Chapter 57 Hostile Takeover of the Goliath

Chapter 57 Hostile Takeover of the Goliath

The floor was giving up. Every time I stepped, the iron dipped and swayed like I was walking on a tarp stretched over a hole.

"Cyprian, the deck is melting!" Oswin shouted. He was sliding toward the railing as the metal turned to grey slush. "What did you do to the settings? We’re going to slide right off!"

"I’m looking at the ledger," I said. I didn't look at him. I was looking at Malone. The Captain was shaking. He held his rusted sword with both hands, but the blade was melting. It was turning into liquid data right before his eyes.

"You're destroying my ship," Malone hissed. "You're killing us all! This ship is my life!"

"I’m not destroying it," I said. "I’m liquidating the assets. There’s a difference in the paperwork."

"The engine is a heart, you idiot!" Malone stepped forward, his boots sinking into the deck. "If the ship goes, the god wakes up. We’ll be crushed before we hit the water!"

"The Syndicate promised you a body, right?" I asked. I walked right up to him. I didn't care about the heat coming off the floor. "A real one. With skin and blood."

"Yes," Malone growled. "Something you can't give me. You’re just a ghost in a suit."

"Look at Oswin," I said. I pointed at my friend. "Oswin, show him your arm. Show him what a real paycheck looks like."

Oswin looked confused, but he pulled up his sleeve. His skin was solid. It wasn't transparent. It didn't flicker like the other ghosts in the harbor. He looked as real as a man on the street.

"He's materialized," Malone whispered. His yellow eyes went wide. "How is that possible? No one survives the conversion."

"He’s on the payroll," I said. "He’s a full-time employee with benefits. The Syndicate wants to keep you as a battery to run their lights. I want to put you on the board of directors."

"You're lying," Malone said. "No one has that kind of soul-code to throw around."

"I do," I said. "But I need the iron. I need everything this ship is made of to pay for your new life. Do we have a deal, or do you want to keep being a radiator for the next hundred years?"

Malone looked down at his melting sword. He looked at the screaming souls trapped in the walls of the cabin. Then he looked at me.

"Do it," Malone said. He dropped the hilt into the slush. "If you fail, I'll tear your soul out myself."

"Cedric, initiate the Liquidation Protocol," I said into my comms. "Boss, if I hit that button, the whole ship goes into the inventory," Cedric said. "We’re standing on it! We’re going to fall straight into the harbor!"

"Just do it!" I yelled.

\[Skill Selection: Asset Liquidation\]

\[Target: The Goliath (Soul-Vessel)\]

\[Warning: This action will destroy the physical housing of ten thousand spirits.\]

"Accept," I said.

The sound was like a million glass bottles breaking at once. The massive iron ship began to dissolve into light. The black metal turned into bright blue lines of code that swirled around us.

"It’s working!" Oswin yelled. He was hanging onto a piece of the mast that was already half-gone. "But we’re going down fast!"

"Jarek, grab the ropes!" I shouted. "I can't!" Jarek’s voice crackled. "The blue light is screaming at me! I can't see anything but numbers!"

The deck vanished under my feet. For a second, I was floating in a cloud of neon numbers.

I saw the ten thousand souls. They weren't screaming anymore. They were being pulled into my system interface like a river of data.

\[System Notification: Massive Asset Acquisition!\]

\[Soul-point Balance: +1,200,000\]

\[Processing Malone.exe...\]

"Malone!" I reached out into the light. The Captain was glowing. His lead-colored skin was peeling away, and something pink and raw was showing underneath.

He was screaming, but it sounded like a man being born, not dying. "I can feel it!" Malone yelled. "The cold! I can feel the air!"

Suddenly, the light snapped. The ship was gone. There was no iron. No wood. No rust.

We hit the water hard. I went under, the salt stinging my eyes. I kicked toward the surface, gasping for air as I broke the waves.

"Cyprian!" Oswin was bobbing nearby. He was a solid man now, splashing around like a kid in a pool. "Where’s the ship? It’s completely gone!"

"In my pocket," I panted. I wiped the water from my face. I looked over at Malone. He was floating on his back. He looked like a normal man in his fifties, with grey hair and a confused look on his face. He reached out and touched his own chest.

"It's beating," Malone whispered. "My heart. It's actually beating for the first time in decades."

"Welcome to the team," I said. "Boss," Jarek said. He was standing on a nearby pier, pointing out at the water. "Look at the harbor. Something is wrong with the tide."

I turned around in the water. The harbor was moving away from the shore. A massive whirlpool had formed where the Goliath used to be.

"The water level," Cedric said over the radio. "Cyprian, look at the docks! The water is vanishing!"

The ocean was dropping. It wasn't a slow drain. It was like someone had pulled the plug on the bottom of the world. Ten feet of water vanished in seconds, leaving boats stranded in the mud.

"What happened to the lighthouse?" Oswin asked. The blue light was still shining, but it was hitting something new. The receding water had revealed the truth about Onyx Harbor.

Underneath the muck and the old shipwrecks, there was a structure. It was made of white marble and gold, a massive underground complex that had been hidden for centuries.

"Is that a temple?" Jarek asked. "No," I said. I saw the Gilt Syndicate logo carved into the giant iron doors at the bottom of the pit. "It’s a vault."

The massive doors began to hiss as the pressure changed, and a sound like a heavy lock turning echoed through the empty harbor.