She could feel the sun on her skin.
Normally, she hated its burning light, but at the moment it was subdued, the warming sensation insufficient to irritate her burned deck. The pain there lingered, telling Trinitite the work in the machine shop hadn't progressed enough for the damage elsewhere to be seriously addressed, but she supposed it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like she needed to be restored to her full capabilities any time soon, and even if she was in her best shape, there wasn't much she could do if she was found this far inside human territory.
The ache was bad, but becoming tolerable. She'd even forgotten about it a few times yesterday!
Speaking of aches, The Abyssal was suddenly aware of her… inefficient sleeping position. Last night, after several minutes of holding the cookbook basically against her face to make out the text in the dim light, Trinitite had given up and settled down to rest. She supposed she could have used one of the innumerable lights that hung above the human's roads, but she'd gotten comfortable by then, and considering her busy day catching some sleep didn't sound like too bad an idea.
Now that she'd been in this position for several hours, though, it didn't seem so comfortable.
The Wo-class groaned, stretching as she brushed some of her hair from her face. Suddenly, the undergrowth around her shifted, unfamiliar chittering breaking out from all around her. The Carrier's eyes shot open, and the abyssal sat up as quickly as she could, scanning for threats. They caught several blurry forms, their rapidly flapping wings betraying their nature as they disappeared into the trees above her. Okay, so overnight she'd been surrounded by birds for… some reason. At least she knew what they were, and that they were harmless.
Trinitite sighed, the tension in her hull evaporating as she crossed her legs and leaned forwards. That probably wasn't going to be the first time she woke up like that, unfortunately. There were just too many animals, some much larger than she was used to in abyssal-held islands, roaming around human territory. It would be stressful, but she had some tactics to deal with that, now.
Trinitite smiled, her thoughts drifting back to her night at the Baskin-Robbins. She'd gotten a little carried away, but she'd needed it. Taking a moment to check that her island's lights weren't active anymore, Trinitite retrieved one of her recipe books from her hold. With the sun rising and no visible clouds to impede it's reign, Trinitite wouldn't have the lighting issues that had hampered her last night.
And so, Trinitite allowed herself a half hour to pour over the recipe books. The library wouldn't be open for a while, if Trinitite's chronometer was accurate, and Trinitite wasn't going to be able to execute her plans for the day until she had checked with the records there, so Trinitite had plenty of time to review it and… relax.
They were a bit of a frustrating read, though. The complex instructions involved a lot of tools, some she recognized as scrap in her galley, and some that flew over her deck entirely. Did she need to add even more terms to her list?
Reluctantly, she did so, allowing the list to expand like a fresh corpse on the ocean floor. Trinitite had no idea what a microwave was, and it probably wasn't that important, but there was a chance it might be. Maybe if she made a second list, for things she didn't feel she needed to know, but was curious about? No, that was making things too complicated. She'd just have to get used to the possibility that she'd probably never work all the way through it.
It did provide an answer to what she was supposed to do with rice, though. Something to do with a 'skillet,' whatever that was, and lots of other ingredients. Uncrumpling the empty bag of rice and studying it again, Trinitite looked for any other clarifications. With the daylight it was much easier to read the smaller text here, especially since a good portion of it was a barely noticeable light brown on a white background.
...Hang on, there were directions here! Under the sun, the small text and thinly-drawn diagrams made it obvious. You were just supposed to boil water? Trinitite didn't have any way to do that, at the moment, not unless her galley had fixed itself since she'd last checked, but it didn't seem that complicated. Just impossible, for now.
Also, there was a diagram of a machine labeled 'Microwave' that she recognized from the construction site's office. It looked fairly straightforward, actually, meaning she probably didn't need to have it on her list after all. Put something in the box, that thing gets hot. No explanation as to how that happened, but she wasn't going to waste time figuring that out until she could inspect it for herself. Trinitite could cross that off her list right away. Two topics down, fifty three to go.
Speaking of that rice, last night's meal hadn't been quite as filling as she'd hoped. Before getting started for her free day, she'd need to do another resupply, preferably with foods that didn't need to be submerged in boiling water this time. Thankfully, the team of logistics officers she'd ordered last night to painstakingly comb through her food supplies and determine what was easily edible had a few items for her: A collection of boxes with wildly differing labeling and coloring, but each describing some kind of bar. Breakfast bars, granola bars, chewy bars, cereal bars… most of them looked like the same thing, really, but she was going to hold her questions until she'd tried them, especially considering their wildly different packaging. Were they made by different fleets?
Trinitite couldn't help but speculate on the politics leading to that. If she could produce these bars and sell them to the Fred Meyers Fleet, she wouldn't be happy to learn that they were getting bars from another fleet as well, unless Trinitite's bar-making equipment wasn't sufficient to keep up with the Fred Meyers Fleet's requirements. In that case, however, they might consider switching to the rival bar-making fleet entirely, just so they didn't have to worry about protecting supply convoys between two sources. Maybe the Fred Meyers Fleet didn't trust these bar providers, and wanted to secure agreements with several bar-making fleets to ensure none of them could withhold bars unless their demands were met? Supplies didn't seem to need as much of a guard in human territory, so maybe that shifted the logic behind these negotiations.
Again, this was something she wasn't going to get an answer on, but it was kinda fun to ponder while she ate.
Instead of finishing one box of bars and moving onto the next, Trinitite opened each box, laying the twenty-or-so of the colorfully-decorated containers out in front of her. Each bar had its own wrapping, which was unfortunately composed of inedible plastic but did make them conveniently portable, and this allowed her to keep each box open without worrying about animals raiding her supplies. They'd already been interested in her, or perhaps the rice she'd dropped last night, while she was sleeping. Who knew if they were waiting out of her sight, preparing for a raid when she'd let her guard down? Gathering one bar from each package, Trinitite started her meal, ripping the wrapping open with her teeth and taking a speculative nibble, followed by a larger bite, and then another, until she'd finished and tore open another wrapped bar.
They were… interesting. Their flavors varied between sweet and salty, some melting as she bit into them, others crunching as the nuts and… whatever else they were made of offered resistance. The sweet-and-bitter chocolate from last night returned, which was a pleasant surprise, while differently colored and flavored chips that weren't quite the same decorated several other bars. It was hard to really tell what the difference between each label meant, as there seemed to be plenty of overlap between types of bars, but at least this didn't need any special preparation to become edible. It was also a little dry, but that wasn't a problem more juice couldn't handle. It seemed like a lot of them were some form of cranberry, so The Abyssal washed her bars down with the basic cranberry juice. She could try the mixes after she'd learned what cranberry actually tasted like.
When she was done, she'd gotten through about half of each box, and had several dozen opened wrappers to deal with. She understood why the humans would work with plastic, as it's properties seemed useful. However, now that she was done with her meal, Trinitite was left with far too many opened wrappers, unsure what to do with all this extra plastic. Hesitantly, she stuffed it back into her hull, hoping to find someplace to dump it later. If nothing else worked, she could find some building's head and flush it away before anyone else noticed.
Before she left, Trinitite took a moment to gently repack the boxes so she wouldn't have to deal with any half-filled containers, freeing up a good deal of space in her hold and leaving her with a lot of spare cardboard. It didn't taste like much, really, but the material might help with the repairs, and it did give her a reason to finish off this container of cranberry juice. Of course, that was plastic, too, so there wasn't much she could do with it either. Actually, it could hold all of the wrappers she had to deal with...
The Library still wasn't open yet, but Trinitite wasn't getting anything else done here, so she started making her way over. During the walk, she kept herself occupied by calling her crew to general quarters. The announcement echoed through her halls, and as Trinitite gazed inwards she could see them scramble through her decks, manning their positions with a mixture of panic and surprise. She couldn't do anything to train her air wing, but she'd be a special kind of stupid if she didn't try to keep the rest of her crew drilled, at least.
Hmm, it took twenty seconds longer than last time before all divisions reported ready. She'd been letting herself slip, it seemed, and her normal crew still had something to do. She hated to think how sloppy her pilots had gotten. They were doing everything they could to remain sharp, such as walking through dogfights in the briefing room and practicing rushing to their damaged planes in the hangar and on deck, but Trinitite couldn't think of any replacement for flight time, which wasn't going to happen.
Soon enough, 0730 rolled around, and Trinitite entered the library. Getting through her list could wait. She wasn't going to get sucked into any major revelations or detailed explanations until she'd acquired those boots. Activating the computer with a practiced ease, she deftly clicked on the bar at the bottom and started searching the console.
Steel toe boots.
She was getting faster. It only took her about twelve seconds to input the term, this time! Clicking on 'see web results' to bring up information on the subject, Trinitite's eyes fell upon an odd button.
Who are you shopping for?
(men) (women)
Okay, that was creepy. Why were the questions the machine asked phrased so… personally? Still, she guessed she could narrow things down, so she clicked on the button labeled 'women.' A collection of labeled photographs appeared just below her revised question, with the name of a fleet, she presumed, sitting below their label and price.
…Hold on, she recognized one of those names, from back at Shelton. She'd skipped the large warehouse labeled 'Walmart' because the fleet seemed like it had been too alert to raid, but it's massive, glowing sign ensured she didn't forget the name. By sea, she wasn't that far, but on land? It was impractically distant, at best.
Out of curiosity, or perhaps because it was half the price of every other set (One hundred and eighty dollars for boots? The price hadn't been that high at Fred Meyers, right?), Trinitite clicked on that one. Now, she had a larger image to look at, and the knowledge that the fleet that made it offered boots in three different colors, but that wasn't what she was looking for.
'Free 2-Day Delivery?' That didn't mean what she thought it did, did it? Trinitite looked down, withdrawing her money from her hold and rubbing it between her fingers. First off, nothing was free. There had to be a catch here, somewhere. How was she supposed to pay them, anyways? Were you supposed to set up a rendezvous location, ask them to deliver it there at the decided time, and hope one of the fleets didn't bring enough firepower to ensure they got everything out of the deal? Walmart might worry about their reputation, but they couldn't trust everyone they dealt with.
Figuring out those logistics might matter later, but Trinitite didn't have two days to wait. Instead, she focused on the next line.
Free pickup today. In stock at Lynnwood, 1400 164th St SW.
So, did that mean she could just arrive and take the boots off of them, or would she still have to give them the eighty dollars, and not have to pay anything extra for the privilege of entering their warehouse? That didn't make any sense, as almost all other buildings belonging to fleets she'd entered had wanted her to come in.
That was only one of two unanswered questions, however. She was absolutely sure the town place she'd raided had been Shelton, so why did they say they were at Lynnwood? Where was Lynnwood? In a new tab, Trinitite retyped the place's name, as well as all the odd numbers after it, and sent it as another request to the library's computer. That was a Walmart there, alright, and judging by the map a link led her to, it was just over a mile from where she was! How many Walmarts were there?
Probably a question for the list, but since she was already here, she didn't see the harm in opening another new tab and asking real quick. Trinitite clicked the search, scrolling past a useless number and several related questions, before seeing the highlighted answer… and was sent reeling back in her chair.
More than ten thousand? She knew that humans operated in large numbers, but an operation of that size made the Supply Depot Princess's logistics network look like Penang's little market. The Carrier's head spun, trying and failing to visualize that many warehouses of the size she'd seen at Shelton, and the scale of the fleet required to maintain them. The humans lived in massive concrete-and-steel blocks buildings that optimistically measured in the hundreds. They had The Fire, which could throw a fleet around like driftwood. Something as basic as a fleet that tended warehouses outnumbered The Abyss by hundreds-to-one.
How hadn't they simply crushed the abyssal fleets under their sheer weight, yet? The question bounced around her bridge, echoing through her decks as she continued to turn it over in her mind, but an answer failed to come to her. She wasn't going to figure out any time soon, she suspected. Best to move on, mark the nearest location on her chart, investigate that location, and try to forget the problem before the next time she attempted to sleep.
...Except her chart room didn't have any good light. Looking to make sure the Library's tenders weren't paying attention to her, Trinitite stood, looking directly into an overhead light to give her crew something to to work with. She hadn't had enough time to fully explore the Fred Meyers's warehouse, anyways. It might be worthwhile to give one of these some through reconnaissance.
Yeah, fast update because I only had to write half a chapter! Because it was so quick, I feel like I'd rushed through it, but when I went through it again it didn't seem so rushed.
You can tell why I wanted to put an interlude between this chapter and the last, I hope. A bit more of the same, which is also why this chapter feels a bit more... abbreviated then the last one. The plan is to have one more weekend chapter before we jump back into Trinitite's work, as well as some other developments in Naval Station Everett.