Seek Those Who Hide

Posted on Fri Jun 2nd, 2023 @ 7:39am by Captain Akiva ben-Avram & Lieutenant JG Ryland Dedeker & Commander Arianna Frost & Lieutenant Commander Leonora Wolf MD & Lieutenant Teejay & Warrant Officer Laena ben-Avram

5,514 words; about a 28 minute read

Mission: Season 1 Interlude II (E5.5)
Location: Villa 17 | Temtibi Lagoon, Risa
Timeline: ID 6 - Following 'Snow on the Beach' and 'Sharing Is Caring! No?'

Frost's Room in Hut 1...

After the jarring awakening by Laena and her accusations and outrage, Ari locked the door to her room and cleaned the broken pitcher of orange juice and got the sticky substance off of the floor with the help of the roombahs. She replicated some cheese sandwiches and pulled out another pitcher of juice. She took the plate and a glass of the juice over to the balcony which overlooked the water.

After what happened, Ari was more than happy to just stay in her room and not see anyone for the whole day and sleep and read, maybe have a swim later in the day when no one was around. Especially when Laena, Akiva and Cal weren't around.

Part of her wanted to go and talk to Jaya, but she also felt like she should leave her friend be and enjoy the holiday with her husband. There would be time to talk later.

As she sat in the comfy recliner and leaned back, just as she was about to take a bite of her sandwich, her commbadge sounded off an incoming call.

"Phantom to Commander Frost." The flight crew had taken straw polls over a rotating schedule of who was allowed a brief reprieve on Risa and who had to maintain the Phantom's disguise as the USS Smedley Butler. Whoever this officer was would be one of the losers. His tone certainly reflected it. "We have a problem."

Arianna sighed and reached over, the sandwich back on the plate. "Frost, go ahead." She said as she tapped the commbadge.

"We have been conducting planetwide sweeps for Ryland Dedeker and Sophie Xiong for the past day, but during the shift change that abruptly ended," the comms officer reported. "Primary ship systems have been locked out and the computer is unresponsive. The hardware containing the NICK interface is missing. We are currently communicating through a jerry-rigged communication channel piggybacking off the main deflector and relaying through the local grid. We're going to lose scrambling in a minute and protocol dictates comms blackout and we haven't been able to raise either Captains ben-Avram or Mrazak. What are our orders?"

"Fuck my life..." Arianna sighed to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'll contact the Captains. Have you managed to contact Ensign D'hikatsi? If not, can you try to reboot an old partition of Ferrofax as a stopgap measure while we find him and get his assistance?"

"Roger that," the comms specialist reply. "Ensign D'hikatsi was last seen on the ship but is no longer aboard. We will try to raise Ferrofax." A pause. "Damn! Scrambling is lost. Commencing blackout." The channel beeped as it disconnected.

"Fuck!" Arianna swore as she got up from her recliner and headed towards the door. She grabbed her official communicator and her private communicator as well.

Sure Akiva was incommunicado and probably by now talking to that green witch. Arianna was not relishing seeing the woman so soon after what had happened, but their ship and crew were in trouble so that superseded any and all personal issues.

So, she quickly ducked out of her room and stepped over to Akiva's room and then pressed the buzzer. "Pleasedon'tbegettingitoninthere!Pleasedon'tbegettingitoninthere!Pleasedon'tbegettingitoninthere!" She recited a mental mantra and pressed the buzzer a few more times to signal urgency.

When Akiva opened the door, he was half dressed and holding a glass of something clearly alcoholic. Obviously he had not been expecting Ari. The look on his face turned from frustration to embarrassment for numerous reasons. His state of undress. His lapse with day-drinking. Memories of their mostly platonic, almost problematic rendezvous on the beach the night before...

"Oh... uh..." He set the glass down and pulled a robe around himself. "I thought you were Laena, coming to explain..." Shaking his head, he put that away. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Laena with Ari. "Forget it. What's on your mind, Ari?"

Ari had to scramble to get her mind out of the gutter lightning fast as she took in his state of...self pity, self destruction, self indulgence? Whichever one it was, she had no time to dwell on it, nor did she want to. Not after last night nor after the scuffle with Laena earlier. "NICK's missing and the ship is having major technical issues, it appears Khaiel, Ryland and Sophie are as well. I gave the order to reboot a partition of Ferrofax before I lost contact with the ship. With what Leah reported yesterday, I think we need to get in touch with everyone and ascertain locations."

Slowly sinking to his knees as if his legs were jelly, Akiva muttered a quiet prayer under his breath. "HaShem, give me strength..." He took a deep breath. "All right. Go wake Storr and Jaya. I'll only need a moment to get dressed."

Arianna nodded, and without waiting for more she stepped over to Storr and Jaya's room. She pressed the buzzer but no answer came. She pressed the buzzer a few more times. "Frost to either Garlake, do you read? We have an emergency situation so get out of whatever it is you're doing."

There was no answer.

"Are they already awake?" Akiva walked out of his room with wind pants and a windshirt along with hard sole shoes. For all appearances, he looked like he was ready for a jog on the beach on a balmy day. A sinking feeling in his gut showed through on his face. "I haven't seen or heard from them since... that breakfast."

Arianna shook her head, "me neither, and they aren't responding now." She turned to look over at him, the expression on her face matching his, the dread in the pit of her stomach matching his as well. She bit the inside of her cheek to re-center herself. "That's five potential MIA's. We need to contact the Administrator Eran and get access to rooms in order to confirm before we raise a full alarm. Laena's definitely awake and she was here minutes ago. We should check the other huts too."

"No need..." Akiva accessed the door control and scrolled through multiple menu options until he found what he was looking for. "Aha." Maintenance mode. But then it requested manual authorization. That made Akiva grin. "I'll be right back." He went back to his room and returned with a PADD. "Voice authorizations are resistant to brute-force hacks," he explained. "I would have trouble sleeping at night if this was the external security measure around the villa." By the time he ended his sentence, the PADD's internal processing worked out the authorization. The door to Storr and Jaya's room opened.

Arianna stepped in first, "if you two are naked, cover up please. We have people MIA and need your help looking!" She didn't wait as she stepped further into the room. Only to find it empty. The bed appeared done up, on one side, and careless and fancy free on the other, a clear indicator of the two occupants.

Clothes were strewn about every which way, Jaya's clothes to be precise. Storr's belongings were put away neatly, with exact, sharp precision.

"Somehow I am not surprised she is this...messy." A fond smile etched itself onto Ari's features momentarily before the worry kicked back in. "Doesn't look like there was any sort of struggle...they could have simply left early."

Then she turned back to Akiva, "can you access the CCTV? See what time they left?"

Akiva picked up one of the colonel's cigars. The burnt end was dried and crusty. "They haven't been here for longer than that," Akiva mused aloud. Registering Ari's question, he blinked. "I don't know what the surveillance systems are like here, but I doubt there is video footage within the villa. The concierge was pretty emphatic about privacy. But she did mention bioscanners at all entrances." Akiva snapped his fingers. "If we can hack into those logs, then we'll know when everyone last came and went."

Ari nodded, "good call. I'll tap Matija when we have a timeline - he's met them. Maybe he'd seen them somewhere or at the very least he can ask around for us." She headed over to Laena's room while Akiva looked into the logs, and pressed the buzzer. "Laena, if you're in there, please open the door, we have an emergency and we need to do a head count and we could use your help."

"She's not here," Akiva said sourly. "She... ran away." Walking toward the exit without further commentary, Akiva stepped out into the outdoor common area. There wasn't anyone in sight. "I don't see any obvious sensors from here," he said. "Let's check the primary entrance on the boardwalk side."

"Ah..." Ari made a sound of acknowledgement as he commented on Laena. "I would assume that there would be sensors at the entrance, remember how they said we'd need to assist entry to those who didn't get specifically assigned to the villa," she said as she followed him out and towards the boardwalk side.

"What I'd do for a tricorder right about now," Akiva mumbled as his eyes visually scanned for any obvious sensor pad. Of course he knew an external emitter would be unnecessary for such a setup. "I'll set my PADD to passive mode and see if I can pick up a signal." A brief glance at his PADD made Akiva shake his head. "Nothing. Maybe if one of us goes out and in again?"

Arianna nodded, "you scan, I'll be the guinea pig. Mind you, if I get zapped, you're explaining this, you're the tech expert, I'm just the security grunt." She said with a chuckle as she headed over to the entrance.

"Alright, I'm stepping out." She announced once she reached it, feeling it was very unnecessary, but years of training to telegraph actions for records were hard to beat out of someone. With that said, she stepped through.

"Anything?"

"Maybe..." Akiva said, ignoring her silly joke while he concentrated. His brow furrowed ever so slightly. "Come back and I'll try to isolate it."

Frost stepped back in, though she said nothing. He'd tell her if he found anything. When he was focused on a task, he seemed to have that extra shine to him and his mind picked up things a lot of people wouldn't.

"There!" Akiva double-tapped the PADD with delight. Looking up at Ari and beaming at her, he said, "There are inactive forcefield generators embedded throughout the ground, undetectable until they're activated. There's a simple CHAP method that checks the detected life-sign against a registry. Failing that check would activate forcefields around the entire perimeter." He looked back at the PADD. "Backtracing that signal, I think I can access the scan logs."

Arianna blinked, "I have no idea what you just said, except the last bit, so...good?" She shrugged. Worry began to further brew inside her however. Jaya was her best friend, for the lack of a better term, and Storr was a brother from another mother. Worrying about people was a new emotion for her. Or rather, worrying for family was a new emotion.

"Looks like Storr and Jaya left yesterday and never returned," Akiva said grimly. "On the other hand, Laena never left." He looked around at the huts. If anyone else was awake, they were not out in the open. Including Laena. The question of where she went was as plain on Akiva's face as his nose. "Khaiel, Mrazak, and Sophie have been not returned since the day before yesterday," Akiva said as he continued reviewing the entry logs. "It's been longer than that for Bao and Rodi. But it looks like Finley, Leah, Teejay, Cal, Nandi, and Ryland are all here." As the last named rolled off his tongue, Akiva cringed as if it had a bitter taste. "Ryland..." With the repetition, Akiva looked toward the hut where Ryland was staying. His eyes narrowed with suspicion. "No. No way."

Ari stepped over to him, "what? What's wrong?"

"Unless I'm mistaken..." Akiva began to march toward the hut opposite from the one they had claimed. "... the only one in this hut would be Ryland." Laughter could be heard through an open side door. Male and female laughter. Akiva stopped cold. "And now I think we know where Laena went."

Whilst a petty little demon lived in each person, particularly in each woman, Akiva was primarily her friend and whilst it would work in her favor to just let him go in there assuming the worst, she couldn't do that. Not with what she knew. He needed a clear head and she needed to help him achieve that state. It was the right thing to do, but by no means easy.

Ari moved to go with him, but stopped mid way, grabbing his arm and motioning for him to turn around. "Akiva before you go in there, take a breath and think. I know where your mind is going and I will tell you on good authority it's not what you are thinking, at least I am pretty damn sure it's not. You and Laena need to talk, alone. Before...things happened and things were said which I will not repeat because it's not mine to say. And I can't believe I am going to say this, but consider your words and your actions when you go in there. Just...think with your head, that's all I ask, alright?"

At first Akiva just stared off, thinking as he listened. When Ari finished dispensing her advice, he slowly nodded. Then, even more slowly, his head pivoted toward her and looked her deep in the eyes. Pivoting on his feet a few degrees, he placed a platonic kiss on one cheek and then another in the way of his people. It was not a gesture he had performed since childhood, one that he often received from extended relatives, and certainly not a gesture that was common throughout the Federation.

But it was how one thanked dear loved ones on the world where he was raised.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Truly."

With that, Akiva walked through the open side door which led into the kitchen area of the hut. As he already knew, there was no Mrazak, Sophie, or Khaiel. Only Laena reclined on a sofa, her slender emerald leg propped up in Ryland's hands. The man was leaning over her and was breathing heavy.

"I think I got it," Ryland said, his back to the door.

Laena, however, saw Akiva in the doorway and let out a squeal of surprise.

"Damn, girl! I ain't done yet!" Ryland protested. "Hold it in until I finish."

"Oh my God, Ryland, shut up!" Laena said as she tried to pull away.

"You keep wrestlin' with me like this and you'll only make it harder." Ryland was doing his best to gently wrap her ankle with some medical tape he'd found, but he was not much of a medic.

"Stop!" Laena said. "Stop and turn around, for fuck's sake!"

Ryland let out a frustrated sigh. "Whatever, darlin'. You wanna' bang it out like before and see the damn thing swell to high heaven, then--" He had been talking about her sprained ankle, but when Ryland turned around to see whatever Laena had been caterwauling about, her concern suddenly became clear. "Whoa, now, Captain," Ryland said with his hands out in front. "Ain't what you think."

"Yeah?" Akiva's face was perfectly neutral and expressionless. "And what might I think? That you're 'banging one out' with Laena? That it gets harder the more she wrestles?"

"Yessir, that would be the thing," Ryland confirmed with a nod. "You see, I found her outside with a bum ankle and all, so I had to help."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Akiva didn't interrupt. He wanted to hear Ryland's defense of the compromising situation.

"It's true," Laena said. "I didn't want help from anyone, but I couldn't even stand. Ryland said he had a medkit, so... here I am."

"I see." Akiva folded his arms over his chest. "How's your ankle now?"

Looking down at her foot, Laena shrugged. "It still hurts."

More than anything, Akiva wanted to put her to the question. Why did she run from him? What was she keeping from him? What did Ari know that he didn't? But this wasn't the time. "We'll get you proper treatment," he said, "from a proper doctor." The side eye glare he gave Ryland could have turned sand to glass. "Thank you, Ryland, for your kind intervention."

Laena blinked. She could tell Akiva was upset. That much was obvious. But he wasn't yelling. He wasn't accusing. He wasn't even nervous. This strong, stoic, unflappable man before her was tall and inspiring and... a stranger. She always knew him to be as brave as he was brilliant, but why did it take emotional distance and conflict to bring it out? Why couldn't they just love each other? Along with everything else, it made her want to cry. "Thank you," she said softly, "for understanding."

"We have a problem," Akiva said, moving forward. "People are missing. We don't know where they are. And the Phantom is out of commission unless they can reboot Ferrofax back into the main computer."

"Sounds like a shit ton of problems," Ryland said. "Thought this was supposed to be a vacation..."

At that, Akiva let a little steam come out from beneath his hot collar. "You are wanted for questioning," Akiva said, thrusting a finger at the man's chest, just shy of making contact. "The only reason I won't turn you over to Risian authorities right this minute is because I need to see the bigger picture first. Rest assured, Lieutenant Dedeker, that you and I have some hard conversations coming in your near future. You'd better have a hell of an explanation for yourself these past couple days."

"I'll be sure to," Ryland said. "I'll, uh, go clean up now." He was still half-dressed and reeked of booze and sweat.

"Yes. Please do." Akiva didn't hide his visibly contemptible expression.

As Ryland retreated to his room, Laena propped herself up on the sofa and crossed the leg of her injured ankle over her other leg. "Wanted for questioning?" She looked truly concerned. "What did he do this time?"

"What he didn't do might be a shorter list," Akiva said. "I'll see if Leah or Teejay can tend to you. Then we need to figure out where our missing people are."

Laena nodded. "Kiv..." she said softly. "We need to talk."

"We do," Akiva agreed. "Stay put. We'll bring help to you."

It was then that Laena took note of Ari who had been a proverbial fly on the wall by the door. We'll bring help, Akiva had said. Had she done it? Did the wicked witch play her leverage over Laena? She stared at Ari, wishing she could know one way or another.

Arianna however paid her no heed. Instead, she turned on her heel and headed for Leah and Teejay's hut. "Which room are they in?" She asked of Akiva who had followed along. "The way those two acted yesterday they're definitely sharing a room."

"Why the fuck is everyone fucking around me and I keep having to be the fucking good girl?" Ari couldn't help a somewhat irritated thought.

"I don't know," Akiva said. "But their hut mates were Bao and Rodi who haven't been here in days." He stopped outside the door, wondering what sort of scene waited for them inside. "You have history with Leah. Maybe you should talk first."

Arianna didn't wait, she just banged on the door. "Oi, you lot! Git'up! Shit's fucked and we need your help!" Frost yelled as she banged on the door and then began pressing the buzzer in an annoying way.

It took about a minute of incessant banging and ringing before there were sounds heard from the inside. "Ari, so fuck me you stop that banging right now, for the love of god!" Leah's annoyed voice came from the inside.

Inside and not opening the door.

"Open the door, Leah, we've got problems." Ari frowned. Leah was normally not the type to avoid people outside of her door.

A moment of silence before a sound of a forcefield went up and then the doors opened.

Leah stepped closer, dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top looking much worse for wear. Pale, sickly, hair matted and dishevelled.

From behind her, out of sight beneath a mound of bedding came an unhappy grumbling whiney grunt of a second not very well individual.

"Jezus, Leah what sort of a bender were you two on last night?" Ari looked at the edges of the door. "What's with the forcefield?"

There was a thin, faint line of discoloration along Leah's exposed underarm that looked all too familiar. It wasn't in bloom like overgrown shrubbery as with Reggie's infection that Akiva witnessed at the medical center, but the math wasn't hard. Akiva let out a sigh. "She's infected." He had sent Leah and Teejay to check on Reggie and now they were falling ill. "I think it's the same thing Reggie has. I suppose we'll have to add this to our list of problems." Turning around to sigh and rub his forehead, Akiva struggled to think. Turning back to Leah, he said, "All right. So we need a full medical profile on whatever it is you may have gotten from Reggie. If it's as contagious as it seems, then we're down by two more people." Looking at Ari, Akiva said, "At least they're accounted for."

The covers moved with signs of a very uncomfortable Teejay, his non-verbal protests at the amount of talking definitely audible to those at the door.

Leah leaned against the side of the door on their end. "No problem Captain, I'll send over what we've got. I think I got it yesterday when we went to check on Reggie's progress after the Delta protocol." Then she processed the rest of what Akiva said, "we did just have a shared dream with a few people. Other infected."

Ari nodded, "go on, we are trying to find Khaiel, Storr and Jaya and get a beat on the others."

"Well..." Leah mused, "fuck, Sophie said she had been kidnapped by Pakleds?"

Ari shared a look with Akiva before returning to Leah. "Go on."

"Ryland, Reggie, Sophie..." Leah sighed, "Mrazak, another Vulcan, a Cardassian woman, Teejay and myself, there were probably others, but we interacted. We're certain Ryland, Reggie and Sophie were at ground zero, the underground tunnels. So they would be carriers, the others are probably just unfortunate spreaders."

Ari sighed, "if what you say is true, we may have just snagged another victim. Laena. Ryland was tending to her twisted ankle. We were hoping you could help with that."

Leah rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, sorry. The villa should have an EMH though. The EMH will want to report this to the medical authorities, it's in their base programming and if they are worth their salt they will institute quarantine on all of us to minimize vector spread."

"All right, so I'll see if I can access its subroutines and deactivate its mandatory reporting protocols," Akiva said. "If we can even find it..." He chewed his lip in frustration. "Nothing can ever be simple."

"It doesn't look that such fate is in our cards, no." Ari sighed. "Alright, you two keep in touch." She said to Leah, "stay put and we'll get help to you. If you get any more of those shared dreams tell them to shelter in place, tell you where they are and relay that to us."

Leah looked more tired by the minute. "Will do. Good luck, I hope you find them quick."

Ari nodded, "me too. So we know Cal, Nandi and Fin are still here. We need to go see them and I need to contact Matija, see if he's seen Jaya and Storr."

"Why are you still talking?" Mumbled a grumpy looking Teejay as he staggered from bed to doorway, blanket wrapped about his shoulders and draped like a vast robe. He wore boxers, but nothing else and his face was a grim shade of ashen discomfort. "Delta radiation," he said. "High concentration. And no physical contact," he added, gifting Leah an accusatory look. "It's real easy to pick up, even if you're not intimate. Leah picked it up from Reggie." Teejay looked to Akiva then, and raised an eyebrow. "EMH should be easy enough to find?" He questioned. "If all else fails just mortally wound Ryland," he half-joked. "With the rest of them, can't we use the Phantom or the ship to track them down?"

Ari rubbed the back of her neck now, "yeeeahh nah, you know when I said shit's fucked? NICK is missing along with Khaiel which has left the ship in shambles. We barely got contact about their technical issues before they got cut off. We're doing this the old-fashioned way until they manage to reboot Ferrofax...hopefully."

Leah nodded, then grimaced. "We sent a sample to the ship for study, if you manage to get in contact with them tell them they need to run a scan on themselves...in case no NICK means containment failure."

Arianna sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "We are so never having a holiday ever again." She muttered. "Alright, thanks. Go rest, let us know if you need anything, we'll have it beamed in."

Leah nodded, "I'll send you a list. We'll need some stuff." She looked over at Teejay apologetically.

"Somebody get a doctor!" Akiva called out.

Immediately a holographic woman in an eggshell white jumpsuit appeared in the middle of the huts and turned to face Akiva. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," she said with a smile that flashed far too many teeth.

"Well, at least there's that..." Akiva said.

The holographic woman smiled at him almost blankly. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," she repeated.

"Before we get to that," Akiva said as he did his best to passively back trace the signal sent from the holographic emitters to the database. "What are your mandatory reporting protocols?"

"All guests at Temtibi Lagoon are guaranteed full privacy and discretion under interstellar Federation law," the hologram said with a chipper burst of glee. "Rest assured that all medical emergencies will be treated with full anonymity."

"I see..." Akiva let out a sigh. "Well, I suppose we'll hope for the best. Come with me."

Leading the Emergency Medical Hologram to the hut where Ryland and Laena were waiting, Akiva gave Ari a shrug and then visibly crossed his fingers where the EMH wouldn't see.

"Who's that?" Laena asked, surprised at the sight of the strange woman.

"I am the Emergency Medical Hologram," she replied with far too much eagerness for a sentient lifeform. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

"My ankle," Laena said, looking down toward her foot. "I think I sprained it."

"Oh, how terrible," the EMH said with a sudden maternal tone, though her wide smile was back in short order. "I have just the thing." Holding out her hand, a protoplaser beamed into her waiting palm. "This will do the trick. Please stay where you are and refrain from sudden movement."

While the EMH passed the protoplaser back and forth across Laena's leg, Ryland came out of his room freshly groomed and in clean clothes. "Whoa! Who's the hot--"

Akiva punched him right in the nose and activated the door mechanism with his other hand. The door closed before Ryland hit the ground.

"What was that?" asked the EMH.

"Seems I bumped the wall," Akiva improvised. "Woozy, so hot..."

"I can check you for hyperthermia in just a moment," the EMH said. "Are you suffering from any other ailments or injuries?"

"No, that's quite all right," Akiva began to say.

But then Ryland came back out of his room. "Look, I know you thought I was fixin' to pork your lady, Captain, but I swear I wasn't." His nose was bent to one side with blood dripping down his chin. "Either way, you best not lay a hand on me again 'cause I ain't having it."

"Oh dear," the EMH said with a perfectly replicated look of concern. "You're bleeding!"

"Oh no..." Akiva froze for a moment. This wasn't going to be good.

Having finished with Ryland, the EMH stood up and went straight to Ryland. "Let me take a look at you. Are you suffering from any other ailments or injuries?"

"I, uh, no, um, maybe I'll just, uh..."

A medical scanner beamed into the EMH's waiting hand. "Oh dear," she said. "Your immunoglobin readings are off the scale. Have you been sick recently?"

"Uh... no?" Normally Ryland was a smoother liar than that, but between his bender the day before, his weird dreams during the night, and the fact Akiva had just rung his bell left him out of sorts.

The EMH let out a tisk. "Oh dear. I may need to refer to you the medica--" Her program paused before she began twitching. "Oh dear." Her facial expressions jumped from one to another without any transitional micromovements, giving her a bizarre poltergeist look. "Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear." Then, as if nothing were wrong, her wide smile returned. "Please state the nature of--" And then she vanished entirely. The protoplaser and medical tricorder were left on the ground where they fell.

"Did you just chase away a holographic woman?" Laena teased, her spirits lifted by having her ankle treated.

"With a little help," Akiva said as he returned from his hasty act of sabotage. "Hopefully nobody else has any more slips, trips, or falls though."

"What about my nose?" Ryland asked.

Akiva bent down and picked up the two medical instruments left behind. "Suits you. I'm going to pass these on to Leah and Teejay for them to see what they make of the readings. If they clear you to leave this hut, then we'll talk."

"What do you mean?" Ryland and Laena asked at the same time. They glanced at one another briefly, then looked back at Akiva.

"What I mean is that Ryland is wanted for questioning in connection to some kind of an outbreak," Akiva said. "And our medical experts say he is contagious. We're all getting scanned. Whoever is infected goes into quarantine. Whoever is clean gets to figure out where our missing people are."

"Missing people?" Laena asked. "Who's missing?" Her concern turned away from the inconvenience of the situation to more pressing matters.

"We're not sure yet," Akiva said. "Don't go anywhere."

Leah had retreated back into her and Teejay's room to work on the list of items they would need. Ari herself after giving a nod to Teejay headed over to the next hut where they would find Nandi and Cal.

Teejay shuffled backwards to conspire with Leah, but he managed to gift Ari a soulful look of displeasure about the whole situation before the opening into their private room closed behind him.

She rang the buzzer as she reached the new couple's room. Everyone seemed to be pairing off on this vacation. It was quite adorable, and Ari sort of good-naturedly envied them.

"Cal, Nandi? It's Ari. Sorry to interrupt you guys but we have a few problems on our hands and we need help pretty urgently." Ari called, hoping she wouldn't have to bang on their door in the same manner did with Leah and Teejay.

The privacy screen on one of their windows came down. "Yes, ma'am..." came Nandi's voice drifting through the air, husky and strained. "We won't be but a mom--uggghhh!" The privacy screen came back up, cutting off the rest of Nandi's squeal.

"Oh for fucks sake!" Ari growled mostly to herself, "you have five minutes to finish, get dressed, and be out!" With that said she stepped away from their room and a little further onto the beach and opened a call to Matija to put feelers out if he or any of his contacts had seen Jaya and Storr since yesterday morning.

When Akiva walked back into the middle of the courtyard, he did a quick assessment. Leah and Teejay had to stay put. Laena and Ryland might be in similar straits. Hopefully Cal and Nandi were safe. If they were able to serve, that added them to Arianna, Finley, and himself. Not a bad team, all things considered. He just hoped it would be enough to get to the bottom of everything.

 

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