Apocalyptic Pirates 6, page 26
“Yeah, but that hardly makes me a criminal.” Dia rolled her eyes. “That’s just normal if you don’t have a nanny and a governess and a trust fund.”
“I didn’t have a governess,” Ally insisted with her cheeks going pink. “I had a nanny. That’s different.”
“It’s so different, Dia,” Shannon said with a twinkle in her eye. “Didn’t you know that? It’s soooo different.”
“Sooooo different,” Letty chimed in.
“Oh, my god,” Ally sighed.
I grinned and kept quiet.
By the time the sun was sinking low on the horizon, we had passed into Guatemalan waters and were sailing for the cove that Ally had mentioned.
It was a picturesque location with deep blue waters and a few palm trees slouching so low over the white sand that their leaves almost trailed in the gentle waves. The setting sun beams shone through the fringed leaves and sent a shifting pattern of rippling light sparkling across the surf.
“Wow,” Letty sighed as she stood on the deck and looked out at the scenery. “What a view.”
“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” I agreed.
“Do you ever stop and just kinda pinch yourself sometimes?” she asked. “Like, sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am that I get to be here.”
“I never forget how lucky I am to be here with all of you,” I told her with a smile.
She leaned her head against my shoulder, and I rested my cheek against her hair.
Ally’s prediction was right about the internet. While Letty was below making dinner, I managed to gain enough bars to open up YouTube and upload the video.
I didn’t want to admit it to the others, but I did feel a faint thrill of something like anxiety as I watched the progress bar drag its way toward completion. I didn’t regret my decision for a second, but I also couldn’t ignore what a shitstorm we were opening ourselves up to. The Navy wasn’t going to like this.
Well, they should have thought about that before they started harvesting the goddamn dragons instead of following up on the promises the US government had made to begin with.
As the video was uploaded, I put my phone back in my pocket.
“All done?” Dia asked.
She and Shannon were standing on deck and watching the sunset. I went to stand between them.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s gone live.”
“Your comments section is going to be a war zone,” Shannon commented with a dry chuckle.
“That’s why I don’t want to look at it just yet,” I said.
“We can watch the sun go down instead,” Dia suggested.
“That sounds nice.” I put my arms around the two of them, and we watched the sky turn from blue to pink to orange to red. The clouds piling up on the horizon were the color of cotton candy, and already the moon was out and hanging in the sky.
“It’s like a smile,” Shannon said.
“It’s like an apple peeling,” Dia said.
“It’s almost as beautiful as the two of you,” I said.
Dia snorted and made a dismissive gesture, but even in the low light I could see the pleased flush in her cheeks.
Shannon smiled softly. She didn’t say anything, but she gave my hand a squeeze.
“Dinner,” Ally called from the hatch.
We hurried down the steps into the kitchen where Letty had prepared a feast of foraged greens and a tasty paella.
It was exactly what we needed after the day we’d had, and we all stuffed our faces. Once the initial rush of hunger had been satisfied, I pulled out my phone and placed it on the table.
“Okay,” Ally said with a sigh. “Here we go.”
“Why do I always feel like I’m about to have a dentist appointment whenever we read these comments?” Letty sighed.
“You guys don’t have to see them,” I said.
“Oh, no.” Letty shook her head. “We might not like it, but we’re in this with you, Drew.”
“No one should face their YouTube comments section alone,” Dia declared.
“Okay,” I chuckled, and I opened up the video.
Predictably, the comments section was a disaster.
“‘How dare you defame the good reputation of the United States Navy’,” Dia read out. “‘Shame on you. I hope you guys eat toenails in hell’.”
“Oh, my god.” Ally pulled a disgusted face.
“‘The Good Pirates are the only people telling the truth about what’s out there’.” Shannon read another comment. “‘Keep up the good work, guys, we’re all rooting for you.’ Well, that’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It seems like a real mixture of opinions this time,” Letty agreed.
“How many subscribers have you got now?” Ally asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t bothered keeping up with the numbers.”
“Once you’ve hit one million, any higher numbers are irrelevant?” Shannon teased.
“Kind of like that,” I laughed. “It still seems insane to me that so many people are watching.”
“It makes perfect sense to me,” Letty declared. “These are good videos. More than good, they’re important. We’re really doing something valuable here, Drew.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I hate the thought that people are being willfully kept in the dark about this whole situation. There are things like the forum, and I know more and more people are starting to realize the bigger picture of what’s going on, but that still feels like the minority.”
“We can only do so much with the information that we have,” Shannon pointed out. “We’re still discovering bits and pieces.”
“Like a jigsaw puzzle,” Dia said.
“Yeah, actually.” I nodded. “It’s exactly like a jigsaw puzzle.”
“Every video you make is giving more and more people more pieces of the puzzle,” Shannon said. “And that’s so important.”
“Thanks, guys,” I said.
I scrolled down through the comments and tags in my notifications. As I did so, one caught my attention. It was a video, and The Good Pirates account had been tagged in the description. The video was titled: “Why The Timeline Of The Meteorite Storm Doesn’t Make Sense.”
It was the best spelled and most coherent of all of the videos I was tagged in, so I clicked on it.
The video opened on a beach with palm trees blowing in the wind in the background. A hand came into frame and adjusted the phone, and then a woman stepped into the frame and bent down to address the camera.
“Hey guys,” she said. “So I don’t know if anyone is going to see this, but I figured, why the hell not try, right? We’ve all seen the power that videos have, and we know they can make a difference, so if my little video gets out there, I hope it reaches the right people.”
She was a strikingly attractive woman, and I couldn’t help staring at her as she spoke. She had smooth dark brown hair caught in a heavy thick braid that hung over her shoulder. Her eyes were dark in color but bright under thick, straight dark eyebrows, and a constellation of freckles covered her cheeks and nose. She wore a plain khaki-colored safari shirt, beige shorts, and big, chunky, practical boots, but the sensible, dull-colored clothing wasn’t enough to hide the contours of her body.
The whole effect honestly brought up some familiar feelings I’d had stirring in me during my adolescence when I’d first seen Dr. Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park. Which was ironic, given the state of the world, but I pushed the notion away as I focused on the woman’s speech.
“Okay.” She brushed a dark strand of hair behind her ear. “This is it in a nutshell. I think the US government knew a lot more about the meteorite storm than they’re letting on. I know we had advance warning that a storm was on the way, but the only information given to the public was that it would pass by harmlessly. But I’ve been studying the data here at the station, and this just doesn’t make sense to me. I think they knew far more about the storm’s impact than they have led us to believe.”
“Holy shit,” Shannon gasped.
“It’s complicated, and I get that this isn’t something that many people are going to want to hear.” The woman spoke with a faint twang that I now realized sounded like a Boston accent. “But I can’t see any way that the US government– hell, not just the US, I reckon this thing goes way further than that– I can’t see any way that they saw the same data I did and didn’t reach the same conclusions I have. I’m just one gal with a telescope, so if I could figure this out, it has to mean that they did, too.”
“That’s brave of her to put this online,” Ally commented softly.
“I was just thinking that, too,” Shannon said. “She’s opening herself up to all kinds of responses. Not just hate comments, but this is the kind of thing that could attract attention from other places as well.”
“Do you mean the government might try to silence her?” Ally gasped.
Shannon shrugged grimly.
“Anyway.” The woman sighed. “I could go into a whole host of facts and figures about this, but I reckon that would be a twenty-minute-long video that nobody would click on. And more than anything, I want people to know that this thing goes further than we might have thought. If you’re interested in more explanation on this matter, let me, uhhh… let me know in the comments. But for now, just know that I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I’ve got to say it: trust no one.”
The woman’s dark eyes stared into the camera, and I found myself hypnotized by the intense focus in her gaze.
“Trust no one,” she repeated.
And then the video ended.
“Shit,” Dia breathed.
“Yeah.” I leaned back in my seat and blew out my breath. “After all we were just saying about people not knowing what’s happening. Maybe this woman is going to prove me wrong.”
“I hope it doesn’t come back to hurt her, though.” Shannon frowned. “It looks like she’s just one person, and she doesn’t have many followers who would notice if something did happen to her.”
“I wonder if she knows anything else about the shower?” Dia mused. “If she figured out that most of the world leaders knew about the dragons before the storm, maybe she’s figured other stuff out as well.”
“What are you saying?” Letty asked with raised eyebrows. “Do you think we should… like, talk to her?”
“I mean…” Dia shrugged. “Why not?”
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Shannon said. “We could find out more about what she knows, and hopefully she’ll trust us because she knows the kinds of videos we post about.”
“Plus, she already tagged the account in her video,” Ally added. “So she must be hoping that we can help her in some way.”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head slowly. “I want to help her, but at the same time, she is a stranger on the internet.”
“But she might be all alone!” Dia exclaimed.
“She said she was ‘at a station,’” I pointed out. “That could mean anything.”
“Well, it’s not just about us helping her,” Shannon urged. “We’re hoping that she might have things to say that will help us as well.”
“Yeah, Drew,” Ally said. “We were just saying how we need more puzzle pieces to try and make sense of all of this. This is another piece of the puzzle.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “It’s not that I don’t want to help her, or be helped in return. I’m just trying to keep us all safe.”
“We know,” Dia assured me, and she squeezed my arm. “But we’re in agreement. We think this is a good idea, right guys?”
“Absolutely.” Ally nodded.
“Okay, then.” I clicked on the woman’s profile and scrolled to the direct message option. “What shall I say to her?”
“Age, sex, location… maybe send a picture of you holding up a huge fish you caught, to really show what a man you are,” Dia deadpanned.
“How about: ‘hello, I saw your video’,” Letty suggested.
“Good start.” I nodded.
“And say ‘you’re not being paranoid’,” Shannon added. “‘We believe the world leaders knew about the dragons before they arrived. Do you have any more information about this?’”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” I typed out the message into the box and hit send.
Dia let out a long breath.
“It’s weird,” she said when I looked at her in puzzlement. “There’s someone else out there who knows about this stuff.”
“It’s a good feeling,” I said.
“Yeah.” Dia nodded. “I just hope she responds.”
“She will,” Ally said.
“How do you know?” Dia raised an eyebrow.
“It’s what I would do,” Ally said.
“Yeah, but you’re not a scientist,” Dia objected. “She’s clearly a scientist of some kind.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Ally exclaimed.
“Scientists are different,” Dia insisted. “They’ve got facts in their brains.”
“As opposed to what?” Ally retorted.
“Spooky things.” Dia waggled her fingers in the redhead’s face.
“You’ve just got pocket lint in your brain, Dia,” Shannon snorted.
“Better pocket lint than legalese and a gun fetish,” Dia retorted.
“Hey,” Letty exclaimed. “Not necessary…”
“And your brain is full of biscuit batter,” Dia said with a grin.
Letty rolled her eyes and then started to giggle as Dia tickled her in the ribs.
“Where are the biscuits?” Dia chanted. “Where are the biscuits?”
They were making so much noise that I almost missed the quiet buzz from my phone.
“Guys,” I said, and then louder, “Guys!”
They stopped their horseplay and looked up at me.
I held up the phone.
“She replied,” I said.
End of Book 6
End Notes
Thank you for reading Apocalyptic Pirates 6! I’ll start working on the next book as soon as this one hits 100 reviews, so please leave a review right here. Thank you!
Don’t forget about my Patreon! You’ll get advanced audio chapters (for your ears) or written chapters (for your eyes), and nude/sexy versions of my covers (for your… uhhh… well…) I also have an audiobook subscription so you can get 3-4 of my books every month at a discount along with all the other stuff. Check it out here! Or search for my name on Patreon.com.
Amazon doesn’t update readers when an author comes out with a new book unless you follow that author on the store. Make sure you click this link and then click on the follow button. Then Amazon will update you a few weeks after my next book comes out.
If you want to get notified of my books the day that they come out, make sure you follow my Facebook author page and join my Facebook fan group. If you don’t follow me on Amazon or join my Facebook page, you’ll never get alerted that the next book is out.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Eric Vall
….
Patreon
Don’t forget about my Patreon! You’ll get advanced audio chapters (for your ears) or written chapters (for your eyes), and nude/sexy versions of my covers (for your… uhhh… well…) I also have an audiobook subscription so you can get 3-4 of my books every month at a discount along with all the other stuff. Check it out here! Or search for my name on Patreon.com.
Amazon doesn’t update readers when an author comes out with a new book unless you follow that author on the store. Make sure you click this link and then click on the follow button. Then Amazon will update you a few weeks after my next book comes out.
If you want to get notified of my books the day that they come out, make sure you follow my Facebook author page and join my Facebook fan group. If you don’t follow me on Amazon or join my Facebook page, you’ll never get alerted that the next book is out.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Eric Vall
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