People with Fishtails Read online



  PEOPLE

  WITH

  FISHTAILS

  ~~~

  by

  Anne Seaworthy

  PEOPLE WITH FISHTAILS

  by Anne Seaworthy

  Copyright 2015 by Anne Seaworthy

  Cover Design Copyright 2015

  by https://coversbykaren.com

  Cover illustration by Anne Seaworthy

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious, even those referring to actual or well-known entities. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Prologue

  Gayle

  "Daddy, Daddy, look what I drew in school today!" I took the paper I’d carefully tucked in my folder and ran over to the mound on the couch. "She came to me in a dream, Daddy. She said she was going to come back for me." Since two days ago, I practically worshipped the woman with a silvery fishtail and pastel orange hair who’d wrapped me in a clammy wet hug and called me pet names like "my little bubble baby."

  He studied the drawing carefully, brought it right up to his squinty red eyes and looked it over, top to bottom. "You’re too old for this kind of crap," he sneered, taking a swig from the bottle on the coffee table. "Mermaids don’t exist!"

  "Well, this one was pretty sure she existed," I said defiantly. "She even gave me a scale of hers." I indicated the necklace I’d fashioned.

  "Mermaids don’t exist!" he roared, rearing up from under the matted blanket. "How am I going to get that through your head?"

  All that night, the sound of the paper ripping echoed against my skull, louder than it had been in front of the blaring TV news. The sight of the two halves crumpling like two pieces of a broken heart haunted my closed eyes. And I begged the mysterious mermaid to come to me in a dream again, so I could see her likeness whole, not broken by those meaty paws belonging to the man I had to call my father.

  Prologue

  Sander

  I knew I was using the last of the battery power, but I turned on the flashlight. I was scared and I wanted to know what Daddy was doing.

  Outside, he had a saltwater pool with conditions he’d matched perfectly to the ocean. He’d told me with pride the other day, "I think I’m getting close to figuring out the secret to breaking a kraken. And once I do, we won’t have to worry about fuel anymore." In his office, he had all kinds of scientific charts and books. He said they were all pointing the way to the future.

  I peered out the window at the kraken pool, where Bessie lived. She lifted her tentacle-covered head out of the water, letting the rain wash down her pink skin.

  Daddy came out of the shed, pulling on a pair of gloves. With his jeans and tee shirt on, he hopped into the pool. He reached towards Bessie’s underside.

  She complained, groaning at the sky.

  He petted her, spoke softly to her, and slowly began to tug at her teats.

  Lightning lit up the sky. Thunder cracked and I was under my bed, praying Daddy’d come back inside.

  And he did. Sopping wet, sneakers squishing water all over my bedroom carpet, he beamed at me as I crawled out to meet him.

  "Son, I’ve found a way to harvest the milk," he said. "The trick is gentle coaxing, and you have to hold your hands just right and massage her properly. Now we have a sustainable, alternative fuel that will never run out like oil and can be produced en masse! And I’m the one who started it all." His grin looked grotesque in the weak flashlight as he told me, "This is going to be big."

  Chapter One

  Sander

  My college graduation was a joke.

  When the tired, old school band started halfheartedly playing "Pomp and Circumstance," all I could think about were my own circumstances – an orphaned graduate of the Petroleum University’s world-renowned Marine Biology program in a world where very little biological stuff remained in the ocean. With no employers looking to snap me up as a new hire and no parental basement to scuttle back to, I was cooked as a frozen burrito back in the dorm.

  When it was my turn to march mechanically across the stage and bask in the generic applause of other people’s parents, my eyes were not on the floor in front of me but inside my head, reminiscing on all the wonderful marine biological survey expeditions I’d conducted as part of my research project with Professor Weekling. The salty spray in my mouth, the catamaran buzzing on the surf beneath our deep conversations, the clouds in the sky echoing the foam below… an altogether idyllic experience.

  Too bad we’d never found enough specimens to actually conduct any research. He told me it was just the luck of the draw, but I knew better.

  When the Dean of Academics pinned the golden dolphin to my sleek black gown, all I could think about was the stranded dolphin I’d seen on my study abroad trip to Costa Rica, and how hard we’d tried to get her back into the water, and her red eyes closing as the sun bore down on her sunburnt skin. "It’s too bad," I’d said as we turned our backs on the carcass. "That may well have been the last one in this sector of the world ocean."

  Our guide had shaken his head, not understanding. Of course – no one but me knew all about KrakenGo.

  When it was all over, and the band had sighed away into nothingness and everyone else was waiting in line to shake hands with their favorite faculty members one last time and taking pictures with their families on the June-gloomy quad, I trudged out the gate for the last time. After a few blocks, I started to feel pretty stupid walking down the street in my cap and gown, so I stuffed them in the plastic bag I’d been issued in preparation for the day’s ceremonies. I wondered if I’d need the bag later to throw up in.

  I realized I must’ve looked like a homeless person, wandering the dock among the salty drunks and squinty sailors, lugging a bag of clothing, searching aimlessly. As if the horizon was inscribed with the answer to how to get an apartment in Simmerton Beach, as if one of the harsh faces of the boat owners strolling across the pier would melt into a smile and a job offer. Basically, I was a homeless person.

  Now a stray piece of newspaper tumbles across the boardwalk into my line of sight. I pick it up, intending to throw it away. But something in the classified ads catches my eye.

  "Job opening: Do you want to search the seas for nature’s treasures? Are you a qualified marine biologist, oceanographer, or ecologist? Interview at the end of the Simmerton Pier."

  Well, the description fits me pretty well. I’m fairly qualified, as a valedictorian Marine Bio major, and I’d love to scour the seas for whatever biological treasure we have left to show people they still deserve protection. So I stroll to the end of the pier.

  There, I find myself face to face with an ultra-modern ship, outfitted with invisibility tiles on the sides and an open-mouthed marlin figurehead in whose mouth I can spy a laser gun.

  Why would marine biologists need a gun? Protection from poachers and polluters?

  The captain, based on his fancy gadget-laden three-pointed hat, strolls out to meet me. He's got a hook for a hand, and a bored expression on his face. We’re the only two people around – didn’t other Marine Bio majors see the ad and get an uncanny sense of hope for their lives?

  I extend my hand, and the hook retracts into his sleeve and is replaced by a robotic hand for a cold and intense handshake.

  "What’re ya here for, boy?" He scratches his curly beard with his one real hand.

  I say, "I saw your ad in the paper, and I think I would be well qualified for the job. I graduated at the top of my class, and I’ve done a marine biology internship in Costa Rica surveying rare saltwater amphibians…"

  "Are ya prepared to pillage and plunder, to leave nothing a’ value behind, to travel the seven seas in search a’ biological tr
easure?"

  "Yes to the last thing. I’m not sure about – "

  "Ya studied marine biology, ya said?"

  "Yes sir. What was that about pillaging – "

  "You’re in. Welcome to the Pink Marlin crew. Mess is at six, the decks are swabbed by nine." He thrusts a clipboard at me.

  I grab the stylus for my electronic signature, and I’ve become a sailor on a ship with a noble mission. I got a job the same day as graduation – I can hardly contain my pride and excitement.

  Chapter Two

  Gayle

  I lean against the bar, where I have been stationed to serve drinks whenever one of the crew runs out of rum or whiskey. I don’t drink myself, and try to avoid even breathing in the alcohol surrounding me on all sides.

  The captain walks in with a new arrival – and suddenly things get a lot more stimulating. "This is Aleksander Wytewind," proclaims Foulweather. "He’s our new marine biology expert." With a friendly shove, Captain Foulweather propels the sandy blond with cute freckles my way. "Go say hello to yer pal over there," he chuckles.

  The man approaches the bar. He walks like he knows where he’s going, which is more than I can say for myself – and I was hired to this position months ago.

  "Call me Sander," he edits the captain’s introduction. "And what might your name be?"

  "I’m Abigayle," I say. "My friends call me Gayle." Not that I’ve ever really had any. "Um, if I may ask, what are you doing here? I mean, I was hired to be the ship’s official marine biologist. I don’t see why they would have needed more than one."

  "Why not? Maybe all these people are marine experts. After all, the voyage is to explore the ocean for hidden biological treasures."

  "All right, I just hope it doesn’t create a 'too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen' kind of dynamic. Like, maybe one of us should be the official marine biologist and the other should be the assistant?"

  "Sounds fair enough. So who’s going to be the assistant?"

  "Um…" I’m trying to work up the nerve to let him know I barely passed Anatomy 101 and maybe he should take the lead, when the crew gathers around the window and begins making a lot of noise.

  Sander saunters over to the crowd, leaving me in the company of the bottles and barrels of alcohol. "What’s up?" he inquires of the others.

  Taffy, a sixteen-year-old blissful beauty, breathes, "dolphins."

  I slip over and peer beyond the myriad heads to see the playful creatures – they look like bottlenose to me – weaving in and out of our wake. In the late afternoon sun, they gleam like the bronze pendant I received at graduation.

  "Indeed, dolphins. They are beautiful creatures, aren’t they?" Sander muses.

  He’s barely finished the sentence when the captain bellows, "all hands to stations!"

  Taffy scrambles to the pole in the center of the room and climbs up to man the sails.

  The others run upstairs to the cannons, except the captain, who attends a panel covered in a galaxy of buttons and levers.

  Sander and I are the only ones without a job, standing in the empty room. We hear a magnificent boom that rocks the ship and almost flings us against the wall. A chorus of several more follows. The ship pitches, and Sander and I slide towards the window.

  Outside, the dolphins that played in our white splashes just seconds ago now lie in clouds of blood in the water.

  The ship comes to a stop.

  "Good work, mates!" Captain Foulweather calls upwards.

  Nets swing down in front of the window and scoop up the lifeless forms, which drip blood and water as they rise into the clouds.

  Taffy comes twirling down the pole. "Some folks will pay a fortune for those dolphins taxidermied," she confides in Sander and me. "Oneye knows how to do it, but we haven’t seen dolphins for ages until we brought you aboard." She winks up at Sander. "Maybe you’re good luck."

  The captain comes over. "Now you see how it’s done. Maybe next time, you can join the raid, you two," he says, slapping Sander on the shoulder.

  When he walks away, Sander turns to me. "Okay," he says shakily. "That was a little weird."

  "I think we’re on a pirate ship," I whisper. "Environmental pirates. I read about it in Eco History class."

  "Professor Thomas?" He perks up.

  I nod.

  "So we went to the same school," he breathes.

  "We can forget about the assistant thing," I say grimly, realizing it’s not necessary. Neither of us is really here to collect plankton samples or research echinoderm mating behaviors.

  He nods in agreement. "From now on," he intones, "it’s you and me against the bad guys."

  Chapter Three

  Sander

  The flat green ballerina twists and somersaults slowly in the murky tank where I’ve stowed away my catch from this morning’s early dive.

  The crew’s already up, probably awakened by growling stomachs. I try to get my Zen on, ignoring the discussion going on topside of who will eat whose leg first.

  I inherited some syringes and sampling tubes from a doting professor, and now I’m glad I did. With the equipment, I’m able to painlessly extract a cell sample from the Elysia Chlorotica specimen, green as seagrass, and release her to continue her underwater dance in the tank. I’ll set her free once I know this operation works. I turn on the microscope function on my watch, zip open one of the cells, and carefully pinch the chromosome out of the nucleus with my tongs. I fill a large syringe with several dosages worth, enough for all the crew, who are currently bickering about whether girl meat tastes better than guy meat. I’d better get up there soon. I grab a patch of algae I collected earlier and head upstairs.

  "I say we eat the captain first," Taffy is suggesting. "Who cares if we have no one to yell orders at us anymore?"

  Murmurs of agreement issue from the crowd. Foulweather fingers his hilt. Gayle turns a shade whiter than usual.

  "I have a way for us all to get food for the next nine months, without having to kill anyone or even pull into port," I announce.

  Everyone turns to stare at me. Hammerhead’s stomach grumbles, and he looks down at it sullenly.

  "If you just let me inject you with these chromosomes, you’ll have the enzymes to process photosynthesized energy and maintain chloroplasts in your body for a good, long time."

  Everyone gapes at me like I’ve sprouted seagrass for hair. For all I know, I will.

  "Here, let me show you how it works," I offer. I take a deep breath, mentally saying goodbye to being a full-blooded human. Then I push the tip of the needle into the vein of my left forearm.

  They’re all watching, more annoyed than captivated. "So what?" Taffy asks, cocking her round head.

  I take the bag of algae out of my pocket, open it, pinch my nose, and insert a small handful into my mouth. It tastes like a salty salad – not bad enough to justify the grossed-out giggles from the audience. "Just watch," I say.

  A gasp sweeps the crew. I look down at my arms to see they are glowing green, the same color as the sacoglossan still turning pirouettes in my chamber belowdecks. My own shock is heightened when I begin to feel nourished, gradually like I was drinking a bowl of soup, except I taste nothing but the vegetative aftertaste of the green algae. The experiment worked – the sea slug’s photosynthetic power, stolen from the algae it eats and passed on genetically, is also transferrable to humans! And now I can transfer it to the rest of the crew and save somebody from being barbecued.

  I stop glowing, feeling marvelously full of energy that doesn’t weigh in my stomach like food would. "Who wants to go next?" I ask.

  "Sure, I’d like glow green," Iru Zhi volunteers. The others look on with fascination as I bend to administer the fluid to his puny arm. He takes a mouthful of the algae I hold out to him. A few moments later, he flashes a toothy grin. His teeth glow the same lime green as the rest of his diminutive body. "This really work! It food – food from the sun!" Soon the whole crew is lined up for a taste of science.


  Gayle comes up last. She meets my eyes, though I can see it’s hard for her, like our eyes were two magnets with double-negative polarization. She mouths, "thank you." I nod.

  After we’ve all been fed and genetically modified, Lorenzini calls for "a toast to our marine biologist and his weird creation that has saved us all from incessant hunger and the potential health risks of cannibalism."

  All agree: "Aye."

  "Hear, hear."

  "To keeping both my legs."

  Lorenzini leans in close to me. "You know, my friend, I think you’d make a great captain someday."

  I visualize myself at the helm below the Jolly Roger, wearing one of those ridiculous hats like the GPS-capable one Foulweather wears. "Um, sure," I agree with him.

  Captain Foulweather butts in. "But not captain a’ this ship," he adds. "Things isn’t never changin’ ‘round here." He stalks off, glowing in the sunlight.

  Chapter Four

  Sander

  We’ve been lounging like elephant seals since I fed the crew. All around us is open sea. I feel like a kid trapped inside on a summer day. Out there are creatures I could be researching, to show the world there is still hope for the ocean if they’d just stop polluting and supporting KrakenGo…

  "Hey, does anyone wanna go for a dive with me?" I throw it out there, hoping perhaps to convert the crew to my point of view. "I’ve got an extra wetsuit or two. They’re clean and dry."

  Taffy yawns. "Why would we want to go for a dive?" she asks. "It’s the middle of nowhere."

  "We’re literally at Nowhere Atoll," Oneye Walter points out, indicating the map on the screen. "It’s an empty wasteland. We won’t find anything of value."

  "You never know," I say, before realizing I probably don’t want these people finding anything I’d value down there anyway. I’m about to give up and go down to the dive chamber alone when Gayle slinks up to me.

  "I’d sort of like to go," she says, "if it’s all right. I’m not a super fast swimmer…"

  "Neither are seahorses," I grin, "but they’re still awesome. Let’s go, diving partner."

  First, I take her to my chamber the level below to get the extra wetsuit. She clutches it to her chest as I show her to the bathroom.