The Whale that Swallowed the Sea

Chapter Eleven: An Unwanted Setback

Farran was a muscular man who was a little stouter compared to Marinus who was much taller and thinner, and he had short cut silvery hair and amber eyes that almost seemed to glow. He had a distinct scar on the right side of his jaw that left a jagged white line on his skin. His voice was deep, making everything about him almost intimidating, but he didn't appear all that imposing. In fact, he seemed just as grumpy-faced as Marinus.

"Let me look at the arm," Farran said to Marinus when they were inside the workshop that was filled with all sorts of curiosities; automaton parts, wires live with electricity set in glass tubes, bits and pieces of metal things and engines among other things.

As Marinus handed over his beat-up metal appendage, Farran took it and began examining it, which didn't take him very long as he looked up at Marinus questioningly.

"What the hell did you do? Use it as a baseball bat...?"

Marinus shrugged.

"Can you fix it...?" Azeria asked hopefully.

Farran looked back down at the prosthetic arm with a frown, "the joint locks have been misaligned, the nervous wires severely damaged, not to mention the outside plating is completely destroyed, but... it looks fixable."

"Good – how long will it take...?" Marinus asked.

"From how it looks... a week at the least." Farran said.

"A whole week!? Are you sure you can't get it done any faster? We're kind of in a hurry."

"Only if you want to sacrifice longevity – but if it's your desire to get somewhere, I am sure that you don't want to take the time to make another repair stop within a month or so," Farran snapped at him.

Marinus was about to retort something in return when Azeria grabbed his arm. "Like it or not, we need this Marinus." She said. "A week isn't that long; in the meantime, maybe we can restock on supplies and look around for some rumors."

Marinus did not seem to agree, but he let it go anyway to her relief.

"So why exactly is the top biometrics engineer's workshop so unused...?" Kaleo's robotic voice echoed through the huge space from where he was in one corner of the room inspecting some of the devices and rubbing off a long gray line of dust off of one particular project.

"Don't touch anything!" Farran yelled at him. "Those are Flavius's personal projects and they're very valuable!"

"If that's true, why are they not well kept...?" Kaleo challenged, facing the silver haired man. "If something is very important to someone, they take good care of it, and if you care about him like you say you do, then why are you not taking care of his things like he would?"

Farran opened his mouth, but then closed it again, saying nothing for a while, until he finally murmured, "I don't want them to find me..."

Azeria looked at him questioningly. "Who...?"

He looked unsure as to whether or not to answer her question, but he finally settled on answering with a sigh. "The Collective Oligarchy. Ever since my mentor, Flavius, disappeared more than a decade ago, they have been looking to me to take his place as the world's best biometrics engineer and provide them with new technology for the country as well as for their own projects. But I cannot...I will not create anything even again."

"Why not? Isn't that what you are supposed to do?" Marinus said unsympathetically.

"It's not that simple; they want me to be Flavius and I just can't." Farran said agitatedly. "They want his genius when the look to me – and that is just not something I can do! I know how to be a biometrics engineer, and I know all of Flavius's techniques and skills, but I am just not him! I can't come up with the technology he does – I can only improve or fix existing biometric technology like Princess here–" He indicated to the guard dog automaton lying down near the door. "Flavius built her – I just made minor tweaks so that she would work when he disappeared before he could complete her! So in order to avoid the Collective Oligarchy, I have to lay low and keep my engineering activity to a minimum." Farran paused as he sagged, looking discouraged. "So many people used to come by here looking to get fixed or to buy a new prosthetic...but when Flavius disappeared their numbers dwindled only to those who were desperate to find someone who could repair them..."

"Are there no other biometric engineers in Trefger...?" Azeria asked.

Farran shook his head. "When Flavius disappeared, all the others did too..."

"What do you mean?" Kaleo asked.

"Have you not heard?!" Farran asked them in exasperation. "It was all over the newspapers and the radios! Two-hundred biometric engineers were tasked by the Collective Oligarchy to work on a secret project more than fifteen years ago – but then the project was canceled and the engineers went missing after they were released. Since this day, no one knows what happened to them all."

"How the hell do you just lose two-hundred engineers...?" Marinus asked suspiciously with narrowed eyes.

"If I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be in the position I am now," Farran growled at him with contempt in his eyes, "Some people thought that it was some sort of conspiracy thought up by the Council in an attempt to increase their power and riches..."

"Hey! My father was a member of the Collective Oligarchy's Council and he was a good man!" Azeria interjected with a distasteful huff.

Farran seemed to regard her with a new light, but didn't seem overly interested in the fact that she was a noble as he muttered, "I said some people..."

"It is an interesting detail though..." Kaleo said thoughtfully. "Azeria's father was a part of the Collective Oligarchy Council and ends up murdered, and now we know that a bunch of biometric engineers go missing after being called out by said Council to work on a project that occurs a few years before the day the ocean vanishes."

"Do you think that they could all be connected somehow?" Azeria asked curiously.

"What are you talking about...?" Farran asked, completely lost.

"We're hunting for the giant whale that swallowed the sea," Azeria said simply. "I think my father may have had some sort of connection to it, and I believe that if I find it, I will get the answers I'm looking for."

"I'm just here for the ride." Kaleo admits with a shrug.

Farran gives them the look they were used to about now – the "are you crazy" look. "You're talking about the myth...?"

"Oh it's real," Marinus suddenly said, stepping in, a deadly serious expression on his face. "I saw it on that day fifteen years ago."

Seeing the marine's expression took Farran somewhat aback. "Um...right...I think I'll get to work on this and let you three get back to your...uh...whaling..."

"Well...he took it much better than most." Kaleo said as he watched Farran walk off with the metal prosthetic arm.