•SOS part 1
"Just a moment, please."
The voice rang out clearly, and a slender finger pushed the hold button.
"Hello, North Star Shipping Company, just a moment please."
The girl at the desk flashed a helpless smile at the man waiting with a canvas bundle in his hands, and beckoned him over. "Captain Jones? I thought you and your boys were still out at sea?" Aquamarine nail polish, wide blue eyes, and straight, blonde hair. It was hard to tell what made the man more nervous, the bundle in his hands or the secretary. "Yes, well..." He paused, but shook his head near imperceptibly. "Look, is Marney around?" The secretary bobbed her fair head. "Meeting room. She's schmoozing some clients."
The captain blinked. "Marney Intrepid, schmoozing?" Marney was good with people the same way elephants were good with mice. "I really need to talk to her." he said hesitantly, and the secretary frowned. "I don't know when she'll be out, Captain Jones. Wish I could help."
"So you'll consider it then? It would be nice, you know, I mean I don't want to seem pushy or anything, but shipping by sea is, you know, uh, nice and stuff. Didn't you ever want to be a sailor when you were a kid? Well, now your stuff can be, you know?" The two at the front desk bit their lips. Only Marney could be so hopeless at a sales pitch. The woman was good at organizing a business, greasing the tiny cogs to make things run smoothly, but give her a client interview and she fell to bits. It was a shame that there wasn't more staff to handle these things, but sea shipping was slower than air, and business was slowly declining. The small firm was having to get even smaller, tightening its belt to save itself from a plunge.
Getting Marney to talk to people was not the best way to go about it. No two representatives in the world could have left quicker, and the slender woman trailed helplessly after them, shouting a final "Thank you for your time!" at their retreating backs. Her shoulders sagged as they left, and she turned around to get back to what she was actually good at. What she hadn't expected was the captain. "...Oh! Captain Jones, I thought you were-"
He grabbed her arm and flashed her a grave look. "We need to talk." The bundle in his arms wriggled, and he shook it sternly. "Now."
Once they were safely in the conference room, he threw the bundle onto the table, where it revealed the strangest creature that Marney had ever seen. The face was strange, but the hands were iconic, and she looked at him, puzzled. "An aye aye? I don't get it. Why aren't you with the S.S Kentucky Star? Why show me this?"
Captain Jones frowned at her. "If I were with the S.S Kentucky Star at this moment, I would be thousands of meters underwater." He waited to give her time to process the information, and continued. "Everyone got off safely, it was an engine malfunction. But this little guy caused it. He must have snuck aboard on one of our trips, he looks about half starved. He certainly did a number to our engines, was messing with them the whole damn voyage home, no doubt."
The aye aye looked at her balefully, and indeed it did look worse for the wear, but not as bad as the Kentucky Star was at the moment. "How the hell did an aye-aye sink a ship?" she demanded, desperate to discover that this was secretly an elaborate prank. "Look at it! Sure, the S.S Kentucky Star was an OLD ship, but my god, it wasn't falling apart so much that some rodent could sink it!" The captain shrugged. "Apparently it found a toolbox. It was poking holes around the engine room with some new toys, looking for bugs to eat in our expensive equipment."
Marney sank into a chair. "We really don't need this right now." she groaned. The Kentucky Star had been old, yes, but a ship was a ship, and North Star Shipping couldn't afford the loss. "Your crew-" "Awaiting orders." Captain Jones confirmed. The woman nodded grimly. "Well, I suppose I'd better sort this out, then." Getting up, she headed for the door. As she left, he whistled, picking up the aye-aye and tossing it to her. "I'm not dealing with that thing." he told her flatly. "I've already dealt with enough nuisances today."
Marney looked at the aye-aye once she was alone. There was too much to deal with, and she wished she didn't have to. Losing a ship was bad, the paperwork and number pushing that now had to be done because of it was worse. She rubbed her temples, toying with the idea of passing the aye-aye along to some other poor slob and taking a personal day. Too much was happening too quickly, and it probably meant budget cuts and job slashing and a million unpleasant things that she would rather push away until the scope of the situation could sink in. Absentmindedly, she held the aye-aye at a distance, judging how difficult it could possibly be to convince some new employee to take it.
She could feel the poor thing's ribcage. Thinking of paperwork and dodging it, she made an executive decision. "There's fruit in the break room." Striding off and trying to look as purposeful as she could while holding a creature commonly found in exotic forests, she went in. No one was there but someone reading a newspaper, holding it up so it blocked their face, and more importantly, blocked the sight of a woman walking in with an aye-aye. She set the animal down on the table, heading over to the fridge. "Mangoes, they eat those, right?"
The other person in the room got up.
"Ah, here they are. You'll like these, trust me." Marney turned around to feed the hungry animal, but the mangoes, along with her mouth, fell. With a thump, the fruits rolled to the floor, forgotten and uneaten.
She would never know if the aye-aye liked them due to the simple expedient of the aye-aye having caught on fire.
