Merfolk on Mars

Chapter 17

It didn't take Arai long to finish. He thrust the paper at me.

"Here!" He puffed out his chest in pride. "What do you think?"

I took a look at it. A very long look at it.

Who in their right mind gave this guy a chainsaw?

Did he not understand what paragraphs were? And – where were the commas?! If someone rearranges a sentence, it needed a comma to keep things clear! Punctuation and capitalization were apparently an endangered species in his world.

Was that a tree or the tower? I was hoping it was a tower, because I hadn't seen any trees since setting foot in this city. As for his so-called 'plan', the only part that was clear, was that he was plainly not taking any roles of responsibility or doing anything even remotely dangerous.

Isla took the paper from me and simply stared at it.

"It's great, isn't it?" Arai said, making it sound more like a self-praising comment than a question.

"It's... something..." Isla murmured.

If she meant something completely unintelligible, then I fully agreed with her. I got to my knees and peered over the stone sides at our four stumbling blocks in front of the door.

The skin on my arm prickled and I absently rubbed it, only to encounter an object. I glanced down to see a grape-sized spider crawling up my arm.

I launched to my feet. "Spider!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs, my voice skipping several octaves as the glass in nearby windows gave a faint keening echo of my cry.

My wild swat managed to send the over-sized arachnid flying. I didn't care if spiders were near me, but they were NOT allowed to touch me!

The four below promptly looked up – just in time to see the fluffy, grey mote descending toward them like a twirling snowflake with eight legs. If there wasn't a horror movie about clouds raining oversized spiders down upon innocent bystanders, then the producers clearly had never seen someone's expression when a spider was dropping on top of them.

The two women screamed and promptly fainted. If all this fainting was the result of those corset things, I vowed I was never wearing one. The spider hadn't even touched them!

The spider landed on the ground and, just like in all the horror movies, immediately decided to scuttle towards them.

The men began dragging the women away from the incoming menace, taking cover in a nearby bus shelter. With all the moving gears in this place, I had no idea how the spider had survived so long.

From how the men had opted to pull their friends to safety, there must also be a law against squishing spiders. Either that, or they were also scared of getting closer to it.

Isla jumped to her feet. "Quick! Now is our chance!"

I blinked and realized she was right. I ran after her, descending the stairs two at a time.

Somewhere behind me, Arai muttered, "This was not part of my plan."

If having a massive spider crawl up my arm had been part of his plan, then the real distraction would have been him running away from a deranged lady swinging an axe.

We reached the door and, barged inside, too rushed to think about what might be inside.

A lady at a nearby desk jumped and stared at our abrupt entrance. "Uh, can I help you folks?"

We were silent for a moment. The door swung shut behind us with a quiet click.

"Err," I began awkwardly, "there's a- uh- giant spider on a rampage outside."

She immediately got to her feet. "Oh no. That is most disturbing. Please ensure the door is tightly shut. I don't want it in here. Feel free to stay here until it is gone. I'll go make sure the back door is locked."

She went around a wall partition and out of sight. I couldn't believe she was taking me seriously. Even worse, she was more concerned about the spider than I was – she was actually locking the back door. What kind of spiders lurked in this city?

Isla nudged my arm and pointed to the staircase beside us. I nodded, and the four of us tiptoed up the stairs.

If we ran into anyone, perhaps we could claim there was a spider downstairs...

The staircase spiralled up around the inside of the tower. The stairs went up endlessly, although there was a door on the left-hand side. We slowed down and peeked inside the empty room.

The handful of desks and paperwork didn't interest us, so we kept climbing.

The next two rooms were the same – and just as empty. As we went up, we began to hear voices and slowed down.

The door was mostly closed, so they wouldn't notice us tiptoe past.

"This machine is too corroded to repair. I wasn't aware of how much damage saltwater would do to brass. They weren't even on that moon for long."

We paused just before the door, listening intently. There was only one moon in this solar system that had salt water.

"Every gear, disc, and control are heavily damaged. They won't even be able to leave the atmosphere of this planet without major repairs. Even the leather has to be replaced."

Steampunk culture would never become a thing for merfolk. Brass and leather hated the ocean, and steam hated us. It was clearly never meant to be.

All the more reason to find the stone and get off this planet.

Someone sighed. "Let's keep cataloging the extent of the damage, but none of these machines are going anywhere for weeks."

I grimaced – there went our possible escape plan. The people inside went silent. We peeked through the door gap just long enough to ensure the stone wasn't in sight.

We continued tiptoeing up the stairs.