Chapter 4: Simulations

"Alright, let's try tapping that cable line over there." Ilia said, standing behind Joe as she worked.

As promised, Ilia had come back for Joe the next day to take her down to the sub room and teach and reteach her all she needed to know about working the manned and unmanned subs. What Joe was working on at the moment was a simulation that, while it didn't have the best graphics, was very realistic. It counted in water currents, sea life, energy left in the sub, and every now and then it would randomly throw in a problem that you had to solve.

Joe lost the sub a few tries ago because of a leak that had sprung into the sub that she hadn't known how to deal with. At the moment she was going through a few basic maneuvers that the unmanned subs performed like tapping underwater cable lines.

And if a badly rendered shark didn't come and attack the sub, like Ilia swore had happened to her once, then she would be able to bring the sub up successfully.

Joe was concentrating, in all her sub simulations, she had only ever tapped a cable line, successfully, once.

"Ilia!" Josh, who Ilia called Team Geek leader, called to her from the door. "You have a phone call. Said his name was Edric."

"O-oh!" Ilia beamed. "See you later, Joe. Love is calling is calling on the other line."

"Wait what?" Joe wanted to turn to her in disbelief and she would have had she not been trying to focus. "I thought you were interested in Kai."

"No, sweetie." Ilia winked. "I said I wanted to play with Kai. The same way I'm playing with Eric and Lee before him."

"I thought it was Edric?" Joe asked.

Ilia waved her hand. "Details, details. I call them all honey anyway I don't need to remember their names. Keep practicing, sweetie!"

Joe rolled her eyes but didn't look away from the screen. Ilia seemed to play with men like a spoiled child played with toys. Joe happened to know that there was a sailor on board who walked around drunk stupid because he was Ilia's current boy toy. However, none of them seemed to mind at all. It was kind of a sad thing for Joe to see.

But Ilia seemed perfectly happy and she never promised on what she couldn't, or wouldn't, deliver so Joe figured it was none of her business.

"Hey, Joe." Josh appeared at her elbow. "How's it going?"

"It's going." Joe said. Josh was a nice guy. Where as Ilia was the poster child for hot, night out and didn't look at all like she belonged on Team Geek, Josh had clearly been created for the role. He had a large forehead, thick glasses, even a lisp that was kind of cute. He was the kind of guy Joe would have used to date and she would have expressed an interest in him.

Except her mind was currently full of the white haired merman who was downstairs helping with scuba lessons.

It was so strange. Joe had always been analytical. Able to file and sort pretty much any and every thing that entered into her head. Her apartment was neat, she vacuum packed her clothes when she traveled and organized every thing.

But she just couldn't organize Kai. He didn't fit into any pre-set mental files. And whenever she was doing something important, such as practicing her sub simulations, he would pop into her head at random moments. She just couldn't escape him.

She had barely known him at all and it already felt so natural to have him invading her thoughts at the most annoying times.

He was even in her dreams. She had rested last night with images of him and her swimming together in the ocean and it had been wonderful.

And it had been so unlike her.

She knew that soon she would have to get together with him and discuss their mission plans but she just wanted to keep putting it off. He had been seducing her with only a touch, watched her like she was a rare piece of art. He had even renamed her.

Kyma.

It sounded so sexy and exotic and so not her!

Anything between her and such a creature like Kai, a sexy, powerful, wonderful creature like Kai, just wouldn't work. The only time plain Jane Joe girls got with guys like Kai were in movies. And they were usually the background characters!

Besides that, merfolk were some of the more reclusive of the mythic species. They were happy in water and happy leaving land to the humans and other humanoid mythics.

Then again, maybe Joe was thinking about it too seriously. Maybe she should be more like Ilia. Carefree, playing with him and letting him play with her then separating with no hard feelings afterwords.

But Joe just couldn't see it happening. Joe, though she didn't like admitting it too often, was the marrying kind. It was probably why she went after geeks and other such people instead of the hot guys like Kai. Guys like Kai were more into girls like Ilia. She certainly couldn't imagine him marrying her.

But she couldn't imagine herself just having a fling either.

Therefore, didn't that make it impossible?

"Hello?"

Joe blinked, dragged from her thoughts and she realized, a bit belatedly, that Josh had been talking to her.

"I'm sorry, what?" Joe pulled herself back to reality and saw that the program had thrown another unexpected leak her way. "Crap!"

She started to try her emergency re-surfacing again but she had been lost in thought too long and by the time her simulated sub got back to her simulated ship all of its components were soaked and destroyed and her simulated self was being yelled at by a simulated Josh.

"Damn." Joe sat back, mad she had messed up again.

Josh was laughing. "I hope you get better before we get to the sight."

"I got lost in thought." Joe admitted. "It wont happen again."

"I hope not. The machines are expensive." Josh said. "Want to give the manned vessel simulation a try?"

"I might enjoy a change for a bit." Joe smiled thankfully.

"Okay." Joe smiled. "It's through that door there. Just hold on a sec."

"Huh, why?" Joe looked at him as he walked away.

"I'm just going to call down to the scuba room and get Kai up here." he said back and before Joe could call him back, suddenly nervous, he had already picked up a phone and was calling down to the scuba room.

"Damn." Joe mumbled because she couldn't stop him now. He would ask questions and the guy on the other end would ask questions and Kai would find out that she didn't want him there.

She started running her fingers through her hair, pulling out as many tangles as she could as she straightened her clothes wishing she had worn more than jean shorts, flip flops, and a tank top.

"He's on his way, Joe!" Josh called. "You go ahead and get inside, I'll start up the program."

"'K." Joe stood up from her computer and walked toward the door that led to the simulation room for the manned vessel. She went inside and shut the door, half hoping that Kai wouldn't show or not see her and go back to the scuba room.

A voice came inside through a speaker, it was Josh's. "Hey, Joe. Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear." Joe said.

There was a pause.

"Joe, you have to press that green button on the right of the control panel so I can hear you."

"Oh." Joe looked, pressed it, and said, "Sorry, Josh. I can hear you."

"Great. Alright, we'll just do some simple looking for now. I'll have you trying to tap cable lines later."

"Alright." Joe released the button and sat back. The inside was small, almost like a closet, but it looked exactly like the inside of a mini-manned sub.

She didn't have to wait long. About five minutes later, the door opened and Kai stepped in.

"Kyma." he said as he sat down and shut the door. There was no room for anything but to sit down. "We're trying the manned simulation?"

His hair was still wet, as were the clothes he had obviously donned in a hurry.

"Sorry." Joe smiled sheepishly. "I didn't know when I said I wanted to practice the manned sub that they would call you."

"It's fine." Kai said turning his attention to the control panel before him. "If you go down on the manned sub, I'm going to be there. Did the doctor start giving you your CBI's?"

Joe nodded. "Yes. I'm a bit nervous about it. I don't know any human's who've taken a CBI before."

"it'll be fine." Kai said.

"Okay, guys." Josh's voice filled the sub. "A simple lookie-loo this time. We'll get to the harder stuff later. Kai, you remember what to do?"

"Yes."

"Good. How about you, Joe?"

"I'll cheat off of Kai." she joked.

"Haha, very funny. Do me a favor and don't crash the sub, Joe. I've only got one even if it is only a simulation."

"You crashed the sub?" Kai asked her.

"It's not my fault." Joe jumped to her own defense. "I was thinking about-" she stopped before she could damn herself by saying 'you'.

"Thinking about what?" Kai asked.

"Uh, nothing." Joe looked away, blushing a bit praying he didn't notice. "So, uh, you've done this before?"

"I'm trained on most marine vessels." Kai answered as the screen before them came to life and they were treated to a badly simulated Joe and Kai getting into an equally badly rendered sub before it sank and they were given control.

"And if all else fails, you can just swim, right?" Joe asked, wondering if that sounded as cliche as she thought.

But Kai answered seriously, "Right. Depth, three hundred feet. How are the pressure stabilizers?"

"Working." Joe turned her attention back to the simulation. It may have been just a test but if she didn't do it right she had a feeling Josh and the captain himself wouldn't let her steer the subs no matter what Jack said. "So, what do you think the lights are?"

"I don't know." Kai said. "They haven't moved since the first picture so I doubt it's anything alive."

"So...?" Joe encouraged him.

"I'm hoping it's a sunk ship that has managed to keep its lights on." Kai said. "But there have been no reports of a sunk ship anywhere near there and none where were the currents would have dropped it there."

"Leaving something we don't want there." Joe surmised. "Like what?"

"I don't know." Kai said. "That's what you're here to figure out."

"Great." Joe said as the mini sub avoided a whale. "Did Josh really just put a whale on screen? Would that even happen?"

"It's a possibility." Kai said, he was doing the actual steering. Joe was in control of pretty much everything else. "How are oxygen levels?'

"We just left the surface." Joe said checking them anyway. They were normal.

"This simulation has the same kind of program as the unmanned sub's. Sometimes the machine will throw in unexpected surprises." Kai said. "So keep track of everything."

Joe nodded as she went back to her job. They worked in silence until the sub reached the ocean floor and a bunch of 2D fish swam away.

"So, we just look around?" she asked.

"Basically." he nodded. "We're practicing moving on the sea floor. If we see something interesting we check it out."

"Okay." Joe said. "That's easy enough. What's it like?"

"What's what like?" he asked, steering them over dunes of sand.

"The real ocean floor." Joe smiled looking at everything in front of her. But it wasn't real, it barely even resembled the things they were modeled after. "I know it's not like this."

"It's incredible." Kai said. "You'll see it soon."

"I used to go diving." Joe said. "But I never really got to see the ocean. It was only ever to investigate crimes that happened under water or where bodies were dropped into water. Rarely was any of it worth looking at."

"Maybe I'll take you sometime." Kai said without thought as he steered the sub around a rock formation. "To see the reefs. After the mission, of course."

"I thought our partnership was only until the mission ended?" Joe asked as they saw a terribly created treasure chest which Kai stopped to examine as, she was sure, Josh wanted them to.

"It doesn't mean we can't stay in contact." Kai pointed out. "And...it doesn't have to be temporary."

Joe paused, the looked to the side and saw him looking back at her.

"We don't have to split up after this." he said, his words implying much more than they meant. "Kyma, I-"

"How's it going guys? Why'd you stop?"

"Josh." Joe sighed. She reached up and pressed the green button as Kai went back to steering. "We're fine Josh. Just...lost track for a moment."

"Well, stop. That's how you crashed the last sub."

"Aye, aye." Joe released the button and returned to the controls. But there was an electricity in the air between the two of them, a sudden awareness that neither was addressing. Joe felt his eyes on her every time she moved. And, of course, she couldn't help but look over every now and then too.

They caught each others eyes just once, and Joe turned her head quickly, a blush staining her face. Kai didn't remark on it, but it felt like the electricity suddenly sparked and turned to pure lightning.

They pulled the sub up after about an hour, neither saying a word other than what was strictly necessary.

Then the animated Kai and Joe did a little celebratory dance, with each other, that Joe couldn't not stare at.

"Nice job, Kai. Maybe I should have you supervising Joe's unmanned simulations too. She might actually stop crashing. Hahaha..."

They weren't really listening to Josh, they were watching their animated selves dancing together. It wasn't a slow dance, it was a quick happy step. but it was somehow extremely intimate especially since the people they were modeled after were watching them and carefully not touching each other.