This time when he woke up it was because of the racket.
Five other SPAM campers were waking up and getting ready.
"Argh…"
Quietly groaning James oriented himself. It was strange he felt out of place. Yesterday he had been so focused on just getting through the next moment that he still felt a lingering sense of needing to do something.
As soon as he identified it as just the last thoughts he had had right be fore bed. He had pushed himself with ideas to 'keep on trying', 'keep on going', and 'you can do it'.
Putting another medium grade stamina pill in his mouth he let it dissolve on his tongue while thinking about what to do today.
'I need to check my messages. My mentor should have sent me info on alchemy masters and pets that help with identification."
But he also needed to go get himself checked out. Plus he had to find time to really connect with himself. He didn't feel so alien as when he contracted with hundreds of mice, the moss weren't constantly sending all kinds of thoughts and emotions like the mice had. Yet at the same time he still needed to cement his gains.
'Gains? How can I call this a gain?'
Mocking himself he sighed.
"Hey, James, welcome to the party! Nice to see you after three weeks!"
A boisterous voice announced from the front of the room.
Everyone froze and looked up to see James. Besides the speaker, Ted, no one else had even met him before.
"Yeah, man, I missed you."
James sat up hugging his body trying to keep the weight he had lost hidden.
"Hgh? Are you gay? I could care less about where you been. Don't miss me!"
Scrambling to keep his big man image in front of the other room mates Ted dismissed James and walked down the middle of the room demonstrating just how much he didn't care.
Every dorm room had a back door that opened up into a pet enclosure. This was a place specifically set up to house pets. This was the door that Ted went through now.
Each enclosure was built exactly the same so that each pet had the exact same amount of space. In practice this was impossible, though. Some pets only took up a small amount of space inside a tank or only used a portion of the total allotted space. And each space had to be environmentally adapted for the specific pet. So the attached enclosure became unique to which ever pets lived within.
Through the partially open door James could see Ted's gorilla and prairie dog greet their trainer. Occasionally there would be fights between different pets, but SPAM splurged and paid keepers to tend and provide the right environment for each pet.
It was a big job, but the whole dormitory only needed one part time keeper. The trainers themselves were expected to do all the grunt work of maintaining their pet. This was one of the few areas where SPAM didn't pamper their people. A lot could be understood about a master from the way they kept their pets.
James had not seen the dorm's pet sanctuary yet, but he had seen others like it in high end neighborhoods. There were wildly different habitats created right next to each other. A ten meter square dessert environment could be next to a jungle just as small.
Of course James did not need the sanctuary. His mice already had their own dungeon. And the moss seemed to be thriving a little too much under the mouse's care.
'I have a bond with the moss now, but I do need the mice to slow down on growing it!'
James realized that he was starting to feel anxious. During the last two months he had spent most of it in a coma or something like it.
'Don't focus on what can't be controlled. Just go get in line at the clinic to see a doctor and look up information on alchemy masters and pets in the meantime.'
Going slow James figured that if is took his time he could make it look like everything was fine. It took him an hour to shower and change his clothes. Then another hour to walk to the clinic. Taking lots of breaks on the way no one cared or stopped to help him.
It was just the way James wanted it. At the clinic he registered and sat down in a seat ready to wait for his turn. He hadn't bothered to make an appointment. There was nothing pressing on his time. It was also good to get out of his dorm.
He now had the mental space to deal with his phone. The first thing he did was answer the messages from his family. They were worried about him, of course. And evidently SPAM had been considerate enough to contact them to see if they knew where he was. They even offered his parents resources if needed.
'Wow, it almost sounds like SPAM cares!'
Sending some reassuring notes to his three family members James promised to come over for dinner on the weekend.
Opening the SPAM app and then the chat with his mentor he saw a whole bunch of messages. Evidently it was pretty normal for SPAM campers to drop of the face of the earth, because there was no urgency in any of the messages.
Victor, his mentor, had also sent a few messages, but he was just doing his duty by making the required contacts. James wanted to wait to answer Victor, though. James would answer, but only after he had made some decisions about an alchemy master and an identification pet. Scrolling up he saw the first chat he received from Victor.
Inside it was two links. One link went to a list of hundreds of alchemy masters and other link went to a list of pets. Both were supremely unhelpful.
'What a joke. How am I supposed to pick among all these?'
Thinking thoughts to himself James rolled his head cracking his neck.
'Well, I have a list of SPAM related alchemists. Let me see if I can cross reference this list with something else.'
First James looked up alchemists in general, alchemists by rank, alchemists by affiliation, and alchemists by accomplishments. None of these searches helped. The first three brought up even more information than the SPAM list. And looking up accomplishments was helpful, but not organized at all. He might as well go down the list of alchemists one by one looking up their information doing it that way. It would be the same amount of work.
Finally James realized that what he really wanted was an alchemist that specialized in identification. Again there was an exhaustive list, but as James reviewed the alchemy/identification list he saw that most of these alchemists had identification as a sub field. Alchemists had to be able to use identification so it was a no brainer that every alchemist would have some kind of expertise in this area.
No, he wanted to focus on the alchemists who had really made identification a major part of their research. This time there was a small list of ten alchemists. And to his surprise only two of the alchemists on the identification list where also on the SPAM list.
Of the two one was listed as away and when he attempted to email an automatic message was displayed.
[I am out on a mission, will be back next year. If you need to speak with someone please contact Yohanes Johnson.]
"Ha!"
James laughed out loud because the name in the automatic message was the other name on his cross referenced list.
Suspicion tickled his fancy and James looked up a few of the other names on his list of ten and found that two other identification specialists listed Yohanes Johnson as their master.
Furthermore, it looked like of the other six names five were apprentices to the sixth, Alfred Tolbert. Looking up some of the diferent articles that Johnson and Tolbert had published James saw that each was a critic of the other. The two had different ways of approaching identification and were critical of the method used by the other.
Johnson only had three apprentices where Tolbert had five, but that didn't necessarily mean that Johnson was not as good. At least to James' way of thinking. And since it looked like Johnson was the only option on his short list, it was nice that he was a recognized critic, respected in his field.
'So Yohanes Johnson must be the best! And maybe he will be more likely to take me as an apprentice if he has others already.'
Looking up master Johnson James found information about the old man. He looked like a crotchety miser. But figuring that this guy was probably the best for what he needed to learn, James sent the master an email.
To his surprise the email was returned immediately.
[Come to my office.]
This summons was too sudden. So James replied back.
[Right now? I am at the doctor's office. I can come as soon as possible.]
James didn't know how to reply politely and worried that he would alienate the old man.
[Oh, that is perfect. Just come right now.]
Now James was really confused. The old geezer thought that he could just interrupt whatever he wanted. On the one hand this was frustrating, but on the other hand James was a little interested.
It was important to visit the doctor, but technically he wasn't going to die anytime soon especially if he kept taking the stamina pills.
So he stood up carefully and began walking outside the clinic and then caught a ride from a taxi service, the automobile type this time. The taxi driver was familiar with Johnson's 'office' and chuckled when James called it that.
But without another work the taxi driver too off to another corner of the campus. Johnson's office wasn't really an office. It was a lighthouse. And it was way out on the edge of the cleared space. In fact when James arrived after an hour he saw that Johnson's 'office' was actually out in the middle of a salt water lake area. This was a climate that was part of the beast center technically.
Unfortunately there was no way to get across to an island with a light house on it. The taxi driver told James that the 'Old man' would be right with him and then drove away.
According to his information Johnson's office was on that island. Standing stupidly on the edge of the bluff looking out towards the island James wondered if he had missed something somewhere or if the old man had forgotten to send out a welcoming party.
Just about when James was about to turn around and walk back to SPAM's main buildings the master casually walked out of light house and waved to James.
Then to his surprise a shark showed up at his feet in the water forty feet down. It was hard to miss the shark because it jumped up high in the air and terrifyingly snapped its jaws at him.
Master Johnson continued to wave James over and then mime diving.
Gulping James didn't let himself think about it too much and just jumped off the cliff. This wasn't normal for James. Normally he would never jump into shark invested waters. It didn't matter if an eminent alchemy master was asking him to do it. In fact he would never have come in the first place. He normal rational self would have found another alchemist to visit.
James was not his normal self right now or even his regressed mouse self. Taming the moss had led him to a weird state of mind where he seemed to not care too much about anything. He was lost, confused mentally, and far from home. So what really went through his head was a little simple. If he died he died and that would be the end of all his troubles.
However, he didn't die. Instead the shark presented a fin and towed James to Master Johnson. By the time James arrived his hand was literally shredded. Shark fins were not built for being held.
"Welcome to my island!"