by Ally Blue
Ten days. Such a short time to learn to love someone. Yet there it was. He hoped Mo would understand, eventually.
Mo made a small, helpless sound in his throat. His arms went around Armin’s waist and he kissed him as if he knew it would be the last time.
Armin’s chest tightened. He liked to think that if things were different, they would have been happy together.
When they drew apart, Armin peered into Mo’s eyes—those beautiful, dark eyes he wished he could look into forever—and smiled. “We’ll see each other again. I promise. And then you can decide for yourself. Because you will have to decide, eventually. You know that.”
Mo’s features twisted with a pain Armin understood perfectly. “Death or change. No, Armin, don’t.”
But it was already too late. Armin had felt her coming. Now she was here.
The heavy reinforced canvas arching over the wooden lifeboat, protecting them from the sun, ripped like paper. He didn’t resist when the cold, inhuman fingers snaked through behind him, wrapped around his upper arms, and dragged him up, through the hole in the canvas, over the side and into the sea.
He heard Mo scream, the sound muffled by the growing weight of the ocean as strong mermaid arms dragged him down, down, down. Armin, Mo howled, like his world was ending. Armin, fuck, come back, bring him back. The water distorted Mo’s face into a rictus of agony, his eyes and mouth empty black holes. He struggled against the vague shapes holding him back.
Armin was grateful to the others in the boat—probably Jemima and Mandala—because he knew that without them, Mo would be over the edge and following him into the depths. Trying to save him, even if it meant his own death. And it would. He wasn’t ready yet. They would kill him.
For a moment, Armin watched Mo’s silhouette recede and allowed himself to mourn what they would never have. When he could no longer see even the shape of the boat on the surface, he turned away at last. He set his face to the deep and the white-skinned, eyeless thing who’d forced him to choose between death and this strange new form.
It all happened so damned fast. One second Armin was sitting there beside him, saying things Mo wished like hell he didn’t understand, black eyes full of a sadness and resignation that shook Mo to his bones. Then the mermaid tore through the canvas and took Armin into the sea. And all of Mo’s screaming and cursing and pleading hadn’t stopped it.
He hadn’t protected Armin at all. He hadn’t saved him. Armin was gone.
Gone.
Mo felt like he’d been scraped hollow. He knew they still had to reach the Chile coast. That they still had work to do. A contagion to understand. A cure to find.
Right now, he didn’t care. All he wanted was to jump into the cold Pacific water and follow Armin down.
He would have, if Jem, Dr. Jhut and a few others hadn’t stopped him.
They’d stopped him. Kept him from taking Armin back from the monster who’d stolen him.
“Why?” His voice came out rough and cracked, his vocal cords ruined from first screaming Armin’s name over and over, then simply screaming because he couldn’t stop. “I could’ve saved him. Why’d you stop me?”
Dr. Jhut wouldn’t look at him. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks. He didn’t know if that made him angrier, or if he just felt worse. She’d known Armin a long time. Letting him go must’ve been awful for her. So then, why?
Jem sat next to him, her shoulder pressed against his arm. “You know why.”
His breath ran out like he’d been kicked in the chest. He closed his eyes and hunched forward, resting his forehead on his hands. Yeah, he knew. Armin’s choice had been change, not death. He wondered if the thing Armin had become was still Armin inside. If he would even recognize Mo. If he’d keep that last promise to come back. To see Mo again.
The soul-deep ache that had burrowed deep into Mo’s gut when Armin went purple-eyed and sharp-toothed into the sea tore at his insides with renewed vigor. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and wondered if he’d ever feel normal again.
The boat sailed on, making its way toward the Chile coast. No one spoke. Still in shock, Mo figured. When he couldn’t stand the closed-off interior of the lifeboat any longer, he straightened up, stood, and walked out into the open prow. No one stopped him, though Jem followed. Ready to keep him from jumping overboard, probably.
He cracked a tiny smile. It was a little late for that.
He went to the edge and squinted out across the ocean. A storm in the distance formed a dark-gray shadow on the horizon. To him, it looked like his Armin-less future.
We’ll see each other again, Armin’s memory told him. I promise.
He’d promised. Why had he done that?
I’m going to miss you.
The suspicion Mo had felt before and pushed away came roaring back.
We’ll see each other again. I promise.
“He knew,” Mo whispered into the salty breeze.
Armin had known this was going to happen. And he’d tried to tell Mo as best he could that it wasn’t the end.
Maybe he ought to wish Armin was dead instead of changed. But he didn’t. He found a strange, driving hope in knowing Armin still lived. Somehow, somewhere, even if he was never able to keep his promise.
You can decide for yourself.
Death or change. Your decision.
Yes. His decision. He could wait.
Jem approached him, cautiously, her concern stamped all over her face. “Hey. I’m sorry, Mo. I know you two . . .” She made a vague gesture with the hand not holding her weapon. “Well. Anyway. I’m sorry. You okay?”
He peered at the ominous blackness of the approaching storm. Maybe they’d all drown in the resulting high seas. More likely, they’d come through it, to fight through another day, and another, and another. It might not be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever was.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
The machine chimed. Mo waited for the couch to roll out of the scanner—state of the art, courtesy of the Chilean government, like all the equipment at BathyTech’s facility here in the Chile mountains—then hopped down onto the floor. He raised his eyebrows at Mandala, operating the controls from behind a lead-infused window. “Well?”
She shook her head and thumbed on the intercom. “It’s still there. Just as robust as ever.”
Mo sighed and hung his head to hide his relief. After nine months, the growth in his head hadn’t shrunk even a millimeter. All the other infected that hadn’t eventually changed—seven; admittedly not much of a sample, but still—had shown shrinkage in their brain growths by the three-month mark. Some shrank faster, some slower. Most were entirely gone by now. His was the only one still completely unchanged even though he himself hadn’t changed either.
It drove Mandala batty, mostly because it threw a monkey wrench in her working theory that the change required not only knowledge and acceptance of the oncoming change, but darkness and the pressure of the deepest ocean to complete itself safely. She’d also theorized that sunlight and pressures of sea level or less killed the growths if no signs of change showed up within a certain amount of time. The first two of their group who’d changed had died, before Mandala started putting them on Mist and keeping them in a pressure chamber like the ones used to treat the bends. It worked, at first. In the end, though, nothing would do but releasing them into the ocean. She did it, because she disliked murdering test subjects more than she disliked having more mermaids out there.
Mo, as per his lifelong pattern, had to be the one to screw things up.
Not that it mattered to him. He was only biding his time here. Helping Mandala while he waited for the only thing that mattered to him.
He tried to look contrite. “Sorry. I swear I don’t mean to be a problem.”
She laughed, soft and affectionate. “Come on through. Let’s discuss it.”
He didn’t much want to. But he owed her that much. She’d cut herself off from family, friends, and her former life to
solve this problem. The least he could do was discuss his unique case with her when she asked.
Not that it did much good, if he wasn’t entirely honest.
She wouldn’t understand, said the Armin-voice he’d heard in his head a lot in the past few weeks. She’s brilliant, and her theory is correct. But you can’t tell her. She would try to stop you.
As usual, hearing Armin talk to him again soothed him. Made him feel warm and safe. Made him sure he was doing the right thing by keeping his silence and waiting.
He pulled on his shirt and crossed into the dim little room carved out of the rock of the mountainside, where Mandala worked the controls of the brain scanner. “So. What’s up, Doc?”
She ignored him. He hadn’t been able to get so much as a sharp look out of her with his silly jokes for ages. “You will inform me immediately if you start to exhibit symptoms, correct?”
“You know I will.” Not true. “The last thing I want is to turn into one of those fucking monsters that took Armin. I’d rather be dead.”
Which wasn’t true or untrue, exactly. It didn’t matter to him. All that mattered—all he’d thought about for nine long, lonely months—was Armin.
“Hm.” She tapped her chin with her index finger. “I want to talk about Armin for a moment.”
Coming so hard on the heels of his own thoughts, her words threw Mo off guard. His heart thudded hard. “Why?”
“Because I need to confirm some things, and you always evade these questions.” She swiveled her chair to stare straight into his eyes. “I know this is difficult for you. I know how you felt about him. It’s difficult for me too. He was my friend for many years. But Mo, if I’m ever to stop this thing, I need you to help me. Will you do that?”
Shame heated Mo’s cheeks. They’d been monitoring communications, and they knew the mermaid contagion had spread, in spite of everything. While they’d been battling the changed on the Peregrine and making their way to Chile where they all still hid from the world, another scientific expedition had recovered the object they’d spotted in the Mariana Trench while monitoring the tagged mermaid, and the whole thing had played out again.
Not that they knew anything beyond the finding of the object and the fact that everyone involved in the expedition had vanished. BathyTech had later funded a joint rescue and recovery expedition with the Hong Kong–based company that had sent the original expedition, but they didn’t find anything at all except an abandoned long-term submersible. Not even any bodies this time. They’d pieced together the rest based on their own experiences. The news had nothing but speculation.
To Mo, it felt like a plague of mermaids, spreading across the globe in secret. Their group here in the Chilean mountains was doing its best to understand it and stop it, with support from BathyTech and the government of Chile, but it was an uphill battle.
At least the threat was confined to the deep ocean. It wasn’t much of a positive, but it was something.
He made himself answer because Mandala deserved that much. “I saw him change. Just like you did. Just like Jem did. His eyes glowed. His fingers got long and flexible. His teeth . . .” Christ. This was harder than he’d thought it would be. He breathed in and out. In and out. Mandala waited. “All the changes were there. And . . . and I’m pretty sure he knew it was going to happen. A few minutes before, he told me he was going to miss me.”
Mandala’s brow drew tight. She looked sick. “He told me he heard Ashlyn talking to him, in his head. He said she told him they had great plans for the world, and they couldn’t be stopped.” She let out a weak laugh. “I told him it sounded like his guilt talking. My God.”
Mo’s knees gave out. He plopped onto the floor. “So we were right. They really do communicate telepathically.”
“It seems so. Perhaps the growths also function as facilitators for telepathic communication, although I have no idea how one would even begin to test that idea.” She watched Mo with an uncomfortable intensity. “Did you see the mermaid who took him?”
He nodded. “Did you?”
“It had no eyes.”
He’d never heard her speak quite like that—shaky, afraid, but still curious. They regarded each other with solemn understanding. So now they knew. The creature Ashlyn Timms had become had spoken to Armin telepathically. Had told him she was coming for him. And then she had.
It confirmed the theories Mandala had developed over the months of observing infected people change, or not change. The growths were the key. They only seemed to take root in the right sort of brain, though Mandala was stumped trying to work out what the right sort was. All she knew for sure was that hers wasn’t it. Neither was Jem’s. Once a person consciously recognized what the growth meant, they had a choice to make—accept, or not.
Change, or die.
Hannah had died because she hadn’t known, and never had the chance to do what was necessary for her to live as her body became something unhuman. But the voices that had spoken to Mo and Armin had lied. You could kill the contagion—you could live, and remain human—if you got to the light and the open air in time. If you stayed down, there was only change or death.
Mo believed Armin had chosen the change not because he wanted it, but because he found it preferable to death, and he hadn’t known there was any other way. It made him sad for Armin, for all he’d lost with that decision, and furious with Ashlyn for presenting him with what amounted to a false choice.
“Why did she choose the change?”
Mo looked over at Mandala. She was frowning at the wall. “Who? Ashlyn?”
“Yes. She was so strong. So practical. She cut out her own eyes so it wouldn’t happen to her, for God’s sake, I simply don’t understand.” Mandala sighed and rubbed her neck with both hands. “Oh well. I suppose you can never truly know what’s in a person’s heart. They can surprise you in wonderful and terrible ways when times are at their darkest.”
Oh, yes, Mo knew that well enough.
He clambered to his feet, took Mandala’s hand, and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Well. You’ve got a direction. Your theory’s sound, in spite of my brain trying to fuck it up. That’s good, right? Maybe you can save the world after all.”
She flashed him a wan smile. “Well, I’m not sure how much of a difference this new information makes, but one can hope.” She pressed his fingers with hers, then let go. “You’d best get started if you’re going to make it back to your cabin before dark. Unless you’d be willing to stay here at the compound this time?”
A swell of affection warmed him. Mandala wasn’t an easy person to get to know, but they’d become friends over the months, and he cared about her. It felt nice to have someone worry about his safety.
“I appreciate it. But I’d rather get back to my own bed. Thanks anyway.”
She nodded, obviously unsurprised. They had this same exchange every month when Mo made the journey inland from his one-room shack on the coast to the BathyTech research facility to get his brain scan. She asked him to stay, at least overnight, and he said no thanks. It had become a routine for them, comforting in its own weird way.
Mandala rose to walk with him down the dank, narrow hallway to the exit. The armed guard opened the door to let them through.
She touched his arm at the top of the steep stone steps. “Same time next month, then?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he lied. Smiling, he leaned down to kiss her cheek and give her a hug. “Call me if you need me.”
“Of course. You do the same.”
He felt the weight of her gaze on his back as he descended the steps. She watched him until he rounded the first hairpin turn. She would have kept watching, he knew, if he hadn’t been out of sight at that point.
She probably knew he was keeping something from her. But he doubted she had any idea what.
He really ought to feel worse about that than he did.
We can’t always avoid hurting those we care for. What must be, must be, nevertheless.
Mo
stopped, one hand on the cold stone at his side, and peered out over the sheer peaks and hidden gorges as if Armin were hiding there. “When?”
Soon. Very soon. Can’t you feel me near you, love?
Fear, anticipation, and happiness so pure it hurt expanded in Mo’s chest until he couldn’t breathe. He shut his eyes tight. Tears leaked out to trickle down his face.
I feel you, Armin. He pressed a hand over his heart, as if to hold Armin there where he belonged. I’m waiting for you.
Armin’s scent curled around him on the mountain breeze. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see the man himself standing there.
The path was empty. But Mo could feel Armin’s essence infused into him, and it gave him strength.
He made his way down the series of switchbacks to the valley floor with a clear mind and a heart at peace for the first time since Armin’s glowing eyes sank into the Pacific.
Three days later, Mo woke deep in the quiet hours of the night from a dream of walking into darkness, with the echo of Armin’s voice in his ears.
It was time.
Throwing back the covers, he rose from his cot, pulled off his clothes, and walked naked from his shack in the deep V of the cliffs to the little hidden beach about one hundred thirty meters away.
A full moon hung low in the sky in the west, turning the swells silver. The surf was calm, and Mo waded out until the water reached his waist. It was cold enough to make him shiver, but he didn’t want to return to shore. What was the point?
I’m here. I’m ready.
In answer to his thought, a shape broke the surface a meter or so away. It was sleek and white, with long, sharp teeth and black eyes.
Not greenish white. Black, like Armin’s. Like in his dream, a million years ago in another life.
Mo’s breath froze. His heart galloped so fast it made him dizzy. The mermaid rose. Stood. It stared at him with those eyes black as the deep.
“Armin?” Mo whispered, though he knew the answer.
The creature—Armin—lifted an arm and touched Mo’s cheek with tentacle fingers.