Vixandra

I screamed as the net sliced through my ungloved hands but kept working, the dive knives in my tendrils sawing between the fibers even as it was pulled upward by men on an unlit boat. I spared a tendril to hit the distress beacon on my phone before returning to my work. I was a couple hundred meters away from where I entered the water, Star at my back watching for other divers and difficulties. I pulled against the lines, gaining enough slack to slip the panicked porpoise free of the tangling nets. It floundered in the water for a moment before I grabbed it and shot to the surface with it, begging it not to breath yet, that air was near. We burst to into the air in a spout of water, the meter-long juvenile gasping as we bobbed only fifteen feet away from the boat. I slipped under the mammal, keeping its body at the surface as I propelled us away from the boat. There was nothing else living caught in the net and the living took priority. I heard the powerful engines of the Sulaco

I am dreaming again, sitting on a jetty I have never seen. “There is something truly unique about you, your capacity to care so very much,” she said in my dream, voice smooth as aged scotch with a touch of roughness. Her braids wove around her as she paced, always moving like a shark. “I have never known if that was good or bad.” “Given my unique lack of strength cost me my son, it’s a bad thing.” I sounded as grief stricken as I felt, rage a sharp undercurrent in my tone. I was an adult in this dream, wearing the attire I wore when diving with the research team. The black and green suit clung to my body everywhere except my back, where a hole let my tendrils out. There were no marks on my bare arms or wrists, not like when I was awake. #40 shook her head sadly. “That is not what I meant, little sister. You care about life, even if it bites you like your Star did.” “Even white sharks feel grief at the loss of a pack mate, rare though those are. He didn’t mean to hurt me.” I looked

After they’d left, I’d fallen unconscious once more. I woke to frantic voices as Annabella and Maria scrambled to reach the boat, having tracked my phone’s signal. Veronica, Mauricio and I were all groaning in pain as Annabella reached the lip of the boat. I coughed and my throat was raw. “They took him, Anna, they took my pup.” “Who?” “Helix,” I said, climbing away from the entangling ropes. Veronica was sitting up and looked cleared headed than I felt. She gasped when she saw me, left arm swelling and right ankle three times its usual size. “They took Helix? Who did?” “Oceana Rescue,” I said with a growl that promised dire things indeed. “You have to help me find them, V. I lost him because I saved you.” “Of course,” she said without hesitation. She slid her body under my right arm, and helped me hobble out of the boat. “Are you okay?” “I’ll heal in about twelve hours,” I said absently, eyes on the Sea but of course the boat was gone. Helix was gone. “I’ll find out who took

I’d told Maria that I didn’t have sisters but that wasn’t quite true. I did, many of them. And a niece too, I guess. If #49 could be called that. She was #40’s daughter and #40 shared a father with me and the others of the 40 series. So technically she was my niece. But the others weren’t the kinds of sisters that most people had. Some of my blooded half sisters were quite mad, others suffered severe Stockholm’s syndrome and loved our creators/captors. Only one other had escaped, the infamous #40. My eldest sister and the one closest to the human meaning of the word. And who knew what else the company had created outside the 40 series. I saw on the shore, looking out over the Sea of Cortez and traced the scars on my left arm with deft fingers. I wouldn’t risk calling Star and Malcom in to shore until I’d caught those that had sent the wave. A dream the night before had been most illuminating. *INSERT DREAM

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of activity. Two more refugee boat rescues, though thankfully both were under ten people, so easy to have cetaceans help them to shore from under the surface and avoid being seen. These happened at night and the news of strange activity among the animals of the Sea of Cortez was mostly overlooked because of some political scandal. Veronica arrived home the day before Maria was to join Mauricio and Annabella and I had some explaining to do to everyone on the research team. We were eating breakfast at our apartment before going to help pick up our new family member (for the research team was more a family than anything) when she snorted over her cup of coffee. “What?” “They’re calling you,” she snorted again, “they’re calling you Maria, Lady of Our Spiders of the Sea of Cortez!” I snagged the paper from her then wanted to bang my head on the wall. People talked, of course they did, and a tabloid got enough readers on it for the local papers to pick it

She led me up to her hotel room, sliding a key card into the door and ushered me inside as if she was afraid I would disappear. Got to admit, the idea sounded tempting. But no, running away from her after she’d risked her life to help me save another would be intolerable. I did make her take a shower to get warmed up first though and put in an order to room service for hot cocoa and brownies. I’d heard the procedure on a few television shows and it was easy. The warm drinks and sweets arrived just as she finished dressing and I made her start in on them before I started in my background. She was seated on the only bed in the room, mug on the bedside table, eyes trained on me. After pulling the curtains to the balcony closed, securing the inside release only locks on the main door and adjoining room door, I took off my backpack and set it next to my other stuff on the table. Stretching my tendrils out behind me, I began to explain. An Arctic expedition had discovered the resting

“What did you do to my dog?” That’s the yelling I woke up to a couple days after meeting my Grandmother. I’d exhausted myself swimming, communing with the sea life, blasted myself twenty feet out of the water, you know, normal stuff. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and headed up to the deck to find… well… huh. Peter and Maria were standing on either side of something that may have at one point been a canine puppy. It was still furry and black but instead of being about 45cm tall, it was 2m at the shoulder with four eyes. Trails of vapor streamed from the beast, giving him a mirage-like quality as he stood there, three tongues lolling out of his mouth. At least someone looked happy. “He isn’t always going to look like this,” Peter told the irate teenager. He snapped his fingers to get Jonesy’s attention then held up a chunk of fish. “Jonesy, shift puppy!” The mist coalesced to cover the beast before melting away to reveal the five-month-old puppy we’d come to know and love. He

Peter was still furious over the attack a few days later, putting that energy to use as he pulled a net out by hand to feed to my crane. Maria and I were in the water, lit by the late afternoon sun, her with a snorkel and me doing my hybrid thing as we pulled animals out of the net. A small pod of common dolphins swam around us, their white splashed sides giving them a panda-like look. Maria surfaced above me and slapped the water twice, bringing me up next to her. She was holding a small dolphin in her arms, kicking furiously to keep it at the surface. I drained my lungs and took the dolphin from her so she could float for a moment. Her breathing was heavy as she spoke. “Found him-“ gasp, “in one of the folds right-“ gasp, “before Peter pulled it on board.” I slipped a hand under a fluke to feel for the pulse and it was there, a bit erratic but there. The dolphin pup’s breathing was ragged and that concerned me far more. It must have swallowed or inhaled water while tangled in

I’m not quite sure how Gwen manages to make things sound thrilling, tragic, adventuresome, whatever. So, I’m going to just write like me and we’ll see where this goes. After I got off the phone with Gwen and Peter, I was surprised over the puppy, devastated for Gwen’s loss of communication with oceanic animals and elated over the proposal. Talk about emotional whiplash. I was still torn between the two when I met Mauricio on the deck after pulling on the day’s swim leggings, dive boots and rash guard. We were anchored over a reef portion we were currently counting. It had been set up as a sanctuary two years ago and was rebounding from overfishing beautifully. We were doing a predator count because they’re one of the key red flags for an ecosystem and been asked if the reef could sustain tourism diving operations which could be annoying during breeding seasons but otherwise were a great way to help locals make money off the Sea without destroying it. Sharks live, people live