Chapter Text
In the darkness before the dawn
Leave a light, a light on...
Midnight — Coldplay
July 2nd, 2009. 2:09 AM
A month before the vesting ceremony
Swallow Falls
Five months after the retrieving mission started and nothing new happened. No traces of the food machine, those giant food creatures grew both in size and species like the entire biosphere, quickly evolving from mere oversized leftovers to actual plants, forests, trees — entire ecosystems made of food! Every search party that reached the island couldn’t help but stare in awe for a good while at the amazing landscapes that the place could offer, at the same time they knew they had to focus on their own business, knowing that eventually it would disappear.
The clean-up was often a discovery, entering in old places of the former Chew-and-Swallow in their search of the machine such as parts of the old town hall where they managed to save a large bunch of archives that didn’t get destroyed either by the storm or the humidity of the rainforest it was located; there were also the former businesses, markets and the local school.
One of the groups was unlucky enough when one night they realized they hit the cemetery, with the tombstones covered with vegetation to make things more difficult if the stones weren’t missing for some reason, so it was quite hard to tell if they were upon a tomb or not for a good while until they all ran away to keep searching somewhere else; and finally a group reached the residential zone of the town where they found a lot of… technological junk.
One of the crewmates from team V was skeptical that any of the random gadgets, either destroyed by rust of time or by the storm would make any real use for future projects in what he considered their “primogenial state”, yet those scattered things, at least the ones that weren’t entirely broken, with some more work and experimentation would reach its potential for use.
Flint Lockwood had the talent to match Chester or even surpass him, yet even he didn’t seem to be actually aware of his true potential — actually he seemed like he needed more discipline. From what he heard from his pals in the headquarters, apparently the young inventor was more the kind of person who would try only once most of the time instead of learning from his mistakes (did he know what a prototype was?) to improve the original concept.
Then, probably the simplest of the designs called out his attention: a metal door frame with broken light bulbs, some wires and little objects made of glass inside the frame. A few rough cables were attached to what looked like a shattered panel control with a missing keyboard and shattered screens, attached to what looked like a homemade engine, salvaged several times. Its purpose, unknown, yet her sense said it could be an early design of what could’ve become — if worked right, a traveling device.
So, in order to find out something that could revolutionize the entire transport system and satisfy his curiosity, he took the unfinished project to the base for further investigation; two and a half days later with the technology stored there, he finally managed to end what could be one of the most ambitious projects ever done. Even though his peers were annoyed by it.
“It's done!” The thinkquanaut cried out loud with excitement in front of the restored invention, “I’m finally done with the restoration!” His screams woke up the rest of the crew, none of them were happy.
“What the heck Hoagie?!” This young, blond crewmate yelled cranky. “It’s 2 AM and we need to sleep! There’s a lot of work for tomorrow and we still need to find the other teams!”
“I finally fixed Lockwood’s machine, Wally!” The member now identified as Hoagie exclaimed excitedly.
“And… what does it do?” Another member asked unamused.
“I… am about to find out.” His crewmates raised an eyebrow, “It’s some sort of traveling device, yet I still haven’t figured out what kind of traveling it does.” That brought more questions, of course, “I mean, it does serve for traveling but I’m not sure if it’s a teleporter, a time machine or even bigger: interdimensional traveling!”
“Fairly sure it’s a teleporter.” Somebody said, “It seems too simple to be a time machine and I don’t think it’d have enough for interdimensional traveling. He would actually need a collider for that.”
“Well, whatever it is, let’s find out!”
No one could stop Hoagie once he turned on the machine, calibrating everything at the speed of light in order to keep it stable. The restored creation started to shake, with the bulbs turning on, some electricity detached in the inside before a blue-n-black portal formed in the middle of it; before they could even try to see what was on the other side, the frame shook and turned off. The restorer quickly tried to turn it back on, wondering what went wrong before it shook again and turned back on, yet this time when the portal popped back, it started to detach some sparks from its inside showing its unstable state.
He tried to turn it off, yet it was overheated and the controls stopped responding, the crew quickly ran outside their base to the wild as Hoagie had to be dragged as he refused to flee in his attempt to stop it. In the same moment the last of them went outside, the base exploded as they saw in a beam of light something shot to the sky; once again the same person who destroyed their place went behind the beam in order to find out what it was, quickly followed by the (angry) team.
Clearly, the machine brought something or someone from the other side of the portal, he wanted to see what it was, jumping onto the company truck across the forest to reach it, seeing how a few hundred of meters ahead it landed. The company truck roared across the forest with a loud thud after hitting a bump, with all the foodimals jumping to the sides to avoid a certain death on the rush of reaching the landing place of the unknown creature, moving faster in order to arrive before it left the place.
On their way they saw that whatever launched the portal bounced all over the place leaving traces of destruction for a good bunch of meters, even trespassing a giant boulder before the trail ended another hundred meters away from there in a trail of debris, yet no signs of what it could be. The group jumped down from the vehicle with their lanterns to search for the unknown being, sticking close to each other as the threat remained hidden somewhere; no signs of movement nor noises aside from the natural sound of the nocturnal foodimals. Hoagie approached the last trail of destruction left on the soil to grab some with the tip of his fingers, feeling it dry and burnt — pressing a light bulb-shaped pin on his vest he spoke:
“Alright, night 10 of Team V in the island of Swallow Falls. 2:20 AM local time. Log of Hoagie P. Gilligan Jr. The restoration process of Lockwood’s former machine was almost a success, it took more power than what I estimated, and caused some uh… medium damage to the infrastructure of the advance post.” Yeah, he had to lie or else it would be really problematic for later, the entire mission was most likely making a deep hole in Live Corp’s budget and losing their shelter would most likely add another zero to it. “Anyway, the machine, a portal of some sort, opened before it failed. The nature of the failed experiment is still unknown, but it brought something from somewhere else from either space or time, or both!”
He logged every thing he saw, with one of his friends — Nigel (tall, bald, wearing a red sweater and always using sunglasses even though it was night) then called him out for not helping to search, distracted by Kuki (dark, straight hair with a bang covering her forehead, with Asian traits – most likely Japanese) who kept moving from side to side picking samples; Wally by his side was cranky, tired and open to break something with his bare hands (patience wasn’t his best) in that place without stopping complaining about where would they sleep now their base was gone thanks to that stupid machine. Abby (Afro-american, tall, slim, long hair tied in a braid wearing a red cap) just rolled her eyes and calmly scolded her blond mate to shut up while she kept searching with special binoculars to (try to) find something on a hand and a freezing ray on the other, keeping the infrared mode on to detect anything moving (if, of course, had any kind of corporal heat) behind the trees.
Up to that point, nothing to register, everything moving were the foodimals hiding from her view now they were too close from an area; if looking for the food machine wasn’t their main mission, indeed studying the fauna and flora would be an amazing task (even if Wally insisted to hunt a few down and see if they were still edible raw, Nigel didn’t seem any keen to the idea). Lowering her binoculars she started to search in the opposite way, hearing Hoagie ramble to his pin recorder while now Kuki and Wally were arguing about — whatever happened actually —I’m working with kids…—, she didn’t pay attention nor felt like getting in the middle.
Raising her binoculars she started the search again: pineapowls howling in the trees, rattishes running through the grass to any hole, squinuts moving from branch to branch; adjusting the zoom going further there were berries and smaller fruits hiding underground along several kind of piezards — then a larger shape formed, not from a foodimal but it seemed… human…
Bingo!
“Guys, I think I found…” One moment where she, the second in hand (Nigel was the leader, competent, yet sometimes even he fell for their childishness) didn't look at her crewmates and they were already about to kill each other again for whoever person knew why, “It…” She facepalmed with a certain annoyed glance trying to find some sort of patience somewhere deep down, “ENOUGH!” The four crewmates stopped with the yell. “There is somebody else in that direction.” She pointed to the direction the mysterious person was, “The machine brought somebody.”
“Oh really?” The restorer asked excitedly, quickly popping out from the mangle of grips and pulls of the arguing, picking a notepad with a pen out of a pocket, to write that down, “Then the question would be from where are they!”
“Or when.” Nigel said, “Alright people,” His tone was more imperative, now back to his role of the leader, “We have to get whoever infiltrated on the island — or whatever/whoever the portal brought.”
Everybody got ready to receive the pertinent directives, Abby decided to check again the same spot, swearing the person was still stunned, and… “Uh… Nigel…”
“Alright, Hoagie and Wally, you’ll go on the left side, Wally, get farther from the position of the threat when…” He commanded notoriously focused on the plan his mind was machinating.
“Nigel…” She tried again.
“...you get near to their spot so we can surround it.”
She squinted in response, “Nigel…”
“Abby and Kuki will go on the right, Kuki, you’ll advance farther with Wally to corner the…”
“Nigel!” The second in command insisted.
“Not now Abby!” He ignored, “I’ll go right behind so if it runs we all can freeze them with—”
“Nigel!” She yelled impatiently this time, the leader groaned and looked at her, “Whatever or whoever it was, left the place.”
Everyone stared at her in disbelief as their leader asked why she didn’t say that before. Hoagie asked if she was actually sure about it, something that made her check for a couple of minutes and then nod; the scientist groaned loud in annoyance while the others started to yell at him again for wasting their time — well, for waking them up with his stupid repairing project, actually.
They all agreed to shift the blame on their overly-excited crewmate (who got clearly annoyed, stating he did it for the sake of science and stuff like that, having a termination of not touching any of Lockwood's inventions with reverse engineering) as it was his fault they lost precious sleeping hours for what would be a long day later, heating the boulder three times more after realizing they didn't have a shelter anymore — Wally had to be held from punching his crewmate by Nigel and Abby in his non-stopping anger caused by the lack of sleep until Kuki asked if they didn't have the emergency shelter.
That, by the way, helped to cool down the anger of the others.
Miraculously they did have an emergency shelter (everyone mentally thanked both Kuki and God for finding all the supplies in a heavy metal box that survived), not as good as the main one of course, especially because until they got back to Live Corp they’d live under a (highly technological) tent. None of them talked to their friend for quite a while, who wondered what went wrong, or if Lockwood’s inventions were naturally defective —Well, maybe I could’ve missed one or two defects of the original model—. Maybe the machine was bound to overpower with the powerful flow that meant opening a portal, and their shelter didn’t own enough materials to build a fully functional and stable model so… yeah, maybe what he used wasn’t enough.
Still he needed and wanted to know what crossed the portal, or who. It survived quite a wild expulsion, then left as soon as it popped. Would it be dangerous? A friend? A foe? A monster? An eldritch demon from an unknown dimension? Those thoughts kept him amused for a while until he fell fast asleep, surrounded by the snores of his friends.
Little they knew somebody approached to their camp in utter silence, starting to dig among the debris of the former shelter with quick hands, scrapping the metal and salvaging technology that seemed functional enough: bolts, nuts, screens and even chips. Its steps and movements were fast, light and silent the more it moved around in a black blur, turning towards the camping group to check if anybody would wake up to then keep moving — something came from the tent, it quickly hid behind a wall.
Nigel came out and went apart to do his needs, rambling a few things under his breath cranky and annoyed (who wouldn’t after having their place with a proper bathroom gone?). The individual observed from its hideout as the leader of team V sighed in relief once he did his need, still mumbling and rambling a few things to himself, and now he was relieved he did have the feeling of somebody staring, as soon as his instinct told him to turn around, the corner of his eyes were sure he caught something with bright blue that shone in the distance and hid.
He nearly shat in response, and stood still in his place now in guard of the unknown threat around their tent. His movements, then became quiet and silent, moving in direction to his shelter to warn his friends about the intruder — regretting of not having picked up the freezing ray before walking out. His eyes didn’t turn away from the spot he saw that tray of light, awaiting for it to peek again or attack, and as much as he wanted for it to go against him… apparently the unknown threat knew he was still watching, which made him quickly enter the tent to wake up his friends.
“There’s something out of the camp!” He exclaimed, “In the old base! Wake up now!” His friends groaned in response, and instead told him to go to sleep. “There is an intruder at the old base!” He yelled angrily, startling the crew and making them stand up with their stuff, “All of you get your stuff and let’s capture whatever is wandering!”
The group quickly got outside with their freezing guns in hands, splitting in different spots to cover more ground together. All the heard were their own steps, taking cover behind anything they could in direction of where the stranger was previously hiding, feeling the tension in the air rising the more they advanced. Wally rolled in the front as Abby covered his back, Nigel on the left, Kuki at the right and Hoagie at the very back for a long shot (at one hand, he was curious to see what came from the other side of the portal, on the other he was scared).
Everything turned into silence — asides of the sounds of the nocturnal foodimals, getting ready to shoot as they were only a few steps away from the last sighting post. None of them thought it stood there, but they still had to check, so as soon as they had a sign of their leader they jumped to the other side, to find no one was there, meant, it left…
“Of course Hoagie’s beast wouldn’t wait here.” Wally said notoriously tired.
“Assuming it’s the thing from the other side, of course.” Abby added.
“Don’t you think we might being mean to it?” Kuki asked, even by the age she had she still held some innocence at times, “Maybe they’re friendly and nice and we’re misjudging them…”
“A friendly monster who would eat us alive!” The blond young man exclaimed, “Come on, it left. Let’s go back to sleep or else none of us will be awake tomorrow and we’ll be getting in troubles.”
“What? We have to secure the area and—” Their bald leader tried to reason, but he was interrupted again.
“It’s three-and-something AM!” Wally exclaimed, “We still have a lot of work to do to find Lockwood’s machine and this is not helping!” At that point, he was pulling his hair in anger, “Whatever! Don’t wake me up ‘til noon tomorrow!” He turned around and left back to sleep.
“Wally!” Nigel exclaimed, “Come back here! We have to secure the perimeter and—!”
“Hoagie’s beast left, Nigel.” Abby interrupted too, “We’re all tired and we need to sleep. Wallaby is right, we have a lot to do and we’ll get in deep troubles if we inform what happened. We’ll try to solve this after we get some rest, but now let’s go to sleep…”
The leader of the team V sighed in response, glaring at the culprit of the mess after he tried to make a comment, and then leave to the tent. Kuki was the last one to leave, looking at the dark forest for a few moments and spot a couple of bright light blue dots in the distance that seemed dim due the distance. She looked back to his friends to yell that she saw it still roaming, yet instead she followed an instinct that told her to wave in that direction…
She smiled light-heartedly, the eyes disappeared as she turned back to the tent to have enough sleep for the night.
His friends didn’t know she proved her point from before, because the “beast”, or just It waved back and left into the night.