I don’t like fishing. I don’t like boats. I get fucking seasick. Yay for our reward for all our good work. We got to go fishing on a boat in the Hauraki Gulf. I don’t even like my fucking workmates. I don’t socialise with them. I go to work, do work and then go home alone, which is how I fucking like it. I look over at the boss. The Aussie CEO is visiting for our end-of-year function, and the fishing trip is really for him. The Aussies are a bigger branch than us, so we have to try to impress them somehow. Well, our boss thinks she does. Here we are in a yacht heading out of Auckland, past Rangitoto Island, to go fishing early on a Friday morning. I had to get up early for this. At least it is not raining.

I am looking forward to my Christmas break. I have two weeks off after this trip. I do like Christmas being summer, and I don’t have to go back to work till after New Year. I might not like boats, but I do like swimming. Swimming is something I can do alone, even when the beaches are crowded. There is one good thing about the trip. We are scheduled to stop for lunch at a beach on Waiheke Island. They promise to cook the fish we catch. I am looking forward to the less crowded beach and a swim. I might not like fishing and boats, but I do like eating fish.

“Hey, Bob. Come and look at this mutation.” Susie was the boss's PA and like the mother hen of the office. She tried to include everybody even when they didn’t fucking want to be included.

I was dragged over where they were crowding around someone’s phone. The picture was like a spider had mated with a cat. It was all legs and teeth and tufts of fur. There was a ruler next to it, so you could tell it was only a couple of centimetres big. Strange mutations were popping up around the world. I found them less interesting than cat pictures, and I hate cats.

“Where was this one found, Joe?” Susie asked.

“Aussie somewhere. This is an Aussie website.” He flicked to the next page. “This is the Aussie Army blowing up one of those dots they think are causing it.”

The pic shows a before and after shot of Outback Aussie. The difference was the considerable crater the army left.

“That's a huge explosion. Is that what it took to destroy those dots?” I didn’t bother checking who said that.

“They are called Anomaly Points,” said know-it-all Colin. “And that is how they are stopping the mutations.”

That may or may not be true. I never fully trust know-it-all Colin. If it was true, I was wondering how they dealt with one that might appear in a city. I didn’t ask. These people would only regurgitate what they have read on the internet, and I would be embroiled in a discussion I didn’t want to be in.

“At least there have been none in New Zealand,” Caitlin said. “We are safe.” Caitlin was scared of everything. I think the Health and safety rules were made for her. I don’t know what idiot appointed her to the Health and Safety Committee, though. That was stupid. She was the only one on board wearing a lifejacket.

“Hey, we caught something,” came the yell and the pointless discussion broke up without me having to participate.

The Captain and Charter boss had said we would drag a fishing line behind us on the way out to try our luck. Apparently, our luck is good. It took five minutes to reel in the Kahawai. It wasn’t a large one, but apparently, that species has no minimum size limit.

It got everyone focussed back on the fishing, and it wasn’t long before we arrived at the first “secret fishing spot,” where the crew were busy showing people how to bait the hooks, etc. I begged off fishing and watched them for a while. I then slipped away to the upper deck and got my e-reader out. I would much rather be reading.

I must admit it was pretty pleasant sitting on the deck with a drink and reading a book as long as people would stop trying to talk to me. It is a bit hard to tell the boss to fuck off when she is paying for this trip. I guess she is doing the bossy thing and trying to connect with her underlings. She eventually went away.

I was reading an apocalypse-type book, but one that had this system screen appear for everyone. I am willing to suspend my logic for a good story. This one was mediocre. The engineer in me liked quantifying everything in numbers, but it was pretty unrealistic. The story also seemed to be going downhill. I probably won’t buy the next in the series.

There is a lot of apocalyptic talk around lately with these mutations appearing and the “Anomaly Points.” It is too fast for evolution, so something is causing it. The mutations do seem random, and more than half the mutated creatures have been found dead. I guess that part is evolution-like. The good mutations live, survival of the fittest, etc.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I am not one to worry about surviving at all costs, like the crazies you hear about in the States. If the world goes to shit, I would prefer to die and miss it all. In this book I am reading, they are all worried about the human race surviving. Who fucking cares? For an evolutionist, if the human race doesn’t adapt, it will go extinct. Only the religious who believe we are special and created by some higher power should care about that. I am happy to go extinct if I can’t adapt. When I read some of these apocalyptic novels, I wonder why anyone would want to survive.

I don’t tell anyone these thoughts. My doctor already thinks I have mild depression and wants me to see a counsellor. I know he is right, but I haven’t bothered to do anything about it. I guess that is another sign he is right.

I scoffed at myself. “I don’t tell anyone…” Who the hell am I going to tell? It is no great surprise that I suck at relationships. Only one girl lasted more than a month. That was Denise. I am pretty sure she was trying to fix me. She gave up after three months. I stick to one-night stands now, except for Carla. We contact each other for a booty call every now and then. It works for us. I must see what she is doing in the next couple of weeks.

Some people caught some fish, and we moved on. The Aussie CEO seemed pleased at what he caught, so I guess that is a win for our boss. Eventually, we got to the part of the day I’ve all been waiting for. Lunch.

The Yacht anchored off one of the beaches on Waiheke Island. We would be ferried to shore in the little motor boat, or the more adventurous could swim. The company already had people ashore in a picnic area and barbecues going. They had come by van. Waiheke is a larger Island with a permanent population and some good wineries. Some of that wine was being laid out on the tables.

I stripped off my shirt, handed my bag to ‘mum’ Suzie to take ashore for me and dove into the water. This is better. Cool, clear water. No one trying to talk to me.

I surfaced well away from the boat to the sound of someone yelling my name.

“Bob! Bob! Wait!”

I turned around and saw Caitlin standing on the yacht. “You need a life jacket!” she yelled, waving one at me.

Oh, hell the fuck no. I just gave her a wave so she didn’t think I was ignoring her, and then I turned around and dove under the water, ignoring her. I had spent my teenage weekends volunteering at the West Beach Surf Life Saving Club. It is a notoriously wild west coast beach, and you had to be a strong swimmer there. There were so many rescues they bought in the TV cameras for a reality show a few years later. The Club needed the money, and the idiots certainly needed the education. I am done saving idiots for free. I’ve done my good deed if I ever need one to get into the next life. Man, I am hilarious.

I took my time in the water. All the non-swimmers were milling around the picnic tables with glasses of wine. If I went up there, they would want to talk to me. They haven’t brought enough wine for that.

I set out along the beach with long, easy strokes that power me through the water. This is good. This is the life. This is why I have an apartment near the waterfront.

Eventually, I notice they have started eating, so I head up. I spy where Susie put my bag and grab a towel, wiping off the worst of the water. I hook the towel over my shoulders and go to find a plate.

I notice a couple of the ladies ogling me. I suppose I am OK to look at. Carla thinks so. I am fit and have powerful shoulders from all the swimming. I am average in height, and I think average in looks. It is not bad for forty years. They can ogle. I do my share of ogling when someone catches my eye. Many a girl has connected with me because I look good. Then, after the first night, they got to know me, and no amount of looks was enough. Looks are only the facade over the personality. My personality is a little toxic.

The food was good. I tasted the wine but generally stuck to the fruit juices. I planned to go swimming again after lunch. The wind was changing direction, and there was more of a swell coming into the bay. While we were at lunch, we were given a choice. We could go back with the yacht or stay on the Island, and the vans would take us on a tour of the wineries and then catch the regular ferry back to Auckland. Those who chose to go back with the yacht mainly were the ones who had family they had to get back to. Or they were anti-social like me.

I had an hour to swim before the yacht left, so I decided to head out to some rocks just offshore. It would be a good swim, and I could rest on the rocks before returning. The swell would make it more interesting.

I set out with my easy, long strokes that I can keep up for hours. I miss-timed the swell several times and ended up with a mouthful of water, but that is not unusual. I was nearing the rocks when I felt a sting on my leg. I stopped and trod water while I looked around. Ah! A jellyfish. I hadn’t noticed them. I checked around, and there weren’t many. I wasn’t allergic so far. This was not my first sting, although I didn’t recognise the jellyfish. I floated on my back and raised my leg to the surface to look at the sting. A red welt marked the skin, with a piece of the tentacle still attached. I reached down to the tentacle to get it out and lost awareness of the waves. I took another mouthful of seawater that I coughed out. I will do it on the rocks. They are not far.

When I pulled myself up on the rocks, I felt a little off. I have been stung by an unknown Jellyfish. Of course, I feel a little off. I look at my leg. It looks like the tentacles washed out getting here. That’s normal. There was a bit of a prickling sensation, and I could see some swelling. All that was normal.

What wasn’t normal was the tiny pinprick of blue light I could see in the water not far from the rocks. My blood ran cold. Was that one of those Anomaly Points? It sure looked like what had been described on the Internet.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.