Episode 27

“Why are there so many beaches?” Sharp was leaning up against the wormbox, sitting in a dejected slump. It was now 4:32am on a Saturday morning, and he hadn’t eaten since sometime after 2pm the day before. He may have had a swig of water after locking up the server room where the server had come to its demise. Was that sometime around 7pm? He wasn’t sure. Unlike everything else he did for Bloop, there were no data logs kept for every time he swallowed some water. He absentmindedly wondered if he should assign a bot to do that for him from now on.

I never should have answered the radio. I should have bolted home that very second. Then I wouldn’t be looking at this dumb, pretty beach.

“Is there a problem with beaches?” Cattleya sat perfectly perched on a lavender hat box. The hat had been placed on top of her pile of clothes which had been moved to the corner of the lab by the resource closet and the observation window. Then she filled the box with her unmentionables and sat on it protectively. Sharp had pretended not to watch her, but he had a hard time not staring at a hat with two holes on the side. He found himself unusually curious about what a hat would look like on somebody with horns.

“I like beaches as much as the next guy, but I’m getting bored of them. It’s not like we can frolic in the water and pose for pictures. The portal changes randomly.”

“Why would I ‘frolic’ with you? Besides, it sounds rather odd for a prickly person such as yourself to be doing.”

“Thanks.” Sharp said with a look that expressed anything but gratitude. “Look, your majesty, I’m just trying to say we wouldn’t have time to fish or forage for food.”

“Why don’t you simply say that then? Why say such ridiculous things? I cannot understand you half the time.”

Sharp didn’t have the energy to explain sarcastic hyperbole to her. She wasn’t the first person to take him literally and get offended, but if he didn’t get some food in his stomach soon, he was beginning to worry that she might be the last.

He let his eyes slide dismissively off her as he turned back to the portal. The timer read “15:45”. He had no idea when the portal would change again. At this point, they had seen portal windows anywhere from under two minutes to a little over thirty. “Interval” had been first suggested for describing these limited periods, but too many people enjoyed the irony of referring to windows of time within a door. Sharp privately agreed.

As if on cue, the room began to shudder and tremble as the portal’s view rippled.

“Great. Another beach.”

“Well, it’s not all bad,” replied Cattleya. “The sand is a lovely purple, and there are birds in the distance.”

“Whoop-de-do.”

“There is no reason to be so disagreeable.” Cattleya said with a snort.

“Did…did you just snort like a…”

“I fathom not what you are talking about,” Cattleya interrupted. She then turned away.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Sharp allowed himself a smirk, then continued watching frothy waves roll up onto the purple sand.

─── ·⋆⋅🚪⋅⋆· ───

Sharp was jolted awake at 7:13am as the wormbox began reacting to the portal again, showering him with sparks. That tortured hinge sound filled the room as well, and the metallic clanging sound added to the din. Sharp stood up and watched the portal with keen attention. Cattleya had curled up on her clothes pile, hat box in tow. She was stirring awake. The excited babbling of the technicians from the speaker above her began to mix in with the commotion.

Sharp had developed a theory that the portal mostly showed idyllic landscapes, but when it put on a concert for him, the destination was someplace recognizable. Sharp was hoping the next time it happened would be his ticket out.

Sharp and the excited technicians had debated long about where the last coat closet had led to. Arguments of time and spacial displacement, coupled with heavy gravitons altering quantum entanglement left Cattleya staring with puzzled dismay at the observation window as their heated conversation broadcast over the air around her. She also gave Sharp several long and suspicious looks since he seemed to be keeping up with them.

The noise reached a crescendo, then quickly subsided as a new scene filled the portal. Sharp beheld a grove of trees so close to the portal that some of the branches protruded into the lab. What mattered more to Sharp was the fruit dangling from the branches. They looked like maroon oranges.

I suppose they’re called ‘maroons’.

Sharp stepped towards the portal and tapped on a maroon with his finger. It wiggled harmlessly on the branch. He pulled the maroon off the branch with a quick tug, then stepped back. No tentacled, fanged furry critters leapt out to attack him. He gave a “hmph” of approval, then reached for his utility knife as Cattleya approached. Her tail was pushing her hair into place as she rubbed her eyes.

“Is it edible?”

“I was just about to find out.”

Sharp carefully peeled the fruit and gave it a sniff. The cool citrus scent of orange mixed with mint greeted his nostrils. He rubbed the fruit on the inside of his left arm and held the maroon out to the side as he examined his skin’s reaction to the fruit’s tangy juice.

No reaction. No reaction. No reaction. What?

Cattleya’s tail wrapped around the maroon and snatched it from his hand.

“Hey! We don’t know if that’s…”

A wet, slurpy bite was her reply. She smiled at him as the juice ran down the corners of her mouth. Then she ate some more. She licked her lips, then ran her tongue around her canines and arched an eyebrow at him playfully.

Sharp sighed, grabbed a maroon for himself and joined her. The succulent flesh of the maroon went down his parched throat slowly at first, but soon made its way into his stomach. As his mouth began to salivate, he chewed more and more of the fruit. This time it went down smoother. He could feel his body rejoice at the sweetly tart meal.

“You’re crazy,” Sharp said between bites.

“Why do you say that?”

“We needed to fully test the food before we ate it.”

“Is that what you were doing? I thought you were playing with your food!” Cattleya finished off her maroon and elegantly licked her fingers. Sharp was mesmerized for a moment.

“Besides,” she continued. “Just because the food was safe for me doesn’t mean it was safe for you, no?”

Sharp groaned in reply, and licked his fingers clean less elegantly.

“We need to gather as many of these from within the portal as we can before the portal changes again.”

“Is it safe?”

Sharp looked at Cattleya and sighed. “No. But we have to do it. We may get just days and days of beaches or fields with no food again.”

For the next ten minutes, they both worked quickly to gather all of the maroons within arm reach. When those had been exhausted, Sharp gave the wormbox a nervous glance, then stepped deeper into the portal. He harvested in a rush, not even pulling the fruit neatly off their branches, but sometimes snatching the branches as well. Together they gathered dozens of maroons.

“Sharp! Sparks!”

Sharp whipped his head around and looked at the wormbox. It was casting embers of light into the air. As he noticed Cattleya shielding her eyes, he heard the metallic clang beat a warming rhythm. He rushed back through the portal as the event field began to ripple.