Planning Ahead

The voyage from Decimum Iuxta Mari to Roma Prima was a full four days if all were to go without issue. Things, however, rarely tended to do so especially when Buddy was involved. He hadn’t hibernated once in the forty two hours since they’d left port, so instead he used his time to go about the various cramped decks of the Melchizedek, generally avoiding social interaction, trying to keep his mind off all the strange stories he’d heard from his mother regarding sea travel.

Legends said that the great bioweapon Leviathan, after its rampage, had disappeared into the sea once peace had been made between the Growers and what would come to be known as the Conclave. There was really no other conceivable place such a behemoth could be tucked away, and more than one sailor throughout the centuries claimed to have spotted the thing coming up for air. Somehow, none of the eyewitnesses seemed to possess video recording software in their eyes, and thus the sightings were never confirmed. Though chalked up as hallucinations caused by an onset of implant degradation, haggard, rusted old sailors kept a wary eye over the poisoned black waves, nonetheless.

The myth of Leviathan wasn’t the only story that went about the superstitious clusters of sailors and marines. Too often when Buddy had sat somewhere, feet up and laid back, he’d heard the sailors talking. Tales of phantom vessels, mysterious islands popping out of nowhere, singing sea smoke, cursed mariners, and a plethora of other easily disprovable phenomenon. It seemed fantasy was rife within the seagoing community. Variations of the same stories from wildly fantastical to quite ordinary were argued over under dim yellow lights in shady taverns, claustrophobic mess halls and in crow’s nests during dark nights.

Wherever Buddy went, it seemed he couldn’t rid himself of the hushed gibbering of men and women too long at sea. He could always shut off his audio pickup, but that made him violently seasick for some reason. He suspected that in order to calibrate a stable equilibrium, his software necessitated the proper function of audio processing. It was a drag, but an easy choice. He’d rather have his nerves tingle and imagination run wild than violently expel all his fuel and lubricant.

He was sitting atop a bollard on the aft deck, cable hair swaying in the wind, overlooking the black wake of the ship, when Hound padded between and over coils of rope and lashed crates of cargo.

“I see you found your sea legs,” the dog said, tails wagging in a nervous arhythmic bounce. Since they’d come aboard, Hound had been tense, be it from nausea or a general aversion to the sea, he hadn’t shared.

Buddy twirled his feet. The hemispheres were in the cramped cabin he shared with Jean, Jaques and Hound. Lucia had found him ordinary humanoid replacements that had sticky rubber soles that helped one stick to the smooth deck plating that was often moist from all the incense mist that pumped through the auxiliary ventilation system.

“Yep. Lost a couple inches in height, but I’d rather go about on these when the ship gets a rocking than my desert feet. How’re you doing?” he asked, noticing the strange way Hound’s tails wagged.

Hound burped. “Been better. The vibrations from the reactors and all this swaying makes me rather ill. Whoever made me didn’t seem to take into account this possibility. It’s strange, my reaction to this environment feels almost, well, organic for the lack of a better term.”

Buddy raised an eyebrow. “Never known full synth beings to get seasick. Maybe you’re not corpse-chassis like we thought. Maybe you’re a real dog,” he gasped, bringing his seven fingered hands to his cheeks in mock surprise.

Hound bared his metal fangs. “I’m not in the mood for humor. I’d rather not be out here. The ocean air smells weird.”

“Then why’ve you come Hound-o?”

“Your receiver is off. Lucia wants to talk to you.”

“Why didn’t she come and find me herself?”

“She’s seasick too. That, and Dr. Rousseau won’t let her out of the cabin. She’s fussing over the emotive enhancer degradation again.”

“Jaques and Jean?”

“Map room. Jean wanted to see if they had up to date charts and maps of the Europa frontier. Please, can we go back inside?”

Buddy gave a soft smile. “Sure thing, I think I’ve had enough fresh air as is.”

The cramped hallways of the Melchizedek were as decorated as the railings outside. Rosaries and tokens of faith hung from exposed piping, icons were set into alcoves and nooks, and the hatches for fuse boxes were painted with the countenances of dead holy men. Gray candles, likely dead-wax, lined every flat surface, dribbling down dumbly onto the smoky deck. The matter of dwindling oxygen didn’t seem to be a problem to seafaring folk, but for Buddy the cloying smell of incense and the signature aroma of the common type candles, on top of the superstitious dribble, were too much to bear at times.

Lucia’s and Rousseau’s cabin was identical to the men’s, though more spacious given that it had only two occupants. The young squire lay on her stomach atop her cot, shirtless, while the brassy doctor sat by her inspecting a small monitor from which glossy wires and tubes snaked to Lucia’s spine and the back of her skull, affixed to either her diodes or stuck to her skin with adhesive stickers.

“You called, little miss,” Buddy said as he entered.

Rousseau glanced at the bounty hunter, but her expressionless brass mask gave no hint as to the nature of the look.

Lucia tried raising her head, but the doctor held it gently down. “Not yet lass, I’m not done,” she said in her melodious accented voice. Her mouth moved strangely, not yet optimized to perfectly reflect her spoken words.

“Is everything alright?” Buddy asked with an uncommon note of empathy.

“I say yes, she says no,” Lucia grumbled, “I’m just seasick that’s all. But she insists that it’s my enhancer.”

“I’ll not be taking any risks with yer health lass. Nausea and a loss of balance are symptoms of dissolving. Once I’m sure it’s the ship and not yer enhancer, then I’ll be letting ye off. For now.”

Buddy raised an eyebrow. “Did you call me for emotional support or is there something you wanted to tell me?”

Rousseau spoke before Lucia had the chance. “Aye, the Grower came about and said he’d found some dusty map he wants to show ye.”

Buddy sighed. “You could’ve just told Hound that,” he said and turned to leave.

“Hold on,” Lucia interjected, “there is something else. I want you to go up to the comms room and ask the officer there to send out this message,” she said and took out a parchment note from her pocket, “it’s a notice for the people at Roma Prima. I ordered an escort that will take us to the mountain outpost at the Alps. I’d send it but,” she indicated the myriad wires and the good doctor sitting beside her.

“You’re otherwise occupied, I get it,” Buddy said and took the note.

“Now, bugger off good hunter, I need to focus,” Rousseau said.

Buddy rolled his eyes.

“Mind if I stay here?” asked Hound, “I think I need to lay down for a while.”

“Aye, aye, just be quiet,” Rousseau said, not once raising her lambent gaze from the monitor.

The map room was one deck down and a long corridor afore near the boatswain’s workshop. Buddy passed many ragged civilians and greasy members of the engine crew, the latter augmented with thick and angular industrial replacements, on his way to his first stop. Many a crooked glance or muttered curse was shot his way. It seemed that his build and holstered weapon spoke volumes regarding his trade. It seemed that many had had run-ins with people of the same profession. Not that he cared. Bounty and treasure hunters got a bad rap, especially if for some reason or another they didn’t manage to find and or apprehend whatever or whomever it was they were tasked to find and or apprehend, which was an all too common part of the job. Sometimes the risks were just too great.

The map room’s watertight door was open, and within the red-lit room Jean and Jaques leaned over an octagonal backlit table. Rectangular charts with signs of wear and tear were splayed across the glowing surface. Bumpy ridges where they had been folded by some uncultured deckhand looked like shadowed veins, and a myriad stains from dripping grease or candle wax formed fantom lakes and hills onto lands where none existed.

“Ah, you came, come here,” Jean said, beckoning with his singular arm. The other arm had, as he had said before they had departed on the voyage, begun to regenerate, and presently resembled the arm of a two year old. The sight had been disturbing, and Buddy was glad that the Grower had hidden the thing under his robes.

“Yeah. Seems like I’m an errand boy today. So, what’s up?” Buddy said and came over to the table, languidly leaning his thigh against it, crossing his arms.

Jean looked at Jaques. The bald man looked nervous, but after an encouraging nod from the Grower, he said, “We’ve been looking for the best route to take after we leave Roma Prima. If we’re guessing correctly, we’re going to cross the Alps here, going through the outpost.” He traced a finger from along the map from the city to the ragged peaks. “If we go straight northeast, there’s nothing but wastes and, well, monsters, if we’re to believe the stories. But, if we go northwest, we could take the land bridge to the Anglaic peninsula.”

Buddy raised his hand, “hold on now, ain’t the pathogen somewhere northeast? Why the hells would we be going away from it.”

Jaques’s machine eye flicked to the hunter, then to the map. He gave a lopsided smile and pointed at the lump of landmass that had centuries ago been the largest island in the north, and a united kingdom in its own right. “Because of this,” he said, indicating a small note of text on the northernmost coast.

Buddy zoomed his vision to the spot and read the words aloud, “Primus in caelo. First in the sky. The hells does that mean?”

Jean grinned. “It’s the See’s first aerial outpost. I.e. aircraft. If we go there, we go through wastes, yes, but its half the distance we’d need to navigate compared to if we go by land the entire way. From there we could fly to the location.”

Buddy raised an eyebrow. “Why not just fly from Roma Prima then?”

Jaques cleared his throat. “The Conclave is after us, which means that the city isn’t safe. Jean and I believe that if we were to take an aircraft from there, there is a high risk of sabotage, or the information might leak and thus make us easier to track. The outpost in the Anglaic peninsula is the remotest the See has. And if the Conclave were to attempt to track us through the wastes, they would lose us once we go up.”

Buddy processed the plan for a moment, then said, “sounds good.”

“Really?” Jaques asked.

“I see no issue. Besides, I’ve always wanted to see a sky base,” Buddy said. He looked at Jaques, who seemed to beam with pride. “I take it you decided on joining our little party, then?”

“He has!” Jean said before Jaques could answer.

“Alrighty then,” Buddy said, “I’m off to comms now.”

Strange. Everything was just so strange and kept getting stranger. First and foremost, he was on a prolonged treasure hunt slash escort mission with a party that kept growing, much to his displeasure. Second, a savage kill-bot had failed to kill him twice, even though on the second time he’d been free pickings. Third, which related to the second, was that, if he was to be believed, the Chronologist had spoken to Jaques after it had told off the assassin as though it were a misbehaving child and the mysterious cyborg its stern magister. Fourth, Buddy’s gun was sentient, and it kept wanting to be used. Fifth was the prophecy the Chronologist had spoken, and the strange symbols in Buddy’s field of view.

All of It was quickly mounting towards more-than-I-can-handle territory. The only thing that kept the lanky bounty hunter going was the promise of money. The world was cruel, and he had a bad feeling that the faces he’d come to know so far during the relatively short Odyssey would one day be nothing but bad memories. Just like everything from his childhood a good seventy to eighty years ago.

The comms room was right below the bridge. Inside, two radio operators sat before consoles, cables trailing from every natural and augmented orifice in their heads to the mumbling and humming machines before them.

Buddy shivered. These men, they’d been at the job for decades by the looks of it. Probably indentured penitents put to work by the See. Hesitantly, rubber soled feet squelching off a moist patch on the deck, Buddy neared one.

“Got a note for you. Recipient is Roma Prima.”

“Insert,” said a deep, toneless, sexless voice from somewhere in the room.

“Pardon?”

The head of the radio operator shifted slightly, and Buddy traced where its eyes would’ve looked if it still had them: a small slit in the boxy machine with the word outgoing stenciled above.

“Um, alright then,” Buddy said, and slipped the note into the opening.

Immediately a chime rung out, and another toneless voice said, “processing… scanning type… scanning ident stamp… processed… transcribing into binary… transcribed… processing… message is in queue in position, X-V-I… hold… priority override… new positon: I… estimated time of reception is… processing… ten minutes.”

“Uh, thanks,” Buddy said, backing away. “Don’t they have a governing intelligence in this thing?” he mumbled.

Then he rolled his eyes. Of course they didn’t. Intelligences were rarely used in naval battles, for the AI would always prioritize the sanctity of the crew’s life, thus would never execute the risky maneuvers required to come on top in the the hectic firing and pivoting that was naval combat. It was not as though it hadn’t been tried, but ships like that hadn’t lasted long. They’d been easy kills, so the history went.

But, it wasn’t as though things like that had any effect on Buddy’s job or his travels at hand. So, forgetting the issue entirely, he began his way back down to the passenger deck. He stopped when a rumble reverberated through the entire ship. The pitch of the propellers had shifted; he could feel it in the hull as forces were now pushing against its inertial movement.

The ship was stopping.

 

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