8:23am
"Yeah, fine alright," Matt agreed to the idea. He didn't like it when Peter came to ask him things- he was too persistent.
"Thanks, Matt. She'll be happy." He left to find the girl. 
"What'd he say?" Jill asked an oncoming Peter.
"He said yes, but I have to go with you. He doesn't trust you- but don't feel bad, he never trusts anyone." Going with her couldn't be all bad.
"Thanks. What do we do?"
"First, we load the video equipment onto the boat. Okay, I lied. First, we find the boat. Matt said it was a smallish green thing."
"Alright. What dock? There's a lot of 'smallish green things' around here. Including seaweed..." she said, remembering Peter's 'discovery' earlier that morning.
"Smartass."
"And proud of it!"
Matt, Lindsay and Anton came out of the labs, laden with bags and bins. They took them down the steps to the small dock at the bottom of the hill. They looked around, checking both sides of the Galahktikah, not finding the smallish green thing anywhere.
"Alright Pete, what'd you do with the boat?" Matt called up from the bottom of the hill.
"Nothing. We haven't gotten the stuff yet," he called back.
"Ha ha. Really, what did you do with it?"
"I told you, I didn't touch it. Maybe LQ did something with it." Peter considered something for a moment. "Why did you automatically yell at me? What have I done recently to deserve that?"
Matt was silent at the bottom of the hill. "Just because."
"Great. Now we have to go with them on the Galahktikah," Jill said, rolling her eyes.
They went to the lab to get the equipment. They had a long day ahead of them, and they knew it. Quite well, in fact.
9:16am
"Who's got the adapters?" everyone heard Peter calling from across the boat. He could be loud if he wanted to.
"They're over here, now stop yelling," Jill called back. They still had to work together, but they didn't mind.
Anton and Cooper were taking care of the medical equipment in the cockpit. All was well and they were ready to go.
"Are you ready yet? We should be getting out there soon," Matt said from up above.
"I can't find Lindsay anywhere. Have you seen her, Anton?" Jill asked, going in to the cockpit.
"Matt sent her off to see if she could find more information about the weather, the locals, stuff like that," he replied.
"She's not coming?"
"I guess not."
"Then we're ready to go."
Matt, the skipper, started the engine and put them into reverse. Peter undid the ropes that tied the boat to the dock and jumped aboard as the Galahktikah roared out of the dock.
"Audio and visual links are... up and running," Peter informed everyone over com link.
"Copy that, Axon," Matt's voice came over the line.
Peter was showing Jill the ropes- how to reset and restart the recordings, how to work the audiophones, stuff like that. Not the most interesting, but it was better that staying with Lindsay back at Mobile Lab.
"Are you getting this back there?" Cooper asked, lightly touching the button on his com link.
"Loud and clear. I'm getting what you're picking up," Lindsay replied from the lab.
"I'm getting something on the radar. Half a click from the starboard bow," Anton could be heard.
"Any visuals yet?" Matt asked.
"None yet. We have nothing on long-range recording." Jill had even got a com link for her first mission with the team.
Jill, Peter and Anton fixed the sensors on their temples and checked the monitors in their front pockets. All was well.
"We've got movement, 200 meters off the starboard bow," Cooper informed them. Anton went back to the cockpit, looking up at the heart-wave monitors. He wasn't surprised when he saw Axon's readings rise, but they didn't rise as quickly or as sharply as he thought they would. Maybe he was getting over his fears?
"Time frame?" Matt inquired from the front of the boat.
"Fifty seconds and closing."
Peter and Jill rechecked their setup once more before going to join Matt. Everything was in place and recording.
A cloud-like spot in the sky could be seen a few hundred feet in front of them. It seemed to be staying in the same place, and it was also was composed of many different and vibrant colors. It was the first psychedelic cloud any of the team had seen. It was beautiful in an ominous kind of way.
"Cooper, come out here and get ready to catch some of the snakes," Matt told the temporary teammate.
"Axon, come here and take care of the radar," Cooper said over the com link.
Peter thankfully went inside and took over LQ's job as the cryptozoologist went outside with numerous jars. Cooper was right- there was something on the scans. It seemed to be diminishing in size, but in an odd way. The area covered by the cloud was approximately eighty feet by seventy-five feet, and it was forty feet tall. The 'cloud' was diminishing in size, but vertically.
"The cloud is diminishing," Peter informed everyone.
"Rate?" Matt inquired.
"Approximately a foot every ten seconds."
"Is there any substance to it?"
"Radar suggests it's full of some sort of liquid, but I can't be sure."
Matt and the others watched the cloud get bigger and simultaneously smaller as they approached. When they were about forty feet from the side of it, they stopped the engines.
The cloud was not only getting smaller, it was getting lower. It hovered twenty feet above the water's surface, getting lower by a foot every ten seconds. It actually looked like just the top was disintegrating off.
"The cloud has disappeared from radar," Peter informed his teammates seconds before they saw it vanish.
The sky was clear and unencumbered, not a cloud, strange or otherwise. No one had seen the cloud rise or sink into the water, or evaporate. It had just... disappeared.
"Jill, did you get that on tape?" Matt asked the temporary.
"Yeah," she replied.
"I dont think we'll be seeing anything else out here. We should be heading back."
The Galahktikah shifted into high gear and headed back to the lab. |
