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“... By the way, I forgot to tell you something when I promoted you, kid”
In the middle of long, long monologue at which Cuttlefish was recapping stories of his youth as a lieutenant of Original Squidbeak Splatoon, the old man suddenly paused. Agent 1, Agent 2 and captain all perked their heads, surprised, but intrigued by the statement. Marie wasn't exactly disappointed, since she gotten used to her grandfather's mess ups, but it still was a little irritated.
“Really, gramps? Ugh, I knew you forgot something back then…”
“Give me a break, Marie, my memory ain't what it used to be!”
“Yeah, don't nag him about it. Happens to the best of us. Besides, he's got a point, Mr. Cuttlefish is getting old. Well, even older, I mean”
Captain defended Craig, fixing their cap. Marie retrieved, folding her umbrella, placing it on the ground on one end, and leaning onto the other.
“So, Mr. Cuttlefish, what did you remember?”
“Drop the mister, kid, you can just call me gramps as well!.. Well, Craig at least, if you're uncomfortable with “gramps”. Anyway, I have dozen of documents regarding Octarians, including a dossiers of practically every weapon they made and about every octoling soldier… including the AWOL ones. So if you're curious, you can check them. There haven't been any updates for 5 years already.”
“Mhm… Roger that Cap– um… eh… Craig.”
Captain looked away shyly, hiding their eyes under the cap. She was super-ultra-mega embarrassed calling Cuttlefish by just his first name for the first time. Craig, on the other hand, was really jolly about it. The agents looked at each other in shock for a moment, then, Agent 1 crossed her arms, pouted her cheeks and demonstratively turned away.
“No fair! Even Tango got access to these documents and we didn't!”
Agent 2 covered her mouth, attempting to muffle her laugh.
♬♩♪♩ Later that evening ♩♪♩♬
Tango returned to their apartment, all dark and cold. She forgot to close the windows. Their roommate is still not home.
“What the hell is going on? Where is he? It's been two days…”
His friend is developing some VR thingy and asked him to attend as a beta-tester. After that, he just… hasn't returned. Neither him, or the game dev, or her girlfriend other friend have been online on any social media ever since.
It drove Tango coo-coo crazy! She was extremely anxious. She took her shoes off, dropped her backpack on the floor and headed to the kitchen to get themselves a glass of water to calm down.
As she drinked, she looked at the fridge through the glass that disfigured the surroundings. On the fridge, there was a yellow note, slapped on the fridge door.
«Heya, Tango. Marina invited me to test her VR game she's been working on for a while. Don't wait for me after my shift at library, it's probably gonna be a long evening. Not sure if you'll be home to see this,so I'll also duplicate this message on Jellycord. Stay safe and don't forget to take a shower.
– Hachi»
“Well, I wasn't, in fact, at home to read this back then, Hachi-boy…”
Tango placed the glass on the table and headed back to the hall. She dragged their backpack to their room and tossed it on her bed. She opens it and digs in it for a while and finally pulled out a flash drive, on which she downloaded all the Octarian docs on.
“I guess a peek won't hurt.”
She turned her PC on and inserted the drive. It took a while to load all the data, but eventually, everything was downloaded.
It contained tons of case files, information about Octarian machinery. Tango saw most of them back in a day, but there were machines, she wasn't familiar with.
“They built a fucking giant toaster??? So Sirena wasn't bullshitting back then? Fuck,
man…”
»»——⍟——««
“They rebuilt Octostomp? And they built mini stomps? These idiots just can't move on, huh? The Octowhirl was so much cooler!..”
»»——⍟——««
“Alright, let's get to Octoling soldiers' dossiers!”
As Tango was scrolling through dossiers, she was cringing at how similar soldiers looked, while differences were occasionally popping up, they were really standing out, especially… Acht Mizuta and Marina Ida? Oh, yeah, they are octolings as well. That explains a lot about Marina at least. Dedf1sh on the other hand is still a mystery.
Tango's mind drifts to the memory of the battle against DJ Octavio. The Octarians, under the range of Calamari Inkantation dancing and smiling as the battle went.
She saw her, happinest she ever was. Their gazes crossed at some point. Marina, the elite combat engineer, an Octarian child soldier, and Tango, some middle schooler, a squid, who somehow liberated an entire nation from propaganda influence.
It's crazy how small their age difference actually is. 2 years only!
Another thing she noticed is that most of octolings combat soldiers were women.
“So Octarians are a matriarchal society, huh? So I was right when I said “Quit squidding around and fight like a woman” when I was fighting with Hachi. If so, then why is their current emperor a man?”
As she scrolled down she found another dossier. Surprisingly, it was a boy. There were boys, but they mostly were engineers, suppliers and something like that. Closer what they could've got to be on the battlefield is being a scout. This boy was enlisted as a scout.
«Pavel Huit
Gen 87 – Junior Combat Scout - sniper
CLASSIFIED
Age 6: Enrolled into elementary training program at Slimeskin Garrison.
Age 8: joined a group of National Octo Canyon Youth journal redaction team. Went by pseudonym “Petrushka”
Age 10: Due to taking advanced courses, graduated early with a PhD in journalism.
Same year: Enlisted into junior scout squad, headed by elite combat soldier Anastasia Huit.
Age 12: Went missing after battle with inkling intruder.»
“Huh, there's few Huit's here, are they relatives? Hold on–”
At the end of the dossier, there were a photo, which were probably the last moments the octoling was seen. Tango had to do a double check, because she couldn't believe what she saw.
The inkling at the photo was them. Absolutely no doubt. Same hero suit, orange colored tentacles, there even were that dumbass cape! She scrolled the entire dossier over and over again. She couldn't believe it!
It was, indeed, Hachi.
The same Hachi, who nearly knocked Tango out with slamming his Octoshot on their head when he ran out of ink at that fateful battle. Same Hachi, who, two years later, was stuck at the Deepsea Metro with Craig, passing the tests on each line. Same Hachi who defeated Hypnotised Tango. She doesn't remember anything of it, but Hachi himself has told them how that fight went.
Him, Agent 8, the Kamabo. Co subject who survived, who she was able to save, and did so (alongside with Craig).
Tango's mind drifted to the memories of other subjects, who weren't so fortunate. They were demolished, blended, turned into smoothies, molded into sausages, they were deceived, they were all deceived…
Tango turns her PC off, eyes on the window: dark, purple sky stared at them back with it's bright stars.
“Hachi… Where are you, Hachi? Please, come back…”