Orwen’s gaze lingered on the exotic-looking merboy, who stood out like a floating enigma amidst the huddled teachers and guards.
“If he can get through to the boy,” Headmaster Oliver was saying, “then perhaps he can help us find out what happened to the girls. We can only assume that he knows something—three disappearances in as many days can’t be dismissed as coincidence, and now this one shows up? He must have a role in all this.”
Orwen, for his part, was trying a few different dialects to try and communicate. Thus far he hadn’t had much luck, though the merboy seemed to take it as a great game, and he laughingly played along, mimicking the sounds as the man was making them, turning it into quite the cacophony.
When Ms. Terri stepped away from the headmaster and made her way to the tank, her movements escaped notice. Then she started talking to herself. That got everybody’s attention.
“It’s alright though, don’t be afraid…”
A pause.
“Yes, my name is Ms. Terri. I’m a teacher here…”
Another pause, and her expression softened.
“Kyle?” The word seemed to surface in her mind as if it had been whispered to her. “Is that your name?”
The merboy tilted his head, his gills flaring slightly. Then, with a slow nod, he seemed to confirm it, his eyes narrowing in what might have been curiosity—or something deeper. Like he had a question.
“No, you’re not in any trouble,” Ms. Terri said to nobody in particular. “We just want to understand you, that’s all…”
“Ms. Terri!” the headmaster barked, “what in the world are you playing at?”
Ms. Terri put a hand up to silence him, her entire focus on the boy—on Kyle. She didn’t know how she knew his name, but it had come to her like a thought-flow poured straight into her mind. No, her heart. It wasn’t her voice that said it, but it wasn’t his either. It was something shared, something entirely new. A thrill of awe mixed with fear raced through her. What was this connection, and why her?
“No, he won’t hurt you either, Kyle,” she said, warning the headmaster with a glare. “No one will.”
The merboy had gone silent, along with the rest of the room, but unlike them, he had a look of concentration on his face. As if he really were carrying on a conversation. And he continually flexed his gills and temples as if trying to express himself. Ms. Terri wasn’t looking directly at him, but he was staring intently at her.
“No, don’t go! Wait!”
Taking advantage of the intensity of the moment, the merboy kicked back and away from the guards, dove under the water, and fled the room.
Ms. Terri called after him. The full-gill guards flipped around and gave chase. The rest of the room looked on, mouths agape, shocked to see the alien merboy make a dart for it.
* * *
He was faster than any of the guards, moving like a oiled dolphin through the tanks and tunnels of the school, then out the hatchway and into the open waters of the street level. From there, he could go about anywhere, and without an obvious lead, the guards soon slowed up and headed back to re-group.
“We were caught flat-finned, no excuse for it,” admitted the lead aquasentinel.
“He can’t have gotten far,” Headmaster Oliver pressed.
“We’ll send out patrols,” the lead sentinel growled, his techno-gill slits flaring with frustration. “But he’s fast. We’ll need to deploy tracking gear if we’re going to stand a chance.”
“Well, do it, man!” Oliver snapped, seizing the opportunity to direct rather than defend himself.
“Now Ms. Terri,” Oliver said, turning to his colleague, “would you mind telling me what in the name of Atlantis you were doing with that boy before he made his escape?”
“Hmm?” Terri said absently. “Oh, the boy? You didn’t hear him?”
“Hear what?” Mr. Albi said. “The merboy didn’t say a thing. You were the only one in the room talking. It looked like you were play-acting or something, talking to the air like that.”
“To the air? No, he was talking to me. Although at the same time it seemed…almost seemed as though his voice was in my head.” Ms. Terri’s hands trembled slightly as she replayed the moment in her mind. How had she understood him so clearly? The voice had been unmistakable, an easygoing stream of thoughts that bypassed her ears entirely. But why her? And what did it mean for Kyle’s kind?
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Orwen chimed in.
They turned to the expert, who’d been so quiet it was as if he wasn’t even in the room. He was gazing back and forth between the boy and Ms. Terri with an expression of wonder.
“They’re engaging in a form of telepathy,” he stated, musing to himself at the same time about what it all could mean. If even a fraction of the stories were true, this encounter could validate years of dismissed research.
Or, he thought with a sense of long-suffering resignation, it could just add to the ridicule.
Still, he knew what he was talking about. Always had. And these others had no inkling of what was right in front of them.
“There are stories that cannot be ignored, sir. Accounts of fantastical civilizations.”
“And how did you come to know these…stories?” Oliver challenged, his tone still skeptical.
“It is the very foundation of my work,” Orwen replied, his voice growing firmer despite Oliver’s accusatory tone. “I have spent more decades than I care to count researching, verifying, and then verifying some more. I daresay longer than you’ve been alive.”
The headmaster went silent, his confidence dimming in the face of Orwen’s credentials.
Orwen nodded, seizing the opportunity. “There are accounts of mer-civilizations so advanced, so sophisticated, that they’ve developed their minds to a highly attenuated degree. These advanced races are thought to communicate not only with each other but with all life—a natural, empathic understanding that transcends simple speech.”
Orwen Albi knew how to command attention—that was becoming undeniably clear. Even Headmaster Oliver seemed to be softening to Orwen's steady, confident tone. And his grandson, too, sat in rapt attention, his eyes shining with something Orwen hadn’t seen in years: true adoration. The skeptical mix of emotions that had clouded his expression minutes before had dissolved, leaving only awe.
“And it’s not just stories, Headmaster. It’s research. A great deal of it my own. And now…” His gaze flicked to Ms. Terri. “We may have just seen proof.”
“Well, either way we won’t be getting anything more out of the boy unless we,”—he re-directed his accusatory vibes towards the aquasentinels—”get our hands on him again.”
* * *
Bursting into the open waters of the city, Kyle opened up his full range of motion and tore through the warm waterways, taking joy in the freedom. The merboy’s heart raced, excitement propelling him through the water. The currents felt like home, but the thought of those legged ones chasing him added a sharp edge. He didn’t trust them—not yet—though he couldn’t ignore the powerful connection he’d felt with the kind-eyed woman.
Pressing forward, he noticed how strange these waterways were—rigid, artificial veins pulsing through a metallic world. Back home, the currents shifted with the will of the waters themselves, but here they felt confined, forced into patterns that ignored the rhythm of the sea. He preferred the raw power of open water, the unconstricted joy of swimming without barriers. But he also felt a strange fascination with the city’s glittering edges and the legged ones’ trinkets. They were so different, so alien, yet they, too, shimmered with a kind of magic.
They’re not really so different, he thought.
He hadn’t meant to dart away so quickly, but all those adult legged ones, not to mention the few who seemed to be somehow enhanced, had made him rather nervous. Besides, he was starting to feel cooped up in that one little pool. His normal range was many leagues there and back home again, as far out as he might wish to go without wearing himself. While he wasn’t allowed to go inland, strictly speaking, he was free to go out to sea as far as he liked.
Compared to that, even the entire city was rather limited, but this was still a chase, at that, and he was very good at chases. So he didn’t swim in a straight line, but rather zipped this way and that in an effort to obscure his trail. He did his best to avoid detection, and when he was spotted he made sure to speed up so they’d be able to report nothing more than a green-tinged blur.
Even as fast as he was traveling, he gave himself time to take in the city sights. He felt as though he might never get back here, and so now was the perfect time to get a look at the place. The traveling pools seemed to run alongside the walkways, so that the enhanced ones could travel side-by-side with the legged. Buildings were erected every fathom or so along the way, so that both legged and special could enter through the front via a sort of offshoot of the current. He couldn’t think of how else to describe it. Sometimes he rode currents, and looking for whirling pools of offshoot were the easiest way to get off the main way.
From time to time, these waterways and pathways would converge on large pools, giving the impression these were communal gathering places. And indeed he did see large numbers of legged—adorned in water-gear for undersea breathing—and enhanced ones getting together in these pools. Some under the surface, some bellied up to the edges enjoying drinks or snacks. And there were other legged ones there handing out the various snacks and drinks in exchange for what looked like shiny trinkets.
He was tempted to give it a go for one of those trinkets, or even for a snack, though he wasn’t that hungry yet. He rarely ate much more than every seventh sleep or so. The trinkets, though, they were tempting. So shiny. Silver and gold. Mostly round, or with slight edges. He wanted one badly.
When he reached out to grab one that had been placed on the edge of the pool, he hardly expected the commotion that followed. The people were every bit as excited as the ones he’d left behind in the school pool, pointing and shouting and blowing whistles. Keeping a tight grip on his prize, he dove hard and almost hit the unforgiving bottom, barely escaping his second injury of the day. He got his bearings while under, and made for the furthest waterway he could find. Surging forward, he made for a remote part of the city, far from where he’d begun, and far from the ocean side he was familiar with.