Peso

As they climbed down the ladder to the next level Hallie explained that everyone referred to this level as the residential level because it was where the rest of the crew's bedrooms were.

It also housed the main bathroom, the library, and the laundry room. The layout was similar to the floor above with a large main central hallway, on the left side a wall ran the entire length of the hall, it had two doors with the second one farther down, and both of the doors were larger than all the other doors of the sub so far. The wall to the right of the ladder had two doors, a small hallway then another two doors.

Only a few things really stood out at different to Peso on this floor. The first, was the second ladder, the ladder down to the next floor, was only a few feet from this one. It was installed just before the first set of large doors. The second thing? The walls.

It drew Peso's attention to it. almost before anything else. Painted over – what he was now forever going to call Octopod Orange – were murals of underwater scenes.

There were three separate ones in the main hallway. One on each part of the right side of the hall, looking at it Peso could now tell that it was supposed to be a continuous piece. The smaller hallway on the right side broke the overall mural into two parts. And another on the left side of the main hall between the two pairs of large doors.

"These are amazing!" Peso said looking at Hallie, "Did someone paint these themselves or did they hire someone to paint them?"

"Min painted those." Hallie said sounding very much like a proud parent, "She's pretty incredible. She also did the ones in the kitchen, but I don't think you noticed those. Oh, but be careful if you ever have to go into her room! There are paint bottles and tubes everywhere." She swung one of her hands in front of herself emphasizing everywhere.

"Sure, I'll be careful," Peso answered distractedly. He was a little blown away by the murals and just took a few minutes to look at each one. The one that was split in two was a scene of a coral reef, with bright-colored fish swimming in every free space. The one on the opposite wall was of a pod of whales swimming in a color-blocked blue gradient of open water.

Hallie rapped her knuckles against the door immediately to the right of the ladder, drawing Peso's attention away from the murals, "This leads to the Captain's Office," she bounced her head from side to side, "Ok technically it's the Captain's, Kwazii's, and the Professor's but it's just the office…and the storage room."

Peso gave her a questioning look.

"Okay," Hallie started, "Well originally it was just the office but then over time we needed places to put stuff and the office is rarely used. So, it just made sense, and now it's just a desk, a computer, and tons of holiday decorations. What? I like to decorate for the holidays, okay? And no one ever said, 'no Hallie you can't buy three Christmas trees."

"Three?"

"I wanted one in the HQ, one in the dining room, and one in the library."

"Somehow they convinced her to cut it down to just putting up the one." A voice said from above them causing them both to jump. Peso looked up to see Kwazii holding back laughter.

"Can't you make a little noise!?" Hallie asked annoyed, she had one hand pressed against her chest.

"You can't blame me for you being so quiet," Kwazii said gleefully. He jumped down from where he was on the ladder and landed gracefully next to Peso.

"Yes! I can!" Hallie argued back, dropping her hand from her chest she used it to swat at Kwazii who easily dodged her while laughing at her attempt.

Peso looked Kwazii over, "You are a bit like a cat, aren't you?"

"What?" the younger man asked looking confused.

"It's just a comment Mr. Riveria made on the supply ship. But I think I might have to agree with him."

"Alright then," Kwazii said hesitantly, his face still held a bit of confusion on it, "How's your tour coming along?"

"We just started this level; so, we aren't far along at all. Why?" Hallie asked suspicion creeping into her voice.

Kwazii fiddled with his earring, "I just got some time to kill." He finally decided.

"The Captain asked you to do something, didn't he?" Hallie questioned, pointing a finger at Kwazii accusingly.

"It can wait a bit! I promise it can!"

She narrowed her eyes at him, "It better not turn out to be important."

"It's not! I swear."

Hallie crossed her arms over her chest and Kwazii mirrored her actions. The two stared at each other, neither backing down.

Finally, Hallie tossed her hands into the air, "Fine!" she turned away slowly, keeping her eyes on him, "But if I hear one word from the Captain about distracting you, I'm telling him you said it wasn't important."

"Go ahead and tell 'im then," Kwazii muttered under his breath.

Hallie shot him a quick look before continuing with the tour, "So, the next door here is Grover's room, though you can usually find me here as well, then down the smaller hallway," she dragged Peso further down the hall, to the smaller hall. Both sides of the hallway were symmetrical with three doors along each side.

"Barret's room and my official room are on the right. That last door also leads to the office. On the left side are Kodi's room and Pike's room, bet you can guess which room is Kodi's."

"The one with the plants outside the door?" Peso guessed. The first door on the left side of the hall had a long rectangular planter on one side, overflowing with greenery, and on the other side a trellis was leaning against the wall. Vines climbing up from the round planter the trellis was standing in.

"Yeah," Hallie said slowly, "Kodi might have a bit of a problem." She laughed, "Inside his room is worse, the Captain has actually told him that he's not allow to buy anymore plants. Which didn't really work out cause now he's just propagating plants in his room. Because its not buying anymore plants, so it's following the rules."

Peso chuckled. "Don't laugh mate," Kwazii spoke up, "Wait until you have to get inside his room for some reason and you're fighting your way through overgrown plants. And getting yelled at for stepping on dirt."

"He didn't yell at you for stepping on dirt," Hallie rolled her eyes, "You knocked over a pot."

"And then stepped on the dirt," Kwazii argued.

Halie shook her head, "Okay sure, he yelled at you for walking in dirt. Let's get back to the tour. Now the last door on Kodi and Pike's side leads to the laundry room. Then back in the main hall," she pointed at the second to last door in the main hallway, "That is Min's room, and the door just past is the second entrance to the laundry room."

Peso did some quick matching in his head, "Wait, that's not enough rooms. Where's Chief Bunswik's room?" He was sure he was counting right, and it left them one room short.

"Tweak's room is the launch bay." Hallie quickly answered him.

Peso took a moment to think out what she had said before asking, "As in, in the launch bay or the entire launch bay?"

"Since her room is completely open to it, I guess the answer is both?" Hallie said turning both her hands palm up and shrugging. "Oh also, Barret is a grouch about people wandering into his room, so be careful."

"Okay so then which door is his?"

"First door on the right." She pointed back down the small hallway. "Oh, and laundry! You and I," she said pointing between herself and Peso, "are responsible for any laundry that comes out of the med bay. Tunip, Min, and Kodi take turns with laundry that comes out of the kitchen, dining room, or garden pod and Grover is in charge of any laundry that the launch bay has since –"

"Since Tweak caused a dryer to catch fire!" Kwazii finished laughing.

"It was a whole thing." Hallie explained, "Grover told her to just let him do it after that." Hallie pressed her lips together and shook her head before continuing, "Other than that everyone is responsible for their own laundry."

"And just a warning, never touch any of Dashi's laundry ever. She will yell at you for at least an hour nonstop. The Captain had to get involved after Barret ruined one of her dresses. At the same time though, maybe don't wear expensive dresses around idiots who are covered in grease all the time" Hallie said rolling her eyes.

Peso held his tongue about her 'idiot' comment after just calling Kodi out for the same thing.

"But he didn't get grease it on," Kwazii commented, "He shrank it, or something like that. It was an accident though," he added on telling Peso.

That didn't give Peso much reassurance and left him wondering what kind of dress it had been. "Just don't leave your laundry unattended. Sounds like living in a small apartment with no washer and dryer unit," Peso said finally, "I can handle that. That leaves the library, the bathroom, and the recreation pod for this level, correct?"

"Yes," Hallie said heading towards the library door, "you're going to love the library. Everyone does."

She pushed through the doors revealing a row of tall bookcases leading to a set of stairs. The small group stepped into the room and now Peso could see two more rows of bookcases, and along the wall to the left were three individual enclosed spaces, a desk and chair were in each one.

"Like it?" Hallie asked turning back to look at Peso.

"It's…very green," Peso commented, twirling a finger slowly in a wide circle. The walls were pale sea green and the carpet was a rich dark green, the two shades strangely complementing each other. "I like the photos. Did one of the crew take those too?" He pointed his finger above the desks where the wall was covered with underwater photos of varying scenes.

"Dashi took most of those," Hallie said tilting her head slightly, "I know there's like one or two that Shellington took and all the ones with turtles were taken by one of Tweak's friends. But you're really not gonna say anything about the books? Like oh wow look all the books you have?"

"It is an impressive number of books for a submarine, but also you did call it a library. So, I was a little prepared."

"They're not fun books anyway," Kwazii commented, as he pulled a book from one of the shelves, "They're all research and reference books."

"That's not true!" Hallie countered, "The Professor has a whole section on legends and myths –"

"That everyone only ever uses as references. They're not here because anyone else actually believes them!"

"And you do?" Peso asked Kwazii.

"When you've lived on the oceans as long as I have you learn not everything can be explained by science. There are monsters out there."

Peso nodded his head, but Kwazii's phrasing seemed off to him. Peso had read parts of every crew member's file and he was sure that he had read that Kwazii grew up on some island in the Caribbean. Well, he guessed growing up on an island could be considering living on the ocean, it still just didn't seem to fit what Kwazii had said though.

Peso was pulled from his thoughts by Hallie calling his name loudly. "Sorry, lost in thought! What did you say?" he asked quickly.

"I asked if you wanted to see the view."

"The view?"

"Second-best one on the whole ship, mate." Kwazii motioned for Peso to follow before turning down a row of bookshelves. Peso followed behind and quickly they were already exiting the short aisle created by the shelves to the other side of the library. On the outer wall was a tall window taking up nearly a third of the wall. The view outside showed an endless expanse of blue water.

Peso stopped in his tracks, "Wow." The view was incredible as both Hallie and Kwazii had claimed, but it wasn't what he had been expecting. Outside the window was just blue. There were no signs of any animals and he had been expecting something, not the seemingly motionless blue that existed just outside the walls of the sub. Below the surface, it was hard to see the movement of the water and it had an almost unnatural feeling that left Peso frozen in place.

"It's so empty." He said finally.

"We're out in the open ocean," Kwazii said, "and under the sunlight zone, so there isn't much out here. Just the larger fish and sea animals.

"Smaller fish and sea animals stick to coastal areas where the water isn't as deep or coral reefs where there are lots of places to hide. It's not always just water outside obviously, there will be times when you'll see tons of life, even out here."

"I didn't mean it negatively," Peso tried to clarify, "I was just expecting…"

"A city aquarium?" Hallie questioned poking Peso's arm.

"Maybe just a little. This," Peso gestured towards the window, "it barely feels real, like it's just a wall of blue."

"I love it," Kwazii declared flopping down to lay on one of the mismatched couches beneath the window. Peso hadn't even noticed them until now, they were yet another shade of green. Clearly, the Professor had a favorite color.

"Kwazii! Have some respect for the furniture! You're going to break it flopping on it like that!" Hallie lectured, walking over and smacking him on the leg.

"If I break a couch by laying on it, I think we have bigger problems than how I sit down."

Peso had to bite back a laugh; it really was like watching a family. He let the two bicker as he took in the rest of the room.

There was the staircase Hallie had mentioned to his right, tucked in the space beneath it were two plush armchairs and a small table. Taking a small step back he bumped into a small table pushed against one of the bookshelves, looking down at it he realized it was a small chess table. He had been so focused on the window he hadn't even noticed it. "Who plays chess?"

"Oh, uh mostly just the Professor and Shellington," Hallie answered.

Kwazii was quick to add, "They skip Guys' Night and sit in here and play." While sitting back up on the couch.

"You have a Guys' Night too?" Peso asked.

"The girls made a night for themselves so Barret said we should have the same." Kwazii shrugged.

"Don't even lie like that," Hallie snapped rounding back to Kwazii, "That's not anything like what happened." She whipped back around to face Peso, "I wanted a crew night, but only the women of our crew were turning up regularly, so it just ended up as Girls' Night. Then certain boys got all butt hurt about and the Captain said I had to include everyone or we couldn't have our night."

She crossed her arms, "But I told him no, that everyone had had three months to be included and the guys would just have to do their own thing. That's how the guys' got their night because they're a bunch of whiners."

"None of us show up to it half the time anyway'" Kwazii added, "But it's not fair cause you all have snacks and fun stuff."

"That's because Tweak and Tunip budget it into their departments. I've told you before if you want things like that then talk to the Professor."

"He won't do it though," Kwazii whined.

"Not my problem. Maybe if you lot were more consistent then he would." Hallie said sternly as she turned away from Kwazii and back to Peso, "So, there's not really too much I can think to say about the library.

"It's got desks over there," she pointed back towards the other wall, "everyone also gets a work laptop and tablet, if you don't have yours yet then they're probably in your room," she quickly added, "but anyway we're really limited on workspace. If someone has any computer-based work, they would be able to just come in here and pick a desk and get to work.

"That was the plan at least." Hallie smirked, "mostly if people have computer work, they just end up gathered in the kitchen. Makes me think of teenagers all bunched up doing homework at someone's house."

Hallie looked around the library, "This is probably the least used space on the Octopod honestly. But that just means it's always peaceful in here, so it's a nice place to relax if you ever feel overwhelmed."

"It's also really great for naps since no one ever comes around," Kwazii added.

"So, what do you think?" Hallie asked holding up her hands.

"I like it," Peso said, "it is peaceful in here." Though he couldn't imagine himself visiting the library often.

"Ready to move on to another area?"

"Yeah. What's next?"

"The bathrooms!"

Hallie led the way out of the library and down the hall to the bathroom.

"They have become a bit of a problem," she said as she pushed through the double doors, "Tweak and Barret can't figure out what is going on with them and they've tried everything so now it's just…kind of is what it is."

Hallie stopped in the center of the room. Inside were multiple smaller rooms. On the left along the same wall as the double doors were two small rooms, and three more along the side wall. A curved countertop, with a mirror to match, ran along the outer wall with four sinks set into it, and then four much smaller rooms on the right of the entrance.

"So, there are five individual showers. One and two are on the left when you enter," she pointed towards the rooms by the door, "Their water pressure is pathetic, well," she bounced her head from side to side, "I mean it's not the worse but it's too soft by just enough that it's frustrating. Do you get what I mean?"

Peso gave a small nod and she continued. "Three, four, and five are on the wall behind me," she pointed to the three rooms along the wall, "Three is cold until the very last few minutes. Which, I don't know if anyone has told you yet, but you only get fifteen minutes a day. Unless you shower with someone else, because then they can scan their ID when your fifteen minutes are up, but no shower will run for longer than thirty minutes.

"Unless you scan the patient card that we have, then you can use them as long as you want but you or I have to inform Tweak before that card can be used, so we can't even sneak long showers. It's hard to get away with rule breaking."

"I was aware of the shower limits," Peso informed her, "except for the showering with another person that wasn't listed in the handbook," he smirked.

Hallie smiled back, "I said it was hard to break rules, not impossible. Anyway, shower four will hurt you. The water pressure is so intense in that one, except if another shower is running at the same time, then it is the perfect shower. And before you ask, yes, people argue over that shower. It's the reason that most of the crew showers in pairs now. That way you can just tradeoff who gets the good shower."

"The showers have been like this the whole time?" Peso asked his concern growing.

"No, this all started about a year ago. No one can figure it out, even when the Octopod got its annual repairs and they replaced like half the pipes and other bathroom junk in here, and they reconfigured them and everything. Didn't fix anything, just made shower four angry. So, we've all just kind of accepted it," Hallie explained.

"Okay. So, what's wrong with shower five?"

"Absolutely nothing. It's perfect all the time, every time." Kwazii answered.

"Kwazii!" Hallie spun around to face him, "You're not supposed to be using that one," she rubbed her temples, "It's the Professor's."

Peso gave her a questioning look. Maybe when you found an organization you get to pick your shower.

"It's just the Professor fell, a while ago now and he did make a full recovery, but that was enough to finally convince him that hey maybe I," She pointed both hands at herself, "was right and he needed a shower with a bench for his safety.

"So, the bathroom got a remodel a few years ago. Now shower five is all set up for the Professor but it's still not the best in my opinion because they were obviously working with very limited space, so it is so small in there now. But it's got a bench and a rail, and I don't have to worry all the time."

"So, shower five is perfect but no one uses it because it's set up more for an older individual?" Peso asked, questioning the logic.

"Exactly! It's stupid." Kwazii said agreeing with Peso.

"Yes and no, I don't know. I mean technically there is no set rule, but I guess since the Professor refers to it as his that's why no one uses it?" Hallie ran a hand through her ponytail.

"Why are you asking me?" Peso laughed.

"Because she doesn't have a good reason not to use it," Kwazii smirked. "She just doesn't want to admit it."

"Okay, whatever I give up," she let out a defeated huff, "Obviously, sinks there and there are some toilets over there." She pointed out both, "Yay, now you've seen the bathroom." She shook her head and let out another deep breath, "Ready to move to the launch bay? Or do you want to see the laundry room?"

"Sure, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frustrate you," Peso apologized. "Also, if I may, I think the answer you're looking for is that you want your patient to have access to what they need, whenever they might need it, as soon as they need it. I don't think that's a bad thing either."

Hallie crossed her arms, "I guess," she huffed, "The Professor was one of my first patients. Way back when I was still on land just doing physical therapy. He said he really liked me and the next thing I knew I was here. I owe him a lot."

"And look at you now! You're a whole doctor doing doctor stuff!" Kwazii added pushing her playfully.

"Like I said I owe the Professor a lot." Hallie reiterated as they left the bathroom, "I'll always be grateful to him." She paused for a moment in the hallway, "Did you want to see the laundry room?"

Peso thought for a moment, "I only have one question about it." He held up one finger, "Are the washer and dryer units also orange?"

Kwazii burst into laughter behind Hallie. She nodded her head slowly, "Yeah, they are. But the couch in there is green."

"Theres a couch in there?"

"It used to be in the library. But mysteriously it somehow ended up with broken springs," she tilted her head back slightly towards Kwazii, "So we had to replace it, but it wasn't like broken enough to justify throwing it away really so…it just got moved."

Peso smiled, "Can't tell if its symptoms of hoarding or just environmental consciousness." He joked.

"Are we going into the rec pod?" Kwazii asked suddenly.

"Do you want to?" Hallie asked Peso, "It's basically like gym equipment and…empty space, but we could see check it out if you want. This is a tour after all."

"Sure. I mean I haven't gone into a single pod yet so I'm okay with checking it out."

Peso followed Hallie through the circular doorway and up the sloped ladder. "The pod ladders can be a little trickery to get used to," Hallie explained as she climbed, "Each rung is attached to the tunnel wall itself because sometimes we have to pull the pods in, closer to the main body of the Octopod. So, everything had to be able to move."

"Yep," Peso commented nervously. He could feel the tunnel sway gently with the movement of the water outside. The feeling was somewhat similar to climbing a rope ladder in a light breeze. He tightened his hand on the rung he held as the tunnel swayed farther to one side; it would take a while before he was comfortable with this.

Thankfully the climb was quick, even with stopping to panic slightly over the swaying, and Peso was climbing into the large pod. He wasn't sure if he was imagining the sway, or his body was just holding on to the feeling, or if the pod itself always drifted slightly with the movement of the ship.

He looked around the pod, most of it was empty like Hallie had warned, and the floor reminded him of the wooden gym floor in his high school gym. Similar to the HQ, the metal wall only went up about waist high then went straight into the glass dome covering the whole pod. It gave an incredible view of the endless blue surrounding them.

On one side of the pod were treadmills and other gym equipment, including a set of free weights that looked as though each item was kept in cage like structure. Across the pod was a basketball hoop and painted on the floor were basketball court lines.

Near the ladder entrance was a large crate, it had a hasp latch but wasn't locked with a padlock.

"What's in there?" Peso asked pointing to the case.

"Oh, that just holds all the loose items that have no real home. Like yoga mats, treadmill keys, basketballs, ping pong paddles –"

"Ping pong?"

"Other side mate," Kwazii jerked his thumb in the other direction.

Peso turned and saw that strapped to the wall was a folded ping pong table.

"Like I said before there's not much in here. It's basically a gym and just another area to hang out." Hallie explained, looking around the room.

"I like it thought," Peso said, "It's obvious that real thought was put behind trying to make the sub more of a community-like environment and less like this is a workplace where you're also forced to live."

"Well during planning and construction everyone was constantly asked what could be done to make the sub a more…livable place. The plan was always to have teams living on the subs, so it was important to make it feel like a place where you would want to stay."

"That makes sense," Peso said, looking around the room one more time. "So, all that's left is the launch bay?"

"Yep, ready to see it?"

"Let's go."