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Eva Stratt was, effectively, on parole. Though it wasn’t real parole, there was never going to be a chance of her getting out and living a normal life, she was allowed to continue attempting to prevent the destruction of the entire goddamn globe.
Directly after the Hail Mary launched, she worked her ass off getting a treaty together regarding astrophage. It would never be used as a weapon by any nation or private firm, lest quite literally every remaining country in the world declare war, regardless of previous allyship. It took years of work, but she’d managed to convince people that this shit was more dangerous than a nuclear bomb, which was true. Just look at what had happened to DuBois and Shapiro. And that was only a small amount of the stuff.
Many were not happy with her being basically the sole authority over astrophage. She did not care. Every day was a battle maintaining international regulations regarding the shipment and storage of Astrophage. She did not want to be the cause of New York City having a new kilometer-wide crater where their astrophage-fueled generator should have been.
Astrophage would simultaneously save the human race and destroy it. The death tolls from starvation alone were already climbing into the millions, not to mention the additional deaths from natural disasters, heatstroke, hypothermia, and drought.
The methane from Antarctica had bought them years. And she had to hope that she could get Astrophage generators to every country soon enough that more than just the rich elites of the world could survive.
Secretly, she had a team working on seizing the assets of most of the United States’ obscenely rich men and women. She’d already managed to take away many of their properties, specifically in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas, citing a humanitarian need. Many families whose homes were destroyed by natural disasters now shared sturdy mansions that weren’t used by their owners anyway.
Nobody knew it was her team of laywers that were working on it with the ACLU and various other lawyers around the world. But she was funding the entire thing. A few more lives saved was worth it in the end.
She was sailing up the coast of Australia on her way to the Phillipines when it happened. A distress signal pinged on their radar and then a tiny submarine appeared right next to the ship, leaking a mysterious red liquid into the water. After a team of military operators suited up in full biohazard gear (in case the viscous, iron-smelling red liquid was actually blood), they cut the submarine open (it had been welded shut), finding a barely-alive woman inside, also completely covered in blood.
They used the onboard crane to hang the submarine off the side of the ship and continued on, her scientists already trying to figure out what the red liquid really was. It appeared to be red blood cells, but that could move like single-celled organisms.
Despite the amount of blood she was covered in, the only signs of injury she had were a few strange boils on her forearms and a long-healed scar on her face. The doctors onboard were able to treat her easily. Stratt considered offloading her to Australia as a Jane Doe, but the mysterious circumstances of the woman’s arrival were too much to ignore.
Specifically the fact that the submarine actually, literally appeared out of thin air. Like teleportation. If they could figure out how she got there… it could save millions of lives. And though the Australian government was mildly competent… Eva wanted answers for herself.
It was probably illegal. Add that to her ever expanding list of crimes. The representatives of the many world governments on her ship didn’t say anything about it. They hounded her about nearly every other damn problem, though. Pissed her off.
She was a mature adult. Everything was fine. She could’ve been in a prison instead of sailing the high seas and finding mysterious blood-covered women.
She stared at the unconscious stranger from across the room, listening with half an ear as one of their onboard medical staff gave her a rundown of everything they’d discovered. The blood had been lab tested and was a strange mix of types and people- it was like someone had put a bunch of blood into a stand mixer and shuffled it all together.
Eva told them to make sure it didn’t contaminate anything on the ship. Blood was known to carry tons of different diseases, especially human blood. Hopefully, the woman would be able to give them more answers when she awoke.
The heart monitor suddenly started to chirp rapidly, sending the Doctor she’d been talking to across the room in a hurry. A few more people shuffled in. Eva stayed a safe distance away, not wanting to intrude on the mysterious woman’s privacy but being too damn intrigued to leave the medical room completely.
The woman gasped as she stirred, thrashing slightly in the hospital bed. She had a wild look on her face, like a wild animal cornered. Ava watched as one of the nurses attempted to calm her down only to be met with a colorful series of curse words and an attempted throat punch.
Everyone backed away as the woman tried to catch her breath. Ava could just barely make out the words she was shouting.
“Who are you?! Where am I?!” Her chest heaved. “Are you with Eden? Fucking answer me!”
“We’re the medical staff aboard the international military vessel People's Liberation Army Navy Gansu. We found you floating in international waters and gave you medical attention. Please, take a deep breath and we can explain,” The nurse said, holding her hands up in surrender. The woman looked around, taking a deep, angry breath through her nose. She attempted to sit up but fell back, clearly dizzy. Eva watched with a critical eye. Where had this woman been recently that she woke up fighting?
“Who is in charge of this… vessel?” She asked, “I am… was… Captain of a C.O.I. towing vessel. I need to get back.”
One of the staff began to speak, to explain, while another glanced back and saw Eva standing there. The staff, who had been attempting to explain that there were multiple different systems of command aboard, was cut off as Eva approached, joining the circle of concerned people around a potentially very dangerous woman. You didn’t get a scar like that working at a preschool.
“I am Eva Stratt, one of the people in charge of this vessel. We are not with Eden or the C.O.I.” Eva crossed her arms over her chest, trying not to look too intimidating but probably failing because of her chronic resting ‘I’m disappointed in you’ face.
“My name is Ava,” She said slowly, “And what did they mean about international waters? Where is that?”
Stratt pursed her lips. Where was this woman from, that she’d been in a submarine without knowing about international waters and maritime law? “International waters means that it is a section of the ocean that no country has claim to. Your submarine appeared in the water next to our ship and we rescued you from it. If you tell us where on the planet this… C.O.I. is a part of, we can find a way to get you back there.”
Ava suddenly began to laugh, putting her face in her hands. Stratt exchanged glances with the medical staff. Was she undergoing some kind of hypoxia-induced laughing fit? Just as it started to become really concerning, she stopped.
“You seriously expect me to believe that we’re on a planet?” She spat, “Look, if Eden wanted the shit I know about the oceans so bad, they should have come up with a more believable lie.”
“It’s not a lie,” Stratt said, “It would be trivially easy to prove it to you. If we do, will you tell us exactly how you ended up in the middle of the ocean with no apparent cause?”
Ava’s lips curled up into a snarl. Stratt could tell she was forcing herself to not immediately start yelling again.
“What do I get when we’re not on a planet?” Ava responded.
Eva paused for a moment. “We will… take you back to where you are from.”
Ava clearly did not believe that Stratt would keep her word, but she nodded anyway. “Alright. Fine. Prove that we’re on a planet. Waste all of these people’s time.”
The next few minutes were a blur. One of the doctors got Ava some new clothes (the hospital gown would not do for going to the top of a ship while it was incredibly windy out) and helped her into a wheelchair.
The elevator ride to the top deck was tense, with Ava’s annoyed scowl deepening with every moment they spent going up. The doors opened to a small upper deck room, at which point Eva strided forwards and opened the door to the outer upper deck, the light from the sunset streaming into the interior room.
Ava gasped. One of the medical staff carefully wheeled her outside, following behind Eva as she walked to the railing. Ava had her hand over her mouth, like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The view was beautiful- endless blue sea stretching into an endless sunset, barely a cloud in the sky above. The wind rushed by and the smell of sea air was barely there as the ship cut through the waters.
“Holy shit,” Ava gasped, “Oh my god.”
Stratt hummed. “Do you believe me now?”
Ava nodded mutely, tears gathering in her eyes. Eva leaned against the railing, the cold metal reminding her of where she was, who she was.
“I must be dead,” Ava muttered, “This- can’t be real.”
“It’s very real,” Eva responded, “We got you out of that ship and saved your life. You’re alive.”
“I never thought I would see an ocean made out of water,” She said, the words slightly strained as she attempted to hold herself together.
Stratt looked over at her. “What are the oceans typically made of where you’re from?”
“Blood,” Ava said, like it was obvious. Eva furrowed her brow.
“Excuse me?” She questioned.
“I’ve only ever seen oceans of blood,” Ava continued, “This is… beautiful.”
Stratt grit her teeth. So this was clearly some kind of brain damage or lasting trauma. Blood oceans did not exist.
“How did you get here, Ava?” She said, reaching the end of her patience, though it would never show in her body language or tone.
“I have no idea,” Ava said, “One moment, I was at the bottom of an ocean of blood, and the next, I was here.”
Stratt glanced at the medical staff, nodding to the elevator. “I think it’s time we got you back to the medical bay.”
“No!” Ava shouted, “Please, please, just let me see this. I don’t care what you do to me after, just…” The desperation in her voice was shocking.
Stratt hesitated for a few moments, before she finally said: “Fine. But we will have more questions for you.”
“It’s alright. Seeing this…” She trailed off for a few long moments. “Seeing this was such a gift.”
Ava nodded, unable to think of anything to say.