Chapter 3: The Turning of Tables
The very core of my body, organs, brain, bones, the surface of my skin, my soul. They all feel cold. Cold inside and out. Despite this, I don't warm myself up. Instead, I lie still, subconsciously accepting my current state. Dare I say it, I am comfortable in my haze of unconsciousness. My senses creep up on me. First my touch, then hearing, then sight. The metal surface I lay on, like me, feels utterly cold and lifeless. My ears, though numb, begin to kick itself awake, sending a high pitched tone in my ears and nailing into my brain. Noises finally reach my ears: a sequential pattern of muffled beeping softly fills my ears like a lullaby. If it weren't for the red flashing disturbing my rested eyes, I would be sound asleep. Deep breaths. My lungs slowly swell with stale air, then deflate. This process slowly becomes more difficult over time. In and out, in and out. My heart rate rises gently as I find it harder to breathe.
Wait...
The cold, the beeping, the lack of air, the red flashing. Oh god, not again!
My eyes shoot wide open as I rise from the ground, gasping and gulping air and exposing my sensitive eyes to blinding light. I gasp and wheeze, squeezing my aching chest. I'm alive, thank god. I try to regain my composure, wiping the sweat from my cheeks and brow. back when I still lived in the bunker, the authorities told us that cryo sleep can affect us even after we stop using it. It'll take about two weeks until the post-cryo sleepers stop getting the feeling of cryo-sleep, and since I woke up to mine malfunctioning, I'm probably going to wake up like that for another 14 days. In the process of wiping my face, I notice my hands are stained with purple ink, along with yellow-ish orange gravel, dirt, and dust. That's strange, why would there be dirt in a submarine station..? I take a glance at my surroundings for the first time after escaping.
Wow. I'm not in the submarine station at all! There's dry dirt, gravel, and rocks as far as the eye can see in this dark cave. The only light source seems to be a spotlight in my position coming from the skylight above me. I look up, shading my eyes with my ink-stained hand, to see a giant hole leading to the outside. Where is the submarine station? I was supposed to be in the submarine evac station, but instead, I find myself in a dark cave? Nothing has been going my way since I woke up from my cryosleep. Where did this cave even come from? I stand up and squint my eyes, peering into the darkness outside of the spotlight. I can barely make out vague shapes of the cave walls. No exit in sight. A sigh of frustration leaves my mouth as I sit back down on the ground next to the rusty hatch.
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"What does that creature think he's doing?"
After I ordered everyone to search the rest of the bunker for a power source, I went back to my office and grabbed a few things so I can catch this creature. I prep up my supercharged suction bomb for me to use on the vault. This device isn't like any other splat bomb. Using the batteries from Renin's special drill (he won't mind), this baby is fused with small voltage and will explode hard enough to blow the hinges right off of that vault. There's no way that creature can hold it down!
"There", I exclaim in victory. "He thinks he can escape the undergrounds from a professional Octoling miner? We'll see about that!" I attach the bomb to my backpack and use both my hands to climb back up the ladder.
I didn't just bring an electrically-charged suction bomb, but I've brought some of my own expensive equipment to bring this guy down. I have my octarian battle suit, my unique modified octoshot that shoots super sticky ink, a couple of splatter bombs, my general mining equipment bag, and last but not least a military-grade thought translator! This way I can stick it to that thing's forehead and I'll be able to understand it. Oh, the juicy facts I can get from inside his head! If he is an undiscovered species (he has to be intelligent like us, right?), I can only imagine what I could gain from its thoughts! Fame, fortune, that new pair of shoes I've been wanting for a while. Sure, Octavio wouldn't be happy that I went against his orders to search for underground power, but he'd be astounded at what I find!
Here it is, the hatch! I wrap my right arm around the ladder and reach for the bomb. I can hardly contain my excitement that I almost drop the bomb, my hearts leaping to my throat. Thankfully I catch it and stick it to the hatch before I can make any more mistakes. My last step is to set the timer and get the hell away from it...
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After moments of sitting in this dark cave doing nothing but thinking of a way to get out of here, something catches my ears' attention. My ears twitch, and I look towards the source of the sound. It's coming from the other side of the hatch right beside of me, and it sounds something similar to the whirring gun that was shooting at me during the chase. That's weird. Why would they be using that gun again if they can't even reach me? That thought runs through my head while I lean closer to the hatch, but then the whirring's pitch slowly starts to rise. Is that... a bomb?? I scramble back away from the hatch as the pitch rises even further and brace for something dangerous to happen.
BOOM!
The hatch bursts open, sending itself high in the air and falling on the gravel with a heavy thunk, both of the heavy duty hinges shattering like glass and ricocheted everywhere. My ears ring from the sound bouncing off the cave walls, having nowhere to go. By the grace of God, none of the shrapnel hits my body. Instead, a massive amount of purple ink covers half of my body, not counting the ground around where the hatch used to be. I try to wipe us much of the stuff off my now ruined clothes, but suddenly an octopus shoots up out of the hole. The octopus transforms into the familiar lady before she lands next to the hole, holding a bag full of equipment and a utility belt. She's wearing something different than before: a tight, zip-up black crop top with only one long sleeve and a tight mini skirt. Why she is wearing such revealing appearance is beyond me, but that's the least I am focusing on. The lady pulls an ink gun from her back and aims it at me, speaking her language again. Before I can respond, she dashes off to the side and shoots black ink at me. My eyes follow the ink, and I turn to see that it landed directly behind me on the ground.
"Ha! You miss-"
I turned back at the shooter only for her boot to collide into my chest, causing me to fall face up onto the puddle of black ink. Her kick was only meant to push me down, so I don't hurt very much. My bareback, however, doesn't feel very good against the rocky ground. I try to get up from my position, but the ink between me and the ground is extremely sticky. My body struggles to turn on its side, but the ink firmly holds me in place. I feel like a beetle on its back, completely helpless and vulnerable.
The octopus lady approaches and stands right above me, both her boots on each side of me. She pulls out an object from a pouch on her utility belt. It's a small red octopus-shaped device that blinks. She crouches down and tries to put the damn thing on my head! I try to turn my head, but my hair is all caught up in ink.
"What the hell are you doing?! Get off of me and get that thing out of my face!" I shout, struggling my entire body as the device is pressed against my forehead.
The device is warm against my brow, and I can feel the mechanical parts crawling into my skin. I scream and shout in pain as it burrows itself into my head. The worst part is that I cannot resist or writhe in pain, making it ten times worse. The lady above me watches in horror at what she has done. Is she really surprised that it wouldn't hurt me? It finally stops digging at my brain and the pain recedes away. I try to recover from the pain, catching my breath. What did she just implant in my head? Is it some kind of alien mind control devices they use to abduct humans?! Is this how it goes for all of those unlucky people who people think are crazy? I can feel my warm blood slowly leak from my new wound.
"Oh my god. What did you do!?" I say. "Am I going to die?" I start to freak out.
"Woah, I can actually understand you now! This thing really works!"
What? Has she been bilingual this whole time? The octopus lady changes suddenly from horrified to excited and her eyes light up. I blink at her in disbelief.
"Wh-What's going on? Why do you decide to speak english now??" I stumble and babble through my words as the lady confidently smiles.
"Ah, english is the name of your language?" She stands back up from me. "No matter. I'm not speaking english, I'm speaking aquatic. The thought translator on your forehead isn't a language translator. It goes both ways so you can understand me and I can understand you. When you speak or think, the thought translator converts it to aquatic for me to hear in my earpiece."
A thought translator? Does that mean she can read my thoughts? That's a total violation of my privacy!
"Yes, yes it is", the octopus says. "Though you can change the setting on the thought translator to only translate your words by strictly focusing on your Broca in the frontal lobe region of your brain. What you say will be spoken aloud in any language from the device."
My heart leaps to my throat as I frantically try to tinker with the device on my forehead. This is when I forget my arms are stuck to the black ink. "What!? H-how do I change it? This is exactly how I thought an alien abduction would go." I'm trying not to panic or think of anything stupid or embarrassing.
The lady places her hands on her hips and raises an eyebrow. "Alien? Is that what you think I am? Some kind of thing from outer space? I'm an octoling and if anything, you are the alien. I've never seen anything like you. State what species you are this instant." Her voice is clear and demanding. So that's what she's called.
She can't be serious. "Is it not obvious? I'm human! What else would I be?"
"Human" The lady is taken aback in denial. "No. That's impossible. Humans aren't real."
"I'm pretty sure I know what species I am. You know, a homosapien? That's the scientific term..?"
The lady pauses and looks off in thought, her hand under her chin. "You aren't lying are you?"
I don't understand. She can literally read my thoughts right now. "Wouldn't you be able to tell?"
Her eyes meet mine once again, a mixture of emotions swirling through. After a moment of silence, she speaks up again. "You're... You're really human! How is this possible?" She looks almost disgusted at herself for being wrong.
"How about I ask the questions? What are you? And where did you come from?"
"Who am I?" She says as if I of all people should. The octopus lady raises her gun up to her shoulders, confidently puffs her chest out and smiles. "Minery Advisor Unit Anthia Octonine, here to restore power for the Octarian cities!"
I expected answers, but now all I'm ending up with is even more questions. "Restoring power? Then what are you doing here trapping me in this black goo and sticking a mind reader to my head?"
"Well, uh", I caught her off guard. She doesn't look so smug with her apparently important title anymore. "I've come to investigate this mysterious creature that is yourself, to gain important information to report to my leader o-of course."
I give her the "stop bullshitting" face to her. She just here for her personal gain. But what? "You're not supposed to be here are you?"
Anthia's face becomes flustered, her face forming red with blush. "How dare you question me and my motives! Don't you know how important my directives are?"
I honestly couldn't care less who she was, but what she and where she really came from. Besides, what kind of miner wears something I'd see in an adult night club? "That isn't my concern at the moment. My main concern is being stuck on the ground by some octopus alien and not being able to find my family. Now could you please let me go and change the damn setting on this thought translator?"
"Absolutely not. I'm not letting you go until I get answers from you. And for the record, I changed from my MAU uniform to a tactical one in case if things got difficult between you and I. There's nothing wrong with this suit! Now tell me how you survived through all these years. And what about this family of yours?"
"How about this", I say. "You let me free from this black stuff and I tell you? There's nowhere I can run anyways."
"How about this", Anthia mocks me. " You answer my questions and then I let you go?"
This is going nowhere. I sigh frustratingly. "I'll tell you, but if you want to ask me more questions then you'll have to let me out of this mess. Sounds good?"
She thinks for a while until she speaks. "Fine. But remember, I caught you once and I can catch you again. Now answer my questions."
I pause for a moment to collect my thoughts. Where do I start? The apocalypse? "I survived from the flood by hiding in that underground bunker along with thousands of others. I was put into cryo-sleep until everyone knew the Earth was safe to live on again. I think it was because we were running out of food and supplies, and my family went missing before I woke up, so my mission is to search for them."
"Wow... So the history books were right." Anthia says, stepping away from me to think. I guess she trusts the ink more now since she isn't directly above me. Or maybe she just trusts me a little more.
"History books? What are you talking about?" I say, confused. Are we some kind of ancient civilization to them?
"Let's just say no one has seen a live human before, and we consider you a skeptical part of old history. After the sea levels dipped down, aquatic life evolved into intelligent life forms and moved to land."
No. This can't be true, can it? How long did I sleep? And she's thinking about how lucky she is? I don't know why only my cryo-pod was the only one left functioning, but my luck ran out when I figured out my family was gone.
I lay there, watching Anthia as she mumbles to herself in her ridiculous, revealing appearal she calls a suit. "Can you let me go now? I don't want to see you at this angle."
She stops mumbling and her face turns red with embarrassment and anger. "What? What do you mean?" She then covers her skirt. "You're the one who's ridiculous!"
"Whatever. Just let me go like you promised. And can you change the damn setting on the thing in my brain so you can stop listening to my thoughts? It's super uncomfortable."
"No way. I'll let you go, but you could be planning to escape without me knowing."
"I could also be thinking about how distracting your suit is as well. Do you really want to hear that?" I'm not really the kind of guy to do that, but if it saves my privacy I'll say it.
Despite her knowing my thoughts right now, she's angry and embarrassed nonetheless. "Ugh, fine!!! Just hold still while I switch the settings. I almost regret putting this on you." Anthia approaches me and bends down, pressing on the device for a while. I guess she notices the blood that formed around the device that caused the wound because she does more than just tinker with the thought translator. He fingers touch around my wound, making it hurt.
"Ow! Stop touching my hurt spot and just fix the device!"
"Are you made of red ink or something?" Anthia completely ignores my demand.
"Why would I be made of ink? I'm still bleeding from the mind reader. I think my skull might even be cracked or something, now please stop touching it!"
"You have a skeleton? That explains why it hurt you so much. You made me think I was killing you! Anyways, won't bandaids fix that?" Is she implying that her race has no bones? She turns and pulls off her backpack to grab something inside. She pulls out a white box and takes a small bandaid from it.
"I don't know if it'll work well for a human, but it's worth a shot." The octoling takes the plastic parts of the bandaid off and places it over the blood. She then puts her equipment back up and stands up.
"There. I can't read your thoughts anymore. That doesn't mean you can think of anything stupid about my battle suit though. Anyways, the only way to get that sticky ink off is for me to mix it with normal ink, and it seems you are unaffected by being splatted by my octoshot, so hold still." Anthia tweaks with her gun a little, turning the ink from black to purple, and aims it at my arm.
"Wait!" Before I can react, she pulls the trigger, letting a barrage of purple ink to splatter all over my head, arms, torso, and legs. The ink is warm. I could say that it's almost hot against my skin. I try to pull away from the black ink, and this time I'm actually separating from it. Soon enough, I release my arms and slowly sit up, wiping my eyes and spitting out excess ink.
"Ew, gross! You could have given me a warning before you decide to almost drown me in ink." I begin to wipe my body off.
"You're alright, aren't you? Now come on, I have to take you back to my leader Octavio." She walks back to the hatch's hole, holstering her gun.
"What? No! Didn't you hear me say I'm going to find my family?"
"Oh, shut up. You can find your family after my leader Octavio meets you. Having a human is way more valuable than any zapfish."
"You're not going to use me like I'm some kind of trophy, Anthia. I'm not coming with you, and say goodbye to all the other questions you have for me if you think I'm following."
"It's Advisor Anthia to you. And if you won't comply, I'll force you to come with me using my extra sticky ink again!" Anthia provocatively approaches me slowly.
Dammit. There's no way I can escape from that shit. She'll take me to her leader like I'm the alien, except I wouldn't doubt Octavio would want to keep me down here. She's got all kinds of equipment at her disposal: her backpack, utility belt, her gun. Wait, what about my gun? It's still in my pants!
"I'm not going anywhere", I say, I use my shaking hand to pull out the pistol from my pants and immediately point it between Anthia's eyes. I'm not a gun expert, but I think it's an alternative version of the desert eagle. "Make another move and consider your head gone!"
Anthia hesitates. "W-what's that?"
"It's a million times better than your so-called octoshot. One pull of this trigger and it'll do more than just splatter you." Oh my god, am I about to kill someone? If Anthia could read my mind right now, I'd be in big trouble, because I doubt I have the guts to actually shoot her.
Anthia sees the nervous sweat forming on my face. She hints a smile and takes a step toward me. "I'll take my chances, huma-"
BANG! BANG! I squinted my eyes, shooting twice skyward as warning shots, the bullets blowing huge chunks from the cave ceiling and falling in front of me and Anthia. My ears are surging with pain, and my hearing is muffled. During these shots, Anthia jumps up in the air like a cat, not expecting such a loud explosion coming from a smaller gun.
I regain my composure after shaking my head a bit and try to bluff the most stern, angry expression I've ever thought I can make in this situation. Shoulders up, legs firm, and eyes on the target. Come on Sean, you can fake this. "This is your last warning! Now that I think of it, drop your gun and kick it to me now!" My voice is loud and clear. Like I said before, nothing's gonna keep me from finding my family.
Anthia is shaking in her boots, not breaking her sight from the chunks that my bullets caused. She does as I say, dropping her octoshot and kicking it to my feet. "W-what the hell is that thing?"
Shit, what is this called? "Us humans call it the Desert Eagle. It shoots hard lead out and into its target at deadly speeds." It's an alternate version of the Deagle, but who cares.
I pick up the octoshot and tinker with its ammo tank. I somehow figure out how to take it off, and I throw it way off to the side. To make sure she can't use it again on me, I take my pistol and shoot at it. Another loud bang can be heard, and the tank explodes with a mixture of black and purple ink spraying all over the cave walls. I throw the octoshot back to Anthia. I notice that she looks like she just pissed herself from the third shot.
"One more thing", I say. "Find me a way out of this shithole to the surface. You did say the flood lowered long ago, so take me to the land above." Wow, I really am selling this "mean and demanding" facade, aren't I?
"Okay okay! If I do that can you stop waving that damn thing around?" Anthia's voice is shaking in fear.
I stop pointing the gun at her and hold it pointing upwards. "Lead the way octopus girl."
"Ugh," she grunts in anger. Anthia detaches a device from her belt and turns it on. "This is stupid. This is absolutely stupid!" She walks to the cave wall and fiddles with the device, a touchscreen popping up with a radar, signals, and unfamiliar letters. She starts to scan the perimeter of the cave. "This device searches for a number of things found in caves. Minerals, metals, electricity and air pockets. If my device picks up an air pocket, that's probably the exit.
I stand back and watch her do her work. "Even if you find an air pocket, how are we going to get to if it's blocked off by a cave wall?"
"I don't know. Maybe you should have thought about that when you were threatening to blow up my face. I'm doing the only thing I can right now." She continues to scan, but now I can feel the passive aggressiveness in her body language.
After a couple of minutes, the device starts beeping. "There. There's an air pocket right on the other side of this wall. The device says the pocket's huge, so it may just lead to the outside."
"Perfect!" I walk up to Anthia and study the wall. "Maybe we could use an explosive to blow the wall down?"
"I have no explosives. I used my only one to blow the hatch open." Anthia impatiently sighs. "Unless you want to blow chunks out of it using that gun of yours, I don't think there's a way of getting through this."
"Stand back", I say.
"What?"
"Stand back. I'm going to shoot the wall." I back away from the wall and cock my gun.
"What?!" She moves away from my soon-to-be line of fire. "You're crazy!"
I ready my Deagle and point it at the wall. "Close your ears if you don't want to be startled again", I say as she's already plugging her ears with her fingers.
I take a shot, fire escaping the barrel and the bullet cutting through the air. The lead knocks bits and pieces of rock and rubble off the wall. I put the pistol back on safety and investigate my work.
"Oh, what are you doing now?" Anthia still has her ears plugged.
The gun really did some damage to the wall, but no loose rock result from it. I grab an area of the wall, pushing and pulling. Nothing. I step back, raise my leg, and kick the wall. Nothing budges.
"I'm gonna get through this wall if it means I run out of ammunition. For my family!" I kick the wall again.
Anthia walks away and sits on a large rock, facing away from me and pouting with her fingers in her ears. I just continue what I'm doing. Once I realized I can budge it, I get far away from the wall and shoot at it again, each time making Anthia jumps a little. This process repeats a couple of times until I reach my second to last bullet. After all of that shooting and kicking and picking at the wall, I can see rays of light shining through the cracks of the wall.
"Anthia, I can see the other side!" I've been picking at the wall with my bare hand for a while.
"How many times will I have to tell you? It's Advisor Anthia. Hurry up."
I reach the point where nothing else can be picked at without another bullet. I get back again and ready for another shot. Before I pull the trigger, Anthia speaks up.
"What about you?"
"Huh?"
"What else should I call you other than 'human'?"
"My name is Sean. Sean Conrad." I line my eye up to the sights.
I shoot the gun once more, and the rocks that make up the wall almost completely fall apart. Nothing but a couple of kicks will do the trick.
"Yes! Anthia, could you help me with this?" I ask before I start at the wall.
She sighs. "I've got nothing else to do." Anthia joins me with destructing the wall.
We both pull rocks out from the wall, even more light shining through the crevasses. Through our work, I can't help but notice Anthia. She isn't doing anything particularly worth noticing, but I can't help but stare.
Despite Anthia being a total hardass, she hasn't really tried to knock me out and take me back underground. I mean yeah, I did threaten her with my gun, but now that I think about it, there were multiple times I let my guard down. Can she really be that bad? She is helping me take this wall apart even though she's deviating from her mission.
"There", Anthia says, breaking my train of thought. "You can crawl through the small space and get to the outside." She walks back to her rock she was sitting on to grab her mining device so she can put it back on her belt. "Oh, and wherever you're off to, I'm coming with you."
"What? Why?"
She pauses for a moment. "I... I'm not going to let a super rare species go off willy nilly to get killed. You're a walking monument to history. I'll be coming along to make sure you don't do anything stupid. Besides, a single bullet from your gun won't save you forever."
I smile warmly. "If it keeps you from crying then sure, you can come along."
"Whatever." She rolls her eyes.
I get down on my hands and knees and crawl through the small space, and Anthia follows after. It's a tight squeeze but means nothing if I can get to my family. I make my way through the small tunnel and finally meet the end. Once I crawl out, I stand back up and dust off my cut up knees, as well as my shoulders, arms, and back. I look up in the bright natural light, and what I see is nothing like I thought. Boulders, rocks, pebbles and gravel stretch all around me, and beyond that, gargantuan walls of rock and earth stand high, towering above me. It looks like I'm at the bottom of a crack in the earth!
"Ah, so this is where we are", Anthia crawled out of the tunnel. "This is octo-canyon, entrance to the octarian undergrounds."
Wow, so this took me a while to complete. As a form of apology, I made this chapter longer than the others. Tell me what you think about it so far, and if you have any suggestions or requests on what you want to be added to the story, (it can't interfere with the major plot) then you can PM me. Anyways, stay tuned for the next chapter!