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It had been three days since he’d spotted the mermaid in the biodome ocean. Grace’s been walking alone on the beach (Rocky was spending time with Adrian) when he’d seen a massive red tail splash out of the water, subsequently distracting him and causing him to trip over his own shoelaces.
After that he called Rocky. Because according to the biodome team, other than the plants Grace was the only living creature inside. And that nothing like that existed on Erid.
They started with a motion camera to find out what they were dealing with. It managed to send out one picture before being violently destroyed.
It was of its upper half. A remarkably human upper half. Shoulder length black hair and brown eyes and fin like ears. And a second mouth with an on godly amount of teeth but Grace was willing to look past that. This was the first living human(?) face he’d seen in years. Rocky, on the other hand, was not feeling all this excitement.
How fish get into the biodome, exclamation! Dirty dirty dirty, could contaminate friend Grace.
While there was that fact and the general question of how, there was one bigger problem that had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. There was no food in the biodome ocean. There was never any need to it. And now Grace doubted Nemo would let the Eridians build anything down there.
They needed to catch him. Temporarily.
To their credit, the Eridians were fast putting together a xeonite net and crane. Finding Nemo (hah) was not a problem either considering he had a heartbeat the Eridians could hear.
Grace nervous, question? Adrian asked
“Uh yeah. What if—“
Many of his worries were proved true when he heard a screech coming from the net as it taxied out of the water.
“You fucking bastards let me go!” He screamed at them
In perfect English.
Grace stood there like a deer in the headlights.
Nemo hissed and thrashed on the sand surrounded by Eridians undoing the net.
Uh-oh
Grace ran towards the scene.
“Everyone give him space!”
“Could hurt Grace!”
“I know but he’s more likely to lash out if he’s scared. Just back up a bit.”
Nemo had curled in on himself (reasonably so). Grace winced at the scratches from the net and bruises from bucking against the Eridians. He had one hand protectively over the back of his neck.
Wait a minute.
Nemo only had one arm.
He flinched hard when Grace stepped closer. He looked like he was trembling slightly which tracked unfortunately. It had’t exactly been the warmest of welcomings.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Grace said, stopping and crouching down to his level.
Untrusting eyes stared back at him.
“I’m not coming any closer I promise.” He pointed to himself. “I’m Grace. Can you understand me? I heard you speak English back there and—“
“Please. Please don’t— I don’t want to die. I’ll— I’ll be your experiment. Tests whatever you want just please—“ his voice broke off into a sob.
“What? No, no, no, I’m not that kind of scientist I swear. I just wanted to know what you were. There was… nothing living in the biodome before. No one’s going to hurt you.”
For a second he saw hope in his eyes.
“Are you hungry?” Grace asked, opening up a Tupperware of me-atballs he’d cooked.
Nemo nodded and Grace tossed one over. He sniffed it cautiously.
“Oh it’s safe I promise,” he mirrored him, grabbing one and taking a bite.
Once Nemo bit into it, it was gone a second later.
“You can have more if you’d like,” Grace said, sliding the container over.
Eating seemed to finally calm him down.
“Simon.”
“Huh?”
“My name… is Simon.”
Grace smiled. “It’s nice to meet you Simon.”