Cleo sat in the corner of her prison, tail pulled up tight against her with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. She refused to let herself open her eyes. She didn't think she could handle it, seeing the bare tank. The dark room.

It was after working hours. Late. Cleo didn't know how late. There was no clock in this horrible lab, but possibly a little after midnight. She knew she should be getting some sleep, but she couldn't bring herself to. It was so hard to fall asleep in the tank. It was just so…so…abnormal!

"Psst!" a voice hissed, breaking the stony silence. "Cleo!"

Cleo jumped, causing the water around her to froth a little. She opened her eyes a fraction and they widened as she caught sight of her visitor.

"Lewis?" she whispered, uncurling herself and flicking her tail slightly to propel herself to the edge of the glass. Lewis's blond head was poking out from under one of the lab tables, eyes darting this way in that, obviously nervous. "What are you doing here?"

"Shhhh!" he hissed. "Pretend you don't see me. Pretend you just saw something on the floor of the tank!"

Cleo knit her brow, confused, but did as he said, swimming down like she was inspecting something on the floor.

"Good," Lewis said. "Now, do you see that security camera in the corner to your right?"

Cleo looked. "Yeah," she whispered.

"Is it moving at all?"

Cleo shook her head, turning back to him. "No."

Lewis sighed in relief. "Good," he said with a grunt, crawling out from under that table. "Sorry about that, but I couldn't risk getting caught on the security cam. I hacked in and shut it off temporarily, but I couldn't be sure. Luckily, they don't record sound anyway."

"Lewis, what are you doing here?" Cleo asked. "You can lose your job if you're caught!"

"I don't care about my job," Lewis said seriously, looking Cleo square in the eye. "I care about you. Besides, I hate working for that witch anyway." Cleo had to give him that. She hated Dr. Braveman with every inch of her being.

"How'd you get in?" she asked. "I didn't see or hear you."

Lewis smiled sneakily. "I snuck in during hours," he said. "In an oversized lab coat so no one would recognize me. I ducked under that lab table when no one was looking, and hid there 'til after hours."

Cleo gawked at him. "You hid there for that long?"

Lewis smirked. "It was worth it," he said lightly, eyes sparkling.

There was a small silence in which they smiled at each other.

Then Lewis broke it. "I came to fill you in," he explained. "We have a plan to get you out of here."

Cleo brightened. "You do?" she asked excitedly.

"Yeah," Lewis said, just as excited. "We do. Your Dad came up with it."

Cleo visibly paled, eyes widening. "My…my Dad?" she repeated weakly.

"Um…yeah…" Lewis said, scratching his head uncomfortably. "Dr. Braveman called him. He…he knows."

Cleo bit her lip and she sank to the bottom of the tank.

There was silence for a couple minutes.

"How…how did he take it?" she asked softly.

"He…uh…he didn't really…believe it at first," Lewis admitted slowly. "But he seems to be handling it okay now. His main priority is getting you out."

Cleo nodded in understanding, still a bit numb.

Another short silence followed. Then Lewis cleared his throat. "Uh, well, down to business," he said uncomfortably. He pulled out a piece of paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out on the lab floor so both he and Cleo could see it. It was a map of the building.

"Here's the plan," Lewis explained briskly. "Our main priority is getting you out without anybody seeing you, or knowing that it was us who smuggled you out. We're going to try and make it look like you escaped on your own, that way we won't end up with everyone arrested. Make since?"

"Yeah," Cleo said, staring at the map. "But how are we going to do that?"

"That's what we've been working on," Lewis said, pulling a red Sharpie out of his pocket and drawing a rectangle around one of the rooms. "That's your tank." he said, pointing to it. "Now, there are two exits out of this room. One, the emergency exit beside your tank." He circled it. "The other, the main entrance/exit." He circled that too. "The emergency exit would be too obvious an escape route, so we came up with something else. Here's what going to happen."

He sat back, looking at Cleo. "Rikki, Emma, and your dad are going to disguise themselves as night janitors. I managed to grab the time schedule off Dr. Braveman's desk yesterday, and we know what time the shifts start and end. I'll intercept them and tell them that they have the night off, so Emma, Rikki and your father are free to take their places unnoticed. I've already smuggled out some spare uniforms."

Cleo smiled. "Brilliant!" she exclaimed.

Lewis smirked. "Your Dad had it all figured out," he said humbly. "There were only a few things we needed to tweak."

Clearing his throat, he continued. "Next, once their inside, Emma is in charge of going in to clean your lab room. While she's moping, she's going to accidentally unlock your tank. We've figured out a way to make it look inconspicuous on tape, since they would suspect outside work if I hacked the security cameras and shut them off. That's why we have to do it like we are."

He glanced up at Cleo. "You following me so far?"

Cleo nodded and Lewis bit his lip. "All right," he continued, exhaling. "Once Emma springs you, she'll leave a laundry cart on the side of the tank. Then she'll go mop under one of the tables, her back to you. Wait until she does this, before slipping out the top of the tank and jumping into the laundry cart and covering yourself up. That way, if you meet trouble, no one will see you."

"The next step is tricky. Emma will finish moping and wheel you out. Then she'll put the laundry cart—and you—into one of the janitor closets and lock you in."

Cleo looked horrified. "What?" she exclaimed.

"Just hear me out," Lewis said reassuringly. "Once you're inside there, you'll be free from security cameras. No one bothers putting cameras in janitor's closets. Inside, there's an air vent on one of the walls. It connects to another janitor closet down the hall. Rikki will be in that janitor closet. She will have cleaned a room near there already to throw off suspicion, before going in that closet to meet you. What you have to do is get out of the laundry cart, open the air vent—which Emma should have already unscrewed—and crawl through to the other end. Rikki will help you from there and put you into another laundry cart. No one will suspect that you switched janitor rooms, and the cameras won't catch it. Rikki will wheel you to the back door, and your father will wheel you to the laundry truck to supposedly drop off the laundry…which we'll do to throw them off even more. When they come in the next day, they won't know how you got out!"

Cleo smiled. "It's brilliant!" she said earnestly, looking at the map that now had red marker lines all over it from Lewis explaining the plan.

"It should be fool proof," Lewis assured, smiling. "If we don't run into any uncalculated obstacles, that is."

"When are you going to do it?" Cleo asked.

"We were thinking the night after tomorrow," Lewis said. "It's too late tonight; the workers will be here in a few hours."

Cleo frowned. "Why not tomorrow night then?"

Lewis grimaced. "It's the festival tomorrow night," he said with a frown. "Remember? There's that big party on the beach all night?"

"Oh, yeah…" Cleo murmured. "I forgot that was coming up."

"They are too many people," Lewis explained. "We can't risk it. You'll just have to hang in there for another few days."

Cleo smiled, putting her hand on the glass. "I can do it," she said firmly, hope flaring in her chest for the first time in days. Lewis putting his hand on the glass too, his longer fingers outstretching hers on the glass. There was warmth in his eyes when he looked at her. "I know you can," he whispered.

The sound of footsteps brought them both to their senses. "Someone's coming!" Cleo hissed in horror. Lewis paled before diving under one of the lab tables awkwardly, covering himself with the tablecloth.

"Curl back up in the corner like you did before!" he hissed at Cleo from underneath, his head briefly sticking out before retracting back under. Cleo obliged, flicking her tail and racing back to her little corner, curling up again just in time.

Dr. Braveman entered the room seconds later, flicking on the lights as she came in. "Good morning, my pretty little mermaid," she greeted Cleo. "How do you like your little home, hmmm? Roomy? I thought so." She stalked over to the tank, tapping on it lightly with her knuckles. "Very thick glass. Hope you haven't been trying to get through it."

Grinning evilly, she turned to Carl, who'd entered with her. "Snap a picture and then get the required paperwork," she ordered. Carl nodded, raising his camera. "Smile darling!" Braveman said, but Cleo stayed firmly curled in a ball for the picture.

Once Carl had left, Dr. Braveman squatted down next to Cleo. "You're going to get me a lot of money, you know," she whispered through the glass. "Once your transfer two nights from now is complete, the Marine Research Association in California will pay me millions for you!" She laughed happily. Standing up, she made to leave the room, but stopped at the doorway, hand on the light switch. She looked at Cleo, hard brown eyes digging into Cleo's soft ones. "Thanks for swimming straight into my net," she snickered, before shutting the door behind her with a snap.

There was a long silence in which Cleo let the words sink in. Then it hit her with full force. She was being transferred. To California. Two nights from now! Horror filled her, and invisible tears ran down her cheeks. This was horrible. This couldn't be happening!

"Pssst, Cleo!" The voice almost made Cleo scream. Lewis! She'd forgotten he was here.

"What?" she whispered, her voice sounding slightly chocked, a weird combination with her already wavering underwater voice.

"The camera, is it moving again?" he hissed.

She checked. "No."

Lewis's head appeared again as he crawled out from underneath the table. His face was pale.

"This isn't good," he said gravely.

"What are we going to do?" Cleo wailed.

"We're going to have to get you out of here the night before they transfer you," he said, furrowing his brow in though. "But that complicates things. We'll have to be extremely careful not to get spotted with the party at the beach going on, not to mention traffic will be very slow. But I don't think we have another choice." He paused, biting his lip.

"What is it?" Cleo asked worriedly. "Will it not work?"

"No, it should still work," Lewis said comfortingly. "It's just…I feel like I'm forgetting something. Something important about tomorrow night…I just can't place it."

He sighed, looking at Cleo. "I have to go tell the others about this. Plan on us busting you out tomorrow night, all right?"

"All right," Cleo said, sighing tiredly.

"Okay," Lewis said, pushing open the emergency exit door. "I'll see you soon then."

"Lewis?"

Lewis's head poked back into the room. "What?"

"What if…what if this doesn't work?"

Lewis grimaced. "Let's…just hope that it doesn't come to that."