Drowning Utopia

Chapter 15: Under the Bed

Tessa spent the majority of the second day trying to avoid Miss Briggs and Sir Cornwall. She was unnerved by them, about how they did not mention the stolen experiments from the university, how they offered her a position and residency with their country without hardly knowing her, and on top of all of that, the memory of what she saw with miss Briggs in the laboratory—whatever episode she had gone through—gave Tessa even more reason to wonder whether they were truly people that she could trust.

In the end, Tessa felt as though she needed to know more about the delegates before she could make a deal. In the late afternoon, during another performance that most of the passengers, including Miss Briggs and Sir Cornwall, attended, Tessa slipped out of the dining hall and made for their cabins. After stalling for a sailor who was passing by, she made her move.

Using a skeleton key that she had lifted from one of the sailors, she snuck into Miss Briggs's cabin. It was a tidy space with all the items well organized. Tessa was admittedly impressed by their assortment of belongings and the quality of all of them. She had to suppress the urge to take anything as she quickly and quietly looked over several of Miss Briggs's dresses hanging in the closet and carefully rifled through her trunks to see what she could learn about her.

She immediately found the woman's passport.

Well, at least they are from where they say they are from, Tessa thought as she double-checked the lining to make sure that they were not counterfeit. Next, she thumbed through several documents in a manila folder tucked away in one of Miss Briggs's bags. They were a series of correspondence between Sir Cornwall and the Avalon naval shipyards, discussing a trade agreement between several local companies in the city of Grace and what appeared to be the Royal Navy of Avalonia. There was also an ID badge for the Royal Navy Academy, along with a teaching certificate belonging to Sir Cornwall.

Tessa then found a familiar small case containing a series of vials and a notebook strapped inside it. Tessa realized that it was the experiment that Sir Cornwall took for Briggs when they left the city of Kenton. Inside the case, Tessa found that the notebook sported the words 'Project Warlock' stamped with an ID number below it. However, just like all of the others that they had handed over to the Count, everything inside the booklet was coded in a cipher.

Taking a closer look at the vials, Tessa found a note scribbled on the side of one of the larger bottles, "Final dosage. Congrats, Briggs." Like all of the ones they had stolen, there was a second set of vials below the first.  Tessa pulled out the container that she had stolen and compared it. They were the same.

Whatever this stuff is, Tessa thought to herself, Miss Briggs must not be the only one taking it. After all, the ID numbers on the sides of both bottles were different. Tessa wondered if that was perhaps identification numbers. She had just put everything back in its place when there was a noise out in the hall. It was Miss Briggs and Sir Cornwall. Tessa swore to herself as she quickly scanned for somewhere to hide, settling on under the bead.

Miss Briggs stated as a rebuttal to something Tessa had missed, sounding rather annoyed.

"All I am saying is that she may not be what she says she is." Tessa watched as they stepped into the room, their feet wandering back and forth. She held her breath, hoping they wouldn't notice anything out of place.

"Oh, come now, Nora. Why must you always be so suspicious of everyone?"

"Because you take things at face value too readily," she snapped. "Did you not notice that she took your pocket watch?"

Sir Cornwall stated rather carefully, "In fact, I did notice. I also noticed that she skillfully returned it at some point."

"At dinner. When she first sat down. She slipped it into your pocket when you were not looking."