Kowalski could have cried upon reaching his stop. The train wasn't busy at all which meant Kowalski didn't have to be stealthy and could just slowly drag his feet as he walked down the platform. The sun wasn't particularly shining today either, which put another damper on his mood.
Kowalski couldn't be bothered to wait for a lobster to get him either, so once he reached the gloomy dock he immediately let himself in the beat down building and found the button to open the elevator. He wasn't sure if Blowhole would be too happy that he just let himself in unsupervised but what was the worst that the dolphin would do? Kill him? That didn't sound so bad to Kowalski anymore.
Stepping out of the elevator, Kowalski was met with the quiet corridor. He had no idea where Blowhole would be and couldn't see any open doors either. Perhaps he could remeber which one was the office?
Walking down the corridor he walked past 2 doors and then stopped, then carried on and stopped again. It was all silent, it was all the same. He couldn't remeber which door led to where. He'd only been there twice and been in 3 rooms so he couldn't even guess what could have been in the other rooms. There wasn't even any light leaking out of the cracks in the frames.
He stood, puzzled for a moment at what to do. Maybe he could try his luck and just open a door? So he picked one, located the electronic pad that controlled the door and pushed a button to open it. Access denied. Must have been an important room. So, he tried the next one. Access denied again. Must have been another important room. What did the dolphin need so many rooms for? Also, shouldn't he be aware Kowalski was here?
Kowalski thought for a moment, placed his drawstring bag down by the wall and paced around. Maybe Blowhole would be on the next floor up? That was the main floor wasn't it? Striding back to the elevator, he was confident and didn't care if he wasn't welcome up there. It seemed that being tormented as he was had lead to some rebellious thoughts and attitudes.
Then, suddenly, another door down the corridor opened and out lurched the beast himself, draped in a white lab coat, glove like sleeves covering his flippers and carrying a tiny little petri dish. The dolphin noticed Kowalski and smirked.
"Uh oh, don't breathe," he said some what sarcastically, holding out the plastic dish.
Kowalski couldn't tell if the dolphin was being serious or not by tone but didn't want to chance it. He could hold his breath for up to 5 minutes.
Blowhole rode to the door Kowalski first tried to open and keyed in the password before entering. Kowalski didn't try to follow. If Blowhole was kitted out like that then it meant he was most likely working on that virus. Kowalski even considered just leaving, he didn't want to be exposed to that. But then what would Blowhole do to him once he found out?
Not a minute later, Blowhole appeared in the door again and glanced out with a confused look on his face.
"You coming or just gonna stand there?"
Kowalski moved forward, grabbing his bag off the floor again and followed Blowhole into the room. This was the lab. Kowalski made a mental note to remeber that the lab was the 4th door down and set his bag down again.
Blowhole began stripping off his PPE as Kowalski walked further into the room and even, accidentally, dropped a glove onto Kowalski. Or rather, he purposely threw it at him to startle him.
"Gosh, clumsy me," Blowhole chuckled as Kowalski gasped and jumped back after the glove touched him.
Giving Blowhole a stirn eye, he huffed and just kicked his bag towards the dolphin. The cruel hearted over sized fish took no care in where he threw his things so Kowalski took no pride in being orderly either.
"Here's the hover boots," Kowalski said.
"Ah! Perfect. Bring it up here," Blowhole said as he tapped on an empty table and continued to hang his lab coat away.
Kowalski dragged the bag to the table and threw it up, where he proceeded to then jump up and empty the contents onto the table. He had the notes neatly stacked and the boots sitting in the middle of the table by the time Blowhole approached again.
Blowhole took a moment to look over the inadequate notes that Kowalski took. Mainly messy diagrams and numbers all over the place but it made sense to him and that's all that mattered. No one else in the penguin HQ would even be able to comprehend making a pair of shoes, let alone flying ones.
"I swear I checked everything over 7 times." Kowalski didn't know if clarifying meant he would look like a bigger idiot or a little more sane if Blowhole couldn't find a snag either.
But it wasn't a minute later when blowhole rolled his eye and scoffed.
"Stupid bird, you forgot to convert from metric. Your equations are thousands of feet off from the start."
Kowalski's face went red. Or it would have if they could see it.
"What? Where? I swear I double checked everything," he exclaimed.
Blowhole pointed specifically to the faults and even flipped over the designing aspect after giving Kowalski a moment to contemplate his scientific existence.
"And anyway, you can't make a pair of hover boots with no stability. You need a way to distribute the weight in order for them to stay upright. You're bottom heavy."
Kowalski felt slightly offended. Bottom heavy? Was that just another way to say he had a big butt?
Kowalski grabbed the notes back and started scribbling a few things down. New equations and altering the design of the boot. Blowhole gave a few pointers and tips and suggested stabilizers should be added in the form of gloves so the weight can be manually moved around.
It looked like with the new aspects, design and components that it would be another full day of work before the boots were to be finished. Though, it didn't look like Blowhole minded. In fact, he seemed eager to get working and pointing out things Kowalski could add.
It seemed as though hours easily went by where the two just forget their differences and worked together on this project. Though, Blowhole didn't miss out on teasing Kowalski with some sort of digital graphic design tablet, making a new diagram of the products on his computer.
"I have the perfect material for this. Lightweight and breathable but stable. You get started on the gloves and I'll work on the boots."
Kowalski complied. In fact, was even relieved he wouldn't have to work with the boots since he was sick of seeing them fail due to discourse of his own account.
It was even easier using Blowhole's tools and equipment. It all looked new and unused and Kowalski could even see his face as it reflected perfectly in the metal tools.
Blowhole loomed over a few sheets of paper, some he had prepared and others Kowalski had written up. Equations, diagrams, paragraphs of which Kowalski couldn't read covered Blowhole's desk. But even when surrounded by all of this knowledge and perfect planning, Blowhole began to look vexed. Kowalski ignored it for the moment but couldn't help but feel uneasy. It seemed Blowhole could feel it too.
In the end, he gave up on what he was feeling and traveled the room to a very expensive looking stereo unit. There where large speakers surrounding the piece of equipment and as Kowalski looked around the room he located a few more speakers aimed to create that surround sound experience.
"I'm sorry," Blowhole said. "I don't usually work in silence."
He clicked on the stereo and immediately the machine tuned in on the nearest city's local music broadcasting station. Kowalski tried not to figure out how the signal was so clear this far away from civilisation and underground for that matter. Instead, he enjoyed the music. Or as much as he could since most modern pop music was a mess. At least the room wasn't filled with awkward silence.
The two worked well together. Much better than Kowalski had anticipated and found Blowhole could even be slightly pleasant when he wasn't in an antagonistic or foul mood. It was refreshing to have someone on his level of understanding to talk to.
Kowalski hesitated for a moment inside his head when thinking of a few questions he'd like to ask the evil genius. After being acquainted to someone who wanted to rule the world and made the word drastic sound like an every day situation, all he wanted was to understand. So he thought back to one of the first questions he had asked. Not to Blowhole himself but if he wanted the answer that was where he needed to go.
"Blowhole, how did you end up with so many lobsters? Why lobsters? Red One said he was your first. How did you meet?"
Blowhole stopped, then looked up, not meeting the penguin's eyes. It seemed as though he was recalling a memory. A somewhat troubling memory on accordance to his slight scowl. But that soon passed and he put on the same smug look as always before letting it fade again. Was the mask slipping off? Had Kowalski hit a nerve. Blowhole didn't seem to know how to answer these questions, though it still seemed he wanted to.
"I met Red One years ago. I'll spare you the sob story of my early life but it was not too long after I had first escaped S-SeaVille... I was alone. No adolescent should be alone in the open ocean. Red was just sitting in a lobster cage, waiting to be harvested by the dreaded humans. I couldn't let him get wasted on a human, no way. I freed him on the agreement that he would stay with me and help me get back to my family. Well, I did get back to my family and once we built my empire we decided the perfect workers would be more lobsters all freed from the cages and traps set out by the humans. So, we all share at least one thing in common and I got to destroy a local fisherman's business for a few months."
Blowhole looked almost proud. Kowalski couldn't say he wasn't proud. There was method to this madness, even if Kowalski didn't agree with the path they all walked now.
"So you saved them all and blackmail them into staying like you have with me?"
Blowhole looked almost disgusted. Like Kowalski could say whatever he wanted about him but he couldn't say a word about his precious lobsters.
"No! I treat my lobsters with the utmost respect. They can quit whenever they want, request holidays, take sick days. I'm not a monster, I don't treat them like slaves."
Kowalski let that statement roll around his head for a moment. Not a monster? Blowhole had proven so many times through his evil actions why people thought he was a monster. And to go back to the fact that he was planning on turning the entire human race into monsters was in fact a very monstrous thing to do.
Kowalski stayed quiet. It seemed the work ethic had been compromised and the air had a thick awkward haze to it. Though, the progress in the boots was coming along nice. Kowalski was eager once again to finally get to test them when they were ready. And then he could go home again and forget that Blowhole existed. But through all the hardships he was going through, he'd have a sweet pair of hover boots.