“As if the damn storm wasn’t enough,” grumbled a redheaded woman. “Now those rich idiots are screwing around up on the deck!” The woman rolled out of bed, steadying herself in the rolling cabin before looking decidedly green and holding her stomach. After a moment, she managed to stagger out of the door and along the corridor.

As she progressed, she heard shrieks of excitement, and identified it as a woman she’d met a few days previously. The woman was the very definition of a stereotypical blonde: good looks, no brains. Just seeing that vapid expression two minutes into their initial conversation had been enough to ensure the redhead did her best to avoid the woman like she was diseased.

Making it up the stairs, she shoved open the door, only to have it blown back in her face, along with what felt to be half the ocean. Now thoroughly soaked and irritated, she took a look out the porthole to see why the sea was boarding the ship, only to realise the ship was caught a violent storm.

Focused on her task of keeping her lunch down while managing forward motion, she hadn’t realised before that the rocking of the ship was worse than usual. Either situation did its best to empty her out like a sick dog.

After a minute of staring at the relentless rain, she noticed the screaming had yet to stop, and quickly came to the conclusion that something serious had happened. No matter how rich you were, messing around on the deck of a boat in a storm was idiocy of an unholy order.

Hearing the screaming approaching, the redhead braced herself and threw open the door again, stumbling out onto the slick deck. The door was promptly slammed shut by a particularly violent roll of the deck. which also tossed the woman against the wall next to it.

As she slid down to a sitting position, gasping for breath, she noticed the screamer rushing at her from her right.

She would have rushed past completely, had the red not promptly stuck her leg out and tripped her. The screaming came to an immediate stop. After revelling in the relative silence for a moment, the woman poked the prone airhead with a foot. “Can you tell me what the hell is going on?” The blonde stared back blankly, forcing a repeat of the question, at which point she then sat up and began talking incoherently.

After ten minutes of straining to hear the blonde, hold down everything in her own gut, and occasionally making sure they weren’t both washed overboard, the redhead finally managed to find out the situation.

One of the young men on the large ship had decided to take a couple of girls in a quick helicopter jaunt to show off, and had gotten caught up on the outskirts of the then approaching storm.

As he came in to land on the ship, the wind had suddenly dragged the helicopter across the deck into the bridge, sending the helicopter, captain and much of the capable crew up in flames. The quicker-thinking fat cats had grabbed the scant lifeboats and taken off, paying no mind to whether the boats were filled or not, and the only reason the flaming ship hadn’t already sunk with everyone else was the remaining crew who had turned up and were attempting to save the ship.

“Well, looks like shit went sideways and bought an express ticket to Hell,” the red-haired woman muttered. As if trying to make up for the situation that it had caused, the rain poured down harder, but that only served to make the ship more difficult to salvage, making the deck treacherously slippery and spreading the burning fuel.

Realising the inevitable end rushing up, she felt a bubble of anguish rise up, as well as disappointment for the life she was about to miss out on. Her thoughts started drifting towards certain people, and her eyes stung with tears for a moment.

With a shake of her head, she suppressed her emotions and forced herself to her feet, deciding to have a good look at the object that had put her on this damned ship in the first place. “I'm going to look for something,” she said shortly to the other woman.

Walking back inside, she was trailed by the inquisitive sentences of the airhead, who apparently translated her words as “looking for something to help”. The redhead made her way down to the lower levels, stopping in front of the vault door of the relatively small cargo hold.

Focusing on the door, she tried to figure out how to get in with all her gear in her room. Just as she was deciding to go back and fetch it, twisting stomach or not, she noticed the heavy door wasn’t actually closed. As the ship rolled, it swung back and forth a little. Grabbing the handle, the lithe redhead heaved and swung the door fully open.

As she marched in, she vaguely heard the woman behind her saying something about not being in here, but decided it wasn’t any comment of usefulness and kept moving. Looking around, she didn’t immediately spot what she was looking for, and as she moved to keep exploring, she was nearly knocked over by a heavyset man who rushed around the corner of a crate with a locked metal box under his arm. As they collided, a hard sound rattled out from the box. The man gave her a look of disgust, before running out the door past the blonde.

The offended woman nursed her vexation for a moment, before she decided tackling him wasn’t worth the effort. What he was carrying wasn’t large enough to be what she wanted to see, and she was reminded of her limited time by the ship's groaning.

After a quick search, she found the wooden crate she was looking for. She struggled to open it, ignoring the poking that started in her back. She staggered back, noting the increased groaning and muted booms while she nursed her sore hands. Her hands were maintained for delicate tasks, not clawing at wooden planks, and as such were soft and sensitive.

Finally tired of the aggravation at her back, she whirled, ready to knock the incessant woman unconscious, only to see her holding out a crowbar with an aggrieved expression. The red haired woman felt embarrassment itching at the back of her mind, but decided to ignore it as she grabbed the crowbar from her and turned back to the crate.

A minute later, various pieces of wooden planks and clumps of hay stuffing lay scattered around the crate. The redhead stood in front on the crate and looked down at the perfect piece of art that lay before her, as the world faded away.

The crate held what appeared to be a gorgeous stain glass window, but a more discerning eye revealed the glass to be shaped diamonds in a myriad of colours, cleverly designed and carved to interlock and hold the window together in its frame. The redhead lost herself in the beauty of the design, determined to burn the image into her memory for the remaining moments of her life.

She recalled what had caused her to chase after this for months; rumour was every diamond included in the work was a naturally formed one. While that itself may not drastically increase its value, in the current age of synthetic diamonds, the fact that so many natural diamonds of such a range of colours had been collected caused this to be elevated to the ranks of magnum opus, the masterpiece that the creator, if not his whole generation, dedicated a lifetime to. The three-foot-high window was a piece estimated to be worth tens of millions, and yet here it was, bound to sink to the bottom of the brine.

The outside world resumed its existence with a sentence that floated into the redhead’s mind. Not understanding, she processed it again. It was the tail end of one of the blonde’s lengthy statements, a series of words demanding an answer; “-but why is there a piece missing from the top?”

The world disappeared again, oddly taking colour with it this time. The woman furiously scanned the window and spotted the flaw. The locking curves of the connecting diamonds were hidden from first glance by some small bits of stuffing, but once seen the gap screamed out at anyone who set eyes on it, destroying the harmony of the entire image. The redhead felt disorientation, and then confusion. Where was the missing piece?

From the looks of it, the diamond that had been taken out would been the size of her palm, and most certainly the crowning piece of the whole window. The redhead cursed creatively in her head. Had the piece been stolen? Not on the ship, that was for sure, she'd had to break open the box herself. It couldn't have been before docking either, the playboy owner would have checked and seen the missing piece. Her thoughts drifted to the rattling sound from the collision with the fat man. It couldn't have been...could it?

She whirled away from the wooden box, the beauty now utterly destroyed for her. Without its centrepiece, the window was nothing more than a collection of heavy expensive rocks. Cursing herself for not giving in to her initial whim, she began stalking away, before she was stopped by a confused voice.

“You’re not taking anything?” She turned back to see the blonde staring at her, confusion evident on her face. The redhead was about to explain their deadly situation to the woman, in excruciatingly detailed words, but the creeping panic sneaking into the blonde’s expression made the redhead realise she might as well play along with the woman’s belief, if only to spare her own final moments from being further tortured by the airhead’s piercing screams.

She smiled reassuringly, but as she opened her mouth to speak was interrupted by rapid-fire thuds coming from the nearby wall. She turned in time to see the half the side of the room blast in at her. Despite her previous calm and determination to meet her fate head-on, she heard a scream claw its way out of her throat, and threw her arms up to protect herself from charging death.

A moment passed, in which she fell over on her butt. After a few more moments, she opened her eyes and peered between her arms. Less than 2 inches away was a long jagged spear of metal; the redhead screamed again and scrambled backwards, before noticing it wasn't moving. As her heart hammered away, she realised it was one of the support beams of the ship.

"Hello," called a quiet voice. The redhead screamed for the third time and whirled, nearly stabbing herself on the beam as she lost her balance. A tan man standing about a metre away, smiling wryly as he clasped his hands behind his back. "Sorry, but I couldn't think of any way to make myself known without scaring you. Figured we might as well get this show on the road."

The redhead spent a few moments trying to get her brain to engage with the scene in front of her; not only was this man perfectly calm in this doomed situation, he was standing among the debris from the wall exploding and was not only uninjured, but not even dirty. She just stared blankly at him, unable to process her visual information.

"Hello, anyone home? I don't have all day – actually, I suppose we do."

Her mind picked up on the problem that seemed most easy to resolve, and her mouth followed numbly. "All day for what?"

"THERE we go! Was beginning to think you might be mute, not a problem per se, but it's always awkward when you're not sure if the person is agreeing or not. Now, I'm here with an offer for you to live."

"Live?" The redhead was still stunned; mental shock from nearly dying was a lot greater than she'd ever imagined.

"Yes, live. As in, keep existing, enjoy being, continued occupation of your body, avoid Davy's Locker, not die on this sinking ship. Any of the above." The man looked a little irritated to have to explain, but otherwise maintained his pose.

Live. The redhead's mind suddenly kicked back into gear; she had an out from this hellish trip. "How?! And wait, who are you?"

"How? Well, you come with me, we leave, ship sinks, you not on it. As for my name, well, we can discuss that later. Are you willing to come?" The man resumed his smile, looking all the world like a friendly invite to hang out.

Alarm bells started going off like crazy in the redhead's mind. No one who was unwilling to give their name just offered something for free. Add in the fact that she had no idea how he arrived, suspicion began filling her mind. What did he want? Why her? Why not just grab everyone....

The redhead widened her eyes as she span around, searching for the blonde. Sure, the woman was annoying, but she didn't want her dead. She spotted a splash of yellow buried under a large chunk of metal. She scrambled over, avoiding the sharper pieces of debris, and crouched near the blonde's head. As she bent down, she saw the blood first, then the blonde's face. She knew the glass-eyed stare well enough to realise when it was too late. Hopefully, the blonde had gone as soon as the wall hit her.

"Thanks for the help," she whispered, and stood back up as the man made his way over to her. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to spot any suspicious off his face.

"Why me?" She said in a flat voice. "What do you get from this?"

The man stopped, then cracked a grin. "I need a thief. Hence, hiring you."

The redhead's eyes narrowed further. "And you somehow think I would be a good fit?"

"Ah, don't try to play the innocent here, we both know why you were on this ship." The man lifted one hand, showing a sheet of paper, and began reading off it. "Ms. Piper, age 35, born in Ireland, showed exceptional talent in grasping concepts all through elementary school, disappeared at age 10 when family–"

"STOP! I get it, you checked me out. What's the job then?"

The hand was lowered, the smile resumed. "Unfortunately, I won't be telling that. I need a thief, I can get you out of here. In exchange, you do a job for me. Those are the facts you get to work with, Ms. Piper."

The redhead thought it over, while a small part of her brain idly noticed there weren't any more reverberations through the ship. The whole thing was probably on its last legs, with nothing large left to break.

"Fine! I accept. Not like I had much choice anyway," she grumbled.

"Excellent!" The man's face lit up, and he waved his hand again. That small part of the redhead's brain also noticed the paper had gone missing, before it, along with the rest of her attention, was captured by the man-sized oval of light that sprang into being next to the man.

"After you, madam," he indicated the shimmering light with a bow.

"Oh no. No no no no no. No way that just happened. What the hell is that!" Piper felt her sanity slipping away; there had been way too much to handle in the last half hour.

"I believe it would be easy to deduce. It's a portal." The man was upright again.

"A portal. As in, you walk through and poof, you're somewhere else on the planet."

"Yes, that is what a portal does. Now that that's been established, can we continue?"

"What? No! I'm not going anywhere until you explain how you just waved a hand and a portal showed up."

The man began to show some impatience on his face. "Really? Here and now?"

"Here and now." Piper sat down on the ground and crossed his arms, before standing up again as she noticed the blood on the floor.

"Fine. Fast answer, I'm a god. We tend to do things like play with space as we like. Satisfied?"

Her immediate response was to laugh at the delusional idiot, before realising that it made no difference. Even if he was a rich nutjob who'd manage to get portable portal tech, for all intents and purposes he was a god at the moment. A god who could get her out of here, whereafter she could probably give him the slip. Plus, she was wasting time.

"Alright, if you're a god," she said, playing along, "then why does a god need a thief?"

"Obviously because I'm planning to rob another god. Do try to think. Why else would one need a thief?"

The woman decided that at this point, she'd had enough crazy for the day. She stalked over to the portal, and after giving him a good glare, stepped through, her last sentence lingering behind her. "And just call me Piper."

The man smiled, then turned back to face the beam that had nearly impaled the redhead. A body appeared among a glitter of lights, standing in front of beam with its arms in front of its face. The man raised his arm and snapped his fingers, and chaos broke loose.

The beam flew forward and impaled the body, driving it back and pinning it to a crate. The ship groaned and buckled, and fires lit up and raged among the debris. The man turned, and walked through the portal, which spun and shrank down into nothing behind him, leaving behind a sinking ship, a crushed blonde and an impaled body with the features and cascading red hair of Ms. E. Piper.