Out beyond the breakers, beyond the gigagenerators, beyond the artificial current drones, and beyond all the trawlers, it exists. Part of sentient lore, it drifts with the currents, surfacing every 90 minutes to steal oxygen. All around it, the debris rode the waves; cresting and falling, colliding and dipping below the surface. The debris blanketed the surface for nearly one hundred solar rotations. A mandate that spanned from anthro to post, the trawlers skimmed and sorted, crushed and returned. The debris seemed to never end.
S_ / SPACE INIT
CCRX-16M8, or Rex, spent its time on the oscillation endeavour, plucking debris from the foamy surface—each scoop seemed to be replaced by something else immediately. Its wide jaws inhaled the sea, with giant gulps of discarded debris. The trawler liked its job, and it liked its partner CRU-68-A85. Rex gulped another mouthful of debris, crush, heat, compress, dump repeat. Rex’s compression bay was at 18% capacity.
The time was approaching again, oscillation waves, the time the mysterious being would arrive. Rex raced to the location where the being always surfaced, then stopped. Rex waited, with trawler engine still whirling. The silence of the surface only broken by clanging hydrocarbon debris. Oscillation. Oscillation waves.
There.
/ ALERT: ANOMALY=152M
The being broke through the debris, high in the air. It was grey and ridged, a large flap for propulsion. It brought with it noise, the whine of an organic beast and the splash and crash of the hydrocarbons in its wake. The being stayed on the surface, longer than its usual 30 seconds. Rex, with sentient curiosity, moved closer to the being. The being ducked below the debris, as the trawler got closer.
There.
The being jumped from the water again, this time much closer to Rex. Debris and water splashed over the trawler’s body. Rex was unfazed. The being swam under Rex, nudging the trawler from below, before losing track of it. The trawler spun down its engines to listen for the being.
There, again.
One last time the being leapt from the water, this time further away, as it seemed to be leaving the area. The being let out a wild call. Noise, organic shout. Then silence as it slipped away under the debris.
Rex spun its engines up again, taking a giant gulp of ocean water and debris. Crush, heat, compress, dump, repeat.
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