Chapter 7
"There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent."
― Dave Barry
"Think fast!"
"If you throw your drink on me one more time, Tucker, I swear I will turn into a merman and eat you."
The tech-enthusiast laughed this off. "Nah, you'd suffocate before you got close. Besides, I've got these bad boys to help me run away," he said, raising his feet in the air and wiggling his toes.
"I just need my head to change, Tuck. I just need my head."
Tucker gulped, and his voice jumped an octave. "You don't want to eat me. I'm bad for your health, chock full of trans fat and bacon grease."
They were at Tucker's house that Friday evening. To Tucker's parents, their story was that Danny would be going home Saturday morning; to Danny's parents, he would be coming home Sunday night.
"I'm kidding," Danny deadpanned. He was lying sprawled on the top of Tucker's bed, glowering at the ceiling. His hair was damp in places, slightly sticky, and streaked with white, and he had a feeling his eyes were glowing, too. Tucker's idea had been that the only way to trigger Danny's newfound 'power' was to startle it out of him. So far, that was not working. "But seriously, stop."
Tucker sat in a rolling chair at his desk, sucking on a Mega Nasty Drink, or what was left of it. Behind him were two flat-screen monitors that he had spent last year's allowance, birthday money, and Christmas money on buying. Mostly the two screens were for gaming; for example, he could have Doom open and running on one while being able to reference user guides, player forums, and cheats on the other. Right now, the screens were displaying various topographical maps of the ocean around Amity Beach.
"Okay, I'll lay off," said Tucker. He eyed his cup. "Anyway, I'm almost out of soda. At least until the ice melts, and then we're back in business!"
"Tucker."
"I mean, we would be, if we were still doing that…Ahem."
"Shutting up now?"
"Shutting up now." Tucker swiveled back to face the screens. "So, if you were a mermaid nest, where would you be?"
"If it were that easy, don't you think my parents would have found it by now? They've only been looking for, I don't know, the last twenty years."
"Someone's grumpy today," said Tucker. Danny huffed. "The thing is, you were right about the ocean being a big place. Not only does it take up a massive lateral area, it's also three-dimensional. It's like having mountains, plains, ravines, and the whole sky as a playing field. What's your plan?"
Danny shrugged. "I figured I'd start where she left me on the beach Saturday night. I'll temporarily disable my parents' buoys and then…"
Tucker sucked at the very last of his drink, the soda gurgling noisily through the straw. "Yeah?"
"I guess I have to…" He trailed off, mumbling something incoherent.
"You have to…?"
"You know." Danny sat up and grabbed a duffle bag from the floor. He had to strain to lift it onto the bed. Unzipping it, he pulled out such things as a black neoprene wetsuit and a scuba mask. At the bottom of the bag was the diving cylinder, comprising much of the weight of the bag. "I smuggled these out of the Boat earlier. Technically they're mine, but I've never used them before…"
"Uh, is scuba diving really something you can just pick up?"
Danny offered some more noncommittal mumbling.
"What am I saying? You're a merman. Why do you need scuba gear?"
"I just do, okay?" said Danny, and he started stuffing the equipment back into the bag. "Anyway, after I leave, you've got to cover for me. I'm going to leave my phone with you. If my mom texts or something, pretend you're me."
"And after you get in the water, then what will you do?"
Danny shrugged again. "I'll look around, I guess." He thought back to Sunday, when his parents had detected the trespassing merperson. "I think she was looking for me. Maybe I won't even need to find her. Maybe she'll find me."
Tucker looked dubious. "Let me get this straight. This is your plan: You hang out in the ocean for a couple of days with one tank of air, a scuba suit you don't know how to use, and no food, by the way, hoping this chick will find you. Saying you survive that, then what? How are you supposed to get past the buoys and get back here without your parents catching you?"
"Quickly."
"Dude, you can't even swim."
"I'll manage. Besides, if this works, the buoys won't detect me at all."
"And if it doesn't work?" Danny said nothing. Tucker continued, "You know, if you dumped the wetsuit, I bet you could swim really well."
"I'm not dumping the wetsuit."
They stared at each other across the room, neither willing to budge on their opinions.
"Has anyone ever told you you're really stubborn?"
"It comes with being a Fenton," said Danny, smiling.
Tucker rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that wasn't a compliment, Danny. Come on, man. For someone as scared of meeting a watery grave as you, won't you just stop and think this through? I get that you don't want to turn into your fish form; I totally get that. But a tank of air won't last you two days, and I've heard all kinds of horror stories about decompression sickness and collapsing lungs when people don't use their scuba gear correctly. There's a reason they have classes on that stuff.
"In this case, having gills is a pro. And you just need your head to change, right? So wear your wetsuit, ditch the hood, and use some Fenton Tape to seal up the neckline so the rest of your body doesn't get wet. And voila, you're your own oxygen tank."
Danny blinked at his friend. "That's… a really good idea."
The other boy tugged at some imaginary suspender straps and said, proudly, "I've been known to have them now and then. As for where to look…" He swiveled his chair around and pointed at the maps on his computers. "There are a lot of underwater hills and valleys here, running up and down the coast for miles. The merpeople won't be out in the open, because someone would have found them already if they were. So, I'm thinking these areas will be your best bet. If you swim straight out from the coast, you should hit them eventually."
"I'm impressed," said Danny, nodding appreciatively. Already, the task he'd given himself seemed less daunting.
Tucker beamed. "That's the power of the Internet. But, I'm still not entirely convinced that your plan is a good one."
"Maybe not, but it's the only one I've got."
They snuck out of the Foley residence at five o'clock the next morning, Danny wearing most of his wetsuit and having stashed the rest of the equipment in Tucker's closet to pick up later. It was a short walk from there to Fentonworks, although they were forced to climb the long, rickety wooden staircase down the cliff to the beach instead of taking the usual elevator.
Danny was fairly confident the lab would be empty. Despite being a firm believer in 'the early merhunter catches the fishman', unless it was Fenton Family Boating Day, Jack Fenton was also a firm believer in sleeping in on weekends. There was no way he'd be in the lab yet, not when it was still dark outside and thus technically night. Danny's mom, meanwhile, rarely worked in the lab solo, because it would upset her husband to feel left out.
His suspicion was confirmed when Danny entered his key code and was allowed into a dark and empty lab. "Thank you, lifelong habits," he whispered, walking inside.
Lights flickered on as motion detectors registered Danny and Tucker. Danny quickly bypassed the many counters strewn with half-constructed weapons, the aquariums filled with local marine life, the big holding tank that sat empty in the middle of the room, and the scaffolding that surrounded the nearly-completed Siren Speeder, to the computers lined up in the far corner. Danny began typing passwords and navigating a certain one of the machines.
"You know how to do this?" whispered Tucker, staring around at the contents of the room. The Fentonworks Lab was not a place guests, even Tucker, were allowed to visit.
"I've watched my folks do it enough times, I should."
"This is some serious tech," Tucker observed. He would have whistled had they not been going for stealth just then.
"Compliments of DALV Corp," said Danny dryly. He tapped a few more keys, hit enter, and said, "Got it. I've scheduled the buoys for some 'routine maintenance'. They'll be out of commission for the next few hours, at least. Let's go."
On the way back to the door, Danny dug a roll of black Fenton Waterproof Tape out of a supply cabinet. He'd only ever used the stuff for school science projects in the past, but he knew it was really durable.
He almost had to push Tucker out of the lab. "You have to bring me back in here, Danny," the techno-geek insisted. "This stuff is incredible."
"Fine, whatever. Can we move it now? Kind of on a tight schedule here."
Safely on the beach again, they struck out for the north. After walking for about half an hour, Danny decided they had reached the right spot – or were close enough, anyway. In the east, the horizon was brightening, warm pink against the star speckled blue night. The ocean was a great, shadowy behemoth beneath it, licking its tongue against the sand.
Danny flung his backpack onto the sand and sat down next to it. He finished suiting up, taking off his sneakers and replacing them with swim fins, taping and sealing the sleeves of the wetsuit against his wrists, donning gloves and taping them down as well. At last, he had Tucker help him tape the neckline securely. Danny swung his arms and rolled his shoulders to see if the tape would hold and discovered that Fenton Tape really was all it was cracked up to be.
Suddenly, dawn broke, washing the world orange.
Danny took a deep breath. "This is it."
"You know, you could always bail," said Tucker, "and we could play Doom instead. I wouldn't hold it against you."
"I would," Danny replied, frowning. "I'm tired of sitting around, always letting things happen to me. I'm in high school now. I need to, I don't know, take control of my destiny or whatever."
"Isn't that what Lancer said in his welcome speech?"
"He wasn't wrong," said Danny. "I'm going to fix this. I'm going to be normal again."
Tucker clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder, nodding seriously. "Good luck, man."
"Thanks." He gulped and passed his backpack to Tucker. "Here I go."
Awkwardly in the swim fins, Danny flip-flapped across the sand until he reached the water's edge. The waves rushed in, spilling over his ankles, but his suit kept him dry. For the first time in his life, he felt appreciative of his parents' gear; they really didn't skimp on quality. Danny waded out into the water, deeper and deeper until it had swallowed him to his waist.
He looked down at his old enemy as it tugged his body to and fro. His heart rate skyrocketed. I can't do this.
The sun continued to climb the sky, chasing some of the darkness out of the water. But still, Danny could not move. He heard splashing behind him, and when he turned around, saw Tucker trudging through the waves toward him.
"Tuck?" he said as the other boy drew near.
"Sorry, Danny. I was tired of waiting." That was all the warning he had. Then Tucker's foot hooked his ankle and pulled, and Danny fell backward into the water.
He floundered in panic for a few seconds under the surface before he was able to regain his footing in the sand and pull upright. Danny rubbed the salt water out of his eyes and swung a glare at his best friend. He opened his mouth to say some choice angry words –
- and nothing came out. A tight feeling was building in his chest, one that Danny was painfully familiar with and had never wanted to feel again: he couldn't breathe. His diaphragm tugged and tugged, but it was like something was blocking his airway. Danny ran shaking fingers along his neck, and sure enough, found two long slits in his skin under his jawbone. He hadn't even felt them form…
"Idiot," said Tucker, worry coloring the insult. "Go in the water!"
Growing light-headed, Danny made up his mind. He dropped to his knees; the water lapped at his neck. Then, he closed his eyes and sunk below the surface.
For a second, Danny thought he would die anyway. He didn't know how to breathe with gills! But now that he was underwater, his body took the wheel for him. Unfamiliar muscles in his neck and throat began to move, pulling water in through his already gaping mouth. Then he felt the new muscles in his neck contract as they instinctively pushed the water over the gills and out through their openings. Danny gulped a few more times, and finally the oxygen-deprivation receded. His heart, too, ceased its palpitations.
"…Danny...?" Tucker's warbled voice met his ears.
Danny opened his eyes. He was looking at the sand, and he could see his now-white hair floating in the edges of his vision. The particles in the water surrounding him reflected the white glow of his skin and the green of his eyes. He rose again out of the water, to his knees, and turned to Tucker.
"Better?" said the techno-geek.
Danny nodded solemnly and offered his friend a thumbs-up. Already, his body was aching for oxygen. He needed to go back under the water. Wow. There's something I'd never thought I'd say.
"Great! Then, I guess I'll see you in a couple of days. Seriously, good luck, Danny. And, bring back a hot mermaid for me, okay?"
Danny rolled his eyes and submerged himself in the water once more.
At first, he was not sure how to move. He oriented himself to the east, where eventually he would find the underwater hills and valleys, and started by crawling along the sand, pulling himself forward by walking on his hands while his body hung horizontally above the seabed. The current constantly tried to drag him away, so he countered by digging his fingers in with every 'step'. Danny was concentrating on this so much, eyes locked on the sand beneath him, that he did not realize when he started pulling water in though his nose instead of gulping at it with his mouth.
This worked for a long time, so long in fact that Danny lost track of the time, until the sea floor suddenly dropped off under him.
Danny halted, pulled upwards in surprise, and looked around himself. The surface of the water was remarkably far above his head, and now that the sun had risen, the water was a bright, pleasant blue. Distant golden sunlight rippled on the surface. The sandy ocean floor spread behind him, ridged by shallow, wave-formed dunes. Seaweed and other sea grasses grew in patches here, rippling gently to and fro. A school of small fish rushed by, only a foot away.
Danny's mouth fell open. He had never imagined the ocean looking so beautiful or feeling so peaceful. He had always dreamed of it as a dark, cold place – always associated it with fear or with his parents' crazy (or maybe not-so-crazy) search for merfolk. This, here, was bright and the water actually felt warm against his face.
The current tugged gently at the now-distracted Danny, lifting him a few inches off of the seabed.
That was something else Danny had not anticipated, this feeling of pure weightlessness in the water. It was like he was in zero-gravity. This had to be what it felt like in space.
He smiled at the thought.
But then he remembered his mission, and his face resumed its serious set. He looked forward again to where the ocean floor dipped away at a forty-five degree angle. It dropped the whole floor by about twenty feet, and this new stretch of ocean was thick with sea grass and moss. Here and there mounds of gray rock jutted up from the sand, speckled with water-worn holes. Fish of all sizes swam about. It was teeming with life. Danny had the impression of standing on a cliff overlooking a city.
He did not particularly want to crawl through it like he had been doing so far.
Okay, Fenton. Swimming lessons. An image of Dash flashed across his mind, and Danny grimaced. Wrong choice of words.
He knew swimming involved moving your arms and legs. Danny was already floating horizontally, so he reached out his arms in front of him, cupped his hands, and pushed them slowly backward. Incredibly, there was resistance, and it was just enough to send Danny several feet forward, and his momentum kept him going. And like that, he was suddenly twenty feet or more above the floor of the ocean and probably that same distance from the surface.
Woah. He stared at the ocean bed far below, then turned over to look up at the surface. The feeling of floating was even more remarkable out here. With how quiet and still it was, if Danny closed his eyes, he really could imagine that he was an astronaut in space.
He realized, again, that he was forgetting what he was supposed to be doing. He wasn't supposed to be enjoying this. Nor did he have any time to waste. Turning his eyes back to the sea floor below, Danny began clumsily pushing his way forward. Experimenting with several ways of kicking and pushing with his arms, he soon began swimming ahead at a decent rate.
Danny swam like this for about twenty minutes. There was little change in the scenery – no undersea hills and certainly no merpeople. Besides growing bored and somewhat frustrated, a dull ache had built in Danny's arms, abdomen and back. He had not realized swimming took so much energy. The last few near-sleepless nights were also catching up with him.
Danny stopped for a rest. He rolled onto his back and crossed his arms under his head. He let himself drift like this, imagining himself in a hammock and watching the sparkling surface far above. He did not realize when his eyes slipped shut.
…
Something was tickling his face.
Danny opened his eyes. There it was, the culprit – a fish nibbling on his nose.
It took his brain a second to catch up, and when it did, Danny sat straight up. The fish, equally startled, bolted. Danny was sitting in the sand, surrounded by seaweed and grasses stretching taller than his head. The water had lost its bright, clear, blue color and turned a dimmer shade of slate.
At some point, Danny must have drifted to the floor. Not only that, he had fallen asleep, for who knew how many hours. Judging by the light, it had been quite a while.
His heart fluttered in his chest. He still did not trust his gills completely, and he was beyond relieved that he had not drowned in his sleep. But even more so, he did not like the fact that he had fallen asleep in one place and woken up somewhere else. He did not like that at all.
Danny put his feet under him and pushed upward. By kicking his flippered feet, he quickly rose to the surface, and his head broke the waves. Immediately, he was shocked at the feeling of the air sharp and cold against his bare skin; and the sun had never seemed so bright before. He spent a full minute blinking and readjusting to the surface, and by that point had to dip back under the waves to breathe. Emerging a second time, Danny quickly tried to get his bearings.
First off – there was no land in sight.
Okay. Danny had not anticipated getting lost. From the shore, to the sea hills, and back again, should have been easy, right? In retrospect, maybe thinking that had been pretty stupid. He was glad Tucker wasn't around, or he would be getting another earful.
Second off – it was already afternoon. At best, he had only three or four hours more of daylight. So, not only was he lost, but he had slept away most of his Saturday without finding a trace of a merperson or even reaching the place he'd wanted to look for them. What if he hadn't even cleared his parents' buoys?
Now he would probably have to spend all of Sunday trying to find his way home.
Danny let himself fall back under the waves, and he slowly drifted downwards again.
It hit him like running into a brick wall: this quest of his was hopeless.
He would never get back to normal.
Danny held up his hands before his eyes. They were covered by the neoprene gloves, but he knew what would happen should he take the gloves off. He could even see the glow of his unnaturally green eyes reflecting off the black material of the gloves.
He was a freak, and he would always be a freak.
He started swimming aimlessly forward. There was no point in continuing looking, but Danny was too depressed to think about going home just yet. So wrapped up in his thoughts, Danny did not notice as the water turned gradually darker, nor was he prepared for the ambush.
Suddenly, water rushed at him from all sides, squeezing him tightly and quickly immobilizing him. Danny struggled to move, but it felt like he was treading plastic. It was all he could do to breathe. He dropped steadily, like a stone, into the seaweed forest below, stopping only when he was a few feet from the ground.
Who are you?
The deep, disembodied voice invaded Danny's brain, much like Kaima's had. Except this voice was clearly hostile, causing shivers to run over Danny's skin.
A second later, the 'speaker' swam into Danny's sight.
It was a merman. Like Kaima, and like Danny, his body produced its own luminescence. He was generally indigo in color; hair, beard, and fins a deep blue while his skin was only a few shades lighter. His golden eyes shined in sharp contrast to his otherwise dark coloring. His body was ridged by muscles and decorated by bands of black tattoos. Overall, he seemed wild, almost feral.
The golden eyes flicked over Danny's immobile form, and the merman scowled, baring his fangs. Better yet, what are you?
Shapes moved at the edges of Danny's sight, and he realized that there were two other merpersons in this group. There may have been more hidden among the constantly shifting weeds, for all he knew.
The indigo one's eyes narrowed, and Danny understood that he was waiting on a response. Only, Danny did not know how to respond. He couldn't do that strange mind-speak thing. He opened his mouth and moved his lips, trying to mouth words.
The merman's eyes flicked to Danny's right, and another merman swam into sight. He was lithe, colored silver and purple, and wore a wide necklace of white shells. He seemed to listen to something the indigo merman was 'saying'; then he nodded and raised a hand to Danny, palm up. Bending his hand back, a black barb extended from his purple wrist, releasing with it a stream of something black and sinister-looking.
Like it had a mind of its own, the black stuff floated through the water straight toward Danny. He tried harder, futilely, to move, heart pounding in his chest. He stopped breathing. Even so, the black stuff entered his nose with ease, flowed bitterly down his throat, and passed smoothly over his gills.
The effects were immediate. Hot-cold tingling filled Danny's body, snaking outwards from his heart, quickly numbing everything. His ears filled with a roaring noise, and black smoke clouded his vision. Then, his mind went numb.
"Jack," said Maddie Fenton, frowning at the data on the computer screen. Jack, currently welding something to the bottom of the Siren Speeder, could not hear anything over the roar of the blowtorch.
She stood and tapped her husband's knee with her foot. Jack turned off the torch, rolled out from under the submarine, and removed his welding helmet. "What is it, sweet cheeks? Time for dinner?"
"You just had lunch, dear," she said, and she shook her head. "Did you schedule the buoys to run maintenance today?"
"No, no I did not," said Jack, proud that for once the blame for something having gone wrong (and by his wife's tone, that was clearly the case now) could not be placed on him.
Maddie crossed her arms and pursed her lips. "Well, someone did. Every buoy from here to Virginia has shut down. They haven't been running since about five o'clock this morning!"
"Did you try the override thingy?"
"I just finished. They should all be back online within the next hour. But what I can't figure out is why they were all turned off simultaneously in the first place."
"Hmm," said Jack, and he remembered the intruder they'd been monitoring for that past week. "Maybe... they've been tampered with."
His wife gasped. "You don't think-"
"They've figured out our defenses? That's exactly what I think."
"But we have shields on all of those buoys," argued Maddie, refusing to believe what her husband was suggesting. "The merpeople shouldn't have been able to get close, and they would have sent out a distress signal had one of them been attacked."
"Only one way to find out," said Jack, and he flung aside his welding gear and leapt to his feet. "To the Fenton Family Mermaid Assault Craft!"
Maddie regarded the computer for another few seconds with narrowed eyes. Then she followed her husband to the Fenton Beach, grabbing an extra Fenton Harpoon as she went. If every buoy for miles around was malfunctioning, who knew what kind of nasties had gotten in.
A/N: Tucker's a good friend for Danny, especially when Danny is pretty clueless. I have so much fun writing Tuck…
I finished this chapter today, and I was torn about whether I should post it. "Too soon?" I asked myself. And myself replied, "You made them wait for three months for the last update. Post the darn thing."
Now I have a confession to make: I come from a land-locked state, and I've swum in the ocean a grand total of four times in my life. Twice at a beach in Washington State, where even in summer the water was cold enough to be numbing (I swam in it anyway, because it was my first time to see the ocean); once in California (much more pleasant swimming conditions); and once in the Aegean Sea – while the water there was beautiful, it was also filled with poisonous sea urchins, and I was kind of nervous the whole time.
As for boats – I've ridden in one riverboat, four ferry boats, and one fishing boat, and I once rowed a tiny rowboat across a lake. Most (maybe all?) of my nautical knowledge comes from television, Wikipedia, and from 19th century writers like Herman Melville.
I've definitely never been scuba diving; and I've never been to the coast of North Carolina, where Amity Beach supposedly is.
In short – I'm totally pulling my descriptions out of thin air. Yeah~ ;D
Thanks to TrustyFoxy, Kuronique Misaki, DeathBright, BrownHair2918, a Mysterious Illusion, Kiomori, leslidannyphantom, Lightning Streak, Expergiscimini, Invader Johnny, FallingNarwhals, Hybridkylin, IWasNeverReal, Guest3, El0ndon, and Anonymous Ki for their reviews! I love you guys! I wish I could hug you.
Next time: MERPEOPLE
