He and Slop sat there for the longest time. He kept the truck running in the cool Autumn morning, almost completely rusted over from the Blue Feather Sea salt and brine. The heat was set to medium high. The radio was tuned to the local KLXC station and its blend of medium rock and high jazz. Even the worn seat of his truck was set to same (medium high) so he could sit up and see the road better in his older age. Slouching more, he recognized. Uncle Barnacles, so named for his crusty attitude, also perhaps brought on by his own proximity to the same salty, upper central Maebaeleia continent body of water named before, had his back turned on the “creature” on purpose. He had a crate to deliver, per his new job, but he didn’t want to go over there, get any closer. “Slop,” he said to his riding companion, a droopy hound with almost as complex of personality, “I can feel it. Even if I can’t see it. You hear that hum? That’s it. Some say, Slop, it’s *comforting*. Imagine that,” he spat out with bile. Slop slopped an agreeing bark in his face, pelting it lightly with saliva, which Uncle Barnacles was use to. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
2 hours later, he’d managed to turn the truck around and face it on the upper lot of the same parking deck, but on the opposite side of where he could get a direct look. He was trying to get use to the idea of being here, of working for the people who decided to create this whole megalopolis centered around it. Or working on it, super city creation in progress. “1st crate and I’ve already got cold feet,” he complained to Slop again. “Might as well turn in my badge and get paid for my 1/2 day’s work. Maybe, hmm, maybe I’ll just leave the crate here, in the parking deck, and tell them where it’s at. Whaddaya say, Slop?” Another light splatter of spit. The crate was unloaded and they were outta here, returned to the sea of which they were so much a part of now.
“Another one lost,” human resources director and more A. Pond lamented later back at the office, staring at the still moist security badge. “Well, if the locals are spooked by the thing then we’ll just have to hire more outside workers, preferably ones desperate for a job. Her thoughts turned southward, beyond the continent’s old Neutral Zone. Slums of Hatton, as she derogatorily called it in her Northern way, might do for a start.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 