The Wreck of the NRV Frontier

[Shiola]

"Well, this is splendid. Fucking spec-tac-u-lar."

Evan's words, spoken to no one in particular, were scarcely audible amidst the roar of the open sea.

Although the more perilous parts of the deck were strictly off-limits given the weather, the elevated observation area was relatively safe. On better days, instrumentation could be placed on small sconces affixed to various piece's of the ship's frame. Given that it was for the time being acting as something of a ferry, most of the equipment must have been stowed away. Evan hadn't really thought too hard about it, though he did momentarily consider taking a chair out here. Standing wasn't easy on wet steel, in rough seas, in a bathrobe, when reality was a bit frayed at the edges.

"Oh, there's another one! Weeeeeeeird." He pointed to a whitecap in the distance that seemed momentarily capable of expanding to encompass the horizon, before dissipating in a vibrant wash of white and deep blue.

The thing was, while they didn't search the bags before everyone boarded the ship, Carla did have a conversation with him about setting a positive example and not being so obvious about his intention to spend most of the journey absolutely out of his mind. His reasoning was that a lack of sobriety would probably assuage any sort of seasickness or social anxiety.

It worked for sailors, didn't it?

So he'd ground up some Golden Teachers in a mortar and pestle and borrowed a friend's pill press, tossed them into an empty bottle of antidepressants, and voila - now he was just an eccentric having a really, really good time. There was a moment when he'd stared into the mirror in the bathroom where he wondered if he'd lived a truly valuable life and if he was really using his limited time on this earth in a meaningful way, and considered for a moment the possibility that he'd forgotten important biological functions.

However, everything had started to work out once he'd made his way to the observation deck. It had the nicest view of the sea, and was the only spot he could go out and taste it, feel it on his face and hair and in his coffee.

"Oh shit, right." Evan took a sip of the cold coffee in the mug he was still toting, now partly salty from the seawater. It was pretty good, actually. A little bit of salt helped balance out the acidity, and caffeine was good for dulling the screamier edge of psilocybin.

"Well psilocyn is the active ingredient, actually. I turned the psilocybin into it when it went into my stomach. Oh gosh, that's so pretty."

The sea continued to rage, but in a pleasant way. Like watching a really good actor just chew the scenery hard, channeling passions you knew had to go deeper than what was on the pages of the script. One could feel it. Evan felt the sea's rage. It wanted them dead, but he could kind of appreciate that from up here. That's what it was supposed to do, it was the sea. The ocean wasn't for them.

"I don't like that thought, but that's okay. They don't all have to be winners."

After a couple of minutes, he found he was experiencing cold and wet in equal measure to wonderment and awe. The balance between the two shifted uncomfortably, much as he was forced to on the open deck. The artificial light and heat beckoned. Evan returned to the sheltered portion of the observation deck, tracking wet bare footprints in as he did so. The warmth of the small lounge brought some happier thoughts back to him.

Like the memory of grabbing a towel on the way here. That was a good and noble thing that he'd done. Evan did his best to dry himself off, though the bathrobe probably had to be wrung out somewhere. Luckily, he was wearing it atop a t-shirt and shorts, so he didn't have to wear it all the way back to his bunk. Peeling it off his body, he carefully folded it and set it gently on top of the towel next to him.

"That's some good sea out there."

The rubber floor started to flow slightly. It mumbled something, or at least it sounded kind of like it was mumbling something. Floors didn't usually do that.

Evan stared at it for a moment, unsure of what to do.

[Frozen Smoke]

The hardest part about being so good at life was running out of things to do.

His essay? Filled with enough ESG buzzwords to make Al Gore blush
His portfolio? Optimised to within an inch of its life as he increased his Top Shot position

He'd even endured like, 30 pages of Peter Thiel's Zero to One before throwing it back onto the little table beside his bunk.

>be me
>go to pee
>penis isn't long enough
>can't stop pissing on my balls

The dark blue and white spray that appeared over the nose of the ship had long since lost the battle for his attention against the white square, surrounded by a light orange border. Reduced to a slightly more cultured backing track than the drone of washed up, grey haired finance guys who probably had to ask their intern how to fax a .pdf complain about the fact that bonds were getting wiped out for like, the 7th time this year.

"huh"

He blinked as rapidly as his cursor, trying to parse the words that had just entered his ears, interrupting the search for a punchline. His index finger reflectively moved up and pressed, turning the screen dark.

"Oh... Uh, yeah. Sure is... Wet."

[Dr Adjective]

[First pregame appearance of Esther Ježek]

On the first day, Esther had stayed in her cabin. Just because she couldn’t find any bugs in there didn’t mean there weren’t any, so she’d done her best to appear like a normal, if reclusive, college kid. Unpacked, caught up on some reading, listened to some music, taken a shower, gotten herself off, headed out for food, stayed up late reading some more, normal single young-adult on a ship stuff.

The next morning she’d had another cursory look for microphones or cameras. Still none to be found. Still pretty sure they were there. It’s not paranoia if the corps really do want to know everything about you. Maybe they just want to sell you stuff. Maybe they want you to become an obedient little worker drone. Disobedient drones still needed to eat however, so she’d stopped at the mess hall next. Food was okay, better than she’d expected, but still worse than at home. West Coast folk didn’t know how to cook, she’d had to come to terms with that since leaving Chicago.

After that, she’d figured the observation deck might be worth a look. She was probably only going to be on an arctic cruise once, might as well experience what unique things it had to offer. So she wandered the unrestricted halls aimlessly for a bit first, to look less like she had somewhere specific she was going. Then up she went to the open air.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t alone. Two guys were there sampling the fresh air too. Couldn’t really blame them, who knew what the corpos were pumping in through the vents down below after all? But it was still a slight surprise that anyone else would brave the cold and weather. Esther herself was already feeling the chill, and hugged her overcoat close to her torso as she stepped away from the doorway and out into the chill. She didn’t recognise either of them, but what else was new there?

The elder one of them seemed to be extremely high. Talking to himself. The younger, clearly not paying attention to him, thought he was being addressed. Esther walked past both, found herself a suitable place to lean, and took in the view. Only a few minutes, she decided. Get some fresh air, let some cold in, make the hot shower later feel that bit better. Not like there was actually much to see anyway, just water everywhere. Well there was the unusual conversation going on, she could eavesdrop on that for a bit too.