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Chapter 3
I honestly don't know how I fell asleep that night. My 'room' might as well have been the cell room Princess Leia was put in during Episode IV. But then again, there wasn't much to expect for luxury in a submarine. Let alone a submarine run by freaking octopuses.
The last thing I recalled thinking that night was of how worried my cousin Leah would be. Also, knowing her, she would call and tell my mother about it. Soon enough everyone would know that I was missing and holy shit, how the hell was I going to explain all this to them? Oh, sorry I wasn't there when you got home, I was just busy being kidnapped by a talking purple octopus. Even if I did say that, Leah wouldn't believe me. She wouldn't even believe me when I told her about the window incident. It was a lost cause. Somewhere down the line truth was going to be blurred and I'd be shoved off as another nut job and probably be forced to go see a psychiatrist. I guess the only positive side I could look forward to at that point would be that I wouldn't have to be sent to a psychiatric center, because I was, you know, currently kidnapped.
Earlier the next morning I was awakened by the creaking of the walls. It hadn't done that whatsoever throughout the night, so hearing the sudden turning of engines in the distant halls of the massive submarine, along with slight pushes and pulls of gravity around me, caused me to sit up and walk to the door out of concern. My hand rose to grab a doorknob, but it didn't take me long to realize that there wasn't one. It was taking some getting used to with this high tech submarine, where doors didn't have door knobs and instead had buttons.
I knocked loudly on the door and tilted my head upwards to see through a tiny window to peer into the hallway. "Hey! How do you open this thing?" I yelled, "Let me out!"
It only took a few seconds before a small, yellow octopus opened the door for me. He proceeded to make a series of gurgling noises, apparently trying to communicate with me, but of course I couldn't understand a damned thing he was saying.
"So… what's going on?" I asked, awkwardly trying to get information out of him. Regardless, he continued to gobble, and then proceeded to walk over to an intercom to the side of the door. He said something into it, and then Dave answered immediately.
"She's awake? I'll be there in a sec!" he said, again, still carrying a wave of happiness in his tone.
After that, the little yellow octopus backed away from the communicator and looked at me. We waited there awkwardly for a few moments until Dave popped from around the corner. That was fast.
"Ah, I'm so glad you're awake! Tell me, how did you sleep? Can I get you anything?" He seemed overly chipper, which was something I wasn't used to hearing, especially now that I had been on my own with just my cousin for a long time.
"Uhhh, okay, I guess." I shrugged. I was still trying to comprehend that I was actually communicating with octopuses, especially one like Dave, who was… well, fairly unique. I'm telling you, that never becomes normal. "And, no, I'm… err, fine."
"Are you sure?" he asked again. Two of his tentacles wrapped around together like a person would do with their hands if they were anxious or concerned. I honestly didn't think I would see the tides of our situations trade places, especially so quickly. Suddenly he was the one worried? Please. It had to be an act to make me feel more comfortable; to let my guard down. I decided to play on his terms, so I shot him a command.
"I know! David, cook me breakfast."
I paused for a few seconds before my mouth started to tremble, and then burst into uncontrollable laughter. It wasn't until I realized that there was no met laughter to my pun that I stopped.
Opening my eyes, I saw Dave looking at me, confused. "It was a joke," I stated, still smiling. "You know, like you do? It's a play on words? Celebrity names? It's a…" I realized that while I was trying to explain the pun that he was absolutely not getting it. Seriously? All day yesterday he was spitting out celebrity pun after another, and he didn't even get my joke? "Never mind!" I said, taking a deep breath and straightening myself up to attempt to deter my face from turning red.
"Yeah… soooo," Dave began. "Anyway, I wanted you to come with me. There are things I need to show you. Now that you're working for me you'll be let onto all the details of my plans. We've got some big things heading our way. Big things!"
"What are we gonna do?" The question seemed to slip before we could even start walking.
"Patience, dearest!" Dave said happily, taking one of his tentacles and wrapping it around my arm. "First, I need to take you to the command center. It will be easier to explain everything there."
He began to escort me, taking me down an assortment of halls and doors that I honestly couldn't coordinate through on my own. After what seemed like an endless track through a maze, we finally reached a staircase which lead us upward, close to the command bay area. Among the assortment of computer monitors and data modules, there were a few more of Dave's henchmen sitting at these controls, working with levers and information. One orange octopus in particular had my cell phone, and had it plugged into one of the many computers embedded into the walls.
"Hey! What's he doing; that's mine!" I said, tempted to run over and snatch it from him. If there was anything I hated it was when people—well, anyone—looked through my phone.
"Don't worry about that," Dave said, softly squeezing my arm to get my attention. "We're simply downloading all your information into the computer. You're my assistant, so of course I need to do a background check." He grinned toothily, apparently taking slight amusement in my discomfort. "But, if I can direct your attention to the screen…" Another one of Dave's tentacles then slipped under my chin, forcing me to look towards the control area. There, one of the larger computer monitors caught my attention, revealing a GPS–like map of the world. A red dot was pulsing in the Gulf of Mexico, moving a bit every couple minutes. It took me a moment, but I realized that the red dot was us.
"Wait. We're moving?" I then said, connecting the dots. We had apparently departed the Texas shorelines and were heading eastward towards Florida. With every second that went by and every pulse of the red dot I became all the more anxious. Not just because I was extremely far from home, but because we were in the middle of open water. The last time I'd been on a submarine was during my trip to Hawaii a few years back on a tour, but even then it only lasted maybe an hour. Who knows how long I'd be in this damned submarine.
"We're heading towards the City of Orlando. I've tracked the penguins and they will be arriving there soon." Dave said, rather bitterly.
"Okay, first off, who the hell are these penguins?" I asked. I didn't bother asking why, since apparently he hated them enough to not need to explain. My guess was they probably messed up his previous plans. I mean, I've seen enough action movies to know when a villain hates something, and why he wanted revenge in the first place.
"Our targets are four penguins: Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private." On Dave's cues the little octopus henchmen working the controls brought up data on them. "They were the ones that destroyed my first attempts at using my Medusa Serum. By kidnapping them first, any worries of them getting in my way are taken care of, and with their capture I can lead North Wind into their demise."
"And North Wind?" I asked.
I wasn't expecting Dave to get so into his role as the villain. He drew me in close, grabbing both my shoulders and looked me in the eye, almost menacingly. "Those pathetic worms have been on my tail from the very beginning. They didn't see through my disguise for a long time, but despite their initial incompetence they've been nothing but thorns in my side. They need to be taken out, once and for all."
Stunned by his sudden anger and his awkward closeness to my face, I lifted my right hand and mildly pushed him in attempts to get distance between us. "Yikes… err, sounds like trouble," I tried to respond, refraining from cringing due to getting his mucus on my hands. Attempting to connect with Dave was really hard, since I had no idea how this North Wind group was firsthand. Also, I wasn't naturally a revenge seeking person. But I mean, damn, this guy had serious anger problems when it came to these guys. I don't think I've ever seen so much bunt up fury before.
"Yes, they're very much trouble," Dave said, backing away from me and standing at my side like normal again. Once he finally let me go, I was given some mild relief, though only for a brief second before he started talking again. "The penguins have been traveling with a circus; friends apparently. They've been touring the Americas for quite some time now, so I've been able to look into their schedules." A pause, then his voice popped out of nowhere, and again, Dave invaded in my personal space, but this time with another one of his large crooked tooth grins. "That's where you come in!" he said.
"Me?" I responded anxiously.
"This plan needs to be swift and as accurate as possible. I can't afford to mess up, so with you and I both working on capturing the penguins, things will go along much more nicely."
"Okay… I've never kidnapped anybody before, so I don't know how good at this I'll be."
"Don't be so modest, dearest. You'll do fine," Dave said. "We'll sneak into the back tents during the show and blend in with the act. Once their guards are down, we'll snatch those pathetic creatures and bring them back here."
I was nervous, yet again. How the heck was I supposed to know how to sneak in anywhere? The worst thing I've done like that was sneak into a movie at the theaters, not actually sneaking into a place and kidnapping someone! Not only that but a bunch of someones! In a circus, might I add, where I would be surrounded by other animals, which I now knew were sentient, talking creatures that could probably work together and hurt me!
"Look, errr, Sir?" I asked timidly. "I really don't know if I can go through with that. Don't you have some paperwork I can do instead?"
"No no no, of course you can, and you will," Dave grinned again, backing off once more and then placing on a pair of glasses. He quickly began typing into the main computer. "And please… Call me Dave," he added.
I stood there, stunned, clenching my fingers into knots. This wasn't a joke. I was going to be forced to do a serious criminal act. Like, running red lights and stealing Pokemon cards didn't even come close to this kind of thing. And there was no training or preparation for this. I was just being tossed into the mix through Dave's convenience.
I felt like I was about to piss myself when suddenly loud music broke through the room, making me jump and shiver. It wasn't until a few seconds later that I recognized it was the Safety Dance, specifically being transferred through my cell phone and into the speakers around us.
The orange octopus that had been messing with my phone started gobbling to another one of Dave's henchmen, apparently confused as to why the music was playing, and so loudly for that matter. While they were busy trying to figure the device out, two green octopuses standing around started to bounce to the beat, forming gleeful expressions as the seconds passed.
"What are you doing? Turn that off!" Dave ordered at the orange octopus. "And you two!" he then gestured to the two green ones, "Stop dancing immediately; we're not celebrating anything yet!"
The orange one struggled for a few moments, and then shut off the music. The other one that had tried to help beside him sighed, as if disappointed.
"Charlie, sheen the computer monitors!" Dave ordered to the one that had sighed. "If you aren't busy enough to do your own chores then you'll be given more. Now hurry. I can see dust on them!"
"You just did it again," I said, looking over at Dave.
"Did what?" he glanced back, confused.
"You did another celebrity pun."
He kept staring, still confused. I could tell there was absolutely no getting through to him with this. Dave apparently wasn't aware of human pop culture.
I facepalmed as my teeth uncontrollably clenched together out of frustration. "Don't worry about it," I answered, as calmly as I could. "Never mind." Boy, this was going to be a long day. "Anyway, what are you doing there?"
"Oh, just working on finishing this upload…" He trailed off as he looked back onto the computer screen, obviously perplexed by it. "What button was it again?" He narrowed his eyes as he looked, still confused.
I rolled my eyes. Even with being surrounded by all this technology he couldn't work a computer? I guess I had to give him some credit. He was an octopus after all, and managed to gather a following and have a submarine, helicopters, and probably tons of other machines at his disposal. "Can I help?" I offered.
"Why, yes. You can, actually," Dave smiled at me, moving a tentacle like a person would do a 'come hither' sort of gesture with their index finger.
Awkwardly, I came over, attempting to get to work at opening the file while Dave looked over my shoulder. Despite how he made it out to be, it was really easy to work the thing. I mean, it was an illegal copy of Windows 7, so of course I knew it like the back of my hand. "Which file do you want me to open?" I asked.
"That one," he pointed at the screen, leading me to click the file he wanted. A few seconds passed while an upload screen appeared, and then suddenly, like a wet towel hitting me in the face, I was smacked with a feed of all the information on my phone. Everything. Every damned thing.
"What the hell!" I yelled, stretching my body over the screen in desperation. I felt my face turn completely red.
"I told you, I need to look over your information," Dave said casually. Suddenly I felt one of his tentacles wrap around my waist, then pull me from the screen, causing me to back off enough for him to take a look. I tried to struggle, but it was really no use.
"Turn it off!" I yelled again.
"Nice selfie," he joked, smirking as he peered through his glasses at the screen. "What are you so concerned about? It's not like you have anything to hide."
"What are you talking about, of course I have things to hide!" I said through clenched teeth. I admit I didn't have as bad of things to hide as he did, but… wow, this was awkward.
"You write poetry? And what is this, your blog?"
"STOP!" I felt my eyes go wide as the cursor moved towards the extra files.
In that brief moment, Dave hesitated, allowing a soft chuckle to escape his throat. "It's inevitable, my dear. The background check is needed. You can leave if you want, but I'm still going to have to look at your information."
Despite his offer to let me leave, he still had a strong grip on my body. I watched in complete helplessness as he opened my blog, suddenly then all my personal information blowing up on the screen in all purple letters and pictures of myself and things that I liked. I literally felt like my heart was about to blow out of my esophagus.
"Let's see… Kailey, recent graduate in Industrial Psychology/HR, 5'5, brown hair, brown eyes… loves cats?" His eye twitched for a brief second, apparently out of jealousy. Despite that he continued reading aloud. "Favorite color, purple. Nice. Single. Nice. Asexual? What's that?"
Through my already stifled emotions, I was suddenly asked what asexuality was by a freaking octopus. I mean, it was hard enough giving that giant vocab lesson to my mother. I wasn't sure how much Dave could comprehend and I didn't want to put myself in another awkward situation anyway.
"Google it yourself," I snapped, trying to suppress my complete awkward terror.
"Google?" Dave asked, "You mean that search thing on the internet?"
"God… yes. Yes." I put my hands on my cheeks, trying to get my face to cool off from all this stress.
"Maybe later," Dave responded, then continued reading. "Okay, let's see… you like video games. Good, that means you have decent hand eye coordination. Your favorites are Metroid Prime, Skyrim, Pokemon, Portal 2… Games you want to play are, Mass Effect 4 and… Octodad? What's Octodad?"
My fingers, which were still on my cheeks, slowly went into my hair, then I pulled. I tried to prepare myself to explain, not really because of the subject matter itself at that split second, but because of how already nerve-wracked I was. However that would change quickly as I started to talk.
"It's a game about an octopus that disguises himself as a human man and ends up marrying a human g-g—" I paused, eyes wide as despite my efforts my face turned red again. The situation I was in, applied with the subject matter, was so absolutely out of this world that I had to stop myself. "You know what, never mind. Forget it."
"I'll have to Google that later too then," Dave said rather straightforwardly, then shut off the data. I felt my heart fall back in place in my chest as Dave finally let me go, relieving me temporarily of my downward spiral into potential insanity.
"Anyways, I had best prepare for our meeting with the penguins," Dave spoke, and began to walk out of the command bay. "Hopefully we'll be there by this evening, providing the submarine makes good time around the gulf."
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked, still standing in the same spot. Surely he'd give me some sort of idea of what exactly I'd be doing, or preparing for. After all, he had only told me just now that I would be going in with him to capture these guys, and that's it.
"Oh, don't worry about it. I'll tell you everything you need to know once we make landfall and head that direction," Dave responded, heading down the staircase.
"Wait—you can't be serious!" I yelled back. However, my only response was a shutting hatch. He had apparently already vanished through the door and into the depths of his submarine. For the first time since I got there, I felt like sobbing tears of pathetic worry and disdain. I was about to become a freaking criminal. I was going to have to kidnap somebody.
"Oh God, what am I going to do?" I muttered to myself, as suddenly the little octopuses started playing the Safety Dance again in the speakers around me.