I had been able to get my place for little more than a song. It was too big for me, with a yard that opened onto an incredible view of the Sound, all blue water and endless sky. Opening the front door revealed a living room done up in varying shades of beige, with water stains on the walls and ancient curtains covering the windows. I locked up behind myself, making my way to the back bedroom, which I had prepared meticulously for this moment.
Blackout curtains kept the sunlight at bay, while humidifiers and heaters brought the temperature up to something heavy and tropical. The creature had breathed acid, biological and bright, and the eggs had been nestled in cradles of melted sand, with channels dug around them, as if to keep them dry. I had gambled on the fact that the acid had been a part of the gestation process, intended to tell the babies when it was safe for them to emerge. I removed them from my backpack, placing them in the beds of sculpting foam that I had constructed. There were four beds, a moment of wild optimism given physical reality. I pushed two of them under the desk with my foot and went for my field kit. It was time to take some basic measurements.
The active egg weighed eight pounds and had an ambient temperature of eighty-four degrees. The inactive egg weighed twelve pounds and had an ambient temperature of sixty degrees. I still tucked them both in, putting enough distance between them to mirror the setup in the cave, before leaving the room and scavenging a dinner for myself from the meager supplies in the kitchen. My bed beckoned. Cracker crumbs still clinging to my lips, I collapsed into it without removing my clothes. The work, the real work, was about to begin.
The next six weeks passed in a blur of tests and measurements. The active egg grew warmer by the day, and on Day 6 it began to swell, growing so quickly that I fancied I could almost see it happen. I cooed to it, increased the humidity, and began wiping it down with a dilute acid bath, helping the shell to weaken and thin. I had made a study of the creature’s biology, reading every report, examining every biological breakdown, and the acid had to do something other than belch forth to dissolve cities. It took too many resources to be that limited. But as a way to protect the young . . .
The eggshell was so thick. The acid would wear it away, telling the baby that it was safe to emerge. In the absence of a parent, erosion would do the same thing, but it would take so much longer. So very, very much longer.
I was wiping the mixture of acid and seawater across the shell when the egg gave an almighty shake, almost hopping in its cradle. I pulled back and watched in delighted awe as the shell split and tore under the force of a sharp-jawed saurian head pushing its way to freedom.
All vertebrates practice cuteness as a survival mechanism. Even baby snakes and lizards are adorable compared to the adults, with large eyes, outsized skulls, and a certain rounded softness. The infant creature was no different. It blinked its round golden eyes at me, all four of its pupils contracting, and made a small, querulous sound. I smiled.
“Hello, little one,” I said.
It made the sound again, louder this time, before beginning to chirp, pushing its arms through the remnants of the shell and holding them out to me.
The creature had been bipedal. Its child was no different, built like the hybrid offspring of a human and an alligator, with soft scales in a dozen shades of green, from mellow jade across its belly to deep malachite on its back. It had the beginning of what would eventually be jagged spikes running the length of its spine, and tiny, pearlescent claws on the ends of its fingers. Like most reptiles, it had been born with a full complement of teeth, each one sharp enough to tear through flesh. Strangest of all were its eyes, two large and placed where I would expect on a bipedal predator, two smaller and placed above them, giving it an incredible range of vision. Nothing would ever sneak up on this child of the deeps.
It chirped again. I took a breath. It could be trying to lure me in, to make a meal of me, in which case I would die and so would it, starved and unable to escape the house at its current size. It could also be an imprinted infant, turning to its presumed parental figure, seeking comfort.
“You and me, kid,” I said, and leaned forward, scooping it out of the eggshell, into my arms.
The infant creature made a softer sound, somewhere between a purr and a sigh, and pressed its face against the curve of my neck, huddling into the warmth of me. I held it tightly, looking at the wrecked remains of its eggshell, and thought of the people who would give anything, anything, to be where I was now, to have this tiny, innocent thing at their disposal. Think of the secrets they could learn by taking a juvenile apart!
I could have anything I wanted with a single phone call. Money, fame, all the attention in the world. I could be the new darling of the sciences, the one who changed the field forever. Or I could have this baby, who was already falling asleep in my arms, heavy and content and absolutely sure that I would keep it safe.
I kissed the top of its head. “You and me, kiddo,” I murmured. “We’ve got work to do.”
Geode toddled around the backyard on increasingly strong legs, tail waving wildly to help them stay stable and upright. Only a month out of the egg and they were already up to my chest, capable of knocking me over with the innocent enthusiasm of their play. With only two known exemplars of their species, I couldn’t have said whether they were male or female, but I had lost the ability to think of them with the dispassionate it by the time they were a week old, happily shredding salmon with their talons and trying to lure me into eating the bits they didn’t want. They were an individual. Not a human, but not a beast either.
And they knew me. Geode couldn’t speak, but they understood their own name and all the things I was inclined to ask them for. They even allowed me to continue taking blood samples, despite their dislike of the needle, because I said please and promised them their favorite delicacies when I was done.
They tripped over a rock in the yard and stumbled, making a distressed groaning noise that turned into a hacking sound, like a cat in the process of coughing up a hairball. They moaned once and spat a ball of faintly glowing, semisolid goo onto the ground, where it began to smolder and sink into the earth. Geode moaned again, now sounding ashamed.
“Oh, no, baby,” I said, rushing to their side and rubbing the scales on the top of their head soothingly. “That was a good thing you did just now. What a fine, strong baby you are! Why, I’m sure most unidentified sea-dwellers can’t make acid until they’re much larger than you are!”
Geode creeled hopefully. I laughed.
“Yes, you can have some chopped squid as a reward. Greedy little one.”
They bumped their head against my sternum. I laughed again, planting a kiss on their cheek before turning and starting for the house.
As soon as they couldn’t see me, I let my smile fade. Acid. They were spitting acid. I’d known that was a normal part of their development, but between that and the speed with which they were growing . . . their childhood was going to be much shorter than I wanted it to be, and there was no way I’d be able to hide them forever. Honestly, I was going to be hard-pressed to hide them much longer. They ate more every day. There were only three stores within reasonable driving distance, and even rotating which ones I went to, and when, they were starting to notice how much fish I bought. The money would run out soon, and that was assuming no one tipped off the authorities to the tourist with the strange shopping habits.