Ch 5: The Talk

She led me up to her hotel room, sliding a key card into the door and ushered me inside as if she was afraid I would disappear. Got to admit, the idea sounded tempting. But no, running away from her after she’d risked her life to help me save another would be intolerable.

I did make her take a shower to get warmed up first though and put in an order to room service for hot cocoa and brownies. I’d heard the procedure on a few television shows and it was easy. The warm drinks and sweets arrived just as she finished dressing and I made her start in on them before I started in my background. She was seated on the only bed in the room, mug on the bedside table, eyes trained on me.

After pulling the curtains to the balcony closed, securing the inside release only locks on the main door and adjoining room door, I took off my backpack and set it next to my other stuff on the table. Stretching my tendrils out behind me, I began to explain.

An Arctic expedition had discovered the resting place for a being that was my genetic paternal unit. The team had worked for a certain company that would not be named and their lead geneticist had donated her womb and eggs to the creation of something unknown in the modern world. While she is my maternal unit in technicality, she’d never expressed anything close to a mother’s care.

A typical pregnancy, c-section and into the world I came, a bouncy baby monstrosity. Years of training, testing, teaching, tormenting to see what I could do, what I could become, how much I could handle, all of it under the direction of that lead geneticist and her fellow scientists. I gave Veronica more details than I can bear to recount now, my history spilling out faster and faster as I went. How the food was laden with chemicals and no one treated me as a sentient being, just a dangerous experiment.

I told her of my escape, of meeting Blue in that trench and her saving my life. Of Star, Malcom, Helix and Rogue, the great white shark pups I had adopted. Of why I was afraid on the beach when she said she was a scientist. Of not knowing how to do this, this thing between us because I honestly had no basis for comparison.

She continued to sip her cocoa and ate a brownie at my prompting through my exposition explosion. Her eyes widened at some points, narrowed dangerously at others but she kept silent and let me speak. It wasn’t the gentle give and take of her telling me about her life. It came out in a violent rush and when it was done I was shaking, more tired from that than the swim to help the whale. I sat down with no grace at all and brought my knees to my chest, hands wrapping around my legs. My tendrils hung limp behind me, as tired as the rest of me. I muttered around my arms, “And you’re the only person outside me and the company that knows any of this.”

“I had no idea people were doing those kinds of experiments,” Veronica said once it was clear I was done. “I believe you- there’s no other way for you to have those, what did you call them, tendrils? And gills. I’ve said I wanted a set before but I didn’t think it was possible.”

“You’d be surprised at what lies between shouldn’t be possible and impossible,” I said, laying my head on my knees. I stayed like that until she came up behind me and her fingers traced along the top of one of my tendrils.

I lifted my head and the tendril at the same time, letting her explore the texture. It was like the trailing tentacle of a squid, mostly smooth with a handlike appendage with suckers on the end. Unlike a squid, it was a shifting green to black like my hair getting darker near the ends. I felt my eyes start to glow as she ran her to the base and down my back. I was still in the bikini and there was nothing to stop her hand from trailing over its ties to my gills. I flinched as she brushed a hand over them, waiting for her to say I was a monster or repulsive or something. Because of course I was, I wasn’t like her. I wasn’t like anyone else in the world.

Her exploring hand skimmed up my side to my shoulder, neck and cupped my cheek. Her voice was deeper as she spoke to me. “Gwen, you’re beautiful and not at fault for being what you are. You didn’t ask for this and you’re not doing evil with your abilities.”

“I killed the assault team.”

“After they tried to capture or kill you and killed all those innocent animals,” she countered, cupping my face in her hands. “I would have killed the men that killed my parents if I could have. You saved that whale, even though it meant you would have to tell me what you are. Unless you’re going to take my memories?”

“I can’t do that,” I told her, staring into her eyes. “I would never harm you.”

“I think I’ve said that to you,” she mused and laid a kiss on my lips. “But this does explain why some things puzzle you. Where do you live?”

“There’s an island with a house on it that I’ve been keeping most my stuff at but I usually sleep near Helix, Star and Malcom in the water. Its safer for all of us if we’re close together.”

She started unbraiding my hair, the strands slipping between her fingers. I let out a purr of pleasure as she played with my hair, working out the few tangles and leaving it flowing down my back to brush the floor. “That makes sense. Are they okay with you on land with me? You must be worried sick.”

“Nah, they’re fine, they are shark pups,” I assured her. “Whites don’t eat daily and we took down a bunch of tuna before I met you at the dance party. Was that only last night?”

“It seems longer,” she agreed and stood. “I’m already dry and warm but your hair is still damp. Do you want to wash it here and um, stay with me? You don’t have to, Gwen, I don’t want to rush you. But I’m not sure you should be alone and I know I don’t want to be tonight.”

I took her up on her offer and showered then let her braid my hair before falling asleep curled around her in that big fluffy bed. It felt like sleeping on a cloud with an angel in my arms. I used the tendrils to pull blankets up over both of us before slipping off to sleep.

The next morning, I awoke to hear her talking on her cell phone to a deep male voice about a boat, the Critter Cam and other things. I crawled out of the bed and laid a kiss on her shoulder before heading to the bathroom. By the time I was out, she was pulling on a racerback swimsuit.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Gwen,” she said with a big smile. A long sleeved rash guard and leggings went on over the swimsuit. “I arranged for a boat for us, ok me, to borrow. There’s a school of sharks coming into the Sea today according to drone data. We’re unsure of the species though and my boss got me a boat rental set up. I’ve got cameras and a tag gun in my car. Would you like to join me?”

She wanted me to help her with her work? Or just spend time together? I wasn’t sure but I’d take either one. “I’d be happy to help, just need to check in with the boys. Where’s the boat at?”

Veronica brought up a map on her phone and showed me where she’d be getting the boat from. “If you want to meet me over there, I can grab lunch for us and we can eat on our way out.”

“Mind if I bring the boys? They seem to want to go into the Sea of Cortez anyway, might as well start in now and I can double back for my bags later.”

“YES,” she said with an enthusiasm that made me grin. “I would love to meet them! Are you sure its not too much?”

“We can swim over a hundred miles a day,” I pointed out. “I think we’ll manage. And I’d like you to meet them. They can also help keep the other sharks in line, most won’t mess with a pack of three, even though they’re young.”

“I’ve done well over a hundred shark dives,” she retorted with a pixie like grin. “But I bow to your expertise.”

We walked out to the lobby hand in hand and it was more difficult than I thought it would be to leave her to head to the beach. I left my shopping bags in her room and wore only the backpack, bikini and sandals, which put me on par with half the people walking around. I wouldn’t need anything else and it was all replaceable.

The water was almost as warm as the morning air as I walked into the surf. The beach was nearly empty, guess people don’t go for sea side swims at seven in the morning on a Tuesday. Their loss.

The boys came to meet me when I called, their bodies rubbing against mine as I told them about Veronica. There was no hesitation in their agreeing that they needed to meet her, because if I said she was important, that was the law in their minds. I did wonder what they would do to someone I hated but put that aside.

I left them outside the harbor with firm instructions to not bite anything and pulled myself onto the noisy peer near the rental shop, tendrils securely tucked away in my now damp backpack. Veronica was holding four different bags and talking with a darkly tanned man as I approached. He handed her a key and then looked me over.

“New assistant,” he asked her in Spanish.

I answered in kind. “Something like that. Shark specialist.”

“Ah, she’s no gringo,” he said with a smile.

“Nah, I just have my father’s eyes,” I agreed. I mean, I was a gringo technically, but they didn’t exactly hand out citizenship cards to lab experiments. I turned to Veronica and offered a hand. “Need help with those?”

I could see her fight with herself for a moment before handing over a large hard case. “Sure, this is the spear gun we use for tagging. If there’s any reef sharks in the group we’ll tag them for the study and if we see others, we’ll tag and submit the data to a team that’s tracking all sharks in the Sea. They love extra data. And we have the boat for two days. It’s a house boat, do you care if we’re out overnight? I grabbed extra food, so don’t worry about that.”

“Sure,” I answered, thinking that I could feed myself just fine but time with her, that was worth it to me. “Lead the way, Captain.”

She snorted a laugh, finished signing the paperwork for the boat and lead the way down to a houseboat big enough to sleep six people. My eyes must have shown my surprise because she laughed again. “The owner is my boss’ cousin and its slow right now. So, he doesn’t mind if we take the bigger boat out and I always fill it up before bringing it back in.”

She stepped in like it was the easiest thing, though I admit I stumbled a bit. Standing on a boat was different than standing on land or swimming, ok? As I picked myself up and pushed my hair out of my face, I could see she had a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

“Do it, don’t hold it in,” I groused at her playfully. “I’m a big girl, you can laugh.”

She was still laughing as she pulled us out of the dock, the boat easily handling the water. It was pretty large and she had me set the gear bags on the deck and put the food into the coolers inside. They were already loaded with ice and pushed everything into the chilly depths of the cooler. Human food was complicated, I mused before heading up to set my backback out to dry on a chair and joined her at the wheel.

After we gave the boys our heading, she opened up the throttle and it felt like we were flying across the water. I felt the boat shift as she made course corrections using her phone’s GPS and the boat’s own navigation system. Around noon, we found where the sharks had been spotted and she look across the quiet surface, the boat lolling in the waves.

“Always looks so peaceful up top,” she said. “Now to find our sharks.”

Three dorsal fins rose out of the water behind the boat, my boys saying hi. “Looks like some found us. Let me to hop in and see if I can sense anything.”

“Okay, Aqua-woman,” she teased.

“Huh?”

“You know, like Aquaman?”

“Never heard of him.”

“I have a movie to show you back at the hotel,” she told me. “See if you can get a heading for me.”

“Yes, Captain,” I said with a mock salute and leapt over the side into the water.

Helix reached me first, nudging me for a hug. I held onto him with one tendril while seeking the shark swarm with my mind, finding it was east and a bit north of us but not by much.

I darted back up to the surface and took the time to drain my lungs so I could talk. “They’re east, north east of us, Veronica. But they’re not far, can you follow if the boys keep their dorsal fins above water?”

“I think so,” she said, taking the helm. “Lead the way!”

The school of sharks was about a twenty minute swim for the boys and I, the thrum of the boat’s motor easy to track as she followed us. I kept underwater, I got better speed there. Knowing she was right behind me was nice. Comforting? Pleasant? Made my lips tingle for want of another kiss?

I shook my head, trying to clear it of thoughts straight out of High School Musical or some such nonsense and scanned the school of sharks ahead of me. There were hammerheads galore around the sea mount, gliding past it to get cleaned by schools of smaller fish. The sharks got a cleaning and the fish got lunch and if that isn’t interspecies cooperation, I just don’t know what is.

I was greeting a pair of young hammer heads when I felt the water beside me shift and there she was. Veronica was encased in a sleek dive suit, having changed from the rash guard she was wearing to get us out here. She’d later tell me she wanted to be prepared incase we ran into another animal in trouble. Now she was in a dive suit, a long pair of fins giving her more speed in the water and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of googles. She held a spear gun in her hands, and I wished I knew enough sign language to ask her which shark she wanted to tag. After a couple of dives though, she swapped the tool for a camera and started getting shots of sharks already tagged.

Seeing her goal, I started calling them to us with kind words and promises of scratches. It worked well until she got distracted. Seeing her fall out of her role as biologist and into cooing at Star as he let her grab a dorsal ride was endearing as hell. He’d grown a bit and was over six feet now. Nothing like his mother’s size but not small by any measurement.

We spent the day on that sea mount after I guided the anchor to it. There were a variety of sharks on the sea mount, just most were hammer heads. That night we pulled a collage of blankets out onto the deck and slept under the stars. I tend to run hotter than the average human and Veronica stayed snuggled against my side as she slept. I fell asleep wondering how anyone ever got anything done if they felt like this.

I’d find out.