Becoming Mermaids

Chapter 15: Roman Wilderness of Pain

But then he met the military officers.

In his cooler moments, he recognized that they, too, had redeeming qualities— fiercely protective of their comrades and their homeland. But when it came to an external threat, a woman who didn't look human, with powers they didn't understand, they had no mercy at all. They couldn't even see her for what she was. Perhaps they had never heard her speak. After all, Frederick hadn't proven any better, when it was his turn to act.

But now he could fix that. He didn't have a plan, exactly— Major Brig had given him less than an hour's warning before he would "infiltrate" the enemy's territory, bring back "intel"— but he was going to use the chance to break her out. Somehow. There was only one door, and a half-dozen armed soldiers on the other side. He just had to think. Think!

A buzzer blasted on an overhead speaker. He had been petting her forehead as she sobbed in his lap— the hard, sudden sound made them both almost lose their footing. A one-way intercom crackled and demanded, "ASK HER WHY SHE'S NOT EATING."

Sam was stunned. She didn't even know they had an intercom.

"Those bastards can go to hell," Fred muttered.

Sam strained to use her own voice. "G— get me out of here."

It shook him to hear her be so blunt. "I wish I could."

After another minute, the intercom blared, "ASK HER WHAT SHE WANTS."

Fred made a rude gesture at the camera and Sam laughed, choking on her own tears.

A moment later, the speaker announced, "Okay, time's up. Get out."

The door opened a crack and the barrel of a gun peeked out. Fred hesitated as long as he felt he could, then said, "I have to go."

Sam shook her head, clutching his shirt with her talon-like fingers.

"We'll find a way," he promised, but it was an empty promise. He was lying to himself as well.

She did not and would not let him go. When he struggled to stand, she dragged herself, grabbing at his legs, anything to keep him from going away. Guns meant very little to her now.

She so tangled his legs that he tripped and might have caught himself if the tiles hadn't been wet. Slipping, struggling, his knee went out from under him and he tumbled over the ledge. His elbows, then his wrists, then his fingertips couldn't hold his weight and he fell ten feet into the water. Before she even heard the splash, someone on the other side of the door said, "Get her!"

Six men in heavy riot gear trained their guns on her, blocking the door. Sam pushed herself off the edge, following Fred. For all the grace they have at swimming, mermaids have no particular skill for diving— she fell like a barbell and splashed twice when she hit the water, practically knocking Fred out in the process.

"She's trying to drown him!" cried a voice from above. "Shoot!"

Sam dove quickly enough to escape the ringing bullets, which buzzed like angry hornets underwater. Fred was not so lucky and blood ballooned around him. "Shit!" she gasped, losing all the air from her lungs with one word.

When it comes to stopping bullets, water is as effective as a human body. After all, a body is mostly water, anyway. Near the surface, a gunshot wound would be fatal, but down at the bottom of the pool was like hiding under a pile of bodies fifty feet deep: bullets whined, deafeningly echoing off the concrete walls, but they had lost all power to pierce her skin.

The surface continued to thicken with a thick, red cloud. Sam inched upward and winced at the sound of each new bullet. Fred slid downward, lungs empty and perforated.

They met in the middle. His eyes were alive, but not much else. She wailed soundlessly and pressed her forehead to his chest. The smell of rust was overpowering. Tendrils of blood danced around them like gauzy fabric. She couldn't even find where or how many times he'd been hit— the fog cocooned them in a fetal haze.

Or could she? There was a dimple on his arm that closed up under her fingers. His skin gurgled and shimmied the way her legs did when they became a tail, turning to clay, molding into a clean form. His skin belched up a spent bullet. His wounds were closing under her touch.

The look in his eyes— he seemed to know it— watched in serene expectation that all would be well. The universe was fundamentally friendly. Sam checked her fingers, which radiated with the magic touch. Is this how Ariel saved Eric? How long would there still be surprises? Coquette hadn't told her any of this.

But she had no time to ponder this newfound ability: scuba divers splashed into the pool. They had spearguns.

Spears could shoot much farther underwater than bullets, but took longer to reload. Also, the divers swam at such a slow pace that Sam was like a queen on a chessboard full of pawns. She could dart from one end of the pool to the other in the time that it took them to kick themselves a few inches forward. She also had the cloud of blood for cover.

As soon as a gap presented itself, Sam grabbed Fred around the waist and pumped hard to the top of the pool, on the side near the deck. The medics above had lowered a rope ladder. She made sure to loop his arm through a rung before zipping away, to the far, bottom end of the tank, hoping that the soldiers would be brave enough to left Dr. Hobbs to safety.

The divers weren't content to follow her around the aquarium in an exhausting stalemate. They tossed a huge net over the surface and each carried a corner to the far ends of the pool. Then they dove to the bottom, spreading it across the entire tank to methodically scoop Sam out, like a fish at a pet store.

It was only a matter of time before they got her. She had nowhere to hide. Still, as the mesh of rope approached, she shot out of reach, into the gradually shrinking volume that remained. If she got too close to the edge in an effort to slip around, a diver would shake his speargun in her direction.

The operation took at least an hour, and dread overwhelmed her as she watched it happen. They tied up the corners of the net with her in it, and then ratcheted it on a crane. The space in her bubble shrank as the net rose, dripping, and then her full weight took her when she came out of the water. It folded her in half and pinched the soft parts of her skin.

They left her in the netting as they carted her through the door, into the hallway, and into the back of an armored car, with its engine running in the parking lot. The brief handover through the double doors was the first time in a month she had seen the sky.

Sam kept looking out for Dr. Hobbs, but never saw him. The soldiers still had earplugs, communicating efficiently in sign language, unaware that the water in Sam's lungs prevented her from saying a word. She only fully spit it up once she was laying on the metal floor of the armored car, draped in a tangled mass of netting, and the doors slammed shut.

The net was so tight it effectively bound Sam's arms to her hips and her attempts to worm her way out only made her flop on the floor, splashing in her own puddle. She felt a pang of hopelessness, to think they could do this. She was a commodity, a thing to be transported from one aquarium to the next, helpless on land, trapped in water. She bent at the waist, curling her tail upward in a mass of tangled nets, only to lay it down, uselessly, on the floor. The car lurched into a start, rolling her over backward.

There was a soldier in the hold of the armored car with her. His hat was turned down over his face, gun casually resting at his side. Samantha bared her chest, bound arms, and the front of her tail to him through the net. Her voice was still a little gurgley when she asked, "Help me out of this, will you?"

The soldier tipped her hat up. Under the fatigues, it was Coquette, grinning. "Sure thing," she said.