On the deck Hawthorn was smoking as, it seemed, he always was, the sea breeze blessedly carrying the smoke off the boat and away from me. First Mate and Lucas were there, too, eating their breakfast, also the same pristine eggs that we’d had, at a little foldable table while going over what looked like a stack of paper that Lucas was scribbling on.
“What’s that?” I asked, approaching them.
“Lucas is trying to convince me to shell money out for him to destroy our engine.”
“It’s not going to destroy it.” Lucas said, sighing. “It will allow us to move at least three percent faster without requiring the same percentage of fuel, whatever form that takes.”
“But looking at this it seems like you’ll need to pull the whole thing apart and put it back together again.”
“Correct.” He said, absently rubbing his temple with his pencil. I noticed he had a near empty jug of water sitting on the floor next to him. No fancy liver to flush out his system, it seemed.
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“First mate. You’re being very closed minded, don’t you think?” He turned to me, as if he’d only just registered me. The tattoos on his neck seemed to writhe, though it had to have been nothing more the way he moved. “Oh. You. Sam, yes? I know we’ve met but I’ll say now it’s a pleasure to meet you since I, ah, could not last night. It’ll be nice to have another man on board.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” First Mate said,
“Nothing! I’m simply pointing out that we have common ground that might allow for a deeper understanding of some things than what I could share with a woman or a member of another species! Bonding as men! Similar experience, similar passions! Birds of a feather flock together, you know. Sometimes it’s nice to spend time with a individual of the same sex.”
“Similar genitalia doesn’t mean you’re going to get along.”
“Aw, but me and Lucas are the best of chums.” Hawthorn said with a lopsided grin. “I think it’s because I’ve got a penis he likes me so much.”
“I don’t know why I open my mouth sometimes.”
“Neither do we.” First Mate laughed.
“Regardless. I’m hearing this is your first time in Tallahassee?”
“Yea.” I said,
“Then you must accompany me later today! After I finish up here I can show you the town!”
“I suppose. Sure.” I said. As it stood he was the only one who wanted to be around me at the moment. “I was just wondering, though. First Mate.”
“Hm?”
“I haven’t met the captain yet. Are they away? I’m assuming you’ve run it past them, you know, me coming along.”
“Oh. Oh yea. No. The captain is on board. They’re just in their cabin.” Lucas was looking away and I could have sworn I saw him roll his eyes.
“Oh.” I said, a little surprised. “Should I introduce myself?”
“Don’t worry about that. The captain is really very private. A bit of an agoraphobe, you know. But good at their job. I run everything by them.”
I took a step back.
“Ah. Right.”
Something was wrong here. She was lying to me, but I wasn’t sure why.
“”First Mate,” I said, and her eyes widened, a look of hunted terror flitting across her face. “Are you sure---”
“Why don’t we take that walk I promised you right now!” Lucas suddenly said, jumping up from his chair. He strode over to me and put an arm around my shoulders, leading me off the boat. We walked down the pier aways, onto the main docks with Lucas ‘shushing’ me every time I tried to speak up.
When we finally hit the street that outlined the docks, Lucas turned to me.
“First Mate is the captain.”
“She… huh?”
“Yes. I know. It’s very silly and not at all intuitive but First Mate is the Captain. The Captain she’s talking about doesn’t exist.”
“But why…?”
“We don’t know.” He said, “As your senior, and, if you’ll have me, teacher aboard our vessel,”
“That’s a little presumptuous--” I began,
“I’m going to teach you your first lesson about life on the Ocean. It’s known even in far away Caligon that people who ply The Ocean’s waters tend to be a bit mad, yes?”
“Yea.”
“Good. But now think about what that means. If someone is crazy, that often means some of the things they do only make sense to them. That is a very important thing to remember in dealing with people out here.” He tilted his head at me. “It’s difficult to gauge who is being maliciously duplicitous on the ocean and who is just genuinely playing out the foibles they acquired sailing the seas. But in this instance, First Mate is just being strange. We’ve been with her for years and nothing bad has come of this very, very poorly kept secret. I’m sure she has a reason for doing what she does, but that reason has been long buried in the strangeness and paranoia that the Ocean Afflicts on it’s adventurers. It happens to everyone.” He paused, and smiled beatifically at me. “I bet you're wondering how my strangeness manifested itself.”
No. I was pretty sure I knew.
“It’s these tattoos.” He said,
That made sense too.
“I find myself addicted to getting them. I do them all myself. I put the mathematical equations and formula I find most beautiful. It’s a relatively benign foible, and as I’m such a deft hand with the tattooing needle many people believe I do them merely for aesthetic purposes!” He laughed.
“Oh. Yea. I can… see that.” I said. We walked deeper into the city as Lucas seemed to try and explain every single one of his hundreds of tattoos.
It wasn’t so bad, actually, once I directed the topic away from the tattoos and onto the city. Lucas seemed to know the place like only a native would, pointing out interesting land marks and buildings, like the Warehouse turned museum that the Police had finally cornered the famous Ocean Bandits Meryl and Eggy, or the monument erected to commemorate the friendship between humans and Patchwork, a bronze statue of a woman with a motherly smile holding hands with a creature that looked like it was made of sticks and stones, like a child's drawing. It had recently been defaced with the words ‘WATS 2 FITE. PATCHWORK NOT STICKPEOPLE’. I had no idea what that meant, but I assumed the artist wasn’t happy with the statue. To be fair, Thatch didn’t look anything like the Patchwork cast in bronze here.
I asked Lucas if he had been raised here.
“No. I’m from New Texas, actually, but I came to Tallahassee for school as a younger man. Spent almost half of my life here as I stayed on as a professor after I received my PHD.
“And now you’re on an Ocean Vessel.” I said, peering down an alley that stank of unwashed bodies and held a trio of men sitting on a crate, passing a neon green bottle around that seemed to shake ever so slightly, as if it had a life of its own. They weren’t drinking it, just taking turns looking inside. “Is it just me or does anyone else find it strange the number of overqualified people on our vessel. You, a Professor, Melody, a Doctor, Elma, apparently a hot shot chef which seems to be the Water Folk Equivalent of doctor or professor. Is Hawthorn secretly a corporate lawyer, or First Mate actually a Pan American Captain?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You’d be surprised.” He said, and then pointed at a little restaurant named ‘New Havana’. “This place is quite lovely. A bit of Old World Trivia for you. Havana was the capitol of an island called Cuba, lost in the Skybreak. The food remains, however. It’s a bit of a regional specialty. Have you had it?”
I admitted that I had not, and soon after we were eating a pair of sandwiches called Medianoche that were really quite good, served by a beaming woman taller and wider than Lucas, who seemed only able to speak spanish, which Lucas knew. I didn’t understand any of it, since the official language of Caligon was English and Chinese, not English and Spanish like in the countries closer to the Central American Union. Lucas offered to pay since First Mate had most of my money but I shook my head. I still had a little.
“I’d show you the nightlife, but, haha, I don’t think I’ll be going out again for a while. Certainly not before we set sail. I’m sure Melody and Elma will go. Possibly tonight. The clubs and bars here are lovely, though a bit too much for an old man like me, no matter how much I pretend to youth.”
“Oh. No. That’s ok.” I said, dipping a french fry in a mire of mayo, ketchup and mustard. I didn’t mind clubbing, but I was not comfortable with what sort of trouble I might get into partying with one of the Water Folk. I didn’t do drugs beyond alcohol and didn’t want to start.
We finished our meal, and stepped outside. I patted my stomach and grunted.
“That was good.” I told Lucas, who smiled.
“Glad you liked it.”
“I’m partial to Cuban food, too. When I come down here.” A third voice added, and someone put a hand on my shoulder.
I whirled around to find a man, taller than Lucas, in a long dark coat similar to the one I’d worn here, with a pointed goatee and eyes that were just a little too green.
“Aster.” I said, and my stomach sank. “Why are you here?”
“Because you need to come back.”
I glanced at Lucas, who was staring at Aster and then back at me, with unconcealed curiosity.
“Can we talk in private?
“No. Is this one of the crew you hired out on your little idiot adventure? If so then good. Sam has obligations that he’s running from, Mr. Crewman. I’m just trying to talk a little sense into him.”
“And what are these obligations?”
“Not important.” I said sharply. Aster grinned, but didn’t elaborate. I knew he wouldn’t. I knew, too, that he couldn’t actually stop me.
“I’m not coming back. I made a promise.”
“You made a promise to a man who's dead, to give that ring to someone who's also dead. There’s only so far you can take a promise.”
“I found a way to keep my promise. If I don’t do it now, then that will make me an oath-breaker. You wouldn’t understand, you don’t believe in anything, Aster.”
“True enough.” Aster said, his smile never fading. “You know who sent me?”
“I assume it was… one our mutual superiors.”
“No. It was actually your Chapter leader, Fredrickson.”
“What?”
Aster nodded,
“He said he wouldn’t blame you for not going through with this.” That shocked me. Fredrickson was a chapter leader, the leader of the Sacred Trust in Portland. Aster wasn’t in the Trust, but I believed him. It would be a quick thing to figure out if he was lying or not. Just one phone call. But… it didn’t matter one way or the other.
The other man sighed, maybe he saw my expression harden. “Davis is dead. Keisha is dead. If you head out there you’ll be dead too. I admire your determination. Really, I do. But at some point determination just turns to zealotry.”
“I told Davis I’d do this. ‘No Matter What’. Those were the words I used.” I shrugged, “That’s it, Aster. Sorry you came all this way for nothing. There’s nothing for me back there. Nothing and no one you can take hostage. No way to bribe me.”
“I’m telling you you don’t have to kill yourself. Fredrickson said it too! Literally no one you know would blame you for not commiting suicide on an a bunch of islands no one is even sure exist!”
“Actually, I’ve been there.” Lucas said, “Even stepped on shore, though I never intend to do such a thing again.”
Aster gave him a withering look and I laughed.
“You hated Keisha.” He said, switching tracks, but it was a pathetic last effort and he knew it.
“So fucking what?”
He straightened and turned away from me, his smile twisting into something foul, what I recognized as disgust.
“Fine. Die. Jesus Christ. If you change your mind I’ll be staying at that brothel on Tennessee Avenue. Might as well get something good out of this stupid trip. If you want a free train ticket home meet me there before I leave tomorrow.” He turned back to me and stuck out a hand. I hesitated a moment, but then took it.
“I won’t. Let’s go, Lucas.”
“That was interesting.” Lucas said, as we started towards the ship.
“Not really. It’s irrelevant now.”
“Is it? Well. Alright. I suppose you wouldn’t want to know about the little bug he just put into your arm augment.” I froze, and turned to look at Lucas who was grinning. He took my hand, and brushed one of the tattoos on his lower neck, which glowed a bright blue. The light stuck to his fingers and was pulled away from his neck. Not just the light, though. The tattoo itself vanished as his fingers passed over it. I could see the ink floating around in the light on his fingers, like powder in a snowglobe. I’d seen magic before, I knew a wizard or two, but it was still impressive to watch. Everything became unreal, strange. For the briefest of moments everything was new and strange as Lucas bent reality to his whim in some small way.
The movement of my own body was a novelty, it was astonishing that I could manipulate this sack of meat with my mere will. The sound of car’s rumbling off in the distance was an exotic sound, and I had to stop myself from running over to see them like a child at a zoo. Even the dirty buildings that rose up on either side of us were amazing. Humans like me had built these? Incredible.
He pinched his fingers together over my palm and then yanked up sharply. As if grabbed by a pair of tweezers, a tiny machine like a beetle the size of my pinky nail was yanked up from out of my skin. I felt my artificial nerves flare white with pain and I winced, the wonder that was the side effect of magic vanishing like smoke, leaving only a memory of a memory. The layer of false skin tore around the bug, revealing the bio-wiring underneath.
“I’d love to study this thing.” Lucas said, “Caligon technology is a little different than in other places, but I’ve no way to stop it transmitting and no idea what else it might do.” He crushed it between his fingers, and sprinkled the bits of the machine onto the street. “What model is your arm?”
I shifted nervously.
“Uh. Model… two?”
“You don’t know?” Lucas asked incredulously? “What? Did you just point at something and have them install it? What can it do? Is it for something or is it a replacement limb?”
“It does a couple things. Nothing special.”
“Tell me. Then I can tell you what model it is.” Lucas said, “Thats important info if you ever need it repaired. And you won’t be able to look it up on a registry since it’s obviously not registered. That’s some fine false skin. Self repairing?”
“Yea.” I sighed,
He peered at my arm and suddenly took it in his hands again.
“Wait. This isn’t…” He squeezed, and it hurt.
“Hey!” I said, pulling my hand away.
“Your arm is real. It’s just the skin that's artificial! What sort of augment is that?”
We took a shortcut through an alleyway, and as I did I glanced up and down the length of it.
“Let’s get it out of the way, then.” I said, and then flexed my skin like I might flex my arm. My skin vanished, like I was fabric being eaten away at high speed by moths. My clothes stubbornly stayed visible for a moment, but eventually vanished as well. I couldn’t see myself anymore, and I knew Lucas would only be able to see a slight disturbance in the air, noticeable only if you were looking for it. That shimmer was only because my coat and pants were made of similar, but less refined materials than my skin was. If I’d stripped, or put on one of my more specialized bits of clothing, he wouldn’t have been able to see me at all.
“That… is not civilian tech. That’s not civilian tech even in New Texas.”
“It’s not.” I said, fading back into sight. “But that’s what it does. Won’t help any on the ship, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Why do you have it?”
“Why is a professor on an Ocean Vessel?” I fired back, perhaps a bit too sharply.
Lucas’ face hardened.
“I killed one of my students. An accident during one of my experiments, but my fault all the same.” Lucas said quietly, “No charges were pressed, they told me it wasn’t my fault, but I resigned anyway. Eventually, I found myself here. I’ve no secrets, Sam. The crew needs to be able to trust each other.”
“Like you trust the ‘First Mate’?.” I said, and turned away. “All I want is to get to the Necropolis Islands. I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
Lucas stopped walking,
“That’s not the same. We do trust her. We know her. We don’t know you, though.” He said, shaking his head. We were silent for the rest of the trip back. Great. Now I’d pissed everyone off.