Ch: 2
Crazy Old Bat
Sky woke to the sound of bells. Muttering several foul words, she stumbled out of bed and over to the rayer (shower, without water, cleans by rays). When that task was finished, she went over to her bag, and got out some clothes for the day, barely thinking at all, just moving out of habit. Once she was dressed, she headed downstairs, not knowing where the cafeteria was, but not wanting to eat anyway, because breakfast made her sick most times.
After nearly falling down the stairs three or four times, she safely (somewhat) reached the bottom, and went out to the shuttle. Grimacing, she stepped inside, and noticed how roomy it was in there with no people. 'No people?' Looking outside the open door, she found to her chagrin that the shuttle she had climbed into wasn't in working order. The men trying to fix it stared at her oddly as she stepped back out of it, red-faced. One started to laugh at her and she hissed at him, walking to where the working shuttle was supposed to be. Only, it wasn't there. Confused, she stood there, looking to where she was supposed to go, when one of the workers (one she hadn't hissed at. The one she had ran away.) came up and asked if she was all right.
"Where's the shuttle? It's supposed to be here to take me to Area Five."
"Lady, that shuttle left twenty minutes ago. It ain't comin' back until eight-thirty." Sky threw her head back and laughed hysterically. The worker stared at her as is she had just recently escaped from a House for the Insane, and started to back slowly away, not wanting to draw her attention.
'How perfect! My first day here, and I won't be on time for work. That's a way to get off on the right foot. Where did twenty minutes go?' She thought back and realized that it had been the time she spent wrestling with her clothes, to get them on the right way. 'Well, they really should put an indication of which side is the front on those things! The Earthers had the right idea: tags may have been itchy, but boy, were they useful. Not like these stupid Orchilum one-pieces. Can't tell which damn way is front . . . ' Sky moved her head back to its original position, to ask the worker if there was another way to the site; he was gone. Looking bewilderedly all around her, she couldn't find him, then just shrugged. Rude man.
Sighing, Sky resigned herself to walking all the way to the site. She turned and looked at where the tracks led to. Why the heck did this place have to be so big! In the Stations, it only took about an hour to reach the other side on foot. Sky sighed again. It was no use to think about it; she was stuck here until her contract ran out. LONG five years.
Two hours later, she arrived at the site, dusty and tired. 'WHY THE HELL IS THIS PLACE SO BIG!' She thought over and over again as she trudged along next to the tracks the shuttle traveled over, all the way to Area Five. As Sky walked over to where the rest were digging, a few looked up and gave her the dirtiest look, as if she had missed the shuttle on purpose. 'Like I wanted to walk all the way here!' She ignored them and went to the big tent near the center. As if she knew where she was supposed to go.
Walking inside the tent, a wave of coolness washed over her, and she closed her eyes in a moment of bliss. One moment. Then the guy in charge of the operation was in her face, asking A.) Who she was, B.) What she was doing here, and C.) How she got here, because the shuttle had already been there. Sky blinked a few times.
"Er . . . and you would be?" It was the man's turn to blink.
"I am Thompson West, leader of this excavation. I asked you a question. I expect an answer."
"Well, Mr. West, you did not ask me a question, you asked me three. And whether you expect an answer or not, it is still polite to ask it in a nice way. However, I will let your mother teach you this lesson, because I have no time. I am Anata Sky Pyre, Old Worlds Archeologist, and I need to know where I'm supposed to dig." She sighed as she remembered that she forgot a question. "And as if it isn't perfectly obvious from my state, I walked here. Stupid shuttle left before I did, and did you know that the scenery here isn't all that great? Just dust and craters as far as the eye can see." Tom's eye was twitching at her condescending tone. Not bothering to respond, he turned sharply on his heel toward the map on the back wall. Studying it for a moment, he pointed to a spot, and handed her the necessary materials for digging. Sky stared at the place she was supposed to dig on the map, hoping that he had pointed to the wrong spot.
"But that place is so far away! That's another twenty minutes of walking! Are you sure I have to work there!"
"Yes. And, because you arrived so late, I already assigned everyone else to different spots, so you will have to work that area all by yourself." Sky's jaw dropped all the way to the floor. Her site was at least a mile long! Her face screwed up into a pathetic pout, but she left the tent without complaint. This day was not shaping up well. And the stupid one-piece that had caused all this trouble was now giving her a wedgie. 'That's it!' Sky thought to herself. 'I am definitely never wearing these stupid one-pieces ever again!' She solemnly vowed to give away the rest of them tomorrow. She could send home for more clothes if it really became a problem.
It took more then twenty minutes to reach her site, but that was because she had stopped to watch a crazy lady. A woman who looked over a hundred years old was doing an odd dance, shuffling around in a circle, jumping up at odd times, and doing a weak copy of the disco. She was providing her own music, or what she thought was music, as she screamed,
"Follow old Ikifar, she knows the way! The way to the Bone Eater's Well!" Sky had watched this woman for five minutes, then shook her head and walked away. 'Crazy old bat. Heat's probably gone to her head.' When she finally reached her site, Sky groaned in an imagined pain. The place was barren. There was no indication that there might be anything underneath all the dirt, so she would have to dig everywhere. This was only a beginning operation, the government wouldn't fund them enough so that they could have all the nice equipment that senses all the objects under the dirt. This was going to suck big monkey feet.
The walk back to the big tent was so long that she decided to skip lunch that day, and took out the pencil and paper to write herself a note to grab something at the cafeteria tomorrow morning to bring to the site for lunch. Sky also made a note to wear anything not a one-piece, so she wouldn't have to walk to work tomorrow.
It turned out that the decision to skip lunch was a mistake. She felt like she was dying from hunger as she rode the shuttle back to the Research Center. Unfortunately, the smell of people after a hard day of work does not go away as you stand in a small place almost dead. If anything, it smelled even worse then usual.
The shuttle arrived on time at the Research Center, and Sky would have had to wait an extra half hour for food if she didn't happen to have food capsules up in her room, in her pouch. Shoving her way through the mass of people as they got off the shuttle, she ran up to her room as fast as she could, screaming at herself for forgetting her pouch. Slamming the door shut behind her, she dove at her bag, tearing it open and thinking very hard about the capsules. They came shooting out of the bag in a geyser, and she snatched a handful of them up, screaming at them, "FEED ME! I'M HUNGRY!" The capsules popped open into about five different meals, and Sky started to scarf them down, food bits flying all over.
There was a knock at her door. Mouth full of food, she looked up, and said, "Come in," her cheeks bulging. A woman on the other side of the door came in, saying,
"I heard screaming, are you alrig . . . " She stopped speaking when she caught sight of Sky's swollen face, the string of spaghetti hanging out of her mouth, turned, and walked away. Sky stared at the woman, bewildered, then shrugged and closed the door. 'Whatever.' She was still hungry. After her impromptu meal, she went to sleep, because she had suddenly become very tired. 'Stupid shuttle... had to leave so early... stupid one-pieces... can't tell difference... stupid brain... forget pouch...' She drifted off to sleep.
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The next morning, after the rayer, she thankfully remembered to not wear a one-piece. What she chose instead was a pair of loose pants, made of Orchilum as was most of her clothes, a deep blue in color, with little gold tear drops ringing the bottom. The shirt she chose was the same, except for a lighter blue, with the gold tear drops around the collar and shirt sleeves. The sleeves were three-quarter sleeves, and had a couple handy items sewn into the left arm, items such as a watch, a camera, and a thermometer. 'Yeah, so now I can tell at exactly what temperature I'm baking, how long it will take for me to be done, and how I look as I cook!' A couple seconds pass. 'Hey, that rhymed!'
This time Sky caught the shuttle, though she forgot to stop at the cafeteria. She had, however, remembered to grab her pouch, so she was in no danger of starving today.
At about noon, she stopped to eat, taking out a capsule, and settling down on a nice flat spot. Just as she was about to say "I'm hungry," (A/N: those are the words that make the capsule turn into food, because water is so cliche) that crazy old woman from yesterday popped out of nowhere, and jumped in front of Sky, screaming, "I KNOW THE WAY!" The ground beneath them collapsed under their combined weight, revealing that what Sky had been sitting on was, in fact, an ancient well.
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WritingWoman: Hm, I bet you can't guess what well that was, can ya? Lol. And do you know that things are never what they seem? I have to have the Well this way, because otherwise my story wouldn't work. So, assume that the Well was REAL tired of sitting there, all alone, with no half-breeds and miko's jumping around and through it, so it decided to take just anyone for a spin through time. Unfortunately, it discovered that THAT much time travel is a lot of work, so... Sky might not be going back for a while. Hm. Touchy Well.