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The handsome head of the research team led Finral through the chilly corridors of the marine facility. He had introduced himself with a shake of his large warm hand in the reception area as Professor Vermilion, Head of parabiology and aquatic research at the institute, as well as Finral's new boss if he accepted the post. Finral wondered if he could shake his hand again. He was freezing.
"We would be delighted to have you as part of the team. Your references are a little sparse, but at this stage, we're willing to overlook that. The post of night administrator has been hard to fill, and your experience seems good."
Finral knew his references were shocking, but he could not explain to a future employer that his parents were responsible. And aside from his lacklustre degree, his only real experience had been working in the aquarium section of a petting zoo. That had been as demanding and intellectually stimulating as it sounded.
Professor Vermillion halted in front of a heavy metal door and scanned his ID card into a reader alongside. The code he then tapped into the keypad looked like it was made up of twenty-five digits. A red light flickered, and the professor leaned forward to let it scan his eye.
They did not have security like this at the petting zoo.
Beyond were more cold corridors in fashionable concrete tones of grey, mud-grey, dark-grey and beneath the flickering bare bulbs, light-grey. It smelled of seawater. Finral considered the short elevator ride they had taken from the reception area. How far into the water did the facility go, and were they now under the ocean? He shivered and tucked his hands into his armpits.
"We will have to wait for the full security checks to be completed before you are issued ID to allow you to access these areas. Until then, you are to be escorted to your place of work as I am doing. I apologise for the inconvenience. The young lady at the desk will be able to assist you tomorrow."
The young lady in question, Finral's brother's girlfriend, had winked at him as the Professor introduced himself. She was the one who had recommended Finral apply for the vacancy after all.
"Thank you, Professor. Can you tell me more about what you want me to do? The specification was vague. Just something about supervising a research experiment."
The professor might have blushed. "I find it is better to show our new starts, then take questions later."
That was a no then. Finral continued to follow.
Eventually, the professor stopped abruptly in front of another metal door just like a dozen others that they had passed. It was so unexpected that Finral nearly stumbled into the back of him. The door tag read, Room BB, and underneath on a sheet of A4 paper was the note, Strict experimental conditions. Do not enter without authorisation and clearance.
"I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the documentation that you have signed, Mr Roulacase. If you choose not continue with your employment, you will be provided with ten hours pay at the agreed rate, with the understanding that you disclose nothing of what you see within this room."
"I understand," Finral said. But I really need this job, he did not say.
Perhaps the professor understood. "Also, it would be best if you removed your shoes and socks."
"My what?"
There was no answer beyond the shrug of the shoulders. The Professor was already removing his lace up brogues and black socks with embroidered flame motifs. Finral followed suit.
He could not help but be apprehensive about what might be beyond the door. He reminded himself that he could back out at any time, and ten hours pay was more money than he had made in two weeks. But there was something more. Curiosity, perhaps. What the hell was in this room that demanded so much secrecy and security?
Disappointingly, what was beyond the door was another small room with a wash hand basin and coat hooks. The professor placed both sets of shoes beneath the hooks, then removed his corduroy jacket. Finral slipped off his hoodie. The professor inspected him from head to toe, seemed satisfied, then pushed open the inner door to the interesting stuff.
This room was about the size of Finral's apartment. The area closest to the door had a small table with papers, a pile of flashcards and a bucket with contents that swished around. It had been set up to allow whoever occupied the desk chair to observe the aquarium beyond. Although this was an aquarium in the same way a major metropolitan area might also be called a collection of houses. The only similarity to the petting zoo was that there was water behind a glass wall. That had been three touch pools and a sorry looking goldfish. Here, the glass was head height open to the water at the top, and dark within as though it stretched on for miles. It was impossible to say for certain, but Finral got the feeling that there was direct communication with the ocean, although surely this was not just a viewing area for a nondescript patch of seabed.
As he watched, a shape flickered in the shadows, and he instinctively took a step backwards, into a puddle. That explained the socks and shoes. At his side, the professor sighed. "Oh, damn. My apologies. It's going to be the octopus again."
Finral had enough time to wonder what the man meant, before something wet, slimy, with too many limbs was flying through the air towards him. Instinctively, he put out his arms to defend himself from the projectile, but this resulted in the body of the thing hitting his hands, and the long tentacles swinging around his head so that it felt like he was wrapped in a... well. An octopus.
He had to remind himself that they normally only had eight arms as he disentangled himself from what seemed to be three hundred wet, suckered limbs that gripped his hair.
The Professor did not offer any assistance. Instead, by the time Finral had removed enough of the creature that he could see again, the other man was standing on a small stepladder so that he could look into the gently lapping water. "That is very impolite," he said in an exasperated tone.
Perhaps the water became more agitated in response, it was hard to tell with the head of an octopus obscuring Finral's left eye, but there was no other reaction.
The octopus was beautiful, Finral thought. He had always liked them and found them fascinating. They were one of the reasons he had studied marine biology in the first place. Admittedly, he preferred them in the water than slapped across his face, but it was hard not to be impressed by the muscular arms and the flickering colour changes as the poor creature tried to escape his grip. "Umm. Where do I put this?"
"What?" the Professor said.
"The octopus?"
"Oh, well, whatever you want. Normally we just put them back when he throws them on the floor."
He? Throws? Yeah, that made no sense, but deal with the flailing sea creature first. "Sorry, Mr Octopus," Finral said to it. "Do you want to go back in the water?"
The octopus flashed orange and attempted to remove Finral’s eye with one of its arms.
"Whatever is in there won't try to throw it back out again?"
"Possible. We're not sure if it’s always the same octopus or not."
"That sounds like a tough lot, Mr Octopus." Finral tried to extract himself from enough of the arms so that he could put it back into the water, but it only tied him up tighter. He sensed a reluctance, so he took one of the spare buckets, rinsed it in the tank water, then filled it half full. The octopus slipped in gratefully.
"The last new start threw the octopus onto the floor, vomited, then ran back to the parking lot. She reported us to the SPCA," the Professor said.
Finral shrugged and patted the side of the bucket fondly. "I really need this job. And it isn't the worst thing I've had thrown at me." Not a lie. Langris was his brother after all.
"Very good. Very good. I guess I should tell you about your duties then. I assume you have questions?"
So many questions.
And, oh, God. Let's start with, ‘What the fuck is that?’ Because something was emerging from the water...
Finral’s first thought was 'human'.
It appeared human shaped. The hair was dark and unruly, and somehow, despite just emerging from the water, stuck up at absurd gravity defying angles. The face was square and the features almost coarse, but that could have been the scowling expression. The eyes were narrowed and the irises so dark as to be black.
Then shoulders. Wow. They went on forever, broad and muscular with dense scars crisscrossing the surface. A jagged star shape scar below the left collar bone was red and swollen. Finral thought back to university lectures and made a guess that it was a harpoon wound. The muscles on that side were less pronounced too.
A tail.
A thick fish body with dark scales was pressed against the glass. Without thinking, Finral took a step forward to see better. The scales were almost black and tipped with highlighted gold that caught in the reflected light from the desk lamp. The scales continued for more than two meters before the transition into fine fins that swirled in the currents like gossamer on the wind.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him. It was the Professor and he was making an unprofessional squeaking noise that might have been, "Stand back, stand back."
Human on the top half. Fish on the bottom half.
"Is that a..." Finral started to say.
The professor squashed a hand across his mouth. "Don't say it. Best if you don't even think it."
Mermaid, Finral completed in his head. A mermaid.
The apparition's expression shifted. Instead of the angry scowl, it suddenly grinned. There were a lot of teeth in its mouth.
No. Not an ‘it’. A ‘he’. Definitely a 'he'. Finral felt his skin flush as he had the sudden thought that this was a very attractive, beautiful ‘he’, despite the coarseness of the features, the sharp teeth and the, well, tail. He imagined touching the gossamer fins, or the unruly hair and....
Finral! How long had it been? Was he really so starved of... well, everything, that he could look at this half-man, half-fish and think, wow, you're gorgeous.
The half-man, half-fish, don't-call-him-a-mermaid, threw back his head and laughed as though Finral was the funniest thing he had ever seen. The professor made another noise, let go of Finral's face and began to panic at the laptop sitting on the desk.
"Communication programme. Why does it always take so long to load... Come on...."
Finral ignored him, because the half-man, not-a-mermaid put out his hand and gestured towards the bucket that held the octopus.
"You want it back?" Finral asked.
The not-a-mermaid made a grabbing motion at the bucket. That was clear. The computer made a startup sound that he ignored.
"You aren't going to throw it back at me again, are you?"
There was another tooth-filled grin, and the gesture was repeated.
"Well. Okay. Sure, I guess. But you shouldn't throw things at people. Especially not living things. How would you like it?"
The Professor made another strangled squawking noise, but Finral was too busy concentrating on the not-a-mermaid who had tilted his head to one side to inspect Finral closer.
Finral picked up the bucket. In either the bravest, or most foolhardy thing he had every done in his life, he stepped towards the tank.
Mine, a computer generated voice said from the laptop. As if Finral could not translate the grabbing motion for himself.
"Well, if it was yours, you shouldn't have thrown it at me."
The not-a-mermaid laughed again, and Finral realised his mistake.
The not-a-mermaid was not referring to the octopus.
A cold wet hand landed on Finral’s head and strong powerful fingers wrapped into his hair. He had the image of being picked up and tossed across the room the same as the octopus. When would his life start flashing before his eyes because he was going to crash into a wall and die a terrible death? He dropped the bucket and felt cold-water splash against his leg. Hopefully Professor Vermillion would rescue the octopus.
Instead of being lifted from the ground, though, the not-a-mermaid tugged Finral's hair so that he had to look up. He was looking down at Finral. The eyes that he had thought were black irises were in fact all black, with a hint of gold around the pupils. They were deep and full of intelligence. This was not a mindless sea creature. The not-a-mermaid was smart and probably very, very dangerous. Finral felt like his brain was being unwrapped and inspected. Every secret he had was exposed to those dark eyes. Embarrassing moments, that time in third grade with Finesse Calmreich, everything his brother ever said to him, the condemnation of his parents was all on show. His failure of a life was an open book for the eyes to read.
He was held for what seemed like forever. He should want to pull away and escape the way the last employee had. Run away and never come back. It was the sensible thing that his brother would have done. But Finral did not. He stayed still.
The not-a-mermaid could see all the things that he was, and yet...
Mine, said the computer voice again.
The Professor was speaking. Finral had been unable to hear him over the intensity of the not-a-mermaid’s stare at first, but now his words were audible. "Incredible. Never had anything like this happen before." Then. "Don't move too much. I need to get the appropriate data and..."
Boring two-legs. Stop words. the computer said.
The Professor stopped talking.
"Umm. Did he tell you to shut up?" Finral asked quietly. The not-a-mermaid grinned that tooth filled smile again and gripped Finral's hair harder.
Noise words. Many noise words stop.
Yeah. The Professor was being told to shut up.
Finral had not been told to shut up. Perhaps he was meant to speak now. "So. You're kinda hurting my hair. So you know."
Octopus catcher. Mine.
He had been called worse things. The fingers did not loosen their grip. "It's nice to meet you too. My name is Finral. Do you have a name? Well, I guess of course you have a name, but are you allowed to tell me?"
Me. Great Bull Captain of the Ocean, said the computer. You. Octopus Catcher. Mine.
The Professor made another squawking noise and Finral could hear a pen scribbling across paper as he wrote frantic notes.
"Does that mean you want me to come in the water? Because I can swim, but don't think I could survive very long..."
The rest of Finral's protests were cut off by more raucous laughter. Then the not-a-mermaid released his hair and used one hand to lift Finral into the air by the waist. His feet were a good meter off the ground when the not-a-mermaid pointed to Finral's bare feet. No tail, the computer voice said. Legs. What was it about stating the obvious today?
Without warning, the hand around Finral's waist released and he landed in the puddle on the concrete floor. Mine, the computer generated voice said again. The large hand ran through his hair one more time, then there was a splash from the tank and the not-a-mermaid was gone.
Finral gave himself a moment to recover his senses, before wiping off most of the water and pulling himself up to stand.
Professor Vermillion was staring. "You..." he began.
Subject no longer present, the computer voice interrupted. Session terminated.
"You," the Professor said again. "You..."
He seemed to be struggling. Finral shrugged and said, "So, I guess that didn't happen with the last new start?"
Finally, the Professor collected his wits and closed his gaping mouth. "No. Not at all."
He looked like he needed a strong cup of tea. Finral was not used to taking control of situations, but on this occasion, there was no alternative. "I'm going to fetch the octopus, then you are going to answer my questions."
He collected the octopus from under the desk it had escaped to. It was understandably reluctant to be returned to the large tank, so he let it slide into the bucket to sit at the bottom and glare as its colours shifted. "We’ll find a safe tank for you," he told it. He thought the octopus looked relieved.
The professor was still staring. For a second, Finral wondered if he would have to fit the taller man into a bucket and carry him too. The image made him smile. "Have you got a canteen or something? You could explain over tea?"
And that was how Finral found himself sitting on a cold metal chair, with a bucket of octopus beside him. Professor Vermillion’s assistant researcher, who introduced himself as Leo, and Finral's brother's girlfriend Mimosa sat on the other side of the table. Mimosa poured out tea, while Leo provided the biscuits.
"So," Leo said with a huge grin. "The subject talked to you?" They had managed to get this much out of the Professor. Mimosa was attempting to revive him with a little extra in the tea mug.
"He threw an octopus at me."
"He caught it," Professor Vermillion stammered. "No one has ever caught it before."
"Well, technically, it got tangled on my face," Finral said with a shrug, then addressed the creature in the bucket. "Didn't you?" It shifted from grey to orange then back to grey in response.
"But the subject talked to you? The software worked."
"I think so? He told the Professor to shut up."
Leo laughed and high fived Mimosa. "I told you it was intelligent."
"Umm. I don't think he's an 'it'. He said his name was Great Bull Captain of the Ocean."
Now it was Mimosa and Leo's turn to gape.
"A name," the Professor said into his mug of tea. "The subject has a name."
"Yeah. And he called me Octopus Catcher. So, what is he? Why is he in that tank?"
Mimosa and Leo told the story, because the Professor was still staring into his mug as though it contained answers to questions he had never thought to ask.
The creature had been found by Leo and the Professor's elder sister. Finral knew her name because anyone with even a passing interest in marine science would recognise it. Academics would claim that it was her contribution to the research that they appreciated, but they all followed her blogs and vid channels too. Mereo V. was a legend. Having met Professor Vermillion, Finral would never have guessed that the V. in, Fiery Lion Lady Mereo V. Explores the Ocean and Deals Out Justice, stood for the same surname as this guy.
Although, they were both very handsome.
Oh, God, Finral. Concentrate.
Mereo had found the subject while investigating what she had expected to be an illegal whaling operation. A local doctor had put her onto the case after unusual injuries had been reported among deep sea fishermen off the Norwegian coast. She had tracked their boat to the area of an unexplored deep-sea trench, where she had watched long enough to see them launch a harpoon and haul something towards their deck. Then she had boarded their boat, and singlehandedly taken down the half dozen whalers. Once the miscreants were contained in their own dredging nets, she checked what they had been reeling in.
Caught on the end of the harpoon, about twenty meters from the boat, was the subject.
He had tried to free himself from the harpoon, but it had been tipped with some kind of rapid acting sedative. It... no, he, Mimosa corrected herself quickly, was becoming weaker. Without knowing his physiology, Mereo V. had been afraid that he would drown much like a whale or dolphin would if knocked unconscious while in the ocean. She had pulled him onto the whalers’ boat, then performed emergency surgery to remove the harpoon. She had wanted to release him straight back into the ocean, but he did not wake up and she was concerned about the wound and blood loss. The whalers admitted that they had known what they were hunting and had use enough sedation to 'knock out a blue whale.'
Mereo V. brought the subject to the research facility and the medical area that they used to nurse deep sea creatures back to health or study their behaviour. The tank that Finral had seen was actually a glass facade onto the ocean. The professor and Mereo V. had hoped that when the subject (Great Bull Captain of the Ocean, Mimosa prompted Leo) recovered from the effects of the drugs, and then the harpoon wound, he would leave and return to his natural habitat. The professor had been upset at the thought that they would lose such a specimen for study, but Mereo V. had been as stubborn as expected. She would only leave the subject (Great Bull Captain of the Ocean, Mimosa said again) here if he was able to leave whenever he wished.
And that was the problem. Great Bull Captain of the Ocean had been here for weeks and shown no interest in leaving. Leo had started to design software to communicate with him because he was sure that there were signs of intelligence and a desire to communicate. Mimosa said that they were being studied rather than the other way around. The Great Bull Captain of the Ocean tended to get disagreeable when there was no one in the viewing area when he visited, hence the need to man the room twenty-four hours a day.
Which was where Finral was supposed to come in.
Finral nodded through this explanation. By the end he was just as bemused as before, but also fascinated. The octopus put a tentacle out of the bucket and stroked his leg. Finral patted it absently. "But what is he?"
Mimosa replied. "Looking through the xenobiology archives, we thought what everyone would think. Merman. You know, tail, half person, half fish. It fit."
"Only, just don't say that down there. It... he gets angry. He threw a crab at Mimosa's brother when he said it last time." A crab did not sound as bad as an octopus, Finral thought, until Leo clarified. "A Japanese spider crab."
Oh. Right.
"The closest thing we can find instead is a siren," Mimosa said. "He doesn't seem to mind that name so much."
-
This was the story of how Finral found himself working the best paid job of his pitiful career. Or, he suspected, anyone's career because Professor Vermillion was so grateful for Finral's presence that he paid more per hour than Finral received per shift in his last employments. It helped, Mimosa explained, that the research facility had a research budget equivalent to a medium sized country's yearly income.
Finral spent his nights hanging out in the tank room. He could watch movies, play games, read books or anything he fancied. His only duty was to ensure that the laptop was turned on to record when the Captain showed up. It was the first thing he did when he heard the water pattern change and the translation software was improving with the extra data. It had shortened <i>Great Bull Captain of the Ocean</i> to <i>Captain</i>, but, despite Finral's insistence, he was always known as Octopus Catcher. It probably helped that the octopus refused to return to the water with the siren so now lived in a large aquarium behind Mimosa's desk during the day and accompanied Finral in its bucket at night. Being ordered around by an octopus felt strangely normal.
Leo and Mimosa were proved correct. The Captain was both intelligent and curious. As the weeks progressed there could be little doubt that the siren was learning more about the humans than they were learning about him. Finral was permitted to discuss anything he wanted, and the Captain was interested in a bizarre collection of items.
He disregarded the laptop and Finral's phone with the merest glances but enjoyed experimenting with the teapot and mug. That would make sense. What use would a sea creature have for something that could hold water in it? The Professor provided waterproof pens and a board, in the hope that the Captain would use them for some deeply profound scientific breakthrough. Instead, once the Captain worked out how to use the pen, he began to draw what looked to Finral like rude pictures of the Professor and the octopus. One of them illustrated something that was most definitely illegal and probably impossible with only eight tentacles. It made Finral blush so hard that the Captain laughed. The pictures got worse after that. Sometimes the pictures did not look like Professor Vermilllion at all.
And if Finral enjoyed his time with the Captain more than he should, and allowed his imagination to get carried away with the image of broad shoulders, black on gold eyes and gossamer fins, then that never, ever needed to be known outside Finral’s own head. They were secrets he would take to the grave.
-
The comfortable routine was disrupted on the morning that Mimosa dropped a laptop on the canteen table. It made Finral's post-nightshift coffee jump and spill a little. He grabbed it to save the precious caffeine, even if the coffee itself was as terrible as canteen coffee everywhere.
"I think he reads minds," she declared.
"What?"
"The Captain, Great Captain Bull whatever of the Ocean. I think he's reading your mind." She pressed play on the video showing the familiar room. The Captain was lounging on the rim of the glass with his tail flicking in the water, while Finral was...
Finral's brain stopped working. All external sensory information was blindsided by the realisation.
Oh. God. Reads. Minds.
He might be reading my mind.
No, Finral's brain supplied. He is reading your mind. Of course he was. It made sense. The pictures he drew and the…
The things Finral thought. The Captain knew.
He knew what Finral thought.
Oh.
Shit.
Mimosa was talking. She was pointing at the laptop, oblivious to Finral's short circuit.
Concentrate.
He knows, Finral’s brain helpfully added.
The octopus wrapped a tentacle around his ankle in sympathy.
He knows.
"... and if you see here, he's reacting to your anecdote, but there isn't..."
"Can he," gulp. God, Finral get it together. "Can he.... Is it just..."
"Well, you're the one I have the most data points on, but there's evidence that he..."
Did this mean that the picture the Captain drew yesterday of Finral and...
Could the ground swallow him now?
Mimosa clicked her fingers in front of his nose. "Finral. Are you okay?"
"Umm. No. I don't think... I... I need to go. Thanks. Sorry. I'm... I'll see you later."
And he ran.
Finral was good at running away. According to his brother it was how he coped with every difficult thing in his life, and although Finral would have liked to disagree, Langris did have a point. It was how he ended up working in the petting zoo in the first place, after all.
The Captain could read his mind. Finral could never go back.
Three days later, it should have been no surprise to anyone that he was still holed up in his apartment. He had allowed his phone to run out of battery, kept the door locked and curtains closed despite the knocks and ringing doorbell. If the ground would refuse to swallow him up, he would let his duvet and sofa do it. There was only one person who might have been able to shake him out of his panic and that person was in another country and would never deign to walk up the miserable stairs to Finral's deadbeat apartment just to...
"Finral Roulacase. If you don't open this door right now, I will blow it up. Don't think I won't."
Ah. That showed what Finral knew about predicting his brother’s behaviour. "Langris?"
"I know you're in there. I’ll give you the count of four, and then you'll have to explain to your landlord why his apartment has a hole instead of a door. One..."
Finral scrambled out of the duvet and tumbled off the sofa.
"Two."
"Langris. Don't." Finral said, even though Langris would not be able to hear Finral through the door, duvet and the pile of carpet that he was now trying to get off his face.
"Three."
Langris was saying, "Fo....," when Finral reached the door and tugged it open before it became a pile of ash. Langris stood on the threshold, looking very smug. He tucked a plastic box marked <i>DO NOT TOUCH if you want to keep your hands,</i> back into his rucksack. Making boxes of explosives was a terrible use of a very expensive education, Finral thought as he pulled himself up to stand. Who even brings explosives to visit their brother?
"Hi," Finral muttered.
"You're making my girlfriend and boyfriend sad. Stop it."
"I thought you were on a work trip?"
"I was," Langris said as he pushed past Finral into the apartment. "Yuno chartered a plane to bring me back. I crossed time zones to do this so you had better agree to sort this shit out so that I can sleep in my own bed. Or I will blow up your... oh my god. Is that your sofa? Underneath, that? That's so unhygienic, Finral. How can you live here?"
"I, I've been thinking about stuff."
"Yes, Yes, I know." Langris shoved the offending trash from the sofa onto the growing pile of take-out containers, magazines and cartons of juice already on the floor. Once he inspected the cleared area, his nose curled up and he crossed his arms. He did not sit. "Mimosa says their fish man or whatever he is," he pulled out his phone and consulted a message. "Is missing you."
"Missing me?"
"Those exact words. Missing you.” He waved the phone at Finral. “So, get your ass back there and sort this out."
"But. He. I. They said he can read my mind. You have no idea what... what I might have been thinking."
If it was possible for Langris's nose to curl further, it managed. "I am still traumatised by finding your stash of, well, let’s call it personal interest material when I was fourteen. I know exactly what you were thinking. And somehow, that brute of a sea creature read your mind and all its absurd fetishes and doesn't want to swim into the Mariana trench like any sensible sea monster. Instead, he bonded and calls you ‘mine’. He's so upset that you ran away and hid in this hovel that he’s kidnapped a professor and mostly destroyed an entire scientific facility."
"The Captain did that? I thought you said he was missing me."
"Yes. Missing you so much that he destroyed a scientific facility and kidnapped a professor. Aren't you listening? Even after he read your mind and found it full of personal interest material, he's still missing you." Langris yawned. "Tell me you're going back so that I can go to bed."
"But..."
"If I have to go to bed on my own because Mimosa's too worried to come too, then I'll be very cross. You still have that toy sheep from when you were three? I could blow that up."
"Leave little Charmy out of this. You aren't giving me any choice, are you?"
"Hell, no. I flew across half the globe to do this. Of course you aren't getting any choice. There's a car outside."
Langris did not accept any of Finral's protestations, and marched his brother out of the apartment as he muttered about hiring a cleaner. He was not quite gripping Finral's ear, but it felt like he wanted to.
The car was as lavish as Finral might have expected from a research group that could own a small country. The door was held open by...
"Hi Finral."
"Mimosa?"
"We're glad you're coming back. The Captain has missed you so much."
"Langris said he kidnapped the Professor? And destroyed things."
"We're sure my cousin has been well looked after, but he's probably fed-up eating seafood by now. And we'll need to get you a new office that isn't full of glass and water and bits of crab. But you're back and that's all that matters."
She did not ask why he had run in the first place. Langris was silent in the front seat as she drove back. He would likely explain once he had Mimosa and Yuno to himself later, in that bed he kept mentioning, probably. Finral's face flushed red, so he looked out the window and tried to avoid looking at his brother and his girlfriend for the familiar thirty-minute drive. Not that Finral ever drove it. He took the bus.
The facility looked much the same when the car stopped at the entrance. Finral opened his door. Neither Langris nor Mimosa did the same. "Aren't you coming?" Finral asked.
Langris growled. Mimosa giggled at him. She was only one of two people could survive laughing at Langris. "I don't think so," she said. "I made a promise."
"You did. Go and sort out your shit," Langris grumbled, only slightly less aggressively than his growl.
"Oh. Okay. Well, thanks, I guess and I'm sorry for...."
"Get out the car, Finral."
No one, not even Mimosa or Yuno would argue with that tone. Finral hurried out of the car and shut the door as fast as he could. Mimosa lowered her window. "Thank you Finral. We really appreciate it." She patted Langris's head. "Both of us, don't we, sweetheart. See you later."
The window rolled up, so Finral missed whatever Langris said in reply.
Leo met Finral at the front door. If he had thought that Mimosa was glad to see him, it was nothing to her cousin. "Oh, Finral," Leo said as he threw himself into Finral's arms for a hug. "Thank goodness you're back." He said more, but it was hard to understand, muffled against Finral's shirt.
"Hi, Leo." Finral patted him awkwardly on the back. "I... I needed to sort some stuff out in my head."
Leo released his grip and stood straight. He placed his hand onto Finral's shoulder and began to direct him into the facility. "I understand. He's, been, well. Drawing. You. Lots of pictures of you, and him…"
"Oh. God." All the blood in Finral's body rushed to his face. "He. Drew me?"
"He's really missed you," Leo said, and did not elaborate. Nor did he remove his hand from Finral's shoulder or allow Finral to slow despite the way his feet felt like they were stuck to the floor.
As they walked, subtle signs of disturbance became clearer. The corridors were empty for a start. That was not unusual for Finral’s shifts, but he was only here during the night. There should have been people here in the middle of the day. Then there were the fine cracks in the concrete walls, puddles where there had not been puddles before and lights that flickered or were unlit.
The Captain had really missed Finral.
The door into the tank room where Professor Vermillion had left his shoes on Finral's first day was open. More accurately, it was hanging off its hinges in a way that looked like it would never close again. The surface was pitted with holes as though projectiles had been fired into it and the floor was scattered with rocks and shells. The door beyond, however was firmly shut.
"Are you sure about this?" Finral asked Leo as they stopped. "I could make this worse."
"I don't think so. Even if you could ask the Captain to give my brother back, that would be great. I've got a grant application to submit that needs his signature."
"You aren't worried about him?"
Leo laughed. "Worried? No. We can see him on the videos and he's fine. He does put his hands over his ears a lot, so we think the Captain's singing to him, but judging by the expression it's more like offensive football chants than mythical siren song. I'd give anything to get access to the audio, but it's probably waterlogged and ruined."
"And you think I should go in there and talk to him?"
"Talk to him. Draw pictures. Something. But, Finral,” Leo became very serious. "If you decide to do what the Captain wants and try out some of the artwork yourselves, the main camera feed is above the door. You should turn it off."
Finral vowed to do exactly that, perhaps once he had burned all the pictures that the Captain had created.
Leo knocked on the door and shouted. "Captain. Let us in. I've brought Octopus Catcher."
After a moment's hesitation, the door swung open. Finral glanced at Leo. Leo waved his hands encouragingly but did not speak.
Yeah. Finral could do this. He pulled back his shoulders and entered the room.
--
Three hours later, Finral opened the door into the corridor to face what could politely called a crowd.
Leo and Mimosa were smiling. Leo had a clipboard with at least a ream of paper on it, which Finral hoped was his funding request, but the way his pen was hovering over it meant it was more likely to be preparation for note taking. The Professor was wearing clean clothes, had sorted his hair, and looked much more like the man Finral had met on his first encounter than the man who scampered through the door when the Captain had released him two hours and fifty-five minutes ago. Then there was Klaus, Letoile and that weird guy, whose name Finral did not know, who kept trying to entice him into betting on races between sea snails.
Mimosa had the bucket with the octopus in it.
So far, so expected. Finral had not expected the others. Langris, looking thoroughly disgruntled and dishevelled was standing beside his boyfriend. Yuno was as unperturbed as ever and did not look up from the manga he was reading. The small chef from the kitchens was handing around tea and cake. Mereo V., the streaming superstar was lounging against the wall, with a grin wider than her whole face.
"You sorted your shit out," she said. It was not a question.
"Umm..." Finral responded.
"You turned off the camera," Leo was already writing things on his clipboard.
"And you look like, well..." Langris said with a disgusted upturn of the nose.
Finral hastily tried to squash his hair back down about his ears, then wiped a hand across his face.
Without looking up from his book, Yuno said, "He doesn't look worse than you, Langris."
Langris went very pink but would likely deny it.
"Are we getting our main viewing laboratory back?" asked Professor Vermillion, ignoring Langris and the others. "And are you coming back to work?"
"About that. Well. There is a thing. No. Probably not."
The assembled expressions fell. Mimosa looked devastated and Leo's mouth formed into a little 'o' of surprise. Yuno looked up from his book and even the octopus put out a tentacle and lifted its head to stare with baleful eyes. The Professor seemed close to tears.
The only ones not upset were Langris and Mereo V. Somehow her grin got larger. She had figured it out.
"No, no. It's not like that. It's not a bad thing. It's just. I think the Captain is ready to leave. He's, well, bored of being here." Actually, a closer translation might have been, Professor Vermillion has as much life in him as a piece of coral. Fancy getting out of here? Seeing the world, Octopus Catcher?
And Finral had said yes.
"You'll need a boat," Mereo V. said.
"Probably."
"You think he'll let me livestream?"
"Probably not. But he says there are other sirens in his shoal? Family? Squad? I'm not sure the right word for it. He called them 'delinquents'. He thinks they'd like to meet you." Again, not quite an accurate translation. More like, I want them to meet her so she’ll scare their lazy asses shitless. Or something.
"So, you're going to leave? You’re going to explore the world with some mythical creature on a boat with her?" Langris pointed at Mereo V. Her grin became a frown.
"You want to come with us, Short stuff?"
"Hell, no. I want to know when he's leaving so that I can get an industrial cleaner in to sort out his apartment."
Finral blushed. "I. Probably today. Maybe. Whenever you'd like to leave, Ma'am." She rocked back on her heels and laughed. "And my rooms aren't that bad."
"They are," Yuno mumbled. He was reading his manga again.
Mereo V. ignored him. "Get your stuff, Octopus Catcher. We've got an ocean to explore."
Finral did. And they had.
It was definitely a better job than the petting zoo.