NEO World of Advent Chapter Eight
Light felt, for the third time that day, like he was going to die. His face, he was sure, had by now turned a resplendent shade of green, his knuckles white as his fists wrapped themselves over the rails of a fishing vessel that Light paid access to. Why? He was trying to figure that out now, actually.
"You okay there laddie?" A grizzled old sailor in a picturesque yellow coat looked at the massively seasick Light in concern. "Ye should have told us you were seasick. Why'd ye even pay to come along in the first place?"
"Endurance training," was all Light could manage before another wave of nausea overcame his senses. "I don't suppose you have any secret fisherman remedies, do you?"
The man laughed. "You just need your sea legs, that's all."
Light wiped his mouth, feeling woozy but slightly better now that there wasn't actually anything left to lose from his stomach. "Do they come in the mail? Is there an express shipping option available, do you know?"
The man laughed, patting Light on the shoulder. "They'll come in time. You'll see. What do ye need to be at sea so badly for anyway, son?"
"Job," Light said miserably. "I have a feeling my boss won't be too understanding if I don't get those sea legs you were talking about."
The man sat beside Light, offering him a broth of some steaming liquid. Light took it gingerly, hoping it would stay down, unlike the contents of his breakfast. "Sounds like you've got a problem there sonnie. What's so important about this job? I'm sure there's something in Neo Arcadia for a landlubber like you."
"For one," Light said, more comfortable now that the ocean had calmed down, "My boss is quite the looker. Scary as hell, but that's not really a problem with me. For another, I can't fail this." Light's expression turned more serious. "I left some people behind. Well, it's complicated. I need to find them again and I think this is the best way I know how to."
"Lost at sea huh." The sailor gave Light a sympathetic glance. "We've all been there before. Might not be the same sea, but we've all wished we'd charted our courses a little better."
Light nodded. "We didn't exactly leave on the best of terms. I don't think they'd be too happy to see me again."
"What happened?" The sailor prodded Light's memories with the bribe of another cup of whatever that stuff he gave him earlier was. It might not be a perfect cure, but it settled his stomach more than anything Light had tried yet.
"There was a misunderstanding," Light said. "Something about family. An unexpected visit from one of my brothers turned violent. I won't bore you with the details."
"We all have a black sheep in the family," the man said with understanding. "Me, it's my cousin. The crazy lout nearly took out an eye once, you know."
"Yeah well," Light said with a thin smile, "My brother's extra crazy." The fisherman had the graces to leave it at that. The rest of the return trip was made in comfortable silence broken by the odd bout of cursing or the first mate giving a brief command. Sometimes it was hard to tell which was which. Light's eyes were kept tightly shut, but the cry of "Land, ho!" braced him for a slow stop at the docks, where the ship came to an abrupt halt as what little momentum it had left was sapped by knocking into the edge of the platform.
Light rose shakily to his feet, diving onto the blessedly still ground, giving a relieved sigh as he hugged the sweet, solid earth.
"What do you think you're doing?" The voice was more curious than hostile, but it made Light's insides freeze all the same. He looked up slowly to see Mist's calculated expression gazing down at him.
"Hey there," Light said as breezily as someone who was caught hugging the ground could. "I was just er, offering these sailors protection. You know, practice makes perfect."
Mist raised her eyebrows in suspicion. "Is that so." She turned to face the captain. "I hope he behaved himself. Was there any trouble?"
"No miss," the captain said respectfully. "He didn't really do much, save hug the sides of the boat for dear life. Lad had one of the worst cases of seasickness I've ever seen."
"Is. That. So." Mist thanked the captain for his input before picking Light up and dragging him to a small white building which opened up as Mist approached it. She swung Light inside, taking a seat behind a chair. She did not offer him one. "Care to explain how someone who can't even keep their lunch in wound up as a part of my crew?" If looks could kill, Light thought, he was about to find himself swimming with the fishes.
"Well," Light said jauntily, "I for one, think it's a travesty in the rigid assessment of our esteemed recruiters to have missed it. If anything, I'm the victim here."
Mist was not amused. "If you think I'm letting you go easily, you're dead wrong." Light shivered at the way she said dead. Distantly, Light wondered if it was wrong to be somehow turned on as she gave him the Death Glare Mach-70. "I don't exactly have a whole lot of spares for this and if my mother sees that one of my crew dropped out already she might pull the plug altogether. No,' she said, "You're going to find a way around this."
"Aye aye, captain." Light did his best to keep a straight face, cursing his apparent inability to feel the fear of death like he should. This could be painful. Which, that small rebellious part of his brain thought, wasn't necessarily a bad thing under certain circumstances. No. Bad Light. Focus.
Mist rolled her eyes. "You really are the most disrespectful Advent I have ever met."
"It's a gift and a curse," Light admitted. "We didn't exactly have ranks where I grew up."
Mist gestured toward a chair in the corner. "Enlighten me."
"I grew up in the colonies," Light explained. "Imagine lots and lots of sand. Not much else. We were part of one of Umera's failed experiments. I think he wanted something like a child army; I never asked. It's pretty informal, mostly. There were a few people in charge, but mostly we just did what we had to."
"And I'm guessing you were one of the ones in charge?" Mist gave him a shrewd look.
Damn, Light thought. She was good. "I suppose," Light said.
Mist harrumphed. "Well I suppose you had better get used to me being in charge instead, you got it? Your IQ test was phenomenal, to say the least. I could use someone like you on board, if you get your act together."
"I won't be a problem," Light promised her. "I don't have any disrespect for you- I'm like this with everyone. I can be a bit capricious, I suppose, without meaning to."
Mist looked at him as though he were an alien come from outer space. "You really are the most informal Advent I've ever met."
Light shrugged. "Sorry?"
Mist shook her head. "There are worse things to be, I guess. If the rest of my crew acquires your sense of unbridled familiarity, maybe we can work together as a unit. I just hope they earn it first. Speaking of which, how do you plan on getting your sea legs, Light?"
"I could make something," Light offered. "Human medicine doesn't work perfectly for Advents, but I could tweak an existing cure to fit my body better."
"I hope you're aware of the difficulty the task you just mentioned is," Mist said. "Each Advent is wildly unique, born from the cloned DNA of a human parent and molded around reploid DNA. I know you're smart, but do you really think you can pull this off?"
"If you give me access to a working lab I might."
Mist gave the matter some thought. "Why not. I have nothing to do right now and this could be entertaining. But if you lose, you're going to be scrubbing the toilets for as long as you live."
Light had the distinct impression that this was how the Devil bought souls, but agreed to the terms anyway. "Where to?"
Mist brought out a portable transfer device - a ludicrously expensive luxury for anyone else - and held Light's arm. She gave him a withering glance when he reacted to the touch. "Relax. We need to be touching for it to work." She input a set of coordinates, neglecting to warn Light that he would find himself in the middle of an empty lab in a quick flash of blue light.
Light staggered at the sudden change in scenery, taking in the vastly different environment. Where a small office once stood amidst the lingering smell of salty air, clinically clean walls and equipment waited before them.
"You have four hours," Mist said. "That's all the time I can spare."
"Four hours?" Light looked at the array of strange beakers and boxes that lit up with strange colors at odd intervals. "Let me get used to the equipment first."
"Fine," Mist said. "But now it's three hours."
"That's hardly fair."
"I never said it was. Now get going," Mist said. "Time's a-wasting." She gave him a sadistic smile, leaning back against the wall. Light noticed that her posture wasn't quite so rigid as before. When they were alone, she dropped the "stoic" act. Behind the facade of a commander, there was a verifiable sadist. Light's heart skipped unwillingly.
Light spent the next hour familiarizing himself with complex medical equipment, feeling grateful that he had in the past worked with similar machinery in the one medical outpost the desert had. It was a bit different and clearly more advanced than the stuff Light was used to working with though, and by the time his three hours started he still found himself feeling overwhelmed.
"I like my latrines spotless," Mist informed him as he stood there, unable to figure out where to start. This had an unforeseen effect on Light, however, who took it as a challenge. "You never said what I got if I win."
"You get the pleasure of not turning green every time a wave hits the boat," Mist called out. "Now get working. This ought to be good."
Light ignored her, placing his body in a full-systems scanner, hoping it would give him some clues as to why he was inherently incompatible with the ocean. Fortunately, it did alert him to a slight imbalance issue with the trachea of his ear and some other senses. Light quickly references a pre existing cure to human motion balance problems, having a pill of the medicine created before he examined it for a second. Here was something that worked really well for humans, so why didn't it work on him?
Part of it could be the natural physiology difference, Light supposed. Advents' oversols were dormant in their genes, but made for subtle differences in places, especially the brain. Humans didn't have any need for something that activated an oversol because they didn't have one. While there were some reported cases of reploids getting seasickness, it was mostly due to faulty programming. Where was the line in the middle?
"Thirty minutes!" Mist called out.
Light cursed, checking the scan in his brain again. His body was physically sound; if anything, it was his brain that refused to cooperate. But neuroscience was neither something he was willing to toy around within the short half hour he had left and he doubted it would do anything helpful anyway. So what could he do?
Ultimately, Light made something that had nothing to do with the human pill, after all, opting to hopefully dampen the effects the fluid in his ear had on balance. It might hinder him a little in other areas, but if that meant he didn't have to spend the ride hugging the rails, he was okay with that. He produced a small, black pill as Mist shouted "Time's up."
"Here goes nothing," Light said, examining the pill.
"If you die, I won't forgive you," Mist said casually. "You're not getting away from me that easily."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Light popped the pill in his mouth, gagging at the taste, then the sudden way the world started to spin as soon as the pill had been ingested long enough to take effect.
"Way to go," Mist said sarcastically. "You invented something that causes seasickness. Should I call the press now, so they can have your award ready for you?"
"Shut up,' Light moaned. "I can see sounds."
Mist was not impressed. "That's shut up, Captain," she prodded.
"Captain," Light said, "Torture isn't a sanctioned hobby you know. It's very unprofessional."
Mist rolled her eyes and after checking his pulse to verify that he was not actually dying before transferring them someplace where an unsuspecting scientist might not find Leviathan's daughter cackling over the keeling body of some unknown Advent.
In the process, Light had passed out. He found himself waking up to some truly awful smell inside a large cabin. Sure enough, Mist was there, stowing away the smelling salts that had brought him back to consciousness.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," she said drily.
"Did I die?" Light groaned. "I thought angels were supposed to be a lot prettier."
Mist's face turned red as she smacked him. "No you idiot. It's me, your captain. Remember? You failed. I hope you're good with a toilet brush. The others thank you for your sacrifice."
"That explains why I'm not in my room," Light said. "But where am I?"
"You're in my private cabin aboard the Kraken," Mist said proudly. "My vessel."
"So what am I doing aboard the Kraken?" Light wondered aloud. "Surely there was a hospital nearby you could have dumped me at."
"Too many questions," Mist said. "The press would go crazy if they saw me carry an unconscious boy somewhere."
"And an unconscious boy in your private cabin doesn't count?"
Mist blushed. "Not if they don't know about it. And don't make it weird."
Light sat up, groaning at the lingering effects of his anti-cure. "So what now?"
"Now," Mist said, "We try it my way."
"I thought you had somewhere to be."
"I canceled it," Mist said. "This is going to be way more fun." Light highly doubted it would be fun for the both of them. "Follow me."
Mist led the two of them to a control panel and an old-fashioned wheel. Taking immediate command of the deck, Mist told him to flip on a few switches. Upon doing so, Light noticed a distinct change in balance. The boat was moving. Mist tossed him a wastebasket, telling him not to get her floors dirty. Soon, the massive boat was in full gear, and Light held the wastebasket at the ready, prepared for whatever might come back up.
"You know," Light said as he miraculously grew accustomed to the slight shake of the boat and the hum it made as it sliced through the water, "Most people don't find Sadists very attractive."
"Really?" Mist said. "And why should this concern me?"
"Because I'm not one of them." Light tested the limits of their already rather unprofessional relationship with a wink. To his great delight, Mist's cheeks glowed pink. Much not to his great delight, he suddenly became too busy transfixed at the bottom of the basket to enjoy the sight.
After having improved Light's pitiful endurance at sea by way of "Trial by Fire" the two of them returned to the base the Kraken was normally stationed at. A reploid came by to ask her if everything was alright. After a few exchanged pleasantries she told the man that Light needed a boat, winking at him discretely when she told him that there was no need to make sure it had autopilot.
Light felt his knees go weak - and not just because of the rickety boat he had been just assigned - as he thought of the blue-haired girl. "I think I'm in love," he said. Looking around him and seeing nothing but open water he asked himself: "Now… where am I?"
