard, followed by silence.

"They've moved back," Eleanor said, listening to the vibrations. "They're setting the timer."

---

Sajlas, outside in the corridor, heard and saw it all: three pirates, having set the charge, ran back down the corridor toward a ladder, taking cover from the blast. Only one remained at the hatch—their leader, who was crouching to activate the detonator.

And then Sajlas came alive.

He didn't stand up; he uncoiled from the floor like a spring, in a single, fluid, inhuman motion. In the 0.5 seconds it took the pirate to raise his head, Sajlas was already on his feet. The pirate leader saw the "corpse" lunge at him, and his eyes widened in superstitious terror; he didn't have time to raise his rifle. Sajlas didn't strike him, but used his total muscle control to grab the pirate's arm and focus his entire body mass into a single point, twisting it. A dry snap of bone. The pirate howled in pain, and Sajlas immediately clamped a hand over his mouth.

"The timer!" he hissed. Writhing in agony, the pirate looked at the charge, where red digits glowed: 00:45.

Sajlas, however, looked at the hatch mechanism: Finn's cable disappeared inside. He understood: they had barricaded themselves.

---

And at that moment, inside the hold, Mia yelled to Finn: "Cut it!"

Finn raised his knife over his own perfect knot.

"Everyone, behind the containers!" the captain yelled. "Get ready!"

Finn cut the cable. The taut knot snapped, and the lock mechanism disengaged with a screech.

---

Outside, Sajlas and the pirate leader heard that screech. Despite his broken arm, the leader grinned wickedly, assuming the knot had snapped from the tension.

"Fools," he rasped, and pressed the button on the detonator. The display flashed red: 00:30.

He reached for the hatch wheel with his good hand and began to turn it. Sajlas didn't stop him. He waited.

The hatch groaned open. The thug stepped into the dark opening to be the first to meet his victims, and just then, Sajlas kicked him in the back.

The "scavenger" leader, not expecting this, flew into the darkness of the hold, sailed three meters, and crashed onto the deck at the feet of the stunned captain.

"What?!" The pirate raised his head, saw ten pairs of eyes staring at him from the darkness. He heard the wheel turning again behind him. He spun around. Sajlas was standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the red light of the corridor. "No!" the pirate screamed. Sajlas slammed the heavy steel hatch shut.

The pirate lunged for the door, but it was too late. He heard Sajlas throwing the external locking bars on the other side. He was locked in. Inside. With his victims.

He looked at his detonator in horror. He looked at his detonator in horror. The display read: 00:10.

"Bomb!" he roared, realizing the trap.

"Charge!" the captain screamed. "Everyone down! Behind the container!"

The storm rocked the ship again. The twenty-ton container rushed out of the darkness, straight at the pirate.

The explosion and the impact of the container merged into a single, apocalyptic sound.

The bomb detonated outside the hold. The blast wave struck the steel door Sajlas had just locked, bowing it inward, but it held. Simultaneously, the container inside the hold struck and instantly killed the pirate leader.

The ship shuddered down to its keel, and after that, silence fell. Only the howl of the storm and a faint knocking on the main hatch could be heard.

"Let me in!" It was Sajlas's voice.

---

Julian sat in his place in the total darkness. He listened to the chaos. When everything fell quiet, he took what everyone thought was just an expensive fountain pen from his inner pocket and twisted the cap.

A tiny, dim-red LED lit up on the tip. It was a special pen, designed for pilots or military: it allowed one to read maps in complete darkness without ruining night vision.

This barely visible red light illuminated exactly one line in his notebook. He wrote silently, discreetly, and completely autonomously.

"Test 5: Terminal Solution (Bomb/Assault)." "A6 (Weaver), A8 (Coin Flip): Selection of unconventional solution (Dilemma collapse)." "A7 (Statue): Leader neutralization. Use of enemy asset (bomb) against itself. Brilliant improvisation." "Result: Hostile group neutralized. Lost three crew members (pirates) and one (leader). All subjects alive."

"Note: Time to proceed to Phase 3. Resources."

---

Chapter 8: Terroir

The explosion had bowed the main hatch inward, turning it into an ugly steel bubble. But it had held. Sajlas knocked off the external bars, and the hatch groaned open.

They emerged from the hold not as survivors, but as ghosts leaving a crypt. The corridor was devastated; it smelled of ozone, soot, and... fear. The pirates were gone. Having heard the explosion, the rest of the boarding party had apparently decided the ghost ship wasn't worth their lives, and had left.

The storm howled, throwing buckets of icy water through the shattered portholes.

"We can't go topside!" the captain yelled over the roar. "We'll be washed overboard! The ship is barely holding together!"

They retreated once more to the only safe place—their cold, dark hold. They were no longer prisoners in it, but willing hermits.

Twelve hours passed, but the storm did not abate. The cold chilled them to the bone.

"Inventory," the captain said hoarsely, shining the only flashlight, which he'd taken from the bridge. "Food, water, medical supplies. We need to know how much time we have."

The first mate opened the emergency locker in the corner of the hold. All ten people watched him.

He pulled out five foil blankets, a first-aid kit, and a flare gun. That was all.

"Where's the water?" Mia whispered. "Where are the dry rations?"

"They... they were supposed to be here," the first mate stammered, rummaging in the empty box. "They're gone."

The panic that the pirates hadn't managed to cause was now sparked by desperation. Had they survived a firefight only to die of thirst?

"How much painkillers, how many bandages in the first-aid kit?" the captain asked, his voice loud, trying to be heard over the storm.

Chloe opened the red plastic box. Her fingers quickly brushed through the contents. "Thirty-two standard bandages," she said in her flat voice. "Six tourniquets, twelve packets of sulfate, fifty-three... no, fifty-four ibuprofen tablets. Provisions: none." She spoke as if reading a shopping list.

Silence fell.

Ten pairs of eyes slowly turned to stare at the only thing the hold had in abundance: dozens of huge, sealed steel containers. And at their owner.

Julian sat in his spot, his jacket neatly buttoned. He was the only one not shivering from the cold.

"Mr. Julian," the captain's voice was even, but held a note of steel. "You are the charterer. What is in these containers?"

Julian slowly took a small silver cigarette case from his pocket, but instead of a cigarette, he removed a thin cracker.

"Mostly," he said calmly, taking a bite, "wine. Collectible. 1982 vintage. And a little... cheese. For a tasting."

"Wine?!" the first mate exploded. "Cheese?! We're dying of thirst, and you're having a... picnic?!"

"Breach it!" the captain ordered.

The first mate and Leo grabbed the wrench and the crowbar the pirate hadn't gotten to use. They attacked the seal of the nearest container in desperation. Metal shrieked, but the seal didn't give. These were high-technology locks, designed for customs control.

"Useless!" Leo exhaled, stepping back. "We can't open them!"

Silence fell in the hold again. And in that silence, Marcus stepped forward. Realizing the crowbar was useless, he approached the container marked "CHÂTEAU" and pressed himself against it. Marcus closed his eyes and sniffed the rubber gasket of the seal.

"No," he whispered. "This isn't wine." He moved to another container. Sniffed again. "Aqua vitae..." he muttered.

"What?"

"High-proof spirit and..."—he inhaled deeper—"distilled water."

Everyone froze. Marcus moved to a third container marked "FROMAGE".

"Lactobacillus... sodium acetate... preservatives..."—he frantically sniffed the lock. "This isn't cheese. It's food. Dry rations!" He dashed to a fourth. "Penicillium roqueforti..."—his voice cracked. "A pure culture... and... sulfonamides. These are antibiotics. We have medical supplies!"

His "useless" connoisseur's skill had just turned a snob's warehouse into Noah's Ark's pharmacy. Everyone turned to Julian, who was calmly finishing his cracker.

"How do we open them?" the captain asked.

Julian took a set of keys and a fob from his pocket and pressed a button. A loud hiss erupted as the valve on the "FROMAGE" container released its pressure, and its lock opened.

"Choice," Julian said, "is always an illusion, captain. You would have died anyway, unable to distribute all this."

"What do you mean?"

"There are eleven of us," Julian said. "The storm could last a week. The drift—a month. We must conserve supplies."

Julian looked at the container's marking. It consisted of a meaningless set of symbols: B-81-115-900C-400.

"Captain, how much food do we have?"

"You just said... dry rations..."

"I asked: how much," Julian repeated, emphasizing the word.

The captain stared helplessly at the numbers. "I don't know..."

"I do," Chloe's quiet voice cut in. She walked over to the container and ran her finger along the digits.

"'B-81'," Chloe said quietly but confidently, "that's 81 boxes. That's exactly how many units this container holds. '115' is the number of packets per unit. '900C' is the number of calories contained in each packet. '400' is..."—she paused, her brain performing calculations invisible to the others—"the total weight is four hundred kilograms. Nine thousand, three hundred and fifteen packets."

She looked at Julian.

"That is eight million, three hundred eighty-three thousand, five hundred calories. Enough for 11 people for 253 days, at a norm of 3000 calories per day." She moved to the container labeled "AQUA". "1,136 liters. Not 1,135.5, as I had previously calculated. Enough for 51 days at a norm of 2 liters per person. The water will run out first."

The passengers and crew looked at the girl, then at Julian. The puzzle was coming together. The "Calculator" and the "Tracker" weren't just skills. They were the keys, the inventory system for this ark.

Julian stood up. He was no longer just the "charterer."

"Captain," his voice filled with authority. "I am taking charge of resource distribution. You are responsible for the vessel. First Mate—for discipline." He looked at the stunned "heroes." "Miss Chloe, you are my quartermaster. Mr. Marcus, you are the head of sanitation. The rest of you... you are my team. The work starts now."

---

Chapter 9: The Casting

They had light, food, and water. And they were trapped.

The storm had abated as suddenly as it began, leaving the "Protagoras" a dead carcass, bobbing on the dead swell. In the hold, which had become their home, the captain was tinkering with an emergency transmitter they had found in one of Julian's "medical" containers.

"It's not working," the captain stated, throwing down the headset. "It's dead."

Hope, barely born, died.

"So that's it," Mia slumped to the floor. "We survived all that just to die of boredom here."

"No," came Eleanor's quiet voice. She was staring at the device the way she stared at her solitaire. "It's not dead. It's just... uncalibrated. We don't need to break the lock. We need to create the right key."

She shifted her gaze to Kenji. "We don't need a signal. We need resonance."

The plan was insane. It was born in the silence of the hold, from the scraps of their "lectures." Eleanor determined the exact frequency they needed to "vibrate" on.

Preparations began immediately. Finn, using silver threads from one of Julian's expensive audio cables, wove what he called an "acoustic loop"—a complex knot of wires that could serve as both a microphone and a transmitter. Leo sat at the manual dynamo, ready to provide a clean, stable carrier current. Kenji's task was the hardest: he had to produce a perfect, pure note at an inhuman frequency and hold it.

"Begin!" the captain commanded.

Leo began to crank. The thick grease in the dynamo required not so much brute force as monotonous, murderous endurance. His bicep swelled like a steel cable.

Leo's arm cranked the dynamo handle, his face slick with sweat. The rhythmic creak of the mechanism filled the hold.

At that moment, an image flashed in Julian's mind as he watched Leo: a grainy video from the internet, a guy doing his thousandth push-up to the laughter of onlookers. Julian remembered how, sitting in his office then, he had muted the sound and focused not on the muscles, but on the rhythm of Leo's breathing. "Mitochondrial control", he had muttered to himself that day, and that conclusion was more important to him than any shout.

"We have pressure!" the captain shouted. "Kenji, now!"

Finn pressed one end of his "loop" to Kenji's larynx, the other to the transmitter's antenna. Kenji closed his eyes. He listened to the static in the headset, searching for the "void." And then he made the sound. It wasn't a scream, but a pure, piercing, cutting note that seemed to make the very air vibrate.

Kenji's larynx was taut; the wires Finn had woven pressed against his skin.

Julian looked at Kenji. A viral TikTok video flashed in his memory: a guy at a cave, "trolling" bats. Julian remembered running the sound through an audio analyzer and noting: "Not an imitator. A generator."

"Hold it!" Eleanor yelled, staring at the analog gauge. "The needle is moving!"

Kenji held the note. His face turned red, but the sound was pure. Leo cranked the handle with a flawless rhythm, never faltering for a second.

Eleanor's eyes were glued to the gauges. The image triggered another memory for Julian: He saw a screen before him: an article, "Accountant Fired for Playing Solitaire," where Julian saw not cards, but Eleanor's calculations on chaos theory.

Flashes of other "useless" talents raced through his mind: Mia, in a fit of panic, flipping a coin in a casino, where she was ridiculed for her belief in pure probability; Finn, meticulously and with intense focus, weaving a perfect knot from scraps of cable for hours, a knot that was just "string" in his wife's eyes.

"Analysis and System", Julian thought, just as he had all those months ago, saving both files.

A minute passed, then a second. Blood trickled from Kenji's nose, but the note didn't waver. Leo switched to aerobic respiration, his body working like a flawless hybrid engine.

"Yes!" Eleanor roared. "Resonance! The signal is out!"

In that same second, Kenji choked and collapsed onto the deck, unconscious. Leo let go of the handle and fell beside him—his muscles literally smoking from the strain. In the deafening silence that followed, everyone stared at the transmitter.

Only the crackle of static electricity came from the speaker.

"Nothing," Mia whispered, her voice trembling. "It was all for nothing."

The captain slammed his fist on the device's casing. And at that moment, through the crackle, another sound broke through—a voice. The signal was clear as crystal, without a single trace of interference, as if the person was speaking from the next room.

...This is... ...Signal "Echo" received. Excellent work, A-3. Await evacuation. Over and out.

Ten of the eleven survivors froze. They slowly turned to look at the only person who had not participated in the attempt to restore communication. The only one who wasn't surprised they had succeeded. Julian sat on his container, smiling faintly.

---

Chapter 10. The Curator

A calm had fallen. The survivors sat in the dimly lit hold, stunned by the silence and the calm voice from the transmitter. They stared at Julian.

"'A-3'?" Leo asked hoarsely. "'Await evacuation'? What was that, Julian?"

Julian stood up slowly, brushing off his jacket. He didn't answer, just looked at the main hatch. "It seems," he said, "our transport has arrived."

There were no lights on the horizon. The ship appeared from nowhere, like a phantom. It was not a rescue vessel, but an ultra-modern, white ship, bearing no identification marks, resembling a floating laboratory. It docked with the "Protagoras" silently, with surgical precision.

The eleven survivors walked out onto the mangled deck of the "Protagoras," squinting in the bright floodlights that bathed their ship.

A sterile ramp lowered from the white ship. People stepped onto the deck. They were not sailors or rescuers. They were technicians in snow-white coveralls with sealed helmets.

They ignored the stunned, filthy survivors, walked past them as if they were furniture, and stopped in front of Julian.

One of the technicians raised his visor.

"Phase 3 is complete, sir," he reported. "Subjects A-1 through A-8 and A-10 are present?"

Leo, Marcus, and Mia exchanged glances, silently asking: "A-10?"

Julian nodded, adjusting his cuff. "Yes. A-9, unfortunately, was lost during the uncontrolled variable with the pirates..."

"A-9 was not lost." The calm, authoritative, and dreadfully familiar voice came from behind the technicians. It was the same voice they had just heard on the radio.

A man stepped from the sterile airlock onto the ramp, dressed in an immaculate dark suit that seemed impossible in this world of salt and rust. The survivors stared at him. Their minds refused to believe it. It was Arthur, whom they had last seen screaming on the deck as the pirates seized him and dragged him away.

For the first time in the entire journey, Julian lost his composure. His smile vanished.

"You...?"

The ninth passenger slowly approached him. "The pirates were mine, A-10," he said quietly. "Their job was to conduct the stress test and evacuate me. I had to observe Phase 3 from a distance."

He smirked.

"I suppose you're all wondering what 'useless' skill I possess..."

"My 'useless' skill? It's meticulousness. The same meticulousness that 'saved' you by the reef. Did you think I was just a 'Nitpicker' who found a typo in a manual? Who do you think wrote that manual? Who created that 'logical conflict' just to see how A-10 (Julian) would use A-1 (Leo)?"

"My 'scream'? That wasn't a skill. It was a signal. A sign to my men (the pirates) that their part of the test was over. And my 'clean' voice on the radio? That's just good equipment, Julian. It's all in the details."

Silence fell. All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place: the non-existent crew, the engine failure, the pirates, the storm. The empty emergency lockers.

The ninth passenger [Arthur] stopped in front of the stunned Julian.

"They,"—he glanced at the eight survivors (Leo, Marcus, Mia, Kenji, Eleanor, Finn, Chloe, and Sajlas)—"were just the instruments."

He looked Julian directly in the eyes.

"And you... you were the experiment."

The "non-obvious benefit" flashed in Julian's mind like an explosion. They hadn't sought him out as a "connoisseur"—they were testing him.

Could the "aesthete-theorist" (A-10), capable of assembling the perfect team, become the "shepherd-practitioner"—the leader capable of guiding it through absolute chaos?

"You passed, Julian," said the real Curator.

He turned to his technicians and nodded at the eight "heroes," who had just realized they were merely lab rats.

"They are ready. Load them up."

The technicians stepped forward.

Then the ninth passenger looked at Julian, who stood alone on the deck of his ruined experiment, realizing he, too, had only been part of someone else's design.  

The real Curator smiled.

"And you are ready, A-10. Phase 4 begins next week."