West Pacific Supers: Rising Tide

by Johnson-Weider, K. M.

  It was dark now, but she used her dive light to signal the Coast Guard vessel. Paul soon pulled the boat alongside and this time, Seawolf did not refuse the offer of a hand to climb aboard.

  “My God, what happened down there?” Paul said, gaping at her. Seawolf looked down at the various gashes in her wetsuit that were dripping blood. Her left leg was raw and bloody where the impact with the rock had torn scales off. She could smell singed fur where the electricity had hit her neck and shoulders; she had a slight ringing in her ears that was very disconcerting. Her claws were black with blood and torn flesh, reminding her of the arm that had come out of its socket. She shuddered and put her hands behind her. “Two bodies,” she said curtly. “Both dead. I’ll retrieve them.”

  Paul started to argue, but Seawolf took a deep breath and dived back into the water. She brought Philip Summer’s body up first, struggling to hoist him to where one of the Coasties could reach and haul him the rest of the way on board. She was raw with fatigue but they needed that mutant corpse for genetic analysis. She dove back into the water one last time. There was the rock where she had fought the creature, there was its arm - but no body. She looked around frantically. There wasn’t enough current down here for it to have floated off. The damn thing must not have been dead after all; it must have regenerated and swam off, just like the other one. Angry and frustrated, she grabbed the arm and started for the surface. A massive electrical pulse hit her in the back, her heart pulsed erratically, and she blacked out for an instant.

  The gulp of salt water she instinctively took brought her around not more than a second or two later. The creature had gripped her with its one remaining arm and was dragging her under the protruding rock cave. She had no energy left for a fight; her insides were burning with a terrible pain. Seawolf let her body go limp for just long enough to touch her legs to the ocean floor, then she desperately pushed off for the surface. The creature tightened its grip in surprise, but the effort had been worth it. She crested the water, towing the creature, and emerged into the brilliant spotlight of the MLB only a dozen feet away. Seawolf closed her eyes and tried to swim for the boat, but she had no strength left. The creature clawed at her, she dimly heard shouting; a line was thrown out. She reached for it blindly, wrapped it around her arm – someone was pulling her in - the creature hissed and electricity poured into her back. Once again, she blacked out.

  She came to at the sound of gunshots. She was lying on the deck of the MLB, a crewman leaning over her. “It regenerates,” she mumbled but the man clearly did not understand what she was saying. “It regenerates!” she yelled at him as she sat up. He shook his head and said something that she couldn’t quite hear. He was apparently trying to calm her down. Well, she wouldn’t be calmed. This was important. They couldn’t lose the damn thing now.

  Another one of the crew was wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. She struggled and tried to explain again; they were arguing with her, though she couldn’t make out the words. Paul came over, holstering his pistol, and said something to the man behind her, who helped her stand so that she could see the body of the creature. It had been shot several times and trussed up with a rope that was secured to the boat itself. That would hold. She nodded, satisfied, and let them lead her to the enclosed area for survivors.

  Sirens woke her up. She could hear them out of her left ear, though there was still a persistent ringing in her head. Her right ear hurt like hell and wasn’t hearing anything. She tried to open her eyes and found that one was swollen shut. Through the other she saw two men looking down at her. One was boat crew; the other looked like a young paramedic.

  “Oh my God,” said the paramedic as he stared at her. “Well – that’s…something.”

  Seawolf used a claw to carefully remove the dried blood and puss from around her swollen eye and it slowly opened. The paramedic took a step back.

  “I’m not going with him,” Seawolf told the crewman flatly. Her voice sounded strange and distant above the ringing in her head.

  He looked surprised. “Ma’am, we have to get you to a hospital! You’re badly injured. There’s an ambulance…”

  “I don’t do hospitals,” she said. Something tasted bitter in her mouth; she spat it out in the direction of the paramedic, who jumped. The crewman gestured to the door and the two of them quickly left.

  Seawolf tentatively stretched out her injured leg. It throbbed in protest but no shooting pains. Good, nothing was broken. She sat up and was almost overcome with dizziness. Well, driving was out of the question. There was a bottle of water next to her and she used some to wash out her swollen eye. Her claws were still filthy with dried blood and eel flesh. Eel-thing - the creature…where was it? They had to get that body analyzed. She stood up shakily and started limping towards the door.

  Paul was coming in, looking upset. “Seawolf, there’s an ambulance waiting for you.”

  “Where’s the body?” she demanded.

  “Both bodies are being taken to the morgue. Come on, you’ve really got to get to the hospital.”

  “No, really not,” she said. “I have to get to headquarters.” She glared at him but he didn’t budge.

  “Medical treatment first, investigation later.”

  “Dr. Gavriel at HQ will give me medical treatment,” she growled. “You think a hospital doctor knows how to sew up scales? If you want to do something useful, call a cab.”

  Paul frowned. “I’ll drive you, just give me a minute.”

  Paul had an old Liberty Motors Jeep, which was sufficiently dirty inside to make her not feel so bad about the fact that her leg was dripping blood all over the seat.

  “So why the hell are you so stubborn anyway?” Paul asked after they’d been driving for a few minutes. “I’ve never met anyone wound as tight as you are.”

  Seawolf adjusted the seatbelt so it would stop cutting into the raw spot on her stomach. “The last time I went to West Pacific Memorial, the receptionist looked at me and said that they didn’t treat animals. She suggested I try a veterinary hospital.” The memory enraged her.

  “You’re kidding me! When was that?”

  “Well, I was 14 or 15 so…about 1988.”

  Paul turned to give her a strange look. “That was 25 years ago, Seawolf! Don’t you think people have changed since then?”

  “Not really.” She shrugged. “Some have, I guess, but mostly just on the outside. It’s better than nothing, but at least back then people came out and said what they were thinking. Now they just give you dirty looks.”

  Paul sighed. “I think you’re too hard on people. Sure, there’s still some racist idiots out there, but by and large people accept mutants now.”

  “Right,” Seawolf snorted. “Everyone’s got a mutant friend – or at least a signed poster of their favorite mutant superhero. But people still move to the side of the elevator when I get in.”

  “Everyone moves to the side of the elevator when someone else gets in! If you expect people to treat you differently, that’s all you’re going to see.”

  “I’m not just seeing things!” she exploded. “Damn it Paul, you have no idea what it’s like!”

  “No, I guess I don’t,” he said slowly. He was silent for the rest of the drive. “It’s just that not all of us are bad,” he said as he opened her door when they reached HQ.

  “I never said all of you were,” she said wearily. “But it’s not all one happy human brotherhood either.”

  Dr. Gavriel had been one of the team physicians as long as there had been a team. Before there had been a team, he had been on staff at the Hodges Academy. He was old, unflappable, and didn’t coddle his patients. They were superheroes after all and had more important things to do then lie around in some hospital bed. Now, two hours after Dr. Gavriel had grunted disapprovingly as he completed his first examination of her, the results of the tests he had run were back.

  “Injured Reserve,” he said.

  “What? You’ve got to be joking!” Seawolf was indi
gnant. “My leg stitched up fine and you said nothing’s broken. If I wanted Injured Reserve, I would have gone to West Pacific Memorial!”

  Dr. Gavriel looked bored. “If you’d gone to West Pacific Memorial, you’d be in the ICU. Now I’m going to let you go home in the morning but only on low activity and no swimming for at least a month. You’ve got a ruptured ear drum. I’ve patched it up but it needs time to heal or you may have permanent hearing loss.”

  “I feel fine,” she protested.

  He laughed. “Ringing in your ears, muscle spasms, a fractured leg, and you can barely walk - but you feel fine?”

  “You’re the one who always says that unless there’s buckets of blood or protruding bones you aren’t concerned!”

  “Perhaps that was true ten years ago, but you’re what – 39 now? The human body, even a mutated one, can only take so much. Your metabolism isn’t what it once was.”

  “Are you saying I’m getting old?”

  “No, you’re in the prime of your life.” Dr. Gavriel gave her a withering look. “You don’t heal as fast as you used to, Seawolf. You blacked out twice. You’ve got internal burns from surviving electrical attacks that would have killed a normal human.”

  “I’m not a normal human,” she interrupted.

  “You’re lucky not to be dead. External appearances aside, you’re actually a lot closer to a normal human than some other members of the team I might mention. Camille, for instance. She may look completely normal, but she can fly and expel energy, which means that her DNA is far more extreme that yours is, my dear. Injured Reserve.”

  Seawolf scowled at him.

  “And one more thing,” Dr. Gavriel added. “Don’t come crawling back here in a couple of days trying to get me to reconsider. I’m not revisiting my determination for a month - and I’ve informed Dr. Sterling, so don’t think you can go around me for a second opinion. Yes, I know your tricks. Now we’re keeping you here overnight so you can stay on the IV. I’m having the pharmacy compound an herbal medicine for you to take once you get home – algae and some South American tree barks – utterly revolting in taste, fantastic stuff. So shut up and get some sleep because the door is DNA-encoded and alarmed and if you try to sneak out it’ll be Injured Reserve for the rest of the Season.”

  She snarled at him and he laughed as he left.

  She had visitors in the morning: Dr. Sterling and Starfish.

  “I got one of the creatures,” Seawolf said as soon as they walked in. “The Coast Guard had it taken to the morgue – Starfish, you need to get down there and… ”

  “Already done,” he said with a smile, two rows of perfectly even pearly white teeth. “I’ve had it transferred to my lab here. Fascinating creature, just as you said. I would concur that it is not a natural species.”

  Seawolf pushed herself up on her pillows. “This one was very similar to the other one I fought, only it seemed like it was decomposing. The arm - just sort of came off.” She shuddered.

  “Not decomposing, evolving,” corrected Starfish. “It is my hypothesis that the base species was an adult human male, exposed to some sort of mutagenic compound that was transforming it into an eel-like hybrid life form. A transformative process that was still underway when you encountered it. Both humans and eels are chordates of course, but you are still crossing between classes, which always is tricky, as you should know. Not to mention that electric eels are hardly suited for Northern California marine ecology. No wonder your poor fellow was falling apart.”

  “But where could the mutagenic compound have come from? I was thinking maybe toxic waste is being dumped off shore and…”

  “Well of course it is wonderful to have theories, but as a scientist, I am more interested in facts. I will be conducting an autopsy and thorough genetic analysis that should prove far more informative than bedside conjecture.”

  “Of course,” said Seawolf, her ears drooping. She looked over at Dr. Sterling. “We need to keep up the patrols in case there are more of these things out there. Dr. Gavriel has put me on Injured Reserve, but I think that’s overkill. At the very least, I can go out with the Coast Guard and… ”

  Dr. Sterling cut her short. “All of that will be handled by other members of the team. Starfish is taking over the investigation until you’re back on your feet. He’ll be working with the Coast Guard and organizing patrol schedules for everyone else. No, it’s pointless to argue, Seawolf. Dr. Gavriel was quite clear that you will be out for the next three to eight weeks. This is why we have a team, to cover for each other when someone gets injured. You know as well as I do that if you actually get rest you’ll be back on active duty a lot quicker than if you try to fight it.”

  “My goodness, three to eight weeks,” said Starfish. “You should stop at the library on the way home and pick up some good books.”

  Seawolf glared sullenly at both of them.

  “I’ve arranged for a driver,” Dr. Sterling said, “so when Dr. Gavriel is done with you, you can head home. I will have people checking up on you, so don’t get any ideas and decide to go for a nighttime swim. Understood?”

  Seawolf growled.

  “Excellent,” said Dr. Sterling briskly. “Come along Starfish, you have work to do.”

  “Feel better soon,” Starfish called as he walked out. “And don’t worry about your eels, I’m sure we will be able to track them down.”

  The door closed and silence descended on the room. Seawolf was alone and already being overlooked. She had entered into the wasteland of Injured Reserve.

  Chapter 20

  6:27 p.m., Saturday, May 18th, 2013

  Sunset Dreams

  Pacific Ocean

  “So what do the two of you do?” asked Dr. Brandeis of the young couple who were sitting next to him and Candy for dinner at the Cornucopia Restaurant on the Sunset Dreams. They had met earlier at the pool and hit it off; most young people were dreadful, but Patrick and Emily were well-grounded and had adult sensibilities.

  “Well, I’m a student at Berkeley studying business, though I’m thinking of going to law school after I graduate,” said Emily, who gave Patrick a curious look as well. Dr. Brandeis wondered if Emily was an escort like Candy. After talking with Ian, he had decided that it was better to do a one-night dinner and dancing cruise with Candy than go on a longer cruise with Pam. As Ian said, with Candy, you’re guaranteed a good time because you’re a paying customer, but with Pam you’re married and there are no such guarantees. He had to admit that so far the idea had been genius - like most of Ian’s ideas - and he was having a great time. Then again maybe Patrick was the escort; he needed to be more flexible in his thinking, according to Jorge.

  “I…well…I’m in entertainment; I’m an actor,” said Patrick. Dr. Brandeis noticed that Emily gave Patrick a smirking smile so maybe Patrick was in porn or something; someone had to do it. He found that his perceptions about people had become quite keen since working with Ian and Erica.

  “Have you been in anything we would know?” asked Candy, who was also an actor. You weren’t supposed to call her an actress as she was an actor, or some such nonsense. He humored her, because he was nice that way.

  “Well…I…” Patrick gave a pleading look to Emily. Yes, he was definitely a porn star or maybe alternative theater; he wouldn’t want to admit that either. However, Patrick looked really familiar - though that didn’t mean he wasn’t a porn star.

  “He’s done a few commercials and pilots for television, but nothing’s stuck yet,” said Emily with a smile. “I have big hopes for him.”

  “So Dr. Brandeis, what are the odds for the big one hitting California?” Patrick was surprisingly interested in geology for a young person. Maybe he was playing a geologist in one of his television pilots.

  “Not likely, but possible,” said Dr. Brandeis. “However, it’s more likely that some supervillain will devastate California than a massive earthquake will.”

  “So true,” muttered Patrick. “Still there has been some r
esearch into relieving tectonic strain by using specially configured explosive charges – I think Dr. Fukimara was the name I remembered reading about.”

  “Dr. Fukimara is a hack,” said Dr. Brandeis bitterly. “He runs the CGS, California Geological Survey, and pitches these sorts of ideas to keep the funding rolling in.”

  “It happens,” shrugged Patrick. “So Candy what do you do?”

  “I’m a dental hygienist,” lied Candy. Dr. Brandeis appreciated the lie - it was a good one, no one cared about dental hygienists, and even if they did you could fake talking about it easily enough.

  Emily looked like she was about to say something, when an overweight woman two tables over shrieked and jumped up, knocking her table hard. All eyes turned on her as she screamed, “rats!”

  Dr. Brandeis was surprised to see Patrick spring up and head to the other table, the one that everyone was moving away from. Even the help staff was hesitating. Patrick peered under the table, popped up to grab an empty glass, ducked back under the table, and emerged with a little mouse in the glass, which he closed off at the top with a saucer.

  “Relax, it’s a house mouse, Mus musculus. It’s not a rat,” said Patrick as he handed the glass to one of the waiters who headed for the kitchen. Dr. Brandeis was impressed by Patrick’s quick action, but became alarmed as he saw more mice moving towards the waiter, lots of mice. They swarmed up the waiter, which caused him to drop the glass with the mouse and scream. The room erupted into chaos with people running in all directions. For some reason Dr. Brandeis felt calm: they were just house mice, and stuff like this didn’t really bother him that much anymore.