Hey guys! Before I start I wanted to say that I went back to fix the typos and mistakes pointed out to me. (Cough, Cough, Thanks Chigger) I also was wondering if anyone is willing to be an editor/proofreader to catch my typos and such in the future. Till then, enjoy.
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Early morning shone down on Octo Valley as Patton awoke from his sleep. Rubbing his eyes he mumbled something incomprehensible to himself. Not accustomed to sleeping more than two hours at any time prior to his long rest in the pod, he awoke with a sense of disappointment. Pulling himself out of the hammock he had himself in for the night, he noticed the large octopus and his snow globe next to where the fire was. He appeared to be sulking in one way or another to himself, so Patton went on composing himself for the day.
Pat looked over to where his trenchcoat hung on a nearby tree, noticing how most of the ink had either disappeared or dripped off. There were smudges of the magenta-pink colored ink the had refused to vanish here and there, but other than that the coat had suffered no real harm.
Taking in his surroundings again, Pat quickly threw on his coat, not bothering to button it as the bottom of it went down to his ankles, hiding the scar lines along his legs. Cracking his knuckles he admired the landscape in the distance, not paying notice to the Octarian king now looking at him for his globe. As if there was a cue Cuttlefish walked out of his shack, greeting the human with a welcoming nod as he went to move Octavio's globe back to its correct spot. Pat watched as the globe was moved back to where it belonged next to the shack, lost in his own thoughts of what he was to do. Before he knew it they were all down eating the same meal they had the night before: Crabby cakes.
"So what now?" Pat mused, after the meal had been finished they sat there awkwardly not knowing what to do. "I can't just stay here forever."
Cuttlefish thought this over, "I don't quite know, but we need to find something." Both knew they had no real idea of what to do. This situation was one no one could prepare for. "I say we wait for my Agents to return from their morning routines before we decide on anything."
"What morning routines?" Patton looked up.
Considering what he was to say, Cuttlefish looked to him and said "Ask them yourself later." Before Pat could say anything, he added "If I tell you everything then you will learn nothing and won't achieve a thing yourself."
Patton agreed with what he had said, but still had questions about how the execution of this idea would work out. Looking at the tunnel from which the duo had left from the night before, his mind brimmed with more questions about how this new world worked.
Not long later the Callie and Marie came out of the same manhole they had left from the night before, donning their disguises they had used the first time they had met. This being Pat's second day in this new world, he couldn't tell if their disguises were normal accessories or not.
"So how's our 'guest' doing?" Marie said as she walked past Patton without a glance.
"Why not ask him yourself, Agent." Cuttlefish said turning to look at the two. "It wouldn't hurt to talk."
Marie turned with a bored expression, almost expecting such an answer from her grandfather. "Huh," Was all she was willing to get out.
"She's never like this at all." Callie whispered to Patton. "It's like she secret likes you or something."
"Sure," he nodded. Pat turned to look at Cuttlefish again. "So how long are you planning on keeping me here?"
"Well," Cuttlefish started. "That's not up to me, but I can promise you I won't hold you against you will."
"Well then, you won't have a problem if I went back to where I was woken up, would you?"
"Actually, I was about to send my agents back there to see if those Salmonids can hold a grudge..."
"So you want us to babysit and go back to the very place we were chased down by a swarm of fish?" Marie inquired.
"If you want to take it that way, yes indeed." Cuttlefish smiled under his beard. "It's nothing you and Agent 1 can't handle."
"Well then, we're off on an adventure then!" Callie cheered, obviously ready for the trip today. A very different attitude compared to the one she had yesterday. Marie grumbled in light protest, not satisfied with the reason to return.
"You know the way better than I do, lead on." Patton smiled as he and the Squid Sister began their pace back to the same cave in which he was awoken.
Marie stood back, hoping for some form of disapproval from her grandfather. To her dismay Cuttlefish game a welcoming nod, indicating that she was to move on with the other two.
Patton was a good man. Cuttlefish felt sure of this. After his conversation with the human the night before he was sure of it. He held most of the defining qualities he looked for when he selected Agent 3 for the job. One thing that had struck him odd was the look he saw in Patton's eye, it was the look of someone who had seen and been through what would cause most sound men to buckle and crack under. A look of a person who had been through more agony and pain than usual.
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"You will never make sense to me."
These words seemed so familiar to Patton in a way. The group had started a conversation to pass the time heading back to the cave. The topic had turned to the conflict between the Inklings and Octarians just like the night before. Again, Patton voiced his own opinion on the matter, and Marie continued to disagree with him.
"You mean fighting over something that has a simple solution is better?" Patton couldn't tell if she was disagreeing with her due to the strong split between them or she seriously didn't think his solution was better. "Your problem seems like one you could of dealt with by now "
"It's not like we haven't tried," Callie tried to keep the conversation from turning into a full on fight. "Gramps once was involved once involved in an effort to reach out soon after the war ended."
"Gramps? " Pat asked.
"Our grandfather," Marie said before Callie could reveal too much about them. "He was in the Great Turf War."
Satisfied with this answer he was given, they continued on. A few Salmonids took notice of the group as they made their progression through the area. Most were too bewildered by Pat to make any real moves on the group, knowing he was not like the other two.
Their progression continued on without a word for the rest of the trip. Within one hour the had reached the entrance hole the agents used the day before.
Moving a small boulder out of the way to make the entrance larger, Patton walked into the cave with both squids close behind. They walked in slowly allowing time for their eyes to adjust in the dark.
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Unknown to them a figure was watching their progress when they entered the barren landscape. Pulling out a communicator, the figure turned from watching Patton's group enter the cave.
"It's awake." The figure spoke.
"What! How, we were ordered not to wake it until we were sure the experiment would work." The voice was muffled and distorted by a jamming mechanism.
"Inklings, I watched it return with two of them."
"Figures, begin with the first test as planned, you know what to do."
"Copy that with pleasure." The observer grinned. Pulling out a piece of complex equipment.
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"Patton reached for the pod to gather the stuff he had with him during the long rest he had. Of the items he pulled out, there were two satchels, a canteen, some old console he had carried with him, and an umbrella. Callie again took a look at the terminal she had used to awaken Pat from the pod. Looking over Patton looked at the screen she had up.
"So how did you know the input data to activate the pod?"
Callie looked up from the screen. "I didn't, none of this ancient language makes any sense to us."
"Then how is it that we can talk?" Patton asked. He began to fiddle with the computer terminal, a bit more straightforward with his goal than Callie was.
"What do you mean? Aren't we speaking the same language?" Marie looked over from the exit of the cave. "And what are you doing?"
"Two rules of using a computer that isn't yours." He responded without skipping a beat. "One: Do whatever you want, and two..." He grinned in triumph as he had gotten to what he was looking for. "Always delete your browsing history."
While the Squid Sisters couldn't make out what was written on the screen, Patton had bought up the logs and history of activity on the very terminal itself. On it, he found that for weeks, no, months someone had been putting information about the new language the Inklings and the Octarians used. This couldn't have been an accident, as translating and putting in a new language into the systems was a hard feat. Relaying this information to the two, there was still one question they had left.
"So how are you capable of speaking our language when you haven't learned it."
Patton paused, considering how he wanted to explain this. Looking up to the faces of the two cousins, he sighed.
"It's not an explanation I'm comfortable with..." He began, turning away from them. Pointing to one of the scars on his temples, he began his explanation. When I was a little boy I was caught in a tragic car accident that took my parents. My uncle wouldn't have me dying on him, so he snuck me out of a hospital to begin several experiments in order to help me recover. Two years later he died... so then a Russain family took me in for awhile." He explained while he did leave out the part of the event leading him to fear doctors on purpose.
"So your like some robot-superbeing from the past with lasers and hidden surprises?" Callie asked, her imagination beginning to fly.
"No, that's stupid and impossible." He said. "My uncle wasn't up to doing something like that. Though, one thing that was implemented was an automatic translator. Whoever did this must of figured out how to put in the language in the system through the Terminal..." He paused. "But less about the boring details, I'd hate to waste time."
"Fine," Marie agreed, but she looked back to the console and the door. "What is behind the door?"
"Huh?" Patton turned. "Oh yeah, that is the Box." Realising that meant nothing to them, he explained. "That was originally the last hope of humanity. The box is the world's largest time capsule, the main body of it is five by five by five miles tall, long, and wide, with several smaller cubes connected to the main body for individual purposes." Grabbing the umbrella, pointed with it. "That terminal was originally meant to control the door and other exit ways for the outside."
"Can we look inside?" Callie asked, barely containing her excitement. Even Marie was genuinely I interested in what was below.
Slinging the satchels on his shoulders, Pat swayed his head. "Sorry, I've tried, but I don't even know how to get in."
Disappointed, Callie and Marie started to head out. Once they were situated, Patton turned to the duo.
"I never got your names." He stated.
Looking at each other, the duo had agreed that they couldn't truly hide everything forever. Callie started.
"I'm Ca-"
She was interrupted by a rumble in the distance, all turning to get a look they realized that another swarm of Salmonids had formed in the distance. Though, something was different with this one...