As the night grew deeper she’d noticed the storm part in an eye around the beach, revealing shining stars, submerged in the depths of the void. Taylor would have liked to turn over and watch them, except for her condition. And not only the physical. She was beyond tired, and the bottomless hole in her stomach was little affected by whatever it was she’d eaten. But bit by bit, feeling was coming back to her limbs, and they were not happy.
She was still down an arm. By the feeling of the coarse sand rubbing all over her, she was without much of any of her gear. Or clothes. Because while a part of her had wanted to get up and start seeking out some answers hours ago, she was still lying there on the beach as the sun begun to rise and the storm picked up again. Several things didn’t make sense.
For starters, while she didn’t know much, bullets were still familiar. And she was pretty sure she’d take two to the head. That was supposed to be the kind of thing people don’t recover from. In the beginning she’d believed that perhaps this was some kind of afterlife, some hell she’d been sent to for her many sins. She wasn’t sure what those sins were, but she wasn’t a good person. That much she knew. If this was hell, then she deserved to be here. Taylor was pretty sure of that. But there were issues with that theory.
For one, what kind of hell would just let her lay there in peace? Even if her body was loudly protesting its condition, on the scale of tortures she’d had while alive, this wasn’t that bad. She could vaguely remember being mostly spread, smeared across a wall, or was that someone else? No matter. The peace, it didn’t fit. And that was just one part.
Now sure there were monsters all around here. All kinds of shark-mosters and squid things and women and girls too small to be anything but teens walking around with little on but some monstrous appendages and tiny bikinis. And that didn’t fit. What kind of hell was filled with near naked sea-monster women? Why would some of them speak English and some Japanese?
But the most potent point was that she understood them. She knew Japanese. Taylor was pretty certain that wasn’t the case before the sudden lobotomy. That made no sense. She was sure you lost bits of your mind when they get blow out of your head, you don’t learn another language. Why? How could knowing Japanese be torture? Sure she could understand how the girls nearby were mocking her, but on the scale of problems and issues, bullying was a personal one. Minor, in the grand scale of things.
And Taylor was certain that something on a nearly impossible major scale had happened. Something she’d won, by great personal sacrifice. Something the world paid her back with two to the back of the skull. So she laid there and watched, learned. She was not at all concerned with getting up in her birthday suit. Even if she wasn’t an exhibitionist. For all the near tentacle horror, it just wasn’t there. The mockery, the looks, the scuffles, the maneuvering for position and rank between the other inhabitants? Oh it was malicious and violent, but none of it was sexual.
They were behaving like a beach of nudists. Like it didn’t matter. Like the idea of hiding from the storm and the sea swell, like putting something between them and the sea and storm was wrong on some fundamental level. Somewhere deep in her gut she felt the same. And that was new, and worrying. It wouldn’t stop her from getting some clothes like a civilized person at the first opportunity, but it was another clue.
Taylor had super powers. She knew that like she knew how to breathe. But they were missing. She should have had bugs. Or at least some crab-fish or something. But all of it was gone and somehow that was both a massive relief and a source of dread. It occurred to her, as her mouth watered, that the girls watching her were snacking on thin sheets of some kind of dark metal. Their drinks were viscous and reminded her of oil. Which was crazy, except her own had was still sticky with the remnants of her own meal.
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Well, whatever. Not freaking out until she could do something about it just seemed right. And if she took this short break to release some of the pressure that was drowning her, no one noticed in the rain. No doubt if they had, the girls watching would have commented on the water works. But her time had ran out. A tall woman had walked over to her watchers, causing them all to stiffen up. After a short conversation eaten by the rain, she was coming over. And then there was the elephant in the room.
Nearly everyone had massive guns on them. The example coming over at least had a pale white shirt on, one that somehow reminded her of a sailor uniforms from olden cartoons. How she could remember that and not her own history was maddening. She wore a blue headscarf that turned into a cloak at her shoulders, falling behind her to her knees, and long, above knee metal boots. The metal moved like leather, almost painted on, like it was a part of her. But none of it held a candle to the main feature.
Massive cannons slipped in and out of her coat, like they were just hanging on her back. Looking at them up close, they were tiny but reminded her of nothing else then naval cannons. The woman had several turrets poking out of her cloak and Taylor wondered just how screwed she was if the cape meant her harm.
***
The Ta-class Battleship was not impressed. Sure the flotsam hadn’t been called on. They’d wasted no resources on calling her from the Abyss, but the girl was a mess. The girl was waterlogged, missing an arm and her rigging was less than tatters. She needed a better look.
“Hallo there sweetheart” she said in her southern drawl. She filled her voice with sweet motherly concern while her boilers filled with a familiar glee. “Had a nice meal? Enjoyed your nap?” she asked, smiling down at new girl. She crouched next to her and gently ran her hands through her ashen curls. “It’s a new day, time to rise and shine sweetheart.” The transport just looked at her with dead eyes, not even a radar running. Was it mute?
Her hand slowly closed into a fist in the back and she started pulling up. New girl was quick, she’d give her that. She didn’t scream. Didn’t protest. Slowly, she forced herself to her hand and knees, then up, up. The Battleship had to help her a bit, pull her up by the hair from the knees but there was no protest, barely even a whimper even as the girl swayed on her feet. And still, those dead eyes. Like looking into a lightless abyss.
“There we, go up and at them, huh sweetie?” she asked in her saccharine voice, still keeping her pinned, staring right back at her. Did this armless wonder thought to challenge her?
Slowly, the bottomless black eyes lowered. “Yes, Ma’am”. It was a whisper, barely loud enough to hear, but in a way enough. The girl was already a wreck. No point beating on a piece of flotsam.
“Now this is a working house young lady. If you want to ear, you have to work. So why don’t you go get me a snack. Can you do that for me?” she asked, smiling in a way that showed all her teeth. So close to that pale neck, she could rip her throat out in an instant. The flat chested twig simple nodded, as much as she could so the Ta pushed her away, sending her stumbling. No one was that docile. Why must she deal with an uppity freighter? One that thought itself clever enough to hide her resentment?
Well, it would get beaten out of her, or she’d get broken for parts, sooner or later. Though how in all the Abyss that ship came to be was a bit beyond her. The girl was twiggy, hunched over but tall, almost hollow, she could see her ribs even as she walked away, but her other senses told her she was one fat bitch, if filled with holes. That the ship was just as flat as the girl forced a snort out of her. A container vessel, if she wasn’t wrong. Modern, for their sensibilities, and not very useful. They needed tankers for oil and bulk carriers to feed the shipyards here. Midway ate up resources by the ton.
As she left to find some new entertainment, one thing kept bothering the Ta. What kind of container ship carried its own sandbars and shoals with it? Its grave, engraved upon its soul? That was one weird legend.
And Taylor? She wobbled away, trying to find some kind of mess hall, or at least a quartermaster or someone who wouldn’t look at her like a mouse to toy with. Things picking at her. The language. The monsters. The legion of similar capes and sea monsters. But mostly her home. It was a bay. She was pretty sure of that. It had hills and a shore and all kinds of stuff. It was a broken bay, run down and destroyed multiple times, abandoned by the world yet still persisting despite it all. But she couldn’t even remember its name and for some reason, that irritated Taylor to no end.