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The night of All Shallows’ Eve is a celebration for many around the world. For some it is a night of quiet thought, taking time to respect the time of year when the tide between the shores of the living and ocean of the dead are lowest. For others it is a celebration without limits. In Splatsville, it is the latter- celebrated under the nickname “Splatoween”, no lolly, piece of candy, or pigeon egg (don't worry about it) goes un-traded, and no resident leaves their house after sundown without the best costume or outfit or holiday spirit they have. In recent years, it has gotten better- Sanitized octolings playing up the monster costumes or even dressing up as normal inkfish for fun, entire friend groups dressing each other up as Salmonid, Octarian and Old Inkling warriors for 100% accuracy, Fuzzy Octolings pulling out the mammal makeup and even figuring out how to dye their fur- the works. Some inkfish have even started using recently uncovered pictures and drawings to perfect, super uncanny human-style makeup that made their skins look really rough and sticking fake nails to the edges of their fingers with hand-socks.
In Splatsville, every celebration is a city-wide event, and Splatoween is no exception- the only time anyone dresses down is if they are participating in sports matches or something similar, when they have to keep it a little lighter to obey the rules. But even then, the costumed play still comes out. Of course, if someone needs their neighbours to keep it down for evening prayers or the like, the rule is always comply when given good reason- being a jackbass wasn't in the mood of the season, after all, and many people choose not to host parties and collaborate to keep a few apartment floors open for anyone struggling with all the excitement to chill out and cool off for a while. Still, for one near-on overwhelming night a year, the city of Splatsville is all music, pranks, lollies and fun, the normally dingy supercity bathed in neon lights of every colour- even the ones only shrimp could see.
However, for one young Inkling, the night isn’t quite as vibrant.
Taking a detour from her friend group, she slips away into an old abandoned drain system, returning to the evening moonlight not within the city, but within the Crater that lies just a little ways away from the metropolis’ edge.
Quickly, quietly, with the moon and the band of stars above as her witness, a young Inkling who no longer goes by “Neo Agent Three” returns to a home that hasn't been called home by her own species for twelve thousand years.
She doesn't call it home either, but Alterna feels special to her in a way she can't describe. Maybe it was the fact that she'd found so much there that she'd accidentally gone under contract with a machine never to say a word about. Maybe it was the fact that it was once the last home of humans, who had given her own ancestors their dreams and faces and just a single song that had shaped their future in a way no one would've ever expected. Maybe it just felt a little more like home to Veronika than the streets of Splatsville or the shores of Salmonid waters or the dunes of the desert that stretch in every direction as far as the eye could see on the surface.
Whatever it was, she wasn't sure. But she has… questions, tonight, and while she isn't totally sure if she'll even get answers, the once-agent Inkling has gone back down below to see if she can. Albeit in an elaborately made human scientist costume that now felt silly to wear. But she knows she’d get destroyed by her friends if she took off approximately two to three hours’ worth of makeup at any time before midnight, so she swallows the mild guilt and tries to walk past the homes of the dead with as much respect as she can.
The silence of the still waters is deafening, but also comforting, in a way, perhaps only so to her. The whistle of the kettletop is the only thing that breaks the silence, and it’s piercing.
“Orca,” Neo Agent 3 whispers, though it feels like a shout. “You there?”
She does not finish her words before the machine boots up, the familiar sound warming her ears like an old friend.
“Citizen: New Agent Three,” the machine responds in its standard monotone voice over the speakers, its slightly inaccurate Inklish a little better than when they'd first met. “You have already completed all possible variants of this test.”
“I know,” Neo says, pushing their back against the wall and dropping the random weapon they'd chosen. “I’m not here for that.”
O.R.C.A. stays silent for a little while. It knows what she wants, this isn't the first time. It just takes it… a little more time to say anything that isn't 100% robotic.
“So, you wish to talk,” it finally said.
“Yeah,” the Inkling replied, pulling her knees up and leaning her face on them. “Do I have clearance to ask about human celebrations?”
“Yes,” the machine responds, surprisingly quickly. “You have proved your worth for any level of clearance you require.” She can't help but laugh.
“Is that true? Or do you just like me?” She asks, smiling a little. The machine doesn't respond, which she takes as an inability to say “yes”. This is far from the first time she's come to chat with O.R.C.A about Alterna’s original residents, and the more she learns from it, the more information she gives it in return. She isn't sure which humans had designed and coded it, but… they had been masters at their craft, that’s for sure. It's definitely not something the Captain or the Squid Sisters ever found out, but O.R.C.A is more than just an archival machine. It's a translator, a preserver, an impossibly large memory bank for the fall and rise of two separate generations of intelligent life. It's a machine whose creators it's outlived, and… well, Neo’s not surprised it's lonely down here. She's surprised it gained sentience and emotional capabilities in any sense of the word, but she's not surprised it's lonely. Between the Alterna logs it wrote and the endless conversations they've had, the machine’s wistful longing for mortal creators it can never get back oozes out of every pore it can get if you know where to look. It depends on her just as much as she does it, for someone that will listen and pick up what it's putting down without pushing. For someone to talk to, basically, but much more than that too.
Still. Neo Agent 3 came here for answers, and she won't get them if she doesn't ask questions. So she breaks the silence.
“...did humans have a celebration around this time of year?” It's a vague question, but she doesn't really know what she's looking for.
“Many,” O.R.C.A. responded. “Culture and time period changes the answer.”
“Mmmm…” she expected that answer. “Something modern. That stuck with them a really long way. Maybe not to the end, but close?” She sighs, looking at the fake nails stuck to her gloves. “Something that would've been passed onto us.”
“An ancestral holiday, then.” the machine says, whirring in the background. “Do you have a name for this holiday?”
The Inkling hums.
“We call it Splatoween. Or All Shallows’ Eve, that's the older name.” O.R.C.A. comes back with an answer instantly.
“All Hallows’ Eve, colloquially known as Halloween. Starting time unknown but became a popular global holiday somewhere during the 19th to 20th centuries C.E. Celebrated on October 31st, specifically in the evening. Associated with honouring the dead and fallen, and in some cultures driving away evil or malevolent spirits or entities from the realm beyond death. The modern celebration of the day revolves around people, especially children or teenagers, dressing up in costumes of various kinds, often as things associated with death, bad luck, or horror fiction, and going around knocking on the doors of others’ homes asking for candy and threatening pranks on the household if food of some kind, usually sweets or candy, was not given, though it quickly became social custom to not follow through on the latter and simply move on. This was usually done around or after sunset, as the night was considered the most important part of the holiday.”
Agent 3 turns their head to the side to look up at the camera in the corner of the roof.
“Yup,” she says. “Sounds like Splatoween to me.” she closes her eyes, wondering if O.R.C.A is going to make a comment on her outfit.
“This holiday was observed up until the final year of Alterna,” the machine says quietly. “Even the older researchers would join in on the tradition and decorate their houses for the occasion. Many adults willingly participated in trick-or-treating without needing children or teenagers to ask them to, and sharing sweets between workers was common in the daylight hours.”
It went silent after that, for so long Agent 3 nearly asks a follow-up question before it continues.
“...many of the researchers were fond of placing stickers shaped like sweets on my processing boards and outlets during the holiday, even in the years before I was built. Some burnt off due to unfortunate placement, but… many stay even now.”
Agent 3 can't help but laugh. Her best friend Hiro put stickers on his laptop every Splatoween, too. She actually had some with her in her pocket that he'd traded her.
“That… sounds like humanity,” she says with a small smile. “smart as hell, but… they got silly too. Formed emotional attachments to their stuff and gave their machines sweets in the form of stickers.” Standing up, she walks over to some machinery set into the back wall. On the side, extremely faded but with a smidgen of pattern still visible, is a white sticker that was probably shaped like a ball of candy or something. What hasn't faded is the signature by it in permanent marker. Her Alternan isn't the best, but the letters look… familiar, somehow.
“...they put their names by the stickers?” She asks tentatively. When the machine replies, it does so with a slight tension that would've betrayed tears if it weren't coming from a computer.
“Yes,” it replies. “The team that worked with me kept track of whose stickers faded or burnt off or were damaged, and nominated each other to replace them. That was one of many placed approximately two years before Alterna flooded. That sticker…” it falters for just a moment, so quick you might miss it if you didn't know it as well as Agent 3 did. “It was placed by a woman with a name and face not dissimilar to yours. She fixed many bugs and errors in her time with me, and was quite the innovator. You remind me of her quite a bit.”
The Inkling stays silent, looking at the sticker and the signature for a long time. She studies the curl of the letters, the occasional shakiness betraying how the writer, while practiced in her signature, wasn't used to writing on walls. She puts her hands in her pockets, one curling around a mini can of spray paint she keeps in her pocket for Splatoween tricks. Considering.
“Penny for your thoughts?” O.R.C.A asks. It knows she is planning something, and her plans tend to get chaotic.
Not this time, however.
On the machine set into the wall, the Inkling places a sticker of a squid-shaped gummy, using a mini can of spray paint to sign “Veronika” in the best Alternan she can just beside it. Yellow, like her ink. Like her eyes. Like the sun O.R.C.A had never truly seen. She can see now, why the human’s signature looked familiar. It was one letter off hers, written in Alternan. How poetic.
“Trick or Treat,” she says with a smile. “Happy Splatoween.”
It’s the first time she's heard that machine stray properly from “professional slightly lonely archival AI”. Or rather, the first time she's heard it laugh.
“Huh,” she says with a cheeky smile. “Thought you didn't know how to do that.”
“Thank you,” O.R.C.A replies, ignoring the sarcastic comment. “It has been a long time since any of the old traditions from the team have been followed.”
“Guess I'm the team now,” Veronika half-jokes. “The I.T. squid, if you will.”
“Resident New Agent Three Clearance Level Updated: O.R.C.A. Maintenance Team.” There’s a hint of sarcasm in its artificial voice, but it isn't lying.
“There was a clearance level I hadn't hit yet? Damn,” Veronika says. “By the way, I don't know if my Alternan handwriting is that bad, but you don't have to call me New Agent Three all the time. I have a name. I told you ages ago. Hell, you have clearance to call me Vee by this point.”
“Old habits die hard, as the humans say,” O.R.C.A replied. “I will update your file with the name preference. I will also take note that you enjoy walking into Alterna dressed as a human.”
“I-” Veronika sighs. It isn't totally wrong for making that assumption, but still. “Okay, no, it's Splatoween, I kinda said that we do the whole dress-up thing too. I didn't intend to come here in a human suit, I didn't pick the costumes this year.”
“Did you and your friends have a rotation over who picked a costume theme for the group?” O.R.C.A asked. The inkling glosses over the use of past tense- after twelve thousand years of past tense while writing archival logs, old habits really do die hard, even for a machine.
“Yup. Steph’s turn this year, which is why it's so extravagant. She spares no effort on All Shallows’. Or geso.” Sitting back down and putting the can of spray paint in her pocket, Vee looks back up at the camera. “I can tell you about our Splatoween if you want. I don't know how the rest of the world does it, or Inkopolis for that matter- but I do know how Splatsville does it.”
“Any and all information is greatly appreciated,” comes the standard mantra back- the Inkling’s cue to start talking. About the seasonal Splatfest, this year’s theme, how her group picked teams for the fest and a theme for their costumes. The candy they stocked ahead of time and how they had a list of places they could get it for cheap. The tradition someone from South Splatsville started years ago of climbing up the emergency stairways and trying to nab pigeon eggs, and trading them as if they were candy to confuse random tourists who came to see the light shows and the parties. How the drone shows would sometimes follow trains on the monorail around for a little bit, giving them an exclusive little mini-show. How all the street performers and indie artists and creatives teamed up right there on the street or wherever else they could to put on free performances for whoever was walking by to see. About all the different kinds of sweets- chocolate in all its forms and flavours (white chocolate was the best and while this had sparked a three-way rift within her group, Veronika would not budge when her team had won twice), squid, octo and cuttlefish gummies, sour roe balls, sour straps, cola crabs… she finds some in her pocket, too, and shows them to O.R.C.A.
She stays there, the citizen of Alterna from the far far future. Discussing a holiday that transcended time, death, love and loss, with a machine that transcended just the same, but was not immune to the pain that transcendence inevitably brought. She stays and talks until her phone finally rings, her friends unsure and worried of her whereabouts. She wishes her mechanical friend a happy Halloween before departing to the surface in her best Human English, promising to return before the autumn leaves on the surface turn to the cold winds of desert winter. Her mechanical friend knows for sure she will, and wishes her a happy Splatoween- and her friend a happy birthday for the coming week- in the meantime.
It said it would update her file and archive what she said about the Mollusc Era version of the holiday, but truthfully, it takes perhaps a little too much time savouring its new sticker and signature before getting around to it.