D.ALL Chapter 8

Foxx looked away from the window and at Free, tilting his head, “Ran… over?”

“Don’t worry, I got better thanks to Frost patching me up—with the help of my guidance of course,” Free said before shoving one-fourth of his breakfast platter into his eye-mouth.

“Foxx, if you ever find yourself doing so, please pay attention when flying through space. Look both ways,” Frost said knowingly.

“You ran me over!”

“Yes, then I helped you.”

Shwoooooo

“You still ran me over! And I had to direct you and your complete lack of basic mechanical knowledge—all while being operated on! How did you, let alone the poor Camper, survive up until we met?”

ooooooOOO

“We managed,” Frost took a bite out of their burger, “Just like you did.”

“Oh oh ho—really now?”

“It is space, you could have gone any direction to evade.”

“A ship riding cosmic winds is not exactly dodgeable—even for me!”

“You would have, if you looked both—”

OOOOOOOOO—

The noise of what sounded like a vacuum drowned out their friendly bickering, diverting their attention to its source which was… Foxx?

The tip of his snout was stabbed into his burger—like a mosquito, and in a split second he siphoned up the entire thing—leaving absolutely nothing behind except for the plate.

“…”

Foxx noticed that the other two stopped bickering, raising his head from his plate to see both—accidentally—staring blankly at him. He stared back for a moment before receding into the booth, his fur turning a bright red.

“Is something wrong?” Free asked, but Foxx did not answer. “If it’s the burger that’s the problem we can order you something else, no big deal.”

“No. Sorry,” Foxx’s voice was muffled by the cushions.

“Hm? Sorry for—oh, wait,” Free realized that was not the problem. “We didn’t mean to stare, just didn’t expect it, right Frost?” Free poked their shoulder.

“Mm-hmm,” Frost agreed.

“Oh, by the way, was that burger any good?” Free asked.

“…Yes,” he shimmied out of the cushioning, still a bit red, “Tasty.”

“Good, good—now that we’re all fueled,” Free clapped his hands together, “Let's get down to bizz, starting with what we know. First, we know Foxx’s guardian is not from a Cluster Chain near here and Foxx mentioned ‘falling’." Free turned to Foxx, “Actually, any new memories pop up?”

Over the course of their meal, Foxx had been drawing on the dusty window, connecting the stars outside by cleaning the dust with a napkin. Although none of the constellations seemed right—incomprehensible and incomplete. “A piano,” he stopped drawing, his attention fixated on something far out of the view of the other two, “And a kind person.”

“What did the person look like, anything distinct like scales or something?”

“I only saw their smile, sorry.”

“Do not be hard on yourself,” Frost said to Foxx then turned to Free, “That does narrow it down, a good portion of species do not have mouths.”

Free took out a notepad, “You’re right, I’ll keep note of any details Foxx remembers. If his guardian can’t find us, we can at least find them if we get enough information.”

“There is a possibility that it was not Foxx’s guardian.”

“Still, even if they’re not, it's someone connected to Foxx.”

“Agreed. Now regarding Hornnhealm, while we still need to acquire a decent star chart, I know it is in the farthest Cluster from us in this Chain. We barely have enough fuel to make it if we go straight for it.”

“This Chain has three Clusters in it right? We can take a pitstop on the one between here and Hornnhealm’s.” Free snapped his fingers—an idea had formed, “You know, if Foxx’s guardian is space faring, then they must have a way of picking up radio signals.”

“Most likely, but our radio’s range is only fit for close communication. It is a waste of fuel and time to go around aimlessly and contact every ship we pass.”

“Yeah, at that point we’re better off waiting for Foxx’s memories to return once we get the… Thing-Mi-Find…” Free cringed at the device’s name, “Just the dumbest name for such an amazing invention—Anyway, what I am getting at is that I can modify our radio to send out a signal pulse spanning hundreds of Clusters if we can find a stable source to power it.”

“Signal pulse?” Foxx said.

“Basically, a slow self-propelled wave of information—once fully changed. Although it's limited in the amount of information it can carry, maybe 3MBs total. That should be enough to attach an image of you and the Camper, as well as where we are and where we are going.”

“Sounds dangerous, there is a likelihood that it attracts unwanted attention,” Frost said.

“True, and even with a good power source there is a chance it fizzles much sooner than expected. The pulse could go for a thousand Clusters… or only ten.” Free flipped through his notebook frustrated, scribbling down bulletin after bulletin trying to remember if there is anything that could reduce the chance of fizzling.

“Terarin,” Foxx spoke, breaking Free’s focus, “It’s ‘not far from here’, ‘good seafood.’”

“Have you been there before, did more memories return?” Free said, flipping his notebook back to the page about Foxx’s guardian.

“No,” Foxx returned to drawing constellations, “I just listened to the others here.”

“Oh…” Free put his notebook down, “But wait, you can actually hear what the other customers are saying? For me they just mush together into a noise blob.”

“Yes.”

“You're just full of surprises, are they saying anything else interesting?”

Foxx took a moment to respond, rotating his ears like radio dishes—tuning his ears to hear another booth clearly. But then his ears abruptly stopped, and Foxx relayed what he heard from a booth behind them—the one with the orbs of light and the gruff dog-headed person.

“‘This sundae is shi—’”

“FOXX,” Frost suddenly raised their voice, then quickly lowered it—trying to play it off cool. “...Very impressive, skills like that are special. Keep them sharp, they could save your or another’s life one day.”

Foxx’s eyes widened, “Like an adventurer, a hero?” Visions of the kind figure flashed in his mind, not much clearer than before, but those words; “adventurer,” “hero,” they gave him a warm feeling.

“Just like one—just like us,” Frost’s tone was unusually expressive and theatric, or at least as expressive and theatric as they could be.

“Dude…” Free side-eyed Frost, “We’re scavengers who live off trash, not—” they quickly shushed Free. “Ugh,” he sighed, “Whatever, let's finalize the plan so we can get going.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Ok.”

“We’ll head for Terarin,” Free doodled the plan on some napkins, “They most likely have power we can ‘borrow,’ and once the pulse becomes self-propelled, we’ll head for Hornnhealm.”

“Why not wait on Terarin for Foxx’s guardian? We don’t know how dangerous getting the Thing-Mi-Find will be,” Frost said.

“We’ve been traveling for over a year in search of that thing without a single lead. Even if this lead is from a crazy oldie, and there is a slim chance it's still there—we have to take it. Plus, we can use it to find Foxx’s home once his memories come back!”

“Humph.”

“Also, if we run into trouble, Foxx can clearly handle himself. Right, Foxx?”

Foxx answered with a nod and on the window next to him, among the tens of incomplete constellations, he had completed one, a perfect circle.

“Fine, that works for now,” Frost raised their hand, signaling to Formosa—who quickly skittered over.

“Did y’all enjoy your meals?” she did not wait for an answer as she extended her hand and opened her palm, “That'll be twenty-six total.”

Frost produced sixteen coin-sized pieces of iron while Free fished out a similarly sized piece of silver, handing them to her.

“Let me just check em’,” she placed the metal into a small bowl attached to a rectangular device.

As the device hummed and blinked with blue light, Frost asked “By chance, do you know anything about a planet named Terarin?”

“That's where you're heading?”

“And Hornhealm.”

“Well, Terarin is down in the Cluwhet Cluster, not that far from here. ‘Vacationed there a few times since me and my partner settled down,” she took out her notepad and with the same hand used her claws to etch down directions. “It's got these beautiful sea-cities; they're not as advanced as Calmede before the apocalypse-doomsday-whatsits happened but its natural landscape makes up for it. Just don’t go anywhere other than near the islands around the equator, the rest is all ice and ocean… and folks north and south aren't as welcoming.”

The device beeped as she handed Frost the makeshift star chart and pocketed the metal pieces. For what it was, the star chart was surprisingly detailed, showing the coordinates of almost every celestial body in Ebb-Burrows—It put Frost’s proper star charts to shame.

“As for Hornnhealm over in Wyrmwhet… I can’t think of much to say, never visited it after we first came to Ebb-Burrows, and that was thirty-five or so years ago. It's probably different now but back then it was in the middle of a nasty war, no clue what it was about but I hope it's over by now,” she frowned. “Anyhoo, thank you for your patronage, if there is anything else I can do to help just ask and I’ll see what I can do,” her frown spun into a smile.

Foxx hopped down from the booth and bowed to her, “Thank you.” She let out a “Dawww” and began melting—literally, the lower half of her body pooling on the floor.

Shortly Free scooted out as well, stepping over the puddle of Formosa, “Yeah, thanks.”

“You two can get back to the camper, I want to ask around some more,” Frost said, Free giving them a thumbs up as he exited the diner with Foxx.