by M. N. Arzu
He was spending his free period swimming…but I can’t really feel him nearby.
Get a hold of Scott, Julian said, not liking where this was going. Try to get Matt on his phone. Christopher?
His eldest son’s awareness joined their mental link, while he took all the time in the world to serve two glasses of water. If Patrick was talking to him, he wasn’t listening.
Chris, pick your brothers up. Matt’s not in school, but I can’t pinpoint his exact location. He’s moving fast.
He returned to Patrick, willing himself to stick with the plan. He couldn’t just tell the reporter to come back later while he resolved a potential family crisis. Not yet, anyway.
“Thank you,” Patrick said as Julian handed him the glass. “So, you were saying you thought they were curious, but…?”
“But it turned out they were just amused. In reality, they know a lot about us,” Julian said, getting back into the complex story he and Diana had worked on for days now. It was important to stick to the truth as much as they could, but to make as little impact as possible. After all, this was the story the Council would have to build on in the years to come.
“What do they know about us?” Patrick asked, confused.
“We started sending more advanced equipment. The divers would go down with not only cameras, but other tech. We even sent a small submarine. They were amused by our technology, but it became fairly obvious they knew what we were doing. We started giving them ‘toys’. Tablets, small ways to start actual underwater communication.”
“What did they do?”
“They rewrote the coding and gave them back.”
Patrick stopped writing, and slowly looked up at Julian.
“They’re extremely intelligent, Mr. O’Connor. We thought they might learn our language, but it turned out they were far past that and already into advanced computer systems.”
Patrick stared at him, forgetting his notepad for a moment. He was finally seeing what the Pentagon had: their potential as allies—and their potential as enemies.
“It became obvious they wanted to go slow,” Julian said, knowing full well that the fewer details he gave, the easier it would be for Drake to pick up the trail. Besides, this was a good way to ease humanity into what merfolk could do. “They’ve been slowly showing us what they are and what they aren’t, but it’s always been on their terms. We stopped asking questions a long time ago, and now just take whatever they want to share with us.”
“And Ray was one of those communicating?”
Julian shook his head. “They stopped showing up for a long stretch of time. We would see them three or four times a year, but then they vanished three years ago. Our boats emit a specific sonar signal, so they could identify us from other boats. It turned out that Ray came to the surface when Christopher was diving near the coast of Maine.”
As if hearing his name had cued him, Christopher’s mental voice intruded in Julian’s mind, anger and fear mixed in his thoughts, Matt must be with Adrian!
“Christopher doesn’t remember much, I’m afraid,” Julian added, diverting some of his mental energy into finding Matt.
“Your son was attacked? That part was real?”
“We are unsure what happened exactly. We’ve never encountered them outside of the Arctic. Ray was already injured when Christopher found him. He’d been hit in the head by something heavy. We think he went to Christopher for help, but he was acting erratically. My son knew that if Ray disappeared under the water, he wouldn’t be able to find him again. So he placed his GPS watch on Ray’s wrist.”
“He wanted to track him down,” Patrick said, looking at Julian.
In the distance, Matt’s presence was getting harder to sense.
“He needed medical care,” Julian said. “The problem was that Ray was fast becoming incoherent and afraid, to the point that he dragged Chris away from the yacht. After that, all Christopher remembers is waking up in the sea. Ray was already on a collision course with Maine.”
Dad, let me help you find him, Christopher said, his anxiety permeating their connection. He was already driving to get his brothers, but he was also looking for Matt.
Concentrate, Julian said to Chris. Use my strength to amplify your range. Julian stood up again, this time walking to the window and its view of New York City. He needed to concentrate, too. Needed to know what was going on with Matthew.
Matt! Chris practically yelled in their minds, making Alex, Julian, and Matt wince at its strength. Christopher really had an impressive telepathic range.
I’m okay, I’m okay… Matt trailed off, his attention as diverted as Julian’s was.
“We tracked his watch to a hospital in Maine,” Julian said, standing still while his mind tried to find Adrian’s. “It was soon obvious what we had on our hands—and what we didn’t.”
“A merman in the hospital and a missing son in open sea,” Patrick said as he wrote it down. “You knew from the beginning that Ray was in Maine.”
Where do you think you’re taking my son? he sent into the mental currents of their minds, unable to pinpoint Adrian’s exact location, but knowing that the elder Thorne would hear him. Silence was all he got in return.
* * *
Julian didn’t answer right away. He was thoughtful, and Patrick had the feeling that the man was remembering how losing his son had felt. “I thought Ray was dying,” he answered at length. “As much as I wanted to know more about Ray’s condition, I had no knowledge that would help the medical staff. I did have a son to find, and his last location had been near Maine. I flew there with no hope of finding Ray, and no idea what had happened to Chris.”
Something weighted heavily on Julian’s mind. There were a thousand questions Patrick wanted to ask, but he needed the man to finish telling his story to backtrack and start looking for the cracks. The inconsistencies. Most of all, for the reasons behind his decisions. He’d known merfolk were real for twenty years and had kept it secret, after all.
“Ray didn’t die,” Julian stated, getting the story to the here and now, “but his wounds were considerable, and his treatment uncertain.”
“And then you decided it was in his best interest to lie,” Patrick said, fishing for a reaction.
Julian chuckled humorlessly, finally coming back to sit down. “We all lied so Ray could live.” Patrick frowned, but Julian continued before he could interrupt. “It was fast becoming a circus. People were threatening to mob ORCAS. Ray was barely out of a coma, but too many people wanted a piece of him, including the media. He needed a quiet place to thrive. The Pentagon approved moving him, and placed him in Brooks Inc.’s hands. The United Nations supervised us. We told everyone he died and quietly brought him back to health.”
Patrick wrote it down, and then turned to look at Julian. “I’d love to hear what Ray himself has to say about his treatment.”
“Good luck with that. He doesn’t talk.”
“You just told me they’re capable of rewriting code—”
“He doesn’t want to talk, is more appropriate,” Julian said, raising a hand to stop Patrick’s words. “Ray refuses to talk. He engaged in his therapy, and certainly in activities to stave off boredom, but he never offered any information. Never talked in any meaningful way about himself or where they are, much less what they want. The Navy wasn’t amused.”
Now they were getting to the real important point: “Where is he now?”
Julian paused, and exhaled in a slow, measured way. “What difference does it make? We thought we had done everything right. After seven months of physiotherapy and medical treatments, after every setback, every power-hungry official, we thought Ray was going to be free.” Julian looked at his hands, as if he were seeing something else. “The government will deny any attempt at telling the truth I might try. To be honest, I’m not even sure what I hope to accomplish by telling you this. His prison might as well be on the moon for all any of us can do to help him.”
Patrick looked at him
. Julian Brooks cared about Ray, he could tell that much, but why give up here? Why didn’t he want to go public with this?
“Mr. Brooks, both Dr. Gaston and Mr. Summers insisted that I convince you to tell your story to the world. I’m not sure if I believe half the things you’ve told me, but I do believe that Ray’s alive. I also want to believe you, that you want to do the right thing. If you know where he is—if you have proof that he’s alive and well—I can take it from here. I can’t guarantee that this will free Ray, but I know this is his best shot.”
“They will deny it.”
“And we will keep coming after them.” A moment of silence passed between them. One of promises and hopes. “We can do this, but only if we can prove it.”
After a long minute, Julian finally stood up again, and walked to his desk as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. He keyed a code somewhere beneath his paperwork, and a beep sounded by a wall. A safe, Patrick realized once Julian opened it all the way and started to move things around.
He took out a large folder, the kind where x-rays were stored, and Patrick stopped writing. He leaned forward when Julian placed a black picture on the table between them.
“These are his MRIs from a month ago. He’s making an impressive recovery.”
It was hard to examine the MRI image against the office light, but Patrick tried, anyway. He was no medical expert, but the tail was definitely there. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Patrick. There’s a good chance these are fake.
Placing a small silver USB drive on the table, Julian looked him in the eye. “He’s at the Institute of Marine Life Research in Massachusetts. At least he was there last week. I don’t know if that still holds true today, or for how long. He’s really smart, but not even he can survive indefinitely the greedy minds of those around him. I need the world to know that, Mr. O’Connor. I need the world to know that and not fear him.”
“You need the world to want him free.”
Julian nodded. “You’re right, it’s time for the truth to come into the light. With a little luck, these videos will help you give Ray a happy ending.”
36
Runaway
“What do you mean you have to go? Go where?” Gill asked as Alex texted Scott to get out of class and meet him at the entrance. Christopher was ten minutes away from picking them up.
“We’re going home.”
“To the sea?” she asked, eyes going round. Alex frowned, completely confused as he paused his conversation with Scott to look at her.
“To our penthouse,” he said, and then continued to text. “Matt’s not here and Julian doesn’t want us here until he knows it’s safe.”
“How do you even know he’s not here?”
“I just do. The point here is that you already have the videos. We need to be ready to release them as Veritas does to generate more impact. They have ten, and we have the other seven.”
“This thing is going to go viral in thirty seconds,” Gill said, walking with Alex out of the library cubicle. Alex nodded. He had no doubt about that.
“I’ll call you when I know what’s going on. Right now, I really need to meet with my brothers. Something’s seriously wrong with Matt—”
He didn’t get to finish that thought out loud as Gill grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her. Their foreheads touched, and all Alex could see were Gill’s large worried eyes.
“Be careful, okay?” she whispered. Words faltered in his throat, so he nodded. “I’ll be ready here. This will work. It has to.”
* * *
Julian’s menacing warning made both Matt and Adrian flinch. His brother slightly moved the wheel, zigzagging the car while he remained silent, the only sign of how rattled he was. For an instant, Matt thought about reaching out to his father. He’d never have guessed Julian would feel that way about him. Never with that kind of protectiveness. But then he realized he had a more important job to do: He needed to keep Adrian talking. He needed to understand what had happened to him, and what else he'd agreed to.
“Tell me about Coleman,” he told his brother, ignoring his vibrating phone. Adrian tensed at the name, flashing a memory in Matt’s mind of a man in a white uniform, looking at him behind a glass.
If he was surprised that Matt had chosen to disregard Julian, he didn’t show it.
“That bastard tagged me,” Adrian said bitterly. “Like a wild animal, he put a tracker in my back, so I couldn’t take it out by myself. It took me a while to figure out how he was always finding me. I guess he had this crazy idea that I might ditch you all and disappear,” he added with a sarcastic tone.
You would have done that, Matt thought without a doubt. And maybe it would’ve been better for both of us.
“He’s following you now?”
“He was. He can’t do it anymore,” Adrian said, checking the rearview mirror before cutting off a car. He was flooring it, wanting to get out of Julian’s mental range as fast as he could. “I managed to block the tracker with a cheap jammer. At least until I can find a more permanent solution.”
His phone vibrated again. It was a relief to know that Alex didn’t need a telepathic connection to know where Matt was; he just needed to track his phone.
“Look, Matt. I just want to talk to you away from everyone’s mental claws,” Adrian said, glancing at him. “If you’re still not convinced, then you can go. I think it’s the least you owe me after all I’ve done.”
“I said I wanted to know. All of it,” Matt said, offended. “Even before knowing everything you went through. I haven’t been fair to you, I’ll admit that, but you didn’t aid the Navy with spying on my family because you wanted me safe. You want to take the Council down as much as Wallace did, and I need to know why.”
Adrian laughed darkly. “I couldn’t care less about what Wallace wanted. Mom and Dad? They distrusted the Council. Didn’t they tell you that?”
“Sometimes… It wasn’t particularly high on the things they ranted about when I was around. When Julian took me in, I thought I was a charity case, and decided to leave many times. I wasn’t particularly against them, but the whole Council thing has always felt rather stupid.”
Adrian’s eyes bulged at the admission. “You don’t—you don’t like the Council?”
“Worship it blindly like you think I do? Hell, no. Those idiots voted to leave Christopher behind in ORCAS last year.”
A dark cloud wrapped itself around Adrian. “Of course it has to do with Christopher,” he muttered, anger dripping from every word.
“I don’t care about the Council,” Matt continued, ignoring the comment. “They deal with money and The City and keeping us safe.”
“Then why didn’t Julian stop them?!” Adrian shouted, rage coming out in waves. Rage that Matt had not seen coming. In Adrian’s mind, Matt saw their parents, the happy, drug-free version of them. He heard their mother’s laughter as clear as if she’d been sitting between them.
Matt was paralyzed between wanting to flee and wanting to watch. Where Matt’s memories were cold and disheartening, Adrian’s were warm and full of life. They had been a family together, the three of them, a family Matt would have given anything in the world to belong to.
“Where was the Council when they were wasting their lives?” Adrian whispered, gripping the wheel.
“They had no way of knowing—” Matt started, bewildered.
“Yes, they did. Drake keeps tabs, even with the underworld. He has contacts everywhere. Have you ever wondered why his kids left? Have you even heard about them? Ace despised the kind of control Drake had over his life, but he loved his sister Milla. So he waited till she was of age and then they both left for The City, the only place in the whole world where Drake wouldn’t be able to follow them.”
“You knew Drake’s son?” Matt asked, stunned. He’d heard a few things here and there, about why Drake didn’t take children anymore. But that Drake had driven them away?
“I met him a couple of times,” Adrian sai
d evasively. “And you know what? It makes perfect sense. The Council only cares about those they can control. And our parents were not going to stand for it. They never had a chance of anyone helping them out.”
This time, Matt didn’t let Adrian’s images intrude into his mind. He didn’t want to dwell on what would have happened if Julian or anyone else had intervened before they were dead. It just wasn’t fair.
“It’s not their fault,” Matt said, wanting to end this conversation. “The Council didn’t choose for them to be addicts, or for us to be born.”
“No, but they are choosing to bring us to the human world. Do you think they’re holding a referendum on what we think? Do you know how many merfolk are terrified of the consequences of their acts? And where do we complain? Do we challenge Aurel to a duel to the death so we can have her spot? Can we even form another Council?”
“It’s not like they had any choice when Chris washed up in Maine!”
“Oh, I don’t know. I escaped my own captivity without the entire world knowing it.”
“You sold us out!” Matt shouted, outraged.
Adrian laughed but didn’t contradict him. “I’ll do anything to survive. And I’ll do anything for your survival as well.”
It disarmed Matt’s anger, because he didn’t know if he would have done the same thing. Wouldn’t he sell out the Council in order to protect Alex or Chris? Every merfolk secret was worth it if it meant saving his family.
And that was the crux of this whole thing, of going away with Adrian, of having this conversation: Was this the destiny that had awaited Matthew if Julian hadn’t saved him? Was this the life he’d barely avoided? Was Adrian the mirror of who he really was?
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Matt said, tired of fighting. “You’re here now, and you’re in trouble. We can help you. Julian can help you. Whatever you did for the admiral, they’ll get you through it.”
Adrian shook his head. “Even if I trusted them, I’ve done things your Council wouldn’t approve of.”