by Tara Omar
“Kajal, I have the readings,” said Glen from over his computer. “Effectiveness in filtration is up 0,001 percent, oxidation rate is the same.”
“Damn,” said Kajal. “Okay, thanks.”
She shook her head.
“If only iron filament became more durable and pliable as it got larger and not stiffer and weaker, this would be a lot easier. So far we haven’t had any real breakthroughs,” said Kajal.
“Is that why you pulled in me?” asked David.
“The University scholars from the Highlands and Midridge are the most sophisticated researchers in the land, but they lack incentive to produce results,” said Kajal, starting down the stairs. “If we don’t find something soon the people will start going hungry, especially in the Lowveld. We need a fresh look at things.”
“Or else you go to war,” said David.
“Something like that,” said Kajal. She smiled and waved to a few onlookers lingering outside the glass. “War with those murderous apes destroyed my family. I will not let them take my father.”
“Of course,” said David, his cheeks growing hot.
“Anyway, I should introduce you to the team,” said Kajal. “Glen?”
A seal barked in the doorway and barrelled toward her, followed by Uriel and a heavily pregnant woman with long, golden hair. Kajal shrieked and ran toward them.
She threw her arms around the woman and patted the seal on the head.
“Team, we’re finished for the day,” said Kajal, turning behind her. She waved to David. “See you tomorrow.”
A mer handed David his work boots.
“Who’s that?” whispered David.
“That’s Zahara, Kajal’s late cousin’s wife,” said the mer. David took his boots, knelt down and began to put them on, while Kajal spoke with her cousin. Meanwhile, the little seal scampered through the research area, sticking his nose in drawers and barking at the mers; his fluorescent fur glimmered as he moved.
“So how are you, Zahara?” asked Kajal. “How was your trip?”
“Tolerable,” said Zahara. “That little guy travelled with me halfway here.”
“Treble is trouble, I always say,” said Uriel.
“He disappears every so often, sometimes for a week at a time. No one knows where he goes,” said Kajal.
“Mhm. Presumably hunting,” said Zahara.
“Are you ready for the viewing ball?” asked Kajal.
“Ready and waiting,” said Zahara, “though I wish Freddy was here.”
Zahara touched her stomach.
“Kajal has been helping with the planning,” said Uriel. “It’s sure to be one of the nicest Larimar has ever seen.”
“Let’s hope,” said Kajal.
The seal was now bothering David, nudging him and sticking his nose into his pockets. David batted him away, glaring at his deep blue eyes. The seal covered his face with his flipper, taking one more jab at David’s pocket before waddling toward Uriel, poking him in the leg. Uriel grabbed something from the seal’s mouth and held it to the light. David’s stomach leapt to his throat—Uriel was holding the poison.
C H A P T E R 5 5
“What’s this?” asked Uriel. He opened the cap to the bottle of poison and sniffed the contents. David scrambled forward, tripping over his left shoelace, which was still untied.
“Oh, that’s uh, mine. It’s uh, water from where I live. I carry it with me everywhere,” said David.
“Like a talisman?” asked Zahara.
“Yeah,” said David.
Uriel stared at him until Treble barked. He recapped the bottle and handed it back, exposing the greyish-black band on his wrist.
David’s mind flashed.
…If I just smash the bottle over his face the humans will be saved… he’ll fall into silence, while Kajal watches in horror…
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going now,” said David, pocketing the bottle. “See you tomorrow.” He hurried toward the door, nearly clipping the filter as he sprinted toward the exit with his shoe still untied.
“What an unusual mer,” said Zahara.
“He’s from Scuttlebrook in the Lowveld,” said Kajal.
“Oh,” said Zahara.
David barrelled out of the Palace like a thief being pursued, panting.
“David, what in the world are you doing?” he asked himself, grabbing his head with his hands. “A nap. Let me take a nap. Maybe clear my head.”
He headed toward the hostel across the street. As he reached the door a concrete brick flew past his head, shattering the building’s window. David spun around. A mer wound his arm back, ready to hurl another brick at the next grimy window.
“Are you crazy?” shouted David. The mer turned away from him, lifting the brick above his head as he bellowed toward the crowd gathering behind him.
“King Uriel is a coward! He will neither help us nor regain the land! If we do not go to war we will die of famine!” shouted the mer.
“What is wrong with you?” asked David. “Can’t you see them working on the filters on the other side of the Palace?”
But the mer threw a brick at another window. A second mer turned and faced the crowd.
“It’s the humans’ fault we’re dying! They are killing us! Why must the apes live in luxury when we are starving? We must war! We must war!”
The crowd began to dance and throw stones at the buildings and palace fence.
The first mer grabbed a stick and readied to light it with a piece of flint. David rushed inside the hostel and grabbed his bag, returning outside just as the mer hurled the lighted stick through the broken window. David pushed himself through the crowd of sweaty, angry bodies, his ears ringing with raucous shouts.
“Kill the apes! Take the land!”
David rounded the corner toward what looked like a busy street in the middle of a sparkling city, worlds apart from what he had just left behind. Mers zipped around on cerulean blue waterways that served as streets, riding in clear, covered boats shaped like Renaissance helmets. Picturesque bridges spanned the waterways, serving as pedestrian crossings.
“Do you have a coin for me, mer? Please, you have a coin for me?” said a cackling voice behind him.
A mera had emerged from a shadowy crevice around the corner. She was dirty and unusually dressed, with a belt full of bottles dangling from her skirt. A pungent, herbal smell surrounded her, like thyme mixed with onions.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything,” said David. He started walking toward the bridge, but the mera followed him, the onion smell wafting with her as she walked.
“Aw, be a good mer and help the poor auntie with a coin or some food, mer. Are you sure you can’t help me, mer? With food or a coin for the poor auntie?” She rubbed his arm and poked into his pockets and bag.
“Just a coin for—”
“Leave me alone,” said David. He turned and batted away her arm, unaware that she had grabbed the bottle of poison. The mera got a fright and dropped the bottle; it shattered on the ground near his feet. David gasped. The mera took one look at the broken shards and then at David before scurrying back into the shadowy crevice, like a rat caught in the light.
“Are you alright, David?” asked a voice from behind. David turned. John Lotkin was calling to him from inside a boat docked on the edge of the waterway. He looked concerned.
“Yeah, I’m… no. Actually no, I’m not,” said David.
“Hop in, I’ll give you a ride,” said John. The door to his odd-looking boat lifted open. David climbed inside.
“Where do you stay?” asked John as he pulled away from the curb.
“Back there, at the hostel for temporary workers,” said David.
“A decent guy like you staying in a place like that? That can’t be right,” said John.
David grunted.<
br />
“I’m not that decent,” said David.
“Aw, don’t be so hard on yourself. That woman’s an apothecary, there’s no need to be feeling sorry for her. Scandalously bad, the lot of them. Do you get druggies in Scuttlebrook?” asked John.
“I’ve, uh, never seen them there,” said David.
“Yeah, you probably wouldn’t in a tiny, self-respecting, rural town. I don’t know where they get the right mind to do what they do, using drugs, preying on people’s desperation, doctoring things. There are so many decent things they could be doing. It’s appalling.”
“So what is this? This boat-thing?”
“This? This is the PMW Numa,” said John, tapping the steering wheel as the boat skirted under the arch of a marble bridge. “I’m rather pleased with it, I must say. Does the job well enough, getting me from here to there. I’ve had pneumataphores far worse at least, I can tell you that. You should’ve seen my last pneumataphore; it could barely…”
David drifted from the conversation, lost in thoughts of the broken bottle. By the time he came back to his surroundings, the bridges had faded behind him, and the towering buildings were now reduced to an impressive silhouette in the distance, looking like spires and shells of glittering glass and metal.
“Yeah, it is something isn’t it?” asked John, nodding toward the cityscape. “Looks like a metal kelp forest if you ask me, but then you can tell me better than anyone about that, being from Scuttlebrook.”
“Where are we going?” asked David.
“To my house in the Midridge,” said John. “You can stay with me while you’re here.”
“Oh, um, thank you but I don’t want to impose,” said David.
“Nonsense. I have a spare bedroom that’s been empty for far too long, and you can ride with me in the morning to work. It’ll be much better than that hostel, I’m sure. Besides, I have a daughter Nellie who’s about your age, maybe a sliver or two younger. She could use a friend. She’s uh… well, you’ll find out soon enough. No sense getting ahead of myself,” said John. “Anyway, now that that’s settled if you could just hush now, we’re approaching the Kraken. This roundabout takes all my concentration, and you’re quite a talker.”
John chuckled and then became very serious, gripping the wheel with both hands. The waterway sloped upward and widened like a ramp toward a freeway. John steered his pneumataphore toward the centre lane of the roundabout, careful not to bump the other pneumataphores weaving through the water. He took the seventeenth exit, then sailed through two more turns until finally he passed through the lifted boom marking the entrance to Sunny Seas, a gated community estate.
“We’re just about there,” said John. “If you look on the left, you’ll see the house of Tobias Skit, the royal advisor from the Midridge.”
They sailed through rows of elegant mansions, each stationed on its own grassy, circular plot. John steered the boat around a bubbling fountain that marked the intersection, pointing to a tiled manor with crystal columns that marked the Skit residence. As they continued sailing, the houses became smaller and less ornate, and the plots more rectangular. Lotkin sailed down a narrow lane lined with homes stacked eight to a block. Each house had a parking inlet with a small front yard and was flanked by two high walls on either side, like little cubicles of land with houses at each centre.
“Well, here we are,” said John. “Number Ten-on-Farm. Welcome home.” John cut the engines and backed the pneumataphore into a square of water next to a salmon-coloured house with a thick, winged roof like an open book, from which hung a variety of whimsical-looking lanterns. David stepped from the boat onto a pathway next to a grassy pond and was instantly hit by a swarm of slimy creatures that leapt onto his head and chest. David nearly fell back into the boat.
“Oh, sorry about that. My frogs get a bit excited around company, the little devils,” said John. He picked a particularly gummy tree frog off David’s forehead and set it on a nearby banana leaf. “It’s a hobby of mine, keeping frogs, and a very useful one too.”
“My father also likes frogs,” said David.
“He must be a very prudent man. Frogs are like little alarms; if anything goes wrong with anything the frogs are the first to react. I’ve got quite a few species here in the yard, though I’ve always wondered about the ones in Paradise. Natalie says they had tiny, brightly-coloured frogs there. That must be something to see. Natalie… well you’ll see about Natalie soon enough. No use getting ahead of myself.”
John pressed his key into the lock and pushed the door to the house; it opened a few centimetres before stopping with a thump. Something very large and heavy was blocking it. John stomped his foot.
“Natalie Jane Lotkin!” shouted John, but there was no answer. He jiggled the handle, but the door did not budge. John sighed. “That girl is the reason for at least two of my gray hairs, no doubt—maybe more. But I still love her to bits.”
He threw his shoulder into the door; it nudged backward.
“There we go,” said John. “Just one… more… push.” He threw his shoulder into the door again, shoving it open about fifteen centimetres. John stepped backward, panting.
“Come through,” said John.
David squeezed himself past a couch, table, lamp, grandfather clock, an assortment of chairs and other items. It appeared every piece of furniture that resided in the Lotkin living room had been pushed against the door to make way for a giant bubble of water now stationed at the centre of the room. Inside the bubble was what looked like a replica of a scene from Faerkbërde Forest, sculpted entirely of stained glass. A girl sat outside the bubble on the bell of a hovering mechanical jellyfish. An octopus was hanging from one of the sculpted tree branches directly in front of her; he held his eight arms together in elongated pairs, with his bulbous head facing the outside of the bubble like a huge, sagging nose, as though he was trying to imitate the body of a chimpanzee.
“Nellie,” said John.
“Just a minute,” said Natalie. “Albert, I think you need less lobster and more frogfish.” She held up a book so the octopus could see; the octopus darkened in colour and adjusted his arms, imitating a tail.
“That’s it,” said Natalie.
“Sorry about this,” said John. “I should’ve told you before that Nellie has, uh, unusual interests.”
“It’s fine,” said David. John rolled his eyes and unhooked a hose near his feet. The bubble immediately began to sink into a puddle like a deflating balloon. The octopus jumped to her lap as the stained glass disintegrated, draining with the water through the cracks between the floor tiles.
“Dad! Why did you—”
“Oh,” said Natalie, turning. David noticed that Natalie did not have feet like the rest of the mers; the bottom half of her legs were flattened into fins, even though she was not in water. She was wearing a t-shirt with Save the Apes written across it. Natalie waved.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” said David.
“Natalie, this is David Michelson, my new trainee,” said John. “He came all the way from Scuttlebrook—can you believe it? I’ve offered him a place to stay. Is that okay?”
Natalie nodded.
“Excellent,” said John.
Albert the octopus had climbed behind her and was peering out from behind her hair. She floated toward David while still sitting on the hovering, mechanical jelly, which functioned as a kind of wheelchair.
“Dad, why don’t you get David some juice? He’s about four percent dehydrated, around the chin,” said Natalie.
“Oh, sure. Be right back,” said John. He disappeared toward the kitchen while Natalie floated around the room, collecting the bits of stained glass that had not washed through the floor. David knelt down to help her.
“Were you modelling the human land?” asked David
“Animal rights activist and prospective p
rimatologist,” said Natalie, pointing to her shirt.
“Interesting,” said David. He handed her a few scraps of glass.
Natalie laughed.
“No, I’m serious. Your model looked amazing.”
“Oh, um, thanks,” said Natalie. “Come, I’ll show you around.”
She led David down a flight of stairs into a room similar to Raphael’s library, with a row of doors on one end, and on the other, a wall of glass that opened to the sea. It was much smaller than Raphael’s library and was outfitted as a family room and laboratory with overstuffed furniture, soft rugs and amethyst walls. There were also a lot of bookshelves and a kitchenette in the corner, where a fancy-looking microscope, a few open books and a computer stood on the counter.
“So do you prefer Natalie or Nellie?” asked David, looking around.
“Either. Dad used to call me Natalie Jane on a Jelly, which shortened to Nellie.” She floated toward the row of doors, knocking on each as she passed. “This one is your room; this is the bathroom; this one is mine. Dad sleeps upstairs.”
David nodded, following her movements.
“Before you ask, I was born like this. There is a surgery that can fix my legs, but we can’t afford it,” said Natalie, rummaging through a cabinet near her microscope.
“Oh, uh…”
“No use crying over it; I’m getting along fine without feet, especially with my fancy ride,” said Natalie. She held up what looked like an unusually-shaped crochet hook and floated near him.
“May I?” she asked.
“What?”
“This will only take a second.” She pushed the hook into his ear and twisted, pulling it out before David even knew what happened.
“Ow,” said David. “Did you just take my earwax?”
Natalie didn’t answer. She set the wax on a slide and attached a slip cover, then pushed it under her microscope and adjusted the focus.
“So Scuttlebrook… that’s a convenient alibi,” said Natalie. She shifted her focus from the microscope to a nearby computer and back again, then to an open book.