by Mira Grant
Theodore resisted the urge to sigh. “If you say so, sir.”
“And the Stewart girl? She’s prepared?”
“She understands the restrictions placed on her research, and is willing to abide by them in exchange for being able to answer her questions about what happened to her sister. She’ll be ready when we raise anchor.”
“Good. Good. She’s going to put our ratings through the roof.” Golden sounded almost reflective, like he was leaving the real conversation for a parallel conversation that existed only in his own mind. That had been happening more and more frequently of late. There were times when Theodore worried about senility, about Golden losing his grasp on the present and retreating into the past, when he’d been young and strong and the touch of scandal had never come anywhere near him. It had to be tempting.
Golden sighed. “I didn’t want to do this,” he said. His voice was still distant; he might not be continuing his retreat, but he wasn’t coming any closer to reality while he had any choice in the matter. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I do, sir. This was the best choice for the company.” That it would help others—giving Victoria Stewart the closure she needed, validating Jillian’s research, doing similar things for the dozens of other people who were to be included on the voyage, improving their lives in ways both great and small—was almost beside the point. Imagine was Golden’s legacy, and he’d do whatever he had to in order to protect it from the scolding eyes of time.
Everyone above a certain pay grade within the corporation knew that the Atargatis hadn’t been lost; she had been attacked. They knew that the video footage was real, and unaltered. Had Imagine been able to control its release, that might not have been the case. They could have added a few zippers, a few inappropriate shadows, and allowed people to assume that some half-finished horror film had been leaked under the wrong name, while the Atargatis had been the victim of some more normal incident at sea. But Imagine hadn’t been first on the scene. Imagine’s people hadn’t been the ones to find and view the footage, or the ones to release it. The United States Navy had done that. By the time spin control had been invited to the party, it had already been far too late.
Most people believed the footage to be false, which worked in the company’s favor: it painted them as monsters who had tried to capitalize on a maritime disaster, but not as incompetents who had sailed blithely into danger. It also prevented others from attempting to capitalize on a discovery that rightfully belonged to the corporation.
The creatures that wiped out the Atargatis were real. They were unknown to science, their presence indicated by folklore and mythology around the world, and now that the seas were changing and humanity was looking to them for the hope of salvation, the chances of those creatures being found again—found officially, on the record—were increasing by the day. Discovery was inevitable.
Imagine needed to control that process.
That was where Golden’s legacy would come into play: with an entertainment company so dedicated to the question of what had happened to its people that it was willing to risk another loss in order to bring about a greater discovery. Golden would get the honor of naming the creatures, of putting his stamp on the future, and he could die knowing he’d left Imagine in the best situation possible. The Melusine would sail because there was no other option. Perhaps there never had been.
“Everything is almost ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”
“I am, sir.”
“I’m not sure you understand how important you are to the day-to-day operation of my office, Theodore. I am … concerned.”
“Jeanne is perfectly capable of taking over my duties on a short-term basis; I wouldn’t want to hand her the job indefinitely, but I’ve documented my tasks for the next quarter, and she has more than enough support to get her through my absence.” Theodore kept his voice calm, trying to sound as if his investment in this were purely professional. “It’s essential we have someone on the Melusine who understands the importance of this voyage, and who will guide the researchers to the correct paths.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“We’re not expecting a repeat of the Atargatis, sir. Everything will be fine.”
“When will you be back?”
“I should be in your office within the hour.”
“Good. We’ll discuss this further then.” The line went dead.
Theodore sighed. Working for a media mogul at the end of his career had proven more stressful than he’d expected—and he’d gone into this career change with his eyes open, expecting to work harder than he’d ever worked in his life. Going from the deck of a fishing vessel to a desk job was a change, and a necessary one. With his injuries, the sea was no longer his to claim.
Except for this one last time. The Melusine was going to sail, and he was going to sail with her, come Hell or high water. He owed that much to the man he’d been and the woman he still loved.
Closing his eyes, Theodore Blackwell surrendered to the numbing effects of the painkillers washing through his system. There’d be time to worry about the future soon enough. That was the thing about the future. It didn’t wait.
No matter how hard you tried to run, it always caught up with you in the end.
CHAPTER 5
Berkeley, California: August 6, 2022
The students who knew Dr. Jillian Toth only as a force of nature on the UC Berkeley campus wouldn’t have recognized her. She’d left her car at home, taking BART into San Francisco. She’d paid for her ticket in cash, even though she had a perfectly good Clipper card; this was one trip she didn’t want logged in anyone’s computer. Once news about the second voyage broke, there would be unethical “journalists” looking for every angle they could find, looking for people to point at and mock. She’d be out of their reach. That wasn’t true of the person she was on her way to see. Anything she could do to prevent being followed was worth doing, because soon she would be relevant again. Whether she wanted to be or not.
She got off the train at Embarcadero, then took the back stairwell to the surface. The cameras there were almost always broken, increasing the chances she could avoid having her face recorded. The air was stale and smelled of human urine and ancient marker fumes; she breathed shallowly, trying to focus on anything but the smell. One of the fluorescent lights was out of order, adding a horror movie flicker to the journey that she could have done without. There was such a thing as taking a motif too far, and that was exactly what this was—a motif. The people who were trying to preserve their privacy in an increasingly unprivate world often used tricks like this, creating unappealing zones where the people responsible for maintaining the cameras would be less likely to go. The blind spots would never get any bigger, but they could be sustained, if people were willing to work for them.
She’d come this way before; she knew how to hit her beats. No one bothered her as she walked from the station to the water, where wharfs and lightly decaying buildings replaced the streets. A surprising number of them were original construction, survivors of the battle against gentrification, now slowly losing their battle with the sea. Pier 39 had been the sacrifice to the tourist trade, sold off and turned into a theme park version of itself, complete with a standing antique carousel that still ran on the weekends. The rest of the waterfront was as it had always been: damp, sea-struck, and smelling of fresh fish, brackish water, and salt. Jillian paused and breathed in deeply, letting the Pacific fill her bones. She loved her teaching position at Berkeley, and the faculty housing that came with it, but sometimes she wished, desperately, that she could still live by the sea.
Lungs filled and soul finally content, she resumed her walk.
There had been a time when the San Francisco Bay was second only to Monterey in pounds of fish dredged out of the water. The whole city had eaten off the backs of the men and women who sailed here. These days, between die-offs and toxic algae blooms, the only boats
left were the hobbyists and the lifers: the people who didn’t really depend on the sea and the ones who’d been depending on it for so long that they’d rather starve behind the wheel than eat with dry land under their feet. Jillian’s father had been a lifer, although he’d fished a different bay, and he’d died as he had lived, at the helm of his vessel, swallowed by the unforgiving waves. It had been hard to even mourn for him. It was the only way he would have ever wanted to go.
The wharf creaked underfoot, settling deeper into its foundations. The wood was slightly spongy. Not enough to feel rotten, but enough to soften her footsteps, keeping them from echoing. There were only a few vessels docked. A private sailboat, gleaming and pristine, probably owned by one of the few remaining tech millionaires; an old fishing tug, weathered and rusted but still functional, strewn with tangled, hand-knotted nets; a scientific vessel owned by the Academy of Sciences, its deck swarming with college students preparing to take samples from the body of the Bay. And a newer, sleeker fishing boat, well cared for, too new and bright and expensive for this place, for this time. It belonged twenty years in the past or fifty years in the future, when it would have been part of a fleet, not a relic reminder that once, things here had been different.
Jillian stomped as she got closer to the boat, trying to give some small warning that she was on the way. “Ahoy the ship,” she called, stopping short of actually setting foot on the deck. “Is anyone home?”
There was a rustling noise from below deck. Jillian stayed where she was, waiting, until a head popped into view. The young woman had features similar to Jillian’s own, open and expressive and lovely in the right light, currently contorted into a puzzled frown. Her dark hair was cut short, and she had her mother’s sea-glass eyes, so green they looked artificial.
“Mom?” she said.
“Hi, Lani.” Jillian smiled. She couldn’t help herself. Excuses to visit her daughter were less common than she would have liked, and neither of them had it in them to seek out contact without good reason; that had never been their relationship, not even when Lani was a child. Growing up with her own hypervigilant parents had left Jillian relaxed, ready to let her only daughter take her own risks and her own chances. That was the only way to learn.
“Mom.” Lani finished emerging from below deck, pulling herself stable with the rail. She had her father’s height and wiry build; it would have taken two of her to make one of Jillian. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Lani raised an eyebrow. “We both know that’s not enough reason for you to come to San Francisco.”
“May I board? There’s something we need to discuss.”
Lani hesitated, and in that hesitation, Jillian could see the last ten years of her life. Theodore’s accident and the subsequent slow death of their marriage; Lani being forced to choose between her parents and finally, inevitably going with the father who seemed to need her more. Of the three of them, Jillian sometimes thought her daughter was the only one not foolish enough to hold out hope of a reconciliation. Lani had seen the worst of what they could be together, and she wanted no part of it.
Finally, almost grudgingly, Lani said, “Permission granted,” and vanished back into her hole.
Jillian sighed and followed her. This never got any easier. Maybe that too was a good thing; maybe easy was too much to ask. But God, sometimes she wanted it.
Lani kept a clean ship, especially considering that the We Remember was a privately held fishing boat, designed for short trips out onto the Bay. Jillian politely didn’t say anything about the cot against one wall. She knew Lani had lived on the boat before, and probably would again, if the economy continued the way it had. As long as her daughter was healthy and reasonably happy, she would leave well enough alone.
“Coffee?” Lani pushed past the folding table that dominated the living space, heading for the hot plate and battered stainless steel pot on the counter. Brewing in glass was dangerous when there was a chance of high winds coming up and blowing everything out of place.
“No, thank you.” Jillian sank into a folding chair, managing not to wince as the bolts on the side bit into her thighs. She was proud of her daughter for finding her place in the world, but sometimes she wished that place were slightly less narrow. “Have you spoken to your father recently?”
Lani froze. Then, slowly, she said, “No. I haven’t. I know he’s been busy with his work.” As have you, was the silent accusation.
Jillian nodded, accepting the unspoken criticism without complaint. Objecting to the truth did no good. “Imagine is assembling another voyage to the Mariana Trench. Mr. Golden seems to want to validate his legacy by proving that what happened to the Atargatis was outside of his control. He wants to prove that mermaids exist. I’ve been invited to accompany the researchers.”
“Will you?”
“Yes.” Jillian looked levelly at her daughter. “I think I owe the world that much, don’t you?”
Lani said nothing.
The assumption in most circles was that the Toth-Blackwells had separated because Jillian couldn’t handle the changes in Theodore after his accident. Jillian hated that people thought of her that way, as someone so shallow that she’d give up on the man she loved simply because he was no longer capable of running down the deck of a moving ship with a net in one hand and a live lobster in the other. She let the assumption stand. It was, in its own way, less damaging to her, both personally and professionally. No one wanted to be the person who would give up on a loved one for such a petty reason, but everyone was, on some level. People understood the idea that Theo’s accident could have driven them apart.
What people wouldn’t understand or forgive her for was what she’d done.
Imagine had funded much of her early research, and those studies had been the basis for the Atargatis mission. She had been the one to pinpoint the Mariana Trench as the most likely spot for mermaids to not only exist, but exist in large-enough numbers that a sighting—that interaction—might be possible. She hadn’t sailed with the voyage, in part because she’d still been trying to be a good wife, to help her husband adjust to his new circumstances, and in part because Imagine’s contracts would have left it in control of far more of her research than she was comfortable with.
And on some level … She’d reviewed legends and sightings from around the world to settle on the Mariana Trench. She didn’t consider herself a credulous woman. She studied mermaids because she knew they existed, that they were going to be brought to the surface in her lifetime, and that she was probably not going to be the one to discover them. She was uncomfortable in tight spaces, which meant she was never going to live a submariner’s life, and that was where the action was. Down, deep down, below the photic zones, in the places where only the most powerful and specialized equipment could go. So she’d looked at each recorded sighting with open eyes, studying them for commonalities, considering the cultural differences behind the features the stories focused on, and in the end she’d been able to come to only one conclusion:
Mermaids weren’t mammalian. They couldn’t be. Too many sightings focused on their “slender backs” and “narrow waists”—features that seemed reasonable to modern readers with modern beauty standards, but which made no sense for an Italian fisherman during the plague years, or a Puerto Rican swimmer in the 1920s. If the mermaid had been an idealized projection of a human woman onto a marine mammal, she would have looked different every time, fat during some eras, thin during others, not consistently slim to the point of freezing in oceanic waters. The people who described mermaids were describing a real creature, something that wasn’t mammalian, but looked mammalian enough to make a tempting lure. And why would anything lure sailors, if not as a form of sustenance?
Imagine had offered her a contract she hadn’t wanted to sign, and so she hadn’t signed it, but she hadn’t attempted to negotiate it either. She hadn’t suggested changes, or involved her lawyer, or done anything to get herself
a place on the Atargatis, because when she came right down to it, she hadn’t wanted one. She’d looked at her data, everything she’d derived from primary and secondary sources, and she’d seen the shadow of a creature she hadn’t wanted to meet. Not then, not now, and not ever. Certainly not in the middle of the ocean, with no high ground to run for.
She’d given Imagine the map to the mermaid, and she’d shown them the shadow of the mermaid, and when the time had come to set sail, she’d said, “No, thank you,” using intellectual property as an excuse, and stayed safe at home. Everyone knew she’d consulted on the voyage—anyone who’d ever whispered the word mermaid during a scientific conference had consulted on the voyage in one way or another—but few people realized how deep that consultation had gone. Or how many people had died because of the answers she’d been in a position to provide.
Her career was a shipwreck. At least it was a shipwreck that she had, thus far, managed to survive. That was more than she could say for the ones who’d sailed upon the Atargatis. But the guilt, ah …
The guilt was the reef upon which her marriage had crashed, combining with all the other factors to make their love unsustainable. Sometimes she thought she was still crashing there, drowning inch by inch under the weight of what she’d done. If she had the chance to swim out and free herself, why shouldn’t she take it? Why wouldn’t she take it? Her daughter was grown. Her husband was gone. She was only living for her work, and none of her colleagues could look at her without smirking anymore. Go out with the second ship, see the shadow of the mermaid, and get … something back. Not her life. Probably not her reputation.
Maybe her peace of mind.
“We sail in two weeks,” said Jillian. “Imagine has assembled another research team. I imagine I’ll know a few of them. I imagine most of them will know me, by reputation if nothing else. It should be a fascinating journey.”
“Does Dad know?”
“He’s the one who invited me to go.”