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Chapter 6

Sasha Kirkland was alone as she walked across the parking lot of The Beachfront Motel. The lot itself was fairly empty this early in the season. She let herself into the side door of the van and closed the door quickly behind her and locked it without another thought. Sasha flicked on a lamp by the console and began to power the communication system out of sleep mode. Once a secure connection to the servers was made, she initiated the call. Sasha’s boss responded fairly quickly and his face soon filled the screen in front of Sasha.

”Well, you look like you’re enjoying yourself.” There was the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips.

“Hardly, I hate the beach almost as much as I hate these tacky clothes.” Sasha tugged at her blouse. “But that’s not the point of this call.”

“Indeed.” He leaned back and folded his hands on the desk. “What is your status report?”

Sasha took a deep breath. “Things could be better, sir. The police in town are on high alert. Cruisers are on a near constant patrol. There is no way we are going to get the transport into town without it being noticed and most likely pulled over.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses, I want solutions.”

“Sir, spare me. I’ve confirmed the FBI is in town, just three agents, but the lead is Special Agent Cyrus Harper, the head of the Augmented Humans Investigation Division. They are remaining in close proximity to Ms. Derstine, as well as two of her friends. The local police chief, James Blair, is also a known friend of Ms. Derstine.”

“I told you already, the acquisition of Ms. Derstine takes precedence over anything else.” The man’s agitation was only increasing.

Sasha took a deep breath before continuing. “Sir, there is no way I can get her out of town cleanly. Do you understand? We will be exposing ourselves here, a firefight in a small town. That’s only going to guarantee the augmented humans division of the FBI getting their budget and manpower increased significantly, meaning even more problems for us staying under the radar moving forward.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Kirkland, if you can’t follow orders…”

“We should postpone the operation,” Sasha interrupted, knowing she had to make her point known, “allow time for things to cool down and for Ms. Derstine to not be under constant guard. I’m afraid the screw up with the transported getting spotted has ruined any chance we had for a surprise capture.”

“I don’t care about that!” He slammed a fist down on his desk. “We need Derstine in our facility no matter the cost!”

“Sir! Make it make sense!” Sasha snapped back. “If you want me to go to war in this little beach town to snag a single mermaid, fine. But this isn’t about some buyer with his eyes on Ms. Derstine. I will be risking my life and the lives of my team members here. We will draw a ton of attention over this. Why is a single mermaid worth even considering it?”

He glared back as Sasha, but she held the stare, not even flinching.

“There are things you don’t need to know,” his voice had dropped low, but it didn't feel any less threatening, “this is for our protection if you were to be apprehended alive.”

“I understand that, sir, but there are limits.”

He was quiet, he bridged his fingers and contemplated before answering. “Ms. Derstine was part of our first group of mermaids.”

“I’m aware of that. I’ve read her file more times than I could count by now.”

“Not everything about her is in that file. With the first group, some of the subjects had additional modifications done to their bodies beyond the mermaid augments. They were used as test beds for future projects. Important projects that are far more valuable than even my life. In the scramble to escape capture and protect our secrets, certain data needed to be destroyed. If anyone on the outside had any idea it wouldn’t just be a handful of bumbling agents trying to track us down and Ms. Derstine would be in a covert government facility somewhere.”

Sasha nodded. Now that makes far more sense. She is special, and not because of the eel tail.

“Now the only source of reference to these unlisted modifications are the mermaids themselves. Not to mention any data we can glean from how they have worked so far, as was the intention in the first place. This is why Derstine’s acquisition is of the utmost importance. You burn that town to the ground if you have to, as long as we have that eel in our tank at the end of the day..”

“It won’t go that far, I think. However, I believe I will need some more resources to actually get out of Blalva Beach with our guest.”

“Get what you need to get the job done, Kirkland.” The feed then dropped.

Sasha sat in front of the blank screen for a few moments as she thought about the situation. She then pulled the keyboard close and started to type.

This will probably still be messy, but I think I can at least minimize the splatter. I just need to find the right piece of equipment.

***

Ellie inspected her new wall. As she reflected back on it, she spent most of her life living with four walls around her and a roof over her head. But ever since Ellie left the park, she didn’t care for the feeling of being contained. The plastic webbing she had originally installed between the piles of her boat shed kept her things from floating away into the bay, but she was never cut off from the water like she was now. Worse, Ellie knew she couldn’t just leave to go for a swim ‘outside’.

She turned away from the wood wall and swam down to the escape hatch she had built in case her front door was assaulted. There was a mesh bag with a few items stored inside of it. If Ellie had to ditch it, she could still survive, she had food and water stored in the underwater cave she had found. This was more about her business. Ellie realized there was a non zero chance her home and place of business could end up destroyed. She wasn’t about to start over with nothing after everything she had been through. Sealed in watertight containers were flash drives full of contact information, records, and most of the cash she had on hand. As for Ellie‘s speargun and diving knife, she had been keeping them on her person, only taking the speargun off to sleep at night.

She checked the bag for the millionth time before placing it back by the hatch. Ellie felt so trapped by everything. Even when the facade of Atargatis Entertainment fell away and exposed the truth of her condition she didn’t feel like this.

Even if I get through this, will it ever stop? Is my life here already ruined? God damn it! I had found a life that was alright, good even. I had my own business that was just taking off. I had friends, I was even getting respect in the community, other than that Stanton bitch. Who’s going to want me around after all this goes down? I could probably find a gig working with a diving company, spend my time out at sea with a tank on a ship to call home. I know several of the girls have done just that. But I want a real home! She placed her hand on one of the piles her boat shed rested on. I want this place…I

Ellie sobbed quietly, her tears joining the bay as she wept.

***

Josh grumbled as the light coming through his bedroom windows finally hit his face. This normally wasn’t an issue because he didn’t routinely sleep during the afternoon. Josh yawned and stretched before finally tossing off the sheets and sitting up.

After Bob drove him home he stumbled back to his room. After managing to strip down to his shorts he crawled into bed and passed out. After a glance in the mirror Josh elected for a shower and shave before going to see his mother.

Fifteen minutes later Josh stepped out of his room, looking and smelling much fresher. He noticed the shower in the hall bath was being used, but his mother was in the kitchen.

“Hey mom, ah, who’s in the shower?”

“That’s Bob, dear. We chatted after he dropped you off, and there was no way I was going to let him drive home in the state he was in. Frankly, he shouldn't have driven you home either. I made him take a nap on the couch.”

Josh shook his head. “He was hiding it better than I was then.”

Clair chuckled. “I take it you’re both going to head back to Ellie’s place after Bob gets out of the shower.”

“Probably, unless the FBI chases us out again.”

“I know you both want to stand by your friend, but you can’t get in their way. The chief has been beyond lenient with you two, and now that the feds are here I wouldn’t expect that to continue.”

Josh sighed. “I just can’t sit here at home and wait for something to happen.”

“Even if that is the best thing you can do for Ellie?”

Josh didn’t have a response to that. He instead opened up the cabinet and pulled out a box of cereal. True, it was the late afternoon, but after just waking up he felt the need for breakfast. By the time he had finished pouring the milk and sitting down, Bob was out of the bathroom. He looked more refreshed, even if he was still in yesterday’s clothes.

“Thanks for letting me use your shower.” Bob said graciously as he joined Josh at the table.

“It was nothing, can I get you something to eat?” Clair said motioning towards the kitchen.

“Well, maybe just a piece of fruit, I’m not feeling especially hungry, and I still want to enjoy those ravioli you brought over to the boathouse.”

“Help yourself to the fruit bowl, I’ll get you some water.” Clair smiled before stepping away.

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

“Just ‘Clair’ will do.”

“Sorry, old habits die hard.” He smiled softly as he picked a banana out of the bowl. “Any word from anyone?”

Josh shook his head. “No texts or voicemails on my phone.”

“Hmm.” Bob nodded as he chewed. “No news is good news, I suppose.”

“So I have a question. What if Agent Harper just kicks us out when we get there?”

“Then we leave without making a fuss.”

“Really?” Josh raised his eyebrow.

“And after that, we head on down and take the Sea Cucumber on a little cruise around the marina. You know, to see the sights.”

“That sounds more like you.”

Bob smirked. “Finish your cereal and we’ll head out.

***

“Do you need anything?” Josh asked Ellie over the phone as he climbed into Bob’s truck.

“Thanks to your mom we’re all good for now. Just come down and we’ll have some dinner together.”

“We’ll be there in a few, Bob just needs to stop at the gas station.”

“See you then, drive safe.”

“Bye.” Josh ended the call. “She said she’s good for now.”

“I figured, but better to ask.” Bob said as he backed out of the driveway. “I’m just going to fill up and grab a couple of magazines.”

“I got a craving for gum myself after last night.” Josh admitted, “I’ll pick up a pack.”

“Well, that’s better than cigarettes.” Bob shifted gears and they started down the street.

Josh turned and gave Bob an incredulous look. “Listen to you, you smoke cigars.”

“Please, I smoke maybe eight in a year,” he made a dismissive gesture, “and we were celebrating that night.”

“Yeah,” Josh sighed “before things went to shit.”

“Welcome to real life. That’s why you have to celebrate when you can, it helps cut down on regrets.”

Josh contemplated that as they made their way to the gas station. After filling the tank and grabbing what they wanted they continued on towards the marina. Blalva Beach was a small town and only had four traffic lights. One of them was at the same corner as The Palm Palace Motel. Bob was glancing around waiting on the notoriously long light to turn green when his eyes caught something. It was a plain white van and a pair of men were unloading some bags from the back while a third one stood by watching.

“Hey, Josh! Get your phone and get a picture of those guys and the van over there by the motel!”

“What are you?”

“Just do it! Hurry, before the light changes!”

Josh fumbled with his phone, but quickly started snapping pictures.

“Shit, now the light’s green. See if you can get the plate, I’ll roll out slowly.”

“I think I got it,” Josh lowered his phone, “now can you explain?”

“There was something about those guys, they have training. Just the way that guy was standing around and observing, he’s definitely ex-military, but I can’t say from where.”

“Shit, really? You can tell?”

“Spend enough time in the service and yeah, you can tell. Probably mercenaries, or private security as they like to call themselves these days.” The disdain was obvious in his voice.

“Should I call Harper or the Chief?”

“Don’t bother, we’ll be there in a minute anyway and we can explain in person and show the photos.”

Bob put on the speed as they rushed back to the boathouse. He came to a harsh stop before turning the key and jumping out of the truck. Josh tried to keep up, by the time he made it to the door Bob was laying on the buzzer.

“Let us in! Quick! We have a situation!” Bob growled at the camera.

The door was opened by Agent Rowland and Bob practically shoved her aside to enter. Josh apologized for his friend as he shut the door behind and made sure it was locked.

“Bob? What the hell is going on?” Ellie shouted from the water.

“We have problems.” Bob turned to Harper. “I just saw a trio of mercs unpack their van at The Palm Palace Motel.”

“Wait, what?” Harper was obviously shocked by the news. “Are you sure?”

“Unless there is some kind of secret special forces convention in town, yes. I had Josh grab some pictures.” he nodded to Josh who was already pulling them up on the phone. “They scream ex-military, I know what to look for.”

“No doubt you do. He flicked through the pictures. “Looks like we have the plate.”

“That’s a rental,” Agent Becker said looking at the plate, “You can tell by the first block.”

“Still, run it and see if we can get anything on who rented it and where from. Also if they rented any other vehicles. I’m going to contact the chief and see if we can get some eyes on the motel.

“I'll head down there to keep an eye on things, a uniform will be too obvious.” Becker said as he grabbed his jacket. “I'll change into something a bit more native and blend in with the locals.”

“Alright, but be careful. These are professionals, they can spot things like concealed carry.”

“Here,” Bob reached around behind his back and removed the gun and holster he was wearing. “Take this. A fed or other cop isn't going to be carrying a 1911 these days. If they spot it, they'll think you're just a local Florida gun-nut.”

“Harper? You're the supervising agent.” Becker

“I see you didn't fully listen to me about keeping your weapons at home, Mr. Shaw.”

“It's my daily carry, and yes, I'm licensed for it before you ask.”

Harper let out a sigh. “Given the situation, take it, I can't have you getting that close unarmed.”

Bob nodded and placed the gun and its holster in Becker's hands. “If it comes up, just say your granddad brought it back from Vietnam.” He smirked, “It is a Vietnam era 1911, so it's not a total lie. And no it wasn't stolen, it was sold to surplus.” Bob added seeing the look from Harper.

“Let's hope It doesn't come to that.” Becker said as he accepted the firearm.

“Might be time to call in SWAT,” Rowland advised. “Those mercenaries are going to be armed, and I don’t mean with pistols.”

“I’ll discuss it, but we don’t want to tip our hand to them either. This is the best lead we’ve had in months in tracking down the remnants of Atargatis. More than just Ellie’s safety is at stake, not that I’m about to risk that either.”

“Now do you want to borrow my shotgun?” Bob asked with a grim slime.

“If we get in a firefight with military trained and equipped individuals, I don’t think it will make that much of a difference. I’m getting in contact with the field office, this is escalating and we are going to need more people equipped to handle the threat.”

“See, I told you we should have hit up the armory before we left.” Becker joked with his partner.

“This is insane!” Ellie covered her face with her webbed hands and shook her head. “I’m putting the entire town in danger now, I should just leave now before anyone gets hurt!”

“Ellie…” Josh said as he walked over to the edge of the water. “It’s not your fault.”

“The fuck it isn’t, don’t patronize me, Josh! I’m bringing all of this to Blalva Beach. There’s going to be a war in the streets over me, and I can’t live with that on my conscience.”

“If they are going as far as we think they are to get you, they won’t stop coming after you.” Harper said as he crouched down to look Ellie in the eyes.

Ellie shook her head. “It’s better I face them on my own than let others get shot at on my behalf. Who knows? Maybe I can drag a few of the bastards down below first.” With that Ellie suddenly slipped down below the surface of the bay water.

“Oh fuck! Ellie! Don’t!” Without thinking, Harper dived into the water after the mermaid.

“Harper!” Rowland called after him.

“I hope that idiot can swim.” Bob sighed as he grabbed a coil of rope off the wall. “Because I ain’t jumping in after him.”

Ellie was aware someone had jumped in after her, the splash was quite loud to her underwater ears. She didn’t look back as her long tail took her to the bottom of the bay. Inside the now enclosed space Ellie grabbed the mesh bag she had stowed. She tried to just focus on leaving but she couldn’t help looking back. Ellie saw Harper in his suit trying to swim towards her desperately. The light was dim, but she could see the desperate look on his face. Ellie could also see the trouble he was having, he hadn't even managed to kick off his shoes.

Idiot! You’ll drown! She turned and quickly signed to him [go back].

Harper shook his head and reached out for her. He was really having trouble now. Ellie dropped her bag and swam over to the floundering agent. She grabbed him tightly under the arms and propelled them both up as quickly as her long tail would allow her to. Harper gasped and coughed as his head broke the surface.

“What the fuck were you thinking! You could have drowned!” Ellie pushed him towards the edge where Josh, Bob, and Rollings were waiting to pull him out.

Harper was too busy hacking and gasping for air to respond at first. But eventually he caught enough of his breath to speak.

“Ellie, back at the park you stopped a friend from trying to do something stupid. I was just doing the same thing.”

Ellie looked away. “That was different.”

“No, it’s not, it might have taken you longer, but it was still suicide. This is the best shot we’ve had in years of getting closer to the people responsible for all of this. They are going to hurt a lot more people if we don’t stop them.”

Ellie turned away from everyone and let out a long sigh. “I’ll stay, but we need to get these bastards before they cause any trouble in Blalva Beach.” She turned back to Harper. “You better get out of those clothes before you get hypothermia.”

“Heh, yeah,” Harper was already starting to shiver. “I could use a hot shower too.”

“There’s a shower here at the marina, I can get you in.” Bob said as he hung the unneeded rope back on the wall. “Also, lucky for you the local dry cleaner knows how to get the bay-stench out of suits.”

“Really?” Rowland asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Plenty of drunk fools in suits go overboard into the bay and ocean. I think Harper is the first sober guy I’ve seen take a dip though.”

“Ha, you’ll end up as an honorary Florida Man by the time you head back to Quantico.” Rowland chuckled

“I’m afraid it doesn’t count if he was sober.” Becker smirked.

Ellie couldn’t help but chuckle at the quip. It helped to laugh.

“Go get showered and changed, then we’ll heat up the food Clair sent us.” Ellie let out a small sigh. “We’ll want a good hot meal before things get any worse.”

***

Within forty minutes the smell of homemade ravioli and meatloaf was filling the air of the boat shed. The food from Josh’s mom was much appreciated by all those gathered. Ellie was enjoying some of the meatloaf, it reminded her of when her grandmother would make it for her when she would come to visit. Right now, she appreciated the happy memory as much as the hot meal. Harper had gotten showered and changed. Thinking back it was the first time Ellie had ever seen him out of a suit. It shouldn’t feel strange seeing him in jeans and a t-shirt, but somehow it was.

“You are just lucky you didn’t have your phone in your pocket.” Rowling chuckled.

“That’s what insurance is for, right?” Harper clapped back. ‘Oh, hey, it’s the chief.” he announced as his phone started to ring. “Harper here.”

“Hey,” Chief Blair wasted little time with the greeting, “I just got off the phone with Sarah, the manager at The Palm Palace.”

“What did you find out?” Harper asked as he started to take notes.

“First of all, more than just three men recently checked into the motel. There’s ten of them in total who checked in throughout the day. And Bob wasn’t the only one who noticed something was off about them. Sarah said they all seem cold, detached and hyper vigilant.”

“She used those words?” The agent asked as he jotted down notes.

“Not as such, but her brother served in Iraq; she knows it when she sees it. Sarah felt these guys had definitely seen action. Several were foreign, they apparently had accents. She’s emailing over the info they checked in under so we can run the IDs.”

“Don’t be surprised if they come up as good, I’ve run into some amazingly made backstopped IDs before. You better send a copy of that my way too.”

“I was already planning to. I told Sarah to just stay out of their way, but text me if she notices any of them leaving the motel.”

“Have you reached out to the county SWAT yet?”

“Yeah, they are making their way to Acabor, the next town over. We don’t want to just have a SWAT van just sitting down by the station.”

“That’s true. Hopefully they can deploy here fast before any trouble starts up.”

Chief Blair let out a long sigh. “At least this is happening before the tourist season is in full swing. I still need to inform the Mayor about the escalation.”

“I don’t envy that task. Let me know if you need me to help convince the mayor to keep the situation out of the public’s knowledge.”

“Thanks for the offer, but it’s more than just the mayor I’m worried about. The boys are not happy we aren’t informing the people about the growing danger. Can’t say that I’m entirely happy about it myself, but we need to catch these guys in the act, not just chase them off.”

“I hear you Chief. In the meantime, have your officers keep an eye out for anything else out of place.”

“I’ll do that. Take care of Ellie and yourself there. Night.”

“So, there’s more than three mercs in town. Can’t say I’m surprised.” Bob shook his head. “I know you want to nail these guys, but we need to think about the safety of the rest of the town.”

“I’m aware, and I will prioritize that if things get ugly.”

“If?” Bob asked, raising an eyebrow.

***

Sasha sat at the desk of her motel room. Her tourist disguise was exchanged for a set of black silk pajamas. Sasha’s half-eaten dinner from the local Chinese place was sitting to the side as she worked on her laptop. She had a nature documentary on the TV for some background noise as she worked out her final plan for the operation. It wasn’t going to be as clean and quiet as Sasha would have liked, but it should work. And in the end, all her employer cared about was acquiring Derstine.

The personnel had all arrived and checked in with Sasha . They were all professionals and she could count on them to not cause trouble before she activated them. Sasha had found the material asset she was looking for further up the coast. It was unfortunate the original owner didn’t want to sell it, but if Sasha was worried about blood on her hands she never would have gotten into this line of work. And at least saving money on the acquisition would overall help the budget for the mission, so there was that. All that was left was to get all her pieces into place and set things in motion.

Sasha leaned back on her chair before reaching out for the half-eaten container of lo mein. After all this, I’m going to start looking for that mountain cabin. She though as she dug her fork into the noodles. I need to retire before I get retired.

___________________________________________________

Original story and setting by Syntaxerror37

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