Vell Harlan and the Doomsday Dorms

Vell headed to his dorm during his lunch break. Having some time off from saving the world this loop afforded him a rare opportunity to genuinely relax on his own terms. Vell opened the door to his dorm and stepped inside.

“Hey Vell,” Harley said.

“Hey Harley,” Vell said.

Vell made it two steps into the kitchen before stepping back out. Harley being here wasn’t that surprising. She seemed like the type who could -and would- break in to his dorm pretty easily. The surprise was sitting next to her.

“Harley.”

“Yeah?”

“Why’s the glocktopus here?” Vell said.

The octopus that had shot Vell, and presumably many others, on the first loop was sitting next to Harley in a large glass bowl. It turned to Vell for a second and flopped a tentacle at him in an idle greeting. Vell took a cautious step back.

“Trying to convince him not to shoot us tonight,” Harley said. Now that the shock of the octopus had worn off, Vell also noticed Botley perched over a large bowl of raw shrimp. The tiny robot was glaring at the octopus to the best of its ability. Botley did not appreciate being reduced to a shrimp delivery bot.

“Trying?” Vell asked.

“I’m pretty sure he’s chill, he’s just saying he hasn’t made up his mind so I’ll keep bribing him with food,” Harley said, shooting an accusing glare at Octavius. Octavius responded with an outstretched tentacle. Harley grumbled under her breath and commanded Botley to hand him another raw shrimp. After wolfing it down, the octopus indicated to Vell and mimicked firing a gun with his tentacles.

“Oh, what?”

The octopus repeated the gunfire gesture and pointed at Vell again.

“What, you want to kill him specifically?”

Vell took cover behind the kitchen door. The octopus shook its mantle and mimicked the motion of human lips with his tentacles.

“Oh, what he said,” Harley said. “Glocktopus? You like being called Glocktopus?”

The octopus nodded. Harley leaned back on the couch.

“Well shit, better than Octavius,” Harley said. She had Botley hand him another shrimp. “Works for me. Glocktopus it is.”

“Okay, Glocktopus, nice to meet you,” Vell said. “Why is he in my dorm?”

“Well you’re doing that movie thing tonight and I figured, what better way to teach Octa- Sorry, Glocktopus, that humanity shouldn’t be wiped out than to put him around the coolest humans I know.”

“Oh. That...sort of makes sense, but also, that’s like seven hours from now.”

“Well Glocktopus kind of smells funny, no offense, just by human standards. I’m sure all the lady octopuses love it,” Harley said. This seemed to placate Glocktopus’s ego, and Harley turned back to Vell. “Do you know how hard it is to keep my bedroom smelling like cherries with the amount of machinery I have in there? Your dorm’s full of Cane’s dude-funk anyway.”

Vell couldn’t defend his dorm from accusations of dude-funk, so he focused in on another topic.

“Your room doesn’t smell like cherries,” Vell said. Harley wagged her finger.

“It didn’t when you were there, because I was still unpacking,” Harley said. “Feel free to come around some time and I’ll show you. Show you a lot more, too.”

Harley winked in Vell’s direction. Her efforts at seduction were slightly stymied by the presence of Glocktopus.

“Okay, well, uh, why not Lee’s room? She’s a hydromancer, she could probably set him up in something more comfortable than a bowl.”

“Wait, hold up,” Harley said. “Lee told you about the hydromancy?”

Harley looked surprised. So did Glocktopus, but only because he wanted to feel like part of the conversation. Vell shrugged.

“Yeah? Was she not supposed to?”

“I don’t know, she kept it all secret last year,” Harley said. “Only told me about it a few weeks before the summer break. Seems kind of out of character.”

Vell thought about it for a moment. He didn’t know Lee well enough to judge. Which was a telling sign on it’s own, he supposed.

“Well, maybe her character’s changing,” Vell suggested. Harley stared forward and nodded.

“Maybe. Maybe she just likes you. You are a lot easier to get along with than I am,” Harley said. Vell looked at the uninvited octopus. Neither of them were sure that was true. Harley sat cross-legged on the couch and looked out the only window in Vell’s dorm.

“She tell you about her parents?”

“She avoided the subject, actually,” Vell said. Harley nodded.

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Harley said. “I only ever found out because they came to visit.”

“What’re they like?”

“I don’t gossip, Vell, either Lee can tell you or you’ll find out the hard way, like I did,” Harley said. ‘The best thing you can do is-”

Harley cut herself off, as Glocktopus was poking her in the elbow and demanding attention. Botley offered him another shrimp. Glocktopus took it, but then shook his head and instead curled one tentacle into the shape of a question mark.

“Oh you’ll meet Lee soon enough, she’ll be at the movie night,” Harley said.

“She hasn’t let me know if she’ll be there, actually,” Vell corrected. Harley scoffed at him and pulled out her phone. After a quick scroll through her one-hundred and eight simultaneous chats, Harley found her chat with Lee and held it up to display to Vell. It was filled with mostly unanswered messages regarding what she should wear, if she should bring food, speculation on what kind of movies they should watch, and other tedious concerns.

“Okay, I guess she’s coming,” Vell said.

“Of course she is,” Harley said. “She was just trying to play it cool, I bet. It takes Lee a little bit to come out of her shell.”

Glocktopus tapped Harley on the elbow and formed a question mark with one tentacle and a curled shape with the other.

“No, Lee is not a snail,” Harley said. “Why would I be hanging out with a snail?”

Glocktopus pointed to himself with all eight tentacles.

“Okay, fair point,” Harley admitted. “But you’re an exception, not the rule. Most of my friends are human.”

It took a while for Vell to realize that Harley had said “most”.

“I appreciate the invite to movie night, Vell, but you’re being a bit weird about it,” Joan said.

“It’ll be a lot easier if I just show you,” Vell insisted.

After he’d spent an entire class period spent checking the door for an incoming Glocktopus, Joan had become mildly concerned for Vell’s well being. Lacking any possible explanation for his current situation, Vell had elected to invite Joan to movie night. Harley and Glocktopus could explain themselves.

Vell opened the door to his room and gestured to the octopus sitting on his couch. Joan stood in place and stared.

“Vell?”

“There is an octopus in my dorm, yes,” Vell said. “Ask Harley.”

“Harley?”

“Hey Joan,” Harley said. “This is Glocktopus. Glocktopus, this is Joan. She’s Vell’s friend.”

Glocktopus waved a tentacle in her direction and returned to eating shrimp out of a bowl next to his bowl. Botley didn’t like hand-feeding him, and Harley didn’t want to be touching raw shrimp all night, so they had just given him the bowl. Seeing as they’d passed the time Glocktopus had gone on his rampage on the first loop, Harley figured he was cool.

“Why is the octopus here?”

“Well I was going to let him go a couple hours ago but apparently he won’t leave until he gets to watch The Royal Tenenbaums.”

Glocktopus gesticulated with his tentacles for a moment, in a gesture Harley apparently understood.

“Look, man, if you’re going to hold out for a specific Wes Anderson flick, at least pick one with Bill Murray in it!”

Glocktopus flailed again.

“I was not being offensive when I suggested The Life Aquatic. It’s a good movie whether you’re from the ocean or not!”

Joan considered interjecting with her personal recommendation before remembering she was about to talk to an octopus. She looked to Vell for any sort of clarity. He shrugged, so she looked to his roommates.

“You guys are cool with this?”

“Admittedly when Vell said he wanted to invite some other people, I assumed he meant the literal definition of people,” Luke said, with a glance at Glocktopus. “But the octopus is surprisingly chill.”

“Assuming Harley is translating his jokes right,” Cane said.

“Look, I have to take some creative license sometimes, octopus puns are hard,” Harley said. Glocktopus waved a tentacle, and Harley shook her head. Vell wondered what that was about, then decided he was better off not knowing. He turned back to Joan.

“If you’re still willing to stick around, Renard’s almost done making dinner.”

“No calamari, I presume,” Joan said.

“That’s squid,” Renard shouted from the kitchen. “Glocktopus, would you be offended if I served you squid?”

Glocktopus gesticulated at Harley, and then Harley passed on the message to Renard.

“He says no,” Harley shouted.

“Okay cool,” Renard said. “I’m not making squid, but I was curious.”

“Well now he’s disappointed,” Harley said.

Joan nodded. She wasn’t sure if an octopus eating a squid counted as cannibalism or not, but it was just close enough to make her uncomfortable. While Joan seriously considered whether a Wes Anderson marathon was worth putting up with an intelligent octopus, Lee arrived. She grabbed the sides of her skirt as if she were about to curtsy before apparently thinking better of it and waving like a normal person.

“Hello everyone,” she said. “Hello, Mr. Octopus.”

“He prefers to be called Glocktopus,” Harley said.

“Right. Hello Joan, pleasure to see you join us this evening,” Lee said.

“Likewise,” Joan said. “Is this normal for you?”

“Relatively speaking, yes,” Lee said. “And you’d be surprised what I can put up with to watch an Anderson film. I am quite enchanted by his cinematography.”

“Fair point,” Joan admitted. She’d put up with some strange stuff to watch Bill Murray get up to shenanigans. She took a seat on the far side of the couch from the octopus and settled in for an interesting evening.

In spite of the fact that they had an octopus for company, the most shocking part of the evening had ended up being Renard’s ability to make a flawless coq au vin in a dorm room kitchen. Vell wasn’t entirely sure what coq au vin was, but Renard had managed to make it, and make it in large amounts. In spite of having three more guests than anticipated (technically four, but Glocktopus had been content with his shrimp), there had been enough for everyone to eat themselves into a coma. Joan was currently leaning on Vell’s right shoulder as she slept -an arrangement Vell would’ve liked a lot more if Cane weren’t snoring on his left shoulder.

With Vell trapped and Harley likewise sound asleep, Lee took it upon herself to complete today’s “mission”. Glocktopus, who had gorged himself on shrimp, was napping in his bowl until Lee grabbed it and picked him up, holding the large bowl at eye level.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Glocktopus, but I do believe we owe you a return to the ocean,” Lee said. The groggy octopus waved a tentacle dismissively. Lee stepped away from the sleeping crowd to continue their conversation.

“I don’t mean to seem inhospitable -you’re welcome to visit whenever you like, of course,” Lee said. “We’re on an island, after all. You needn’t go far.”

Glocktopus swished back and forth in his bowl indecisively.

“My concern for the moment is that you’re going to de-oxygenate the water in your bowl,” Lee said. “I’ll take you to the beach for a refresher and you can think it over.”

Glocktopus nodded. Lee bid a good night to the trapped Vell and carried Glocktopus out of the dorms, to the shore. A sandy beach encircled the entire island, and while it was a popular destination for the young students on a Friday night, Lee managed to find an isolated stretch of sand. She sat Glocktopus’s bowl down on the beach, near the water, and sat in the sand next to him. As an afterthought, she removed her shoes to feel the waves lap against her toes. Glocktopus crawled out of his bowl and let the fresh saltwater wash over his rubbery skin.

“It’s been an interesting day for you, hasn’t it?”

A cheer rose up from some late-night beachgoers further along the shore. Glocktopus turned to stare at them while Lee kept her eyes on the waves. This morning, the octopus had considered humans worthy of wholesale extermination. Now he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the humans he’d met. In spite of his newfound fondness for at least a few humans, Glocktopus felt the endless expanse of the ocean beckoning him. A life in a bowl surrounded by friends was still a life in a bowl.

“I can’t blame you for being mad at humans, I suppose,” Lee said. “If I’d lived my whole life in the marine biology department, I’d think the human race needed to be wiped out too.”

A large wave rose up, and Lee drew back a little. She loved the ocean, but she didn’t love a damp skirt. The octopus stayed in place in spite of the wave. The wave crashed against his watery hide, and as he felt it recede, the ocean pulled at him both literally and figuratively.

“Your whole life lived in a cage, with only two terrible people to look out on,” Lee sighed. “I know how you feel.”

Glocktopus turned back to look at Lee. He had not mastered the intricacies of human expression, but his time with Harley -and his exposure to the extensive filmography of Wes Anderson- had taught him enough to know sadness when he saw it. Lee noticed his scrutinizing glare and offered a smile.

“It’s a good thing we met Harley, isn’t it?”

A large waved surged towards the beach. Lee backed up further, while Glocktopus stood his ground. He watched the wave come, and just before it crashed against the shore, Glocktopus turned to Lee and curled one of his tentacles into the shape of a thumbs-up.

Then the wave crashed against the shore, and when it receded, Glocktopus was gone.

“All’s well that ends well, as the saying goes,” Lee said. The tale of Glocktopus had reached it’s end, and now the loopers sat around a breakfast table once again, preparing for a new apocalypse.

“You know, I know he murdered most of us in an alternate timeline, but I kind of liked Glocktopus,” Harley said.

“That makes one of us,” Vell said. In spite of the many times he’d died, getting shot was still a bit of a hangup. It would take more than a single Wes Anderson marathon to make Vell forgive someone who’d murdered him. It would take at least a few classic Disney movies for that. Maybe Dreamworks if he was in a forgiving mood. Right now he was just in a curious mood.

“You know what I really wonder, though?”

“What’s that?”

“Where did Glocktopus get that gun, anyway?”

Harley froze mid-pancake and stared forward for a second.

“Shit!”

She slammed her fork down on the table.

“We have to find Glocktopus, I need to know!”

Harley stood and walked away, heading for the nearest beach. Vell watched her storm off and turned to Lee.

“What’s she going to do, wade into the ocean and hope for the best?”

“For starters, probably,” Lee said with a smile. “I’ll help her out, don’t worry.”

“You really want to help her find out how an octopus got a gun?”

“Harley’s been a good friend,” Lee said with a smile. “The least I can do is help her reverse engineer an octopuses weapon now and then.”

With a brief curtsy to Vell, Lee sped off, chasing after Harley.