Chapter 39: [Bonus Chapter] The Orca Comes Closer
After the alphas finished lunch and prepared their weapons, when the sun was at its highest point, Birdie stood up and checked her watch. "It’s time, let’s go in."
The group proceeded on foot along the road.
The long-abandoned road was covered in moss, and the wild grass on either side was taller than a person.
At noon, the insects and birds were chirping. Walking amongst the shadows of the grass and trees felt like they were out in the wilderness.
They reached the huge red warning sign.
Stepping over it, the scenery around them completely changed with the next step.
The street was still the same street, and the buildings vaguely had the same style.
But the street suddenly became clean and neat here, stretching straight into the distance. It was as if time had suddenly reversed, the moss was gone, and the wild grass had disappeared.
The buildings by the roadside were renewed, the lights in the houses were still soft, and whispers could be heard in the air.
It was as if people were living in those houses with their doors and windows tightly closed.
But this was the Polluted Zone, inhabited only by mutants.
The midday sun was gone, and the sky was filled with hazy stars.
The stars above looked strange, like they were painted by a skilled artist, with deep yellows and mixed blues slowly turning in the sky.
"Stay close and don’t touch anything," Birdie said, leading the group.
She didn’t need a map, she walked with sure steps, quickly.
Through quiet alleys, around twisty roads, and down jumbled stairs by the riverbank, she moved like she’d lived here all her life.
"Birdie used to live in Zone Five," Tegnell quietly told Kestrel. "There was a huge spread here that covered her home ten years ago."
He glanced at Birdie, afraid she might hear, and stopped talking.
No one mentioned how Birdie escaped from the Polluted Zone, or if her family was still alive. They didn’t need to talk about her past.
People living near the Polluted Zone all had their own sad stories they didn’t want to remember.
Led by Birdie, they quickly got to the beach.
The beach was golden, like actual gold. The sea looked like a mirror, showing the beautiful sky where the starlight moved like a painting.
The whole place was like someone’s dream.
And something huge was sleeping in this dream.
The alphas quickly found two small boats, which slid into the water silently, floating quietly on the mirror-like sea.
For a moment, it was hard to know up from down, the boat was on the water, but it also seemed to be walking in the stars.
Everyone moved quietly, like they were scared of waking something up.
"We’re here," Birdie suddenly said.
The two small boats stopped, leaving small ripples behind them. Looking down, the water showed the bright galaxy, and nothing of the sea floor.
"Don’t worry. I’ve been down here many times," Muros said, taking off his shirt to show his skinny arms, ready to jump into the water.
"Hold on," Kestrel stopped him, "Can you share what you see with me?"
Muros didn’t get it, asking, "Share what?"
Something cold touched his forehead.
"Like this," Kestrel said.
Muros blinked, surprised to see that even though he was standing opposite Kestrel, looking at her, he could weirdly see his own face—like he was seeing it through Kestrel’s eyes.
This was shared vision. Seeing the world from another person’s point of view.
"Wow, this is really cool," he said.
Any anger he had towards Kestrel, who had eaten half his bread, was gone.
The boy put a short knife in his mouth and jumped into the water.
When he surfaced again, the slick tail of a seal made water splash, getting everyone in the boat wet.
With the upper body of a boy and the lower body of a seal, Muros waved at everyone and dived into the deep sea.
Kestrel closed her eyes and sat down in the boat.
She saw the bubbles at the bottom of the sea, with bubbles always coming up to the surface.
The light became really dim, and Kestrel saw the boy’s moving arms show up in her view from time to time, with little groups of fish swimming nearby. She and Muros shared a vision, and through the eyes of the boy who kept diving, she saw the world at the bottom of the sea.
The sea always made her feel at home, as if she had lived in the ocean’s depths since she was a child. The deep sea always gave her a sense of danger, as if there were endless secrets waiting for her to uncover in the deepest part.
Soon, she saw the ship that sunk at the bottom of the sea. The ancient giant now lay still in the mud at the bottom of the sea. The decks and railings were covered with barnacles, the windows were all broken, and the dark holes looked like open mouths, with lots of little fish going in and out.
Muros went to a porthole, looked inside for a bit with his hands on the window sill, and then swam in quickly.
The bottom of the sea was very dark, almost without any light, but Muros’s eyes could adapt to it. His eyes became exactly like a seal’s, large and round, allowing the images at the bottom of the water to focus on that special retina, so he could see the blurry scene inside the cabin.
Kestrel followed his view, swam into the cabin, went past the dining room covered in algae as per their earlier plan, went past the rotten cockpit, went through the deck, opened a cabin door, and swam down along the stained stairs.
On both sides of the long, dark hallway, all the cabin doors were open, and the sailors’ bedrooms were filled with items that had been looked over.
Lots of searchers had been here before. When swimming past those messy bedrooms, they could see one or two skeletons of dead sailors. These skeletons were all lying on the bed. It seemed like they had sunk in their sleep in the past, never woke up, and so they slept forever in this quiet deep sea.
Muros got to the deepest part of the hallway. He held the handle of the last cabin door and opened the door without much effort. A group of bright blue neon tiger fish rushed out of the cabin.
Muros, who was used to diving in the deep sea, dodged the fish and looked at the cabin he had opened.
This was the captain’s bedroom, which had been looted empty a long time ago. The remains of the dead captain were still there. The pale skull sat in front of a desk, the table and chair were stuck to the floor. The captain’s body seemed to be stuck there as well. He just sat there in a slanted position, holding a pen, sitting for countless years in the silent time.
The searchers who had been here before had taken everything that could be taken from the cabin. The table and drawers were empty; even a small gem on the captain’s hat had been taken.
"Bring back something from the captain of the Mary." Muros remembered the task he needed to do. This was a task given by the SRD, which seemed simple.
Muros was a bit confused because there was nothing left to take here. After thinking about it, he decided to take the captain’s hat.
The hat, made of some unknown material, hadn’t decayed after being in water for so many years. He began to marvel at the stuff from the old days, thinking that even the fabric used to make hats was different.
"Pen," he suddenly heard a voice. The voice was strange, not like a person speaking, but it could clearly reach his ears.
He noticed that his vision split for a moment, seeing the dark sea bottom and the sky above the sea at the same time.
Muros realized that Kestrel, who was sitting on the sea surface, had opened her eyes that had been closed all the time. It turned out that she was the one speaking just now.
Muros followed the voice and reached for the pen in the captain’s hand. The metal pen, soaked in seawater for many years, was covered with green rust and was worthless, so it didn’t catch the attention of any previous explorers.
Muros took the rusty pen from the captain’s hand. "Put it into the small hole on the table," the strange voice said again.
Muros indeed found a small hole in the lower right corner of the table. He tried to put the rusty pen into it. It turned out to be a perfect fit.
With a slight twist, the body of the pen couldn’t bear the strain and broke. But under the thick wooden table, a drawer popped out.
He and Kestrel didn’t hear it—at the same time the drawer opened, it seemed that from the darker bottom of the ship, a mysterious sound came from the depths of the ocean. It was like a sigh of someone unwilling to leave the world, like the whisper of some spirit, as though something had woken up at the moment the drawer opened.
In Muros’s eyes. He only saw the drawer full of shiny ashcredit and an old and rusty wooden box.
Muros was dazzled by the brilliant color of the gold coins.
"Only take that wooden box," the voice in his mind said again. However, the golden color seemed to be able to tempt people’s hearts, and the beautiful color captured Muros’s heart.
There were so many ashcredits. Only a handful would bring tremendous changes to Muros’ life. His mother doesn’t have to worry about everyday meals, and his sister can buy a new pair of shoes. Maybe he can buy a better knife for himself. Or he could simply sign up for the alpha academy, read a few years of books, and then he can be a captain, or live near the Tower...
As if he was under a spell, the more Muros thought about it, the further he went, and his fingers were already touching the golden things. "I’ll just take a little... I must take a little."
"Drop it!" A voice suddenly exploded in his mind. Muros was stunned.
"Don’t touch it!"
"You can’t take it!"
"Open your eyes"
"Wake up!"
That was an order. A series of strong orders were sent into his mind. Muros was shocked and came to his senses. His round seal eyes became clear. He saw a small wooden box in the drawer, surrounded by tiny, brightly colored sea bugs.
Muros was confused.
He had mistaken these toxic bugs for shiny ashcredit and almost touched them. He couldn’t believe that he thought an old ship could have modern ashcredit.
And he didn’t know what would happen if these bugs bit him.
Many people had visited this ship, but no one had found these deceiving bugs. Kestrel had warned him just in time.
He used a metal bar to push away the bugs floating in the dark water, then wrapped the small wooden box in an old cloth.
"I’ve got it," he said to himself.
"Come back right away," Kestrel’s voice echoed in his mind.
Muros, now satisfied with completing his mission, swam out of the cabin, his tail wagging happily.
Above the water, the alphas, with their sharp senses, reported, "He did his job, he’s coming up now."
Everything went well, and everyone breathed easier.
But then, Kestrel, who was sitting with closed eyes on the water’s surface, seemed to sense something.
The thing was like a large, dangerous fish, hidden deep in the sea, coming their way.
"Other alphas are getting closer," Birdie stood up in the boat, "A group of them, we don’t know if they’re friends or enemies, everyone be careful."
