Published at 8th of March 2024 7:44 am

Chapter Twenty Seven

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So we went to work.

Alice went to hunt down more supplies as she could move around the ship with relative ease thanks to her mind mojo. Ida had informed us that food and clean water were strictly controlled on the island to better control the “workers” (slaves) and to keep rebellion to a minimum, so we needed food and water to last us for a bit while we worked out a way to save the passengers. Plus I’m still hungry after the healing Alice gave me, so I was very much in favor of Plan: Alice Gets Food.

Ida started to disassemble and clean the AK. She had stolen it from Jasper’s room sometime between my fight with the big Russian and when Alice rescued me. (Which reminds me, I need to ask them how they managed to meet up without Alice blasting Ida away or vice versa.) While AK’s were famously reliable, she said it was in abysmal repair and didn’t want it to fail or jam at the wrong time.

While they were doing that, I was sitting in the corner with my eyes closed removing the restraints I’d put on myself over the years so I’d appear normal. It was much harder than I thought it’d be. I was having to go through every minor change and adjustment I’d made over the years, thousands by this point, and adjust them so that I’d have the full effect 100% of the time. It was mentally draining, but physically I felt like I was suddenly hooked up to a new power grid. I felt a mix of jumpy giddiness, energy pouring through my limbs. Aches I didn’t even know I had suddenly disappeared—which, you know: mildly alarming. Apparently I gave myself some minor arthritis in my joints to more accurately mimic someone who was far weaker. Whoops.

That was the problem with the gifts I buy from Trix: they don’t come with an owner’s manual. I had to figure out how to operate them on my own and stress testing them meant I’d be in dangerous situations. Since I didn’t trust anyone, (That was quickly becoming not true as Ida was becoming one of my favorite people and while I was still a little sore at Alice for tricking me, she was sticking around to save people and rescued me, so.) that meant I had no one to bounce ideas off of and I’ve been operating in a vacuum this whole time.

After I’m done giving my body a tune-up I needed to futz around with the other-worldly knowledge the—the shard of myself from another dimension gave me. God, that sounds so weird when you just say it, even if it’s in my own head. But for my plan to get all three of us across a half mile of ocean to succeed, I needed to know just what my tentacles could do and in what configuration they could be in.

“Are you okay?” Ida asked from across the room.

The room looked like an office, probably for the first or second mate. It was just big enough for the three of us and a little table that could be folded up into the wall. A map of the pacific dominated the right wall while the left had a quark board stuffed with hundreds of notes in Spanish. The far wall was undecorated, safe for the porthole.

“Hmm?” I asked, opening my eyes. “Why?”

“You are twitching,” she replied. “Like a junkie.”

I nodded. “I’m messing with my endocrine system, currently,” I said and closed my eyes again. “Going to have a bit of excess energy until I’m done.”

“That sounds… unwise,” Ida commented.

“So is contacting interdimensional beings and striking bargains using the souls of murderers,” I replied, deadpan. “But yes,” I admitted after a moment. “I’m not making big changes. Most of what I’ve done took place over five years. I’m just going through and removing the speed bumps I’d put in so I wouldn’t have a ‘whoops I broke your door’ moment.”

“What?” Ida asked.

“You know, like in comics or superhero movies,” I gestured with my hand vaguely. “Where the guy (or gal) gets powers they have that weird adjustment period where they are learning to do things with their new strength and they comically rip a door off the hinges or crush a coffee mug in their hands by gripping it too tight.”

Ida was silent for a bit as she scraped some AK part with a short bristle brush. “That would be awkward.”

“Also compromising,” I said. “I’ve been doing my best to remain off everyone’s radar. A guy casually ripping a door off its hinges is a bit attention grabbing.”

Ida was silent again, to the point that I though she was done speaking. I was about to dive back into my work when she spoke up again. “I do not want to sound critical,” she began. “But your reaction to your friends deaths… seems severe? Why did you not seek help?”

I sighed. “I thought about it. But… I just didn’t trust anyone.”

I opened my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall, sightlessly tracking the ceiling as my mind wondered through my past. “I spent most of junior high and high school being home schooled. I had no real friends until I went to college. I didn’t and don’t have a high opinion of authority figures.”

Ida lowered the gun part she was examining and studied me. “Why?”

I squashed an impulse to sigh again. “My parents,” I said. “My father mostly, but my mom shares some of the blame. Let’s just say I have reason not to trust those who are supposed to protect me.”

Ida nodded, as if she understood. Hell, as a cop, she might have seen situations similar to mine. She was probably the only person I’ve spoken to in the last eight years who probably does understand.

“So when everyone I loved and trusted died in one horrific night, I panicked,” I said. “And panic became normal. And then routine. And then routine started to drive me fucking batty so I knew I needed a break and—“ I gestured to the ship around us. “—here we are.”

Ida considered my words thoughtfully before replying. “Well, if we survive,” she paused and sighed. “If we survive, I hope you do not fall into that routine again. It is not the healthiest way to live, from what you have told me.”

“Well, next time I take a vacation, I’m definitely bringing my gun,” I said jokingly. “It makes that AK look like a Super Soaker.”

“Oh?” Ida asked, interested. “Like a SPAS-12?”

“.455 Webley,” I said. “Don’t you roll your eyes!” I said when Ida did just that. “I’ve enchanted the thing to kingdom come. It was the service weapon of a real fucker in World War One that used it to execute POWs. That kind of hate and purpose lingers on items and with the right magics you can bring it out in just the right ways that make it a truly spiteful weapon.”

Ida’s expression grew thoughtful. “My grandfather left me his shotgun that his father used to protect the farm from wolves and rabid animals. Would you be able to do something similar with that?”

“Weapons used to protect have a different aura,” I replied. “The diary I learned the enchantments from were specifically for hateful weapons. I’d love to tinker with it, though—find out what enchantments you can place on a weapon that was meant to protect rather than cause fear and mayhem.”

Ida nodded, a rare smile crossing her face. “Another reason to live through this,” she said, grabbing a greasy rag and wiping down a part. “Guns to play with.”

“Well shit,” I said with irony. “Now I have to live through this. And I’ll have to drag you along with me so you can show me your toy.”

She waggled her eyebrows at me and we fell into a companionable silence. I dove back into myself and resumed fiddling with my biology.

***

“Guys,” Alice began as she opened the door into the room. “I managed to reach the coastguard but I don’t think…” She stopped as she took in the scene that greeted her.

“What is happening?” She asked after a moment.

“Come, come!” Ida said, removing her hands from around my bicep and dragging Alice over. “You have to feel this!”

“Boy,” I said, my face heating up. “What every guy wants to hear.”

Ida slapped my shoulder and dragged Alice deeper into the room, kicking the door closed. She took the bulging rucksack from Alice and plopped it down into her vacated chair. She spun back on Alice, grabbed her hands and placed them on my bicep. I had to fight the impulse to pull away. After having my ass handed to me and spending so much time alone with the ladies, plus getting healed by Alice, my revulsion to being touched had died down quite a bit but it still reared its head every now and then.

“Do it!” Ida commanded.

I shrugged and flexed as hard as I could.

“Ow!” Alice, said, shaking her hands. “What the fuck was that? It felt like you punched my hands.”

I rubbed my bicep and waved Ida away, who was itching to do the trick again. I was getting a bit sore having done it a dozen-ish times. “Near as we can figure, my muscles, when I flex as hard and fast as I can, produce a little shock.”

“Like an electric eel?” Alice asked, incredulous.

I raised my hands in a “who knows” gesture. “We discovered it when she dropped a piece of her gun, and we both jerked to grab it. She felt the shock through the piece and then demanded I flex for her.”

“I did not ‘demand!’” Ida protested.

I affected a horrendous French Accent and falsetto voice. “’Do eet again! That was incroyable!’”

“I did NOT say incroyable!” Ida said, glaring daggers at me.

I shrugged and shot Alice a look. “It’s not a super power or anything,” I said. “Ida says it’s less powerful than licking a nine-volt battery. But it’s neat.”

Alice gave me a searching look. “And worrying.”

I nodded. “And worrying,” I said. “I’m not a med student or anything, but I read a lot of medical books and a ton of wikipedia before I started to fiddle with how my body works. And it’s not like I’m seeing what I’m doing, either. It’s more like interacting with a spherical list of commands and sensations that I arrange to achieve the result I want. The fact that I changed the ways my cells are shaped without knowing it, and now can generate electrical shocks—even if they’re mild…”

“Worrying,” Ida said, her excitement dampened.

I shrugged in a “what can ya do?” gesture.

“You’ll probably want to hire a doctor from the Corvus Concord once this is over,” Alice said. “Get a physical from a medical Practitioner.” She stressed the word so I knew she meant a magic practitioner.

“If we live—“

“Assuming we live—“ Ida and I said at the same time.

Alice rolled her eyes. “Yes, that.”

“What did you say about the coastguard?” I asked.

“Oh,” Alice turned to where Ida had dropped her bag and rummaged through it. She dug for a bit before tossing me a can of Spam, which I gladly opened and ate the insides with my fingers, drawing a disgusted look from Ida. After a bit Alice straightened from the bag, holding an over-sized phone that looked like it was from the nineties in her hand.

“Satellite phone,” she said. “I managed to contact the coastguard but I think there’s an enchantment around the island that affects all outgoing communication. The lady took down my message but didn’t, like, sound alarmed? She just took down what I was saying and hung up.”

“I feel dumb for having to say this,” I said, swallowing to clear my mouth. “But, uh… I’m assuming other phones don’t work?”

“Colm,” Ida said, like a scolding mother.

“Don’t tell me you never tried to call for help,” Alice said.

I let my pained expression speak for me.

“You really are a fuck up,” Ida said. Alice didn’t correct her. I didn’t defend myself.

“No, other phones don’t work,” Alice said, perhaps more gently than I deserved. “They haven’t since the pirates boarded.”

“They targeted ships communications first thing,” Ida said. “While the crew were unconscious from whatever Love did. Wifi and radio communications were destroyed.”

There is an awkward silence.

“You still should have tried, though,” Ida chastised.

“I was panicking!” I said, tossing the empty Spam can. We all paused as it caromed off two walls before hitting my hip and falling to the floor.

I blinked at the can before turning back to the conversation. “You try to think rationally when you’re being hunted by pirate warlocks!”

The girls looked at the can, then back up at me. “Not going to comment on the can?” Alice asked.

I shrugged. “I told you I’m undoing all the stuff that makes me operate within normal parameters. Expect more of that to happen until I learn to compensate.”

Ida harrumphed and went back to assembling her rifle. Alice watched her for a moment before turning back to me. “Are you still hungry?”

I nodded. She sighed and went to her rucksack, reached in and pulled out a large purse-sized clear plastic bag filled with brown stuff. She handed it to me. I had to be careful not to puncture it with my claws.

“...I know I’ve been putting away a lot of questionable food, but I don’t think eating a bag of mud would be advisable,” I said after a beat. “If it is mud. And not poop. Please tell me it isn’t poop.”

“It’s refried beans,” she explained, not playing along. “It’s for the crew mess. They use it to fill the big trays on taco night. It’s a ton of carbs and protein.” She shrugged. “It’s the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t have you eating through everything else I grabbed.”

I hefted the bag. With my new strength, it was hard to gauge how heavy it was, but based on the size of the bag it had to be at least a few pounds of food, maybe five. I wasn’t looking forward to eating it—but I was looking forward to not being hungry anymore.

I shrugged. “It’ll do.” I snipped a corner of the bag with my claws and started to eat the beans like a giant Go-Gurt tube, squeezing the stuff into my mouth like it was a frosting bag.

Alice almost dry heaved and turned away from me. “I need to make another trip to get the water,” she said to no one in particular and quickly fled the room.

I found Ida watching me sip on the bag with morbid fascination. “What does it taste like?” She asked.

“Salt, mostly,” I said, smacking my lips. “It’s very not good.”

Yet I continued to eat it.

In between bouts piping bean mush into my mouth like the world’s shittiest soft serve ice cream parlor, I was sifting through the knowledge “other me” had given me about my tentacles. It wasn’t like paging through a book, or even reviewing memories. The majority of the knowledge was so alien I had no frame of reference for it to make sense. I could tell there was a lot to it, more than I ever imagined, but without the right frame of mind or guidance I couldn’t do anything with it. Even by accident.

What I did know I could do was make them invisible and change their substance. For some reason that fucked with my eyes so I needed to experiment with them. I didn’t know what would happen so I decided to wait a bit until I either stopped being hungry or finished the big bag of poop-looking food.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit.

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