Two and the Last Year on Earth ✓ [humor, sci-fi, romance]

Act 3: Ocean Dive

The van jerked and Two woke up. "I see it. Down, more." She heard Jarid in a distance. Where were they? Were they already there?

The van jerked again and pulled Two out of her sleep completely. Outside there were dark gray clouds rolling about and rain splattered against the window.

"Dr. Lorkhead, you need more speed!" Jarid started shouting. The van jerked again and Jarid was thrown back from his position of leaning forward to instruct the Doctor.

"What's going on?" Two said, panic rushing through as she feared worst scenario after worst scenario.

"The Time Murderer has affected the weather somehow and the clouds above have gone wild, so we had to descend." Jarid explained.

"We're going to land?"

"Yeah, we're almost at the port. Just a few more miles."

Two leaned forward to look through the front window of the van. Somewhere below she could make out land, but it seemed too far away. Suddenly the van jerked wildly and Two was thrown back and bumped her head against the overhead air conditioner. As her vision blurred, water rushed at her too quickly. She knew then they had dived into the sea.

"Two! Two! Oh, thank god, you're okay," Jarid was saying as she struggled to wake up.

"Imagine, I manage to 'pass out' twice today." She grinned up at him, managing a joke even though her brain was on fire. Then she took a good look at Jarid and realized he was soaking wet.

"What happened? Did we fall?" Two said, sitting up despite Jarid's pleas to take it easy. Her head still swam but she felt alive. Alive and well. That was good enough.

"Yeah. Dr. Lorkhead made for a slow sloppy dive into the ocean. Luckily, we were close enough to land and used the raft to hull you over. Want some mush? It looks so gross but it's so good. Dr. Lorkhead made some on the fire. We have ice cream, too. Melted and squished but good to eat." Jarid smiled. There was a scratch on his forehead and Two had to stop herself from reaching up and touching it, to make sure it wasn't serious. Ashtoe's words still had an effect on her.

Sitting by the fire, she stared at her watch which was doing some crazy fast and slow ticks. No one here would know the time, but she did. Trained to have a mental clock that matched with the satellite, Two knew it was morning in the U.S. and supposed to be around 9 p.m. in Japan.

Jarid was right, the mush was gross. It was green, grey, blue, and pink but tasted like a gourmet meal or something from an expensive hotel.

"How you feeling?" Dr. Lorkhead asked. Two noticed a limp in his left leg as he walked around to sit beside her.

"Good, I guess, alive." She smiled.

"Well, I think we have time. Get some rest. I'm gonna go check the Port-Able Mobile." He got up with a slight groan and limped over to the crash site. Seemed as though with the two men they managed to hull not only Two but the Port-Able Mobile to land as well.

Two sat by the fire and quietly ate her mush. This wasn't the first time they had an accident on a mission but this time, they were dealing with time which was a fickle thing without someone tampering with it. The last accident, at least she knew what she was dealing with. It was the same. Another dive into the ocean because the Sub-Land-and-Marine-Sub decided three people was too many. Still, she smiled, they managed to save the merpeople from the sharkpeople.

"Simply awful beginning for a mission though," she whispered to herself in her British accent. Sometimes it felt good to hear her own roots once in a while.

Her eyelids felt heavy. Was this jetlag? But she should be wide awake U.S. time! "Why do I feel so sleepy?" She wailed to Jarid who had somehow retrieved both their backpacks. Anything made of material, like the backpacks, were made of a special kind of waterproof material that never let the insides get wet. Of course, they were Dr. Lorkhead's invention. One of the long-lasting ones.