It’s Cole who finds the novel and brings it back with him. His fellows find him draped over a crate, upside-down, completely deaf to the world as he reads. It’s unusual, first, because the loud-mouthed ginger pyromaniac rivals everyone in the base for the title of ‘most obnoxious idiot’, second, because he proclaims to detest the hobby, leading many to believe he can’t read at all, and third, because he’s actually got an outstanding assignment requiring several explosives. Large explosives.
“Wow, Cole, I didn’t know you could read.” Dodge says.
“He can read,” Atlas says, the first to finally drag Cole’s attention away from the book, “It’s sitting down and shutting the fuck up that’s the hard part.”
Cole just looks at them and Kent, poor unstable Kent, finally asks, “What are you reading?”
Cole’s response halts everyone who can hear him. “Someone wrote a book about us.”
That prompts a barrage of questions: who wrote it, what’s it about, where did you find it, what do you mean us, are there names, damn you, are you sure it isn’t just another bunch of speculating about Daud.
Cole only gives it up after he’s finished. Daud’s been away for two weeks, but by the time he comes back, every whaler in the base who can read has gotten ahold of a copy has read it, and then informed the ones who can’t read what it’s about. No one’s even bothered to take the opportunity to read Thomas’ diary while he’s away.
Impromptu re-enactments are popular now at night, everyone taking turns to mock the hilarity of the outright terrible novel and the ideas it suggests. But by far the most popular joke is “Oooh Mister [insert whaler name here] oooh”, started by Jenkins when Rinaldo (the cheerful one, NOT to be confused with former professor Rinaldo. Very confusing to have two of them.) makes some accidental innuendo in conversation, prompting Jenkins to exclaim, “Oooh, mister Rinaldo, oooh!” and swoon dramatically into his arms.
Needless to say, Rulfio is NOT pleased with how fast it catches on and how popular it becomes.
The book is banned and so are the re-enactments when Atlas looks Daud in the face during a group debriefing and deadpans, “Ooh, mister Daud, sir, ooh.”, prompting the entire group to completely lose composure.
The three weeks of the worst patrol routes Daud can come up with for it are totally worth it.
(Jenkins belongs to pathopharmacology, cheerful Rinaldo to bob-chan, professor Rinaldo to voidandsalt, Cole, Kent, Dodge, and Atlas are mine. Rulfio is a Dishonored standard.)
