Alarm Beeping...
Lela slowly rises from her bed and checks the time.
"6:30. I should hurry up and get ready to continue working." Lela gets off of her bed and begins to change. Afterwards, she makes her bed and when she finished, she looks for her shoes. While she looks for her shoes, she hears the faint sound of repetitive creaking.
"What the hell is that?" She said to herself. When she found her shoes, she put them on, grabbed a portable video camera, and headed for the door. Once she opened the door, she could now hear the general direction of the sound. She followed it to its source, getting clearer and clearer the more she walked until she recognized the sound: Edward and Marie moaning. She stopped for a while, listening even more carefully. She then had an idea of what might be going on.
"Could they be...?" She said. "No, impossible, especially after what Ed did." She kept trying to deny it while continuing to follow the sound to its source, which she soon found out was Edward's room. Her first thought of what might be causing the sound started becoming more plausible. Now a few centimeters from the door, she could clearly hear what was going on. She thought of leaving and pretending she never heard anything, but instead got a better idea. She got her video camera ready and pressed record. She quickly opened the door, proving her initial thought true: Marie, on top of Edward, were having sex. She then gasped, first at the fact that this was going on, then to the fact that neither of them noticed that the door was opened, and then again to the fact that she was still watching this go on. While still recording, she loudly cleared her throat to get their attention. Edward and Marie immediately stopped and looked at Lela, with fear in their eyes.
"What...are...you...doing?!" Lela asked. Edward and Marie quickly covered themselves in the bed-sheets.
"Lela, get out!" Edward yelled at Lela.
"And are you recording?!" Marie asked. "Stop!" At this point, Lela was just laughing at their reaction.
"Oh my god, wait until they find out about this, they'll be-" Lela then saw Marie make an attempt at knocking the video camera off of her hands, but Lela managed to dodge it and sprinted to the door. Marie jumped again, but steered herself into a wall, since Lela had opened the door widely in order for Marie to go flying into the hallway. With that, Lela ran to her room and locked the door. Marie and Edward looked wide-eyed at each-other before deciding to put on clothes and go to Lela's room. In the room a few doors down from Lela's room, Felix, a very light sleeper, was awakened by the yelling coming from the outside and the loud shut of a door. Felix, thinking of something bad going on, quickly ran outside, still in his pajamas, and looked around. He saw nothing except other people looking outside as well. He walked back into his room, quickly changed, and stepped outside. All the people that were looking outside a moment ago had gone back into their rooms. Felix then looked at Lela's front door, which had both Edward and Marie furiously knocking on it. Felix, puzzled by what was going on, went up to them.
"Hey, why the loud knocks?" Felix asked them both.
"None of your business, just go back to your room." Edward said.
"Firstly, you're not my mother. Secondly, if it wakes me up, it is my business." Edward and Marie ignored him, still knocking on Lela's door.
"Lela, come out, now!" Marie yelled.
"Yeah, this isn't funny anymore!" Edward yelled. "Just delete it and we'll go away!" Felix then went back into his room and returned with a wire. He approached Lela's door and opened it for Edward and Marie. The door then creaked opened, revealing the Lela staring at them, in shock that they had opened her locked door. Marie immediately tackled Lela and began to roll her around on the floor while Edward began to look for the video camera.
"Hey, stop it!" Felix said while separating Marie from Lela. Marie pushed him back and knocked Lela to the floor again, only to be pulled back by Felix again.
"What's going on?!" Felix yelled. "Why are you tackling down Lela and looking through her stuff?!"
"Again, none of your-" Edward couldn't finish his response as Felix leg swooped him, knocking him to the ground. He then threw Marie to the ground next to Edward, and Felix pinned them both to the ground.
"Do I need to arrest you guys, because I will if I have to." Felix said in a serious tone. Marie turned into her squid form, but Lela grabbed and tightly hugged her, preventing her from moving.
"Ah, it's all Lela's fault!" Edward yelled.
"What did she do?" Felix asked Edward.
"She recorded us having sex!" Edward responded. Felix helped Edward up and then looked straight at Lela.
"Lela, is this true?" Felix asked. Lela's eyes began to dart across the room, as if looking for an answer on the walls.
"N-No?" Lela responded.
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"I-uh-n-o-all right, yeah, I recorded them. There's nothing wrong with that, right? I mean, they should've closed their door in the first place." Lela responded.
"You should've knocked in the first place." Felix responded. "And besides, no matter what they did or did not do, it doesn't automatically mean that you can do that shit."
"B-But, I mean-"
"Delete it. Now." Edward interrupted.
"Fine." Lela then grabbed her video camera from under her bed and deleted the footage. "There, you happy now?"
"Not completely, but better than before." Edward said. "I'm just surprised that we didn't wake you up last ni-" Marie cut him off by covering his mouth with her hand.
"Wait, last night?" Felix said. "You're telling me that you fucked her last night AND just a moment ago?"
"C-Can you blame me?" Edward said, getting a disapproving look from Marie.
"I'm not answering that." Felix said. "But no, ." Felix quietly whispered to himself. Felix then cleared his throat. "Okay, now that that's taken care of, let's get ready to work!" Felix left the room and accidentally hit the wall with his foot.
"Bloody hell!" Felix yelled, looking down at his feet. When he looked back up, he saw Pearl and Marina standing in a dark part of the hallway, not moving in order to stay hidden.
"Marina, Pearl, what are you guys doing?" Felix asked. Marina made a shushing gesture with Pearl making a stop gesture. "Wait, were you guys eavesdropping on us?"
"Who's eavesdropping on us?" Marie asked while walking out of Lela's room. She them noticed both Pearl and Marina standing outside. Marie just gave them a death stare.
"W-We wont t-tell a s-soul." Marina trembled. "W-We p-prom-mise." Marina elbowed Pearl to make her nod. Marie walked up to them menacingly.
"Not. A Soul." Marie said before walking away. Felix then looked at Pearl and Marina.
"Now that we're awake, we should check up on Clay." Felix suggested.
"Yeah, we could do that." Marina said. "We should probably wake up Callie too."
"She already went." Marie said from the ed of the hallway. "She returned like an hour ago. I'm going to see him right now, want to come."
"Yeaaah, it's going to be really awkward after what just happened." Pearl said. "We'll go after you finish up." Marie rolled her eyes and headed for the Medical Room.
"Geez, she keeps popping out of nowhere." Pearl said. She then quickly glanced behind her. "Wait, she's not behind us listening to this, right? Whatevs, I'm going back to bed." Pearl began walking to her room. "You coming Marina?" Marina nodded at her and began to follow her to her room.
In Clay's room, Marie is seen sitting in a chair near his bed. Clay is now sitting up, and writing on a notepad. Clay then reached out for his tablet and began to look through the readings of the Institution's generators.
"So, how are you feeling?" Marie asked.
"Well, since Callie left, much better." Clay responded. "N-Not trying to be rude, just saying that in that bit of time, I really started to recover. In fact, I was able to stand up normally a few minutes ago without help."
"Wow, to see that just a while ago you were dead, and now you can walk, makes me wonder if you're a human at all." Marie said. "Whatever medicine they did on you must've been magical or something."
"Well, it sort of is." Clay responded. "It's a blend of nutrients and nanomachines that allow for quick repair from the inside out. And the use of quickly made organs from our advanced 3-D printers allowed the doctors to replace my severely damaged organs. If it wasn't for this, I'd still be unconscious and extremely weak."
"But even if you're not as weak as you should've been, you should not be working on the reconstruction of the Institution. It's not healthy." Marie said.
"Well neither is laying around in bed." Clay responded. "And besides, we need all the help we can get, even if I'm still injured." Marie then sat in silence, moving her head around the room ever so often, as if hiding something. Clay soon notices Marie's strange actions.
"Hey Marie, you good? It looks like you did something bad." Clay said. Marie's eyes immediately began darting across the room for a bit, avoiding eye contact with Clay.
"N-No, why would I do something bad?!" Marie frantically said. "And not with anyone else, that's for sure!" Clay looked at her very suspiciously.
"Ooo-kay then, let's forget I even asked." A few seconds of awkward silence soon followed. Marie wanted to say something to end the silence, but didn't know what to say. She then remembered something that she wanted to ask Clay.
"S-So how are you and Callie doing?" Marie asked.
"We're doing well." Clay responded. "At first it was a bit weird for me to be attracted to her, mostly because she was a squid. Afterwards, that feeling began to fade out. It completely went away when I was nearly killed by Kari, feeling that I would never see her again. So now I set aside our obvious biological differences and embrace our similarities. You should do the same with Edward." Marie looked at him with a shocked expression.
"With Edward?!" Marie said. "I think of him just as a frie-"
"Stop lying, everyone knows you have a thing for him." Clay said. "In fact, I'm surprised that you and Edward haven't done anything, shall we say together." Clay then stared attentively at Marie. "Or maybe you already have."
"T-That's ridiculous!" Marie asserted. "I would never do that, especially since I don't know him enough."
"Sure Marie." Clay said. "Just remember, whatever you decide that you guys want or don't want to do, it has to be something that you both agree to."
"What's with the tip?" Marie said. "Not being rude or anything, just asking."
"I don't know, I just wanted to say something wise like that." Clay said. Marie stood from her chair and began to walk to the door.
"I have to go, Pearl and Marina want to see you." Marie said, opening the door.
"But why didn't they come with you?" Clay said.
"The room was-uh, too small, a-and would make us all feel cramped." Marie responded.
"What do you mean small?" Clay said. "This room had more than three doctors in here at once when I was being operated on, along with machinery, and they were not cramped."
"Sorygottogobye!" Marie quickly said before quickly exiting the room. Clay was now sitting still, being confused over what had just happened.
Marie arrived at Pearl and Marina's room, panting after running here.
"Shit, Clay nearly saw right through my lies" Marie thought. "Although they were pretty shitty lies, so it wouldn't be too hard to see through them anyways." Marie proceeded to knock on the door, getting the door to be opened by Marina.
"Hi Marie, do you need anything?" Marina politely asked.
"Oh, if you guys still want to see Clay, I'm done talking with him. You know, so we wouldn't make it awkward."
"We'll see him in a bit." Marina said. "We're just doing something."
"Oh okay, no pressure." Marie left and headed back to her room.
"They better not tell Clay about what just happened." After a few minutes, Pearl and Marina leave their room and go to Clay's room in the Medical Room. They knock on the door before entering.
"Hey Clay, how are you doing?" Marina asked.
"I'm doing fine, thanks." Clay responds. "And how about y'all?"
"We're fine." Pearl responds. "Question is, how the hell are you fine? You nearly got torn to shreds and even died!" Pearl then gets next to Clay's face and whispers "Are you secretly immortal?"
"If I was, I wouldn't be in this room." Clay answered. "It's just absurd luck and science that helped me survive. Now enough about me, I want to ask y'all a question."
"What's your question?" Marina asked. Clay slowly stood from his bed, shocking Pearl and Marina.
"Wow, you can walk?!" Pearl said. "How?!"
"Well, my bone fractures were fixed, and so were my torn muscles." Clay responded. "Now for my question, y'all don't happen to know what's up with Marie? When she came to see me, she was acting pretty strangely." Clay walked over to the counter and grabbed a water bottle. Pearl and Marina looked at each other, and Clay noticed this.
"So do you know?" Clay asked.
"Nope." Marina responded. "I haven't even seen her today."
"Then why did you and Pearl look at each other as if you were caught when I asked you the question?"
"We're not suppose to tell anyone else." Marina said. "We promised Marie. Besides, it's not important anyways."
"If it isn't important, then why does she not want anyone else to know, or as Marie said Not. A. Soul."
"Wait, how'd you know that Marie said that?" Pearl asked. "She whispered it to us, and only us."
"For starters, Marie can't whisper at all, and secondly, Lela called me in her communicator, but said nothing, which allowed me to hear what Marie said."
"Just stop asking." Pearl said, being pretty annoyed now. "If Marie doesn't want to know what happened between Edward a-" Pearl covered her mouth after realizing what she was about to say.
"Oh, so it was between her and Edward then?" Clay said. "No wonder she doesn't want anyone to know, and also explains why she was acting so strangely." Clay looked at both of them and then smiled. "I know exactly what happened now." Clay said, walking towards them.
"No you don't." Pearl said.
"Then how about this. Either you tell me exactly what happened, or I'll tell my interpretation of what happened to everyone else. So if I'm right, Marie would immediately go for you, and if I'm wrong, then shame on me. How does that sound?" Pearl and Marina rolled their eyes at him.
"Alright, alright, fine!" Marina said. "We'll tell you, just don't tell anyone else." Marina then began to explain what happened early in the morning, making Clay laugh the entire time.
"...and that's why we couldn't tell anyone else, especially you." Marina said. "There, you happy?"
"Yep. I just have one thing to say: you are both really gullible. I had no idea of what might've happened between Marie and Edward at all! I can't believe you managed to tell something like that!" Clay said. Pearl and Marina were both furious now.
"You are such an asshole!" Pearl angrily said. "Can't believe we felt bad for you!"
"Alright, I'm sorry, didn't mean to offend." Clay said, laughing a bit. "But it's not good to fall for such a trick. If it were anyone else, then you'd both be screwed. And if you're wondering, no, I won't tell anyone. Something like that would be bad for everyone to know."
"Man, you're really messed up." Marina said. "Don't scare us like that!"
"Yeah, but I'm just glad that Marie or anyone else won't find out about this." Pearl added.
''Speaking of which, I really have got to see how reconstruction is going." Clay said. "Who's in charge anyways?"
"Uh, it looks like Felix is." Marina answered. "But I think that Edward and Lela are doing that as well. Why?"
"Because I should probably do that." Clay said. "I'm better at organizing these things, and because of my condition can't really do much of anything else that doesn't include a computer." Clay opened the door and began to walk out, bringing his laptop with him.
"Wait, you're still suppose to rest!" Marina said while grabbing Clay's arm.
"I'm more than fine to begin to help." Clay said while releasing his arm from Marina's grip. "Especially since all I'll be doing is sitting behind a computer screen, or at least until I'm 100% better, which at my rate won't take long." Clay began to walk to his room, still wearing his surgical gown. People in the hallway greeted him, with a few clapping or cheering at him. He entered, seeing it in far better conditions than he remembered it to be.
"Would you look at that, they cleaned my room!" Clay said to himself. "And I didn't even have to threaten or blackmail them!" He began to look through his drawers, and grabbed a plain dark red t-shirt and blue jeans. He took off his gown and put on his clothes, later grabbing a pair of shoes. He fixed his hair a bit and walked outside, being greeted again by people passing by. Clay then walked to the Assembly Room and saw Felix talking to other workers. Clay walked up to him while holding his tablet.
"Whoa Clay, what are you doing out of your recovery room?!" Felix asked with a shocked expression. "You're still not ready to be out, less to be working."
"I'm more than fine to organize things around here, although it looks like y'all started off pretty well." Clay said. He began to open up some screens on his tablet, showing all the connected robots. "And it looks like there's not much in physical labor that we need anymore."
"We are doing pretty well in both workforce and organization." Felix said. "So you don't have to worry about anything. You can go back to your recovery room and rest."
"Are you still in command of your troops?" Clay asked, not looking away from his tablet.
"Yeah, why?"
"I need some of them as material supervisors, and only five in the Medical Room for routine maintenance. I also need some biologists/geneticists to research ways to improve our crop yield. Finally, we need a few people with I.T. Experience to help me in building an A.I. that can run/monitor the Institution's basic functions."
"Looks like you should do the planning then." Felix said. "Then what should I do?"
"What you've been doing." Clay said. "Also, if you can help with security monitoring systems, that would be great."
"But I know little to nothing about computers." Felix said.
"I mean where we should have them placed, and what kind of security system we should have."
"Oh, I guess I could do so."
"But don't worry, I'll get a few others to help."
"A few others, but we don't have many people to begin with."Felix said. Clay then looked up at him, then turned around to look at Callie, who had just left her room.
"We might not have many humans, but we do have the Oceanics that can help us." Clay said. Callie noticed Clay talking to Felix and ran towards Clay.
"Clay, what are you doing out of your room?!" Callie frantically asked. "You're still not okay!"
"Trust me, I'm more than fine to help, so don't worry." Clay responded while caressing her face. Callie smiled at his actions and hugged him.
"In that case, let me help." Callie said. "Marie already started helping, and I should too."
"Just hope that Marie and Edward aren't working together, otherwise they might work like they just did today."
"Wait, what do you mean with that?" Callie asked. Clay facepalmed himself, realizing what he had just said.
"Yeah, what "work" did they do today?" Felix asked.
"Goddammit, I'm stupid." Clay said. "It's nothing."
"Tell us!" Callie and Felix said in sync.
"Okay, so you know how they both have a thing for each other at this point?" Clay explained. "Well, they took it up a notch, a really big notch. I guess you can say that they "physically" bonded." Felix and Callie thought for a second, until they soon realized what it meant.
"Wow. I knew it!" Callie said. "About time."
"You know, I never thought that this would happen." Felix said. "But frankly, I'm not surprised."
"Just don't tell anyone else or Marie, got it?" Clay asked them both. They both nodded at Clay's request. "Well, let's get to work." They the split apart, going different ways, except for Callie, who followed Clay, and kissed his cheek. Reconstruction was slow to start, but it got faster and more efficient as the days passed by. After a while, Pearl and Marina left the Institution, needing to be back at Inkopolis to tell the stages and splatfests. Callie and Marie stayed in the Institution, with Marie leaving occasionally to check up on Octavio. After a while, everyone in the Institution found out about Edward and Marie's affairs, but they both didn't seem to care much at this point, especially since they never stopped doing it ever so often. With this, the Institution began its recovery, along with its inhabitants, still knowing that with their low population one day, the human race will finally reach its end.
Or so they believed...
FIN
A/N: Well, that was a bit of a doozy. I hope that you all enjoyed the story, and stick around for future stories to come. I wish you all very happy holidays and a glorious new year. See you all soon!