Different Tunes

Every day since emerging to the surface, Eight had awoken confused, expecting the harsh ground of the metro’s central station or slightly-less-harsh-but-still-pretty-solid cushions of the train seats beneath her. Then she would quickly realise that she was somewhere far too comfortable to be underground, where horrors resided, and remember she was out of there now, in one of the spare rooms in Pearl’s vast expanse of a mansion. She wasn’t sure she liked that much more, but the air was fresher and there was nobody trying to attack her up here – hopefully.

Today, the bed did not feel nearly as comfortable, and Eight had to go through a whole second wave of remembering where she was to recall that she was no longer staying in Pearl’s mansion.

The place she awoke today was an old couch in the dusky main room of the captain’s shack, and it took Eight a whole of ten seconds to remember why she was here; Cap’n had returned to the metro now they had confirmation the place was still functioning without Kamabo, citing his reason as the above-world nights being too cold for his ‘old bones’ (which Pearl had claimed he did not have), but he didn’t want to leave Agent 3 out here alone after the injuries she’d sustained. Marina had seemed worried about Eight living in the same place as her, but the squid was a lot less frightening when she wasn’t being controlled by an ancient gooey evil.

Eight did not want to disturb Agent 3, because she needed the rest, but this was the first time the young octopus had seen this building in daylight after Marina helped her bring her handful of belongings over after work last night. She quietly slipped on her shoes to counter the harsh wooden floor, taking in a breath of the area’s atmosphere – a strange combination of fresh air but not, a lasting hint of the medicinal chemicals used to treat Agent 3’s burns, and a distant smell that lingered in Octo Valley, which felt like something Eight should recognise but couldn’t really remember too well. It may not have been perfect, but Eight felt more at home here than with the sharp-smelling cleaners and air fresheners.

She hadn’t yet learned exactly how the sun cycle marked the time of day, but right now it was glaring on the old foggy glass of the singular window of this place, which Eight assumed meant it was sometime in the morning. The light didn’t pass through the translucent material perfectly, making the room dim and muted compared to the colours she could vaguely see outside, but within the beams that attempted to draw a square on the floor, Eight could see something swirling around in the light. Lots of little, tiny specks.

This must have been something she had seen before, something she knew the name of in octarian, but like most things she couldn’t quite recall it. Something told her it wasn’t dangerous to touch the light-swirls, so she experimentally reached out a hand, feeling nothing but the gentle warmth of the sun on her skin as the little specks swirled and spiralled faster along with her movement. They slipped out of her grasp when she experimentally closed her hand in an attempt to catch some.

A minute slipped by, Eight fully entranced by the light-specks, until her nose and hair twitched, and she sneezed. She froze for a moment, realising that was noise and hoping she hadn’t woken the other agent from her much-deserved rest. Eight looked over towards the bed at last, expecting to see Agent 3 still asleep since there had been no sound to suggest she’d just been rudely woken – but Agent 3 was sat up, one side of her face still covered with gauze to protect whatever Marina had insisted on putting on it before she left, silently watching Eight and probably having witnessed her mesmerisation of something so simple.

If Agent 3 – Three? If she had another name, Eight didn’t know it yet – thought the octopus was being strange at all, though, she didn’t say so, and there was nothing in her expression that suggested it, as far as Eight could tell. She looked away when Eight met her gaze, just slightly, as if she was still considering saying something but couldn’t stand to keep the eye contact.

Eight just stood there, her hand still held in the sunlight, unsure if she herself should try to form some words. She didn’t know too many inkling words – they were easier to listen to and understand than to speak herself – and hoped she wasn’t being too awkward. Did inklings get upset if things were awkward? Did she? This whole ‘interacting with other people’ thing would be a lot easier if she could remember anything before a few weeks ago.

“There’s… food the captain left, in the fridge.” Three mumbled eventually, her voice a little hoarse-sounding. “If you want breakfast.”

Oh! Eight took a few seconds to process the words. She did like food! Food was very nice. That was one of her favourite surface things; that the food was better than anything she had experienced underground. “I… yes? Thank you.” Eight nodded in a way she hoped was polite, finally leaving her sunbeam to skip with new stealth-less freedom over to where the fridge was. As she peered inside – there weren’t a ton of options, but still enough that she would struggle to decide – she remembered how Pearl or Marina would check on her in the mornings and offer her breakfast. Perhaps that wasn’t too far from what Three had been doing, albeit she wasn’t in much of a state to get up and prepare food herself. Maybe that should be Eight’s job? “Did you… want food?” she asked after a period of intense thought. Had she said that right?

“Huh? Oh—no, I’m good. I’ll have something later.” Three waved off the offer with one hand, which soon hovered near her head as she winced. Perhaps her injuries hurt, still. Eight didn’t know what to do about that.

She focussed on working out how to make breakfast instead, wishing she knew how to prepare those very nice pancakes Pearl had made for her a few days ago because they were still the greatest food experience Eight had ever had. Even if she could remember the method Pearl had explained in a whole of one sentence, though, the ingredients didn’t seem to be here. There was butter in the fridge, and bread, and Eight had, at the very least, learnt how to not make a toaster explode (even if it did remind her a little of one of the green creatures she’d fought). She turned the machine down to a low setting that would probably gently warm her bread rather than toast it, just in case, and glanced around the room again while she was waiting for the toaster to work its magic.

Three was out of bed now, looking a lot smaller in her t-shirt and shorts than she had done in her padded agent gear. She stood by the window, letting the sunlight warm the palm of her hand, watching the light specks swirl around in a similar way to how Eight had done.

Eight didn’t know why, exactly, but the sight made her smile. Perhaps Three wasn’t too different to her after all.

She had to spend a moment recalling words, and the way to string them together, but soon she was able to ask her question, taking a few cautious steps closer. “What they are called?”

Three flinched, drawing her arm back in towards her. Not completely similar, perhaps. She cast a small glance in Eight’s direction, and Eight tried to keep her gaze on the swirling patterns this time, so she wouldn’t have to try and further explain her question with words. Three let out a small sigh, causing the spirals to get faster for a moment. “Dust. Probably shouldn’t breathe too much of it in. Not great for your lungs.”

“It is danger?” Eight blinked in surprise. She knew what the inkling word for it was now, at least.

“Not like… super dangerous. I don’t know. You’d need to breathe in a lot.” Three gave a small shake of her head, wincing again and holding a hand to her bandages. “You’ll be fine. Your toast’s done.”

The sudden change in subject threw Eight for a moment, trying to keep up with the conversation, and she looked over at the toaster which had sprung up while Three was talking. The older agent stepped away – Eight thought at first that she might be planning to go outside, away from the dust, but soon realised she was just going back to the bed. She did look tired. At least the dust wasn’t alarmingly dangerous? It did look pretty, in the light.

With an internal shrug, Eight went back to her preparations, taking her very-much-still-bread-like toast out of the toaster. At least it probably wouldn’t be very crunchy when she ate it, so she wouldn’t have to take it outside and make Three think she’d given her a fear of dust particles.

Still, that was the most Three had spoken to her since she got here. Eight had already decided she liked speaking to Three. Hopefully there were more dust-like things around in the world that might allow them to have more conversations.