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Okay, lets see if this works, the text is likely gonna be corrupt in the description, but the text file should be safe, I'm not too sure how to prevent that, so if this hurts to read, sorry, just download the file instead
“She'll see you now.” The amphibian cooed as she opened the door to the spartan office. Cal gave her a brief nod in acknowledgment and nervously stepped inside of the room that felt more like a hastily built, carpeted addition than an actual office. His gaze settled on the only other occupant in the room; a sleek, black female creature, with a bulbous snout, and eyes set low on the sides of her head that stared at him in unimpressed boredom. Her elbows were planted firmly on her desk while her hands were clasped together, loosely holding a pen over paperwork that, upon glancing at it, Cal saw his name on.
“Thank you Mimi, you may go now.” the strange woman motioned a hand to the tree frog holding open the door, who promptly shut it behind her, leaving Cal alone with the woman behind the desk who seemed to stare him down from her seat, after a few tense moments she called out, “Cal Winslow?” The rat fumbled a bit as he heard his name cut through the air.
“Y-yes, yes ma'am that is me!” he all too enthusiastically walked over, leaving his hand out to be shaken.
The woman simply stared at his paw, then turned her cold gaze back up to meet his. “Have a seat Mr. Winslow.” Cal gulped as quietly as he could and quickly did as she said, once he was actually seated in front of her, she continued to stare at him, Cal uncomfortably diverted his gaze and took the uncomfortable silence as an opportunity to speak.
“Uh...You're Mrs. Walker, right?” She motioned toward the bronze plaque on her desk that confirmed her name and followed up,
“And you were referred to me by whom?” Cal cringed slightly at his dumb question,
“An insectoid man by the name of Bjell-” He watched as Walkers cold annoyance turned into quiet frustration as she cradled her head in her hands and inhaled sharply through a nostril like hole on the top of her snout. Cal shifted uncomfortably in his chair as Walker recomposed herself. “I'm going to assume your business is on the mainland?” Cal nodded and motioned to his side. “Its right on the edge of the bay-”
“Take Kuya.”
“-But you don't even kno-”
“Bjell wants Castill Tannery's flooded basement picked through. Do not ever tell me what I do, and do not know. Take Kuya and leave.”
Without another word, Cal left his seat and hurried out the small office and back into the main warehouse. After scanning the large room, he found a lone worker in outdoor running attire and approached. “You must be Kuya, yes?” The otter in front of him scoffed and pointed toward the loading area, Cal gave the irritated man a nervous “Thank You” and wandered over to the more cluttered end of the warehouse, after being unable to see another soul he called out, “...Kuya?” A head, similar to Mrs. Walker's but bluish grey, more streamlined, and with a longer snout popped up behind some boxes in the back of the room in response to his query.
“Ya, that's me! You a client?”
“Yes, I was told to meet with you for a reclamation job.”
Kuya perked up at the word, “Ah, I haven't been on one of those in a while! C'mon, we'll walk and talk.” Cal nodded in agreement as Kuya came from around the boxes, and the two began to head for the front door. Something irked Cal, and not three steps in he turned to look back at Kuya to confirm what it was. “You....Your legs.” He said in confused horror.
Kuya looked puzzled at the man, and then followed where his accusatory finger pointed. “Oh yeah, dude this sports chair is cool as he-”
Cal cut her off and pointed again at her lower body, reiterating his point, “YOUR. LEGS.”
Kuya looked down at her tail, and her flukes reflexively flapped as she rested her hands in her lap, “My tail? I guess it could be my “leg”, it has femurs in it after all, actually, it has no real vertebrae in it, so it's closer to a leg, that counts, right?”
The rat simply stared at her dumbfounded, and she stared back for several tense, uninterrupted seconds.
“Oooooo, scary footsies, oooooo.” Cal looked down to see Kuya rubbing her fluke on his foot. He promptly headed back into Walker's office.
“Very funny Mrs. Walker, now can you-”
Didn't I just tell you to find Kuya and leave? I can hear her outside my door begging you not to report her.”
“Well yes, but uh, how is she-”
Mrs Walker closed her eyes and inhaled, “Kuya and I are both Cetaceans, correct?”
“I guess so, I-”
“That was a rhetorical question.”
“Oh, well I-”
“And why have I not gotten up from my seat?”
“Is this rhet-”
“Because I, much like Kuya, am unable to stand, unable to walk, and have no legs. And despite not having them, I am still kicking you out of my office, now take Kuya to the job that was outsourced to you, and tell Bjell that I do not appreciate incompetent, middlemen in my presence.”
Cal hurriedly scooted out of the office for the second time, immediately Kuya anxiously rolled up to him, “You're not pissed about the footsies thing, right? I'm cool working with folks who aren't big on the whole touchy feely stuff, just lemme know...you okay dude?” Cal stared at her a moment and shook himself lucid, “No, no, its alright, you're uh, you're fine lets just go.” He turned toward the front door and the dolphin woman wheeled behind him.
“So how are you gonna-” Cal looked over to notice Kuya had already climbed in the passenger seat and was taking the wheels off of her chair. “Whad'ya say?” Cal rested his hands on the steering wheel as Kuya packed the components of her wheelchair into the backseat of his old sedan. “Nothing Ms. Kuya, if you're ready, lets get going.”Kuya reached behind to grab a water bottle from the pack on her chair's seat and got comfy.
“Hey, you never told me anything about where we're going, Cal?”
“Yeah, well I never told you my name either.”
“But Walker did, 'told me to expect you now then, where are we heading?”
“Castill Tannery. Its right across Caudal Bay-”
“Should'a took the company boat there, we could'a got there faster than driving.”
“Yeah, but the folks I work for want it loaded up in the back, and brought to them later today.”
“And they couldn't just send you across the Bay to our place, have you ride back in a boat, and have a car waiting?”
“Nope, They don't want to draw alot of attention to the place, boats and cars commuting back and forth tend to do that.”
“Makes sense,-” She pushed herself up with her arms from her sprawling slouch into a sitting position and shrugged, “-Say, what made you freak out so bad back there?” She watched as Cal uncomfortably shifted around in his seat and saw him quickly glance toward her tail, then back to the road, “You're uh, you're not what I was expecting.” the sound of flukes slapping the rubber floor mat startled him a moment as Kuya began to speak,
“Expecting a bipedal aquatic? In Caudal Bay?”
“Well, yes, sort of, I didn't know that your folk, uh, all the aquatics I know-”
“What kinds of aquatic folk?”
“Oh, you know, Otters, Beavers, Seals-”
“What kinda ears did those seals have?”
“Wha-short ones? Sort of short canine ones.”
“Figures, those aren't true seals, one of the other couriers, Oscar, he's a true seal, and if you took away all the extra land gear aquatics like us have, we'd all have to get around by dragging our lower halves behind us.” Kuya motioned to her tail,
Cal took a quick glance, shrugged and responded, “Ah, didn't know there were different types, by the way, whats so weird about looking for bipedal aquatics in Caudal Bay?”
The dolphin slouched back down into her seat as her tail unnaturally twisted around so that her flukes rested on the dashboard, “Did you pay attention to any of the buildings n the way here?” She pointed to the small shops that whizzed past the window.
“No, I haven't, what about them?” Cal said, unaware, or ignoring her gesturing to the street as he kept his eyes locked on the road.
“There are no stairs here man. Every shop, park and house here has ramps and rails all over it because most of the population is-” Cal side-eyed Kuya as she slapped the thigh portion of her tail, “Legless! Or, just not built for walking, or land life in general.”
“Ahh, Tell me, and stop me if this sounds bad-”
“Oh boy, Shoot my guy.”
“Why bother living on land then?”
Kuya closed her eyes and laid her head back, before Cal said any sort of apology, she spoke, “Whole state of Enivoda tried to “insensitivize” the aquatic tribes to move to the city they built by scolding the folks they allowed to dump pollution on us not 2 years before they finished it. Kinda surprising that Walker okay'd this job since the Tannery was one of the worst polluters in this part of the bay.” Cal glanced at her a moment, the interior of the car momentarily darkened, then was flooded with orange light as it passed into the tunnel that connected the isolated city to the rest of the coast.
“Huh, never heard of a tannery being one of the big polluters, its usually one of the larger factories that's reported for that.”
“Naw, the mega companies dumped that stuff into the ocean, and then herded the nearby aquatics to this place, but the Castill company was dumping it where it was cheap; right into the bay.”
“Goodness, and when did they shut down?”
“When it was convenient for the government, when most of the aquatic folk would rather drag themselves onto dry land and abide by the laws of the state then have to deal with reddening skin and eye irritation.” She opened her eyes halfway and stared at the passing yellow lights for a moment before speaking up again.“Man, Walker's lil' history lessons sure make me glad that I was born in the bay after that place was shut down. After the waters were cleaned.”
The sedan slowly approached the well worn chain link fence, and the tires stopped with a squelch in the thick mud in front of it. Cal immediately hopped out, and trudged his way up to the gate, Kuya watched him fiddle with it a while, and eventually rolled down the window to speak.
“So, I guess I'm leaving the chair in the car for this one?”
Cal was about to turn around and tell her that they were leaving when he saw the door open up and Kuya flop out onto the ground, with a grunt, she dragged herself forward with her arms, her tail did nothing of use aside from slap the car door shut behind her.
“W-what are you doing?” He scrambled over to her, but the dolphin slowly made her way to the fence.”
“What's it look like I'm doing?” She grabbed hold of the chainlink gate and with a groan began to pull herself upward, “I'm jumping it.”
Cal couldn't believe what he was hearing, let alone seeing, after a moment, he snapped out of his trance and scurried over to Kuya, concerns constantly spewing out of his mouth as he did so.
“Ya know what I don't get about you bipeds?” The abruptness of the question shut Cal up as he looked at her slack jawed. “How do ya'll live with your heads this high off the ground?”
Just then he realized that Kuya was eye level with him, and now pulling herself over the creaky fence, her tail, which offered her no help prior to this bent around, and helped her throw her weight over the barrier, she landed in the mud with a smack.
“Ahhh, the mud is even worse on this side, I swear, some of its in my wetsuit, gross...Anyway, hop on over here dude.” She began to make her way to the front entrance of the building, but noticed a peculiar lack of an expected sound, she twisted around to see Cal standing there inspecting the gate, annoyed, she called out to him, “Dude, whats takin' ya?”
Cal took another moment to look at the hinges on the gate, then back at her. “So how are we gonna get whatever s in there, into the car?” He saw Kuya's mouth open as if she were about to speak, then close as she pondered the question herself.
“Why don't you just...drive the car through the gate?”
“Won't someone hear that?”
“Cal, its an abandoned factory hated by most of the nearby folks, the only reason it hasn't burnt down yet is because its made of brick.”
“Good point, I'll wait till you're out of the way, and then I'll get on that.”
“Wait, Call, they're something important I need to tell you...” The Rat looked at the ever increasingly anxious dolphin and carefully asked, “What?” The dolphin pointed back to where she landed after climbing over the fence. “Look at the imprint my ass and tail made, what's that look like?” Cal looked at the imprint in the mud, then back at the dolphin as she squeak-laughed, unamused, he wordlessly got into his car and waited for her to recompose herself and crawl to safety.
Kuya watched the four-door crash through the frail gate, Cal slammed on the brakes, he had overestimated how sturdy the fence was and was now skidding through the mud, luckily his car stopped before getting too close to the actual building. He poked his head out of the passenger door and waited for Kuya to drag herself out of the doorway. “Why didn't we think of that before?”
“I trespass onto alotta places to deliver stuff, but I don't go burglarizing' houses, so I don't put alotta thought into jobs like this.” She rather ungracefully flipped herself around and returned inside, right as her flukes were about to enter the darkness of the derelict building she called out to Cal, “Hey, grab my goggles, and a flashlight from my bag, I don't wanna go blind if this stuff is still potent.”
Instead of an answer, she heard Cal start up the car again, and begin driving, before she could again turn herself around, and crawl out to see what was going on, he returned with her bag. “Had to turn the car around.” Cal said as he knelt down to hand the bag to Kuya, and turned on a flashlight of his own. He scanned around the dark room and saw nothing but old machinery, cobwebs, and a massive hole punched through the concrete floor, after approaching and looking down into he could see that the water from the bay had seeped into the basement of the building. “Who in the hell builds a basement right next to the ocean?” A now goggled Kuya shrugged in response. “You'll have to ask the Castills. If they're still anywhere in the state, probably aren't though.” and with that she slid into the water below.
Cal sat on the edge of the hole, occasionally he'd hear a bang, or tapping come from somewhere below, after about 5 minutes, Kuya surfaced, flashlight in one hand, wet, crumbled paper in the other.
“Hey, theres a whole bunch of small lockers down there, and some of em have cash in them!”
Cal knelt down and looked at the faded, muddy wad of bills.
“So there is something down here worth checking out after all. Nice, see anything else?” He watched Kuya pull herself onto the edge of the hole and began to organize her findings.
“Welp, aside from the lil' storage boxes, there's a pretty big safe that's stuck in the mud.”
With that, Cal's ears perked up enough for Kuya to take notice. He stood up and disappeared from view as he walked out of the doorway. The sound of clinking metal and the occasional huff from Cal could be heard as he brought a length of rusty chain inside.
“Saw this when we drove up here, This will probably help, right?” he handed the end of it to the dolphin who inspected it for a moment, then abruptly dove into the water while holding the portion she was given, Cal fed the chain as Kuya brought it to wherever the safe was. Right as Cal grew concerned about running out of chain, it stopped being pulled into the water, and once again, Kuya surfaced.
“Man, if there was something on that safe to hook that chain onto, we'd be set, but I had to almost wrap the whole thing 'round the safe. It looks dumb as hell, but it'll probably hold.” She watched as Cal looked back to the few feet of chain that he had to work with.
“It would have also have been easier if I had enough to hook onto the back of my car, but oh well. Push it and I'll pull it up.” Cal said as he readied himself.
“Was plannin' on that, lets go and get this thing up and outta the water.” Kuya disappeared below the murky water of the basement for the final time.
Cal huffed and heaved as he pulled wet link after wet link out of the water, his olive jacket now thrown on the floor of the room. Kuya pushed the heavy safe forward through the muddy floor, occasionally putting her back to it, and pushing against any structure sturdy enough with her tail. After what felt like hours, the two nearly had the safe out of the water. Kuya pulled herself out of the water and assisted however she could in helping Cal to drag the steel box up the side of the basement wall, with a loud grating sound, the vault fell to its side on the relatively dry concrete.
Cal sat on the metal box, panting and hung his head down in exhaustion, he turned to the sound of Kuya popping the joints in her tail, and then reclining while resting her upper body with her arms.
“I don't think I'm gonna be much help gettin' it out into the car.”
Cal nodded, he stood up, stretched, and was about to begin dragging their prize to the car, but froze when he heard the sound of clapping coming from outside. The clapping grew closer as the clapper entered the building,the light of the fading day behind them made it difficult to make out their features, but both knew this person's tall, thin, hunched. Silhouette.
“B'jell!” both exclaimed, although with very different emotions behind their voices.
B'jell approached the duo, his body hunched forward even more as he walked, until he was bent down far enough to be eye-to-eye with Cal.
“Mister Winslow! I see you have procured what was promised to me, but-” His lidless yellow eyes intensified their glare toward Cal. “-I hear you have upset one of my favourite business partners with your...insensitivity, is this true?”
Cal stammered an answer, but before he could, B'jell turned toward Kuya, lowering himself to be eye level with her as he did so.
“And look at you Ms. Kuya, breaking into private property and stealing? What would Walker think?”
“Man, you know good and well she'd think I learned it by watching you!”
Cal watched the legless dolphin and 2.1 meter cockroach share a laugh as he desperately thought of moving back to Tygabush county for a sense of normality, B'jells voice snapped him out of it.
“Well, I thank you for leaving the keys in your vehicle Mister Winslow, Chell already has the engine running. As for this-”
Before Cal could object, B'jell picked the safe up by the chain, and began pulling it apart, a link popped and the sound of groaning metal made Cal's teeth hurt. With one hand B'jell lifted the safe off the floor by the chain and began to walk outside with it, Cal followed, unable to put his thoughts into words. B'jell popped the trunk and carelessly dropped the safe into it, the thought of his car's shocks almost made Cal physically ill.
“Thank you for your business Mister Winslow, I'll be sure to contact you again!” B'jell uncomfortably slide into the passenger seat, and the car began to speed off toward the main road.
Now that B'jell wasn't directly in his line of sight, Cal found his voice and yelled out, “wait, WAIT, STOP, IT HAS SEATS IN THE BA-MY CAR!!!”
“MY WHEELCHAIR!!!” Kuya almost mockingly yelled out as she dragged herself over. “Don't worry, I know B'jell, your baby is likely gonna turn up in the Seatrails parking lot in about a day or two.”
Cal didn't respond, he just watched his beige sedan disappear from sight and sighed, he felt a tug on his tail and spun around.
Kuya was holding the waterlogged bills in her hand and pointed over Cal's shoulder. “Wanna grab a bite to eat?”
Cal looked at the fast food sign down the road. Despite being so far away it towered over the dead trees that surrounded him. Its sign began to glow against the pink twilight sky. Something about the scene calmed him, and the absurdity of taking solace in a burger sign amused him.
“Yeah, sure, lets get out of here.”
“She'll see you now.” The amphibian cooed as she opened the door to the spartan office. Cal gave her a brief nod in acknowledgment and nervously stepped inside of the room that felt more like a hastily built, carpeted addition than an actual office. His gaze settled on the only other occupant in the room; a sleek, black female creature, with a bulbous snout, and eyes set low on the sides of her head that stared at him in unimpressed boredom. Her elbows were planted firmly on her desk while her hands were clasped together, loosely holding a pen over paperwork that, upon glancing at it, Cal saw his name on.
“Thank you Mimi, you may go now.” the strange woman motioned a hand to the tree frog holding open the door, who promptly shut it behind her, leaving Cal alone with the woman behind the desk who seemed to stare him down from her seat, after a few tense moments she called out, “Cal Winslow?” The rat fumbled a bit as he heard his name cut through the air.
“Y-yes, yes ma'am that is me!” he all too enthusiastically walked over, leaving his hand out to be shaken.
The woman simply stared at his paw, then turned her cold gaze back up to meet his. “Have a seat Mr. Winslow.” Cal gulped as quietly as he could and quickly did as she said, once he was actually seated in front of her, she continued to stare at him, Cal uncomfortably diverted his gaze and took the uncomfortable silence as an opportunity to speak.
“Uh...You're Mrs. Walker, right?” She motioned toward the bronze plaque on her desk that confirmed her name and followed up,
“And you were referred to me by whom?” Cal cringed slightly at his dumb question,
“An insectoid man by the name of Bjell-” He watched as Walkers cold annoyance turned into quiet frustration as she cradled her head in her hands and inhaled sharply through a nostril like hole on the top of her snout. Cal shifted uncomfortably in his chair as Walker recomposed herself. “I'm going to assume your business is on the mainland?” Cal nodded and motioned to his side. “Its right on the edge of the bay-”
“Take Kuya.”
“-But you don't even kno-”
“Bjell wants Castill Tannery's flooded basement picked through. Do not ever tell me what I do, and do not know. Take Kuya and leave.”
Without another word, Cal left his seat and hurried out the small office and back into the main warehouse. After scanning the large room, he found a lone worker in outdoor running attire and approached. “You must be Kuya, yes?” The otter in front of him scoffed and pointed toward the loading area, Cal gave the irritated man a nervous “Thank You” and wandered over to the more cluttered end of the warehouse, after being unable to see another soul he called out, “...Kuya?” A head, similar to Mrs. Walker's but bluish grey, more streamlined, and with a longer snout popped up behind some boxes in the back of the room in response to his query.
“Ya, that's me! You a client?”
“Yes, I was told to meet with you for a reclamation job.”
Kuya perked up at the word, “Ah, I haven't been on one of those in a while! C'mon, we'll walk and talk.” Cal nodded in agreement as Kuya came from around the boxes, and the two began to head for the front door. Something irked Cal, and not three steps in he turned to look back at Kuya to confirm what it was. “You....Your legs.” He said in confused horror.
Kuya looked puzzled at the man, and then followed where his accusatory finger pointed. “Oh yeah, dude this sports chair is cool as he-”
Cal cut her off and pointed again at her lower body, reiterating his point, “YOUR. LEGS.”
Kuya looked down at her tail, and her flukes reflexively flapped as she rested her hands in her lap, “My tail? I guess it could be my “leg”, it has femurs in it after all, actually, it has no real vertebrae in it, so it's closer to a leg, that counts, right?”
The rat simply stared at her dumbfounded, and she stared back for several tense, uninterrupted seconds.
“Oooooo, scary footsies, oooooo.” Cal looked down to see Kuya rubbing her fluke on his foot. He promptly headed back into Walker's office.
“Very funny Mrs. Walker, now can you-”
Didn't I just tell you to find Kuya and leave? I can hear her outside my door begging you not to report her.”
“Well yes, but uh, how is she-”
Mrs Walker closed her eyes and inhaled, “Kuya and I are both Cetaceans, correct?”
“I guess so, I-”
“That was a rhetorical question.”
“Oh, well I-”
“And why have I not gotten up from my seat?”
“Is this rhet-”
“Because I, much like Kuya, am unable to stand, unable to walk, and have no legs. And despite not having them, I am still kicking you out of my office, now take Kuya to the job that was outsourced to you, and tell Bjell that I do not appreciate incompetent, middlemen in my presence.”
Cal hurriedly scooted out of the office for the second time, immediately Kuya anxiously rolled up to him, “You're not pissed about the footsies thing, right? I'm cool working with folks who aren't big on the whole touchy feely stuff, just lemme know...you okay dude?” Cal stared at her a moment and shook himself lucid, “No, no, its alright, you're uh, you're fine lets just go.” He turned toward the front door and the dolphin woman wheeled behind him.
“So how are you gonna-” Cal looked over to notice Kuya had already climbed in the passenger seat and was taking the wheels off of her chair. “Whad'ya say?” Cal rested his hands on the steering wheel as Kuya packed the components of her wheelchair into the backseat of his old sedan. “Nothing Ms. Kuya, if you're ready, lets get going.”Kuya reached behind to grab a water bottle from the pack on her chair's seat and got comfy.
“Hey, you never told me anything about where we're going, Cal?”
“Yeah, well I never told you my name either.”
“But Walker did, 'told me to expect you now then, where are we heading?”
“Castill Tannery. Its right across Caudal Bay-”
“Should'a took the company boat there, we could'a got there faster than driving.”
“Yeah, but the folks I work for want it loaded up in the back, and brought to them later today.”
“And they couldn't just send you across the Bay to our place, have you ride back in a boat, and have a car waiting?”
“Nope, They don't want to draw alot of attention to the place, boats and cars commuting back and forth tend to do that.”
“Makes sense,-” She pushed herself up with her arms from her sprawling slouch into a sitting position and shrugged, “-Say, what made you freak out so bad back there?” She watched as Cal uncomfortably shifted around in his seat and saw him quickly glance toward her tail, then back to the road, “You're uh, you're not what I was expecting.” the sound of flukes slapping the rubber floor mat startled him a moment as Kuya began to speak,
“Expecting a bipedal aquatic? In Caudal Bay?”
“Well, yes, sort of, I didn't know that your folk, uh, all the aquatics I know-”
“What kinds of aquatic folk?”
“Oh, you know, Otters, Beavers, Seals-”
“What kinda ears did those seals have?”
“Wha-short ones? Sort of short canine ones.”
“Figures, those aren't true seals, one of the other couriers, Oscar, he's a true seal, and if you took away all the extra land gear aquatics like us have, we'd all have to get around by dragging our lower halves behind us.” Kuya motioned to her tail,
Cal took a quick glance, shrugged and responded, “Ah, didn't know there were different types, by the way, whats so weird about looking for bipedal aquatics in Caudal Bay?”
The dolphin slouched back down into her seat as her tail unnaturally twisted around so that her flukes rested on the dashboard, “Did you pay attention to any of the buildings n the way here?” She pointed to the small shops that whizzed past the window.
“No, I haven't, what about them?” Cal said, unaware, or ignoring her gesturing to the street as he kept his eyes locked on the road.
“There are no stairs here man. Every shop, park and house here has ramps and rails all over it because most of the population is-” Cal side-eyed Kuya as she slapped the thigh portion of her tail, “Legless! Or, just not built for walking, or land life in general.”
“Ahh, Tell me, and stop me if this sounds bad-”
“Oh boy, Shoot my guy.”
“Why bother living on land then?”
Kuya closed her eyes and laid her head back, before Cal said any sort of apology, she spoke, “Whole state of Enivoda tried to “insensitivize” the aquatic tribes to move to the city they built by scolding the folks they allowed to dump pollution on us not 2 years before they finished it. Kinda surprising that Walker okay'd this job since the Tannery was one of the worst polluters in this part of the bay.” Cal glanced at her a moment, the interior of the car momentarily darkened, then was flooded with orange light as it passed into the tunnel that connected the isolated city to the rest of the coast.
“Huh, never heard of a tannery being one of the big polluters, its usually one of the larger factories that's reported for that.”
“Naw, the mega companies dumped that stuff into the ocean, and then herded the nearby aquatics to this place, but the Castill company was dumping it where it was cheap; right into the bay.”
“Goodness, and when did they shut down?”
“When it was convenient for the government, when most of the aquatic folk would rather drag themselves onto dry land and abide by the laws of the state then have to deal with reddening skin and eye irritation.” She opened her eyes halfway and stared at the passing yellow lights for a moment before speaking up again.“Man, Walker's lil' history lessons sure make me glad that I was born in the bay after that place was shut down. After the waters were cleaned.”
The sedan slowly approached the well worn chain link fence, and the tires stopped with a squelch in the thick mud in front of it. Cal immediately hopped out, and trudged his way up to the gate, Kuya watched him fiddle with it a while, and eventually rolled down the window to speak.
“So, I guess I'm leaving the chair in the car for this one?”
Cal was about to turn around and tell her that they were leaving when he saw the door open up and Kuya flop out onto the ground, with a grunt, she dragged herself forward with her arms, her tail did nothing of use aside from slap the car door shut behind her.
“W-what are you doing?” He scrambled over to her, but the dolphin slowly made her way to the fence.”
“What's it look like I'm doing?” She grabbed hold of the chainlink gate and with a groan began to pull herself upward, “I'm jumping it.”
Cal couldn't believe what he was hearing, let alone seeing, after a moment, he snapped out of his trance and scurried over to Kuya, concerns constantly spewing out of his mouth as he did so.
“Ya know what I don't get about you bipeds?” The abruptness of the question shut Cal up as he looked at her slack jawed. “How do ya'll live with your heads this high off the ground?”
Just then he realized that Kuya was eye level with him, and now pulling herself over the creaky fence, her tail, which offered her no help prior to this bent around, and helped her throw her weight over the barrier, she landed in the mud with a smack.
“Ahhh, the mud is even worse on this side, I swear, some of its in my wetsuit, gross...Anyway, hop on over here dude.” She began to make her way to the front entrance of the building, but noticed a peculiar lack of an expected sound, she twisted around to see Cal standing there inspecting the gate, annoyed, she called out to him, “Dude, whats takin' ya?”
Cal took another moment to look at the hinges on the gate, then back at her. “So how are we gonna get whatever s in there, into the car?” He saw Kuya's mouth open as if she were about to speak, then close as she pondered the question herself.
“Why don't you just...drive the car through the gate?”
“Won't someone hear that?”
“Cal, its an abandoned factory hated by most of the nearby folks, the only reason it hasn't burnt down yet is because its made of brick.”
“Good point, I'll wait till you're out of the way, and then I'll get on that.”
“Wait, Call, they're something important I need to tell you...” The Rat looked at the ever increasingly anxious dolphin and carefully asked, “What?” The dolphin pointed back to where she landed after climbing over the fence. “Look at the imprint my ass and tail made, what's that look like?” Cal looked at the imprint in the mud, then back at the dolphin as she squeak-laughed, unamused, he wordlessly got into his car and waited for her to recompose herself and crawl to safety.
Kuya watched the four-door crash through the frail gate, Cal slammed on the brakes, he had overestimated how sturdy the fence was and was now skidding through the mud, luckily his car stopped before getting too close to the actual building. He poked his head out of the passenger door and waited for Kuya to drag herself out of the doorway. “Why didn't we think of that before?”
“I trespass onto alotta places to deliver stuff, but I don't go burglarizing' houses, so I don't put alotta thought into jobs like this.” She rather ungracefully flipped herself around and returned inside, right as her flukes were about to enter the darkness of the derelict building she called out to Cal, “Hey, grab my goggles, and a flashlight from my bag, I don't wanna go blind if this stuff is still potent.”
Instead of an answer, she heard Cal start up the car again, and begin driving, before she could again turn herself around, and crawl out to see what was going on, he returned with her bag. “Had to turn the car around.” Cal said as he knelt down to hand the bag to Kuya, and turned on a flashlight of his own. He scanned around the dark room and saw nothing but old machinery, cobwebs, and a massive hole punched through the concrete floor, after approaching and looking down into he could see that the water from the bay had seeped into the basement of the building. “Who in the hell builds a basement right next to the ocean?” A now goggled Kuya shrugged in response. “You'll have to ask the Castills. If they're still anywhere in the state, probably aren't though.” and with that she slid into the water below.
Cal sat on the edge of the hole, occasionally he'd hear a bang, or tapping come from somewhere below, after about 5 minutes, Kuya surfaced, flashlight in one hand, wet, crumbled paper in the other.
“Hey, theres a whole bunch of small lockers down there, and some of em have cash in them!”
Cal knelt down and looked at the faded, muddy wad of bills.
“So there is something down here worth checking out after all. Nice, see anything else?” He watched Kuya pull herself onto the edge of the hole and began to organize her findings.
“Welp, aside from the lil' storage boxes, there's a pretty big safe that's stuck in the mud.”
With that, Cal's ears perked up enough for Kuya to take notice. He stood up and disappeared from view as he walked out of the doorway. The sound of clinking metal and the occasional huff from Cal could be heard as he brought a length of rusty chain inside.
“Saw this when we drove up here, This will probably help, right?” he handed the end of it to the dolphin who inspected it for a moment, then abruptly dove into the water while holding the portion she was given, Cal fed the chain as Kuya brought it to wherever the safe was. Right as Cal grew concerned about running out of chain, it stopped being pulled into the water, and once again, Kuya surfaced.
“Man, if there was something on that safe to hook that chain onto, we'd be set, but I had to almost wrap the whole thing 'round the safe. It looks dumb as hell, but it'll probably hold.” She watched as Cal looked back to the few feet of chain that he had to work with.
“It would have also have been easier if I had enough to hook onto the back of my car, but oh well. Push it and I'll pull it up.” Cal said as he readied himself.
“Was plannin' on that, lets go and get this thing up and outta the water.” Kuya disappeared below the murky water of the basement for the final time.
Cal huffed and heaved as he pulled wet link after wet link out of the water, his olive jacket now thrown on the floor of the room. Kuya pushed the heavy safe forward through the muddy floor, occasionally putting her back to it, and pushing against any structure sturdy enough with her tail. After what felt like hours, the two nearly had the safe out of the water. Kuya pulled herself out of the water and assisted however she could in helping Cal to drag the steel box up the side of the basement wall, with a loud grating sound, the vault fell to its side on the relatively dry concrete.
Cal sat on the metal box, panting and hung his head down in exhaustion, he turned to the sound of Kuya popping the joints in her tail, and then reclining while resting her upper body with her arms.
“I don't think I'm gonna be much help gettin' it out into the car.”
Cal nodded, he stood up, stretched, and was about to begin dragging their prize to the car, but froze when he heard the sound of clapping coming from outside. The clapping grew closer as the clapper entered the building,the light of the fading day behind them made it difficult to make out their features, but both knew this person's tall, thin, hunched. Silhouette.
“B'jell!” both exclaimed, although with very different emotions behind their voices.
B'jell approached the duo, his body hunched forward even more as he walked, until he was bent down far enough to be eye-to-eye with Cal.
“Mister Winslow! I see you have procured what was promised to me, but-” His lidless yellow eyes intensified their glare toward Cal. “-I hear you have upset one of my favourite business partners with your...insensitivity, is this true?”
Cal stammered an answer, but before he could, B'jell turned toward Kuya, lowering himself to be eye level with her as he did so.
“And look at you Ms. Kuya, breaking into private property and stealing? What would Walker think?”
“Man, you know good and well she'd think I learned it by watching you!”
Cal watched the legless dolphin and 2.1 meter cockroach share a laugh as he desperately thought of moving back to Tygabush county for a sense of normality, B'jells voice snapped him out of it.
“Well, I thank you for leaving the keys in your vehicle Mister Winslow, Chell already has the engine running. As for this-”
Before Cal could object, B'jell picked the safe up by the chain, and began pulling it apart, a link popped and the sound of groaning metal made Cal's teeth hurt. With one hand B'jell lifted the safe off the floor by the chain and began to walk outside with it, Cal followed, unable to put his thoughts into words. B'jell popped the trunk and carelessly dropped the safe into it, the thought of his car's shocks almost made Cal physically ill.
“Thank you for your business Mister Winslow, I'll be sure to contact you again!” B'jell uncomfortably slide into the passenger seat, and the car began to speed off toward the main road.
Now that B'jell wasn't directly in his line of sight, Cal found his voice and yelled out, “wait, WAIT, STOP, IT HAS SEATS IN THE BA-MY CAR!!!”
“MY WHEELCHAIR!!!” Kuya almost mockingly yelled out as she dragged herself over. “Don't worry, I know B'jell, your baby is likely gonna turn up in the Seatrails parking lot in about a day or two.”
Cal didn't respond, he just watched his beige sedan disappear from sight and sighed, he felt a tug on his tail and spun around.
Kuya was holding the waterlogged bills in her hand and pointed over Cal's shoulder. “Wanna grab a bite to eat?”
Cal looked at the fast food sign down the road. Despite being so far away it towered over the dead trees that surrounded him. Its sign began to glow against the pink twilight sky. Something about the scene calmed him, and the absurdity of taking solace in a burger sign amused him.
“Yeah, sure, lets get out of here.”
Category Story / All
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