Max's arms are getting tired. The electric outboard motor is still attached to the kayak but they had decided to paddle over to the boat to burn off their nervous energy. They had heard more numbers starting with a dollar sign and ending with an M today than they had heard in their entire life in aggregate up to this point. They also had absolutely no idea what those numbers meant. What the hell is a "valuation"? If something has a "$20M post-money valuation", well first of all it is difficult to know what role money would play in a post-money world, but second of all does that mean it's worth $20M? Can you ask for a $20M check? Max suspects the answer is no, but if it doesn't mean that then what does it mean?
Contemplating the true nature of money has distracted them from their primary task of rowing the kayak without hitting anything, and now the port side of the PB is too close to avoid contact at the kayak's current momentum. The front of the HDPE plastic kayak hits the side of the PB's hull and the kayak rings like a bass drum, followed by a painful scraping noise as it slides along the hull's paint and fiberglass exterior. Despite their inattention they have managed to hit basically where the ladder hangs down the side of the boat, which they can just reach with the end of the kayak paddle if they grab it at the far end. The paddle hooks one of the ladder rungs and Max hauls themselves over with one fluid motion like a river boatman with his punt. They hoist themselves out of the kayak and onto the ladder, hook the kayak to the rope and pulley system designed for that purpose, and pull one end of the rope with them as they ascend the ladder, causing the kayak to follow until it reaches its normal resting place on the side of the boat. Up over the top of the ladder.
Their gray five finger shoes make contact with the boat's fiberglass deck, the railing brushes against their shins where there's a gap between the bottom of their black tights and their ankles. Over the tights is a pair of baggy cargo shorts, slightly covered by a black tee shirt, which is covered by a bright blue windbreaker. Their slightly spiky short hair is covered by a red beanie.
Left toward the stern, right between the engine bay and the main hatch, down the stairs, through the little hallway between the galley and the map room, through the main room with the couch/bench/Skye's bed on one side and Skye's office desk on the other, to Max's bed and workbench in the V-berth at the bow. They sit down on the bed and are immediately blinded by phosphor-white light.
HONK HONK DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY HONK HONK DISPERSEN IMMEDIATAMENTE HONK HO- "fuckfuck SORRY fuck" HONK HONK YOU ARE TRESPASSING, LEAVE NOW HONK HO-
The blinding white light starts strobing, turns red, then shuts off.
"Sorry! Sorry! fuck. Sorry!"
By this point Max has identified the light and sound to be coming from a drone hovering outside the porthole window at the top of the V-berth, grabbed the nearest vaguely weapon-shaped object (a metal yard stick) and is pointing it at the drone the way a medieval knight would point a sword to insert it into the gap between armor plates at their enemy's neck.
"Max! It's Skye! I'm trying to turn it off fuck"
Max blinks. Detail of their visual surroundings is starting to emerge again, albeit obscured by floating colored spots.
"What? Skye? I think it's off but can you turn it down? You're ringing in my head like the voice of God."
Tinkerbell's "speaker" function is actually a megaphone, designed for crowd control and information dominance in the urban battlespace.
"I'm trying but I don't think I can. Uh. Okay. Uh. I'm going to try flying through the window, can you grab it and put it under a pillow or something?"
Tinkerbell makes a smooth arc up about a foot off the deck, down through the window, and up about six inches to decelerate to a hover. Having previously mapped out the whole boat it can calculate the path between any two points that doesn't hit anything and uses the absolute minimum energy, which is almost always a graceful arc. Max grabs it in the middle, coming up from the bottom, careful to avoid the rapidly spinning rotor blades. It fights their attempts to move it, the rotors applying counter-forcing to keep it stuck to that one point in space until the rotors abruptly shut off and its weight (which is only a few pounds) falls into the palm of Max's hand. They grab one of the pillows on their bed with the other hand and put it back with Tinkerbell under it.
"Okay how does it sound now?"
Muffled by the pillow the booming voice that had ricocheted though the small berth is now louder than Skye's normal speaking voice but not cloud-partingly loud.
"It's fine. What the hell!?"
"Sorry! This was the only way I could think of to talk to you that the cannery-fuckers wouldn't be able to see. If you're over there I have to assume they have access to your phone. How are you?"
"Uh, fine. What, should I not be fine? What's going on?"