Incarna

20 - Mermaids Kiss

Professor Susan Greenfield responded to his kiss then pushed him to arms length and looked at him frowning. “Oh my dearest, what have they done to you today?” Susan took his hand and led him through the wheel house into the main cabin. Her work station was still a scene of hectic intenseness, with three screens up and a number  of books and folders open around the sides of the curved desk.

“Ah, progress! That looks so much better than this morning when you showed me!” George leant over the desk and peered into the 30cm touch screen and closely examined the slowly rotating figure. The detail was now exquisite and he could make out all the textures and streamlining that Susan had been working so hard to identify and perfect.

“The worlds first functional Gill suit,” he said quietly in awe of her dedication and skill. He turned to her his face beaming with shared pride. George reveled in excellence. It inspired him and fired his own need to be the best. No standing in front of a mirror repeating endless affirmations. Sex with a successful woman was his universal aphrodisiac.

Susan grinned back at him then snuggled into his outstretched arms. They arm in arm as the figure slowly rotated before them. “will you print a test version now?” “No, not yet. I’ll just do the mask first and do a few hours of reliability trials. I need to establish the real world efficiency parameters for the Cobalt Oxygen Sponge first!” She turned to him, then I’ll print the complete suit and yes you can try and have sex with a real mermaid then!” and she giggled at the thought of his fantasies and his sex talk as she had progressed with her design.

Susan turned to face him. “You will keep your word?” George took a deep breath. No matter how much this technology could be used for military and security operations he had given his word that the first twelve months of production would be for scientific use. As a rule, a very specific rule, George hated idealists. So many times he had to have one or more of them removed as a an obstacle before he had been able to get on with the task at hand. To him it didn’t matter if it was a Spotted Owl or a Spotted Lily. A spotty teenager or a dotty old age pensioner, if they were in the way they had to be moved, no matter what their issue or campaign!

Somehow though, Susan’s idealism was just another turn on. He started to pull her in close, “Nope, not yet!” and she put a finger to his lips. “You go and catch dinner and I’ll save some extra details here that this program just resolved,” and she pointed the smaller screen on the left side of the desk, “then we can relax!”

George kissed her finger then mouthed and ok. As he turned something about the figures Susan was now looking intently at tweaked a memory. Ah yes, that research program last year! George smiled as levers and cogs turned in his mind and a vault opened and he could see in his minds eye all the details of a Navy Seals research program where divers had died trying out new equipment similar to what Susan was developing.

George watched her for a moment then made his way down to the internal spiral steps to his equipment lockers.  George turned the image of Susan’s molecule around in his mind that had been part of the small screens image. He didn’t understand what he was looking at but he could see the difference between it and the one from his memory of the Seal deaths.

George blinked a few times to secure the memory then went through his conscious memorising process. Of taking the data to the vault and registering it and locking it away. Just some of the mental tricks he had learned over the years to improve his eidetic memory.

He looked at his fishing rod selection, frowned shook his head and closed the stainless steel locker door. He made his way up through the wheel house and out onto the stern. It was a beautiful cold night witht he stars winking at him in amusement at something he hadn’t got right today. They were his conscience he’d decided. Always there at night to remind what he’d done wrong and who he had hurt that day. He shrugged and ignoring the winking eyes of all the souls he had taken the life of through some action he’d forgotten, made his way along the port said to the bow and the lines for his lobsters pots.

Susan had put the out this afternoon and he wasn’t due to check them till morning but who knows they might have had some luck already. Yes, a good sized Maine Lobster was what he fancied to dine on tonight. He had couple of bottles of Grange Hermitage someone had given him last year, one of those would be an ideal to wait for the end of the world.

George looked over the side as hauled on the first rope. Nope nothing. He reset the timer float and watched the trap drift out from the bow of the Forest. There was swirl in the water as it sank and he smiled to himself knowingly. He hauled on the second rope and he could tell immediately it was heavier. Susan could never sense the difference but he did every time. There were two, and, one was a Blue. What was it, one in million Maine lobsters were Blues. They turned red on cooking so Susan would never know what rarity they were eating.

Another swirl near the trap and a face appeared, it was Her! “Let it go,” she cooed to him from just above the water as he hauled the trap onto the deck. He leant over and smiled back, “nothin’ doin’, an’ ya can sing all night long. She can’t hear ya and I don’ care!” He said in a kind of back woods drawl.

She pursed her lips at him and he felt the pull as her spell reached out and tugged the armoured plate doors of his heart! “I’m not comin’ in, an ya not be comin’ out, so leave me be! Ya get nuthin here!” There was swirl and the face disappeared as Susan made her way along the side and came up behind him.

“Oh marvelous, another Blue. Ive caught three this week,there must be a cluster breeding area here. I’ve the others in tanks below and I’ve arranged to begin a breeding program.” George smiled and gave her a hug. Yah see, take that Shefish, he thought spoke to the face of the waters, you’ll not be gettin’ this one back!