"Fischer, spanner!" Kori called as he treaded water.
Sifting through the box of strange alien tools, he managed to pull out a strangely normal looking spanner.
"Hey this looks almost identical to what we have on Earth. How long have these been around?" He called out while inspecting the tool.
Kori took his attention off of the ekranoplan and looked up at Fischer.
"Uhhhh, hard to tell. I dunno, couple thousand years? I mean it does its job pretty darn well. Don't fix what ain't broken right? No point in re inventing the wheel. Now pass it down to us will ya?"
Walking down to the very edge of the jetty he tossed the spanner down to Kori who caught it with one hand. Fischer watched with child like curiosity as Kori dove under the water and began tinkering away at the keel of the vessel.
The water was so clear that if it weren't for the occasional glint of sunlight reflecting off of the crests of the tiny waves it would basically be invisible. He could see almost straight to the bottom and the strange corals that lived under Xarder's oceans. He marvelled at how pretty they were. Some of them almost looked like jellyfish, some were shaped just like plated coral on Earth, others looks like cauliflower plants with different colours.
Gazing up and off into the distance he could just barely make out the faint outline of the city of Amaryllis Falls and the two main towers that soared high into the air. Other then that, open ocean was all that his eyes could see. But the water almost looked like it was split apart at certain points. Like how from super high up the grass on Earth looks like it is divided into different sections of land, each one a slightly different colour. Except here the water was the same crystal blue colour.
The splash of Kori surfacing drew his attention back to the water. He hurled the spanner up and Fischer managed to catch it fairly easily.
"Alright, Vicker's torch!" Kori yelled.
Fischer turned around to the carcan like he'd just spoken a different language.
"What exactly is a Vicker's torch?"
"Uh, it kinda looks like a gun? It's orange and white and has a black tube wrapped around the body of it with a small tank attached," he explained.
Fischer returned to the box of strange items and began searching for what Kori had described. The cool touch of metal ran across his hands as he sifted through the tools, eventually coming to grasp a small black canister. He pulled on it and a black tube followed, eventually a tool the size of a hand drill emerged.
The object was surprisingly heavy for its size. He estimated its weight would be roughly the same as two bricks. Making his way down the stairs, he hurled the torch over the side and down to Kori who caught it effortlessly in one hand.
"Ok I gotta ask, are you. . . like actually able to breath underwater or. . . do you just hold your breath for a really long time?" Fischer sheepishly stood there with his hands behind his back as Kori fiddled with the Vicker's torch.
"I mean yea, I guess. We don't breath in the same way underwater as we do on land, or like how you guys breath. Underwater we have gills, water passes through our gills when we swim, yadda yadda yadda, oxygen, sciency stuff, we don't die. I don't really know how it works, you'd be better off asking one of the girls about it. They're the smart ones. I'm just glad we can because without it, things like this would be a hell of a lot harder," he exclaimed before diving back down under the ekranoplan. A few seconds later a bright flash emerged for a few second underneath the vessel and flickered momentarily before disappearing then re-appearing as Kori ignited the Vicker's torch.
Fischer sat down and watched as best he could as Kori continued to weld away at the bottom of the ekranoplan, still not one hundred percent sure as to what exactly he was doing. But he was fascinated none the less. If not by the work he was doing then by the situation he had found himself in.
What started as a regular day home from work had turned into a month of running, hiding and fearing for his life as well as Ko's. Now he was sitting on a planet he never even knew existed, living with aliens. And yet they were still no closer to finding out what exactly was going on.
His mind began to drift and thoughts of Ko washed into his head. He couldn't stop thinking about her. After everything they'd been through, she was starting to really break. He felt his heart sink slightly as he thought back to the previous night and her blackout.
How she said she knew who Quin was. Was she actually seeing the future? That wasn't possible, that couldn't be right. Then again, he was quite literally living with shark people. Anything seemed possible at the moment.
As he tried to recall everything he knew so far about what was going on with Ko, one thing stood out in particular.
Light the lantern.
That was something she'd said multiple times. She had to light the lantern. What lantern? What did that mean? Where was it?
More importantly, who was giving her these instructions. Or was Trikka right in saying all this may be just a misunderstanding? The possibility of all this being a result of PTSD from her days as a slave hadn't been lost on him. But something felt. . . off about that theory. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Suddenly-
"Boo!"
"Aaghh! Scheiße Quin. . ." he cursed as he regained his composure. She giggled mischievously before sitting down next to him.
"Sorry, couldn't resist," she chuckled as she playfully slapped him on the shoulder.
"This how your kind always greets one another?" He asked.
"Nah, we usually start with hello. But there's no fun in that," she quipped.
"Anything you need?" He asked.
"Nah, not really. Just came out to see how you boys are doing. Ko's gone back to bed, she said she's got a bit of a headache. I mean, after last night I can't exactly blame her I guess," she explained, fiddling with one of the tools from the toolbox.
"Hey. . . about last night. . ."
"Don't worry about it man, like you said, she's been through some horrible stuff. I think all of us were a little on edge to be honest. It was just a bit. . . unnerving, for lack of a better term, for her to say she's seen me in one of her dreams. That was a little weird, I won't lie."
Fischer let out a slight sigh. He found himself agreeing with her.
"You're right. . . it was weird. But I spoke with her before we went to bed and honestly, she doesn't know what's going on either. None of us do really. This whole thing was just as big a mystery back on Earth as it is now," he stated.
"Yea, about that. I've been meaning to ask you. If you don't want to talk about it that's completely fine, I understand. But you said that. . . you said she was once a slave? Is. . . is it alright if you could elaborate on that a bit?"
Fischer froze for a second. How exactly was he going to go about explaining that to her? That's not exactly the subject he had the highest authority on. What would happen if Ko found out? Then again, it would be better for all of them if they knew. Keeping secrets that big is seldom a good thing.
He let out a large sigh as he thought about what exactly to say and how to go about saying it.
"I. . . I met Ko on my way home from work one day. I was just driving home and I saw this light in the bushes and went to go investigate. When I got there, I found her lying in the dirt wearing nothing but some filthy old sheets as clothing.
"At first I was terrified. I didn't really know what to do. She had these huge cuts and scars all over her body and her leg had a huge piece of flesh torn out of it, you saw the bandages on her leg earlier. I first thought they were because of some battle with another creature or something. Then she woke up and, well, we started to talk to one another. I came to realise that she wasn't some horrible alien come to abduct me. She was just scared. She was alone. She didn't have anywhere to go. In a lot of ways, she was like me. I looked in her eyes and I saw true fear.
"I don't know if I was thinking straight, I doubt I was, but I eventually took her home seeing as there was no where else to go and she'd die if she stayed out there. So she stayed at my house for a bit." He explained.
Quin nodded attentively as he spoke. Her fins on her head stood up slightly and Fischer had noticed her stripes turn a slight shade of dark blue.
"For a while everything was alright. A week came and went and nothing eventful happened. I taught her about earth and she learned a lot pretty quickly. Eventually though, I worked up the courage to ask about the scars as well as the collar she wears."
"Right, yea. I was wondering what that thing was. I haven't seen her take it off yet," Quin remarked.
"Yea, I'll get to that in a bit. Anyway, one night we were up in the shed cleaning it up so she'd have somewhere at least semi decent to stay. And I noticed she was feeling really crappy so we talked for a bit. Eventually she told me about where she came from.
"Apparently when she was really young her parents ditched her. She was alone in ice deserts for a few days before some slave owner found her. She spent the rest of her life being forced to work in a factory, never being able to leave. She doesn't talk about it at all really so I don't know a whole lot. But from the state she was in when I first found her, it's honestly a miracle she's even with us today. She should be dead Quin," he stated with a heavy heart. Another sigh escaped him as he remembered the conversation they had.
Looking over at her, she was just staring at him with a shocked look on her face, her stripes now a deep dark blue.
"I. . . I had no idea it was that bad. . ." she stuttered, trying to find her words.
"Yea. It wasn't pretty. If the state she was in when I first found her is anything to go by, she's been through hell more times than this planet has been round the sun. I. . . I'm amazed she's been able to hold it together like this for so long. First being forced into slavery her whole life, then chased down by the police on Earth, now she's having these horrible glimpses. I'm worried she's going to break soon. If she hasn't already."
Quin shuffled a bit closer and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. Fischer gave her a warm smile. She wasn't nearly as scary as he'd first though. And when they were sitting down together she wasn't that much taller than him either.
"I've only known you two for a day. But already I can tell you guys are strong. I promise you we'll do everything we can for Ko. And you. You're both safe here and I want you to know that."
"I do Quin. I do. And again, I can't even begin to thank you for that. It honestly means so much to us both. It really does," he expressed.
Being up close with her, he had a much better look at her eyes. In the same way Ko's seemed to glisten and glow, hers seemed to almost be animated. Like the beautiful purple and green were almost liquid. It reminded him of a lava lamp almost. Her big eyes looked right back at him, filling him with a sense of safety and protection.
A feeling that had been absent for far too long.