“Alright, we are officially suspiciously late in the day for apocalypses,” Harley said, noting the time. “The only other two times we went this late, me and Vell got murdered.”
“Is it too much to hope we’re just not going to have an apocalypse today?”
“Yes,” Harley said, drawing a defeated sigh from Hawke. “The best we can hope for is that this time it won’t be one of us who gets murdered.”
“I feel like we can aim higher than that.”
“I don’t,” Harley said. “Harmony was here not long ago and I’m pretty sure she still has it out for me. I’m keeping my eyes open.”
“And we’ll have your back as well,” Lee insisted. “No repeating old mistakes. This time we stick together and make sure the lights stay on. That said, we need to start looking for things we may have missed.”
“I feel like sticking together and also scanning the entire campus is going to be hard,” Harley said. “We only got a few hours left. We might have to split up.”
“We’ll deal with that as we- Excuse me, I’m getting a call.”
Lee pulled up her phone and sighed heavily when she saw it was from her dad. She took a deep breath and put on her family focused facade.
“Hello, father,” she droned. “Yes, I understand. Of course. Yes, I can go on your behalf. I’m happy to help.”
Though her words were doused in false cheer, Lee’s face was painted in shades of sheer disgust. Disgust that manifested as a loud groan of discontent as soon as the call was over.
“Ugh, my apologies,” Lee said. “My father expects me to attend some scientific display on his behalf. Something about the Marine Biology department.”
“Those fuckers,” Harley said. “You think that might be a clue to our apocalypse?”
“Possibly, but it didn’t seem very dangerous,” Lee said. “Just something to do with a talking fish.”
“A talking fish?”
Kim practically jumped from her seat, catching all of them off guard.
“Yes. I’m afraid that’s as much as I know,” Lee said. “You seem worried, dear.”
“I...sort of know a talking fish,” Kim admitted. “I need to go check this out. If those fuckers have hurt him-”
“We’ll be able to stop them,” Lee assured her. “Come on, then. Apocalypse or not, if this is Kim’s friend, we need to check it out.”
Most of the loopers were already out of their chairs before Lee even finished giving the order. Repeated disasters from the Marine Biology department had made them all very familiar with the path to their building, letting them focus on conversation as they traveled.
“So who’s this talking fish friend of yours anyway?”
“He’s...kind of private,” Kim said. It was true, but only half the truth. From what Wish Fish had said, he didn’t like the other loopers very much. Kim wasn’t sure she wanted the two parties to meet, unless it was for rescue purposes. Maybe getting saved by the other loopers would turn Wish Fish’s opinion around.
“Understandable,” Harley said. “But for rescue purposes, what kind of fish is he? There are usually a lot of fish in this lab, we need to know what we’re looking for.”
“He’s a mackerel,” Kim said. “And he likes to make fish puns.”
“Ugh, self-referential humor,” Harley said. “How lowbrow.”
“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Vell insisted. “We’ll just have a new aquatic friend. Maybe he can check up on Glocktopus for us!”
“And finally ask him where he got that gun,” Harley said.
Hawke and Kim shared a confused glance as they entered the central laboratory of the Marine Biology department. Judging from the crowd that had quickly gathered, and the fish tank on display in the center of the room, they were in the right spot.
“Is that the right fish?” Harley asked. “I don’t actually know what a mackerel looks like. My bad.”
“No, that’s not him,” Kim said, shaking her head. “That’s...a salmon.”
A quick brain-google had turned up enough info for Kim to identify the creature in the tank correctly. She didn’t need any reference material to realize the salmon was in distress, though. It was flailing around in it’s undersized tank, turning and shouting at all the spectators. The glass of the tank was too thick to make out what it was saying, but everyone could tell it was upset. Unfortunately for the salmon, no one in the Marine Biology department seemed to care.
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“Michaela! What’s the deal with the fish?”
The second in command of the loathsome fish doctors lurched towards Harley, the surgically implanted gills on her neck flaring with excitement.
“Harley, good to see you, gorgeous.”
“I really don’t have a lot of time, Gilligan, what’s with the salmon?”
“Ugh, fine. It’s the Salmon of Knowledge.”
“Salmon of what now?”
“I forget the whole story but I guess a long time ago a salmon sucked some nuts and got all the knowledge in the world, or something,” Michaela said. “This salmon’s a descendant of that one, I guess, so it has all the world’s knowledge too.”
“All of the world’s knowledge?”
Several furtive glances were exchanged for several different reasons. The loopers had a lot of knowledge they needed to keep out of the wrong hands and a lot of knowledge they wanted to get into their hands. A salmon with infinite wisdom could be a big help, or a big problem.
“So...what are you planning to do with that bad boy?”
“Sell it to the highest bidder, obviously,” Michaela said. “Who needs information when you could have money?”
“Oh, Michaela, sometimes I feel bad about hating you so much,” Harley said. “And then I talk to you again and you make me hate you more.”
“Oh, Harley, you and your sarcasm,” Michaela said, displaying her usual level of self-awareness.
“Sure, let’s go with that. Excuse me for a minute.”
Harley pulled the other loopers into a far corner, avoiding the crowd of scientists who had gathered to look at the Salmon of Knowledge.
“Alright, this seems pretty severe,” Harley said. “But is it apocalyptic? I know it’s a sapient being and we’re definitely going to help it, but is it the end of the world?”
“Knowledge on it’s own can be dangerous in the wrong hands,” Lee said.
“And there are some very wrong hands in the world,” Vell said.
One of those wrong hands was across the room, currently shaking one of the other wrong hands.
“Thank you for your interest, everyone, but the sale of the fish has been finalized,” Michael Watkins announced. “To Alistair Kraid!”
Kraid waved one skeletal hand in Vell’s direction and smiled broadly. His malevolent smile was even wider than usual, knowing infinite knowledge was within his grasp.
“This is definitely the apocalypse,” Vell said.
“Yep.”
“Uh-huh.”
----------------------------------------
“Alright, second try, got to intercept the Marine Biologists before they catch a very knowledgeable salmon. I’m going to go try and disrupt things by seducing Michaela,” Harley said, before pausing to make a vomiting noise. “The rest of you do whatever Lee tells you.”
While Harley walked off for yet another unpleasant interaction with Michaela, the rest of the loopers huddled around Lee.
“Now, this is a gamble, and possibly a bit biased depending on how you look at it,” Lee mumbled. “But Kim, is it possible that your talking fish friend knows the Salmon of Knowledge?”
“He’s never mentioned them, but I can see why they might,” Kim said. While there were plenty of fish in the sea, there were only so many magical talking fish. Wish Fish was more likely to know about the Salmon than anyone else, at least.
“We might as well start there,” Vell said.
“Do you guys need to come, or could you try something else while I go ask?”
“I kind of want to meet the talking fish,” Hawke said. “It’ll be nice to meet a magical creature that doesn’t terrify me. I can handle fish.”
“Vell and I will pursue other leads, then,” Lee said. “Enjoy the beach, do tell the fish I said hello.”
Kim led the way to the beachfront, and found a nice, isolated patch of sand. She stood with her ankles in the tide and waited patiently as the waves lapped at her heels.
“So. You just stand here and he shows up, then?”
“Usually pretty quickly, yes,” Kim said. They soon passed “pretty quickly”, and not long after that were getting into “suspiciously long” territory.
“I guess I can’t assume a fish would have a phone or something,” Hawke said. Standing on the beach and hoping one specific fish would be nearby seemed like a crapshoot.
“He usually doesn’t take this long,” Kim said. “I know this kind of seems crazy-”
“More or less crazy than the cosmic murder cat?”
“Okay, yeah, you have a point,” Kim said. They’d seen much stranger things than two talking fish.
“Maybe he’s just being shy,” Hawke suggested. “I could try helping out Vell, if you think me being here is scaring him off.”
“I don’t know,” Kim said. “Wait a little longer. Maybe he’s just scared by something.”
In spite of her concern for Wish Fish, Kim started to feel more and more foolish the longer she waited. Her feet were starting to sink into the sand.
“Maybe he’s just out and about somewhere,” Kim mumbled to herself. “I don’t see him every day. He probably has other things to do.”
“Let’s see if Lee and Vell found out anything,” Hawke said. He considered putting a hand on Kim’s shoulder before remembering she didn’t like to be touched. In lieu of a comforting hand, Hawke just walked side by side with Kim as they headed back into the campus. He allowed a moment of silence before calling up Lee to see what they’d gotten up to.
“Hey Lee-”
“Hawke, good to hear from you, where are you?”
“We just left the beach, we were going to head towards the Marine Biology department building next,” Hawke said.
“Fabulous, could you go to the east door and prop it open? See you soon.”
Hawke had a lot of questions, but he knew better than to ask them. He updated Kim on the situation and headed for the east entrance, grabbing the door and propping it open.
“You think Harley and Michaela had some kind of fight?”
“Seems likely. She’s handsy. I almost broke her wrist when she grabbed me during that incident with the eels.”
“And Harley’s been putting up with her for two whole years,” Hawke said. “It’s probably that.”
The sound of rapidly approaching footsteps presaged an answer to the question of what was going on. Lee sprinted into the open doorway, poked her head out, and scanned in every direction to make sure the coast was clear. She spared a half second to nod in Hawke and Kim’s direction.
“Hello dears, how are you?”
“Lee, what’s going on?”
“Well, Hawke, dear, as it turns out, Mr. Watkins has been seeking the Salmon of Knowledge for some time, and it turns out he found it rather early this morning,” Lee explained. “So we’ve had to make some on-the-fly adjustments and improvise.”
Hawke heard two more sets of footsteps rapidly approaching and sighed heavily.
“Are we stealing the fish?”
Vell and Harley ran by, holding a very large and very full fish tank between them.
“We’re stealing the fish.”