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“How you holding up?” Tom’s voice crackled through the radio.
“Fine, just fine.” Naoki replied. With four slashes, he cut his way through the dense foliage. His machete was dull, but even the dullest machete crafted from a Habilier mandible was sharper than any human tool. The vines fell away like shredded tinsel.
“Should be approaching the lab any second now.” Naoki slashed through another dense patch of vines. His leg brushed up against the hide of a fuzzy tree. The wounded skin seared with pain at the simple brush. Naoki couldn’t stop himself from gasping in pain. He hunched over on the ground for a moment, shuddering. He’d gotten careless and accidentally got grazed by an acid geyser yesterday. If anything, he was lucky--one inch closer, and his face would've been melted off by the acid, too.
“Oy. Detective?” Tom asked.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. All fine.” Naoki answered through gritted teeth. He instinctively went to grab his wound, before stopping himself. That would likely make the pain flare worse.
“You get yourself splashed by an acid geyser?” Tom’s voice was playful as ever, as if Naoki was just on a casual outing to the grocer.
“No.”
“I bet you did.”
“I did not.” Naoki pulled himself back to his feet. His forehead was damp with sweat, and his legs ached from walking for so long, but he had to continue. The sooner he could get this investigation over with, the sooner he could call Tom to pick him back up.
“Whatever you say,” Said Tom. “Blimey…I’m circling the planet with the ship right now, just staring at it. I can’t see any water. How’s there so much plantlife?”
“Paventia-B actually has quite a bit of water,” Naoki began to explain. It took his mind off the faint stinging of his acid burn. “But all of the water is covered by water-dwelling trees. That’s why you can’t see it.”
“Awfully inconvenient,” Tom scoffed. “Barely anywhere to land a ship! I say someone should come and clear out a patch or four for blokes like us. None of this hiking nonsense required.”
“Hiking is good for you.” Naoki said, clearing out a row of bamboo-like stalks with his machete. He had to admit, it was fun. Sometimes. Not counting the acid geysers. “You should’ve come with me.”
“And leave the ship to get covered with tho--” The radio cut out for a moment, the connection lost. Naoki’s ears filled with grimy static. He jolted, hitting the radio twice with his fist. “--se creepy lizard things?!”
Naoki heaved a sigh of relief. Having chatterbox Tom constantly commentating in his ears was the only thing keeping him sane. Solitude bothered him these days, as embarrassing a sentiment as it was.
“They’re not that creepy.” Naoki’s eyes trailed over to a large, protruding boulder. Small reptiles reminiscent of a many-legged skink wrestled each other. Hundreds of tiny creatures scrambled eagerly to the top, knocking each other off in the process. “They just like to sunbathe.”
Naoki paused.
“Like you,” He added snidely.
“That was one time! One time!” Tom yelled so loud that the radio’s audio began to peak. “I wasn’t even that burnt! I was just toasty! Toasty!” He insisted. Naoki cackled.
“You looked like a lobster!”
“You’ve never even seen a lobster!”
“I’ve seen pictures!”
Naoki’s boot caught against a wiry root that protruded from the gray mud. He went toppling forward, knocking all the wind from his lungs.
“HAH!” Tom peaked the audio again. “I heard that! You know what that was?! Bloody karma, that’s what! Hah! And--oh shoot.” Tom paused. “Nooo! My casserole!”
Naoki heard the faint beeping of a smoke detector.
“Karma,” He muttered.
“Shut up, you!” Tom snapped. “I’m kidding. Here, I’ve got to let you go. Be right back--oh, uh, where’s the fire extinguisher, again?”
“Lower right cabinet.”
“Smashing.” Tom said. “I’ll call again in an hour or two. Don’t miss me too much!”
“You wish,” He snorted.
Static. Oh, how Naoki loathed the static. The sound of lost connection. The sound of complete and utter isolation. Naoki suddenly became aware, painfully aware, of just how alone he was. It stung a hundred times worse than a measly acid burn. It was a pain that he was still unfamiliar with. After all, he had been fine all his life. He was independent. He was smart. He got along by himself. He didn’t need family, he didn’t need connections, he didn’t need companionship. He was self-sufficient. He carved himself out a place in the galaxy, he carved out a profession to sustain himself. He was Naoki J. Steele, galactic P.I., certified solo badass.
And then he met Tom, Everest, and Lucy, and everything instantly crumbled like a stack of cards. Suddenly, he not only enjoyed the company, but he needed it. How strange. How mortifying. Tom would only be away from the radio for an hour, at most, and yet, it bothered him. It bothered him that he was hundreds of thousands of miles and atmosphere-layers from anyone, stuck on a skink-thing-infested planet completely by himself.
“Get a grip,” He shook his head. His burn was starting to sting again. To distract himself, he rustled around inside his trenchcoat’s inner pocket. He pulled out his chip. Naoki pressed the tip of his nail into it.
“Roaming flower,” Naoki recited the password. The chip expanded into a small cube that fit in the palm of his hand. “Show scan of Paventia-B.”
The cube buzzed quietly as it buffered. Suddenly, a flashing holograph of a sphere appeared in front of Naoki’s eyes.
“Pin my current coordinates.” He ordered. A bright red dot sprouted on the lower side of the planet. “Pin laboratory coordinates.” He said. A blue dot appeared slightly left to the red dot. Naoki’s shoulders slumped. He’d accidentally strayed too far to the right again. Naoki pivoted his direction, carving a path through the brush. He watched as the red dot slowly grew closer and closer to the blue. They overlapped, turning a pleasant hue of periwinkle.
Naoki forged onwards with his machete. The stalky layer of plants crashed to the earth, revealing a large lake. The water was dark gray, with hundreds of knotted trees protruding from the surface. A building made from sterile white bricks floated in the center of the lake. Vines crept up each wall, almost camouflaging the dilapidated building. This was the place. Naoki was certain of it. As far as he had researched, the bioengineers had been the only ones granted permission to settle on Paventia-B.
Naoki hung his trenchcoat on a tree by the bank. He paused and grabbed his gun, just to be safe. He began to wade into the lake, where the water reached his hips. Naoki and moved his radio higher up on his waist before it could get wet. Suddenly, the elastic strap slipped from his hands. The radio fell into the lake with a splash.
“No!” Naoki cried. He made a fruitless grab for the radio. It slipped away from his fingers and sank into the murky water. Naoki froze. Now he was absolutely, certainly alone. Now he couldn’t even talk to someone. He felt the urge to lower himself deeper into the water and dig up the radio from the lakebed, even if he knew for certain that it was not waterproof. Naoki shut his eyes tightly, wishing he was back on the ship with Tom, and Lucy, or even Everest, that bum…
Get a grip. His jaws tightened. God, Naoki, get a grip. What is the matter with you? You’ve gone soft. Can’t even spend a few days alone? You should be celebrating. One less thing to distract you from the investigation.
He steeled himself. He could do this. He was fine, all good. He had no need for a radio. He had no need for anything but his chip, his pistol, and his penchant for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Naoki Steele, needing to be coddled and comforted at every turn? No, sir. That was not him. Not him at all. He would continue onward, radio or no radio.
As he approached the building, he tapped his chip to dismiss its current hologram.
“Show Paventia-B laboratory blueprint.” He ordered. Another hologram appeared, this one 2-d. Naoki inspected it. Apparently, there was an entrance on the back side. He waded his way around the building. There was a double set of sleek glass doors. Naoki clambered onto the jutting porch and placed his ear against the door. As he suspected, he heard absolutely nothing. If his predictions were correct, everyone in the building died somehow. A virus, an attack from one of the local creatures, a natural disaster, something like that.
He’d hate to break the news to his clientele, the elderly parents of one of the young scientists. Still, he had to be sure everyone was dead, and the cause of death. Naoki tried to pry open the door. It refused to budge. His eyes drifted over to a small passcode pad next to the doors. 1-9, six digits. Five hundred thirty-one thousand, four hundred forty-one different combinations. Naoki instantly figured out the solution to the puzzle: the butt of his pistol directly to the glass pane. It shattered.
“Terrible security,” He clicked his tongue in disapproval as he stepped through where the glass used to stand. The laboratory’s lobby was dark.
The power has been cut, perhaps? It could have been a thunderstorm. An electrical fuse blowout could’ve killed everyone if they were too close to the machinery… Naoki stewed in his theories as he took a look around the room. He explored the empty laboratory, checking every bathroom or supply closet. For a research station staffed by only a dozen or so scientists, it was rather large. More so than it was large, it was dark. Naoki’s nose wrinkled. He was hit suddenly by a pungent wave of acrid stink. It piqued his curiosity. With one hand on his pistol, he followed the smell down the hallway. Naoki’s curiosity further swelled upon seeing light bleeding out from underneath a sturdy metal door. It, too, had a password pad. However, his heart lightened upon seeing it dancing with sparks and dripping with burnt wires.
Broken? He wondered. With a hopefully held breath, Naoki tentatively tugged on the door. It slowly slid open, revealing a small, cramped room. A large computer poured blue light into the darkness. It was flanked on either side by large tanks of silvery mist. A large table held a large cage of the skink-like reptiles native to the planet, accompanied by a tray of surgical equipment. A hunched-over man stared at Naoki from his rolling chair. In his hands, he held some sort of…cannon?
BOOM!
Naoki ducked in the nick of time. A bullet, no, a canister, went flying overhead. It bounced against the wall behind him and went scuttling down the hallway, trailing with silver gas. The man in front of the computer narrowed his eyes. Half of his haggard face was covered by a large gas mask.
“And who the hell are you?” He growled. Naoki flicked open his badge.
“Naoki J. Steele, Private Investigator.” Naoki pulled his pistol on the scientist. Despite the pistol, the man didn’t seem intimidated. If anything, he looked smug. Naoki’s eyes watered intensely as the acrid smell began to intensify. His lungs felt like they were catching fire. Strangely enough, he was starting to feel…drowsy. His mind whirled as he realized the canister’s gas was beginning to leak into the room. With a swift kick, he shut the steel door closed. He dropped his chip and covered his face with his arm.
“Well, aren’t you clever, Mr. Steele?” The scientist raised an eyebrow.
“Detective Steele,” He glared at him.
“You’re lucky, too. If that canister hadn’t landed down the hallway, you’d be dead right about now.” The scientist’s eyes squinted in amusement. His hand slowly started to reach towards a crate of canisters beneath the computer desk. Naoki shot his wrist with deadly accuracy. The gunshot echoed through the room as the scientist howled with pain.
“What are you doing in here?” Naoki said. The scientist shrunk in on himself, nursing his hurt hand.
“I’m inventing a weapon, that’s what. A weapon that will make me richer than your feeble little brain could possibly comp-re-hend.” The scientist snarled. “Agent North. Remember that name, because one day, everyone in the galaxy will fear it.”
“Agent…’North?’” Naoki paused, recalling the research he had done before arriving. “Rodrigo North…is that you?” He asked.
“How do you--? Ugh. Right, you’re an investigator.” North rolled his eyes. “I suppose you’re coming here to investigate our inactivity?”
“That’s right.” Naoki stepped forward cautiously, keeping his pistol trained on the scientist. “No one has heard from this place in years. Just what happened to everyone?”
“They got in my way.” North replied nonchalantly. “They said that my invention was ‘inhumane’ and ‘too dangerous.’ They said that all sorts of wrong people would buy it and use it for horrible means in exchange for cash. And I said, ‘yeah, that’s the point.’” He shook his head.
“And? They left?” Asked Naoki. North laughed.
“If only! They insisted I shut down the project. So, one night, I put on my mask, and I just slipped a canister into the ventilation unit.” North soaked in the horrified expression on Naoki’s face. “Oh, what? Agent North is perfectly painless. Nothing ‘inhumane’ about it, if you ask me.” He shrugged. “It puts the enemy to sleep and they never wake back up. Peaceful. I use the somniferous chemical present in the local fauna’s saliva to create it.” North motioned to the cage full of skink-like creatures. Naoki, thoroughly disturbed, dropped his pistol in shock.
“How could you?” He said. “You murdered those scientists--your friends--”
“Colleagues.” North corrected. “Entrepreneurs like myself have no need for companions. Only co-workers. And if they ever become a hindrance to me…” North snatched another gas canister with his good hand and loaded it. “I simply remove them from the equation.”
BOOM!
The canister hit Naoki square in the jaw. It ricocheted around the room, spraying thick clouds of Agent North into the air.
“No…!” Naoki coughed, covering his entire face with both of his arms. It wouldn’t be enough. He felt his eyes and lungs start to burn again. Most importantly, he felt the creeping sensation of fatigue claim him. Naoki fell to his knees. He could try to fight the gas all he wanted, but it would surely win out in the end. His vision started to blink in and out like a terrible, strobing light show.
“Thank goodness,” sighed North. “I was running out of food for the reptiles.”
Suddenly, a tremendous crash shook the ground. The leftmost wall exploded into rubble as a spaceship careened inside. Fresh air flooded into the room, dispersing Agent North into the open air. North screamed in terror as huge bricks flew across the room. A friendly, blond head peeked out of the ship’s open door.
“Huh! What a sorry little room!” Tom exclaimed.
“Tom..!” Naoki gasped, crawling out of the Agent North fog and towards the ship.
“Eh?” Tom grabbed Naoki and hauled him to his feet. “Naoki! Lordy, not picking up your radio like that..! You made me worried!” He chuckled, clapping Naoki on the back. “Who’s this bloke? Friend of yours?” Tom pointed to North.
“D…die..!” North hissed, loading another canister into his cannon.
“Ah. Guess not.” Tom pulled a pistol from his pocket and casually shot the scientist’s shoulder. North dropped the cannon and clutched his new bullet wound with a shriek.
“Is that my spare pistol?!” Naoki wheezed.
“Yeh, what of it?”
“I never said you could borrow that!”
“Never said I couldn’t borrow it.”
“That’s not--”
“Hold on,” Tom interrupted, shooting North’s other shoulder as he tried to pick up the cannon again. The scientist crashed to the ground, hollering in pain. “You were saying?”
Naoki paused.
“You know what?” He said. “Keep it.”
Naoki, still covering his mouth with one arm, dragged Rodrigo North across the floor and onto the ship.
“We’re taking that nut with us?”
“We’ve got to turn him in for murder.” Naoki eyed the writhing scientist with disgust. “The murder of all eleven of his colleagues.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“Did you get that casserole situation sorted?”
“Yeh. Kinda.” Tom motioned to the trash. “It was ruined, though.”
“Better in the trash than on fire.” Naoki smirked.
“Shut it, you.” Tom threw an oven mitt at him.
“Tom…have you--are you employed?”
“Eh?” Tom stored a cookbook away.
“Because…well, I’m…” Naoki looked at the floor, searching for proper words. “Every good detective has an assistant, right? A partner-in-crime?” He said. “Metaphorical crime.” He clarified upon seeing Tom’s face.
“Like…Sherlock and Watson?”
“Sure, whoever that is.” Naoki said. “Anyways, you’re a good shot.”
As if he were agreeing, North moaned in pain from across the room.
“And you’re not the dullest,” Naoki continued. “And you’re pretty bearable to be around. So…perhaps…if you’ve got nothing better to do…and…and…ah…”
“You want me to come along on every investigation?” Tom raised an eyebrow, looking unbearably smug. “You want me to be a P.I., too? Pfft…that’s funny… me, a P.I.?”
“Is that a yes?”
“Eh, I dunno.” Tom said. “I just don’t know if I’m--”
“I’ll get you a badge.”
“Say less!” Tom shouted. He held his hand up for Naoki to high-five. Naoki hesitated. Had…had he ever even high-fived someone before? He’d seen people do it. It was a sign of friendship and celebration. Tom held up his hand stalwartly, waiting. Naoki grinned. He smacked Tom’s hand. It stung his hand badly. Not surprising.
He wasn’t so tough, nowadays.