How to Find the Lemurian Treasure

|| Part Four ||

Fontaine didn't sleep well. All sorts of strange noises came to her from all sides - here a loose cable sizzled, there the engines stuttered a bit and didn't run smoothly, elsewhere the ventilation suddenly went berserk and began to blow a lot of oxygen, only to fall silent a moment later for several dozen more minutes. She could have sworn that she even heard a rat squeak at one point, but had already realized that the Dark Orca was far from normal sanitary conditions, so it wasn't a surprise. She just hoped the rodent wouldn't get too interested in her.

It didn't. Although she couldn't be entirely sure of that, because she finally lost vigilance and fell asleep.

When Fontaine opened her eyes, at first, she didn't know what was going on, except that something from the mattress was pressing uncomfortably into her shoulder. But when she blinked a few times and saw the opposite black wall, she remembered all the events of the previous day.

Sneaking up on a Dark Orca, getting stuck, spending the night on an unstable and uninhabitable ship.

She sat up abruptly.

Her parents would be furious, Grandma and Grandpa would probably give her pitying looks, and Ant would make it a point to remind her of the idea for the rest of his life, bragging that even he wouldn't think of such madness. Moreover, it will all happen today.

She swallowed. Compared to that, the prospect of spending some more time on the Orca with the company of rats didn't sound so dire. Probably.

Honestly, it sounded better than coming back.

She shook off, throwing these bizarre thoughts out of her head. Then got up and looked around the room until her eyes landed on the breakfast plate put on the makeshift desk. She smiled slightly. At the thought of Finn trying to take care of her, of course and not what was on the chipped piece of glass.

A slice of bread, a piece of dried fish and three pickled eggs. Well, maybe it wasn't very tasty, and compared to what she had eaten on Aronnax, it probably shouldn't even be called a meal, but at least she wasn't hungry. One advantage of this whole situation.

She put the plate back on the desk while Finn came running into the room, panting. He abruptly closed the door and before Fontaine knew it, he had grabbed her arm and pinned her against the same wall where the entrance was built into. Sam also ground his back to a moderately clean piece of metal.

Fontaine snapped out of her shock and returned to reality when she heard footsteps in the hallway. Though no, it wasn't footsteps. It was a run.

"Finn! Get back in here! You'll pay for this, ya hear?!", Hammerhead yelled.

Fortunately, he apparently didn't think to look for the boy in his own room, because he quickly ran on, still yelling at the whole sub.

When things calmed down, Finn breathed a sigh of relief, then smiled awkwardly. But apparently it wasn't until she glared at him that he realized he was still holding her hand.

He released her and gave her some space. She crossed her arms and took a firm stance.

"Do I want to know what you did?"

The boy groaned softly and scratched the back of his neck.

"Something he'll probably disinherit me for again. Or not. If I give back what I took from him."

"And what did you take from him?" She raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly.

"This."

He pulled out a map. The very same map that Fontaine came here for. It took her a few seconds to recover from the shock. Unfortunately, Finn noticed.