Becoming Mermaids Page 8

  “You are a mermaid, right?”

  She leadened her eyes, as if to say, “duh.”

  “Oh-ho-ho,” he giggled, then clasped his hands together. “Wow! I mean, there’s absolutely no evolutionary path for such a thing! If you saw the CAT scans... You are a mermaid! Inside and out. Not a sea mammal— the structure of your tail is cartilaginous, with the muscular structure, fins, and scales of a true fish! You must have tissues for processing water in your lungs that are neither parenchyma nor gills— and yet everything is wound together in such ingenious unity... I couldn’t have put together a better body if I tried.” He patted his head, grasping at possibilities. “So— are you part of a genetic experiment? An undersea colony? Some place with highly advanced technology?”

  She stared through him.

  “An alien?”

  “Give me a shirt,” she said at last.

  “A what?”

  “A shirt, you dumbass! I’m freaking freezing.”

  “Oh. Oh, okay. Of course.” He scoured the room, finding nothing, started to pull up his own shirt, then thought better of it. There was a suit and tie he kept in the closet for rare occasions.

  “Perv,” she said, putting on the white shirt and buttoning it from top to bottom.

  “What?” he asked, not understanding what she was implying. Then he did. “Oh, it’s not like that. I have a family.” He held out his hand. “I’m Dr. Hobbs. Dr. Frederick Hobbs.”

  “Does your family know that you’re a kidnapper and an evil scientist?”

  “No, I’m an... arguably unethical scientist.” He pointed at the air. “The ethics boards would probably debate this one for years. So obviously, I can’t publish.”

  “Then what are you holding me for? Let me go!”

  Dr. Hobbs cocked his head in sheer incomprehension. If you’re an ichthyologist and you discover a mermaid, you study it. Career advancement has nothing to do with it.

  “Where’s Andy? Do you have him, too?”

  “Andy? The boy you were with? I haven’t been able to reach him. The police have him.”

  “Oh my God,” Sam whispered to herself, remembering the stone. She had given it to Andy for safekeeping. If she had it now, she might be able to convince this guy to stare into it, make him grow a tail so that she could escape on legs. Then he could study himself all he wants. She’d be underdressed, but could possibly find a lab coat or something. Scientists must keep lab coats in lockers somewhere.

  “Is he your keeper? Your protector on land? I found the sleeping bag you used to cover up. Clever. Have you always been around humans? How well do you know us?”

  She buried her face in her wrists, thinking of the mess she’d caused, all because she wanted to go for a swim. Of course there were security cameras! Unless... unless Coquette betrayed them. Tipped off the police or the aquarium staff. Now that she thought of it, it made perfect sense: Coquette shed the responsibility of the tail and get away free, using her new identity. No! It was unthinkable! Wasn’t it? “You had security cameras, didn’t you?” Sam asked at last. “A night watchman, right?”

  Dr. Hobbs had to struggle to catch up with her line of thought. He’d been thinking about grander things. “Oh, you overestimate us. I found out about it on Twitter. We have a Kelp-Cam, broadcasting the aquarium to the Internet, and your video went viral.”

  Sam’s face blanched.

  “Which means that somebody’s actually watching that feed, at all hours of the night, no less. Our outreach efforts are paying off better than I thought. Heh. Too well. Now we have a scandal on our hands.”

  “Who knows about it?” She could just imagine her mother picking up the newspaper, seeing Sam’s altered body splashed across the front page.

  “Well, everybody, of course. But no one really knows except for a select few. We’re saying it was just a prank. A couple of us know the whole story— the Director, myself, and a few others. Okay, maybe about a dozen. Two dozen, tops. But they’re only giving us twenty-four hours for anatomical studies, so you and I have to work fast. The Internet hordes are already analyzing that footage, seeing how your legs bend the wrong way— full on conspiracy theory. Conspiracy fact, I guess.”

  Sam shook her head, thunderstruck. She’ll never be free again. Never be human again, in all likelihood. A curiosity passed from one institute to the next, or deep in a government bunker. Area 51. Maybe the conspiracy will blow wide open, and she’ll be exposed to the world. Forever a freak. The fins along the sides and end of her tail shuddered.

  “We know you breathe water. That’s by far the most unique trait of your whole physiology. It’s not the way that fish do it, or cetaceans, or any other known animal. I want to get a functional MRI of the process. I’ve fitted this snorkel to respirate water instead of air, but I need your cooperation in the MRI room. Could you put this on, please? Tell me if the water mixture is adequate.”

  Sam wasn’t in the mood to help with anything. Her mind raced, hatching escape plans, each more unlikely than the last. Perhaps she’d just have to wait for some cop to examine the gemstone from Andy’s pocket. If she’s lucky. But, knowing Andy, he might not have had it on him when he was caught. Might have tossed it in the trash.

  Suddenly she remembered— she had a weapon: her voice! A mournful song was all it took to change Andy’s opinion of her. Perhaps she could get Dr. Hobbs on her side, too. She just hoped it wouldn’t backfire and make him horny. No. She absolutely did not want that.

  Dr. Hobbs was holding the snorkel up to her face when she stared into his eyes and let out a long, sad note. She gazed at him, him in his dorky sweater, and tried again. She didn’t have any words, just painfully forlorn cries.

  “That’s... that’s very nice, but could you try...” He lowered the snorkel, letting it drizzle water all over the bed. “You know, that is really beautiful. It’s a siren thing, singing, isn’t it?”

  For a long time, he stood with the snorkel pouring water on his loafer shoes, his heart slowly breaking. Then he shut the valve to the water tank and sniffed. “All the myths are true, aren’t they? Odysseus and the Argonauts. Because that song— would you believe that song is impacting my emotional state?”

  Samantha didn’t respond, other than changing key, downward.

  Dr. Hobbs continued to look inward, narrating his own undoing. “It’s uncanny. I mean, the sound of a baby crying can make a mother lactate, but this... this is incredible.” He looked up at her again, his face now wet with tears.

  “You’re going to help me get out of here,” Sam said in a low voice.

  Conflicted, Dr. Hobbs nodded. “Of course. This— this keeping you like this is madness. What are we, monsters?”

  “Are we in a basement? How do we get out?”

  He nodded absentmindedly. “I’m going to talk to the Director right away.”

  “No!” Before she could stop him, Dr. Hobbs stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He was probably on his way to the Director to argue for her release. The Director who had never heard Sam sing. She was doomed.

  * * *

  Sam was stuck in Dr. Hobbs’s office for hours. Whether he still had half a mind to keep her trapped or was just a very punctilious person, his door locked as he left. Sam searched his office for anything she might be able to use.

  She was fiddling with the very old, very slow computer when the door burst open. Two men she had not seen before gestured for her to stay where she was and then indicated, in signs, that they had earplugs.

  They brought in a stretcher. Sam shook her head no.

  They insisted. Moments later, she was wheeling Dr. Hobbs’s desk chair away from them, propelling it with her tail, but they caught her, gagged her, and forced her into the stretcher. They hadn’t counted on her strength and flexibility— she knocked one of them on the floor while they struggled. They tied the thinnest part of the tail to the stretcher itself.

  She writhed and bit the gag all
the way out to an open truck in the parking lot. There were at least a dozen men and women in entourage, mostly scientists, probably, but one young man was wearing military fatigues. Everybody wanted to catch a glimpse of her, and they didn’t mind acting like children.

  The van was not too different from Andy’s, except that it was full of equipment for testing seawater. They laid her, still tied to the stretcher, between a small, round alkalinity colorimeter and a tall multi-parameter aquaprobe.

  Outside, a grey-templed man was arguing with the soldier. Probably the Director. Sam didn’t care. The more she struggled against the ropes, the more they burned her skin, particularly on the tail, which was flaking off live scales.

  In the end, the guy with the gun seemed to win over the scientists and he plopped himself down in the driver’s seat. The Director called shotgun. The soldier couldn’t resist peering over his shoulder to feast his eyes on Samantha. “Gosh,” he said, then “Buckle up, Fish Sticks, we’re going for a ride!”

  The Director didn’t hear what he said because of the earplugs, but disapproved on principle.

  Two horrific truck rides later, she was carried into a barren, monumental facility that smelled of brine and algae. More soldiers arrived. Two took the stretcher and the rest followed— by this point, Sam was exhausted from the struggle. They brought her to a large, concrete pool, apparently intended for dolphins, but empty apart from the water and the thin, green film on the walls.

  While the soldiers went to work untying or cutting her ropes, the one who had called her Fish Sticks unbuttoned Dr. Hobbs’s shirt. Sam didn’t resist. It would have been pointless. The Director was gone— refused entry, probably.

  When they had her unbound, they each took a section and picked her up— shoulders, midriff, and sagging, bruised tail— and unceremoniously tossed her into the pool.

  The water level was ten feet below deck so she fell, not knowing if there’d be anything to catch her, for quite a ways. Her side and her cheek took the brunt of the belly-flop and she drifted down, listless into the water.

  And there she stayed.

  Chapter 14: Should I Lie with Death my Bride

  Samantha swam from one end of her concrete enclosure to the other, then flipped and went back the other way, upside down. From a distance, the underwater viewport reflected like a mirror, and she was sometimes surprised to see the huge fish waving its long, speckled tail, only to realize it was her own body. She tried to avoid touching the walls or making a sound— the echoes were unbearable.

  Days gave way to weeks and she was bored out of her mind. Mentally, she was becoming more like a fish every day— just swimming back and forth, dull-witted. All the fury she spent the first few days softened with time— she couldn’t hold onto her rage forever. She found that she could make a whole day pass, if she wanted to, by just resting and letting the clock wind. It was getting hard to tell when she was sleeping and when she was awake, the way she drifted in neutral buoyancy.

  Sometimes, people came to the window, and she swam up to see them. She had grown so used to being an animal that she wasn’t embarrassed about being topless— and bottomless, and everything in between— it had ceased to raise any goosebumps. She cupped her hands around her eyes on the window and saw small groups of men, sometimes women, in business suits and military brass. She had the vague impression she was being exchanged, several times, but none of this mattered to her daily routine.

  They always talked a bit before leaving. Sometimes they gazed and marveled, but mostly they were unimpressionable. No one ever came to the other side of the glass, or called down from the ten-foot gap between the water and the deck above, or dived in with scuba suits. They knew she could get into their minds with the sound of her voice and didn’t know what else she could do. They were afraid.

  There was no consolation in that. In their fear, they overcompensated, building a high-security prison for a naked girl with a fish tail. Solitary confinement in a sensory deprivation tank. Unwilling to meet her face to face and give her people-food, they tossed in buckets of wriggling sardines for her to catch. The swarms scattered and burst into milky clouds whenever she caught one and tore it apart with her teeth. Her nails were getting very long, almost like claws. She ate less and less every day.

  * * *

  Emilio McCormick fidgeted just outside the Double Hoops sports bar, checking the address on a slip of paper. The whole front wall was open to let in the spring air, but it was 10 a.m. and deserted. The bartender was unnecessarily wiping the counter to keep busy. She didn’t seem to give a damn whether he came or left. Celebrities on TV were chatting amicably about the mermaid conspiracy.

  Emilio tried to not draw attention to himself as he slipped through the restaurant, but bumped a chair, which made a deafening squeak. The bartender looked up. Emilio apologized— to the chair— and snuck around sideways to the bar.

  “What do you want?” The bartender was heavily tattooed under her halter-topped muscle shirt, to fit the look of the place.

  “Hi, I...” he began, not sure how to ask his question without revealing too much. He wasn’t very good at this cloak-and-dagger stuff.

  The bartender wasn’t going to help him out. Her attitude was pretty realistic, too.

  “I— I’m here to meet with someone.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “The, um... Charybdis.”

  The bartender winced. He had said too much. Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone around. She gestured over her shoulder with her chin.

  Behind the black velvet curtain that hid the kitchen, she led him to a table on a rug, moved them both, and opened a door in the floor. A ladder disappeared into the darkness. “Behind the boiler,” she said. “Use the password there.”

  Emilio nodded aggressively and stumbled down the ladder. The trap door closed above his head and he was in almost total darkness. The boiler’s fire provided the only light, rodent feet the only sound.

  The cast iron boiler was hot— he singed his fingers groping for the space behind it. As soon as he found his way into a stone nook between the boiler and the wall, a mail slot opened, revealing a pair of angry eyes.

  “Ch— charybdis,” Emilio said. The slot closed. The heavy door swung open.

  The guard, a big-mustached man in a black T-shirt, had nothing to say as Emilio slipped by. A metal stool and a tall stack of magazines waited behind him. Interrogation lights lit the rough concrete hallway. There was another door at the far end of the hall, the only way to go.

  Emilio’s footsteps made resounding clacks that were gradually muted by the din on the other side of the second door. Loud conversations, laughter, and music. He hesitated before opening it; the guard at the other end nodded, and Emilio went in.

  It was a lavish room full of spinning roulette wheels, red carpeting, and dimly lit tables, where business was conducted with hard laughter and guarded intentions. There were two levels, lower in the middle— maybe a dance floor but nobody danced— and narrowly winding staircases to a rickety mezzanine. Emilio had expected to find a Latin underground, but the clientele— gangsters and thieves in all likelihood— was as internationally diverse as Monaco.

  A small man with slicked back hair and big ears spotted Emilio by the door and curled his finger conspicuously. Emilio assumed this meant “come.” The small man led him to a table not visible from the door, hidden by flowering palms, where a range of Dick Tracy villains sat expectantly. In the center of them all was a flapper— a true flapper, with a clinging green dress and beads that drizzled down her chest— smiling intently at him. It was Coquette.

  “M— m— may I sit?”

  She nodded, closing her eyes on the downturn. Her short hair was shockingly white and plastered into a curl on her forehead. A himalayan cat pounced onto the table and gingerly stepped past the thugs to rub its face on her arm.

  “S— so—”

  “You can leave your stutter at the door,
Emilio,” she said. “We’re all friends here.”

  Emilio paused a moment before saying, smoothly, “What’s this all about?”

  “I need your help,” she said, stroking the cat. “A friend of mine is in trouble. We’re preparing an expedition to get her out.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  She looked him squarely in the eyes and smiled, half-revealing her tongue. “Guns. Lots and lots of guns.”

  “It’s going to cost you.”

  “I’m good for it. My dear grandmother left me some assets.” For ninety years, Coquette had owned a stretch of Miami beachfront under the name of Susan Carter. She’d used her mermaid longevity to cool her jets in the oceans while interest and rents accrued.

  “What kind of guns? Intimidation? Or efficiency?”

  “For roleplay. We have to look the part of a Navy Seal team.”

  Emilio didn’t hide his condescension. “Are you sure you want real guns?”

  “Oh, I know you don’t deal in playthings. Yes, they must be real. But we only plan to use them as part of the masquerade. Camouflage, if you will. As long as everything goes smoothly, we’ll have access to much more firepower than you could ever sell me.”

  Emilio shook his head, then shrugged it off. As long as the lady paid in advance, she’d get all the guns she wanted.

  * * *

  Andrew had nothing to say to his parents after they got him out of jail. He didn’t leave his room in their basement much after that. His name was caught up in this mermaid hoax, or conspiracy, depending on who you talked to, but the police and then the reporters quickly learned that he had no idea where the so-called mermaid went. He was their only lead, and something of a let-down at that.

  He also closed out of most of his online accounts. Didn’t want to be bothered by the constant barrage of questions, propositions, and taunts. He was coming off the siren enchantment and he knew it, like a drug withdrawal for his psyche— a sudden lack that had once been filled with lies. A drilled-out cavity of the mind.

  He’d been used. He didn’t feel like he could count the time under Sam’s spell as being himself— it was as though someone else was acting in his body, moving his limbs for him— except that it wasn’t. Under the spell, he was both himself and not himself.