by Hunter Shea
A gust of wind brought a wave of static over the line.
“Wait, you want me to go back to doing the very thing I just left?”
“In Barcelona.”
Her tone worried him. Like an idiot, he thought she’d be blinded by the opportunity to travel to the most beautiful city in Europe.
“In Barcelona,” she echoed.
“Look, I know you want what they do to the orcas to end, but this is something special. Just think, you could be there for the birth of the first calf to get its freedom. One of the first humans it looks at may be the person that orchestrates the demise of the worst atrocity ever set upon orcas.”
Boy, he really hadn’t thought this through. Sweat trickled down his temple.
When she didn’t say anything, he repeated, “In Barcelona.”
“I can’t believe you,” she finally said.
All of his enthusiasm vanished like mist under the morning sun.
“Look, I’m sorry for being so dense,” he said, trying hard not to stammer over his words. “I should have thought before I spoke. I know how you feel and I shouldn’t have thought this would be cool.”
“I can’t believe you want to take me to Spain,” she said with enthusiasm.
“Wait. What?”
His head was spinning.
“Yes!” she cried out.
“Yes?”
“Hell yes!”
“But I thought…”
“I was just messing with you. I not only get to go to Spain, but I get to see the birth of a wonderful baby. Oh my God, this is so crazy.”
Crazy wasn’t the half of it. Chet didn’t know whether he was coming or going.
“You almost gave me a heart attack,” he said.
Rosario giggled. “That was the idea. Wait, you sure the people there won’t be upset that you’re bringing your girlfriend?”
Chet felt like a fighter against the ropes. “For one, you’re more than qualified to assist me. So no, they don’t have any qualms with me bringing a professional to help. And two, are we in boyfriend/girlfriend territory now?”
“Duh. I’ve slept over your place nine of the past ten nights. I didn’t think you needed to give me your school ring to make it official.”
Chet sat back in his chair, his grin so wide it hurt. “I’ll be damned.”
“What? I’m sorry, you cut out for a second there.”
“I said come over later so we can put an itinerary together.”
She blew a kiss into the phone. “I’ll even make dinner. Does shrimp scampi sound good to you?”
“Delicious.”
“Good. You might want to hydrate yourself and take a nap before I get there.”
She disconnected the call.
Look at that, Chet thought. And here I thought I was the one giving the big present.
They landed in Barcelona a couple of days before Chet was scheduled to check in at Marine Paradise. He walked hand in hand with Rosario all through the streets from one end of the city to the other. She spent most of the time with her mouth hanging open, marveling at the incredible beauty of Barcelona.
“Is every building here a work of art?” she asked, as they craned their necks to behold the many spires of Sagrada Familia Church. Construction on the breathtaking masterwork had started in 1882 and was still going on today.
“I always think of Barcelona as Antonin Gaudi’s playground,” Chet replied, noting some of the changes that had occurred since the last time he had done some sightseeing. “It’s kind of crazy to think how one man could alter the landscape of an entire city.”
Rosario took an endless stream of pictures on her phone.
“The whole city is a museum,” she said. “They should put a dome over it and preserve it.”
“If any city should be protected, this is the one.”
They stopped at a tapas bar for a late lunch, a cool sea breeze tickling the backs of their necks as they sat outside. The table was filled with small plates of food.
“What’s that?” Rosario asked, pointing her fork at a plate of orange cubes sprinkled with herbs.
He speared a cube and popped it in his mouth. “I’m going to say potato. Even if it’s not, it’s very good.”
Their waiter didn’t speak English, so Chet had to stumble through ordering with his meager grasp of Spanish. The result was a varied selection of mystery food.
Rosario took a bite, closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “It’s so good. What’s that one by your elbow?”
Staring at the marinated strips of meat, he shrugged. “When it comes to the meat, it’s best not to ask. I was taken to my first tapas bar by a colleague at the park years ago. It turned out that my favorite dish, the one I couldn’t seem to get enough of, was some animal’s balls.”
Rosario sputtered laughing, her hand hovering over her mouth to catch any food that might fly out. “You’re joking, right?”
“I wish I was.”
“You ate balls?”
“Many, many balls over the course of a week.”
“And you didn’t get sick?”
He took a sip of cold beer. “I admit, I got kind of queasy when I found out what I’d been gorging on for days. Then I realized it didn’t matter. It tasted amazing.”
“I’m not eating any balls.”
Chet waved his hands over the full table. “Odds are, there are some balls here, or at least a tongue or some kind of organ meat. It’s best not to ask. Just eat and savor the flavor.”
Rosario stared at the food hesitantly, her fork hovering.
“Don’t be a wussy,” Chet said. “You eat hot dogs. I guarantee you, nothing here is as nasty as what’s in a hot dog.”
She smiled and jabbed a cube of meat along with some olives. “You’re right. I have to stop being so American.”
“That’s the spirit. And if you really want some balls…”
She rolled her eyes. “You have a one track mind.”
“Let it be known, my mind had a whole slew of tracks until you settled in.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should, my little Puerto Rican siren.”
They ate tapas and drank beer from icy mugs, walking down to the Plaza de Catalunya to burn off some calories. It was the center of the city, filled with people and park benches. It was famous for the huge number of pigeons that flocked to be fed. Vendors sold bags of breadcrumbs and birdseed. Chet bought a bag and they were soon surrounded by hungry birds. He bought Rosario a single red balloon and a flower he tucked behind her ear. He got a tender kiss that shook him down to his toes in return.
“Let’s go walk Las Ramblas,” he said.
The long, narrow street was lined with shops and cafés. Mimes dressed in all manner of costumes stood still as statues, tourists trying to get them to flinch.
“It’s like a carnival,” Rosario said, melting into him.
He pointed to an old building to their right. “I stayed at that hostel once.”
“A hostel? Aren’t they dangerous?”
“Not all hostels are like those movies. Although, if you don’t like strange smells and sleeping with complete strangers, it can be a bit much. But I did find that everyone likes to share their booze at night, so that was a plus.”
This was his tenth trip to Barcelona, but it felt like his first. Rosario’s wide-eyed enthusiasm infused a feeling of magic within him. It had been a long time since he’d felt anything close to this. Marine biology had been a foregone conclusion for him at birth. All of the men in his family, going as far back as his great grandfather, had been marine biologists, so naturally, his course was set.
Chet breezed through school because he grew up surrounded by the material. It was part of his DNA. And like his father, he specialized in working with dolphins. Very few people realized that killer whales, or orcas to be precise, were dolphins, not whales. It didn’t jive with people to equate smiling, helpful Flipper with a stone cold killer of the sea.
/> He was good at what he did, but the work was less than exciting, at least to him. Chet knew that people dreamed of traveling the globe and working with dolphins. Meanwhile, he always wondered what it would be like to have the comfort of a cubicle to go to every day where he could just do his job and go home without any heavy moral implications hanging over his head.
Back in his day, Chet’s father had been instrumental in assisting with the capture of orcas, filling marine parks with their ill-gotten spoils. That’s where Chet and his father parted ways.
Chet wanted nothing more than to set every orca free. He despised what his father did. In direct opposition to his father, he’d consulted with groups in the United States to drum up support for legislation to end their captivity. Now he was introducing Rosario to those groups.
Until there was wholesale change, he knew his skills were best served preserving the health of the orcas that could only dream of being free. They needed someone on their side and by their side.
And he was sure orcas dreamed. The orcas in his care were brighter than most of the people he knew.
“You want to go back to the hotel?” Rosario said.
“Huh?”
Chet had lost himself in his usual train of troubled thoughts.
“The restaurants won’t open for dinner until later and my feet are starting to hurt. I thought we could find something to do that didn’t involve walking.”
She bent down to drop a coin in a mime’s jar. Chet couldn’t stop himself from looking down her shirt at her considerable tan cleavage. When she caught him, he turned crimson.
“You dirty little boy,” she scolded, slapping his hand.
“Okay, I confess. I have a problem. I need help,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“You see what’s under here all the time.”
“And I’ll never grow tired of it.”
That got him another kiss and they headed back in the direction of their hotel.
They just emerged from Las Ramblas when his cell phone started to ring. He rarely got calls. Emails and texts, yes, but very few calls, especially since his mother had passed.
“I better see who this is,” he said.
The ID just said it was a private number. He was tempted to swipe the call into voicemail. He wanted to run, not walk, to the hotel.
His thumb hit the answer icon by accident.
“Chet?” a harried voice practically shouted into the phone.
“Yes?”
“This is Ivan Padron, from Marine Paradise. We need you to come right away.”
“What’s the problem?”
Ivan sounded worried. He breathed heavily into the phone.
“It’s Sumar. And the others. Just get here quick!”
The call cut off before Chet could respond. He had a few questions he wanted to ask so he knew what he was walking into.
“Who was it?” Rosario asked.
Chet held up his hand, signaling for a taxi.
“Something’s going down with the orcas.”
Rosario stopped walking. The balloon string slipped from her fingers. “What does that mean?”
A compact taxi stopped at the curb. “I don’t have a clue. But it doesn’t sound good.”
The red balloon drifted over the city, pushed by the winds as it bobbed over the Mediterranean Sea.
Chapter Four
Chet and Rosario walked straight into hell.
The stream of cars being herded out of the gates of the marine park told Chet something very bad had happened. Every available hand had been directed to evacuating the park as quickly as possible. Chet spotted a fair number of panicked faces.
Chet’s first thought was terrorism. Had someone done something unspeakable to the orcas during the height of the busy season, when the crowds were at their thickest?
They waded against the flow of humanity, pushing their way into the park. No one stopped them. They were more concerned with getting out.
Rosario gasped, stumbling over her own feet as she backpedaled from the madness. Chet alertly grabbed her wrist before she fell.
“What the hell?” she shouted.
The orca tanks were pure, unadulterated chaos.
The water and surrounding decks were awash with blood – all of it, as far as Chet could tell, human.
A trainer, vacant eyes staring directly into the sun, lay at the edge of the tank where they did the orca and dolphin shows. Both of her legs were gone, the stumps trickling blood into the tank.
Another man in his early twenties with curly brown hair tied in a wild bun at the top of his head lurched past Chet and Rosario, the left side of his torso gone. Raw gristle and bone already attracted a horde of flies as the man bumped into Chet. He collapsed with a wet smack, organs spilling from the fatal wound.
Chet stopped a weeping woman from fleeing the scene. Her park uniform was splattered with blood.
“Where’s Ivan?” he shouted over the din.
“I…I…let me go!”
She twisted from his grasp, leaping over the fallen half-man and disappearing.
Great spouts of water exploded from the tanks, the water churning as if a massive storm brewed beneath the surface. Orcas breached the surface, slamming onto the deck, giant mouths snapping open and closed, searching for prey.
Chet felt as if he’d been cored out.
“Rosario, you have to get the hell out of here.”
She shook her head. “Not without you.”
Someone screamed behind them, in the direction of the holding tank where Sumar would be awaiting the birth of her first calf. The scream was cut short, followed by a tremendous splash of water.
He squeezed Rosario’s hand. “You don’t leave my side, you hear me?”
She nodded, eyes wide with fear.
“This way.”
He led them through a Plexiglas gate and into the auditorium, a safe distance from the rampaging orcas. At least he hoped.
Katerina, a ten-year old captive born orca that had always been gentle to the point of timid, shot from the water, smashing her nose into the protective barrier between the auditorium and the tank. Chet’s stomach recoiled when he saw her belly had landed on the remains of a park worker, his body exploding like a water balloon. Katerina let loose with a deafening wail before slipping back into the roiling water.
How?
Why?
He spotted her brother, Nootka, swimming round and round, something pale and long locked in his jaws. Chet was pretty sure it was a leg.
Everyone still alive had exited the area. The orcas pounded through the crimson water, mad with blood lust.
“You’re too goddamn late,” a man shouted.
Chet turned around to see Ivan – pronounced Ee-von (which Chet was lectured about several times) – gripping a rifle.
Ivan Padron had worked at Marine Paradise for most of his adult life, promoted to head man in charge of the orcas and dolphins several years ago. Chet knew Ivan to be a caustic but capable leader who, despite his gruff demeanor, had a real soft spot for the animals in his care. He could be an ass to humans, but when it came to his dolphins, he was a pussycat.
His face was streaked with blood, his long hair plastered to his head. The whites of his eyes peering out from beneath the veil of blood made him look insane.
“What the fuck’s happening?” Chet said, wondering if he had to worry about where Ivan was going to point the rifle.
“They’ve had enough,” Ivan replied softly. “And now we’ve paid the price.”
That wasn’t any help at all. Yes, orcas had been known to turn on their trainers, killing a handful over the years. But there had never been an outright coordinated revolt. No, that couldn’t be the case. Only man was capable of mass slaughter just for the sheer joy of it.
Ivan went to the rail, aimed and shot Katerina before Chet could stop him. He pulled back on the bolt and fired again.
“Wait!” Chet said, reaching for Ivan’s arm.
&nbs
p; Ivan shoved Chet hard. “Get the fuck off me!”
Rosario tugged Chet to her. “We have to get out of here.”
She was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. His feet felt as if they’d been cemented to the floor.
Katerina momentarily slid on the deck, scooping the legless woman into her mouth before diving.
Ivan reached into his shirt pocket and extracted two darts. That gave Chet a brief moment of relief. The man didn’t want the orcas dead. Despite the carnage they had caused, neither did Chet.
When Nootka leapt straight into the air, Ivan buried a tranquilizer dart in his ivory belly. The orca spun, splashing down on its side before dipping under.
All Chet could do was cling to Rosario while Ivan poured dart after dart into the frenzied orcas. For a while, Chet worried that something had happened to make them impervious to the drugs.
A tense five minutes later, they had settled down. They were still moving, but slowly, no longer interested in eating the many body parts floating in the tank.
“We need to get them out of there before they drown,” Chet said.
When orcas slept, one side of their brain would shut down while the other half maintained active breathing. If they didn’t compartmentalize sleeping and breathing, they would quickly drown. Remaining active every minute of the day and night was vital for them to survive.
When anesthetized, it was important that they be removed from the water, as the drugs shut their entire brain down.
“We will,” Ivan said. “But I’m not going near there to get the retraction unit until I’m positive they’re docile.”
“What about the pregnant orca?” Rosario said.
Ivan ran a hand down his face. “We’ll get to her.”
Sumar was in the medical pool that had a rising floor, so Chet knew putting her out and keeping her safe would be a far easier task. Not so in the performance tank.
Ivan stormed off into a tunnel between the rows of seats.
Chet and Rosario watched Katerina and Nootka, their motions getting slower and slower.
“How the hell are three of us going to get them out of the pool?” Rosario wondered, shivering against Chet.