Before I begin. I want to say, thank you to those of you who find my story a good read.
Anyway disclaimer getting yeeted here. Real events mentioned/described are coincidence or not to be taken as hard fact. Arknights is intellectual property of Yostar.
Enjoy the chapter, and constructive feedback helps. I love knowing what I do well and can improve. Helps the motivation a lot.
From across the room, an alarm sounded. Whatever music it played roused a figure that was twisted in their covers. The blankets flew off, and with a groan Evan walked to his phone to shut the alarm off. Once that was done, he found the light knob and turned the lights on slowly so his eyes could adjust. Once that was done, he looked to the bathroom and hollowly made his way there. Looking in the mirror, he noticed his facial hair had started growing out. A single razor sat in some form of holder along his toothbrush. No cream though, but he sighed and turned on the hot water. It would have to do.
A few cuts formed, but nothing he wasn't used to. Every shave, cuts formed on his skin. He had tried to use different gels and creams, but to no avail. Minor scabs would always dot his face after shaving. It didn't hurt, unless one touched them. Sensitive face skin was just a fact of life now. A hot shower later, and he looked in the mirror, ready to somewhat start the day. He really, really wanted coffee first though.
The door opened, and Evan looked down the hall to his left. It was almost six in the morning, and if he remembered, Grani said she went to exercise at six. "I just showered, so maybe not…"
Somehow, he found his way to the cafeteria where some other early bloomers were. One trip to a coffee machine and a meal later, he was walking back down. By the time he reached his room, he realized he didn't know where Closure's office was. He had enough time, so might as well spend some of it walking around. He did end up finding Closure's office. He just didn't notice and continued to walk by it when someone approached.
"Morning," a girl roughly Grani's height greeted impassively from nearby. He looked at her. She had red eyes, silvery white hair, and a strange outfit that seemed to have plastic parts. She was also accompanied by a robot that was carrying stuff for her. She looked like she would wear a sprout ribbon really well too for some reason.
"Good morning," Evan returned. Then he asked, "Do you know where Miss Closure's office is?"
The girl raised an eyebrow then responded, "You just walked by it. Can't you read?"
"As a matter of fact, I cannot yet read."
She looked somewhat surprised by that answer and responded with a short 'oh' before properly apologizing. "Sorry."
"It's fine, you didn't know. By the way, I'm new here, Closure told me to arrive at eight o'clock sharp."
"She did? Well, hopefully she cleaned up her office," the girl responded with her eyebrow raised curiously. She then walked over to the door and pulled out an ID. The door opened and the girl gave a frustrated sigh. Evan walked over and was rather surprised to see an absolutely horrid workshop with empty drink pouches of some sort strewn all over the desk, machine parts haphazardly strewn across different countertops, and some machine oil leaking out of a project of sorts onto the floor. "Every darn morning…" the girl grumbled to herself as she picked up some cleaning supplies from the robot. Then she got to work.
Evan just walked in the rest of the way and over to Closure's desk where some weird brown stained cloth sat. Looking at the desk, there were a bunch of sketches and blueprints along with a computer that had trash placed on the tower.
"How disrespectful…" Evan muttered as he took the empty chip bags off the computer tower. He then moved to the garbage can and threw them out. The little girl was still cleaning, and Evan watched as she sprayed solutions, sorted parts, and even pressure washed the floors occasionally. At about eight, Closure didn't come in. "Is she usually late?"
"Yes," the girl responded.
Fifteen minutes passed, and Evan had resigned to helping the poor girl clean. Mostly, he tidied trash off of Closure's desk and just left her papers where they were because he couldn't read. Nothing really seemed to irk people more than messing with their papers without permission, and Evan counted himself among them.
Finally, at 8:32 AM, the door opened and Closure walked in with a bag of chips and casually chugging one of the many drinking bags he saw on her desk, some of the red fluid dripping down her chin. She stopped for a moment and narrowed her eyes with a frown at the bag.
"Ugh, that's a little less appetizing than usual. Can't Warfarin make something better?" Closure walked over to the desk and took the brown stained cloth and wiped it on her chin, leaving the red fluid stains alongside the brown. Then she tossed it down, and Evan immediately knew what it was she was drinking when he considered the brown stains alongside the fact she was drinking something red.
"Is...that blood?" Evan asked, looking at the cloth.
"Yeah," Closure casually responded, clearly still waking up. She then opened the chip bag and started logging in. She then looked at Evan who was wearing a look of pure shock on his face. "What? I'm a vampire."
He really didn't know how to reply to that one. Now that he looked closer, he saw a pair of pearly white fangs occasionally show themselves when she talked. He got an even better look at them when Closure stretched wide in her seat and let out a very long yawn. The girl cleaning Closure's room gave her the evil eye for a moment.
Suddenly, Closure started sniffing the air curiously. Her gaze soon turned to Evan, and she looked intently at his face. Particularly, she was looking at his recently shaved spots.
"So you're what smells so good~" she said with a smile as she examined the still fresh scabs. "Hey, if you have time, go to the Blood Bank and bring back some of your blood. I haven't smelled anything like it in a long time."
"Miss Closure!" the girl shouted. Walking over and standing between Closure and Evan, for what good that did, holding a spray bottle of some kind.
"Aw, you trying to protect him, Weedy? That's cute~," Closure cooed. She then reached her hand towards Weedy's head until she pulled out another spray bottle and sprayed it on Closure's hands.
"Wash your hands!"
"Yeesh, fine," Closure grumbled with a pouty face while rubbing it on her hands like sanitizer. She noticed her desk was a little neater than usual. "Odd, normally you don't touch my desk."
"I didn't, it has gross blood stains all over it. I'm not touching it!" Weedy shouted.
"Oh, so it must've been you," Closure turned to Evan. "Hey, you did a task as my intern. Yaay~." Closure then proceeded to clap mockingly with her cheer. She still had that devil-may-care smile on her face and snickered a little when she noticed Evan was kind of glaring at her. "Oh don't take it personally, I'm just teasing. Anyways, could you grab a coffee? Come on, you're my intern. Plus, I know you can't read yet, so you'll have to learn by watching until you figure it out."
"You have got to be shitting me. So far this is many levels worse than Swire making me her errand boy," the new intern complained in his head as he walked over to a rather run down coffee machine. After starting it, he watched as Closure casually ate chips while working on her computer. Just to get back at her, he did the same thing he did to that LGD officer who tried to haze him. To his surprise though, Closure made no comment and continued drinking as though it were completely normal. He inwardly sighed and resigned himself to watch as Closure seemed to be checking what appeared to be a 3D model of Rhodes Island with numerous little notifiers and statistics. Some graphs also appeared to be changing as time went on.
"What is all this?" Evan asked as he leaned in for a closer look. Closure was still munching on a handful of chips when she answered.
"The ship's vitals. Custom made program which monitors everything. The power generation, the pipes, and all sorts of other crap."
"Miss Closure, please finish chewing before talking," Weedy chastised as she performed maintenance on her own robot with Closure's personal workshop tools.
"Yeah yeah," Closure said with a lazy wave before zooming in. "Like here, this is Power Plant One. This graph shows its power output, and if anything exceeds a certain value, an automated program forces it to shut down and disconnects it from the rest of Rhodes Island."
"In other words, a circuit breaker," Evan immediately replied.
"Yeah! Hey, you do know something practical," Closure teased. "I read your file. If it weren't for Kal'tsit, who isn't gullible, saying so, I would call whoever made that thing stupid for believing you. On another note, a good chunk of people in this world go to higher education do so to study something specific. Yet, you seem to know a lot of different subjects."
"I enjoy learning how things work," Evan responded. Clover gave a different sort of smile than her regular carefree one.
"You and I might get along just fine then. Anyways, lots of engineers and mechanics run different facilities, and I stand above it all, giving them instructions, telling them where problems are, approving or disapproving projects. Pretty lax job most days. I even made an AI program to do all the grunt work automatically. I'm just doing routine checks to make sure everything's normal and said AI didn't miss anything overnight. Besides, I have tons of backup systems, so we could keep going for a bit even if someone blew a hole through the ship."
"Amazing," Evan remarked. This earned a smirk of smugness from Closure.
"Yes, I am amazing, aren't I."
"Kinda, but it sounds like you make the robots do a lot of heavy lifting for you."
Closure stared him dead on with a blank stare of surprise and Weedy snorted, failing to hold in the laughter that followed.
"Shut it shrimp!" Closure responded, taking her frustration out on Weedy.
"Then do something about your nasty habits. I'm sick of having to work on cleaning your trash every morning. You might as well just be sitting in this room all day tinkering with machinery you don't understand, or even when you do you just do what you please to them until you destroy them. It makes a big mess, and the oil spills don't help. Maybe I could help you if I could bear to touch your notes, but I can't because you sloppily drink whatever you get from Warfarin, and it's no different than blood! Blood is an awful thing and causes so many sanitation problems," Weedy started lecturing. At this, Evan watched in awe as Weedy just continued to lay into Closure for a good long while. Closure just had her head down and avoided eye contact as the little Weedy continued to lay out everything wrong with her for the next thirty minutes.
Evan just walked over to pour himself a cup of coffee and watch the show unfold. He even saw Closure giving him apologetic glances, hoping he would save her. The new intern just mouthed to his boss, 'have fun' and raised his cup, to which Closure stuck her tongue out at him.
"And don't show me that filthy tongue, I'm not even sure you brush your teeth!"
This continued for a while until Closure pointed out the time and Weedy left for Bioengineering, leaving the vampire and her intern alone.
"Before you can do any real work, you have to work on your literacy. Once lunch break is over at one o'clock, go to the library and find someone to help you with that," Closure spoke while putting her feat on her desk. "Until then, I'm going to watch this a little longer, then start tinkering around at about eleven. Lunch break starts at twelve. You can head up an hour early though. Run into some others who'll be there doing whatever during lunch time."
"What are you going to be doing?" Evan casually asked.
"Paperwork, going over ideas with other engineers, actual engineer stuff, maintenance of Rhodes Island, and then I'll be running the shop when your shift's over," Closure replied. She looked at something on her computer then back to Evan. Her eyes were on him, and she wasn't exactly looking at him in a demeaning way. One way it was observed was the typical smile seemed to vanish a little. "Though, you wouldn't happen to have any ideas, would you? I read your file, and I'm very curious. Let me ask, how is the majority of your world's power generated?"
"Are you familiar with the fact electric current can induce a magnetic field?" Closure nodded then continued to stare at him, awaiting an explanation. She had a minorly raised eyebrow. Evan looked around the room and noticed a random copper pipe on one of the tables. "Do you have a magnet anywhere? Just a regular one."
"Yeah, check over there," Closure pointed to a table where it seemed some kind of unfinished project sat. Evan took the copper pipe, and picked up the magnet. Closure's feat left the table and she stared with somewhat dilated pupils as Evan took the magnet and dropped it into the tube. For a good while, a very long sliding sound could be heard, but the magnet took its sweet time.
"What the heck?!" Closure shouted as she walked over and took the magnet from his hand. She then touched it to the copper pipe a few times then looked at him rather wide eyed. She then dropped it down and watched the thing fall ever so slowly until it dropped to the floor with an audibly clang. "W-What's going on? Copper isn't magnetic!" She then had a visual flinch as it suddenly clicked in her mind. "Wait, what does this have to do with current creating a magnetic field?"
"Because you can do the reverse," Evan explained while picking up the magnet. "A changing or moving magnetic field can induce a current in the copper pipe, therefore creating a magnetic field which acts upon the magnet against gravity."
"I get it, but what the heck?" Closure asked as she placed the magnet in the tube for a second time. "How does this generate your world's power?"
"Would you believe me if I said really big fans and steam?"
Closure looked at him funny again. Her jaw was hanging open a little this time.
After lunch, Evan walked back to his room and brought some books with him to the library which he got very detailed directions to from Closure. Once done, he picked up some texts of his choosing and made his way to the library.
There were two things that Evan had learned in the conversation that followed with Closure. First, was that essentially all energy on Terra was generated using originium. He already knew that they used originium for basically all machines. Yet, he was pretty shocked to the extent. Closure told him how originium could be used to just induce current with minimal effort by creating an electric imbalance, hence the vast majority of power relied on this strange McGuffin material.
It also made some sense to Evan when he thought about it. If all power could be generated with one resource that is in high abundance, relatively speaking, then what use would research into other things go? It made sense when he thought of previous conversations with Swire, Ch'en, or even Wei Yenwu. Originium, this strange fantastical element, is synonymous with power in this world, so all research goes to it despite the downsides.
"Deja vu," Evan sarcastically said to himself as he thought about some other points of humanity where he came from. There was one thing he wanted to know now though. Could he get some of the materials from his world necessary for alternative technologies? Hence, he was now walking to the library with a few texts in hand. Hopefully someone would be interested in his world's knowledge enough to help him.
When he entered the library, the intern saw a familiar sight at the desk.
"Greetings," a robotically monotone voice said.
"You also run the library desk?" Evan asked Ptilopsis who wiggled her feathers slightly.
"Ptilopsis' primary role is Database Manager; however, Rhodes Island requires its employees to fill multiple roles. This often leads to Ptilopsis performing receptionist roles where she is in charge of vast amounts of data."
"Are you a robot or something?"
"Negative. Ptilopsis' unusual speech pattern is the result of oripathy crystals metastasizing in the cerebral cavity. In no way does Ptilopsis enjoy articulating her thoughts this way," the unusual owl girl responded. While her facial expression didn't change, and neither did her voice. There was something odd to how she carried her words Evan couldn't quite piece together. He did recognize, nonetheless, he may have offended her somehow.
"Sorry," he apologized while nodding his head. "Anyways, I'm here to hopefully do some research, do you think you could point out where books on Geology, resources, and other such topics are? There are some things I would like to check."
"Please wait," Ptilopsis responded swiftly while typing on the computer then taking out a pen and paper. "Please refer to the following texts I have written down."
One thing immediately stood out when he looked at the paper.
"This is the Dewey Decimal system," Evan commented as he stared at the paper.
"Error, Dewey Decimal System not found in lexicon archives. This is just how we organize our books."
"This is the same method as in-" Evan began before pausing. Why was he questioning this? "You know what, forget it. Thank you."
"Glad to be of service," the robotic voice of Ptilopsis stated with a couple flicks of her feathers. Somehow, that small set of gestures she did with those feathers seemed very cute. Perhaps they were how she communicated her emotions? Evan tossed the thought out for now and walked over to a table around where the section he was looking for was. The texts he had were placed down and off he went to find whatever he was looking for. Of course, not being able to read was a detriment, but if the spoken language was the same it would probably be like learning a new alphabet.
"I wonder why the writing system is different. The number system uses the same Arabic numerals, and there are English letters in the context of sorting…" Evan thought to himself as he filed through the books until he found the last one. Then a new thought hit. Could it be possible he wasn't the only instance of otherworldly teleportation? Was there a possibility his case wasn't exactly unique? It did seem possible. Sadly, he didn't get to think much about it when he looked over at the table he had set up on.
Looking at one of his books was a girl with long brown hair, a red overcoat, and a suit. A pair of cat ears protrude from her head with one being pierced, and her tail swished slightly as if she was very interested. She was leaning down, flipping through the book, intently reading it with widened eyes and the utmost focus. Next to her was a staff of sorts, leaning on the table.
"Um…" Evan tried to announce his presence to the cat lady. She didn't seem to notice. Evan coughed a couple times and the tail stiffened. She looked at him with her brows furrowing slightly. "Can I help you?"
Just like that, her expression changed and she stood up straight.
"Are you the owner of this mysterious book perhaps?" a voice that seemed rather excessive in trying to sound important asked, almost as though it were a declaration.
"Yes I am, may I ask who you are?"
"Very well," she responded. Tightening her stance, and holding her hands together, she gave a smug look before answering. "I am Skyfire, King's Wand's number one fire caster. I'm also a Geologist who primarily studies Originium Geology. I wish to inquire about this geology text written in strange writing. I've never seen anything like it, so I must know more about it. If you require compensation, I would gladly pay handsomely for the information in this book."
Evan watched the lengthy introduction and how her demeanor changed as she switched from the self introduction to the question. Her smile changed from a prideful sneer to a rather genuine look of excitement. The compensation part did make him think. She already knew his book was about Geology, and that made him think. Evan looked at Skyfire and responded with another question.
"How did you know it's about Geology?"
"Well, when I opened it, I noticed some images of familiar things like volcanoes, rock formations, and other such things. I then compared the writing to standard scripture and deciphered some of it that way. So far, it's very interesting to read. I had no idea the ocean floor could be responsible for so many geological events. If this is true, it could revolutionize our current theories of geology. You simply must explain this to me!"
As Skyfire got more and more animated, she was stepping closer and closer until she was mere inches away from him. Suddenly, the room was feeling much warmer. At first, it was pleasant, but that pleasant feeling gave way once the air around Skyfire started waving and wiggling. Shortly after, a bright orange light could be seen on her tail.
"Oh my god, your tail! It's on fire!"
The burning cat lady casually looked at her tail then simply said, "Ah, excuse me. I got a little excited." The flame puffed out almost immediately and the heat that was building up was gone. She then stared at him in anticipation, tail swishing like a cat that was very focused or fascinated in something or someone. Given that she already offered compensation, and had already deciphered some of his writing system it seemed clear to Evan what his request could be.
"Sure, if you can teach me how to read and write normally," Evan responded without missing a beat. After saying that, he noticed Skyfire was staring at him with a very strange expression where one brow was raised while her lips curled into a slight frown. It honestly felt like she was judging him.
"You're asking me? An Originium Researcher of King's Wand to teach you how to read and write? Can you even read the books you have?"
He really didn't like the tone she was taking with that. In response to the haughty question, he decided to sarcastically reply, "Yeah, sure. You did offer something in exchange for the information in this book. Clearly the geological knowledge of another world is worthless if it means having to teach one as lowly as myself."
The book shut and Evan began to pull his stuff together to leave. That's when Skyfire responded with a little urgency, "Very well, I'll teach you. I...just wasn't expecting that."
It wasn't an apology, but it would have to do. Hell, it even sounded like she was rationalizing with that pause before her explanation. Evan set his stuff down and slid the geology text the next seat over. He also took out his pencil and opened a spare spot in one of his multi-subject notebooks. A sliding sound was heard shortly after and he looked to see Skyfire had placed the text in the middle and had a smaller notebook of her own along with a pen. She then looked up suddenly and turned her head in his direction.
"Oh, I forgot to ask, what's your name?"
"Evan Carvey."
"Very well, now I have to ask, what does the rest of this part say?" Skyfire asked while pointing to a section on plate boundaries which covered basic things like plate divergence and subduction.
Never in his whole life did Evan think he would be reading an academic text to someone out loud, but when he watched as Skyfire hastily scribbled down her own notes in the writing he didn't understand, Evan realized that this was just the first step in overcoming the writing barrier that this world posed to him. Everyone seemed to want to learn something from him, and this would definitely help if he could overcome the barrier.
It quickly became clear that while Skyfire was interested in the book, she was also working on decoding the language in it. Eventually, once an entire half a section was done, she drew his attention and pointed it to her notebook.
"So far, it seems the two writing systems are remarkably similar. A few minor differences. It seems that your alphabet doesn't contain all the same characters. In fact, it contains less characters. I've noticed that for certain sounds, your writing seems to use compound forms of certain consonants rather than assigning them a character."
"Huh…" Evan sounded with interest as he leaned over to take a closer look at Skyfire's notes. Indeed, for certain words he did see Skyfire's characters were minimized in some areas. Particularly 'sh', 'ch', and even 'tri' like in patriarch or other words that combined t and i at the end. "So, do you think you could write down the alphabet compared to mine?"
"Certainly, I'm not in King's Wand because I'm dull after all. I must say, I am impressed with the knowledge of your world. To be able to probe the depths of the earth in this much detail, do you know how it's accomplished by chance?"
"I think it's...mostly sonar if I remember correctly," the engineering intern answered with a degree of uncertainty after his pause.
"Sonar? As in sound waves?" Skyfire asked with a strange look on her face that had her brows bent in a strange confused way. "What kind of arts accomplish that?"
"No arts, we don't have originium and much less any 'arts' in my world, so it's all just electrical equipment," Evan responded normally. "Um...Miss Skyfire, are you ok?"
The self proclaimed number one fire caster of King's Wand was now staring directly at him with the thousand mile stare, her pen already dropping off the table when it fell from her hand. This time, her hair started catching fire as she continued to stare at him with complete and utter disbelief for the next few minutes, the only movement being blinking. Evan moved any and all paper away from the burning cat lady, so as not to damage the texts which might as well be priceless now. Thankfully he didn't have to pay them off like he did the rest of his college debt.
"Are...what...I…" Skyfire started stuttering. Her entire head was threatening to catch fire now, and a fire alarm started going off which seemed to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. She then looked at Evan, grabbed his shoulders and shook him a little. "What do you mean your world doesn't have originium?! What kind of messed up place is that?! How, how did you gain all this knowledge without arts? Is there a different material that might be similar to originium? Yes, that's got to be it. Is there another material that allows you to do such miraculous things?"
"Ow, ow! Your hands they burn!" Evan yelled as he tried to pry her hands off of his shoulders. Sadly, her grip was like iron and he hoped she didn't end up crushing his shoulder blades instead. "No, seriously! Now let go of me, my world doesn't have a magic rock!"
"What do you mean magic rock?! Surely there must be something. I demand to know, how could you possibly-"
"Will both of you please be quiet?" a surprisingly calm, yet powerful voice asked from nearby. A pair of hands then grabbed Skyfire's and ripped them off Evan's shoulders. "People are trying to work. The library is one of the few quiet places on this landship, so don't ruin it for others trying to do their research in peace."
The victim of Skyfire's hands began gingerly touching his shoulders and hissed as his fingers touched the spots. Suddenly, the hands of his savior gently pulled his shirt over to take a look at the burns.
"First degree burns, nothing major or seriously damaging. You must be lucky, I thought Skyfire would burn the entire library down at this rate," the person said while turning her gaze to Skyfire with narrowed eyes which made the prideful kitty droop her animalistic appendages in guilt. "Come with me, I'll take you to the Medical Department to help with the wounds."
"Um...what about my books?" Evan asked with a small voice as he gazed to them. The tall, stern looking lady said nothing and merely picked them up. "Oh, thank you. What's your name?"
"You may call me Saria," the woman responded without changing her expression. The stern look kind of reminded him of Kal'tsit in expression only. "Now, let's go. We should treat those burns quickly so as to avoid any lengthy pain."
Author's Note:
FINALS HAVE BEEN BEATEN! Now to sign up for next semester and a summer semester. The college train rolls along. I really hope next year can be in person, this year has been a dumpster fire for reasons beyond COVID pandemic.
To state the obvious, Terra's ethics are fucking garbage. This is going to be a fun dynamic to explore. An other worlder who contemplates ethics and comes from a place where they're upheld being in a world where that word probably doesn't exist. Civilization seems to have developed fast in Terra, so it makes sense they're still struggling with the concept of fairness and human rights. Hence the introduction of Saria and Skyfire. These two are certainly going to serve as foils for each other.
Yeah, the first proper arc is going to involve Rhine Lab shenanigans. By the time the Obsidian Festival Happens, Closure's gonna give Evan a fun title.
Also screw gacha hell. I rolled 2 6 stars in a 10x, and both of them were my 3rd and 4th Mudrock lol. Haha, spin hammer go brrrrr.
Thank you for reading. Also, as of writing this chapter the story has 69 favs ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).