The men kindly asked Tom and Andy to take a seat in their van. Again. What was going to be the next disaster that awaits us? They weren’t out to kill us. These guys seemed to be so incompetent that an accident was our main concern.

They drove towards the beach, passing the harbor. The smell frying food was strong today. Chinese food always had this distinctive smell and usually the area was saturated by it. The government wasn’t happy with all the Chinese imports and made some rules that delayed the shipments in the harbor. China responded by buying most of the harbors using a number of American subsidiaries. Guess what shipments get priority now.

The smell of the cooking faded away as we drove on and arrived at a house surrounded by sandbags. Another house scheduled to be eaten by the rising sea soon. The van parked in front of the house. Of course our poor kidnappers picked this dilapidated spot.

“Alright, everybody out!” Bob commanded. “Jeff, Juan, start carrying our stuff to the boat. Jamal, keep an eye on the kiddies here.”

“Hey, why does he get the easy job?” Jeff wanted to know.

“Last time somebody gave you a gun, it took you all of five seconds to shoot the tire of my van,” Juan complained.

“Hey, nobody told me about that safety thingy.”

“I rest my case.”

“Quit yapping and start carrying, you bums,” Bob said as he started to hand them boxes from the trunk. “Move it. That transmitter has a limited range.”

“Right. Gold!” was Jeff’s response as he found his motivation and started carrying the boxed to somewhere behind the house.

When all stuff was moved, Bob came to us. “Come on, we don’t have all day. Let’s go.”

We got out of the van and walked the path the rest had taken on the side of the house. When we got in front we saw there was a wooden pier leading up to an old rusty boat.

“Are we going on that thing? It looks like it’s held together by duct tape,” Tom asked. He really wasn’t happy with the idea.

“It’s a good boat! Don’t you start insulting the boat my grandpa left me,” Bob said stubbornly.

“And what’s that smell,” I asked pinching my nose.

“What smell?” Bob asked blinking his eyes.

“The diesel fuel you mean. Or the lubricant. Juan always spills some.” Jamal suggested.

“Diesel? I thought most ships used hydrogen or methane? You have a diesel synthesizer here?” Tom asked, intrigued by all things technical.

“Synthesize? I'll have you know I use the best fossil fuels I can find. None of those artificial crap. It was what my grandpa was using and it's what I use,” Bob stated irritated.

We said nothing. Most of the gas Tom's car used was synthetic and barely smelled. This guy was paying premium prices for real authentic diesel. No wonder they are desperate for gold.

Hesitantly we walked the wooden pier to the welded together pieces of rust resembling a boat. That pier itself also was fixed up with shipping pallets and didn't invite confident walking. In some ways these guys were courageous. Or ignorant. Sometimes it seems to be a synonym.

Bob helped us on board. “Welcome to the Fishy Tart. Juan here will take you to your cabin where you can freshen up. Preparation for launch will be completed soon and we'll be on our way shortly. I do hope you can join your captain for dinner this evening. We thank you for booking with Bob's Excursions.” Bob rattled of jovially. He had been waiting a long time to use those lines.

With that, we were brought to a small cabin with tiny toilet, shower and two bunk beds.

“I guess this is home for now,” Tom remarked as Juan closed the door behind us. “And our prison room.”

I laid down on the top bunk. Some time later the engine started with lots of coughing, and wheezing while the crew was shouting things that shouldn’t be repeated, but in the end the house and pier we departed from got slowly smaller in the grubby window in our cabin.

“Andy, why are you always wearing your shirt? It's much cooler without. There is nothing else to do here so you can get a tan. The aft deck is great to catch some sun.”

I didn't wanted to admit that I was developing some serious man boobs. It was weird as I wasn't getting fat. More the opposite. “The ozone layer is thin man. I don't want to get cancer here.”

“The ozone layer is recovering. You're making stuff up.”

“I don't trust the news.”

“Fair enough.”

“There goes Juan again. That's the first time barfing for him today, right?”

“Yep. 7 in total since we departed. So lucky we don't even have a hint of sea sickness. I have an extra dessert riding on him barfing 9 times before sunset. That guy should not be on a ship.”

“Making bets with the kidnappers now are we? Getting cozy?”

“We can’t escape here. It’s the middle of the ocean. And I have the feeling everything is going to be okay.”

“There is our captain now with the medication. Stingy guy should have given the meds the day before yesterday. There goes your bet.”

“Oh, look. Jeff is trying to get the phones to work again. This is going to be good. I learned so many new cuss words when he's trying to get it working.”

“Who would have thought those always online phones don't work so great in the middle of the Atlantic. Are you going to help him today? Tom, how did you hack those phones anyway?”

“I just found a few simple workarounds.”

“Simple? They were working on it for hours and you cobbled something in minutes.”

“I don't know. It’s all just straightforward and easy. Can you believe they used online tools to follow that seagull. I just pulled the files out of cache and enabled an emulation in a sandbox.”

“Right. Easy… You used to be a klutz with electronics.”

“I think it changed when I started to eat those beans. And I saw you going through those Sudoku puzzles you found like it was nothing this morning.”

“It was nothing. It were children level puzzles. The difficulty level on those puzzles must have been a misprint. So, you're going to help them?”

“Yep. This trip is not going to be shorter with them running the boat in circles. And they seem to desperate to turn back.”

“That's right. The coast guard was announcing a search for them as their debts have been called in. It’s probably why they’re out for gold.”

“Andy, how do you know that?”

“It was on the radio earlier. Captain Bob had the speaker on I think. I heard it clearly. You must have been on the toilet and didn’t hear it.”

“That must be it. Let's help them. Only laying here is getting boring otherwise.”

“Six days of canned food. I'm getting tired of this,” Jamal complained.

“Bob says we're almost there,” Jeff said trying to calm down Jamal. “It's just one more day.

“That doesn't mean I have to like it. Barfing Juan was supposed to be our cook. The meds work but he still can't cook. What a mess.

I heard them complain through the wall. Again. It was the fixed ritual. And Tom was helping Bob navigating. That left me quietly alone in the cabin so I could take a quick inventory of the things changing on my body: my hips were getting wider, waist narrower, a starter set for breasts appeared, less morning wood. Tom was sporting a beard you could use for sanding down the deck after these days without razor while I had no hair anywhere except for my head. What I had on my chin were hairs like some lonely blades of grass pushing their way through otherwise smooth pavement, and even those hairs were disappearing.

I can pretty much guess where this will end and that is somewhere in girl land. I can already guess what happened. There was the site about perfect body, my sister’s name that I used for those letters and the beans that made me healthy. Although it sounds really weird, my bet was on those beans giving me the perfect body, for my sister. That will teach me to use her name and stuff. It sounds impossible, but I’ve seen rats ready to help a seagulls with backpacks carrying gold. What is one more crazy thing, right? Sister dear might be a bit upset I stole her perfect figure.

The important thing right then was not to panic. We were still surrounded by people with guns in the middle of an ocean. I’ll just try to hide this like I was doing already. This boat was on its way to the source of the letters so perhaps there was an answer there on how to reverse this. I quickly pulled my clothes back in place and left the cabin.