Chapter No. 44 Unclean Spirits

In a small cluttered office deep within a dingy old building, two young men sit at their respective desks and peer at their respective monitors. One has short blond hair, giving him a bald look. His face is gaunt with prominent cheekbones, as if he hadn't eaten for weeks. He smiles, a leering smile, which he aims at the darker-haired man, who is thin but not nearly as gaunt.

"What is it, Hobbes?"

"It appears that mermaids have taken over the Web, Calvin. Sites are appearing at an astounding rate."

"Another form of exploitation. The moneychangers are operating in my father's house."

"Yes, Calvin. They have no right to use these creatures of God to obtain ill-gotten gold. These creatures are the third beast that has a face as a man. They give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne."

"Have you had any success in hacking their web sites?" Calvin asked.

"We would need an army of hackers. The sites are multiplying like the eighth plague. These moneychangers are legion."

"And this Margaret Hauptman is the Harlot of the New Babylon. She and her followers are marked with the sign of the beast. She shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation."

Hobbes shook his head up and down with jerky motions like a puppet. "Yes. We must find that mark and eradicate it. The name of blasphemy must be destroyed."

"Has the Mother of Harlots awakened from her drunken sleep?"

Hobbes snapped a switch, causing a monitor to display a woman's face. The young face was motionless and its eyes hid behind lids.

"Not yet, it seems, dear Calvin."

"A pity. But we will have our time."

"Yes. We will have our day of reckoning when the seventh seal is opened."

###

In a lab deep under the ground in Colorado, a woman is hard at work trying to create plasmids containing the open-reading frames that encode proteins that were removed from mutant frog eggs. After making an entry in her notebook, she opens a drawer and removes a micropipette.

Julius Stram's sudden appearance startles Dr. Helen Strazynski, enough so to drop the pipette.

"Oh, my," she said, rolling her eyes and holding her hand against her chest. "You frightened me."

"I'm sorry." He glanced at the smashed pipette. "I hope that wasn't anything of importance."

She looked down at it. "Not really, unless you have a problem with your equipment budget."

He smiled. "Good. Good."

He met her eyes with his. "How is the work going?"

"Not too bad." She pointed at a small aquarium in the bench behind her. "I've managed to create a Zalophus mutant using DNA fragments from a Rana Clamitans."

Julius bent over to peer into the aquarium. "Ah! You've expressed amphibian forelegs on a seal pup. Very good, Doctor." He turned to give her a smug grin. "But, is it intelligent?"

She beamed a confident grin back at him. "Here, watch this." She held a red card up to the aquarium front. The seal pup immediately swam over to it and exhibited an agitated interest in it. She removed that card and replaced it with a blue card. The pup moved away.

"See?"

"Yes, I see. But, you have a long way to go. Those amphibian appendages are not prehensile and simple color recognition is far from true intelligence."

"I know," she said, sounding much less enthusiastic. "But, at least, it's a start in the right direction."

"I agree," Julius said, trying to build her spirits back up.

He turned to leave, but stopped. "Doctor Strazynski, have you had any experience capturing marine animals?"

She stared at him for a few seconds as if confused. "Why, yes. I worked for Marineland for three years. My main assignment was the acquisition of new specimens."

"Ahh! Then you are familiar with security measures at Marineland?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes, but . . . but, what has that . . ."

"I have a new assignment for you. With your experience, you should find it a great adventure, a challenge worthy of a scientist of your stature."

"You flatter me," she said, feigning modesty by batting her eyelashes at him. "What do you want me to do?"

A wry smile invaded his lips, but it faded. "Do you know anything about the . . . the creatures that are called mermaids?"

"Not really, other than what I've read in the papers."

"I would like you to capture one of these creatures and remove it from Marineland."

"Oh, is that all." She hardened her face. "Isn't that dangerous, not to mention against the law." She gave him a mocking smirk. "Oh, I forgot. Gods don't obey the laws."

"Look, Doctor. If you don't want to do it--"

"I didn't say that," she said with an annoyed voice. "I'm just concerned about the danger. That's all."

He smiled. "You have one thing in your favor, Doctor."

"What's that?"

"You are a female. For some arcane reason, females are tolerated by these creatures."

"That's nice, but how am I supposed to capture one of these . . . these mermaids?"

"You will use a stun gun designed specifically to operate underwater. We've used it to immobilize a great white. A mermaid should be no trouble."

"Assuming I can use it to capture one of the creatures, how am I supposed to get in and out of the Marineland complex without being seen. I'm sure that they have maximum security in place."

"One of our operatives will aid you. He's quite experienced in such matters."

She took a deep breath. "I hope so. It's not going to be easy."

He turned to leave, but paused. "It never is."

She watched him walk away before she returned to her work. She found that there was a slight shake in her hands now.

###

In a small office near a lab deep inside the Pacific Institute of Oceanography a silver-haired woman sits at a cluttered desk and studies a tattered notebook.

Her husband slowly walks up behind her. "What's cooking, Love?"

She doesn't turn around. "Nothing much. I'm trying to see if I can find anything of significance in one of our previous sightings."

"I doubt you'll find anything of value. Our previous sightings were not what you would call quality observations."

She turned to look up into his tired eyes. "Oh, I don't know." She pointed at a hand-written paragraph in the notebook. "This is an entry from six years ago: Sighted a new species sitting on rocks near shore. Species has fluked tails and a hominoid body. Are they mermaids?"

Her husband bent down to get a better look. "No kidding? We actually wrote that six years ago?"

"Yes, we did. Good thing nobody reads our notebooks. They would have thought we took leave of our senses."

"Maybe we should be reading our notebooks. To tell you the truth, Love, I don't remember making an entry like that."

"Well, you did."

He shook his head and sighed. "I guess we relegated that observation to a moment of insanity."

"Yeah, right. We've been arguing about it ever since."

"It's too late now. The cat is out of the bag."

"The cat is not only out of the bag, it's scratched the hell out of everybody and everything." Her face twisted with imagined pain. "I just hate the fact that our actions have resulted in other people getting hurt. It makes me sick."

Eric turned his face away for a few seconds. "I don't like it either, but we're not responsible for what others do."

"If we had kept our mouths shut, nobody would know that these creatures existed. As it was, we had one hell of a time convincing them. And what did we do: We went out our way to argue with them."

"I know," he said, waving his arm. "I know. It's my fault. I was the one that talked you into it."

"It's not all your fault. I allowed you to convince me."

He smiled a smile that was more prominent on one side of his lips. "And here I thought that my powers of persuasion convinced you."

That brought a weak smile to her face.

It faded when Dr. Anderson came into the lab.

"How's Willis doing with the investigation into Kathy's disappearance?" Eric asked before Anderson could say anything.

"Not so good," he said, rubbing his jaw. "There's very little to go on."

"What about the police?" Margaret asked.

"They don't have anything. Willis says that they're considering it a disappearance."

"A disappearance!" Margaret said an octave above her normal tone. "That goddamn Stram has her, and I know from experience that she's not having a good time."

"If Stram is holding her," Anderson said, "it isn't in his usual haunts. There's a good possibility that they've taken her out of the city."

Margaret bowed her head. "If they have, we'll never see her again."

"I'd prefer to remain positive," Eric said. "I can't believe that they would be stupid enough to . . . to kill her."

She stared daggers at him. "Believe me, they are quite capable of killing her. They're crazy."

Anderson's jaw tensed. "Well, I hope not. We don't need any more violence."

Eric raised his finger. "Speaking of violence, have they figured out why those nuts attacked Margaret?"

Anderson rubbed his jaw again. "They're some fringe animal-rights cult. At least that's what the police told Willis."

"Oh, great," Eric said. "It's not enough that we have to put up with Stram. Now we have to watch out for animal-rights nuts. This sure hasn't worked out the way I anticipated."

"There you go again," his wife said in a scolding manner, "being the optimist."

"This has nothing to do with being an optimist. No one would expect to be shot at just because he or she discovered a new species of marine life. You would think that we had committed a crime against humanity."

"In a sense, we have," Anderson said, surprising the Hauptman's.

"How so?" Eric asked.

"We're interfering with nature by protecting a species from extinction, especially one that preys on humans."

Eric couldn't resist arguing. "So what? Man has brought several species back from the brink of extinction. And, as for human-eating species, we protect sharks. Any species that's been around as long as this one has demands respect."

"Yes, but this species is sentient. It should realize that we are also sentient and as such should not be slain for food."

"Obviously, they don't have our moral values. However, we are not helping the situation by causing the extinction of marine species that make up their food stock. Maybe they have no choice but to change their diet to human flesh. We certainly are the more numerous food-stock species on Earth. In fact, we are the only logical substitute food stock."

Anderson flinched. "That's a gloomy thought." He waved his hand, as if he were signaling a fair catch. "Look, I really don't have time to argue philosophy. I've got work to do."

He quickly took his leave.

"Boy," his wife said, "you sure know how to cheer people up."

"Hey, I'm only making a point."

"Some point."

Eric averted his eyes. He realized that the point he had made was grim. It was not in keeping with his optimistic nature. Even worse, he feared that his wife would become disillusioned with her buddies. That was the last thing he wanted.