Underground_A Merfolk Secret

by M. N. Arzu

  “I’m your brother!” Adrian shouted, anger and rage coloring his face, and then he shut his eyes for a moment to regain control. “He wasn’t going to suffer, okay? Just a quick turn of his neck. He was never going to see me, and his body was never going to be found.” Matt shook his head, unable to stop the clear images Adrian was remembering. This was the last piece Matt had been searching for. This was how the dream ended. “I was there, waiting for him to surface, but I knew it was going to take time. So I followed his thoughts, unguarded as they were, waiting. I wanted to get a sense of what living with the Council was all about. But then I saw my face in his memories, you know? For a moment, I was afraid—terrified, really—that he already knew who I was and why I was there.”

  “But it wasn’t you,” Matt said, his hands balling into fists. He knew he had no chance to win a physical fight with Adrian, but he still wanted to hurt him so badly.

  “I watched his memories of you for hours. I stopped trying to understand how it was possible and went through everything I could find about you. And you looked so happy there. Moody, and furious, and loyal, and then I couldn’t take it. By the time he came up, I needed it to stop."

  "How could you call yourself my brother? How could I ever feel guilty about distrusting you? All this time, you've been jealous of Chris and—"

  "He robbed me of you! All those memories should have been of the two of us. He had no right to be your brother, none!”

  “So what?! You were already there to kill him!”

  “I shouldn’t—I wouldn’t—Look, I know it doesn’t sound like much now. But in that moment, rage overtook me. I grabbed the first thing I could find and hit him as hard as I could so his mind would be silent.”

  Matt shook his head while betrayal and anger ran down his face without him realizing he was crying.

  “You’ve been lying to me from the moment you showed up at my house. Why did you ever want to be part of my life? Why are we even out here tonight?”

  “I just wanted to know—”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  Adrian paused, knowing full well Matt was not going to fall for another lie. “Coleman wanted to take them away, okay? His plans are down the drain by this point, but I told him I’d do anything to keep you safe, so he allowed me to take you out of Manhattan. That was the deal all along. I gave him information on Julian and the others, and he would let us go. Don’t you see, Matt? Everything I’ve done, everything, I’ve done for you.”

  Matt ran. Maybe he’d started running to hit Adrian. Maybe he’d started running to get away from all the hatred Adrian had towards his family. Maybe Adrian had tried to stop him, he couldn’t tell. But he found himself running under the drizzle by the side of the highway, running to escape the lies and the twisted logic of a man who had never been his brother. He ran for miles with a broken heart and the absolute knowledge that he didn’t owe Adrian a thing.

  He ran until the sun came up and he couldn’t run anymore.

  41

  Covering Tracks

  “This is wrong,” Patrick muttered as he re-read the Navy’s press release they’d obtained not ten minutes ago. “There’s no mention of Brooks Inc. or Julian Brooks’s involvement at all.”

  Paul McKenzie looked at him, a thoughtful expression on his face. “That’s not what matters right now,” he said, his sight on the coast. They were on board a private yacht the UN had leased in order for their delegates—Diana Lombardi and Nathan Forest—to certify one more time Ray’s status.

  At least he’s not being declared dead again.

  That had been Patrick’s innermost fear. The Navy could proclaim Ray dead once more. They had gotten away with it the first time, they could certainly do it again.

  “Everything we’re basing the story on comes from that man,” Patrick pressed. “The videos. The MRI results. And his story of how intelligent they are explains everything we saw on the livestream.”

  “I don’t think Julian pulled the rug out from under your feet,” McKenzie said, looking through some very expensive binoculars. “He’s ready to tell his story—the way he wants to tell it, anyway—and the Navy has just stolen his thunder. After all, they didn’t know we already had one side of the story, so they’re completing the narrative the best way they know how: Ray has been with them the whole time.”

  “So Julian didn’t give them the heads-up.”

  “They wouldn’t have thought Julian was going to go public. The repercussions for his company alone would be staggering. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was made to resign as CEO, honestly.”

  Patrick nodded. Julian Brooks had a lot to lose by coming forward, which had lent credibility to his claims that he cared about Ray’s fate above all else. What was he thinking he could do after it became public? Paint himself as Ray’s hero?

  “Hey, I think they’re moving,” McKenzie said, handing Patrick the binoculars. From this far away, everyone looked like tiny people going about their business.

  “I was wondering if you noticed something out of place…” Patrick started, adjusting the view. “What if this merman isn’t Ray?”

  “The tail color,” McKenzie said nonchalantly.

  “Exactly.”

  “Some of our guys are running facial recognition patterns on what little we have from both Rays. The evidence is inconclusive for now.” He leaned on the rail, his eyes still lost on the coast. “At least we’re saving one of them,” he quietly said. “If they’re as smart as Julian said, we can only hope this one can speak well of us.”

  “But if there are two of them, then Julian Brooks is also lying to us.”

  “Let’s see how this day ends before we go chasing any more fish…” McKenzie said, straightening up. Then, a smile lit up his face. “Cheer up, Patrick. We’re going to see a real merman at last!”

  * * *

  Diana pressed an icepack to her temples, with little illusion that it would help. She certainly couldn’t feel the cold, and the source of her splitting headache was Drake’s constant mental contact, which was not going to stop anytime soon, but…it made Nathan feel like he was helping her, so she kept the icepack in place.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, handing her a glass of water.

  “God, it’s not even three miles…” she muttered. “It should get better once he’s released, but there’s nothing I can do about this.”

  “How’s he doing?” Nathan said, holding the pack as she sipped the water.

  “He’s having the time of his life pretending he can’t breathe while they figure out how to transport him. I think he’s enjoying this far too much,” she said in a darker tone.

  “He’s probably trying to amuse you, too. Humor is the best way to release stress, you know?”

  She sighed. “He needs to hurry the hell up. The reporters are getting restless.”

  After eighteen hours of being in open sea, not knowing when the Navy might make a move—or even if the Navy was going to make a move—everyone on the boat was indeed getting restless.

  “White sent us the official press release the Navy is about to announce,” Nathan said, handing her a piece of paper. She grabbed it as a lifeline.

  The United States of America… months of slow understanding… successful rehabilitation… goodwill… She read the whole thing and then re-read it twice. It was exactly what Major White had promised, but she wouldn’t stop worrying until Drake was out of that place.

  She sighed. “So much for storytelling,” she murmured. “Julian’s going to have a hard time trying to straighten things out with O’Connor.”

  “We never counted on Veritas making the Navy the heroes. Best-case scenario, Brooks Inc. is never mentioned and everything continues as it has.”

  Diana shook her head. “You don’t understand. Julian wants the story out there. It’s the first step in getting humanity to know us. To show we’re smart and aware, and you know…capable of anything, but with no ill intentions. If the Navy gets all the credit, then they
control how the world knows about us. The UN can’t afford a public disagreement of the facts with the White House and the Pentagon.”

  “Well, Julian can always come out and show his scales…” Nathan said with a smile, making her chuckle. “What do you think Drake’s going to do after this? Once he’s settled in and the Navy is not chasing him in open sea, I mean.”

  “I have no idea. We hardly know what happened to him during his stay there. The Council was forced to tell The City what’s going on last night. Plus, none of them are thrilled with Drake deciding to release a worldwide live video of himself, not even Julian. I honestly don’t know what they’re going to decide once the Council is back together.”

  Have a little faith… Drake said with an amused voice in her mind, feeling somehow closer.

  “He’s moving,” she said, standing too fast and wincing at her headache.

  “Easy there. We don’t want our spokesperson to faint before Ray makes his grand appearance.”

  They’re going to release me some five hundred feet from your boat. It shouldn’t take long now.

  “Okay, he’s coming. Let’s get everybody ready before he swims by.”

  * * *

  On the TV, a fresh round of guests talked about the implications of Ray’s recovery. Julian wasn’t paying attention anymore. Something wasn’t right with Matt. He could sense his son’s anger, but nothing else. Not a direction, not a thought. He hadn’t known his son’s emotional intensity could reach so far.

  “…how can you even trust what the Navy is saying this time around?” a man said on the panel, while a woman nodded with his words. In a small screen on the right, the news network kept a live feed from the secret place Ray was going to be released. Since no one knew at what time that would be, they kept filling the time with so-called experts, discussing all kinds of matters.

  “Can you actually fake the videos, though?” the host asked the four guests. The video of Drake backflipping in the water wasn’t exactly Olympic-level gymnastics, but it was something a human couldn’t do with the same grace and elegance.

  “You can do all sorts of things with technology these days,” a second guest said, still claiming the whole thing was a smokescreen for something else. “I’m sure that next week—”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Jim, but we’re getting breaking news now.”

  The small screen became the main one, showing open sea and little else. Beside Julian, Alex stopped typing and paid attention. On the couch, Christopher fidgeted with his phone, waiting for a message from Matt. In the kitchen, Scott raided the fridge for the third time that morning. Anxiety and uncertainty seemed to make him hungrier, if that were possible.

  “As you know, we’ve been following the developing news since yesterday about a possible release. The coast around Maine is full of onlookers and would-be hunters as people believe he’ll be released close to where he was found. Speculation is high regarding the logistics, and how the United Nations can assure that Ray is ready to be released in open sea, not to mention the real possibility of his recapture.”

  The screen divided in two, the panel with the four guests back on the left side of the TV.

  “We cannot stress enough the reality that no one can confirm what happens to him once he’s gone,” one of the two women said. “Is the Navy waiting around the corner to fish him out again?”

  “I’d love to see them try…” Julian murmured. Unlike Scott, the idea of food nauseated him. The last time he’d been this tense had been when he was aboard the medevac outside ORCAS, waiting for Drake to deliver Chris to his arms. He still had nightmares about that.

  And then, right there on the screen, Drake jumped high out of the water in a magnificent display of strength and acrobatics, doing a perfect backwards arc, his lateral fins extended and his dark scales reflecting the morning sun as he outstretched his arms to fall back into the ocean.

  It was as if the whole world held its breath for one stunned moment.

  “I had no idea we could jump that high,” Alex whispered, unblinkingly watching the TV. When Drake’s tail showed up on the surface a few seconds later, even the host and his guests had to snap out of it and start trying to come up with a way to translate that into a debate.

  Christopher suddenly stood up, answering his phone.

  “Hello—Matt?” The silence stretched for far too long, as Chris nodded and said a word or two. In the background, Drake’s impressive maneuvers were ignored as Matt’s welfare took center stage. “I’ll be right there, don’t worry about anything.”

  Julian stood up, but Chris shook his head. “He wants me to pick him up somewhere in New Jersey…but he wants me to come alone.”

  “Is Adrian with him?”

  “No. Matt’s at some diner. He says he’s okay. I’ll call you when I find him.”

  * * *

  No matter where Andrew looked, the ocean seemed as unchanging as ever. Leaning on the hood of his car, he watched the cloudless sky and the tranquil waves while every few minutes sweeping the horizon with his high-tech binoculars, looking for something out of place. Looking for Drake.

  Last night, while he was anxiously watching the news on Ray, Christopher had reached him with news about Diana contacting the merman, and the possibility that he would be released. The problem had become how to get to Drake before anybody else, and seventeen hours later, here he was, the getaway driver for their runaway friend.

  Their main advantage was that everyone involved in his capture believed Drake couldn’t breathe out of the water, so they would be expecting him to swim into open ocean and…well, who knew what they were expecting Drake to do, but they were certainly not expecting him to make a beeline for the beach.

  Their main problem was that Drake had a tracker. There was not going to be much of a surprise escape with it, but Andrew had come prepared with a jammer to block the signal. At least until they were sure no one had any intentions of caging him again.

  Nothing can ever be easy with you people… he thought as he swept the horizon once more.

  “Where are you… where are you…” he muttered, the news playing on his phone as the sun climbed in the sky. He’d been waiting here since 5:00 a.m. and he was more than ready to drive home—even if that was a six-hour drive with a merman he barely knew but certainly respected.

  “Come on… I have a merfolk family anxiously waiting for you…”

  And then, a hand shot out of the sea, waving at him. Shouting in joy, Andrew went back to the car to drive closer to the shore, ready with towels, clothing, and food. Drake was reaching him in no time—he’d forgotten how fast they were—and soon enough he was giving Drake a hand to stand up on shaky legs.

  “Are you okay?” Andrew asked, worried, lending Drake his shoulder for support.

  “Yeah. Getting my balance…back…is a bit…challenging,” he said, emphasizing each word with each step he took. They stopped for a minute. “I’ve been in merform for over ten days. It takes your brain a while to reconcile being horizontal in the water with being upright with gravity.”

  “I wasn’t sure you were going to find me,” Andrew said, looking back to the ocean, wondering if the Navy was going to appear out of nowhere.

  “I waved at every random person I saw on the beach,” Drake said nonchalantly, and when Andrew looked aghast, he laughed. “Relax. Diana told me you were coming. I know your car and it does look kind of suspicious being the only one along miles of deserted beach. Let’s try this again,” Drake said, taking his next steps slowly, still holding Andrew’s arm.

  After a few laborious minutes, they finally reached the car, and Drake gladly took the towel. Most of his body was covered in dark scales that had appeared with the effort of walking, but he dried himself with care. “Never underestimate the little things in life, Andrew, like being dry,” he said, leaning on the hood.

  “I brought you clothes, too,” Andrew said, opening the passenger door and pulling out a t-shirt, jeans, underwear, and shoes. “
Oh, and a couple of sandwiches and snacks? I wasn’t sure how much you could actually eat, so I went for something light but filling.”

  Drake raised his eyebrows and looked Andrew straight in the eye. “I’m beginning to understand why Christopher enjoys your company so much.” He dressed fast while Andrew went for his phone, ready to give Chris and Julian the good news.

  “Did you activate the jammer?” Drake asked before Andrew could make the call.

  “When I arrived. Though they told me you’d need to be fairly close to it for it to work?”

  Drake nodded. “How I wish I could see Coleman’s face right now. Not only did he believe I couldn’t breathe, but he was so certain he could follow me home. I bet his superiors think he’s so incompetent he can’t even properly curse like a sailor.”

  They both laughed.

  “I’m ready to go home, Andrew. Boy, am I ready to go home.”

  42

  Spinning

  The world should have stopped. A merman had shown up on live TV, the Navy and the United Nations were giving a press conference right now, and yet New York City kept going as if that were the everyday news they had come to expect.

  No one gave Christopher a second glance; no one approached him to ask him anything. No one knew he was a merman—that he was the original Ray—and no one seemed to care about the seismic changes happening in his life with every passing moment. Most of all, nobody cared that he was trying to reach his very distressed brother after two days of not knowing anything about him, to the point that the streets felt longer while time had maddeningly slowed to a crawl.

  He’d started feeling Matt some fifteen minutes ago, a strange mixture of rage and shame and longing, that only made Chris worry more. He was too far to establish a mental link without jarring Matthew any further, and for some reason, Matt wasn’t answering his phone. In fact, he’d called him from an unknown number to begin with.