Becoming Mermaids

Chapter 13: Dirtyfishydishcloth

Sam woke in a hospital bed, but not in a hospital. The room was a laboratory, with the kinds of sinks and built-in gas faucets she recognized from chemistry class, but it was also an office. There were spiral bound conference proceedings, stacks of paper, a mini-fridge, an ancient computer (you could hear its fan), fishtanks of various sizes, a very large, empty one on the floor, skeletons, and a hospital bed with Sam in it. The man who had kidnapped her was sleeping in his office chair.

Very carefully, Sam checked her wrists— they were unbound— and tried to slip out of the bed. It had a metal fence intended to keep restless sleepers from falling out accidentally. Trying to lower it gently, she made a squeak that woke her abductor.

"Oh," he said, reaching for his glasses. "You're up. No, don't do that. Here, let me help."

Sam braced herself for a fight. She also tried to cover her breasts with her elbows. "Where am I?"

"You're losing your bandage." He reached for her forehead and she slapped his arm away. "You don't want that to come undone," he said.

She felt it herself. There was a lump under the cloth, and it stung to touch it.

"There'll likely be a scar. Which is a pity."

"What is this place? Why do you have me here?" With her throat free of seawater, her voice came out easily.

"Goodness! You're absolutely fluent!"

Sam blinked. Then, screaming at the top of her lungs, she demonstrated just how many words she knew.

"Calm down, calm down!" the man insisted, hands still up in a submissive gesture. "We'll figure this all out when we come to it. First things first." He took a breath, like he was going to ask a question, but instead said, "What a remarkable creature you are!"

She flipped him her middle finger.

"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."