9 April 2027
Friday. Made a discovery during inspection. Behind a coil of rope in the hold, quite plain, a button. I pressed it to see what it did. A cheerful gamesmaster opened the hatch and asked if I was all right.
I am not all right. It turns out every chamber on my ship has one. Any prisoner who has had enough presses it, and out they go, and the rest of the crew carries on robbing me as if nothing had happened.
I demanded to know which carpenter put them in. Scarface said they came with the ship. I said ships do not come with buttons. He said this one does, and that it is watched by cameras from stem to stern, so the gamesmasters can see that everybody is safe. I said, safe from whom? He gave me a look I did not care for.
I tried to have the buttons taken out. The management said no, in a tone that suggested they had been asked before. I have settled for glaring at them.
Duchess pressed one by accident. Out she went. She has not come back. She is in the lobby being given crackers by children. Traitor.
— Captain Calico Jack, Terror of the Seas (all of them)
