Lani laughed, short and bitter. “Wow. I can’t tell if that’s his tomcat way of giving you a dead mouse so you’ll love him again, or if it’s him trying to get you killed so he can move on. Want to take a bet?”
It was Jillian’s turn to say nothing and look silently at her daughter. Lani looked away first.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was mean.”
“Something being mean doesn’t mean it isn’t true. You know your father and I love each other. We always will. Sometimes loving each other isn’t enough to make up for all the things you know about another person.”
She knew Theo had sold his freedom, his integrity, and even his original face to Imagine, allowing them to sculpt her rough-and-tumble eco-warrior husband into the perfect, poised assistant, not a hair out of place, not a harsh word on his lips. He knew she’d sent the entire crew of the Atargatis to their deaths while she stood safe on the shore, blissfully removed from the carnage. What was the point in finalizing their divorce? They would always be married where it counted, in the horrors they had shared.
“You’re really going to go?”
Jillian nodded. “I have to. This is my chance to set things right. If I don’t take it, I might as well go home and sign those divorce papers right now, because I’m never going to be this brave again.”
“Mom.” Lani closed the distance between them and looped her arms around her mother’s shoulders. After a second’s surprised blinking, Jillian embraced her daughter in return, pulling her close, breathing in the good, salty smell of her skin, so like the sea, so unlike anything else in the world.
They held their embrace for what felt like forever, Jillian relaxing until the world was right for the first time in years. She was with her daughter, the floor rocking beneath their feet as a steady reminder that they were at sea. Lani had grown up on boats like this one, refitted whaling boats, scientific research vessels, yachts—anything that would set sail, that would get their little family away from the land and out to sea where they belonged. All the good memories Jillian had of her family had taken place at sea.
“Be careful out there,” Lani said, pulling away. “I know you want to make things right, but I don’t … If you have to go, I want you to come home again.”
“I will, sweetie,” said Jillian. “You know I will. I’m a scientist, remember? Imagine knows what’s out there this time. I’ll be fine.”
Her words hung between them, holding every hallmark of a lie. There was no way to prove it, and so they simply smiled at each other and let the moment go.
ZONE TWO: PHOTIC
Are mermaids real? Yes. Are mermaids friendly? No. Why is this so hard?
—Dr. Jillian Toth
Mankind has a responsibility to the sea. We owe it our lives.
—Theodore Blackwell
… by placing responsibility for the failure of the Atargatis mission on the members of her crew, or better yet, on mechanical failure, Imagine might have been able to avoid being tarred in the eyes of the world. After all, the company had hired the best of the best to sail that ill-fated voyage; they could hardly be held responsible for what happened to the ship after it was outside the range of easy rescue. They could have gotten away clean, had they been a little less devoted to doing the jobs that we, the public, had asked them to do:
We had asked them to entertain us. They were dedicated to doing exactly that. To putting the world on film and casting it in a fantastic light for our amusement. In order to accomplish this, there were no fewer than a dozen cameras running on the Atargatis at any given time.
There was no chance Imagine could avoid culpability in the matter of the Atargatis mission. The courts might have been willing to forgive them, but the people never did. For James Golden, prison might have been kinder.
—From Imagine: Fall of an Empire, by Peter Giles, originally published 2019
What you have to understand about the mermaid legend is that it’s universal. No matter where you go, the mermaids got there first. Even inland, if there’s a big-enough lake, I guarantee you there’s a local community with a story about women in the water with beautiful voices who lure men to their deaths.
Where there’s water, we find mermaids. Maybe it’s time we started asking ourselves exactly why that is.
—Transcript from the lecture “Mermaids: Myth or Monster,” given by Dr. Jillian Toth
CHAPTER 6
San Diego, California: August 18, 2022
Sunrise painted the sky over the San Diego harbor rosy pink and dandelion gold. The sea was a burnished sheet of silver, motionless to the naked eye. A few sailboats dotted the horizon, but it was otherwise an abandoned frontier, waiting for the Melusine to get under way.
Like most vessels of her size, the Melusine bore a striking resemblance to a floating hotel. The staterooms facing the water—some intended for occupation, others for use as labs during the voyage—were set back from the hull, creating balcony-like “halls” separated from the sea by intricate railings. Each deck’s ceiling was the next deck’s floor, until the top, with its wide open spaces, put an end to the wedding cake–esque assembly. It was huge and grand, designed as much for stunning presence as for functionality.
Two figures stood on the fourth deck. A slender, unsmiling slip of a woman, pale blonde hair blowing in her eyes, a microphone in her hand, and a tall, cheerfully chubby man with a handlebar mustache, holding a camera. The woman was all in white—white slacks, a white corset top, white high-heeled shoes utterly impractical for her shipboard setting—while the man was more relaxed in board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
“We’re good in five, four, three …” The man counted off the last two numbers on his fingers.
When he hit “one,” the woman’s face blossomed into a welcoming smile that invited viewers to ask about her day or tell her about their D&D characters. Olivia Sanderson, geek goddess and current professional face of the Imagine Network, had been honing her image for years and knew exactly what balance to strike in order to get her point across.
“This is Olivia, coming to you from the deck of the Melusine. This mighty research vessel has been constructed for a single essential purpose: to return to the Mariana Trench and finally answer the question of what happened to our friends, our companions, and our idols those seven years ago.” She paused, letting her expression go wistful, feeding the camera several seconds of empty space.
(That empty space was a calculated choice on the part of her editors, who had asked for it specifically. It would be replaced with a clip of the original research team waving to another camera, in another time. Connect to the past but represent the future and the world can be yours.)
Returning to the present, Olivia summoned back her smile, which was even brighter this time. “What is the Melusine, you might ask? As the largest privately owned research vessel in the world, this floating city has a crew of over two hundred, and an occupant capacity of almost a thousand. We’re sailing with only four hundred people, a mixture of crewmen, scientists, researchers, animal behaviorists, and, of course, our camera crew. I’ll be your guide through this voyage, translating our findings for the layman, while Professor Pixels back at headquarters will be taking you through the science. You’re a part of this journey as much as any of the people on board, and with your help we can answer the mystery of what happened to the Atargatis once and for all.”
She stopped, still smiling. Ray flashed her a thumbs-up.
“You’re clear,” he said, lowering the camera. “Good work.”
“I didn’t sound too treacly?”
“Not at all. You didn’t sound like you were about to start ripping out throats with your teeth either. You found the balance, and you held it.” Ray hit the button to upload his footage to the cloud, where the techs at Imagine could grab it and start getting it ready for prime time. Nothing would be released until they had proof the mermaids were out there, but once they did, the programming directors wanted to be ready to roll. Imagine wou
ld be all-mermaid, all-the-time before the non-Imagine media had a chance to catch their breath. “You want me to get you some establishing shots of the dock? People should start getting here anytime.”
“Just give me a second,” said Olivia.
Ray nodded. “All right. I’ll be checking light levels on the water if you need me.” He wandered a few feet down the deck and pointed his camera at the ocean, giving her the space she needed.
Olivia was grateful, even as she knew Ray would tell her she didn’t need to be if she mentioned it. She was always grateful. He’d been assigned to her when she did her first San Diego Comic-Con report, a skinny nineteen-year-old dressed like Emma Frost, trying to get people to talk to her microphone and not her tits. She’d been terrified, right until she’d realized that somehow her genial, nonthreatening cameraman had pulled himself up another foot and developed the sort of shoulders that would give a linebacker pause. He was her protector when she needed one and her friend when she needed one of those even more.
Ray was the reason the two of them had been the first non–crew members to set foot on the Melusine. One of his cousins worked for the company supplying the mess, and he’d been able to talk their way into their cabins a day early. That gave them a night to walk the ship without fear of tripping over someone who was trying to do serious work. Half of the news was about being prepared.
The other half was about looking good on camera. Olivia pulled out her compact, checking that her lip gloss was even and her eye shadow was unsmudged. She needed to make a good first impression with the people she was about to sail with. Speaking of …
A black town car pulled up at the barrier established by Imagine security. The rear doors opened and two people climbed out. The woman was gawky in that seaside way, like she was more comfortable on a surfboard or a ship than she’d ever be on land. She wore khaki slacks and a white polo shirt, and had tanned skin and brownish hair in a ponytail. There was something familiar about the shape of her face, even at this distance.
“Hey, Ray,” said Olivia. She pointed. “Why do I know her?”
“Because that’s Victoria Stewart, Anne’s sister,” said Ray, moving to stand beside her. “I think she goes by Tory, or something like that. She’s our sonar specialist.”
“The man with her?” He was taller, skinnier, and darker skinned, with shaggy black hair and a distracted expression. His clothes were almost identical to Victoria’s, which either meant they came from the same university, or they shared a closet. Given how much longer his legs were, the former seemed like a better bet.
“That’s Luis Martines, her research partner.”
“Another sonography guy?”
“Not quite. Third-generation American, son of Silicon Valley billionaire Antonio Martines and his wife, Marianna Martines. One sister, Angela. He could buy this boat, if he wanted it. He’s less about sonar and more about oceanic megafauna.”
“Oceanic …?”
“Big fucking animals below the surface of the sea. Whales and elephant seals and colossal squid. I read his paper on the probability of a surviving population of megalodon, including predictions of where they’d be found if extant. He’s good. A little immature when it comes to concluding arguments, but he’s got potential.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Could you sound more pretentious if you tried, do you think, or have you reached the limit of your powers?”
“You have yet to see the limit of my powers,” said Ray, and boomed laughter.
Olivia rolled her eyes again, but she was grinning. “I’ve seen a few.”
Ray laughed again, less loudly, and began filming the people below them, resting the camera on his massive shoulder.
Before he’d become a cameraman, Ray had been a mixed martial arts fighter, good enough to make it to the international finals on multiple occasions. He’d been considered a contender for the big titles and the big money that came with them—the sort of money that came with a permanent “get out of jail free” card, the kind that could buy lawyers and mansions and accountants good enough to keep most of it in the pockets of its earner. Then he’d blown out both his knees during a fight, badly enough that it had taken most of the money he’d already socked away to pay for reconstructive surgeries. Oh, his insurance was willing to do enough of the repair to make him functional again, but he didn’t want functional. He wanted to walk and dance and run and live his life as painlessly as possible.
The end result was a miracle of modern medicine, the sort of semibionic implant that would have been a fantasy a decade ago—and which was, amusingly enough, partially funded by grants from Imagine. The company had been investing in medical research since before the Atargatis, paying for the sort of advances that would never make enough money to be viable for publicly traded medical companies, which preferred to focus on wider-spectrum applications. But Imagine was in entertainment. If it wanted to invest in loss leaders and philanthropic therapies, it was welcome to do so. The results were bionic knees and nerve regrowth and genetic treatments for autoimmune disorders, and even though everyone knew the fading health of James Golden was the driving force behind those choices, the world reaped the benefits, and Imagine made millions, while repairing a few of the cracks in its public image.
Ray had finished physical therapy, been certified healthy if no longer fit for the ring, and made his way straight to Imagine headquarters in Burbank, California, to apply for a job. Any job. Whatever they wanted him to do, he was happy to do it, as thanks for the second chance he’d been given. (It didn’t hurt that he’d spent so much of his savings on his new knees that he needed a job that didn’t involve kicking people for money. Something cushy and low impact. After his previous career, anything would have seemed cushy and low impact.)
Some people, seeing a mountain that walked like a man step into the office, would have called security. Others would have smiled and explained that unfortunately, they did not have any job opportunities for natural rock formations. But Theodore Blackwell, smarting from his own most recent surgery, had been at the recruitment desk the day Ray Marino arrived to look for work. He’d looked at the man, at the skills on his résumé, and he’d thought about Imagine’s latest generation of professional faces, the ones who’d been chosen through website participant vote, the ones who trended small and sylph-like and terrifyingly breakable.
“It says here that you took a cinematography class in high school,” he’d said. “Did you enjoy working with the camera?”
“I did,” Ray had replied, surprised. “Why do you ask?”
And Theo had smiled.
Now here they were, years and assignments and Imagine-funded training courses later, and Ray was one of the most in-demand cameramen in the company. His eye for composition was unique and still surprising to viewers, without crossing the line into being difficult to follow. He had a unique visual “voice,” and could have left Imagine for a career in more reputable media. He might have done it too, if not for Olivia. She needed him. She needed the security of a cameraman who understood her, who wouldn’t be put off by her little idiosyncrasies, like her fervent attempts to get to any given site at least a day early. He wasn’t even sure most of the company knew she did that. He’d seen her paying for their first hotel nights on a separate card, one that didn’t bill to Imagine, with a look on her face that was almost ashamed. He hadn’t said anything then, and he wasn’t going to say anything now. She was Olive, she was his partner, and he was going to stay with Imagine for as long as she needed him. Even if it was forever.
Some Imagine porters appeared below, assisting Victoria and Luis with their bags. The town car must have been bigger on the inside than the outside, because the luggage just kept coming, from the expected suitcases and duffel bags to a series of hard-shelled cases that clearly contained scientific equipment.
Next to him, Olivia whistled, long and low. “That’s the case for a Serranko-brand handheld mass spectrometer,” she said. “Those things cost a quarter of a mill
ion dollars, and they’re accurate to point zero one parts per billion. If you fed it the DNA for a specific snake, it could find one scale in a gallon of swamp water.”
“That is some distressingly specific scientific knowledge you’re throwing down, Olive,” said Ray, giving her a sidelong look. “You planning to switch careers on me?”
“Ex-girlfriend used to talk about the Serranko series like they were sex toys,” said Olivia. “I sort of memorized their product catalog for pillow talk. Which means they still send me catalogs. Paper catalogs on this thick, glossy paper that you know costs almost a dollar a page. It’s amazing. It really is science porn.”
“That makes marginally more sense,” said Ray.
Another car pulled up next to the first. A tall, imposingly built woman in a UC Berkeley sweatshirt got out, holding a valise in one hand. She turned toward the Melusine, and not even the distance between them could disguise the hatred in her face. Olivia’s eyes widened.
“Whoa,” she breathed.
“Okay, that’s somebody I don’t want to meet in a dark corridor once we’re out in the middle of the ocean,” said Ray. “I think she might murder someone with a fishhook.”
“Don’t even joke.”
“I’m not even joking.”
Victoria had spotted the newcomer. She was approaching her with hands that were visibly shaking, even at this distance, while Luis trailed along behind.
“What do you think that’s about?” asked Ray.
“That is Dr. Jillian Toth,” said Olivia. She stretched onto her toes and leaned forward, gripping the rail tight, until her feet were on the verge of leaving the deck. Ray fought the urge to grab her and force her feet back down to the ground. She was a big girl. If she wanted to do something ludicrously dangerous, she was allowed.
He did subtly reorient his camera to capture her balancing on the rail like some strange white bird preparing to take flight. Footage of Olivia being whimsical was rare enough to be money in the bank, even if it would have to be stripped of all context before it could be used.