บท 99: Chapter 15: Sadie's Search
The start of the journey was anything but chaotic. Sadie Allen cruised through the calm waters at breakneck speed and quickly entered the chaotic waters at high noon, when the waters are still rather acceptable. The waves that were described to be big enough to swallow gigantic ships are merely ripples in comparison at this very moment, and he has knew he is in the realm of the chaotic seas when the color and feel of the water changed suddenly.
Instead of the endless calm that accompanied him in the beginning, there are gentle displacements of the particles that began to push the craft from side to side. It is still completely manageable though, so Sadie simply charged on. He had his very first ration and set the course to continue forward as another hours passed, and as he looked onwards to the endless blue in front of him, the heights of the waves began to become ever bigger.
This is where the real challenge begins.
The current plan is for him to travel in the day under the protection of the sun if he could and avoid the waves at night by anchoring down and securing the boat in anyway he can. And it appeared that will have to be the case very very soon. He went up around the ship and did a final check on all the items and secured them in place before returning to the pilot's seat. He has carefully welded and secured an entire roof over the rafts and tested it underwater to ensure the security of everything, though the pressure he would experience under the constant crashing of the waves will be magnitudes higher than what he could recreate in the calm waters.
He will simply have to live with the risk, or die with it. That may be the will of fate.
Sadie may not have realized it, but soon he was moving more and more vertically and side to side than he was making progress forwards. The waves aren't exactly going in the direction that he wanted it to go to.
Perhaps it is time to strap in.
Sadie thought to himself, as the algorithm that he wrote lets out a beep in the raft's system and alerts him of this very suggestion. He pressed the buttons to release the pair of anchors into the ground and quietly waits for the confirmation.
A minute passed, and another.
Five more went by, and there was still no news of anchor impact.
Finally, the anchors reached the end and gently jolts on the boat. The issue is that it haven't reached the bottom.
Sadie can feel water on his face, and that didn't come from the leakage. There are no data on the depth of the Chaotic Seas, and he prepared the longest wires that he was able to find on the island. Still it is not enough to reach the very bottom. His first plan has failed.
The rocking of the boat became ever more intense, as the waves now sends it on a slope and everything was tilted to the side.
His primary plan may have failed, but Sadie kept the anchors deep beneath in the ocean. They may not be secured the sea bed, but they could act like sails underneath the water and provide some measure of resistance against the displacements of the waves at the very least. He will just have to work with what he has got now.
The primary plan may have failed, but Sadie will simply continue to move forward. The path of the Hercules does not end here.
This journey continued for another two days as he marched deeper and deeper into the territories of the chaotic seas, By looking at the GPS data, he has just entered the belly of this parts, where the raging ocean is at its full force. And it is then that regardless of how magnificent those statues in the exhibits are, the waves are way bigger in reality.
Within the stones, the waves are depicted to be size of great buildings compared to the lonely craft, but in reality, they are like mountains moving at the speed at high speed trains by the time Sadie have gotten to the belly of the chaotic seas. Most of the time, he felt like he is sailing uphill or downhill, and he had to constantly pay attention to what all the waves are doing around him and avoid being in the middle of two mountain sized waves breaking on top of him.
Perhaps he should have tried to find a submarine.
By this time, he has already lost one anchor to a native sea weed that tangled it up. It provided a stable night of sleep for him through the night, but he knew he had to let it go in the morning. He retracted the second one and kept it aboard, providing a bit of stability by having it near the bottom of the raft if anything.
All of the algorithms he has developed over the preparation months came in handy, as they detects in coming waves and suggests upcoming manuvres to stay out of the way. So far, it's been working out great.
By the time he has gotten past the worst of the chaotic seas, he has been operating on stimulation pills and restless for another day or two. The body's sleep response was shut off by the medicine, though he has finally made it through the roughest patches of the water. The heights of the waves are less and less in the morning today compared to yesterday, and when he was at the peaks of the waves, he can see dots of land in the far reaches of the horizon.
He has made it.
In the next morning, the water was exceptionally calm as he are finally on the other side of the chaotic seas, and as the effects of the medicine subsides, he allowed himself half an hour of sleep.
He was knocked out the moment his head touches the back of his lower chair, and the now deformed roof top are the only preventing him from getting wet all of the time. He stinks of sweat, and barely had time to do anything for personal hygiene, but as far as he know, he will be the only being on this side of the sea.
The water was calm, and so was his sleep. Then, he fell vertically.
Rather the craft was.
Sadie Allen's eyes shot open and the first thing he saw through the window was the ocean. He shot up into the seat and made it vertical in an instant and saw that the raft is plummeting right into the depths of the ocean in the middle of a gigantic whirlpool!
He must be close to the land if the tidal whirl pools are an effect! Sadie cursed about his carelessness, as the formations of whirlpools due to tidal counter currents when seas meet aren't exactly anything out of the ordinary, and since his ship isn't exactly large enough to just go over the whirl pool, he now finds himself right in the middle of one! And of course his algorithms will not alert him of anything since the water is calm, except for this massive drop.
There is nothing he can do at this moment except to brace for impact, though by looking down at the still endless descend into the black hole of the ocean, he is not sure if the raft will be able to survive it. Thankfully, they are still not in the state of free falling as the surface tension of the water keeps the raft glued to its near vertical surface.
Sadie reached out to the compartment next to him and puts on the diving kit, and prepared for the inevitable impact. As the diameter of the opening became gradually reduced by the impact, and the raft finally reached the origin of the whirl pool, the roof above his head was immediately torn off in an instant before the entire raft was thrown into a spin like a car being rammed into from the side as water filled the entire compartment in an instant.
Sadie was almost thrown out of the boat but was luckily secured in place. It is not the first time that he encountered the cold shock, and he attuned his body to the sudden decrease in temperature and overrode the instincts with his sharp determination and calm. Despite the crucial mistake he has made, there is no time for emotion, only action.
He reached out to the still barely secured floating supplies box near the back of the raft and took it, disengaging both himself and the box from the sinking raft as it carries him upwards. During the ascend, Sadie made sure to scane the sea bed all around him, and selected the safest passage with waves going towards the near shore. That means he will need to paddle away from the current area first, as the local rock formations are simply way too dangerous nearby.
One could only look at the big picture by taking a step back first.
Another of his father's life lesson popped into his head at this moment, and it only motivates Sadie to paddle even harder.
He would have met his end there due to the carelessness if not for his careful preparation, and still he was caught off guard and lost his raft in the process. Sadie has no time to think about how he may return, as there is even no telling if he will be able to get to the first island in front of him.
Then, he saw formations of gigantic Herculean fish swimming in formation towards the shore from the calmer waters another thirty meters to the side of him. That's his path!
Another another hour of struggle, Sadie found himself lying down on the rocky beach of the first of the Beyond islands, named by obvious reasons. He has made it.
He has finally made it.
Forcing himself to stand up, he looked on at the barren island with none of the lush greens of his home town or even grass fields of the islands in the warmer areas. There were merely mosses on cold sharp rocks and that's about all of he greenery he will be getting today. That's a worry for another time though, if it really came down to it, those giant Herculean fishes could at least make for some delicious meals once he has deactivated the toxins in their body.
And of course, he has prepared for it.
Letting out a long sigh of relief, he dragged the box onto higher grounds with some protective rock cover, took out his all condition sleeping bags and went for a well deserved sleep. The proximity detection systems on on the box and the underwater pistol in his belt ready for anything.
This time, he woke up naturally after about six hours, and to his pleasant surprise, he didn't see oceans in front of him the moment he opened his eyes. The sun has fallen to the edge of the sky as the only lights he sees are the flashing from the emergency lights of the supply box. It was a well deserved sleep, necessary but not sufficient. Sadie sat up and grabbed a drink of water and a little snack before he stood up and dragged the box along with him to find a better place to sleep in on the island. The gusts of wind around began to pick up with every second the sun is going down, so he needed to act fast.
Turning on the flash lights attached to his body as well as that of his supply box, Sadie continued charging onward. The terrains of this island is sharpened by years of wind blowing and is actually extremely rough to walk on. The patches of moss on the rocks underneath his feet doesn't exactly make the entire ordeal easier either. He is looking for a dip in the terrain that will at least be a decent shelter from the extreme winds, a cave would be even better.
The island is a little bigger than the common islands he was on that can easily house a village of a few hundred, and it took about an hour of walking in the dark for him to enter the 'inland' of this island. There are slightly thicker vegetation in this area, though there are still no signs of any animals. Truly nothing happens in the dark on Hercules 2. The wind is slightly reduced after a sharp drop of about 2 meters, and it seemed like Sadie found a great camping spot for the night.
The small drop is just enough to shield him from the majority of the winds that blows from right above him. Sadie locked down the supply box against the stone wall and secured it tightly. Then he set up the tiny tent that's barely bigger than his all purpose sleeping back and went out to scout the environment. The drop he is currently is shaped roughly like a circle of twenty meters in diameter, and there are some moisture collected in patches here. Thick bushes formed a neat circular block around the middle of the circular drop, and Sadie walked all around it trying to see what's inside.
He felt a gentle tingle on his face at times, and the flashlight on his suit fizzled, blinked and was shut off.
Sadie gave it a slap, tried turning it on and off, but the simple electronic has no response. The tingle throughout his body is still there, and it's now starting to become irritating. He scratched his face and tried to get rid of the sensation, but it is of little use.
'Something weird is going on.' Sadie thought, as he took a step back and checked his flashlight. To his surprise, it turned on again, and the tingling sensation on his face is gone too.
'Something really weird is going on.' Sadie shined the light towards the bush and tried to see if something is behind it as his brain quickly worked through the knowledge of local plantation. This is the simple Herculean bush, there is no doubt about it. He reaches the flashlight forward, and it fizzled out once again when it reaches the 'tingle face' space, and his hand is feeling it too.
So this strange phenomena is spatially dependent.
Having something this strange in his natural bedroom certainly won't guarantee a good night of sleep he desperately needs. Just as he thought he has gotten everything under his control, reality really did throw a wrench at his plans. In that case, he will figure out what exactly is going on here. Putting the flashlight down by where he is standing, Sadie carefully stepped forward, reached out with his hand and slowly splits apart the thick bushes before taking a look at what's hidden beyond.
The tingling sensation enveloped his entire body, and he saw a pillar on the other side of the bushes, sitting on top of the pillar is a strange item that he couldn't tell from this distance.
Making sure once more that the bush is indeed the Herculean bush that nobody ever paid any attention to and not a bee hive, Sadie stepped a big step into the space beyond and stood right in front of the pillar. With the dim lights of the night sky, and he barely make out the shape of the thing on the pillar. It's shaped like a silvery ball with paths that seemed like circuits decorating all over it. Purple pulses travel through this item and slowly matches up with the pulsing of his heart. A strange sense of power emanates from this ball, and Sadie's whole attention is instantly captured by it.
Swallowing hard, Sadie reached out with his hand and tried to pick it up. The ball latched onto his body the moment his skin made contact with it, and it disappeared from right within his hand in an instant. No, it disappeared into his body in an instant! Sadie can feel a surge of energy travelling from his right hand and spreading all the way out into his body before the surge reflected from his extremities and centered near his heart.
He was about to regret the very action, but in actuality, he felt strangely...great. Still, that was extremely weird.
The pillar in front of him decayed away in the wind, and the bushes around it withered into piles of dry wood that will actually come it very handy for a nice camp fire.
'XNSundjOV...NBVDS.'
A strange unrecognizable language and a voice that breaks in and out of his hearing came from behind him and Sadie spun around at an lightning speed, the pistol already in hand by the time he turned around. Standing right behind him, is a being from the now extinct species that originally populated Hercules 2.
'Is.....HUDSAHUnundfa.....Transla.....jddbdshffINSDAB.....Prrocessingsdajsd....' The being continued to talk, now there are some semblence of words in what he said, and he can finally hear the full sentences of what he is saying. But still, Sadie is just too shocked at this moment to do anything. He still held the pistol in his hand and it's still pointed at the being right in front of him, but his entire body froze up.
The constant blowing wind of the background also faded away as the brightness of his surroundings begin to be raised and it almost felt like high noon after a few seconds. Now, all he can see is the being right in front of him, and all he can hear is his voice.
'Is....Dsahdsnud...Working...Process...ADisdnabf...speech...SaSDAUH?'
'What?' Sadie asked from underneath his breath, his mouth
'Is the translation working, can you process my speech?'
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