Eva clutched at the mug of coffee as she sat on the bench. Ocean Land has a fucking mermaid!

By now this repetition of words seemed to have lost all meaning in her mind. She had witnessed a man die today and yet that wasn’t the craziest thing that had happened.

Phillip had briefly checked in with her and gotten her some coffee before he had run off to deal with the situation. So Eva sat in the control room, watching the television as the mermaid swam in her tank. Staff had not yet managed to retrieve the body.

“Eva, right?” a short mousy scientist asked. She had short light blond hair and a nervous expression. Her name tag read Abby.

“Uh, yes?”

“Phillip’s mentioned you occasionally, I just… uh,” Abby trailed off.

“Do you need something?”

“N-no, I suppose I’m a bit in shock.” Abby sat down beside Eva letting out a long breath. Not being the only one thrown by this was a bit of a comfort. “That's never happened before… well another trainer was attacked but it let him go.”

“The mermaid?”

“We're not supposed to call it that but y-yes.”

“What are you supposed to call it?” Eva frowned.

“Specimen… orca, Mr. Talbot hates the idea that it is anything other than an animal.”

Eva didn't know how to feel about that. Sure the mermaid was an animal but so were humans. The mermaid was human after all, or at least half humanoid. The expressions the mermaid had worn were human enough.

“Has anyone… tried talking to the mermaid?”

“The orca trainers have not had any success and we haven't figured out how to translate whale songs yet. You really shouldn't call it that if you’re gonna keep working here.”

Eva opened her mouth but caught herself. Phillip had told her to pretend she worked here, hadn't he? Instead, she simply nodded. “Where did you get the specimen?”

“It was caught somewhere in the Pacific, M-Mr. Talbot hasn’t given us specifics.”

The more Eva heard about Trent Talbot the less she liked him. She had googled him when she started working for Ocean Land. He had been a caricature of a spoiled rich kid about a decade ago but after his father’s death and inheriting Ocean Land, he had cleaned up his act. He faded out of the public image after that.

“I don’t give a fuck, if you have an issue with how I run things then you can find somewhere else to work!”

Eva turned towards the outburst as a man in a suit strode into the room flanked by two mercenaries. He was a young man with short black hair and sharp features. Trent Talbot was easy to recognize.

The scientist he had presumably been yelling at scurried by, his head held low. Talbot stood there, hands on hips, as he surveyed his lair.

“Ah, good morning, Sir,” Phillip said, emerging from a doorway with a strained smile. Eva was attempting to shrink back into the wall, she couldn’t imagine Phillip’s boss would be happy that she was here.

“I was notified there was a death, what happened?” Talbot asked, skipping any pleasantries.

“The specimen drowned the trainer during feeding time.”

“The one it attacked before?”

“No, he quit. It drowned the replacement.”

“What a mess,” Talbot replied, walking over to the glass window. “Ensure his family is compensated, the last thing we need is a lawsuit.”

“Of course,” Phillip replied, glancing at Eva briefly before looking away.

“Do we know what caused this?”

“We're still investigating. The microphones are turned to pick up its songs so we're only working with video footage. Looks like it just grabbed him, like the last attack.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Why the hell is it so aggressive?”

“Maybe because she's locked in a cage.” Eva didn't even realize she had spoken until the words were out of her mouth, not the quiet internal grumble she had aimed for. Everyone was looking at her now, Phillip’s expression was one of open concern.

Talbot’s beady eyes bore into hers. “Can you swim?”

“Sir,” Phillip protested.

“Can you swim?” he asked more forcefully.

“Y-yes,” Eva nodded.

“Good, you’ll probably need it as the new trainer,” he smiled.

Eva sat there stunned. He can’t do that. Except as CEO of Ocean Land, he could do exactly that. Sure she theoretically had workers' rights but she very much doubted Talbot cared or that they would stop him.

She wasn’t going to risk her life for a stupid job no matter how much she enjoyed it. She didn’t even actually work in the research facility. Thankfully Phillip came to her rescue.

“She’s hardly qualified, Sir.”

“She works in my fucking lab. Unless you’ve been hiring idiots then she’s qualified. How hard can it possibly be to train an orca?”

Phillip backed down, sending a flair of anger through Eva. He had gotten her in this situation and now was hanging her out to dry.

But something stopped her from stomping out and quitting. Something stopped her from telling Talbot what she really thought of him and what Phillip had done. That something was the mermaid circling below them in her tank.

Talbot was throwing a tantrum because his “orca” wasn’t behaving, except she wasn’t an orca, was she? Despite the danger, Eva was very curious. Despite the horrors she had witnessed today she had also discovered an actual mermaid. How could she give up an opportunity to work with one?

“What did I tell you,” Abby sighed when Talbot was out of earshot.

“Don’t worry about it,” Eva replied. She had stumbled her way into working with a mermaid. Now she just had to figure out how to not be mauled to death. Her excitement waned at that a little.

----------------------------------------

“I am so sorry.” Phillip’s immediate apology when they returned to his office extinguished most of Eva’s anger at him.

“The pay raise and working with a mermaid will make up for it,” she replied.

“You cannot be serious, it's dangerous.”

“Mermaid.”

“You don't actually have a job here, Eva, nor are you qualified for one.”

“You should probably handle that because Talbot doesn't seem like the kind of man to ignore me if I don't listen to him. If I’m not feeding the mermaid he's gonna wonder why and then wonder how I gained access to this facility,” Eva replied. She didn't really want to go back to her old job, not yet and it wasn't like she was lying. It had sounded like Phillip was bending some rules by bringing her here and she doubted he wanted to get in trouble.

“Christ, Eva.” Phillip collapsed behind his desk, pressing his fingers to his wrinkled temple. “Ok, I’ll talk to Hawes. Get you transferred here. We did just… lose an employee so I do need to hire someone. Quite frankly, you are qualified for the job. It’s kinda horrifying how inexperienced most of the staff here are.”

“Right…”

“Are you sure you want to take the job of someone who was just killed due to doing said job?”

Eva bit her cheek. Saying she wasn't scared would be a lie but she couldn't pass up this opportunity. It was like scuba diving or skydiving. ok, it wasn't but it was at least a similar philosophy. When it came down to it, she couldn’t turn away a chance to work with a mermaid.

“I’m sure, Phillip. Sign me up,” she replied, projecting confidence that wasn’t entirely genuine.

----------------------------------------

Felisha and Mike were not happy to learn not only was she leaving her current position but that she couldn’t tell them anything about the research facility. But as she walked across the bridge that was the least of her concerns.

She clutched the ID badge around her neck with one hand as she approached the guards on the other side. Phillip had gotten everything set up ridiculously fast and by the time she signed everything and it was official she hadn’t had a chance even to say goodbye to the dolphins. That made her a little sad but she was a short walk away and the dolphins liked Mike more.

As she reached the chain link gate she held up her pass for the guard to see.

“Good luck,” the guard said with a faint chuckle as he opened the door. Apparently, her new position had gotten around. Doing her best to hold her head high she stepped inside. The air-conditioned building was a delight on a hot summer day.

She waved to Martha, who gave her an encouraging smile. The guards once again checked her badge and let her through. This time not making a fuss like before.

Eva sighed with relief as the doors closed behind her. Yes, she was effectively trapped but she wasn’t being stared down by large men with guns. Granted considering the amount of security cameras she had spotted the large men with guns were probably just not visible to her.

She headed to the change room. Slipping into a wetsuit this time rather than the lab uniform. The lock clicked shut as she left all her belongings except her ID squirrelled away. Considering how secure the building was, at least she didn’t need to worry about thieves.

The metal detector stayed silent when she walked through. Her ID unlocked the reinforced door under the watchful eye of the guards, though different guards than last time.

“Oh good, you made it,” Phillip smiled when she stepped into the control room. A slight crinkle in his brow was the only giveaway of his uncertainty. “Abby was just going over some new safety protocols.”

Abby gave her a wave. She was holding what seemed to be a harness of some kind. A long chain dangling from an end. It looked more like some sort of torture device than a piece of safety equipment. It took a second for it to sink in that all the new safety stuff would be to try and protect her from being drowned.

“Great,” she replied, her voice unnaturally high.

The next few minutes were a confusing blur as people in lab coats buzzed around. It felt like a far more confusing airplane safety demonstration. At some point, a bucket of fish appeared. Abby showed her how the harness worked.

“Are you positive you want to do this?” Phillip asked.

Eva could only manage to nod. I’ve already come this far. The words had become her mantra over the last few days.

Phillip let out a long sigh and reached past her to click the button on the elevator. Eva picked up the bucket of fish, it was uncomfortably heavy and tugged on her shoulder.

“Good luck,” Abby smiled.

“Thanks,” Eva replied and stepped into the elevator with Phillip. The doors clunked shut and her stomach lurched as it descended.

They had gone over what she was about to do countless times but it was a mess in her mind. The first step was to show she wasn’t dangerous and that she was trustworthy. That was easy to do with dolphins that were already domesticated. But the usual tactics of giving food and giving the dolphins time to get used to her was not going to work.

The last two trainers had failed with severe consequences. She needed to take a different approach. The only problem… she didn’t have one.

The elevator doors slid open and they stepped out onto the ground floor. Another secure door led to a wet room. Nets, wetsuits, gloves, target poles and such lined the walls. On the far side of the wall was a protruding cage which acted as an airlock of sorts, though rather than stopping air it stopped large mermaids.

While it acted as a door it was also designed to hold the mermaid when they needed to get close or enter the enclosure itself without worry though they needed to train the mermaid first, there was no method to get her in the cage.

She stepped inside, the yellow bars sliding closed with a thunk as Phillip clipped the harness chain to a contraption and then pressed a button on the wall. The floor here was wet and Eva had to be careful not to slip. She shifted the heavy bucket to her other hand and gave Philip a thumbs up.

With a reluctant nod Phillip hit a button and the other side of the cage unlocked and the chain became slack. With a deep breath, Eva stepped out of the safety of the cage and into the mermaid’s enclosure.