The Lost City of the South

Chapter 3 - The Expedition Begins

"Why carrots?" Asami Sato, Phd, grumbled to herself as she lingered over the railing of the deck of the Zhu Li while is sped along at full speed heading South; closer to the site the team would be diving. In truth she hadn't even met the team yet; not Doctor Beifong, who she was most excited to meet, not the engineer nor the chef. Although she had been promised by Mister Varrick two weeks ago before leaving on this first voyage that each and every one of them were professionals and the best damn expedition team in the business. Money was no object. Still she grumbled as her lunch poured from her gut and into the sea with the harsh breeze blowing her hair back. Asami struggled to keep her glasses from falling from her face, stuffing them in her coat pocket while she chundered again again.

When the urge to throw the contents of her stomach overboard subsided she groaned again, hoping it was all gone. "Why is it always carrots?" She asked herself. They had always been a menace at the lunch table even as a little girls. Her rationale had always been that carrots were orange and edible and therefore they were evil and made her throw them up every time with fail. Every time.

She looked up to the sky in merciful confusion. "I didn't even eat carrots" she muttered before she could feel it again. It came right out and over the deck, completely emptying her gut and leaving her hungry again. Before she could rest and think about moving back to the mess hall for something to settle her stomach there was a rattle over the intercom to indicate it was being turned on and used by that woman on the bridge again.

Asami hadn't met her either, although there were tales that she was blind and rather short, and certainly older than most if not all on the expedition. The intercom buzzed with a metallic tinge and Asami thought it best that she at least head indoors and let the old woman's directive lead her.

"Attention," the gruff old woman yelled almost through the loudspeaker system all over the ship as Asami walked in through the hatch doorway and into the busy corridors. They must be preparing to dive. At that she altered her course to reach the service elevator to lead below decks to where the submarine was docked. "All hands to the launch bay," Asami was indeed correct again in her assumptions. "And to whoever took the 'L' from the Motor Pool sign, ha ha we are all very amused" the old woman added as Asami meandered through one of the many workshops and to the large service elevator with plenty of other crew mates heading down; mostly men, stocky and grunt like.

It was only when the elevator door slid shut and the whole cage juddered into a slow yet certain descent did the light-bulb finally strike in her head. Completely forgetting where she was and who was around her she let out a prideful yell. "Motor Poo! Ha!" She swore she heard one guy actually scoff and snigger at her apparent slowness. She never took implied humor well and this was a new low to her, causing the young yet certainly fair archaeologist to retreat directly into her shell like a turtle-duck. Hiroshi had once called her that; whenever she was unsure about a line of thought or some mathematical or physical equation he would put to her. She bemused herself, growing a short and shy smile as the elevator lowered into the large chasm that contained the submarine.

It was huge. Simply colossal and spanning the entire bay created in the Zhu Li. Varrick certainly hadn't scrimped when it came to the equipment on this expedition and the sheer size and length of the marvel of technical engineering and design made the plucky scholar gawk as the elevator came to a sudden stop at the base of the shaft.

Walking out she got the real sense of just how large the blue coloured sub really was. The large glass dome that was the command deck was the size of the front of Varrick's mansion, with the trailing fish like body looking like three stacked trains together. It was truly marvelous and Asami was in awe of this monumental feat of engineering that would carry her dream to its location.

In all of her stupefied gawking she was unfortunately not looking where she was going at all, or else she would have seen the person whom she bumped into. The other woman was trolling a large box stacked on top of another, high above her already gigantic height. She was at least a head taller than Asami and the young Sato was considered above average in height herself and while the archaeologist had bumped into her side something had fallen from the top most crate and laid at Asami's foot. Picking it up she saw the bright redness of the tube; a short warning red coloured stick with a tail coming from the top. Asami guessed it was the top. It was a stick of dynamite in her hand.

The older woman was hardly impressed as she gently but certainly took the red explosive from Asami's now trembling hand. With pursed lips and a deep, more masculine voice the woman addressed her in the ultimate of seriousness.

"Hey kid. If you're looking for the pony ride," she pointed back to the elevator from where Asami came, "it's back there" she pointed with a scrumped face, a tattoo on her forehead of a menacing third eye that Asami simply could not look away from.

She's the Demolitions Expert, Asami. Nice job.

She tried to brush off the poor introduction with a fake laughter, looking into the top crate as best she could to make out over two dozen more sticks of dynamite as well small spherical explosives and chains of smaller red sticks.

"So, uh, what else have you got in there?" Asami eased out, not taking the demeanor or the look on the woman's face as the 'get lost' she intended. The Expert rolled her eyes combined with a sigh, not wanting to humor Asami in any way. She had already cost her precious seconds and now they were turning into minutes the older woman simply did not want to spend with the less physically fit and more academic archaeologist.

"Oh you know," she began, sarcastic as ever. "Gunpowder, burning fuel. Notepads, fuses, glue - lots of glue, and paper clips." She held up both hands on either sides of her face, a flat look of futility on it once she realised Asami was simply not getting her sarcastic air. "Big ones" she finished as flat as she started before taking hold of her trolley and wheeling her explosive haul onto the sub via the docking area, leaving Asami to wander about the deck and annoy somebody else. Anyone else would think she was just some tourist, or part of Varrick's entourage that was staying behind for this voyage to return to Republic City. Yet however before Asami Sato could maneuver her way to find the old coot himself she bumped into yet another member of the expedition.

She was instantly startled yet again, feeling the thin layer of what was clothing on her covered back, expecting a collar but getting nothing. Turning around she made out black slicked back hair tied in a bun at the back of the woman's hair; yes, another woman.

"Um, excuse me?" she asked the woman, who had still not noticed she had been bumped into. She was seeing to something else in the distance nearby. "I need to report it?" Asami stated, more a question in her not knowing the technicalities of loading on the sub ready for departure.

The woman slowly turned, already as unimpressed as the demolitions expert with the third eye tattooed on her forehead, which Asami was still bewildered by seconds earlier. "Yes, Miss Sato?" Kuvira asked her, revealing her stark and flat face to the archaeologist. Asami practically jumped at the sight of her, the grease smeared over the bridge of Kuvira's pointed and slim nose and the rest of the fumes creating a kind of film over her face, making her looks more emphasised and extremely attractive before the shy Sato. She had almost thought the same that night in Varrick's mansion having had the mysterious mistress break into her apartment; she couldn't help but see the seductive beauty in the slender and yet ripped build of Kuvira.

Before Asami could say anything else on the matter Kuvira's attention was stolen again, from behind with some hunched over little man with a beard taking up his entire jawline and chin. He was squatting in a crate as it was behind unloaded from a flatbed and it was filled with tins and smaller pallets of food stuffs. He really was an odd looking creature by Asami's standard with a look of pure weirdness in his eyes that matched his rather wild style and demeanor. Kuvira looked to have no time for his complaints as he spoke; a thick and crusty voice that rubbed against the walls of Asami's ears, making her want to be scarce and vomit again. She thought of the carrots and nearly did.

"Kuvira! I've got a bone to pick with you!" He yelled from his cove of ingredients, the crane unloading him finally stopping just eye level with Kuvira while the rest of the men and women on that section unloading the rest of the foods behind him for the trip.

Kuvira rolled her eyes, motioning for Asami to stay where she was for a moment while she dealt with him. "What is it this time Bumi?" she asked quickly and plainly, filled with attitude.

"You've gone and filled my wagon was all these non-essentials" he stated, sifting through all of the tins and packages stuffed in the pallets around him. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows so everyone could see his vast amount of arm hair ravaging him. He worse suspenders also, a very old fashioned outfit Asami thought and he even had this tiny bowler's hat atop his head like a few at the museum before she left, however not as well kept and certainly not as expensive by her reckoning. She was almost disgusted by him and yet intrigued by him at the same time, much like she was with the demolition woman whom she had failed to get the name of. This man was certainly a Bumi type of guy.

"I mean look at this right here," he rummaged, "cinnamon, onion banana juice, cilantro. What the spirits is cilantro Kuvira?" He pulled out something green to her surprise. A ball that was fluffy and shriveled at the same time. Whatever it was he was instantly repulsed by it. "What the spirits is this?" He asked, stunned at the verdant vibrantness of it.

"That would be cabbage Bumi" Kuvira unveiled to him.

Again he was stunned, blown away even. It was as if he had never seen such an item of sustenance before. He held it out in front of him as he freaked out, refusing to believe it even existed. "Cabbage? Cabbage?!" He yelled at the top of what Asami assumed were smoker's lungs judging by the viscosity of his bile exiting his mouth and the rust in his vowels as he shrieked.

Kuvira took the cabbage from his stubby hands and tossed it about in one gloved hand; her hands were still gloved even know in the velvet that Asami liked the look of. "It's a damn vegetable Bumi. The men need the four basic food groups" she explained, closing the space between he and the green on purpose to make him feel on edge like an addict suffering from withdrawal symptoms. It made Asami giggle a little like a minor.

"I got yer four basic food groups" he countered, baking away from the cancerous cabbage. With his stubby fingers he counted to four proudly. "Beans, bacon, whiskey and lard" he finished.

Before anything else could be said by anyone there was an even louder siren than before. The old woman's voice came over the loudspeaker as Kuvira lobbed the cabbage back at Bumi and ordered to pack up and move away from the loading equipment and onto the sub with her.

"Attention. All hands the launch bay. Final loading is now in progress."

Walking along the line of the hull towards the main loading bay Asami made out finally a welcome familiar face; Mister Varrick in tow with another gentleman. He was huge. A tower of muscle and heavily built masculinity, the peak of physical conditioning. He was wearing an officer's uniform with a buzz cut down to the follicles on his head with his beard and moustache completely erased. His chin was sharp, like a brick that could destroy anything else near enough and his hands could wrap themselves around anyone's neck she thought. He could kill a man simply with his thumb she added to her mind. Still he looked charming enough. An authoritative look in his stature and yet an inviting one with his slick smile and brown eyes.

"Asami-" Varrick called to her, seeing she was seeing his associate walking with him in the sudden and organised rush of the rest of the expeditionary crew. She made her way over to him, taking her inquisitive looking from the beefcake standing next to him. Varrick was admiring his money's worth by looking over every inch of the outer hull of the sub.

"Mind blowing right!?" He boomed at her once she was standing next to him. The sound of his repeated yell rang in her ears as it had done the night in his basement study two weeks ago. He was still every bit as crazy and manic as ever. Her eyes followed his hand as it gestured towards the main body of the man beside him. "Asami Sato, I'd like you meet Commander Zaheer."

Zaheer. A famous name to those in the correct circles, and Asami was. She knew his reputation for finding the seemingly impossibly found. She was amazed she didn't feel it was he in the Air Temple photograph with Hiroshi holding the Fisherman's Account. As the thought of the book entered her mind she suddenly thought of where she put it. Just as Zaheer extended his strong right hand to shake or kiss hers she felt her bag with both hands, feeling the book however leaving him with his hand out. Bad first impression there Sato.

"He's the head of the Temple Team that brought the book back" Varrick added. This time Asami corrected her mistake introduction by extending her hand out, which Zaheer took at her slender and rather petite fingers compared to his. He gave her his charming eyes and planted a soft kiss on her hand.

"A pleasure to meet the daughter of old Hiroshi" were Zaheer's first words; harsh and stained almost, like a varnish on a window frame of wood Asami thought. He was exactly how she had heard, charming at first, with his words not matching his demeanor nor his intentions no doubt. It wasn't that he was shifty, no; the most shifty out of the bunch that she had met or that she had heard about what the geologist. Zaheer was much the same as Kuvira. Mysterious and very shrouded in the eyes like they had worked for some secret service before agreeing to expeditionary archaeology.

She pulled out the Account from her satchel, Zaheer locking his vision on it as soon as it showed itself from the stitching of the bag. "I see you have that book. Nice pictures" he remarked. Not that you could understand them. She couldn't place her finger on it but she was still for some reason detained by him, or from him. She held the binding closely, as if to not let anyone else see in the buzz around them. Zaheer chuckled, oddly but yet again normally, not seeing the distrust Asami was sure was manifested in her eyes. "I prefer a good Earth fable myself" he finished before Varrick took the helm of the conversation again to Asami's relief. She could certainly not see herself spending her time with Zaheer thus far.

"Pretty impressive isn't she kiddo?" Varrick asked, still admiring what his money had bought years ago. Up until now the thing must have been sitting in a dock somewhere around one of Varrick's many lots. Asami could guess he had fingers in nearly every industry in Republic City and more.

Asami was impressed to be fair, she had been the moment she stepped off the service elevator. She cleared her throat before addressing him, still not knowing just how to describe the majesty of the submarine nor the excitement that was now beginning to bubble inside her over the prospect of actually leaving and actually finding the Southern Water Tribe. "When you settle a bet Varrick, you settle a bet." That was it. That was all she could say really. In the fraction of the second that she cleared her throat all sense of vocabulary and intellect left her and she was left as that six year old who had heard the tales of the Tribe from her father by the fire on one of his rare days off away from the office of Future Industries. The sweet, tender memory of it had followed her the two weeks, being her in flight movie while she slept in the single bunk room near the stern, struggling to sleep over the sound of the creaks and the spinning turbines to push the tugging ship closer south. Now it was zero hour.

As Varrick was about to say something else the alarm sounded again, catching Zaheer's attention in an instant and leaving Asami flustered as she figured out what it meant. They were calling it and were about to descend.

"Attention. Launch will commence in fifteen minutes" the old woman announced.

Zaheer saluted to Varrick before making his way to the main loading bay doors, Asami guessing that was where she should go as well.

"Mister Varrick"

"Zaheer"

She tripped on the small rim, stumbling into the loading bay after Zaheer, Varrick waving to her as she ran. "Goodbye Varrick!" She yelled before the doors finally closed. She could hear the faintness of his farewell as the did.

"Make us proud kiddo!" He shouted just as the door shut.

All at once the submarine sprang to life, everyone of the engineers, mechanics and crewmates reporting to their positions and pulling the various levers and switches to make her shipshape. Zaheer found Kuvira and the two took their positions in the glass dome that was the bridge at the bow, with Varrick overlooking the dive from the front. More levers and more switches went in all directions with every person performing some task or another except Asami, who had found a perch on the bridge to overlook the dive. Again she hadn't seen the rest of the main team. Not the geologist nor the doctor nor the engineer who had she assumed, taken to their places in the sub during the final seconds of remaining above sea level.

Once the fifteen minutes were up and the sub was fully ready Zaheer steered his sharp vision to the dock officer at the helm of the entire thing. "Lieutenant. Take her down" he stated in his deeper and more authoritative tones, making Asami more uneasy about him in the sternness of himself. The lieutenant muttered something to another crewmate who did the same until the order was relayed through the entire vessel that they were diving. Asami was more than nervous, hell she was terrified. She had never seen a sub let alone board one and now she was about to depart from the modern world for a place that no man or woman had seen for thousands of years.

The entire thing rocked, jerked and thudded as the hooks and cranes holding it to the ship above failed, letting it go fully and into the water where the glass became engulfed by the abyss foot by foot. She was stupefied, seeing the impossible before her. They kept going until the whole chassis was gliding under the sea and away from the boat above. The next stop would hopefully be the Lost City of the Southern Water Tribe, just as the history books would have it written in the decades and centuries to come.

And before she knew it she was walking the contained and slightly claustrophobic corridor to her bunk, where she was remain for the rest of the midday until the next meal rolled around and this time she would certainly skip the carrots. After all in a sub there would be barely anywhere for them to go.

She tossed her single duffle and her thick mariner's coat to the side of the room, not caring where as long as they were away from her. With a final huff she leaped onto the bed, her rear landing first and then her head falling suddenly on the pillow provided for her. All in all the room was rather open, a welcome contrast to the corridors and the bed was more than satisfactory to her. She had never been fussy when it came to bedding; as long as she could sleep in it she was fine.

Asami Sato closed her eyes, letting some time in for sleep after the rush of the morning and midday. To her surprise there was something else planned for her. A pair of eyes peeked from the upper bunk that had forgot to notice. Big eyes and perfectly rounded and young, certainly young; about the same age as her own. They were green too although a darker shade to her beautiful emerald and they were slitted, peered closely at her perfect skin. A handheld flashlight then joined the two eyes from the upper bunk. Whatever it was, they clicked the button and the bright yellow glow from the rather old flashlight flicked into existence shining directly on Asami's eyes, causing them to open slowly and annoyedly.

"What the hell?" She asked to the air, not knowing if she was in a dream and this was a mirage or if the eyes really existed; not that she could make them out exceptionally well behind the warm and piercing glow of the flashlight.

In the most quiet of voices she heard a male voice address her. "You have disturbed the dirt" he stated like a rat, or mole or rodent of some kind. Of course she couldn't make him out.

"What?"

"You have disturbed the dirt!" The creature shouted, falling from the top bunk an clicking the button of the flashlight again so that she make him out fully. She would, if during his fall she didn't bang her head on the top bunk she now knew was there. Asami quickly moved from her lying space, scrambling to beside the man. He was shorter than she, but not by much and he was hunched over like the cook before. Dirt?

He quickly scurried over to the bedding, whipping away the green coloured sheet to reveal what he meant; an array of piles of dirt, all different colours and each with a tiny flag to accompany it. "Dirt from around the globe spanning the centuries" he stated in a rather high voice, quickly like his attitude as he fiddled his fingers about in the thin air trying to think of some remedy to the situation. It appeared to Asami that when she had leaped onto the bed a dirt pile belonging to some place called Zaofu had merged with another from Ba Sing Se. It was around this time that the man noticed. He gasped rather violently, more like a wretch. "What have you done!" He whipped out a small trowel and a brush from seemingly nowhere, most probably his pocket. "Zaofu must never mix with Ba Sing Se!"

"But what's it doing in my bed you creep?!" Asami countered, wondering as much as he managed to separate the one big pile of dirt into two smaller piles of dirt with the flags falling flatly to the sides of each.

He sneered at her. "You ask too many questions" he scurried back to her, standing up straight and getting rather close. "Who are you? Who sent you? Why are you so pretty?" He asked all three in rapid succession not letting her answer any before he brought out a pair of tweezers from his pocket too. Equally as quickly he managed to seize her ring finger and assaulted the nail with his tweezers, again for dirt. "Eh, I will know soon enough" he assured her as he picked a small piece of skin from under her nail.

Practically flying across the room he reached a small microscope at the end table before she could even protest to the tweezers. All like clockwork he slammed the dirt in a slide and placed it perfectly under the lens and began observing the tiny molecules.

"There you are. Tell me your story my little friend" he said, certainly not to her but to the microscope. It was as if he were looking further than the individual pieces of nothing and yet everything to the atomic level and then further again. "Number 2 pencil" he stated followed by a running train of thought. "Paint flecks, the type used in government buildings. Cat, Persian, born of a litter of three." She joined him as he stared even deeper into the microscope. "These are all the microscopic fingerprints of an archaeologist and-" He took out the slide, licking it sweetly, "amateur linguist."

Again she was stupefied. "But how the-"

"This is an outrage!" He yelled, flicking her bag to her followed by her coat and then he was thumping her to leave the room in a rush. "You must leave at once! Out, out, out, out, out!"

They were stopped. Stopped by another woman, this time with greying hair that was a wavy bob, like an updo almost with a trail of waviness flowing on the right side of her head. She had a fair complexion with near enough the same emerald eyes as Asami. She was also taller than both she and the man. Her lips were where Asami's vision went to, the slenderness of them and how they were like two simply flicks of pale across her mouth, followed by a rather sharp chin. She had her hand on her hip and cocked to the side with one eyebrow raised above the other while she stared at the spectacle before her. Seeing the stethoscope around her neck Asami knew instantly she was the doctor of the team, and that the man forcing her from the room must be the geologist.

"Let me guess. Sad in the dirt didn't you?" She asked sweetly and rather full of herself. The geologist left Asami immediately when the doctor's green eyes turned to him, putting him in her crosshairs for blame. "Now Bolin. What did I tell you about playing nice with the other kids?" He charged at the woman and she smiled. She jumped into a crouch, Asami moving to the side of the doorframe as the doctor pulled out a bar of soap from her back pocket. Asami could see now why she was smiling.

"Get back, I've got soap and I'm not afraid to use it" she mocked, sticking out the pink brick to his face. He cowered from it, rather pathetically considering he was all for assaulting Asami before, now he was a hissing lizard next to a simple block of soap.

He rushed back to the bunk, clambering for the ladder while the doctor tossed the block away now that she was done with it and grabbing a towel from the other side of the room, whipping at Bolin with it so he would retreat under his green sheets even faster and leave the doctor to talk with the archaeologist. "Back foul creature!" She yelled whilst laughing behind her lusty glee, enjoying every second of tormenting Bolin and looking stunning to Asami behind her. Her legs were certainly admirable; long and slender and toned too, the correct pair of legs that revealed to Asami that although the woman was a doctor, she was still physically fit, a welcome change from Bolin who was near enough just muscle in some places and then fat in others.

Once Bolin was hidden under his sheets and away from the doctor's veil of mandatory hygiene and cleanliness she grabbed her medical bag from the doorway and set it on the table, brushing the wavy greying hair back into place and calming herself however still smiling that beautiful smile.

"Name's Beifong, Suyin Beifong, Doctor, Phd the works" she addressed herself as. An impressive amount of accolades to Asami, who was also a Phd.

"Asami Sato, Phd as well" Sato introduced politely, taking Suyin's equally lovely hand, much like her own in the way it was slender and poised as well.

"You're my three o'clock" Suyin told her, flicking the clasp of her bag and bringing out what appeared at first glance to be a hacksaw, long with teeth bearing at either Asami or Bolin from his sheets. "Beautiful isn't she?" Suyin asked, although Asami hoped she didn't need an answer. It was purely terrifying is what it was, estimated at over fifty teeth on it and sharp as anything the archaeologist had ever seen. "The catalog says this thing can cut through a femur in under twenty eight seconds. I'm hoping I can cut that time in half" she told Asami.

"Hoping?!"

Suyin next brought out a wooden stick, like one with a popsicle. Again assaulting the young woman she pressed it hard against her tongue. After less than a second the stick was put away and replaced by a slick thermometer, again finding it's way into Asami's mouth with Suyin's guidance. "So where you from?" Suyin asked rather quickly. All Asami could do was mumble with the thermometer in her mouth while the doctor next examined her heart beat with the device around her neck.

"Really? I have family up that way. Beautiful country there" Suyin told her, acting as if she could understand each precise syllable the mumbling signalled. Giving her patient a breath to relax she then returned the thermometer and the stethoscope to the bag and brought out two rather large beakers. How does all this fit in the bag anyway? Asami thought.

"I'm going to need you to fill these up" Suyin told her with a smile.

"With what?!" Asami shrieked again and just as Doctor Suyin Beifong was about to give her a very serious answer the older woman boomed over the loudspeaker again for the second time since they had departed the ship above.

"Would Asami Sato, please report to the bridge?"