Traveling Salesman: Astronomgonist

Chapter 13

"Maybe we should change the name to make it sound more reasonable or plausible?" Gerry said lying on the upper deck of the boat in his swimming trunks with his shades on putting sunscreen on Jinger's back.

"No, the name Aduralimneis works since it includes part of each of our last names. After all, it's our territory abandoned and unclaimed by anyone else since its decommission in the late 1950s. We have our own flag and coat of arms," Watch said with a bottle of root beer in his hand. He was sitting on the sofa. A Beatles song played in the background on the radio.

"No matter what we do we'll never be seen as an independent sovereign state or nation. We'll always be labeled as a model country or new country project claiming to be something we're not because the world governments and international organizations don't or won't acknowledge we are a sole nation. The idea's too way out. It's like saying we're buying property on the moon," Jinger said getting up in her bikini to get a drink from the icebox nearby.

Watch, Jinger and Gerry's hideout was on the Cupid's oxbow edge of Hault Horizon. Their hideout was a fort very similar to the armed towers Manusell Forts built in the Thames and Mersey estuaries during World War II to defend the UK. The platform was basic in design. The fort had two hollow re-enforced pillars built, in which the construct of several rooms could sufficiently accommodate a small army.

Harrodean looked out of the sphere-shaped window. She watched the 50-foot yacht tied to the dock below where Watch, Jinger and Gerry were. Her supersonic hearing zeroed in on their chat. Their voices increased a higher decibel. She could no longer separate the music from the conversation. Deafness in one ear and a chiming sound in her other ear lingered longer than she'd wanted it to.

She withdrew her power quickly, her ears twitching when she did so. When her hearing returned back to normal, she still felt a little drained. She laughed inside at Watch, Jinger and Gerry. "Look at them, they're like little children trying to make something square popular with the popular kids."

"It took us a year to get caught by Watch, Jinger, and Gerry so we could find out where they took Teerkedas and now we're stuck in the middle of nowhere. I'm sorry, Phenny. I know this was my idea. We should be on the beach catching some rays, instead of being held prisoner here for the last two years."

"I liked the bit of adventure, sis, when we stowed away on that fancy yacht out there. Too bad we couldn't enjoy the amenities. What bugs me the most is not being able to sleep, to dream. At least that would get us through the agony of being trapped here. You and I don't have the gift of REM sleep," Phenny said, his arms propping up his head lying on the cot in the corner of the room.

"Yeah, at least we could dream about being on the beach. I was always the faster swimmer." She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled.

"That's debatable," he snickered.

"Yeah, it's debatable if you think you'll ever beat me." She laughed. She jumped off the stool and took the pillow from her cot and threw it at his head.

Harrodean and Phenny suffered from a biological sleep disorder in which they were only able to sleep one hour per week. Harrodean lay back down on the cot. Her body grew tired, but her mind kept racing. Phenny got up to pace around.

She was able to endure the effects of the disorder to a degree, since she had been dealing with it longer than Phenny and because she was a full-blooded pixie sailor nymph.

The disorder didn't start to hit Phenny hard until he reached his twenty-first birthday last year. And because of his human half, he had weakened from the disorder not just physically, but mentally. He looked out through the opposite window. The motion of the water calmed him, but it made his headache worse.

"I wouldn't be able to survive without you keeping my spirits up, Hazeldine. I feel like I've lost chunks of my mind. I've never thought of going to a shrink before. But I think I might need one after this," Phenny said dropping down on the cot from exhaustion.

Harrodean rose from the cot and took Phenny by the hands. Her eyes lit like a blinding glycerin ball and she absorbed the weariness from his body. Her body changed into a rectangular apparition for a few minutes. She put her hand on his head, holding his hands together in his lap with her other hand. He felt a quiet thread through him and radiate outward. His headache had disappeared. He fell back on the pillow sideways. Harrodean fell to her knees and collapsed on her back onto the floor. She stared up at the ceiling with a blank look on her face. She returned back to her usual pixie-sailor-nymph physique.

"You can't keep using your power to get rid of my exhaustion. You'll die, Harrodean," Phenny said slipping in and out of consciousness.

"As long as you don't die, I can walk into Elysium in peace." Her body and voice drained quickly fading into a tired whisper.

"Remember when we were in that refugee camp?" Phenny said his silvery white eyes starting to close.

"It was more of a concentration camp," Harrodean reminded.

"I was malnourished and you gave me the little food you had left."

"Phenny, you were a baby at the time. I did what I had to do."

"I'll never understand why our parents would abandon us."

"My parents didn't abandon me. They died. I was moved to another refugee camp." Harrodean nodded off to sleep.

"You what...." Phenny's words trailed off and he fell asleep. The effects of Harrodean's powers had become intermittent because she was using them while exhausted and that depleted them more and more. Before, she rarely ever used them due to that fact.

"Wh-what did I say? I'm delirious, Phenny. Let's just be quiet. Let's just listen to the quiet."

They both lay there with their eyes open staring up at the ceiling. Time seemed to pass like air on a leaf.

Harrodean wrung her hands and curled her body into the fetal position trying to stave off the coldness she felt inside. Her heart beat fast. Her long orange, yellow, blue and green hair turned the palest blonde. Her dark bluish-black down-turned shaped eyes changed into the shape of scythes. Her eyes became fulvous in color and their texture had transmuted into a mixture of salt and asphalt. She couldn't feel or hear anything.

Phenny was at her side. But he didn't exist. The room didn't exist. Nothing existed.