Ava folded her arms atop the edge of the gangway that stretched level with the surface of her holding tank, and sighed heavily as she stared out at the endless array of stars beyond the porthole. Below, the tail fin she hadn’t quite gotten used to swirled lazily through tepid water, spinning gentle ripples through the depths, and for the moment, she ignored it. She fixed her attention upon the vastness of space beyond her vantage instead—and the great blue sphere that dominated most of the porthole.
As she mused about what secrets it hid, soft footsteps vibrated along the metal of the gangway, and she turned her head to see a scientist in a long lab coat approaching. He carried a clipboard and wore a dark frown, and she’d never been more relieved to see her younger brother.
She hailed him softly as he neared. “Gregar. Where have you been?”
As his inferior eyesight made her out against the water in the dimly lit room, his face crumpled with relief. “Ava! Jesus, I’m glad to see you.”
He crouched down in front of her, and she reached up delicately webbed fingers to cup his cheek. “I’m all right,” she reassured. “Adjusting, but all right. How are the others?”
Gregar’s relief faded as quickly as it had come. He lowered his gaze, leaned into the touch of her strangely silken hand, and blew out sharply. “Approximately half are doing very well.”
Ava’s blood ran colder. “Half?”
“There have been… complications,” he sighed. “More than expected.”
“What happened?”
“Well, a large portion of the splices were successful, but some didn’t… transmute right. Twenty-six were dead before Hatching, and nearly seventy more had to be put down during and after.”
Ava swallowed, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “God, that’s awful.”
“I guess that’s what happens when we play God with imprecise science,” Gregar said ruefully.
In sympathy, Ava reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “We had no choice, little brother. This was our only chance.”
“I know,” he said, “but I wish we hadn’t had to.”
Ava’s face hardened, and she tightened her grip on his fingers. “This is not our fault, Gregar. This is their fault.”
Her brother couldn’t seem to straighten his morose expression. “You’re right, I know that, it’s just—if only we’d had more time, we could have done more tests, we could have—”
“Stop it,” Ava said sharply. “We did the best we could with what we had. There was no precursor for this kind of genetic work, only theories and desperation.”
Gregar took a moment to gather himself and then gifted her a gentle smile. “I’m glad you pulled through in one piece, at least. After seeing what happened to some of the others… God, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t made it.”
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She pushed free and splashed him. “Took you bloody long enough to come and check.”
He grinned. “Well, I didn’t think I could handle your gloating if you were fine.”
“Gloating!” Ava exclaimed. “How dare you!” But then she grinned too and turned a slow pirouette in the water. “Actually, I am gloating, a little—God, Gregar—look at me! I’m a freaking mermaid!”
In response, he appraised her properly for the first time, taking in the charcoal-and-violet tail that somehow matched her eyes, her webbed fingers, and the flowing ulna, dorsal, and pelvic fins that sculled softly to keep her in place in the water. The gills along her ribs flared and retracted with mesmerising regularity—even though she was currently breathing into her secondary lungs through her nose—and he marvelled at how much their teams of scientists had managed to alter the human body. “Yes,” he agreed, pride flashing in his eyes, “look at you. You’re utterly magnificent.”
“About time you admitted that,” Ava teased, flaunting her enhanced form a little more. But after a moment, she turned serious again. “You know, Gregar, when we agreed to spearhead this insane project, we surged out into unchartered waters with hardly a hope of finding our way. So, if half of the volunteers successfully managed metamorphosis, then we’ve done well. Half is miles better than none.” She paused—and a flicker of trepidation crossed her delicate features. “This is only the first play of a two-part plan, though. And—speaking of unchartered waters—we have no idea, really, what we’ll face down on The Shattered World. I hope the ‘half’ that’s survived thus far, continues to do so after we land.”
“Me too,” Gregar agreed quietly, reaching for her hand again.
Together, they shifted their attention to the looming blue giant beyond the porthole. PHOP-12, more commonly dubbed The Shattered World due to the fractured islands that spread the entirety of its ocean surface, was ninety percent water and had no large land masses at all. The planet barely made it onto the Possibly Habitable Index, but it was the closest one to Earth, and they hadn’t had the time or the resources to go further afield. It was a long shot, but that’s why they’d spent the entirety of the voyage tinkering with DNA they shouldn’t ethically be tinkering with. They’d been extremely lucky with the results thus far, but there was still a large chance it could all end in disaster.
Ava's thoughts meandered away from the frightening future, back to the world they’d left behind. Softly, she asked, “Is there… any news from home?”
Gregar turned to meet her gaze, and a deep sorrow clouded his expression. “Earth’s gone, Ava. All of it. We’re all that’s left.”
Ava sank back, her fingers falling limp. Six transport freighters with a total population of three hundred—of which two hundred were test subjects, and nearly half of that dead— was all that was left of the entire human race?
“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be…”
“They won,” Gregar confirmed quietly. “The last ER Scoutship managed to relay a message to us just before it was destroyed. Earth is a wasteland, not a civilisation left standing across the whole planet. There’s nothing to go back to—if we fail on The Shattered World… it’s over.”
Ava stared at him in horror. “It’s not true,” she said, refusing to believe it. But the look on his face undermined her attempts at denial, and suddenly she couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, she cast her gaze back out at the silent giant beyond the porthole, feeling her enlarged heart constrict savagely with despair at the daunting task before them. As she stared, the planet blurred, and numbness spread down her arms as her gills began to flutter erratically. Sporadic gasps rushed through her slack lips, pushed out of her secondary lungs by the lurching of her ribs. Suddenly weak, her head lolled sideways, and she caught sight of her brother’s concerned face. His lips formed words that she couldn’t hear, and he caught hold of the top of her shoulders with a desperate grip. Frowning at his agitation, she tried to tell him she was all right. But only a sigh escaped her, and his frightened face faded as her vision went black.