Voyager

[Pippi]

It was one hell of a rainy day in Salem.

The sky was a pure, uniform, dark grey, clouds covering the entire city, unleashing torrential torment on the buildings and sidewalks and tramlines and statues of mid-20th century sitcom actresses nestled down below, all the typical sorta stuff any city worth its salt was required to have. And this wasn’t, like, a nice light drizzle of rain, the sorta shower that dads across the country would look out the window at and say, as one, ‘Well, the lawn needed that.’ Nah, this was proper rain, a storm missing only the lightning and thunder and that sorta fun stuff, raindrops rat-a-tat-tatting against windows and car roofs and awnings and leaving huge puddles in their wake.

So, like, in short, the exact kinda weather that went hand-in-hand with staying at home, wrapping up in blankets, and drinking a nice warm cup of hot chocolate. And the exact kinda weather that Jess Kawazoe could not get enough of wandering around in.

It wasn’t exactly easy to tell that it was Jess out here, though. She wasn’t dumb enough to wear her usual ensemble in weather like this, especially not with her health as cruddy as it was. Out went the familiar sight of crop top, short shorts and knee socks, in came a big puffy maroon jacket with the hood up, black windpants, and a pair of hiking boots that her mom had used once before letting them languish in a cupboard. In terms of aesthetics it was a solid 0/10 on the looks scale, but she guessed sacrificing style for ‘not getting drenched and dying of hypothermia’ was a pretty alright tradeoff.

“Hmmm…”

She rested her arms on the railing looking over a stretch of the yacht club’s marina, and gazed out at the row of boats moored there, swaying and bobbing on the waves. The sea was just as slate grey as the sky - if you looked towards the horizon it was pretty absolutely impossible to tell where one ended and the other began - and although the water wasn’t quite at the stage of washing over and engulfing the jetties, it was definitely rough enough to give anyone who suffered from seasickness a pretty nasty time. Which, like, Jess didn’t actually know if she was or not! She’d never actually set foot on a boat in her entire life before.

If everything went swimmingly (hehe (actually, hopefully not, she didn’t know if she could swim either)), that was about to change now.

Humming to herself from behind her mask, Jess made her way towards the steps leading down to the marina, moving juuuust a little faster than she really oughta. The metal stairs had gotten particularly friendly with the rain and were now slick with water and covered in puddles, and like a fly to honey, or like a clown to a banana peel, her foot pressed down onto one of these particularly rainslicked patches.

“Whoa, Jesus, shit!”

Her arms windmilled, fast enough that they were pretty close to keeping her upright by virtue of making her hover in the frickin' air, before her hand instinctively snatched out at the handrail next to her, grabbing it firmly despite the coating of water, and leaving her with her feet on different steps, her back arched backwards, and her hands grabbing the railings like it was the last piece of driftwood floating away from a shipwreck.

She waited for her breathing to steady itself and for her heart to relocate itself back into her chest, before she pulled herself back upright, giving a little nervous laugh and then a sigh of relief. Her hood had slipped off of her head during her almost-fall, and Jess considered pulling it back up for a hot second before leaving it as it was. Her hair was totally soaked through, now; putting her hood back up would be kinda like slapping a band-aid onto the stump of a freshly lopped off arm.

Man, this was exactly why ‘When it rains, no drains!’ was a thing.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Sometimes when the going gets rough a day comes along that calls out with one clear and simple message; walk along the harbor, make a gun with your fingers, and pretend to shoot the seabirds.

Amaryllis was having just one of those days. Unfortunately, the birds didn't get the memo. Gun-shy and gull-less she walked alone, headphones in her ears, high as a kite. She didn't usually wear a mask outside, but this time she had one on and paired it with some dark sunglasses, the pandemic's unofficial high-in-public regalia. But the glasses were in her pocket now, blurried with raindrops early in the arc of the storm before it got bad enough for her to put up her red umbrella. Amaryllis had considered wiping them off and putting them back on, but the clouds covered and darkened the sky,

The umbrella—of course, she'd seen this storm coming. She was wearing a slightly oversized gray-green rain jacket over her usual clothes and had sheathed her combat boots in clear galoshes. There was a bit of a chill. It gave her shoulders the shivers. That was the sea-breeze, salted and pure. On a bad day she'd feel allergic to it, it made her sneeze so, so much, much sniffling she'd suffer and puffy her face would get, get all fuzzy and she wouldn't be able to face anyone, anyone or a mirror.

But today was kind. The rain watered down the salt in the air.

Eventually her harbor-walk lead her around to the marina, above waters swelling with sailboats and coils of rope. Quickly she saw that she was not alone in her fondness of rainy walks, as she spied someone walking some ways ahead of her in an (oddly familiar yet implacably so) awfully unfashionable off-burgundy jacket. Amaryllis slowed her walk as she neared the metal steps, wanting to let this other person pass on if they could. Then they turned down the stairs—okay, she thought, maybe they own a boat and left something there, or maybe they want to take an artsy picture or something, but otherwise there's no reason to be down there on that shaky, awful marina.

And awfully shaky it proved to be, as not a moment later the jacketed one slipped down and swore. For a second, Amaryllis felt her pulse quicken, before the person righted themselves and stood straight. Thank God. That could have turned ugly. The stairs were absolutely slick with rain, she saw as she drew nearer to that person whom she now recognized as a classmate of hers, one Jess Kawazoe, now caught without a hood in the downpour. Amaryllis descended slowly down the first couple of steps to Jess and lifted her umbrella up above to cover the both of them.

"Y'alright?" she asked, looking to see if Jess had twisted her ankle. "That was quite the fall."

[Applesintime]

((Alex Avanesian continued from Skipping Leg Day))

Dad, as always, had a knack for chosing the worst possible time to do, like, anything. Whenever their hunting trips had been scheduled, it was always gonna be really thundery or, like, rainy, and so they'd sit in some hunting bluff with Dad's Mossberg with the rain pouring down on them, while all the animals and deer and whatever were hiding safely in their burrows or under tree cover, and then after a couple of hours they'd go home and then Dad would spend time cleaning his shotgun while Alex showered because he hated feeling wet. And even then, like, when it was a good day, Alex never really got anything; his traps were terrible, he kept breaking branches, and well, when it came to shooting things, he was no Stieglitz.

Today's latest excursion left Alex out in the pouring rain and cold as his dad was trying to buy a fishing boat or hire one or something. He'd have preferred to just stay home but Dad insisted that he had to come with him because he wanted to go fishing today. Looking up at the sky, a tyoical Salem autumn downpour, Alex concluded that they weren't gonna be going fishing today. He didn't actually mind fishing, because there wasn't really much to it, much activity, you just sorta, like, sat in a boat for a couple of hours or something and if you were lucky you actually got a bite, and if you weren't lucky you just lost a couple of hours of your life for like, nothing.

Right now, Alex was wearing the usual ensemble for stormy days like this; a light jacket zipped up to keep his clothes dry, his baggy Canon hoodie, because all of his other ones needed washing and that was the only good one that he had, with both the hoods of the hoodie and jacket up, then just some jeans and his fishing boots. He was nice and warm, but it still didn't keep rain out of his glasses, and Alex had to keep wiping them with his cleaning cloth or he'd be blind and fall into the ocean or something. Right now, he was just leaning against a railing at the very end of the marina, looking out at the stormy sea and imagining the countries and all the places beyond the churning water. Armenia probably wasn't this stormy, but Dad didn't talk about the weather much. Alex decided he'd ask his dad when he came out of the marina office or whatever he was doing to ask him about the weather, and then he heard someone swear and his head turned to watch someone like, fall down the stairs in a way that was straight outta some old comedy show.

Someone else rushed over to the person who had fallen down the stairs - well, they looked like they'd found their footing and not broken their arm or something, which was good - and Alex decided to push himself off the railing and go and see if they were OK, because that was the nice thing to do, even if someone was already looking after them, Alex made his way to the pair, taking the stairs very carefully. He sorta recognised one of the girls; she was sorta pissed at him because he used to support Canon, and the hoodie probably wasn't going to make him look any less Canony. On the other hand, he didn't recognise the other girl at all.

"Hey, uh, you two, uhm, you guys OK?" Of course they were both OK, it wasn't like the one that was standing up had fallen. Alex wanted to smack himself.

[Pippi]

Phew, aight, quick self check before she got moving again! No cuts or scrapes? Check! Arms, legs? Kinda sore, to be honest, might be some bruising on her calves tomorrow morning, but ‘sides from that, fully intact and working! Phone, wallet, spare set of keys Quick patdown of her shitty coat aaaand check! Hair? Fuckin’ sodden, but that was whatevs; if you weren’t expecting to get at least a teeny tiny bit damp when you went out on a rainy-day walk, then you were totally deluding yourself. Yep, she was pretty much good to go, no harm done aside from a little soreness and a stake through the heart of her pride!

Oh, shit, wait, there was one more thing! Person who had managed to sneak right up alongside her, totally unheard til they opened their mouth thanks to the sounds of the pounding rain and her own thudding heart?

“Gwah, wha-?”

Jess twisted around, fists raised in instinctive preparation to fight whoever or whatever had crept up this close, sudden movement almost causing her to lose her balance once again, before she realised that, oh, shit, wait, this was legit just a girl showing concern over the fact she’d totally eaten shit just now. A girl she actually knew, to boot.

She’d almost called her a ‘friendly face’ but ehhh, well, it was a little tricky to describe Amaryllis as ‘friendly’ in, like, any way at all. She was one of those weird, loner kids who barely spoke to anyone - Jess was pretty certain she’d, like, never said a single word in any of the classes they shared - and when she did speak up, it was always like, super harsh and bitter and unpleasant and just like, real bad vibes all around? Also she sucked to be paired up with when it came to group projects, aka, ‘Double the work for half the praise’.

Jess had listened to her music, though, and it was pretty sick, honestly. Same with her aesthetic, she really needed to grab a pair of those skull earrings for herself (oh, and also like, actually get her ears pierced first). Plus Ammy had, like, just come over to check if she was a-okay, and with an umbrella as well, nice! So, hey, she clearly wasn’t all bad! And there were way shittier people to be stuck in the middle of a downpour with.

“Shit, sorry, man!” Jess said, lowering her arms, giving Amaryllis a big big grin. “Didn’t hear you comin’, thought you coulda been a, like, I dunno. Axe murderer or something! Y’never know! But yeah, nah, I’m fine, I think! Caught myself before I totally ate shit, lil sore but it’s whatever, I’ll live! So like, what-”

So, hey, like. Thinking about how Amaryllis was decidedly not the worst person to run into right now was not a goddamn invite for a contender for ‘shittiest person you know’ to show up as well. Like, jeez, if Amaryllis was a social outcast, Alex was a frickin’ leper. Dealing with the weirdo conspiracy theorist with a seriously unhealthy obsession with Survival of the Fittest wasn’t something she wanted to deal with at the best of times, let alone after falling on her ass in the middle of a storm.

Also, bro? A goddamn Canon hoodie? In the year of our lord 2021? Like, congrats on your total social suicide she guessed!

“Yeah, man, we’re fine,” she replied, voice immediately losing the majority of its usual pep and cheer. She really didn’t think she needed to, like, say anything more than that, so, like, she didn’t. Instead she leaned in close to Amaryllis, hair absent-mindedly dripping water onto the other girl’s sleeve, and muttering under her breath.

“Dude better keep on frickin’ walking.”

[MethodicalSlacker]

Amaryllis nodded and looked Jess over as she spoke. She didn't look hurt, and she didn't talk like she was in pain. More than anything, she was surprised. Amaryllis knew her approach was a quiet one, but not on purpose; the din of the rain drowned her footfalls. On a clear day, Jess would have heard her. But also, on a clear day, Jess wouldn't have slipped.

Someone was behind her. Now it was her turn to feel surprised. Amaryllis whirled around, keeping the umbrella just steady enough that Jess stayed covered but Amaryllis herself caught a few drops of rain across her brow. The face that greeted her was not welcome. She put her body in-between Alex and Jess, not knowing that Jess had come to the same idea.

There wasn't much to say about Alex. It didn't matter whether he'd renounced his belief in Canon and his dogshit conservatism—he still wore the jacket, girdled and protected himself in this, this symbol of ignorance, of bigotry, of hatred, of the American rot churning in the belly of the world. There were other jackets in this loser's closet. He wore this one on purpose. Whatever that purpose was. Because he could. Because he was lazy. Because he was beholden to individualism, and never spared a thought to criticize himself, to better and change his ways.

Just looking at it—him—made her blood boil, which momentarily warmed her against the chilly autumn breeze.

"We're okay," she said flatly. The easy expression she'd shown Jess was gone, replaced with a furrowed brow and a hard gaze. Her shoulders tightened. Amaryllis took him right in the eyes, and then, without blinking, shifted her look to just below them, at the white flecks of deadened skin hanging off his pale pinkish nose.

"You should keep walking," Amaryllis continued. Her throat felt dry.

[Applesintime]

The girl who he didn't know looked OK - that was good, because, like, the last guy who had slipped on these stairs had broken his arm badly and like, he had to go to hospital. Alex hadn't been there but his dad was, and Bruce was a nice guy so he felt bad for him because he was really friendly towards Alex, trying to show him the kinda like, nautical stuff you'd need if you were going fishing and all that; Dad had taught him all that stuff, but, like, the thought was appreciated. Alex had always worried he... focus, Alex. Stop sidetracking yourself.

Anyway, uh, he didn't know that girl, but he did know, uh... what was her name? It wasn't a common one. She was one of the like, communists or socialists or communist socialists or whatever was the fad nowadays, and she hadn't liked him in the first place, because he was wearing a Canon hoodie and because she was a left-wing person she didn't like him and even if he wasn't wearing his Canon hoodie, she'd still be sorta rude to him even when he explained that he didn't like Canon anymore because he had failed to stop SOTF from happening again. Like, c'mon, he had made all these grand speeches about how SOTF was a big problem and how he could fix it, and that Connie wasn't gonna do anything like McAllister. It sounded good at the time. Alex gave the two of them a nervous smile, shuffling awkwardly in the rain and fiddling with his hoodie strings. Maybe the Canon hoodie was a bad idea.

"OK, just checking. Because, uh, the stairs here are like, really slippery even when it's not, like, raining, y'know? Like, uh, some guy once, uh, nevermind." Talking about that time some dude tripped on the stairs and broke his arm wasn't gonna make them think any better of him but Alex was, like, determined to try to get some kinda benefit out of this conversation, because even if Amarylis or whatever her name was didn't really like him, he could probably try to like, get acquainted with the other girl, the one who had fallen. "Just, uh," Alex tried to find a way to continue the conversation, wracking his mind for a flash of inspiration, something he could sorta use to keep the conversation going, "stay safe. The, uh, stairs I came down aren't so slippery and I dunno why. I think like, uh, the way they were built is, uh, I dunno but, uh, they're not as slippery." Alex was rambling. He was aware of that. He was also aware that both Amaryllis or whatever her name was and the other girl had both sorta quieted down since he approached them, and Amaryliss told him to keep walking.

He ignored her.

"So, uh, what are uh, what are you guys doing around here? Just, uh, g-going for a walk or are you uh, gonna do some boating stuff, or, uh..." Alex shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket.

[Pippi]

Jeeeeesus actual Christ. Of course the frickin’ Canon fan-on couldn’t read the room to save his goddamn life. Or, err, read the harbour? The entire outside? Listen, wherever the heck they were, Alex couldn’t read the atmosphere, like, at all. Heck, he didn’t even need to use his, like, intuition to figure out he wasn’t wanted here! He’d been given a huge frickin’ hand-painted sign that said ‘Go Away’, and like some poor sap in a slasher film, he’d just waltzed right up to them instead.

Jess watched him as he talked, peering out from behind Amaryllis, leaning juuuust a little to the right to look around her, cause like, turned out, when you only just broke 5 foot even, pretty much any dude standing in front of you turned into a total frickin’ blockade. She was honestly pretty freakin’ agog (ooh that was a fun word, she’d have to remember that for later) at the balls on this guy. Like, the dude had specifically been told to fuck off, and instead he’d decided to stick around and blurt out reel upon reel of completely incomprehensible jackshit.

Man, was she being kinda hypocritical here? Cause, like, if one of her friends had approached her and started rambling about whatever the heck, stumbling over their words cause they were too excited to get ‘em out in the right order, then Jess would totally have been all like “Hell yeah bro I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about right now but I am totally here for all of it”. Then again, none of her friends were loud ‘n’ proud Canon supporters, so, like, whatever!

Also, like, she had a weird hunch that Alex didn’t have a special interest in stairs and how to waterproof them, or anythin’ like that!

“Dude, I can’t even ride, like, a bike without falling off,” Jess said, raising an eyebrow at Alex. A raindrop dripped from her fringe and rolled down to the tip of her nose before joining its comrades on the concrete below. “I’d trust me to pilot a boat as much as I’d trust, like, me to handle frickin’ nuclear launch codes or something. Also you got, like, water in your ears or somethin’? Cause I think you missed something kinda important, yo.”

Jess paused for a beat, half a second passing after she closed her mouth before she realised that hey, yo, actually, she really wanted to talk about what she was doing stumbling about in the middle of a goddamn downpour, and so she opened her mouth right back up again.

“So, like, word on the streets is that one of these yachts is, like, totally abandoned and shit? Apparently the dude who owned it got, like, totally collared for tax evasion or some shit and thrown in jail, and his boat’s just sittin’ here cause nobody’s bothered to collect it or anything. Figured there’d be no way I’d get anywhere near the thing when it's clear out, and no-one in their right mind’d come out to the jetties in a frickin’ storm, so, hey, that’s why I’m here!”

Even in the presence of Alex the wet blanket, Jess couldn’t stop herself from beaming out a huge, cheesy grin.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Abandoned yacht. Potential for exploration. A meaning to this absurd tempest. Anything to distract from the fact that Alex blatantly ignored her (calm!) request (polite!) to kindly get the fuck out (now!) as if she hadn't said a single word to him. Slippery stairs he spoke like an unbroken house dog. Perfect brick beneath his feet. Perfect to dash his face against. Like flashbulbs a million violences wink across the projector screen in the theater of her mind. Then nothing. Just Jess. Telling about her bike mishaps. Christ, was she on board with this shit too?

At least she was kind enough to remind him of Amaryllis' presence. Even if she did it in that same halting up-talk she'd grown to hate hearing from people her age.

"I was just going for a walk," Amaryllis said, turning over her shoulder to look at Jess, "but I guess I could check it out with you, if that's what you're suggesting. I just mean that you might need help with the door if it's locked, and this wouldn't be the first door I've shouldered open, is all."

She looked back at Alex and scowled.

"Unless... you were planning to be Mr. Law and Order today and narc on our little rainy parade? Hmm?"

[Applesintime]

Alex ignored Jess’ reminder that Amaryllis - he was pretty sure that was it, it sounded right - said something and instead just kinda listened to the rest of her conversation. There was one point that kinda irked him though.

"Operating a boat is uh, it's- it's pretty easy." Alex said, pulling his hoodie strings to tighten the opening because a drop of rain had landed in his glasses and that sucked. You just sorta tug on the little cord thing on the engine and then you just kinda, uh, steer it I guess," Alex continued, pulling out a glasses cloth and wiping at his wet glasses, "unless you have one of those weird, uh, canoe things and you g-g-gotta the, uh, use the oars. Oars suck." The last time Alex had used oars - some boating trip on the Connecticut River - both their oars had broken in half, some cheap fiberglass stuff Dad had got from Sears or some department store and then they had to paddle by hand to shore and lift the boat out by hand which sucked. And then after that Dad had sworn to never get oars from whatever fishing store or wherever he got his oars from again. It seemed to Alex that oars weren't, like, the kinda thing you cheaped out on.

Jess brought up the yacht, and Alex nodded. Oh yeah, the yacht. Mr. Peterson owned it, and then he was arrested for tax evasion or embezzlement or some sort of crime that the IRS got involved with. Dad had mentioned it a few weeks ago, but Alex hadn't really been listening when he had been talking about it. Mr. Peterson had been a really nice guy, but it was like, uh, Al Capone got arrested for not doing his taxes, and so did Mr. Peterson, Alex guessed. "Oh, yeah. Mr. Peterson's yacht. Uh, the IRS or something are trying to auction it but they're like, uh, doing paperwork or something so they still have it here. I dunno if they'd get mad if you went in or what but that's, uh, that's your call I guess."

Then Amaryllis assumed that he'd care that they were breaking into Mr. Peterson's yacht, which Alex didn't really. It was a kinda stupid idea, but, like, if they wanted to do something that might get them arrested or thrown out of the marina then Alex wasn't gonna stop them. He was, like, kinda curious too, because the yacht did look cool but Alex wasn't that curious. Maybe with Amaryllis and Jess he'd like, get the chance to amend Amaryllis thinking he was some kind of like, frothing extremist.

Alex shrugged. "I, uh, I don't really care. It's not my yacht. They, uh, the yacht sorta got moved to a place that was, uh, k-kinda more out of the way, you know? I can, uh, I can show you if you guys want? It's, uh, the IRS or whatever raided it so if you're looking for stuff to steal there's nothing there but I guess you don't get to go on yachts that often so it's cool I guess."

[Pippi]

Aw, man, this was, like, one hell of a dilemma Jess had stumbled into all of a sudden.

Cause like, just as a baseline fact; Alex was really gettin’ all over her nerves right now. And Jess, like, tooting her own horn for a moment here, really didn’t think that was an easy thing to do? Like, she had a whole ton of friends, she got along with, like, anyone who talked to her, there had to be a reason she got invited to every house party possible, aside from the fact she had the best taste in music in her entire grade, yo!

But, like, c’mon dude. Alex had straight up Um Actually’d her about the difficulty level of piloting a boat, and then given the absolute most vaguest, crappiest description she’d ever heard in her life. Man, could you imagine him trying to instruct someone on, like, brain surgery, or disarming a bomb, with instructions like that? Dude would kill people in, like, record freakin’ time. And like, no duh the IRS or whatever would get mad if they found out she’d been stompin’ all over the boat, that was part of the whole thrill of urban exploring; you had to be in an’ out before anyone even realised you’d been trespassing.

Alex really didn’t look like that was, y’know, something he’d be any good at, but in total fairness, Jess hadn’t exactly made a great showing with her slip’n’slide escapades earlier.

The real kicker, though, the thing that made this a total doozy and not just a case of Jess going ‘nah lmao c’mon amaryllis let’s ditch this loser’, was that, well, like… she totally didn’t have a clue which yacht she was supposed to be aimin’ for. Like, they all pretty much looked the same to her, and… Okay, so, full disclosure, here. She’d noted down the name of the boat, soon as she’d been told it, and then she’d kinda lost the note, and then immediately forgot what it was called as soon as she did. That one was, like, totally her bad, yo. That was on her.

And all that led to freakin’ Alex of all people being her best bet on clambering aboard the abandoned yacht. Man.

Jess leaned back, looking upwards into the canopy of the umbrella (man, she totally had to properly thank Amaryllis for bringing this with her at some point) before she exhaled, scrunched her face up into a look of total discontent, and then turned her entire body so that she was pointed, like, completely towards Ammy, making absolutely certain there wasn’t any confusion as to who she was talking to right now.

“Oh, yeah, dude, you’re totally welcome to like, come along and stuff, it’ll be fun, we’ll make it a party! But, like, a party where we don’t break any stuff, I guess. I was plannin’ on, I dunno, finding a window to climb through, but hey, we got the muscles now so we can just bust in through the front door!”

She gave Amaryllis another massive grin, before side-eying Alex for a couple seconds and letting it fall.

“And, like… if you really do know where this yacht is, like, parked, or moored up, or whatever the term is, then… whatever. Give us the deets, I guess.”

Jess sniffed (although that was, like, mostly from the rainwater running down her nose still), before putting her hands on her hips and properly facing him.

“But if you try anythin’ weird or, like, sketchy, then I will totally throw your butt into the sea, no hesitation. I’ve been working out, yo, don’t try me!”

The hideous maroon jacket perfectly masked Jess’ complete lack of biceps as she flexed her arms to showcase her point.

[MethodicalSlacker]

The oars sucked? Amaryllis had to stop herself from physically cringing at that remark. The oar was a fulcrum, a lever against the vast mass of water beneath. The only suck in that equation was due the rower, not the implement, unless the wood were brittle or the end shorn. With scorn it was that she looked upon Alex as he traced the outline of his tale, his retelling of the shadowy impressions of vast demonic post-human consciousness, the IRS.

In her imagination played a vivid scene set against the sandy back of a desert bluff, a ringed crowd of cloaked goons and at the center the technicolor DC Joker himself shook his head with disdain. "Even I'm not crazy enough to mess with the IRS," he said, or something to that order. She'd seen it for all of one second and then scrolled past, and yet here it was hyperlinked to the present, overlaid as hologram.

Luckily Jess turned to dispel all of that rainstorm hurricane mirage nonsense and confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt their occult covenant against the fuckhead before them. Jess played coy but knew what was up. Rain Boy was intel on legs and maybe also had some money and that was it. She'd let Jess's flex do the talking; no need for her own, which might actually make visual impression beneath the fabric of her rain-gear. Guess the operative word.

"Hopefully," she said, "we don't have to break anything. The IRS would hate that."

She took a glance over her shoulder and scanned the boats bobbing before her. Any one of those vessels could be her yacht, hers to run amok in for whatever length of time luck felt fit to leave them. Not any of them literally speaking. Most weren't yachts to begin with. She didn't really know the difference. At what point a yacht ended and a cruise ship began, she could not say.

"Maybe they left some hard liquor or something inside," she mumbled, "that could be fun." Loud enough for Jess to hear. Maybe loud enough for Alex to hold and then put out of mind.

[Applesintime]

Alright, uh, this was a go Alex guessed. He was going to assist with breaking and entering into a yacht; they talked about how, like, they're not gonna break anything but Alex was pretty sure that the yacht was locked, and it might actually have an alarm or something? So maybe if they broke a window or something they'd alert someone and then they'd get arrested, or maybe there wasn't an alarm at all and Alex was just worrying about stupid stuff that wouldn't really happen.

V7 had a yacht on the island. Not too much happened on it; a couple people died in it, but it was sort of ignored, almost. Out of the way. Alex wondered if the yacht Mr. Peterson used to own would be the same model, or if it would be different.

Jess blustered and Amaryllis threatened drinking. Alex didn't really care; Jess probably could beat him up, but then she would have to deal with his father, and for all his kinda weird Armenian nationalism and all that, he had no doubt that Dad would see nothing wrong with beating up someone who had hit his son.

"It's called, uh, the Nausicaa. After some woman from, uh, Greek mythology, I think. It means, uh, burning of ships or something like that. Mr. Peterson explained it to me a bit ago, the, uh, the book it came from but I don't remember much. It- it seems like a weird name though. For a ship. Uh, burning of ships, it's a bad omen I'd have thought." Lots of ships here were named after Greek stuff and it all kinda blended together, but Alex found the Nausicaa a little bit away from where they started, tucked away between the Odyssey and the Jessie Banes II. It hadn't been maintained in a while so it was kinda dirty, which sucked because it had been really nice looking. Mr. Peterson really took pride in it. "Here. It's, uh, here. I don't know if he had any security or anything like that, so watch out. I'll keep an-an eye out, just so nobody like, gets us into trouble."

Alex was wet. Hoodies were like, uh, not good when it came to downpours like this, because they didn't really deflect rain. He should have brought an actual coat, but it was OK. It was fine. He just shoved his hands in his pockets, which had like, insulation or something. You could say what you wanted about Canon's policies and politics and all that, but his hoodies were really good. If only people didn't think he was some idiot because he liked to wear it around.

[Pippi]

“Oh, dude, that would be sick!”

Jess wasn’t totally convinced that Amaryllis could actually hear her whispered response over the noise of the wind and rain, and she was also pretty certain that the other girl wasn’t an expert at reading lips - although she wasn’t gonna, like, 100% bank on that being the case, maybe Amaryllis’ super secret hobby was, like, ventriloquism or some shit like that! Either way, it didn’t totally matter, the massive beaming grin on Jess’ face said everything you needed to know; a couple bottles of liquor would be a bitchin’ way to brighten up this gray-ass rainy-ass day.

Though, to be totally honest, they probably only needed the single bottle to really make this a party. Cause, facin’ facts and all that, Jess was goddamn tiny. Fun-size, pocket-sized, tall in personality and volume, whichever way you wanted to describe her today, there was no denying that she was the lightest of lightweights. Depending on the day, she could get totally ass-over-titties drunk on, like, a tablespoon of alcohol.

And like, on the one hand, it probably wouldn’t be a rad idea to step back out of the boat and onto the jetty in the middle of a goddamn hurricane when she was, shit, what was the term? Three sheets to the wind or somethin’? That sounded about right. That was also how you totally slipped and ate shit for real, or tripped on some stray rope and took an impromptu swimming-and-drowning lesson. But like, on the other? The boat had been abandoned. They could totally just wait out the worst of the storm inside, and then when it had all, like, literally blown over, make their merry way home.

Liquor would also be a frickin’ necessity if Alex started going off on some fuckass Canon bullshit.

Right now, he was just talkin’ about some Greek legend that she wasn’t even half paying attention to. Wasn’t ‘Nausicaa’ some, like, anime-ass protagonist or something? Jess was pretty sure that was the case, so Alex might have just been totally talking outta his ass, which wouldn’t come as a real shock to her. Although that would also mean that this Mr. Peterson dude was a total weeb, which, like, sure, maybe he was! Jess had never met the guy!

And who gave a friggin shit about that anyway, it was boat raidin’ time! Well, except for Alex, apparently. Dude wanted to stand around in the rain gettin’ soaked in his very-obviously-not-waterproof hoodie, which, like, whatever my guy! Have fun gettin’ soggy and stuff! Jess looked at Amaryllis, shrugged, then grinned again and rubbed her hands together.

“Aight dude!” she said, once again being the very best hype man that she herself could ask for. “Let’s freakin’ goooooo!”

She took an almost entirely unnecessary two-step jump up onto the deck of the boat, skidding as soon as she touched down and coming within a micrometre of deep sixing herself off the side before her flailing hand grabbed hold of a railing and kept her anchored. To, like, the deck of the yacht, not the bottom of the freakin’ ocean, that would be totally shit. She took a few big, deep breaths, waiting for the adrenaline to turn it down jus’ a notch, before she turned to give a big hearty grin and thumbs up to Amaryllis.

“Nailed it, we’re good!”

No alarms started blaring as soon as Jess started her immediate ambling, searching for an avenue inside. And like, yeah, no duh. What had Alex thought there was gonna be onboard, freakin’ laser corridors and tripwires and shit? The only danger here was that she might topple into the sea, which uhhh, man, the boat was bouncin’ pretty badly every now and then, so it was a totally legit possibility!

“Yo, you see anythin’?” Jess called out. “Any unlocked windows or shit?”

[Applesintime]

Ding!

Alex reached into the pocket of his hoodie, pulling out his phone. But the rain was like, making the screen wet so he couldn't really make it out and it was messing with the touchscreen, so he rubbed it on his hoodie but that was wet too so all he did was just get the phone more wet. Couldn't they make like, water repellant screens or something? Anyway, uh, it didn't matter because there's only one reason someone would be texting him: his dad was done for the day.

Looking up at the sky, Alex couldn't blame him.

Glancing back at Jess breaking into the yacht, Amaryllis standing besides her, neither of them were paying attention to him. They wouldn't miss him, and, uh, if they got mad at him for having to bail because his dad needed him, they could just join the crowd of people who were annoyed with him. It wasn't his fault that Canon made good hoodies. He wasn't gonna throw it away just because, like, some people were annoyed at him for wearing it.

So Alex slowly trodded away towards the main office, his dad inside with Bob, the marina manager, to keep himself dry. Before they went, though, Alex was, uh, he was gonna tell Bob. If the IRS did get mad at the two girls for like, breaking into a boat, they'd probably get mad at him for not saying anything about it. And if they got, like, even more mad for Alex not wanting to engage in breaking and entering, they could just cope.

"Hey, Bob," Alex leant into the window of the little guard shack. "there's, uhm, some girls trying to break into Mr. Peterson's yacht. It's, uh, I guess you shou-" Bob cut him off with a frustrated sigh, reaching for the radio hanging from his waist. "Marcus, there's some fuckin' kids trying to break into the yacht, scare them off or some shit." Rubbing his forehead, clearly annoyed, Bob gave Alex a thumbs up.

His dad had no joy with booking a fishing boat, which wasn't like, unexpected.

((Alex Avanesian continued elsewhere))

[Pippi]

No response from Ammy’s side. Bummer.

Or, like, to be totally accurate, no response that Jess could hear. Now that they were actually onboard, the wind had gotten even wilder, the boat was creaking at every tiny movement - seriously, had this Mr. Peterson dude picked out, like, the crappiest boat possible, or did they just all sound like this? - and the waves were slapping against the sides, all like ‘This bad boy can hold so many trespassing teenagers, yo.’ Jess could barely hear herself think, so she sure as shit couldn’t hear a peep outta Amaryllis. Girl could have been saying “Oh my goodness me there is a shark about to eat your face” and Jess woulda been blissfully unaware of her looming shark-on-face demise.

This wind was really freakin’ nasty, by the by, like, she thought she needed to make that totally crystal clear. She had one hand permanently glued to the railing, and the other one constantly at the ready to follow suit, case a tornado hit the boat or something. She’d eschewed her usual twintails today, cause in this weather they’d probably function more like propellor blades and send her flying off into the sky like Team Rocket, but her big dumb ugly stupid puffy jacket was threatenin’ to do a real good job at that anyhow. Man. This thing sucked so hard, yo.

Aw, shit, that wasn’t why she couldn’t hear Ammy any longer, right? Girl hadn’t taken a step into, like, a puddle or something and totally eaten shit and pitched over the railings and down into the deep blue, or anything like that, right?

Jess spun around, almost doing a perfect imitation of what she thought her partner in crime had just done, her body doin’ its best to yeet herself off the side of the boat. She slapped both hands onto the railing and gripped tight because, girl, her life absolutely did depend on it. She shivered, teeth chatterin’ for a brief moment, before exhaling, gingerly retractin’ one hand from the rails an’ giving her pockets a full on patdown. If she could say one good thing about this dumbass jacket - like, if she really had to, gun-to-head and that shit - it was that the pockets could zip up and stay zipped up good. If she had taken an unwanted dip then like, sure, whatever, maybe she’d drown, she’d get over it. But if her phone had fallen in? Nightmare! End of the world scenario! That baby had notes upon notes of song ideas? Literally thousands of photos of all the places she’d been and the rad-as-fuck friends she hung out with! She still had Flappy Bird installed on it, yo! It was irreplaceable!

Oh, yeah, and Amaryllis was like, totally still on deck with her too, woo! Girl was just peerin’ in through the windows to try and get a glimpse of, like, whatever and stuff. If she could even see shit with the raindrops streakin’ down them. Jess gave her a thumbs up and a big grin, that was probably totally impossible to see cause, again, she was lookin’ like she was auditioning for The Ring right now.

“A-” said Jess, her WIP Gawr Gura impression getting better by the day, hell yeah. Anything else she coulda or woulda said was immediately blasted into smithereens by a bright white beam of light, so powerful and so goddamn piercing that it made her fling her arm right in front of her already-squintin’ eyes. For a second, it felt like the rain had totally hung in midair as she tried to figure out exactly what the hell was going on right now.

Then a booming voice, amplified by, like, twenty thanks to the power of loudspeaker, echoed over the docks, and Jess’ heart totally froze and friggin’ sank to the very bottom of her walking boots, which totally sucked cause they were absolutely full of gross-ass dirty rainwater and her heart was gonna get soaked.

“Ah, shit!”

That goddamn tiny-dicked dumbass stupid-hoody-wearing Canon Cultist little bitch had totally snitched on them, yo! The loudspeaker voice was totally inaudible, especially being flung into the middle of a storm like this, but ya didn’t need to understand it to know it meant Trouble, with a capital T, and in, like, red text, and with like 4 exclamation marks at the end too. She didn’t know what the punishment was for sneakin’ around on some old fart’s boat that he didn’t even really technically own any longer, and she also didn’t really wanna find out anytime soon.

“Yo, cheese it!” Jess called out to Amaryllis, already moving as fast as she dared on the constantly rocking deck around to the other side of the boat. “Double A for Asshole totally bailed on us!”

Sometimes, it was real easy to believe that miracles existed, and like, Jess not tumblin’ head over heels over ass as she ran back towards the jetty? Yeah, that sure as hell counted as one, Jesus woulda looked at that and totally said some words that were inappropriate for the Son of God, cause walking on water looked lame as hell compared to this. She flung herself off the back of the boat, back onto dry (wet?) land, finishing off the whole sweet-as-hell move with a full-on combat roll as she landed.

Or, like, maybe she had finally misplaced her step and skidded on a wet patch and tumbled real perilously close to the edge of the jetty but hey, shhhh, you don’t tell and I won’t, yo.

She’d kinda hoped that Alex would be stickin’ around to try and be smug and insufferable and a colossal chode, just so she could, like, sweep his legs and kick him right in the nads. But nah, bitch had pussied on outta there, probably to go home and cry and whine on the internet about how all girls were evil or some shit.

Well, right now, pussyin’ on outta here seemed like the right thing to do anyway. She didn’t have anythin’ else to do here now that her plan had been rumbled and the, like, coastguard? Harbour security? Boat police? Whatever, someone had been alerted and was on the hunt right now. She wasn’t gonna get any drier stickin’ around, so, homeward bound, yo!

Her feet smacked against the pavement as she ran off home, keys jingle-jangling in the pocket of the jacket that she swore she was gonna burn to a crisp one of these days.

((Jess Kawazoe continued elsewhere))