I was somewhere in the ocean. I didn't know where, having just teleported there randomly. That meant that not even Aldaris knew where I was, and that's assuming he wanted to find me. That would be opportune. Right now, I'm staring at sharks. There are at least two of them. I think I saw a third, but that might have been the second shark swimming around some rocks.

My eye was focused on the closer shark. Its dorsal fin was pushed far on its back, almost on the tail instead of on the back where most sharks have them. The mottled grey skin of the shark, speckled with all manner of smudges and spots, gave it the look of something very old, like a ten foot antique swimming through the bay. Its iris stayed focused on me, even as it swam slowly to my left.

Hello, cow shark! I waved. Moo!

I like cow sharks. They're my favorite sharks. Or specifically, sevengill sharks are my favorite, because their jaws look legitimately like "happy to see you!" smiles. There are four different types of cow sharks, and from the fact there was enough light to see by, these must be broadnose sevengills. All the rest of the cow sharks are deep water critters, most of the time.

Alright, Nerdy. I pushed forward in the water. Predators like weak prey. I'm a strong fish! I'm a strong fish!

Maybe there wasn't too much reason to worry. Sevengills have five unprovoked attacks on humans in the past 430 years, but I sure didn't plan on being number six. My sudden teleportation might have scared them, and I wasn't going to stick around. Or swim very fast. I am a strong, peaceful fish, and I don't have any reason to get away from sharks. Uh-huh. Yep. In no danger at all. So I peacefully kicked off my shoes and hoped for the best.

It took me about this long to figure out that I was still breathing. Sharks get one's attention immediately, but suffocation is a much more likely danger in the water. This sort of freaked me out in a good way for a second, because I had written a story once about a girl who learned she could breathe in water. Could I do the same? No, unfortunately. It took me a minute to find a strange ring around my neck. I was too busy pretending to be a strong fish to look very much.

The sevengills seemed only cautious of me, so I took a glance down at the thing. It was a weird, metal ring, far too big for my neck. With swimming, the water pushed it back against me, but I noticed that every time I finished a stroke and my momentum slowed down, the necklace would turn a little red in one spot. The red would disappear whenever it was next to my skin. So I just stuck it under my shirt and hoped it stayed in place. Red means bad in Protoss culture too, right?

Okay, cool. I thought. Here's a reliable way to breathe, as long as I'm careful.

Apparently me and the dictionary have different definitions of "careful", because right at that moment, I swam closer to the sevengills. Oh, come on, no judgement. I'm not a diver, so who knows when I would get the chance again?

Hello, Sevens! I wish I was telepathic with animals. Then I'd tell the squirrels I'd never hurt them, and these sharks that I'm their friend. I will name you Steve, and you're Susie. Actually, I can't tell if you're male or female, but whatever.

In my mind, I summoned up the song by Ashley Carr (he's a dude, not a chick) and started to drift through the dangerous waters. The combination of sevengills and trance left me hypnotized, and I drifted like seaweed through the murky waters, contented as I had never been before. It was magical.

While the sevengills, as I expected, plain avoided me, it was getting to the point where I was pushing my luck. Even though captive sevengills are more dangerous than free ones, they've all got teeth. I began to slowly make my way to the surface, in a low slope, diagonal sort of way. There was no sense in making the sevengills think I was some sort of fleeing prey. For that matter I didn't want to get the bends. I still don't know how deep someone has to be to get the bends, but I wasn't going to risk it.

Bethany, state your current situation.

It was Aldaris! Wow, he really was going to get me out? Awesome! Given that he pulled me and Cheonha from different sides of the planet, there was no telling whose coast the nearest shore was. I don't know how I would get home without help.

I'm alright, just swimmin' with the sharks. I thought back at him, hoping he could hear. Hey, what's this collar-thing on me?

It is an emergency field generator. The device recalls along with the subject in the event of higher or lower pressure levels outside the programmed-in safety levels.

Hey, that's handy.

Not quite. The device is designed for Protoss physiology. While there are no recorded attempts of human use, testing on similar creatures has shown evidence of poisoning the subject.

Wait, WHAT? You're not making that up, are you?

I do not deceive even humans. This device involves the use of chemicals that dissolve into breathable atmosphere. In lung-based creatures, these chemicals are inhaled prior to full dissolution and can produce negative effects.

So you're saying I need to get up to the surface ASAP.

Correct.

Okay, cool. I glanced down at the collar a bit. Uh, hey, wait a minute. What does it mean when the collar starts blinking red?

It means make haste.

Aldaris' tone of voice was really starting to bug me. Well, sharks or no sharks, up I went. As I swam, little zaps of electrical-looking lines started to warble in the water around my head. It doesn't take a Protoss engineer to figure out what that means. I pushed harder against the water, hoping I was high enough to not get the bends. Alas, I am no diver. The field around my head collapsed without even a chance for me to get a good breath in, and I choked. But, saltwater up my nose or no, I had to make it to the surface. With burning nostrils, throat, and eyes, I pushed my way up to the light.

And slammed into the floor! Blinking the saltwater out of my eyes, I guessed I was back in Aldaris' ship. I had to guess because I couldn't look. First of all my glasses (yay! They're still on me!) were wet, and secondly a sickness had hold of my guts, and for some reason everything was dark. Forcing myself to hack and cough, I tried to get the water out of my system. I started shaking. I'll never forget laying on that gold colored floor like a half-blind fish gasping for air.

"Oi! Are you alright?" That was the black British guy, to judge by his voice. I felt a towel go around me, and he started pulling at my shoulders. "Come over here and lay down a minute. Maybe there's some dry clothing somewhere around."

It might have been sound advice, except I felt like I was going to vomit if I moved. Maybe that was the poison Aldaris was talking about. Speaking of him, the massive doors (I keep saying "massive" and "large", but all this must be normal to 'Toss) opened and in the disgruntled reptile came. I could see this, as the blindness was starting to let up.

"Where is the generator?" I couldn't really see him, but I could feel Aldaris' shadow falling over me. "Return it at once."

It was as unlikely for me to do anything other than breathe as it was for me to spontaneously sprout wings and fly. Fortunately the British guy seemed to understand what Aldaris was talking about.

"You mean this thing?" the human said. "How do you get it off?"

"Never mind. Allow me." Aldaris huffed. He leaned over and did something (I was too dizzy to see what) and the collar easily hinged open and came off my neck. He snapped it away as if insulted I had used the thing. Well, excuse me for wanting to live. I heard the doors go, so that probably meant Aldaris was gone.

"That bastard." the Brit snapped. "He probably only wanted this thing back. Doesn't care about you at all."

"Ungggh..." I moaned. "Bad. Very bad. Bucket."

"What'd she say?" said an unfamiliar voice.

"She said we better find a pail." the Brit answered. "She's going to be sick, I think."

Not for then I wasn't. The pain started to subside at that point, and I gained enough clarity to look around. The place had the same gold-ish architecture as the rest of Aldaris' ship, but the particular room we were in was much larger than the ones we'd been in before. There were no computers in it, and as far as Protoss technology went only had these funny looking purplish boxes stacked to the left of the door, labelled with Protoss lettering. Like the rest of the ship, various random stuff from earth was scattered about. I didn't look too much, but I did manage to spot an open tin of vanilla chai teabags and a closed suitcase.

The two guys in the room tried to find a bucket or some such equivalent, but unfortunately all of the container-like stuff in the room was unfit for vomiting. The closest they found was a chipped ceramic bowl. Fortunately, the nausea settled down at that point along with the blindness. Clutching the towel as tightly as I could around me (it wasn't all that big), I made my way over to the side of the room and sat against the wall. The British guy put the bowl next to me just in case.

"What happened?" asked a tall, brunet guy, who came and sat down by me. Judging from his voice, he sounded like an American. "Did you inhale a lot of water or something?"

"No." After another deep breath I was able to talk a little more. "Apparently that 'Toss underwater breathing device I was wearing doesn't work so well on humans. Aldaris said it could poison me."

"Pfft. That's lovely." The Brit snorted. "So instead of getting eaten by sharks or drowning, you can now die of poisoning."

"You guys saw all that?"

"We did." said the white guy. "That is, until this guy over here started freaking out and Aldaris made us come in this storage room."

"They were sharks. I'm not supposed to freak out about sharks?"

"They actually weren't so bad." I said. "They were just broadnose sevengills. Sevengills aren't that violent unless you're trying to capture them. I even read a book once about a guy that would clean out their aquariums."

"Not a job I would take." the Brit walked towards me and the other guy, some clothes in his arm. "Once you feel well enough, you can wear these. They're not very nice looking, I'm afraid, but they're dry. I'm Toby, by the way. Toby Collins."

"Bethany Beverly." I answered, taking the clothes from Toby and then turning to the other dude. "And you?"

"John Statkus." he said. "Nice to meet you."

"Same." I coughed. "Oh hey, where's Cheonha?"

"Chon-ah?" the British guy raised an eyebrow as he sat down to my left. "You mean that Asian girl?"

"Yeah."

"We all teleported out in that last...whatever it was." John said. "Just like you were sent to the ocean, she disappeared to somewhere else. At least, that's what happened to the rest of us."

"But you weren't there." I protested. "Were you?"

"Oh, I could hear you talking to Aldaris before we all warped out." John rolled his eyes. "You really think I was going to come out of hiding and let him see me?"

"He probably found you when you teleported," Toby guessed. "Maybe his computer can trace where everyone goes to find them. That would explain how he found us so quickly."

John nodded. "That make sense. It didn't take him long to find me. I got stuck in this retirement neighborhood. I think it was in Florida or something, because everyone kept wearing these tropical shirts. I was this close to calling someone and telling them what happened, but he zapped me back up before I knew it."

"That's kinda funny." I grinned. "What about you, Toby?"

"My story isn't that adventurous. I just teleported in to New York City." Toby scratched his temple. "Huh, well, I think it was New York City. There were billboards everywhere, and I thought I saw Times Square up ahead. I was just about to go there when Aldaris told me to go somewhere where no one could see me."

John gasped. "And you listened?"

"Well...yes..." Toby shrugged sheepishly. "I was right next to an alleyway, and I had an impulse."

"You could have escaped!" John insisted. "You should have stayed where in public!"

"I don't know if that would do any good," I said. "If Aldaris is interested in keeping us here, he'd have gotten Toby here eventually. I just hope he does the same for Cheonha. The poor thing is a North Korean, and it would suck if she got out of that craphole of a country just to...I don't know, teleport to a desert and thirst to death or something. I wish I knew where she was..."

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Author's Notes:

- And in the next chapter, we'll find out what happened to our Asian friend. For now, cliffhanger! See us next time, same nerd channel, same nerd time. Or whenever I feel like uploading the next chapter.

Author's Notes (new):

This chapter hasn't changed much. Mostly I changed some of the grammar and wording to be clear, and to make Aldaris sound more like Aldaris. I didn't characterize him as well as I thought I did the first time around. This shows more in later chapters. I had him being unnecessarily angry, and well, while someone in his position might be mad, there's also the matter of controlling himself in front of humans. Also, thinking about his options. I need him to make sense here.

Lol. There was a point where I wanted to start a blog about sharks, but I never really got around to it. I have too much else to write. Needless to say, I love sharks. If I had enough money to stay home and write all day, I would do my shark blog. I have a cool name for it and everything. There's never enough time to write all that I want to.