Chapter Text
With a mighty roar, Sinclair pulled the cable with all his strength, covered in sweat under the merciless sun, the breeze offering little relief. He staggered backwards, the massive crate rising from beneath the water's surface and – he was glad to see – landing on the deck with a loud thud. He ran to the edge of the boat and looked over, relieved to see Ishmael – who'd given the crate a shove underwater, testing her strength and lung capacity – collecting herself, floating in the water. She smiled up at him.
“Hope it's worth the effort,” she said before swimming over to the boat and climbing aboard. She was sweltering immediately; her wetsuit felt like it was absorbing every single ray of sunlight. It didn't dampen her enthusiasm as Sinclair carefully pried open the lid of the crate.
The two of them peered inside. Sinclair smiled widely once he realized just what was in all these containers.
“Enkephalin, Ishmael! Look at all these boxes!”
“What the hell is a crate of this stuff doing on the ocean floor?!”
“Someone's loss is our gain, I guess.”
Ishmael calculated just how much this amount of Enkephalin would go for and gave Sinclair an overjoyed and very wet hug.
“Does this mean we don't have to eat trash crab for dinner?”
“That's exactly what it means. What do you say we pick up some real meat and some good booze and live it up?”
They heard clamoring from below decks as the land-dwelling members of Molar Office scrambled up. Outis, ostensibly everyone's boss, still had her sleep mask on her head and was still dressed in her disheveled work clothes, one suspender clip undone. She was followed by her seconds-in-command, the chainsmoker with the antique sword and the quiet fellow.
“What the hell is that?” Outis asked.
“A crate, I believe,” Yi Sang explained, smiling a little.
“If you helped us, you'd know, you sorry bunch of landlubbers.”
“I don't do H.L.,” Ryoshu growled as she lit a cigarette and shielded her red eyes from the blazing sun.
“I wasn't sure I'd be of any help,” Yi Sang, the quiet fellow, said apologetically.
“I was busy,” Outis said, wiping sleep from her eyes. She didn't point out she was busy sitting below decks drinking her way through Ishmael's booze stash in the morning and sleeping it off until now. “Let's see the haul.”
The three of them joined Ishmael and Sinclair and took in the crate, filled with boxes of Enkephalin. Green gold. Ryoshu whistled, impressed.
“Not bad, nautical knuckleheads. Split five ways, that's...”
“Five ways?!” Ishmael protested. “You three didn't do anything except eat Sinclair's trash crab rolls and drink my special occasion wine – plus the rest of my booze. Sinclair and I have been busting our asses in the sun all day.”
Outis wasn't paying full attention. The glistening seawater all over Ishmael's wetsuit and the way it hugged the contours of her body were at the front of her mind, instead, although she had the good sense not to stare.
“It doesn't bother me that you ate those,” Sinclair said, trying to wage some peace. “They're not great.”
“I disagree. The brackish flavor and unusual texture were highly satisfying,” Yi Sang said.
“I wasn't doing nothing, ignoramus. I was sharpening...”
“...and polishing your little sword. Yeah, yeah.”
Ryoshu's eyes glowed and she put a hand on the grip of her “little” sword.
“I'll C.O.I.N.”
“Cut open Ishmael's neck,” Sinclair translated.
“You're not being very comradely,” Outis said, taking a few steps to get in the middle of Ishmael and Ryoshu, figuring the swordswoman would be slightly less likely to cut her in half. “We're guests of the Boatworks branch of the Office, let's act like it.”
“Hmph.”
Without a word, Ishmael took Outis' loose suspender clip and reattached it to her pants.
“Let's head back to shore and cash in,” she said, heading for the tiller, still sweating profusely. “Sinclair, if there's any beer left, grab me one before we pull up anchor, please.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“He calls you ma'am? Why don't you two call me ma'am?” Outis asked.
“D.R.Y.”
“You more resemble a big sister than a boss, to me.”
Outis ignored that, choosing to look at Ishmael, still gleaming and sweating in her wetsuit. Outis didn't remember that mess in the library very clearly due to hangover-related reasons, so she had no idea that the redheaded fixer was quite so attractive. She was glad that after that nonsense was through, the library spat them out close enough together to resume being colleagues. As an added perk, her ex was never gonna find her here, so goodbye alimony payments.
“You stare any harder, you're gonna break her tailbone,” Ryoshu said with a crooked smirk.
Outis ignored her. As Ishmael fired up the engines, Sinclair emerged from below decks with two of the secret emergency bottles of malt liquor (“The good ones are all gone.”), one of which he passed to Ishmael before hurrying to raise the anchor, Yi Sang following along to observe and be an extra pair of hands if necessary, although the heat was clearly getting to him.
“Perhaps I should open my shirt as you have,” he mused.
“You could, if – if you want...” Sinclair said as he threw the lever and the anchor chain began retracting with the sound of heavy machinery working, throwing the lever once more once he heard a heavy clank.
“Anchor aweigh!”
Ishmael sang loudly as she steered the little vessel through the murky waters, past islands of scrap metal, garbage, ooze-covered rocks, and other detritus. So much of the City's waste comes to rest here, Outis thought as she listened to Ishmael belt out haul up your clewgarnets, let tacks and sheets fly in between gulps of malt liquor, her wet ponytail flying in the wind as she picked up speed.
No wonder we ended up here, she thought.
-
After a careful docking procedure, the five of them (minus Ryoshu, who doesn't do H.L.) worked together to get their scrap and their precious crate of Enkephalin off the boat and onto the usual pickup truck to be sold. While they waited for the truck driver to reorganize her flatbed full of scrap metal and other precious junk to make room for their haul, Ishmael pulled Outis aside as the two of them observed from the deck of the boat.
“This is gonna take a while, this lady can't organize for shit and won't let me do it for her. Here, give me a hand,” she said, pointing to the zipper on the wetsuit, right on the back of her neck. “When I've been wearing it too long, this cheap thing gets all sticky and hard to pull off. Give it a yank for me, would ya?”
Ishmael was pleased to see just how eager the old fixer was to peel off her wetsuit. Sure, babysitting the land animals was a bit of a pain, and this drunk and her cronies obliterated almost her entire booze supply in a single morning. But the veteran (she'd mentioned being a Smoke War vet once or twice or fifty times) was damned handsome with her lined face and impressive scars. Wild, Ishmael thought, how being soaked in humidity-and-liquor sweat was only making her more attractive.
With a slow zzzzip Outis unwrapped Ishmael, revealing her freckly, scarred skin and cheap tattoos over her muscular frame; Outis reflexively bit her lip, seeing the sculpted muscles of Ishmael's arms and back. Under the wetsuit she had a simple green two-piece swimsuit on; although she didn't need any help peeling it the rest of the way off, she decided she was going to let her enthusiastic volunteer do the rest of the work.
“Thanks, Outis. I'm going to go change... keep an eye on the truck. I don't want that sneaky bitch getting any big ideas.”
Outis watched Ishmael go before turning her attention back to the pickup truck, its motor idling, parked right by the docks. The driver, a tall brunette with her hair up in a big bun and wearing as little as possible under her work overalls, was still trying to figure out how to accommodate all this scrap metal plus that big crate. She'd never seen the friendly blond fella and the moody redhead haul up so much stuff.
“What's in that crate, anyway?” She asked.
“We're gonna take it to our usual merchants to have them identify it,” Sinclair quickly said.
“I believe it's Enkeph – ow!”
Ryoshu and Sinclair both gave Yi Sang a thwack to keep him quiet.
“That whole crate's full of Enkephalin?! Babes, why didn't you say so?!” The driver began chucking hunks of scrap metal out of the truck to make room for the crate, which she hauled into the flatbed with the help of Sinclair, Yi Sang, and some chains. “You shouldn't even bother with that piddling crap – that crate's worth more than a month's time salvaging scrap metal, easy!”
Outis narrowed her eyes as she watched the scene play out. Yi Sang's too damned trusting. She watched as Sinclair hopped into the truck bed to catch a ride to the market. She also noticed the pale woman with the white hair leaning out of the passenger's side window of the truck. She was implausibly wearing a heavy coat over her sweater even in the unbearable heat. Who was she?
“Where's Captain Ishy?” The driver asked.
“She'll be up in a while. Once she's here, we can get – agh!”
The driver abruptly grabbed Sinclair off the truck's flatbed and threw him bodily into Ryoshu, sending the two of them tumbling, Ryoshu's cigarette going flying and landing in a pile of crud and slime.
“Sorry, babe,” the driver said. Yi Sang reached for his knife, but the big driver's fist was in his face before he could even draw. Outis, cursing loudly, jumped off the boat and landed on the dock, running for the driver as she pulled her spiked cleaver off her back.
“Fau, that's your cue, sweetie!”
Outis turned to see the blue-eyed passenger pull a – was that a gun?
Not exactly. She fired and electrified strands burst forth, striking Outis and making her unable to do anything but flop over and twitch. Sinclair was back on his feet and running for the driver, who leveled him with a haymaker. She planted her boot on Outis' chest.
“It's not that I like acting like this,” the driver said, “it really sucks. But... material realities being what they are... I can't afford to be a saint, ya dig?”
“Urrk...” Outis really wanted to tell this damned thief how she felt, but the effects of the stun gun were making it hard to think straight or even talk. The driver casually turned and smashed her elbow into Yi Sang's chest as he gamely attempted a sneak attack.
“Byeee,” the driver said, blowing the disoriented Outis a kiss. She got back into the truck, revved the engine, and sped off. The smell of burning slop filled the air as Ryoshu's cigarette started a small ooze fire and the four of them lay sprawled on the filthy beach, in too much pain to move (except Ryoshu, who simply didn't feel like it).
“Now things are getting interesting,” was all she said, lighting herself another cigarette with the nearby flames.
This garbage beach is surprisingly comfortable, Outis thought. She heard Ishmael's furious voice booming.
“Are you fucking SERIOUS?!”
“Sorry, ma'am...” Sinclair called out weakly.
Ishmael, who now regretted taking so much time to tidy herself up in anticipation of a big night out, stormed onto the docks and began getting her compatriots onto their feet, the truck already out of view, having blown past other crews of salvage hunters hoping for a ride back to the market.
“I left you unattended for five minutes, you bumbling old drunk! How'd you manage to blow it so fast?!”
“The driver had an accomplice,” Outis growled. “She was armed with a stun gun, which gave them a pronounced tactical advantage.”
Ishmael rubbed her temples in sun-scorched misery.
“All right,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Here's our plan. We're going to get to the market, we're going to follow the trail of our prize, and then we're going to beat the shit out of those two thieves and get our hard-earned money. Then we're going to eat barbecue and drink our faces off. Are we in agreement?”
“Strictly speaking, we should let Outis make the...”
“Ishmael's right,” Outis said.
“Of course I am. Grab your tools, everyone. Let's not lose any more time.”
Ishmael led the way back to the boat to get her favorite killin' drill, Sinclair his huge mechanical saw, which he gave an excited rev, eager for some redemption after getting beaten by such an obvious sucker trap. Then she and Sinclair started the trek to the town, the landlubber trio behind them, all of them sweltering. Outis cursed herself quietly: ugh, she's unlikely to sleep with me after this fiasco. When we find those thieves, I'll have to show them what I can do.