Chapter Text
Sandrock may be greener now, but it’s still just as gritty as ever. That’s apparent on every front porch, in Grace’s omelets at the Blue Moon, and right now in each nook and cranny between Nora’s clothes and her body. Catori World is a trek from town, with the yakmel carts refusing to run this way with the rumors of monsters being out. Those Rumors, as it turns out, were not unfounded.
The amusement park has been closed now for going on a week. Ever since the first one of those damned things turned up scaring the tourists out of their minds. Most of the visitors are city dwellers from Atara who had never laid eyes on a monster in the flesh before. Nora had been just like them when she first arrived from Highwind. She’s a lot more experienced with monsters now, after everything she’s been through rebuilding the town. That being said, the sight of these monsters in particular never fails to unnerve her.
“Those things give me the Heebee Jeebees,” Justice says, echoing her thoughts on the situation.
Plierimps. That’s what the Sandrockers call them. Lumbering hunchbacked things that look just a little too human for anyone’s liking. The valley had been crawling with them when Nora first arrived in town. Now a herd of them seems to have worked their way up to the surface.
“How do you want to go about this?” Nora asks, her hand skimming over the pistol holstered at her side.
“Wait.”
She feels a heavy hand land on her shoulder. Looking up, she sees Logan peering intently down the valley at the group of imps hopping dumbly around in the sand. He opens his mouth to speak again, but his words are cut off by another voice.
“Can someone please tell me -” Qi pauses to take a deep breath in. “Exactly why I’ve been drug along on this excursion?”
The director is bent over wheezing with one hand leaning against a boulder. He’s already winded despite the last leg of their journey being mostly downhill. Nora tries to have a little sympathy for him. It’s probably the farthest he’s traveled on foot in months.
Logan releases Nora’s shoulder and points a finger down the valley in the direction of the creatures. “Wanted you to get eyes on em’ for yourself. You know a lot about these Old World experiments. They have some sort of contraption on their backs…”
Nora squints, giving the imps in the distance another scan. She hadn’t noticed before amid all the other anomalies of their appearance, but each one of them does have some sort of capsule mounted on its back, an array of tubes extend out from the devices seemingly straight into the creature’s skin.
Qi straightens his spine, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose to join her in observing the imps. She’s seen him like this before, in quiet moments while pitching in at the research center. Nora can almost imagine the visual data running through his head like a computer, being morphed into zeros and ones and then back into meaningful information.
“Genetic experimentation is not my field of research,” he says after a moment. “However, if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say those aberrations were derived from human DNA in an effort to create feebleminded drones with human dexterity. The combination of their low intellect and their physique likely made them ideal for repetitive Old World factory tasks.”
“So they’re… sort of human, but not quite?” Logan asks, scratching at the day’s growth of beard sprouting along his chin.
“They are sort of human in the same way the Geeglers and the Mole people are sort of human.” There’s an arrogant edge to Qi’s words. “How they’ve been reproducing all this time remains unclear at the moment. All the visible specimens appear male.”
Justice throws up his hands in frustration. “Who cares how they reproduce? How do we get rid of ‘em?”
“We know the Geeglers and some of the other mutants have some sort of intelligence to ‘em.” Logan says, ignoring Justice’s concern for the matter at hand. “What about these guys? Hell, they have clothes on.”
Qi furrows his eyebrows. “I don’t believe that is the case in this instance. Extermination is advisable to prevent the Plierimps from spreading into town.”
“Right,” Justice interjects. “So how should we -”
“You can’t tell me that you can look at those things and see nothin’ more than your run-a-the-mill monsters,” Logan interrupts. “We thought the Geeglers were a lost cause too until we broke through to em’”
“Be all means.” Qi gestures down the valley with a wave of his hand. “Approach them and attempt a conversation. I’m curious what your proximity will be when their attack begins.”
Logan takes a step closer to Qi, standing over him intimidatingly. “So you think we should just wipe em’ all out, huh?”
To his credit, Qi doesn’t shrink away. “Yes. That is what I think,” he says firmly.
Logan’s hand reaches for his pistol so quick it’s all Nora can do to let out a cry of protest. Before she knows what’s happened, he’s unholstered his firearm, and grabbed ahold of the director, spinning him around and holding the smaller man’s back against his chest. Somehow, he’s also managed to grab Qi’s hand and wrap it around the gun, his own hand securing both in a firm grasp. He did it all in such a singular fluid motion she had missed exactly how it happened.
“Well then.” Logan has his arm stretched out as far as Qi’s wingspan will allow, forcing him to point the barrel of the gun straight at the imps. “You wouldn’t mind pulling this here trigger yourself, would you?”
Qi’s eyes are wide with surprise. He tries to jerk away from Logan’s grasp, but he’s severely outsized and outmuscled.
“What’s wrong? They’re only just monsters, right? Go on, light em’ up,” Logan says, his voice low and slow.
“Violence is not exactly my forte.” The words come out quiet and shaky.
“Logan, turn him loose,” Nora says, deciding this has gone on long enough. “You’ve proved your point.”
She’s halfway surprised when Logan listens to her, releasing his hold and stepping away. Qi is left still holding the gun. It looks odd and heavy in his hand.
Justice moves forward, gingerly taking the pistol away much to Qi’s apparent relief. “Listen, dead or not, these things got to go.”
The sheriff puts his body in between Logan and Qi, “What’s say we call it a day, and try to figure out more about these things. Logan and I can come back tomorrow and spend some time observing them. Nora, Qi, the two of you stay in town and see if you can dig up any details at the library and the Research Center.”
“That is unacceptable,” Qi’s hubris seems to snap back into place. “I’ve already wasted an entire day’s lab work adventuring out here to look at these miserable creatures. I won’t allow this venture to take up any more of my time.”
“And what if we don’t come up with anything?” Logan asks, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Nora has to suppress a laugh at the pair of them somehow now seemingly united against the voice of reason.
“If we don’t have any more answers by the day after tomorrow, we’ll just meet back up to brainstorm again,” Justice says resolutely. “Either way, Catoriworld is a part of Sandrock now, and getting those things outta here is a priority.”
“Fine, I’ll play along,” Logan relents.
“If I answer in the affirmative, will you allow me to take my leave?” Qi asks.
Justice shakes his head and sighs, “Yeah, why don’t we all go home for now.”
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Nora thought she had a good idea of what a library was. There had been one in Highwind with rows of shelves, a card catalog, and a front desk to check out books. Becoming acquainted with what substitutes for a library in Sandrock had been a bit of a letdown to say the least. A few dusty bookshelves pushed against a wall in a rarely visited part of town hall. It seems the struggle to survive in the harsh desert environment has left the locals with little time to worry about becoming well-read.
She doesn’t bother wrangling Qi into helping her scour through the books. It shouldn’t take her long to figure out if there is anything useful for their situation in the library’s limited inventory.
Her morning is spent sitting on the hard floor, pouring through tables of contents, and feeling just a little bit guilty for shirking off her commissions for the day. There are a fair amount of history texts but precious little about the research that was happening in the area at the time of The Great Calamity. It’s getting on into the afternoon by the time her stomach starts to rumble and the words on the pages start to blur together when she decides to take a break and see how Qi is fairing on his end.
After a brief visit to the Blue Moon and some honeyed avocado in her belly, Nora finds herself once again parked outside the Research Center. She doesn’t even bother knocking anymore before letting herself in. She’d visited so often over the past couple of years, Qi would probably be more surprised if she didn’t drop in unannounced to interrupt his workflow.
He doesn’t even look back at her as she approaches from behind. He is, as always, standing over his workstation. Sitting, he says, stifles blood flow, leading to sluggish thoughts. His hands are busy tinkering away with a device in front of him. Long-dried tea stains spot the elbow and partially untucked hem of his white shirt.
“Director?”
“Nora. I’d been anticipating your arrival.” He turns, stepping slightly to the side.
Now that he’s moved out of the way, she can see the object he’d been fiddling with on the worktable. It looks like the equatorial mount for the telescope on top of the Research Center. She narrows her eyes, wondering what that could possibly have to do with the research Justice had assigned to them.
“That’s a piece for the telescope,” she says bluntly.
“Your observational powers are fully intact, I see.”
Occasionally, Nora has a hard time discerning whether or not Qi is intentionally being an asshole or not.
This is not one of those times.
“And that is helping with the Plierimp problem… how?”
Qi shakes his head condescendingly and adjusts his glasses. “I had believed that you of all people would have understood my assessment on the matter.”
“That you think we should just wipe them out?”
“Precisely.” Nora cringes as he wipes motor oil from his fingers onto his khaki pants. “You saw them bounding about down there, no speech patterns or any signs of intelligence about them. By all appearances, we’re dealing with something significantly more homosapien than your run-of-the-mill outback monster. The mere thought of there existing even a shred of humanity in there is quite frankly, horrifying.”
The way he frames his argument this time around gives her pause, because for all the world it sounds like the Director’s suggestion to kill the Plierimps is coming from a place of empathy - something he’s known to be notoriously low on.
“Look, I don’t doubt that your plan is what we’re going to end up going with eventually…”
His shoulders straighten as she steps closer. She’s not above appealing to his sense of pride in her negotiation tactics. Besides, it’s not exactly a lie. The real chances of coming up with an alternative seem abysmally small.
“… but we were given an assignment by the sheriff. If we don’t hold up our end of the deal, he’s going to report this to the mayor…”
“And then we’ll be summoned to town hall and asked to give a full report on our insubordination,” he says finishing her thought. “And all of that pulling me further from my work, kicking the proverbial can down the road.”
He lets out a groan of frustration and begins pacing back and forth in front of his worktable. Nora tries not to smile. It’s not often someone is able to out-logic him.
“So, any ideas on how we could make a good, honest effort at looking into the imps? The library was a bust.”
“Ha – library,” he says haughtily. “I’d imagine so. There’s hardly more texts there than – wait a moment.”
His demeanor shifts rapidly from annoyance to excitement as he rushes over to rummage through his haphazardly organized cabinet. He returns with a large piece of rolled-up parchment. Nora had expected it to be a diagram of some sort, but as he unfurls it on the worktable, she can see it’s actually a map.
“The Shipwreck Ruins?” She asks, recognizing the layout immediately. “We’ve already scouted all the way through it.”
“Not entirely.” He pulls out a compass and pencil to draw a precise circle around a section of wall. “Field notes show a door was discovered at this location that had been welded shut.”
Nora tries to remember. It’s been more than a year since the last time she was in the Shipwreck Ruins. The search there had been abandoned once the corps decided nothing of value was left uncatalogued.
“You think there’s something there?”
“The site was a hotbed of experimentation on living creatures, and my measurements indicate a significant portion of the ship is sealed off behind this door.”
Looking over his shoulder, she can see Qi has sketched out an area that must be where he believes the unexplored portions of the ship are.
“Given that the Shipwreck almost certainly landed in place on the Day of Calamity – and the knowledge that it was a working laboratory up until it met its fate, it must be surmised that the old world scientists sealed this section of ship off for a purpose.”
“Do you have any reason to believe the Plierimps were created there?”
“Other than similar experiments occurring in that same location, no,” he admits. “However, it’s the singular lead I have available at the moment. Besides, I’ve been curious about the contents of the area for a while now… and given the ever-present danger of the Ruins…”
“You need a bodyguard?” She asks, attempting to channel some of his smugness back toward him.
“That is a way of framing it.”
A memory flashes through her mind of finding Qi trapped in a different ruin system closer to town not long after she first moved to Sandrock. He very well may have died there if she hadn’t stumbled into just the right place at just the right time. And there weren’t even monsters there. It’s probably for the best that he’s put a pause on his solo exploration.
“Alright, get your gear together,” she says. “We’re going ruin diving.”
---------------------
A quick trip to the workshop to grab her power drill and Nora and Qi are on a yakmel cart out to the Eufala desert. Even with the lift, they’ll only have a precious few hours to explore before sundown.
The familiar dank smell of the Sunken Ruins floods her senses the moment they step inside. Nora has never been to the ocean, but she has to imagine there is still some lingering trace of it in the ship’s odor, a combination of rust and brine. The vessel hasn’t sat underwater for hundreds of years, and yet she’s sure it’s there.
The sealed-off door isn’t too far from the entrance. Monsters are on the light side today as well – only a couple of Starby encounters before they reach their destination. She gets the feeling someone has explored the ship recently and finds herself wondering who it could have been and if they could still be around. Qi has been unusually silent since their climb to the entrance. Nora has to pause a few times while he scribbles on a thick notepad he otherwise keeps tucked under his arm. She considers asking him what he’s taking notes on but then thinks better of it. His overlong explanation would only waste valuable time.
They find the door exactly where Qi’s map said it would be – still sealed shut. She notices that someone even welded the bottom to the floor, creating an air-tight seal.
“This area was certainly cordoned off with a purpose,” he says, looking over her shoulder.
“Hiding gruesome human experimentation?” She offers.
“There is, as they say, only one way to find out.”
Nora nods and pulls the ripcord hard to start the power drill. It fires up immediately, the growl of the engine echoing off the metal walls that surround them. Sparks fly around her as she works the drill around the edge of the door frame. It’s an incredibly effective, if brutal piece of machinery. After a few short minutes, the metal door falls inward with a heavy clank, leaving a jagged hole for the pair of them to step through.
Nora had been expecting the room behind the door to lead into total darkness, but she’s surprised to find it reasonably well-lit. Qi says the corridor must still be connected to the power supply for the rest of the ship. The scenery inside looks much the same as the ground they’ve already covered.
Thankfully, there are no signs of any monsters in the immediate vicinity. Nora can handle herself reasonably well, but she is glad that she doesn’t have to tackle any large monsters without backup.
The moment she says the coast is clear, Qi flits past her and begins prowling through what appears to be an abandoned office desk. “You can scout on ahead if you wish. I’ve no need of a babysitter.”
She considers it for a moment, but decides to stay put. As brilliant as the Director is, he’d be easy pickings if something or someone antagonistic came wandering through. Her suspicions that he hadn’t even brought a weapon along are confirmed when he dumps out the contents of his backpack onto the desk. Several power stones and a couple of bottles of sand tea spill out.
He tries fitting a power stone into one of the computer terminals, but it refuses to fire up. It’s the same problem they’ve had with much of the Old World tech they’ve come across. Qi says it’s theorized that a shockwave spread across the land on the day of calamity – rendering many machines with delicate advanced hardware inert.
Tucked away inside a desk drawer – they find another computer. This one is a smaller, portable unit that folds in half. Qi makes an attempt to boot up this unit as well.
“Blasted thing doesn’t work either,” he says, removing the power stone. He sticks the small device in his backpack to take another look at it back at the Research Center.
They continue down a hallway, finding more office spaces Qi is losing interest in exploring. He tries to walk in front of her on a couple of occasions, but she blocks him with an outstretched arm. If anything nefarious is lurking about, it’s best if she encounters it first.
They’re nearing the end of the corridor when something catches both of their attentions. A green glow, ever so faintly shining from under the closed door at the very end of the hall. Nora sets the power drill down and unholsters her gun.
“Wait here,” she tells him.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t argue with her.
Inching closer, she tries to put her ear against the door to listen for any sign of movement on the other side, but her proximity triggers the door to automatically slide open, startling her. Carefully she steps inside, her head swiveling around in search of any sign of danger. This room is different. Glass vats filled with a fuzzy, glowing substance line the walls. She can hear the faint whirring noise coming from the waist-high machines the vats are sitting atop.
“It appears to be some sort of bioluminescent Algae,” Qi says, walking up behind her.
“So, not what we came here for, then?” Nora knew coming here the chances were slim that they would find any clues about the origins of the Plierimps. At this point, she’s just happy that they’ve stumbled upon anything of interest at all. “Do you recognize it?”
“I don’t” He makes another attempt to step around her, and this time she allows it. “We should collect a sample and deliver it to the Moisture Farm. Prior testing has yielded positive results from organic material collected at this site.” Qi approaches one of the vats. Each appears to have a lid at the top that is a few feet out of reach.
Nora comes up beside him, lacing her fingers together in front of her with her palms up. “I’ll give you a boost.”
“I – er…” He hesitates. “Are you positive?”
“It’s fine. Just do it.” She knows the sun must be close to touching the horizon outside and she doesn’t see the need to drag this out any farther. The Algae samples should be all the proof they need to show Justice that they made an honest effort.
Qi glances at her hands and then back up at her before stepping into her palms and putting his hands against the glass vat to push himself up. Even with her joints locked, he’s still heavier than she anticipated, but she thinks she should be able to hold him for a minute or two. Thankfully, the metal lid doesn’t seem to provide much resistance when he cracks it open to peek inside.
“You aren’t gonna grab that stuff with your bare hands, are you?” She asks incredulously.
She feels his knees buckle slightly. “Nora, something is happening with this specimen! It’s… It looks like -”
Before he can finish his thought, an audible hiss emits from inside the vat and a gray fog fills the empty space in the chamber. A small amount of the mist escapes through the open lid and blasts him in the face. Immediately, his body goes limp and tumbles out of her grasp. The vat lid clatters shut, preventing any more of the fog from escaping. Nora tries her best to cushion his fall, but he lands hard on his side. He groans on the ground and curls into a fetal position.
“Qi! Qi! Are you okay?” She falls to her knees beside him and grabs ahold of his arm.
He doesn’t answer, only batting her hand away and curling up tighter in response.
“Are you hurt? Talk to me!”
He lets out an undignified whine, and covers his head with his hands, fingers pulling at his hair.
“Oh, Peach.” Nora swears. She needs to get a better grasp of the situation before she decides what to do next. Leaving him here to go get help is not ideal, to say the least. “Qi, what hurts? Can you tell me that?”
His face is turning beet red, and sweat is beginning to form on his forehead. Shit. Maybe it isn’t just the fall affecting him. She looks up at the glowing tank, now filled with the gray mist and then back at Qi. “Please just tell me…” She says more softly this time.
“Don’t move… friction…” He says, finally able to form slurred, shaky words. “It’s unreal.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Feeling out of options, she resolves that if he won’t tell her what’s wrong, she’ll need to examine him herself. She could kick herself for not taking Fang up on those first aid classes when he had offered them.
He flinches when she puts a hand on his side to roll him over and tries weakly to jerk out of her grasp. “The friction…” he repeats. The sounds that follow attempt to come out as words but end up trailing off into a high-pitched whimper. He twists his head around to look at her over his shoulder and she doesn’t think she’s ever in her life seen a person with their pupils blown so wide open. Hardly any of his irises are visible at all. His chest is heaving with labored breaths.
“Just let me get a look at you,” she says, pulling him toward her to roll him over onto his back.
Oh. Oh.
He definitely has an arousal of sorts going on below his belt. Before she can process that information, Qi arches his back up off the ground, one of his hands grips on tight to her knee, and the other gropes desperately at the empty floor beside him. He cries out at a volume she couldn’t have imagined his voice could reach. Near animalistic, wordless moans pour from his mouth as his hips twitch in the air. She can see a wetness spreading over the crotch of his pants, and she’s fairly certain he isn’t pissing himself. Finally, he goes limp, thudding heavily down, limbs splaying out at odd angles.
Nora doesn’t know why, but she feels compelled to reach over and wipe the moisture from his brow. Her mind is racing, trying to put together a cohesive thought about what just happened. Clearly he… and he looks so… Well, at the very least she was the only one around to see that. The algae. This must be why the Old World scientists sealed this place off.
After a moment, she sees his eye crack open. A faint, “Uhhh” comes from his parted lips.
“Hey,” she says as gently as she can manage.
“It had to be you here for this, didn’t it?” He sounds weak and exasperated.
She decides to ignore that for now and tries to help him up.
“No,” he says firmly. “No.” Somehow mustering the strength, he climbs to his feet and begins limping back toward the door. Pausing briefly with a hand on the frame, he turns back to look at her. “Don’t follow me. Just don’t.”
Nora stays there on her knees listening to the sounds of his shuffling footsteps fade off into the distance.