After making a dead sprint to the looper’s secret lair, Vell and Harley set the fish tank down on the central table and promptly laid down on the floor to recover. The sprint alone had been exhausting, much less doing it weighed down by a giant fish tank.

“Okay, the Salmon is relatively safe,” Lee said. “What’s step two?”

“We could ask the fish,” Hawke suggested. “Apparently they know everything.”

The salmon poked it’s head out of the water and turned it’s head in Hawke’s direction.

“Actually it’s more of an information thing,” the Salmon said. “I possess ‘all worldly knowledge’. I don’t know hypothetical scenarios, I don’t know the future, I can’t even tell you what you’re thinking right now. I’m like a more thorough, much scalier version of Wikipedia.”

“Oh. Well, uh...what is your name?”

“I’m a salmon, we don’t really have names,” the Salmon said. “Just ‘Salmon’ is fine. It’s not like there’s another talking salmon anywhere nearby who’s going to get confused.”

“Fair point. Well, uh, Salmon, no offense,” Vell said. “But that doesn’t initially sound all that super useful?”

“Oh no, not a worry,” Salmon said. “Knowing all information was a lot more impressive back in the middle ages when no one knew how to wipe their ass properly, much less the most efficient route to Damascus. It’s a lot less impressive now that everyone has a phone.”

“Still, it’s cool that you know it instead of having to look it up,” Vell said. “And I’m sure there’s a few things you know that nobody else does.”

“Probably! Hard to say,” Salmon said.

“On that note-”

“Oh, is it question time?”

“Sorry, you must get that a lot,” Vell said.

“Eh, it’s fine. What else is an infinitely knowledgeable salmon supposed to do?” Salmon asked. “Can you guys get something for me, though?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“Vienna sausage.”

“What?”

“The little sausages that come in a can,” Salmon said. “You would not believe how hard they are to find in the ocean, and yeesh, even when you do, you gotta rile up a crab enough that it opens the can for you. They’re my favorite, but damn near impossible to get in the ocean.”

“Uh. Okay, I guess,” Vell said. “Are you sure you want to go with Vienna Sausage? Have you ever tried, like-”

“I know what everything on the planet tastes like, sir,” Salmon said. His horizons were already as expanded as they were going to get, he didn’t need to try anything new.

“Oh, right. Vienna sausages it is, then. I’ll go check the dining hall.”

----------------------------------------

“What, did you think he somehow survived?”

“I thought it might be a good story, I guess,” Harley shrugged.

“Nope. The saga of DB Cooper ends with him failing to even open his parachute and falling to his death somewhere in Washougal Valley,” Salmon said. “The bear that ate him enjoyed the meal, though.”

“Well I’m glad the bear got something out of it, at least,” Hawke sighed.

“Now I don’t even want to ask about Jimmy Hoffa,” Harley said. “I feel like I’m careening towards disappointment.”

“It’s not great, I got to be honest with you,” Salmon said. “Are there any sausages left?”

“Not in this can,” Vell said. “I got two more.”

“Save them for later,” Salmon said. “You guys said you had some serious questions when I was done eating.”

“Yeah, we were hoping-”

A frantic pounding at the door of the lair interrupted Vell mid-sentence. He did a quick scan of the room, and started to sweat. Everyone who was supposed to know about the looper lair was already inside it. To the rest of the world, this was a distant, unused supply closet.

“What the fuck is someone doing here?”

“Looking for me,” Salmon said. “Probably tracking that tag they put on me.”

Salmon extended a fin and displayed a very small plastic chip that had been embedded in him.

“Why did you not mention that earlier?”

“I assumed you guys knew what you were doing when you stole me!”

“You assumed wrong!”

“You guys are hard to get a read on, okay,” Salmon said. “You know a lot of things you shouldn’t know, and there’s a lot of chaos in general!”

“Focus,” Lee scolded. “Salmon, who, exactly, is looking for us.”

“Michael and Michaela Watkins,” Salmon said.

“That’s good. Harley, they have irrational fixations on you, distract them for a moment while we tuck Salmon into a closet.”

“How is a closet going to stop the tracking chip?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Lee said, as she helped shove Salmon’s fish tank into a nearby storage closet. While they rearranged and disguised, Harley distracted.

“Michaela! Michael! Long time no see.”

“You were in our lab thirty minutes ago,” Michael said.

“Oh right, you know, it’s just that being apart from Michaela...always feels like a lifetime, I guess,” Harley said, though she had to force every word out. “So what can I do for you?”

“You can return my life’s work,” Michael scolded. “And then submit yourself for a long overdue expulsion, you thief.”

‘That is a very bold accusation, Dr. Watkins,” Harley said. She wasn’t happy about having to deploy this tactic, but it always worked. A vein in Michael Watkin’s neck was already twitching.

“Doctor Professor Michael Watkins,” he corrected. His obstinate fixation on having both titles affixed to his name reared it’s ugly head once again, just as Harley had planned.

“You know, I’m really not sure a person needs both those titles at once,” Harley said. She tried to restrain a sigh as Dr. Professor Watkins launched into his favorite monologue yet again. Hopefully the rant would last long enough for someone to come up with a plan.

A few paragraphs into the rant, a plan had yet to appear. The intrinsic flaw of their secret lair was that there was only one entrance, and none of them had the budget for teleportation. Vell had a spare invisibility rune, which he had slapped on the fish tank for now, but it might not hold up to closer scrutiny. The tank and the fish within could not be seen, but it could still be touched and felt, and, more importantly, located with a gps tracking chip.

“We need to get the fish doctor dude out of here,” Hawke said.

Lee looked around at their secret lair. Most of the equipment here was dedicated to storage and information, not chasing off intruders. She had been planning some kind of defenses, but had been unable to implement them as of yet. Lee cursed a previous generation of loopers, Naomi and Dominic, for keeping the lair secret from her in favor of using it as their own private lovemaking lair.

Inspiration occurred. Not the good kind, but Lee took it where she could get it.

“I might have an idea,” Lee said. “It’s not a good idea, and, Vell, I’m sorry but it does involve you taking your pants off.”

“Off to a great start,” Vell said. “But I’ve done worse things, lay it on me.”

While Lee and Vell discussed and prepared for their plan of action, Michael Watkins continued to monologue, but even he ran out of steam eventually.

“And this time I hope you actually remember what I’ve told you,” Dr. Professor Watkins said.

“Uh huh, yeah, actually, I think I got it, one question,” Harley said. “Does it have to be ‘Doctor-Professor’, or can it be ‘Professor-Doctor’?”

“Whichever is most phonetically pleasing to you,” Michael snorted. “Now stand aside, you pint-sized plagiarist.”

Caught off guard by his uncharacteristically abrupt denouncement, Harley didn’t have anything else prepped to distract Michael. He elbowed right past her as she fumbled for another possible distraction.

“Wait, you shouldn’t-”

“Catch you red-handed? I think I should, in fact.”

“Okay, incoming, I guess,” Harley shouted. Hopefully she could at least give everyone in the room a second of warning to shove everything in a closet or something. Harley tried to tug on Michael to slow his pace but could not stop him as he passed through the narrow entrance corridor and rounded the corner into the lair.

“Alright, did you get rid of those guys,” Vell said. “Because I’m still ready to- oh god!”

Michael rounded the corner and found not a stolen salmon, but a mostly naked Vell, sitting on the table with a book bag providing some very tactical cover in a very sensitive area. Vell still had his boxers on behind the bag, but the plan worked better if Michael didn’t know that.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Good god man, what are you doing,” Michael shouted, as he tried to cover his eyes.

“Uh...Yoga,” Vell said. For once, his inability to convincingly improvise was a boon and not a curse.

As Vell floundered, Michaela rounded the corner to see what the fuss was about. When she saw the presumably-naked Vell, she let out a shriek of distress that Vell was actually kind of offended by. She turned away from Vell as fast as she could and looked to Harley.

“You’re cheating on me?”

“We...aren’t together?” Harley said, with a befuddled look on her face. “Even if we were, I’m poly as hell, and you’d just have to deal with that.”

When presented with the fact that she was not, and never had been, dating Harley, Michaela ran off crying. Her father, on the other hand, stood his ground a little longer.

“You’re even more of a degenerate than I thought,” he hissed.

“Hey, this is our room,” Harley said. “We’re allowed some privacy.”

“You stick around much longer I’m filing a conduct complaint,” Vell said. Michael wasn’t usually one to shy away from a conduct complaint, but Dean Lichman was being more strict about “responsibility” and “appropriate conduct” and “basic human decency” than past leaders of the Einstein-Odinson school.

“Damn you and your consistent sexual depravity,” Michael grumbled. More concerned with escaping Vell’s nudity and a possible conduct complaint than recovering his fish (for the moment), Michael beat a hasty retreat from the lair. Harley made sure he was safely out of sight before going in for the high five -and checking out the goods.

“I’m a little disappointed you aren’t actually naked,” Harley said. “Commit to the bit, Harlan.”

“I draw the line for committing to bits at my bits, thank you,” Vell said.

“Whatever. Where’s everyone else?”

“We are also in the closet,” Lee said.

“In that thing?”

The only normal storage closet in the lair was not particularly large, and unlike some of their storage spaces, it had no extradimensional capacity.

“They’re standing in my tank,” Salmon said. “Can we come out yet? My water is full of feet.”

“I’m putting my pants on first,” Vell said. “I’ve earned that much.”

Vell got at least half-dressed before allowing the rest of the loopers to take a very damp step out of the closet. Once everyone was reassembled and fully clothed, the temporary council reconvened.

“Alright, we got to get that tag off,” Harley said. “We’ll never be able to get anything done with Michael breathing down our neck’s. The threat of your dick can only chase him off for so long.”

“We’re on borrowed time already,” Vell said. His dick wasn’t that threatening.

“We’re close to the etymology lab, maybe they can help,” Lee suggested.

----------------------------------------

Dr. Boniventure was more than happy to help ruin Michael Watkin’s day, though the loopers had to endure several bad jokes as she did so. In the end, the GPS tag was set loose and handed over.

“I’m going to go attach this to a drone and set it loose in the ocean,” Harley said. “Y’all have fun, try not to freak out Salmon with too many questions.”

“Right. I think we should get you back in the ocean as well,” Lee said, as Harley ran off.

“I’d appreciate that,” Salmon said. “This tank water was bad enough without all your foot juices in it.”

“I can imagine. Off we go then.”

Vell and Hawke put the tank on their shoulders and carted it off to the beach. After some careful deliberation on how to delicately deliver Salmon into the ocean, he assured them he would be fine if they just tossed him into the ocean as hard as they could. Salmon survived a lot worse than a quick chuck onto the beach as part of daily life, and he endured the awkward splash into the ocean.

“Alright, there we go,” Salmon said. “I suppose you’ll want to ask those questions of yours now? Assuming it wouldn’t be too weird for you to be seen with a talking fish?”

“Apparently this is not new territory for us,” Lee said.

“I talk to a fish sometimes,” Kim said.

“Hmm. Well, there’s very few talking fish out there and most of them are bad news, so mind the company you keep. Fish or otherwise,” Salmon cautioned. “Now. Questions?”

“Uh...first of all, do you happen to know anything about a certain Goddess with mismatched eyes?”

“Quenay? No more than you do,” Salmon said. “You guys here know more about her than literally anyone else on the planet.”

“You really don’t know anything?”

“I only know all worldly knowledge,” Salmon reiterated. “Deities are otherworldly. Out of my jurisdiction.”

“God damn it,” Vell said. “Any chance you know a tuna with all otherworldly knowledge?”

“No such luck, I’m afraid,” Salmon said.

“Any chance you know anything about a ten-lined rune?”

“Unfortunately, once again all I can tell you is that you guys know more than anyone else,” Salmon said. “Which is at least good news, right? Means you’re ahead of the curve on Kraid and Burrows and all those other assholes.”

“I suppose there’s that,” Vell sighed. “Still, though. I was kind of hoping for some information here.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Harley said. “You’re being very helpful by salmon standards.”

“Well I’ve got one question,” Hawke said. “What’s going on with time on this island?”

“See, you guys keep throwing real hardballs at me,” Salmon said. “I feel like you’re setting yourselves up for disappointment here. I don’t know any more than you do about why Lee can see the future.”

“I figured- wait, is that what you think is happening?”

“That’s what you tell people, isn’t it?” Salmon asked. “Is something else going on?”

“Well, it’s- do you not already know?”

“Not for sure. Like I said, you guys are fuzzy sometimes,” Salmon said. “Whenever I try to focus too hard on what’s going on on this island, things get...blurry.”

“Like the same way it gets blurry with Quenay?”

“Oh, no, that’s pretty cut and dry,” Salmon said. “I just don’t know it. Where this island is concerned...it’s like I should know things, but I can never remember them. Like when something’s on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite remember.”

“That’s disturbing,” Hawke said.

“Yeah, it’s sort of a headache, I’m trying not to think about it too hard,” Salmon said. “You still got those sausages?”

Vell cracked open another can and tossed a sausage into the Salmon of Knowledge’s waiting jaws.

“Seems like every time we think we’re getting closer to answers, we find out we’re even further than we thought,” Kim grunted. “I’m getting sick of this.”

“At least we know we’re ahead of the curve,” Lee said. “We’re closer to answers than anyone else.”

“I don’t like being at the front,” Hawke moaned. “It means you never know where you’re going next.”

“We’re here, aren’t we? The Einstein-Odinson Academy is a school for geniuses,” Lee said. “Innovators and pioneers. We were always meant to push forward into the unknown, one way or another.”

“I work in telecom,” Hawke said, immediately diverting Lee’s attempt at an empowering speech. “I was supposed to push the boundaries of wifi, not secret gods and the meaning of life!”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty raw deal,” Salmon said. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

“It’s fine,” Vell said, as he handed over another vienna sausage. “This was always a long shot. Don’t suppose you have even the slightest helpful hint for us?”

“Well, it may not have much to do with this whole gods and runes situation, but I do have one tip for you,” Salmon said. “You can trust more people than you think. Sometime soon you’re going to have to stop keeping secrets.”

That got the exact icy reception Salmon had been expecting. The loopers weren’t deceptive or untrusting people by nature, but they’d been steeped in secrets all the same. They kept secrets to protect the people around them, not just for the sake of deception.

“Oh, but also, there’s a few people you definitely should not trust, like-”

“There it is!”

Michael and Michaela started crossing the quad, in the direction of the beach.

“Okay fuck I was hoping they’d take longer, got to go, bye!”

“Hey, wait, where are you going?” Hawke demanded, as Salmon began to swim away. “You can’t just drop ominous shit like that on us without telling us who not to trust!”

“Sorry,” Salmon cried. “Something I said already gave you a hint!”

“That’s worse!” Hawke cried back. “You could’ve just named names in the time it took you to say that!”

Salmon offered no rebuttal to that, since he was already underwater, swimming away at the top speed of a salmon (roughly seven miles an hour). Michaela and Michael sprinted past the loopers and dove into the sea, swimming after Salmon at the top speed of two out-of-shape humans (significantly less than seven miles an hour). The looper squadron decided to vacate the beach before the two marine biologists came to their senses, if they had any. The loopers returned to their lair (and locked the door) after regrouping with Harley and recapping the situation for her.

“Another dead end,” Hawke sighed. “The deadest possible end! We learned there’s literally no one else who can tell us anything!”

“Frustrating, yeah, but I think Lee had a point,” Harley said. “We’re fucking scientists. It’s time we did some actual legwork instead of haranguing random magical entities to hand us answers.”

“I don’t suppose you have an idea where to start, dear?”

“Well, no,” Harley said. “It’s been like five minutes. Experimentation is a slow process.”

“Understood. In the meantime, I think we need to take Salmon’s words to heart, and perhaps expand our circle of knowledge regarding Quenay.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking I should tell my roommates and Freddy what went down,” Vell said. ‘They barely missed Quenay last year, they ought to know.”

“Himiko and Kanya too,” Harley said. “Sarah, too, I guess. Sometimes I think she’s her own kind of weird mysterious goddess.”

“If there are no objections, I think I should also tell Adele,” Lee said. “She and I are...close. It’s only fair she knows.”

“I could...huh,” Hawke said. He didn’t have any close confidants to loop in. “We really need to get around to joining that club, Kim.”

“Our apologies, we did sort of shanghai you into our social circle, didn’t we?”

“I don’t mind. It’d be nice to talk about normal things with normal people sometimes, though.”

“The school has many lovely extracurricular groups, I’ll send you the information later,” Lee said. “Now I think it’s time we stop ceremoniously naming the people we want to tell and get to actually telling people.”

“Just leave me being a robot out of it for now,” Kim insisted.

“Oh, yeah, it’s probably a good idea to wait on that anyway,” Harley said. “One thing at a time, you know. Hawke nearly passed out hearing it all at once.”

Hawke nodded. He’d been lucky to stay on his feet as the loopers regaled him with their history of chaotic escapades. Hopefully all the other people they were about to tell about Quenay would handle the news much better.

While most loopers scattered in every direction to expand their circle of confidants, Kim wandered back to the beach -her usual meeting place with Wish Fish, to be more specific. She sat down in the sand and waited as the waves lapped at her toes.

“Hey, Kim, how you doing?”

She didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry at the sound of Wish Fish’s voice. She turned to see the familiar mackerel head sticking out of the water, staring in her direction.

“Wish Fish! Where were you?”

“Oh, were you looking for me? Sorry, I was trying to keep my head down.”

“Yes! There was this whole other talking fish here, and we were hoping you could help-”

Kim interrupted herself this time. Salmon had said only one thing about other talking fish: they were bad news. Wish Fish could see comprehension dawning on Kim’s face and moved to intercept any suspicions.

“Yes! Well, you see, that’s exactly why I was keeping my head down,” Wish Fish said. Though he actually had met the Salmon of Knowledge before, he didn’t want Kim to know what they’d talked about, seeing as what they’d talked about was her. “That other fish and I...used to date.”

“You used to date?”

“Listen, there’s not a lot of intellectual partnership to go around in the ocean,” Wish Fish said. “There are a lot of fish in the sea, but very few of them can do more than stare blankly and eat krill.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense,” Kim said. Having seen Vell and Joan interact, she knew how awkward exes could be. Her and Vell’s ‘breakup’ had resulted in more than a little mutual avoidance too. She could hardly blame Wish Fish for doing the same.

“Yep, we’ve all probably shacked up at least once,” Wish Fish said. “When you meet another fish you can actually hold a conversation with, you’ve got to ‘snapper’ up, right? Am I right?”

“I...guess?”

“You know, snapper? Like red snapper?”

“Well…”

“My comedic stylings are wasted on you,” Wish Fish sighed. “Anyway, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be here next time you need me.”

“It’s alright. We did fine,” Kim insisted.

“You don’t look fine,” Wish Fish said.

“It’s just been a frustrating day,” Kim said. “Every time I think I’m close to making things make sense, I get stopped short. I’m just tired of it.”

“Life would be a lot easier if you could just be a normal person, huh?”

“At this point I’d settle for being able to even pretend I was normal,” Kim sighed. “But every weird thing about my life follows me wherever I go.”

“Well, at least we got each other,” Wish Fish said. “When we’re not dodging awkward reunions with exes, at least.”

“And what’re the odds that’ll happen again? How many fish could you have possibly dated?”

“Hey!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, how many talking fish are there?”

“Uh...five? Maybe four?” Wish Fish said. “I guess you have a point.”

“Still just one me, though,” Kim said with a sigh.