The eyes of this creature were half open. There was a trace of white around the irises that were large and black.
On the side of the creature’s face, below where stunted and useless ears hung, were gills.
The sound of a footfall in water startled me and I suddenly whirled, bringing my gun up, but it was Felicity.
She was standing ankle deep at the edge of what I’d first thought was a large puddle, but as I hurried over I could now see was a pool. It ended at a wall and when I shone my flashlight at the water, we could see that the wall ended a few feet below the surface of the pool. Tendrils of seaweed wafted back and forth and there were small fish in the water, darting here and there.
“It must lead out to the bay,” said Felicity.
We looked from it to the three broken cylinders and then at the decaying bodies.
“Three of them must have escaped somehow,” she said. “They killed the staff and escaped through the pool.”
I nodded. And though I was almost too sick to speak, I asked, “Do you know what this is?”
She gave me a quizzical look. “I should think it’s effing well obvious.”
“No… I can see what they’re doing. Transformative genetics… theriomorphy… they’ve turned test subjects—”
“—or volunteers,” she cut in.
“—or volunteers… into monsters. Into water-breathing…” I fished in my mind for the word.
“Into mermen,” said Felicity Hope. “And mermaids.”
“I thought mermaids were supposed to be beautiful.”
She gave a short, ugly laugh. “You don’t read your folklore. The mermaids of legend were monsters who lured men to terrible deaths. They drowned them and fed on them.”
“So these madmen created genetically-engineered… what’s the word? Mer-people?”
“Close enough.”
“But… for Christ’s sake why?”
She cocked her head appraisingly. “What is your nation’s primary weapon of response to deliberate aggression from either China or North Korea?”
“Generally-speaking, lots of missiles.”
She shook her head. “Which are launched from…?”
“Ah,” I said, “our fleet.”
“Top marks. The US fleet in the Taiwan Strait is the most powerful weapon of war in existence. Aircraft carriers ready to launch the world’s most sophisticated and lethal fighters and helicopters, battleships and cruisers, and nuclear submarines capable of launching nuclear and non-nuclear missiles. China is working on building a blue-water fleet, but beyond hype, they are many years away from anything comparable, and it’s doubtful they ever will build anything comparable. That’s why they’ve worked so hard on their missiles and on a submarine fleet capable of slipping past your surface ships. It’s why North Korea is developing its nuclear capabilities and building long-range weapons of mass destruction.”
“What’s your point?”
“No nation on earth can face your fleet in any version of a surface battle. You have more ships and better military technology, and you can call in more — far more — resources. Everyone knows this. But consider how the Taliban has been able to wage so long and costly a war with your army in Afghanistan, and how they fought the Russians to a standstill at the height of Soviet power. They have no army, no technology. So what do they have?”
“Hit-and-run terrorists who hide among the civilian population and comes at us in small and very mobile groups.”
“Bloody right. It’s the exact kind of warfare that greatly helped you Yanks fight off our larger and better-trained armies during your Revolution.” She spread her arms to indicate the massive saltwater tanks, and the bodies floating inside. “Now imagine the hit-and-run terrorists needed for a war against a fleet. A fleet that can detect any metal ships and which can sweep away any network of mines. Imagine teams of Merpeople who could swim undetected into the heart of your fleet, carrying with them small satchel-charges and non-metallic limpet mines. Enough of them, with the right equipment, could destroy your fleet without North Korea or China launching a single missile. And what defence could you offer? You can’t patrol beneath the surface for something this small and mobile. It’s impractical to the point of impossibility.”
I wanted to tell her that she was out of her mind. That she was delusional. That such a plan was far too wild to ever work.
But the faces of the dead scientists mocked my denials. The powerful bodies floating in the brine told me that my view of the world was relevant to yesterday. Today was a different and much more terrible day.
“I have to call this in,” I said. “I need to get someplace where I can get a clean signal and get every-fucking-body out here.”
She looked at me with her dark eyes.
“Captain,” she said, then amended it. “Joe… you do understand that if this technology is acquired by our people — yours and mine — they’ll do the same thing, continue the same research.”
I said nothing.
“They’ll make monsters, too,” she said, “because the proof is right here that monsters are the next viable weapon of war.”
“Monsters,” I said, echoing the word. It tasted rancid in my mouth. “But what options do we have? The Koenig people are in custody, their research is either slag or it’s in these computers, and we don’t know if they’ve already shared their secrets with the Chinese or North Koreans. If our enemies have these weapons, won’t we have to…”
I heard what I was saying and knew that it was absolutely true and absolutely wrong. It was the trap that has escalated warfare since the invention of the longbow. Since the gun. Since the first nuclear bomb.
It was keeping up with the Joneses in a very real and very ugly way, and unless everyone suddenly came to their senses then how could we avoid committing sins of conscience in defense of our people?
What’s the answer to that question?
Where’s the path that leads us away from ever escalating the arms race?
“Joe,” she said as she walked over to the bank of super-computers, “the Koenig people haven’t sold the information yet. The secrets are all here. The research that was burned was a decoy. All of it is here.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can. I do know it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Without turning she said, “I’m sure, Joe.”
And she said it in Grace’s voice.
Exactly Grace’s voice.
My mouth went dry.
I took a small step toward her. “Grace…?”
“If we destroy these computers, it stops here.”
I licked my lips. “The senior Koenig people are—”
“It stops here. This abomination goes no further.”
I wanted her to turn around. I wanted to see her face. I needed to see the light of Grace’s soul shining out of her eyes. If that was an impossible wish, who cares. We stood in an impossible place.
“Grace…” I whispered again.
And then a sudden violent sound of splashing water broke the moment into pieces. I spun around as three monstrous shapes rose from the pool.
Gray-green skin.
Black eyes.
Rows of teeth.
And webbed hands that ended in terrible claws.
Two of them rushed at me, and one launched itself at Felicity Hope and slammed her back against the computers. Felicity screamed in a voice that sounded like the call of a wounded seagull.
I heard myself yelling. Screaming, really. But the sound was lost beneath the roar of the Mermen who ran at me, and thunder of my gun as I fired and fired.