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Deuce sighed as he trudged through an empty base, trailing puddles onto the floor. The others were still out exploring, since their biomes were way less harmful to humans than the oceanic one that Deuce had gotten. Spending too much time in the water on Earth was liable to make you slowly waste away, cell by cell, and humans are actually made to live on Earth.
He pushed damp hair out of his eyes, tossing a wasted battery into the recharging bay. He hummed as he replaced it, watching his tablet flicker to life once again.
Not that the tablet had much data on it, not yet. The nearby sealife did not trust the new outpost that had been built in the water, and were steering clear.
Also, he wasn’t particularly good at the whole… ‘formal speech’ thing that their superiors tended to prefer. He was nowhere near as bad as Epel, but it still took him far more time than it took the others. The idea of making a Log right now was exhausting.
But there wasn’t much else he could do…
After some thought, he jotted down that the wildlife was wary. It was probably a hostile environment with a decent amount of carnivorous animals, if they were this distrustful.
That would make things harder than they had been on the last planet, where almost all of the sea life he had come across were herbivores. The ‘fish’ had allowed Deuce to swim right up to them, just as curious about Deuce as Deuce was about them, not even minding when he poked and prodded them, so long as he came with food to sate them with.
It had been so easy then. Now, though…
He sighed, unzipping his wetsuit, peeling it away from his chest, looping the sleeves around his waist so it wouldn’t fall in an indecent way. He had half a mind to go change, but he liked to think that tracking water over the pristine tiles was a tiny act of rebellion. The quality of the wetsuit was not great, but why would their superiors ever bother giving one of their ‘favorite’ exposable workers something that might actually protect them?
Ugh. If he died here, he was going to throw a fit in the afterlife. When he had said he wanted to be a biologist, since they earned a lot of money, he had meant that he wanted to observe alien lifeforms from the comfort of a controlled lab, and the grunt work he had been assigned was hardly high-paying. But, if he ever wanted to get to that point, he had to keep this up for a few more years.
This is what he got for not being born into a rich and influential family, he supposed.
The airlock hissed as it opened, and Deuce heard a high-pitched scream.
Deuce rolled his eyes.
“I know this is the first time you’ve ever seen a person’s body and all, Ace, but chill out. I’m shirtless, not naked.”
Ace’s hands were still determinedly covering his eyes despite his extremely sound logic. “Put some clothes on!”
Deuce sighed and disappeared into his room to change into something far more casual. A tank top and jeans. The slightly too acidic water was probably slowly eating at his skin and clothes, but he was just going to have to deal with that, because Ace had stolen the shower.
Ace stepped out ten minutes later. At least he was nice enough to let him have some hot water.
“One day I’m going to feed you to the fish,” Deuce said, regardless.
Ace snorted. “I’m going to let the not-snakes I found in the desert today bite you.”
Deuce raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you found a specimen? Did you bring it home?”
“Several specimens, actually,” Ace said, smirking widely. “Want to meet them? I still need to collect a couple of samples from them, I could use some help.”
Deuce grabbed him by the hand. He wasn’t particularly interested in helping collect samples, but collecting them with Ace was usually a fun time.
“... take a shower first,” Ace said, tugging his hand out of Deuce’s, frowning at his palm, which was already redder than it should have been.
Right. Acidic water.
Deuce groaned and slunk into the bathroom.
By the time he came out again, Jack was back, too.
“... please tell me you didn’t take all of the hot water.”
“You spent all day in the jungle, Jack, I think you need to cool off,” Deuce said.
Jack groaned, tucking sweaty bangs behind his ear. Said bangs fell right back in front of his face immediately after.
He flashed a wink, and then headed off in search of Ace’s lab. It wasn’t hard to find, all of the labs were in the same wing of the facility. Say what you will about NRC (they all certainly did), but at least they knew how to design intuitive research facilities.
Deuce stopped for just a moment to poke his head into his own lab. It was relatively bare, save for a giant aquarium in the center, stretching from floor to ceiling, and then some. It was accessible from the ocean, which was convenient, but cordoned off enough that nothing should be able to escape. There were currently no animals in it, Deuce had been spending most of his day simply exploring and getting his bearings underwater (and he couldn’t find any fish, besides).
He hummed, pleased, before continuing on.
He had samples to collect. He pulled a lab coat around his shoulders, nearly skipping into the room dedicated to Ace’s animals. The snakes he’d mentioned were lazing beneath a sunlamp, apparently unconcerned with the fact that they had been stolen from their homes.
Ace was leaning over a table, his lips pursed into a thin line. A dead snake lay before him, and he was carefully taking a scalpel to its mouth, probably trying to extract venom.
Deuce smiled, tiptoeing over.
“Hey, Ace.”
Neon green blood spurted over Ace’s gloves, and the redhead cursed quietly before turning to glower at Deuce.
“You did that on purpose.”
Deuce blinked back at him, oh-so-very-innocent. “I could never. I’m very stupid, actually, you’ve seen my test scores. I had the lowest grades out of any of us.”
Ace sighed, peeling off the bloodied glove and throwing it into a container. Probably intending to test the blood later.
And then he reached out and flicked Deuce’s ear.
“Ow?!”
“Deserved.”
Deuce disagreed. He was helping. Now Ace could test the creatures’ blood, too. He was a great friend.
The snakes, however, were… less great friends.
“They’re pretty chill about you dissecting a snake right in front of them,” Deuce observed, stepping closer to the tank. The snakes stared back at him, slitted eyes barely open, as if they were on the verge of falling asleep. “Did you drug them or something?”
“No. They’re just… weird, I think. They didn’t care when I picked them up. Even this one over here –” Ace jerked a thumb toward the dead one on the table. “– didn’t seem to care when I came at it with a knife.”
Deuce tipped his head to the side. “You sure they can die?”
Ace gave him a flat look.
He cleared his throat, awkwardly, blushing under the flat look sent his way, scrambling for a better explanation: “Complacency?”
“Must be. Can’t think of any other reason why they’d be so…” Ace squinted at the snakes for a minute, before shivering. “If we ever get kidnapped by some higher being, and I’m super chill about it, you need to kill me. ‘Cause that ain’t me.”
Deuce grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m always down to kill something that looks like you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No problem!”
Ace glared halfheartedly at him for a minute, before his expression softened. “Whatever. Help me get some samples?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Deuce said.
This was, of course, a teensy-weensy white lie. Deuce wasn’t like Epel, who had gone into this field because he was genuinely curious about alien worlds. He was like Ace – someone who had simply ended up here. Ace got good grades, and he hadn’t had any preferences for what field he went into, so he had gone into science. Deuce was intending to provide for his mom, and the people who survived this job were paid well, so this was where he was.
In the end, neither of them were genuinely all that interested in the scholarly aspect of things.
Maybe that was why they had gravitated to each other.
Much to their supervisors’ chagrin. Frankly, Deuce was stunned that the vein pulsing in Riddle Roseheart’s forehead hadn’t burst yet. It was only thanks to Trey Clover and Cater Diamond that they didn’t get thrown out within the first month, and it had been a close thing.
Regardless, they weren’t a particularly productive pair.
Which, really, wouldn’t matter all that much. Despite Rosehearts-senpai’s insistence that their work might one day get picked up by higher-ups like Divus Crewel, Mozus Trein, or (Seven forbid) Dire Crowley himself… well, it had never happened before, and at this point it didn’t seem likely that they ever would.
So, who cared if they slacked off a little? Lived a little? Had some actual fun instead of working all the time?
It wasn’t like Rosehearts-senpai could fire them at this point. They were good at their jobs in a field where a lot of people didn’t make it past the first few weeks – they were keepers.
By the time Ace and Deuce had finished for the night (because they were hungry, not because they had reached any real stopping point), they found that Epel and Sebek had both returned from their own expeditions.
Yuu was tending to Sebek, who must have fallen at some point, as he had scraped up his knees.
This was all well and good, Deuce preferred it when his coworkers weren’t injured… but, if they were tending to Sebek, then who was cooking dinner?
“Yuuuuuuuu…” Ace said, slumping over the kitchen table. “I’m hungryyyyyyyy.”
Yuu rolled his eyes. “Good. Starve.”
Ace squeaked.
“I miss when you first started out,” Epel said, his chin in his hands. “You were waaay nicer then.”
“I’ve been cleaning up after you lot for the past seven missions. I’m sick of you,” Yuu said. He shuddered. “If you guys make me clean your sheets again I’m going to kill myself, I swear.”
“What’ve they been doing to the sheets?” Epel asked, frowning.
Deuce’s face flushed. “Do – do you need help making dinner, Yuu?”
“I don’t trust you to know how a microwave works, but thanks for the offer.” He stood up straighter, patting Sebek on the arm. “You should be fine, now. Tell me if you have any weird reactions to the flora you touched.”
Sebek nodded, firmly. “Thank you for your help,” he said, solemn and genuine.
“Aw, he’s so cute,” Epel teased. “He still has respect for everyone ‘n everything. How long do you think it’ll take for that to get beaten outta him?”
Sebek’s face flushed. “I’m simply –.”
“Three weeks, max,” said Ace. “That’s our record. Congrats on setting that, by the way, Jack.”
Jack gave a vague grunt, taking a seat. “Live to please,” he said sarcastically.
“I thought I had the record?” Deuce said, frowning.
“You’re in denial, that’s different,” Yuu said.
“I will be beating everyone,” Sebek said. “This is an amazing opportunity, and I intend to make the most of it.”
“Adorable,” Deuce said, exchanging nods with Epel. Newbies are always so sweet and full of hope. Of course, most newbies ended up dead within a few days, since alien planets aren’t exactly the most hospitable places, but they’re pretty cute in the meantime. And the ones who survive tend to realize just how terrible their situation is after a while, so they aren’t hopeful long enough to get annoying.
“Rosehearts-senpai isn’t here, he can’t hear you badmouth him, go wild,” Ace said, bluntly.
“They won’t date you,” Yuu said, even blunter.
Sebek’s face flushed beet red. He spluttered. “I don’t want –!”
“Here, we can start for you,” Jack said, patting Sebek on the shoulder. “Dire Crowley is incompetent.”
“Scathing insult,” Deuce said, rolling his eyes. But he could admit that insulting people when you don’t swear is an art – one that very few people can master.
“Thank you. Now it’s your turn, Sebek.”
Sebek was busy staring at all of them, openly horrified that they would say anything mean about their leader.
“A week,” Deuce decided.
“Mmmmm, I give him two,” Jack said.
“What’ll you do if he beats your score, Jack?” Yuu asked.
“Cry myself to sleep, I guess.”
“Alright. I’m betting four weeks. Don’t let me down, newbie,” Yuu said.
Sebek seemed to have realized that he had no say in this, as he flopped back onto the table, his hands over his face. “M’name’s Sebek,” Sebek grumbled, halfheartedly.
“See, you say that, but every time you say your name all I hear is ‘Fish’,” Ace teased.
Sebek peeked through his fingers just enough to glare at him.
Deuce wasn’t particularly pleased, either. He had spent several years with fish, and Sebek didn’t look nor act like most of the ones he’d seen. “If you have to dehumanize him, at least call him, like, ‘Fresh Meat’, Ace.”
“I like ‘Frosh’,” suggested Jack.
“‘Newest sucker’,” Yuu said.
Sebek finally had enough. He gathered his things, and then stormed off, probably towards his private quarters.
Epel rested his chin in his hands. “Y’all’re kinda the worst, ya know? Don’t’cha remember how it was when you were still new?”
“Exactly like this,” Deuce said.
“You guys literally hazed me,” Yuu said.
“In our defense, that was funny,” said Ace.
“It was not.”
(It was.)
Jack raised an eyebrow. “What did you do to Yuu?”
Epel opened his mouth.
“Tell him and go to bed hungry.”
“We did nothin’ at all,” Epel said, sweetly.
Yuu narrowed his eyes, as if he wasn’t sure whether he liked that response, either.
But, he did make them all food, so it must not have offended him too much.
(He set a portion outside of Sebek’s door, and regardless of whether Sebek had forgiven them all yet or not he still ate it).
The rest of the night was relatively uneventful, save for a couple of debriefings about what they found – nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed, which makes sense, there’s a reason why it’s called ‘the ordinary’, after all.
They turned in pretty quickly, tired and sore from traversing unknown environments.
The following week was… also pretty uneventful, all things considered.
Deuce couldn’t call his job fun. It was, in the end, a job – and one that paid a low wage at that. He would spend a few hours underwater, looking for and trying to capture various fish, and then head back to the base to analyze any specimens he happened to lure into traps.
The most interesting thing that happened was that one of his traps ended up broken, somehow. It had probably lured a fish that was a little too big for it. Deuce hadn’t seen any fish large enough to do that yet, but they surely had to exist. He made a mental note that, if he wanted to use that particular type of bait again, he’d have to make the trap larger.
Outside of that, it was pretty boring. Hell, even considering that, it was still painfully dull.
You would think that exploring an alien planet would be interesting. It had been on the first few missions. But, in the end, fish were still fish. Slick body to traverse water faster, something sharp to tear apart food if it didn’t simply swallow it whole, fins or webbed limbs…
Well, frankly, Deuce couldn’t say he entirely understood why any of his work was seen as ‘necessary’. He was happy to be paid, of course, but the only benefit he could see to any of this was a possible food source. And they weren’t even sending the specimens to NRC, nor were they putting any of them in their mouths to taste test them, so it wasn’t that!
He groaned as he dragged himself ashore, his body aching just slightly as gravity was forced upon him once again. Deuce set his bag of collected fish in the tank. The temperature of the water wasn’t any different from that of the sea he had just been in, so he wasted no time in releasing the fish. He watched them rush out, into the water, crowding in the corners, as far away from Deuce as they could get, joining the other fish in the tank.
Some of these were natural predators, cowering alongside their prey, but in the face of something larger than them the fish weren’t all that hungry, it seemed.
He watched the fish swim around for a few minutes, mulling over the pros and cons of getting some decorations for ‘his’ aquarium, before turning his attention back to the task at hand. He pulled the mouthpiece of his oxygen tank from his mouth, grimacing as the planet’s air rushed into his lungs in its stead.
The air wasn’t necessarily bad, it was breathable, but it was about akin to the air on a mountaintop – crisp, fresh, and entirely too thin for comfort.
Deuce took a few gulps of air, his chest already aching just slightly, before waving frantically at a nearby security camera.
It only took a few minutes before a familiar face stepped out. Yuu walked over, visibly taking a moment to steel himself before taking his own oxygen mask off. “We should be doing this inside.”
“I’m saving us both time,” Deuce shrugged. “You’re going to be out here for a while. A couple of the fish I’ve found can jump out of the water, so I can’t contain any of those live specimens right now. Can you increase the walls’ height some?”
“Sure,” Yuu said, though he seemed preemptively exhausted at the prospect of doing more work. “How much higher do you think I’ve got to go?”
“Maybe a meter?” Deuce said. He hadn’t seen the fish jump that high, yet, but it would be best to keep things on the safe side, he thought.
Yuu flashed a thumbs up, and Deuce headed inside, and that was that.
For the next few days.
Deuce dragged himself over the wall, flopping into the aquarium, fighting the urge to pant, as he really didn’t need seawater in their lungs.
He pulled his bag o’ fish from his waistband and turned to the tank at large.
Only to pause.
Slowly, he let go of his bag, barely paying it any mind as it slowly sank to the bottom of the tank, the fish squirming inside making it ripple strangely. Not that he watched it for long. He looked around. The aquarium hadn’t been fully furnished yet, it only had a few places for fish to hide.
But they weren’t anywhere to be seen.
Bubbles streamed from his nose as he groaned, and he pushed his way back up to the surface. He clambered right back out of the tank, and strode over to the airlock, his foot tapping impatiently as he waited to get inside. The moment he could, he yanked out his oxygen feeder, ignoring the slight burn in the back of his throat, and yelled, “Yuu!”
It took several minutes for his coworker to appear, and when he did it was reluctantly, poking his head around the corner and eyeing Deuce like he was scared Deuce might take a knife to him. He was considering it, so this was a valid fear to have.
“What’s up?” Yuu asked.
“I told you to let me change the water in the tank,” Deuce said, pointing at the now-empty water. “They’ve all escaped, now, and I’ll have to –.”
“I didn’t change the water, though?” Yuu cut in, frowning.
“Wait, what?” Deuce said, utterly bewildered. If Yuu hadn’t let the fish go on accident, where did they go? He frowned. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you.”
“I’m really not…?” Yuu said, slowly approaching the glass, squinting into the brine. He seemed genuinely confused to find that the fish really were all gone. “Do you think they escaped or something? You said they could jump and all…”
“I said that some of them could jump,” Deuce said. “And none of the species I caught yesterday could.”
Yuu could only shake his head. “It wasn’t me. Check the newbie, maybe?”
But Sebek didn’t know anything, either.
Deuce ran a hand through his hair, turning around to go to check the security cameras, only to jump when a hand caught him by the arm.
Deuce glanced back at Sebek. “Yeah?”
Sebek, absently, shook out his hand, his palm red from the remains of the acidic water Deuce had long since learned to tolerate. For a moment, he didn’t speak, mulling things over with a slightly red face.
“Uh…”
“Is there any chance that there are intelligent lifeforms on this planet!” Sebek burst out.
For a moment, thanks to the tone, Deuce didn’t even register it as a question. He just stared, blankly, at Sebek as his mind struggled to catch up.
And, even once he had processed it, he remained silent, unsure.
The short answer was ‘No’, but that probably wouldn’t be enough of an answer to satisfy him. Deuce was stuck trying to recall what they did before sending people to new planets. It had been on a test, once, but Deuce had never been one to go over past exams to see what he got right and wrong, so he wasn’t sure whether he even knew the answer then. Ace would have been a better person to ask.
But Sebek was looking at him, surprisingly vulnerable, and Deuce couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for him.
The first few missions, regardless of the wonders you might come across, were always the most nerve-wracking. And Sebek had gotten assigned to the Wastelands, so it wasn’t as if he had all that much beautiful stuff to look at to make up for all of the terror.
“Let’s see… I mean, firstly, we try to pick up radio waves on the planet to see if anything has developed tech yet, and then we start looking for complex cave systems…”
He was probably forgetting some things, but those were the most important ones, he was pretty sure.
Sebek didn’t seem that much calmer, but he nodded once and said, “Thanks!”
Deuce nodded, slightly, and then continued off towards the camera room.
Yuu was sitting in their usual chair by the cameras, their eyes glued to the screens.
“How did you miss what happened to my fish when watching over things is your literal job?” Deuce asked.
Yuu glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, briefly, before fixing back on the camera feed once again. “Besides the fact that I need to eat, sleep, and bathe sometimes?”
Deuce winced a little at the pointed tone, feeling a little bit like a child being reminded that their mom actually had a life outside of them. “Send the camera feed from today to my tablet?”
With a few swipes of Yuu’s fingers, Deuce now had a huge file to scrub through. He dropped into the chair beside Yuu’s, smiling a little when the wheels rolled him back a few paces, and then started going through the footage.
It was, for the most part, uneventful. The fish darted about their aquarium at super speed thanks to the magic of video editing, but outside of that it wasn’t all that stimulating to watch. His eyes glazed over.
Until something large dropped into the tank.
He didn’t get a great view of it, it was large to the point of being excessive. A long line of deep green scales, writhing about, covering the camera on accident.
Ah, so this was one of the larger predators of this world. Deuce had to admit, it was quite the jump from the smaller-than-his-torso fish he had been observing thus far.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. They could build the walls of the aquarium higher, but then Deuce would have to climb it while soaking wet, and the fish he brought back might die in the process of climbing up and down. This also assumed that the animal couldn’t climb ladders either, which wasn’t guaranteed…
“Yuu, I need you to do something for me,” Deuce said.
Yuu gave a quiet hum to show he was listening.
“If this thing –” Deuce held up the tablet for Yuu to get as good of a look at it as was possible “– comes back, I need you to tranquilize it.”
But, two weeks later, Deuce came back to an empty tank.
He groaned, frustrated, and started making his way through the base…
Only to stop cold when he noticed blood trailing along the floor, slowly leading toward Yuu’s bedroom.
Deuce knocked, quietly.
Yuu, inside, hissed a curse. Things collided with other things on the other side of the door.
At least he wasn’t dead.
After a few seconds, Yuu’s door slid open, to reveal that it might have been a close thing. Yuu’s skin was paler than it should have been, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead.
“What happened?” Deuce said.
“Tranqs didn’t work,” Yuu said, shortly.
The door slammed shut in his face.
Deuce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Alright, well. He supposed he would just have to trap the thing through other means.
The next month was… frustrating.
Nets wouldn’t keep it for long (the net he used was sliced to shreds, it had sharp teeth and/or claws). Slamming a ‘lid’ shut on top of it ended in a hole burrowed through expensive metal (a large portion of the scratches were made on the outside, suggesting it might have had help). It learned what sensors looked like, forcing Deuce to hide them better and better.
Deuce wanted to catch the thing alive, but that seemed less and less possible as time went on.
He sat in his lab, watching the aquarium, his eyes drooping as he waited for it to show up.
Deuce couldn’t say for sure how intelligent the thing was. Even the most simple of creatures were capable of learning patterns. All he knew was that it was actively ruining everything he tried to do, and the higher-ups were going to get impatient sooner or later.
So, it had to go. One way or another.
A loud splash drew his attention, and he jolted into awareness.
It was long and green – it had probably evolved to hide among the kelp-like fauna nearby. He couldn’t tell where it ended, the tip of its tail was hidden somewhere in the mess of swirling limbs.
It was looking right back at him. It didn’t have a face in the way humans did, certainly wouldn’t be expected to emote like one, but the way it had gone as still as anything in the water could spoke of an otherwise unexpressed surprise. It looked like asking Yuu to head out into the water in his stead had worked, it had been convinced he was gone for the day… it had been waiting for him to leave.
Deuce peered into the animal’s eyes. It didn’t blink, but then again most fish don’t have visible eyelids.
Slowly, it drifted closer to the glass, peering at him. Inky, black eyes, and yet he had no doubts that it was looking solely at him.
The glass separating them would keep it from trying anything. It had arms, but no legs, so it was an entirely water-based creature, and the oxygen in the base was even more concentrated than the air outside. It wouldn’t last long in here.
Despite knowing this, Deuce longed for the knife that he carried around with him while diving. For it had a wicked set of claws, and its mouth was full of long, thin, razor-sharp teeth. It was definitely a carnivore.
Deuce took a deep breath to steady himself, before approaching the glass, slowly circling it. The animal followed him around the tank, making it hard to get a good gauge of its actual size.
He sighed, pulling his tablet from beneath his lab coat and pressing a button.
A lid slammed down on top of the tank.
The being floated there, once again, seeming almost offended.
Deuce sighed, and with another tap on his screen, the water in the tank began to slide out through a barely visible set of tubes at the bottom. It was supposed to be used to clear out the water before it got too dirty and made the specimens ill, but it was perfectly capable of killing a particularly annoying specimen for him, too.
Said specimen didn’t seem… particularly thrilled that the water level was shrinking.
It threw itself at the new ceiling, beating against the metal.
It wouldn’t be able to get out in time. Deuce was pretty sure that it knew that.
It threw itself at the ground, trying to stop the water from spilling out. Then, it seemed to realize that this wasn’t going to help in the long run, because it’s head jerked right back up to the top of the tank. For a moment, it wavered, before it swam right back up to the top, banging its fists on the metal, trying to make even a dent.
Deuce swallowed thickly.
It had to be done. If not for the sake of science, then for the sake of his job security. This thing was messing with his ability to do his job, and Deuce’s superiors weren’t exactly known for their leniency. If it was between Deuce’s ability to support himself and his mother, and… whatever this was…
Well, the choice had been made.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t horrifying to watch. Usually, Deuce tried to ensure that all the specimens he took had the quickest, most painless deaths possible. Yuu had said that the tranquilizer gun hadn’t worked, though, so Deuce really wasn’t sure how to incapacitate the thing, let alone put it out of its misery.
Should he – should he leave?
His job had never felt particularly invasive. Sure, he was dissecting dead animals, but it wasn’t as if he did it in a particularly cruel way. The deaths were quick, the dissections were purposeful and never extended past what he was required to do for his job.
This was just…
And then the specimen threw itself at the glass.
What the – huh?!
Sharp claws and teeth scratched at the glass. Its tail beat against the thin wall separating itself from Deuce. But it didn’t seem like it was doing it blindly. The second its tail managed to make a small spiderweb of cracks appear in the glass, it zeroed in on that area, beating its fists against it.
It was a water animal! It wouldn’t last in the lab! What was it doing?!
Deuce hugged his tablet to his chest, his eyes wide.
Was it… trying to take him down with it?
A shiver ran through Deuce.
He’d faced off against plenty of beasts in his time working for NRC, and none of those fights had been done in the comfort of his own home, but at least in the water he was prepared to fight for his life at any moment.
This was his home turf. He should have a home-field advantage.
But he felt terribly wrongfooted. He was supposed to be safe here.
He turned tail and ran, making sure to close the door to the lab behind himself, locking the entire room off. He couldn’t care less if all the equipment flooded and ruined. It was an expensive debt to get into, but he could worry about the bill when he got his nice, cushy job as a lab manager instead of an assistant.
He would much rather deal with debt than death.
But, when he finally mustered the courage to check the security cameras to see whether it had managed to break through the aquarium, an hour later…
Well, he found the ‘cage’ empty.
And the question of debt versus death became much more serious.
He couldn’t go back into the water. Whether the thing had escaped on its own or with help, whether or not the thing had died, none of that mattered. Its ‘helper’ wouldn’t be fond of him, and they knew that he left the base every day for work, and he was dead.
Deuce sat in his bed for the next few days, staring at the ceiling.
You would think that someone would spend their last days doing… something. That one thing they’d always wanted to do, but what could he do? He was on an alien planet, and all of his coworkers were stuck in their jobs, so all he had was a tablet.
Nothing on the Internet seemed interesting.
Hell, it was so boring that he almost wanted to go out into the water and get things over with.
Almost.
He ran a hand through his hair.
Being bored was better than being dead.
Should he write his mom a letter? He certainly had the time.
But that would make it too real.
Was it selfish of him to want his mom to think that his last days were normal? Happy, even?
He didn’t know.
He wasn’t sure whether he would ever know.
But he had a lot of time to think it over.
The aquarium was broken, so he had an excuse not to go out (where would he put the fish he captured?), but they would expect him to get back into the field once everything was fixed.
Deuce asked Yuu to take their time with the repairs. Yuu did slow down, but Deuce wasn’t sure whether this was because he had asked or if Yuu was just that tired – the bags under his eyes were getting large enough to hold some of the fish Deuce caught.
But all of this was just stalling. They weren’t set to go home for a few more months.
Silently, as they waited for Yuu to finish cooking dinner, the day construction had finished, Deuce added up all of the money he now owed NRC, thanks to everything the monster had broken in its desperation to get out. It was… not a meager sum, to say the least. If he never took a break ever again, it would take him ten years to pay it off, even if he managed to get promoted within three years like he was supposed to. If he didn’t get promoted – and he definitely wouldn’t, if he were to abandon a mission – it would take upwards of thirty years for him to pay it all off with his current salary.
And there was no way he would survive thirty years of this.
On the other hand, if he simply died, his debt would be cleared in an instant.
Deuce felt a hand clap him on the shoulder. He sent Jack a wobbly smile.
“It was nice knowin’ ya, Deuce,” Epel said, leaning back in his chair. He said it in a joking tone, but it didn’t feel quite as lighthearted as he was probably intending it to be.
Deuce thought back over the time he had spent at the Corporation. They had never had something like this before, where they knew ahead of time that someone was on their last few days. It was always sudden, someone taken from them ‘too soon’.
He wondered if this was better or worse.
“Don’t talk like that,” Ace said, grinning. “The guy has plot armor or something, he’ll probably luck his way into killing those things and clearing his debt all in one.”
Yuu set a plate of omurice down in front of Deuce. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Unfortunately, he felt sick at the mere thought of crying – water was the last thing he wanted to touch him at the moment.
The next day, he stood at the small hatch that would let him out into the ocean.
No one had come to see him off.
Work waits for no man, he supposed.
Deuce swallowed thickly.
He shoved his breathing tube into his mouth, grimacing just slightly as he felt it stick to the front of his throat, carefully winding its way down his larynx, before spreading itself out to make sure that nothing but its oxygen could sneak its way into his respiratory system.
He hadn’t missed this.
But he almost wished he was young again, that he had gagged and struggled to get it down his throat like he had back in his early days, that he had more time.
He didn’t.
He dove into the water and started swimming, as close to the surface as he could get, as far away from anywhere the monsters could hide…
But they didn’t try to sneak up on him, instead the monster simply poked its head out of a small gap in the rocks, not even large enough for Deuce to squeeze through without fearing he’d scuff up his oxygen tank.
Slowly, languidly, it swam up to him.
Its tail seemed to stretch on forever.
He kept his hand on the knife at his hip.
It swam around him, just out of reach, in large circles, its winding tail following it wherever it went. Deuce got the impression of a boa constrictor just waiting to tighten around its victim.
His heart thudded wildly in his chest. He wondered if it could feel the vibrations in the water.
Deuce flinched when he felt a touch, almost feather-light, on his oxygen tank, immediately jerking away from the curious hands, his knife at the ready.
It almost seemed to smile at him.
No, that was ascribing human traits to animals.
It was baring its teeth. A warning he wasn’t stupid enough to ignore.
But one he wasn’t fast enough to react to.
There was a hissing sound, and Deuce’s mouth filled with water. He gasped instinctually, only to choke. It burned his throat, his lungs, his eyes –.
He turned to find himself looking at another, identical creature.
It spat a piece of metal at him.
Oh.
Oh.
That…
Wasn’t good.
He kicked off of its chest, taking a moment to get his bearings by looking for where the kelp touched the ground, before booking it towards the surface.
His fingers brushed against the crest of a wave, slipping out into the open air.
A hand grabbed his tank, yanking him downwards once again.
He spat the tube out of his mouth, ignoring the way metal scraped up the inside of his throat, sliding the oxygen tank off of his shoulders. He threw it at the creatures. It was useless now anyway. If they wanted it, they could have it.
He kicked his way to the surface.
Never had the thin air ever been such a relief before. He coughed up water, the taste of blood on his tongue, his legs still swinging wildly to help him tread water even as he struggled to clear his lungs.
Something grabbed him by the ankle and he screamed as he was dragged back under, the little air he’d gotten spilling from between his lips.
He found himself staring into the eyes of a creature that was more of a congealed mass of limbs than anything else. Millions of eyes stared back at him; trailing after the bubbles that were slipping away from him; watching the two creatures from earlier as they neared, one of them holding his oxygen tank like a prize.
For a moment, Deuce was frozen, simply staring at the creatures that he should be observing, but were instead watching him, as if he were something interesting.
A shiver ran through him, and it wasn’t just because of the frigid waters.
He tugged, frantically, at the tentacle wound around his leg, digging his fingers into the flesh, poking at all of the eyes that he could reach. The creature didn’t seem to care. If it was hurt by his efforts, then it was too enthralled by drowning him to do anything about it.
Deuce’s vision blurred at the edges, a black vignette washing over his vision.
And then he was pushed back to the surface.
Deuce nearly choked on the air. It was as if his body had gotten used to the water, and was now protesting the idea of oxygen, as if he hadn’t breathed it for his entire life.
He keeled over against the tentacle that he had just been attacking, digging his fingers in once again, but this time for support.
He gagged on his own tongue.
He threw up nothing but water.
Despite the sorry state he was in, he couldn’t help but be relieved.
They were toying with him… which meant, eventually, they would grow bored, right?
Please.
The creatures lay just beneath the waves, watching him.
Slowly, a hand reached out of the water, scales shimmering in the sunlight, and poked at his goggles.
He didn’t try and bat it away. He’d learned his lesson with that. And, besides, he wasn’t sure his body was really responding to him anymore. The lack of oxygen made moving strange, like he was still underwater, moving through the murk, his movements sluggish, dragged down by an unseen force.
They continued to pull at his goggles, until the band holding them to his head snapped.
He whimpered.
His fingers, slowly, detached from the creature, fumbling to his waist. His tools. His bag for fish – he wasn’t sure why he’d even bothered to bring it. A flashlight. The place where his knife usually rested, though he had lost that to the brine at some point…
His emergency flare!
He pointed it directly at the monster beneath him, and fired.
A hole tore itself through several of the creature’s limbs. No blood entered the water, the flare’s heat had instantly cauterized all of the wounds it made. But that didn’t keep it from hurting. The monster screeched, flinging him away from itself.
Deuce was skidded across the surface of the water, and then began to sink.
His goggles were gone, and any attempt to open his eyes to get his bearings only ended with pain and blurry vision. He was helpless. Literally blind and deaf and he was going to die.
But he had to swim. Somewhere. Anywhere. Away.
Hands grabbed him by the shoulders, and within seconds his back was slamming against the sea floor.
The air left his lungs again.
A heavy weight settled atop him, forcing him further into the ground, forcing the surface just that much further away.
He was deep underwater. There was no light poking at the back of his eyelids. No sunlight could reach quite this far beneath the waves. Even if the monsters let him go again to watch him struggle, even if he swam at top speed, he feared he wouldn’t make it to the surface in time.
Nonononono…
He shoved at the monster, broken sobs spilling from his lips, even if all sound had been muted by the currents, kicking and punching even if he knew that the water was weakening his blows.
It was useless. He knew it was useless. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t just let them kill him.
Sharp claws dug into his clothes in return, yanking his wetsuit open, tearing his tools away from him.
Another set of hands joined the first one, digging into the skin of his sides, and he writhed as teeth sunk into his ribs. He couldn’t even scream anymore. There was no oxygen left, simply more water, and if it was cycling in and out with every ‘breath’ then he wouldn’t know.
Until he did. The taste of his own blood filled his nose, his mouth, his lungs.
His tears were lost in the water.