[Player Log Start!]
[Log Holder: Michael Kapok]
[Level: 2]
For a moment, Michael was pinned to indecision. But then his higher brain functions kicked into gear. He didn’t know who Barry was, but the octopus clearly did.
He could work with that. He could pretend. It wasn’t hard to lie when the thing he was lying to had no idea what his face looked like.
It took a moment of hovering in mid-stride for him to finally locate the Communicator Keyboard. According to the item description, anything you typed in there would automatically be spoken by the machine in the Octopus language. Handy.
Michael typed in what could be a passable excuse – if he could feign fighting a vicious hangover, he would, but it was a gamble whether alcohol was even possible underwater, so he had to pick something which had a higher chance of turning out true.
The other octopus, the one who had approached him, was beginning to curl into itself, tentacles withdrawing to be closer to its body, preparing to strike. Michael forced his shaky fingers to type faster.
Thankfully, this one didn’t seem all that important, and it was talking to him as if he were an equal, so he likely hadn’t been charged with leading the meeting, whatever it was about. He crossed his fingers, and clicked enter.
Over the speakers, a warbling, clicking series of sounds played, emanating from himself.
The octopus stiffened for a moment, and Michael reached out for the weapons systems, until it relaxed fully, making a chuffing sound which the Translations Panel explained helpfully as, ‘Ha. Haha. Haah.’
Laughter was good, right? It meant he was doing something right, at least. Michael decided to go with it, trying to keep his spiraling thoughts at bay as he put in the obvious follow-up, “Did I miss anything important?”
The octopus’ tentacles flexed, keeping it hovering in approximately the same position as it shook its head up and down, “We’re lagging behind in the shafts, apparently. An extra shift has been assigned, and you’re one of them. Guess who’s with you?”
Tone indicator portions of the panel described the incomprehensible series of clicks and squeaks being ‘earnest’ and ‘eager’ but also ‘tired’. He guessed on a hunch, “You?”
The octopus threw all eight of its arms out, “That’s right! We’re working a double shift. Good for us. I’d suggest we find a few porcupinefish and have a bender, but we need to get to work. Now.”
Michael didn’t like this. But he allowed himself to be guided away by the yet-unnamed octopus. Which he decided to call Algae in his mind, for the murky brown green color that it was.
Algae took him out of the giant hall he had been deposited in, taking him out into the glowing city made of faux coral built on top of outcroppings of rock. From there, they went down, down, down. Into the gaps between the rocks, where there lay yet deeper layers to this cephalopod utopia.
It was much darker here. Whatever the luminescence upstairs was, it had not been granted down here. Michael had to engage his night vision mode, and look around the vague shapes of other octopus, drifting about and chipping at the rocks.
“What are we doing here?” He asked, because there was no less subtle way to ask the question. Maybe they would interpret this as tiredness or exasperation?
More chuffing that got translated as mechanical laughter. Algae’s one eye squeezed shut, “Isn’t that what all of us want to know? Now, start over by that section. And remember, look out for anything shiny. Those need to be collected specially.”
Michael did as he was told, moving the octo-bot over to the rock wall Algae had indicated, and engaged the autopilot to start pulling chunks of rock up and to the side. While he watched the mind-numbing work being carried out for him, he had nothing to do except sit and think.
What were they doing here? And a better question: why?
There had to be something down here which was worth conscripting all these other cephalopods and squids for, so what could it be? Their grasp on machinery was questionable, unless you counted what the Harbingers had. But what control and influence the Harbingers had over the Cephalopods was unknown. So he sat, and observed, as a machine did all the work for him, and data for the different types of soil in his viewfinder scrolled past the screen.
Through it all, the squids and octopi talked. They talked incessantly. Exchanged jokes and stories and complaints. All useful information, if the context of it wasn’t lost on him completely. Michael could only keep his responses as normal as he could make them, so as to not draw attention to himself.
Something that confused him about the setup they had here was why the Harbingers had one of their own situated here of all places. They could build anything they wanted. Set up directives to make squids work for them like they had with the Mobs back in Hygeia. Why bother having a person here?
“There’s been an uptick of porcupine fish sightings around the waters out back.” One of the ones working around him confided casually, “Anyone thinking of going on a hunting spree?”
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“Isn’t that risky, after last time?” Another asked.
“Nonsense!” Algae laughed, “Those big-beaked bastards of Center Hall shouldn’t be the only ones slinging porcupine. A few quills each would get us out of this crap job.”
Oh. Now Michael gets it. He’s here for a sting operation. These animals were poaching clearly, with the way they had talked about porcupine fish before implied some sort of drug-like effect being wrought from them. And the former pilot was being asked to look into it.
“Whaddaya say, Barry? You in?” Algae asked.
Michael was almost glad that he had taken the octo-bot off their hands, because he couldn’t bear to think what would happen to Algae and its friends after such a bold confession.
“I kinda want to stick with this job right now.” He admitted, because they expected him to respond somehow, “Must be helping someone with this, right?”
Raucous laughter followed his statement. Maybe he had provoked them into giving more clear instructions.
“This is a ridiculous idea for a construction project.” The squid who had suggested the porcupine fish hunt scoffed, “Digging out all this shit, and they want to put living spaces here? In cracks of rock we’ve hollowed out? It’s just not sustainable.”
Finally he had been giving context. And it was… not what he had been expecting. This was a construction project? All his knowledge was telling him that this was a mining operation.
“Not to mention the weird black gunk we keep finding at the very bottom.” Another shuddered, “We just managed to build a pipe system to funnel it all out, but there’s more again.”
Everyone groaned and complained, but Michael’s mind was reeling. They were finding oil here, and didn’t understand the significance of it.
His heads-up display beeped, and he took a moment to take in the circle around a small nugget of shiny stuff that it identified as ‘gold’ before it was being dumped to the pile of similar shiny stuff they had collected, to be sent off to some unknown location.
Unknown to the squids and octopi at least. Something told Michael that the Harbingers knew.
Minerals, he remembered from Not-Verity’s speech. They struck the areas where minerals were rich and plentiful.
The Developers and Harbingers were after minerals. And had gotten the cephalopods and their assorted sister species in on it too, without the creatures’ knowledge.
It was betrayal of the highest order.
“Why aren’t you saying anything, Barry?” Algae asked, its words reading as ‘sincere’ and ‘worried’.
Michael had to tell the truth. Or what he could fathom as the truth. This whole twisted knot of a Level was too complicated for him to properly understand. But he knew he hated being lied to, and that these fellows had done nothing to deserve that type of treatment. So he started with a simple confession.
“Barry wasn’t your friend.” He typed out in clear, concise wording, listening to the speakers warble out his statement to stunned silence.
Everyone tensed, the hostility in the canyon more claustrophobic than the tiny machine he had been crammed into that stank of sweat.
“What is this?” Another of the squids asked, “Barry, what’re you talking about?”
He had to get them to listen. They weren’t bad creatures. They could band together and oust the Harbingers from here too, just like they had with Hygeia!
“From what I can fathom, Barry was a sting operative, befriending you to get you to confess to crimes.” He explained, “He was not your friend.”
This revelation did nothing to improve their alarm.
“What are you, if you aren’t Barry?” Algae asked, singular eye narrowing, “I know you’re still it, so why are you talking like that? As if you’re not?”
Oh boy. Here’s where it got complicated. Michael could just come out with the truth outright, but the chances of them taking him at his word and not thinking that their friend Barry was suffering from a mental break were high. He needed something undeniable.
A button that he had overlooked caught his eye. The Guise Retractor. Meant to make the front part of the octopus suit fold open, so that the hatch could then be swung out to allow the pilot to exit. He hit it, and all three sea creatures recoiled when faced by cool metal and whirring pieces. Now that the Guise had been removed, he could see that the heads-up display was slightly translucent. Which meant they could see his faint silhouette inside, even if he could only barely catch a hint of their squirming tentacles beyond the view of the camera.
“Do you believe me now?” He asked, waving for effect.
“Yes.” A voice said. Actual properly enunciated English crackled over the speakers. Something bright appeared on the edge of his awareness. He turned in surprise to see the other fake octo-bot, with a lantern hanging off its forehead. In front of it, however, was an obvious person, wrapped properly in a bright yellow scuba suit. A stream of bubbles followed up from the oxygen tank strapped to his back.
“We had wondered who was behind that.” He revealed, the smile evident in his voice, “But we finally meet, Michael Kapok.” The voice was familiar. It was the man he had stolen the octo-bot from.
Michael gulped, hand hovered over the controls, trying to pick out the one he needed to press to send him rocketing upwards. But he couldn’t find the right ones immediately. So instead he activated the microphone and spoke into it, “Who are you?”
“Lucian, but that doesn’t mean much to you.” He replied, with a lazy wave of his hand, “After all, you’re going to be dead soon.”
Michael almost thought that it was a bluff, or an invite to a fight. But then red warnings were flashing across the screen.
[Manual Override: Pressure Leak]
Water began flooding in from the corners. But this wasn’t going to be an issue with his Air Bubble Spell. He began setting it up, and the protective embrace of the dry air closed around his head, even as water pressed into his body around him.
The water level rose up and up, going from his ankles to his neck in the matter of seconds. He grinned winningly at the man in the scuba suit, but he didn’t look at all bothered. Instead, he tsked, “That won’t work this time, kiddo.”
And then the water reached up to his face, pressing against the air bubble, which quivered for a moment, but held. Until the Harbinger twisted his hand to the left.
The air bubble gave way. Water flooded into his face, getting into his mouth and nose. There was an odd suction around his lips, even as he tried to force his jaw shut. Bubbles of sweet oxygen burst out from there, as if pulled forth by an outside force, letting saltwater drift in.
Michael’s vision was already blurring as he felt himself begin to rise, the seawater pushing him upwards. Unseeing and lost in a panic, he wrote out a Direct Message, just as his head collided with metal, making him white out.
“Send someone else out to head to the surface.” He heard Lucian say, voice traveling easily underwater, “They travel in packs, so the rest of the herd must be somewhere above. I’m sure there’s a special someone who has a score to settle and isn’t wrapped up with damage control elsewhere.”
That was the last thing he heard before he felt his chest give way.
[Player Log End]