Chapter 2

"But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more."
- Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

"But that's- how? How did you find him?" Phil takes a step closer to the tank, resting his hand on the railing that greets him. There are two flights of steps down from where they are to where a group of scientists, flanked by several armed soldiers, alternate between arguing and flinching at the loud sounds of tail meeting glass. They seem wary, but hardly overly concerned.

"This wasn't at all a part of the brief - as far as I know, anyway, everything here's all blacked out and 'need to know' and just as crappy as the TV shows would make you believe." Jo joins Phil at the metal railing, folding her arms over the bar and leaning forwards. "They stumbled on him and, for whatever reason, they were able to capture him and bring him back." She shrugs, "If you ask me, I think this one was either kicked out of his family or ran away."

"Why do you say that?" Phil frowns, confused as to how she can talk about mermen existing as if it was a common occurrence. "Have they found other mermai-men, uh, merpeople before? How long has this been going on?" Most marine scientists understand that they can only comprehend a small portion of what the ocean's depths hold, but it's baffling to imagine that they could be so wrong about the possibilities that those waters could hold.

"Again, they don't say much, but judging by how freaked out everyone is, I'd say this is a first." She nods in the direction of a tall, dark man standing at the front of the pack, apparently trying to talk to three people at the same time. "That's Ty- Dr Jayawardena, but everyone calls him Ty. He's sort of in charge, well, both of us are as good as an expert as they can get, till we found you of course." She winks at him, but Phil is too entranced by the tank and its contents to notice or care.

"Right, yeah." He murmurs, watching the tail in its waves and motions, wondering just how strong it must be, how fast it could propel this extraordinary creature through the water. Everything about his lower half is perfect, an ideal marine creature- if not a little ostentatious with those glimmering scales and long, tapering tail. To have this chance to study and hopefully have close examination of the creature's swimming and physiological functioning is an unbelievably unique and invaluable opportunity. Yet Phil remains fixated with everything above the hips, those long elegant arms, streamlined but bare torso and the fierce, emotive, so very human face. They all contradict what Phil has learned and been taught about the ocean's inhabitants.

A memory from very long ago finds it's way to the surface of Phil's mind, and he lets it consume him as he stares blankly ahead. His mother sat beside him, turning the pages of a colourfully illustrated book, with great detail and love put into every expression on the extraordinary creatures depicted, from centaurs to chimera, dragons to djinn – and of course, mermaids.

"And mer- merboys," Phil had argued stubbornly, pointing out a young male, swimming along the border of the page, his stubby fingers tracing the curve of it's purple tail, "They aren't ladies at all!"

His mother had laughed, though not unkindly, winding a warm arm around his shoulder, "You're right, we can't forget the mermen."

It was two years later, after he started school, that she'd come across him crying on his bed, picture book open on that very same page, blues and greens melding as tears filled his eyes. The boys at school had found the book (it had been carried diligently around every day for some time without issue) and teased him to the point of misery.

"What's that?" She'd said, gathering him back into her arms, wiping away the tears, planting a soft kiss into the scruffy mess of his hair, "Who's to say those boys know anything about mermaids and mermen- and why they have to hide away from us?"

At this, the tears had stopped, and Phil just blinked up at her.

"That's right! They know that humans are terribly jealous of their pretty tails and magical kingdoms, so that's why they live deep, deep in the sea, where we can't reach them and where they're safe from silly boys like the ones at school- how can they know that mermaids don't exist? They've no more proof than you, and don't you let them tell you otherwise." She'd swept the fringe from his eyes affectionately, and Phil, still leaning up against the metal rail, unconsciously brings a hand up to his newly black hair.

Not a day goes by that he doesn't miss her.

Tucking the long strands to one side of his face, his brow suddenly furrows. The merman is no longer beating his tail, or swimming frantically, as he was only moments earlier. Instead, both hands are slammed against his ears, face screwed up in what Phil can only interpret as a look of utter agony. No longer swimming, he is floating down to the floor of the tank, his strong tail reduced to merely twitching slightly as he curls up on himself.

Phil's eyes dart quickly from the tank to the others in the room; something's changed. Everyone else is watching the tank, not apparently bothered by the mermans actions, more so curiously observing his actions. His gaze finally rests on the doctor that Jo had pointed out earlier, Ty, who is standing at one of the consoles, slowly but surely twisting a knob on what looks like- a sound system?

Before he knows what's happening, Phil's voice bursts from his own mouth, echoing across the room-

"Stop that!"

Several people look up at him, but not Ty. Phil's already at the staircase to his left, bounding down the metal steps two at a time and pushing people aside to get to the desk where Ty is standing.

"What are you doing!" Ty looks up at Phil, a little confused at his sudden appearance and distress.

"This?" Ty gestures to the tank, "It's just some high level soundwaves, they're going through the speakers all around the room, but humans can't hear it, don't worry. We're trying to see what frequencies it hears, to see if there is a way we can train or even possibly one day communicate with it. We're a bit concerned that-"

"Can't you see you're hurting him?" All politeness forgotten, Phil plants his hands on the table and springs over it, grateful for his lithe frame, and reaches over to switch off the entire console at the plug.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing!" Ty's protests are ignored and, with a satisfying low hum, the equipment switches off. "Who are you?"

But Phil's already gone, darting back through the crowd and over to the tank. There's two hulking security guards keeping an unspoken barrier around the glass cube, but Phil doesn't see them or any of the gaping faces. Now that his face is right up next to the glass, he can't help but put a hand against it's cool surface.

The merman has relaxed, head cocking to one side as if making sure that the offending sound has entirely disappeared. The gesture is so familiar that Phil bursts into a smile at the sight of it, which only widens as the merman unrolls again, shaking itself as if to restore dignity or pride. Phil's joy is short lived, however, as he watches the prisoner swim its way back up the tank, muscles rippling and face more furious than ever.

"Now it's just back to where we were before, yep- there you go!" Ty has appeared just behind Phil as the onslaught against the glass begins again in steady bangs against the glass. "What on earth were you thinking boy? Who let you in here?"

Phil turns on his heel, furious.

"What were you thinking?! Why would you use high pitched soundwaves? Are you trying to torture him?" The words come spitting from his lips and Ty takes a step back, affronted by his ferocity.

"Torture it?" Ty corrected, "No, like I said, I'm investigating communication-"

"With that skin, we have pretty good basis to say he's a sea mammal, most likely deep sea yes?" Phil cuts across the man once again, all good manners well gone by this point. "Based on the vestibulocochlear structures of other cetaceans and sirenians, manatees and all that, his hearing is most likely going to be more complex than ours- I'd say its pretty safe to assume he's gonna have a heck more ganglionic cells in his ears and far larger auditory nerves than us."

He pauses for breath, but no one interrupts him. Other conversation has ceased entirely and all eyes are trained on him. A little more nervous, but no less determined, Phil bites his lower lip, then continues.

"That with a thicker basilar membrane, handy for deep sea communication, give him an exceptionally sensitive, exceptionally high hearing range- you blast that stuff from these speakers and you may as well be pouring acid into his water; investigation or not it's going to hurt like hell."

He pauses again, not sure what to say next, or if someone is going to challenge his suggestion, which is all based solely on theory and has absolutely no evidence based claims. Although he can't see him anymore, Phil can hear that merman is still beating at the glass behind him.

"What do you suggest then, Dr. Lester?" A crisp voice sounds from one of the corners, and a short lady steps forward in pointed heels, her white hair framing the edge of her jaw in a perfectly straight line. "Do you have a better idea?"

Phil swallows, biting down on his lip again, but it's not hard for a few ideas to come to mind. As Jo said, he's as good as an expert as they've got.

"Turn down the lights. Keep some of the safety ones on, red, but this has got to be part of the reason he's so distressed for sure." She nods, so he continues. "And get rid of all these people definitely, being surrounded by strangers is enough to make me want to break things sometimes."

Jo chuckles from up on the raised entrance, but she's the only one. The lady who spoke up raises an eyebrow, but gestures to one of the guards with a wave of her hand, and a few moments later the lights are dimmed down to the barest minimum and the room is plunged into eerie, almost-darkness.

"You heard him, everyone out of here." There are several noises of protest, but this woman is clearly the authority because she rounds them up swiftly, "Yes all of you, I only need guards on the door and hall, we have full surveillance outside nonetheless."

Soon enough, the room is empty and Phil is still standing in front of the tank, part bemused at how the past few minutes have panned out, part concerned that he really has no idea what he's talking about and perhaps it would have been wiser to stand in the corner and observe- but he's never been very good at that.

The room is almost silent, the last chattering of people fading out the door, and in the darkness Phil realises that the beating against the glass has also stopped. He spins around and looks up to see the merman floating in the water, tail and arms working together to cleverly maintaining his position in the small space. His face has changed, eyes are now open wide, darting around the room and ears flat back against his head. Most of all, the tense distress seems to have disappeared, for the greater part at least- his formidable shoulders are still rather taught, pulling back together.

"It seems that at least some of that was true then." The woman is now at the top of the room, next to the door. "I'll leave you to it, Dr. Lester. Report back to me after two hours and if you've got something that interests me, I might just let you run the science side of this mission." Then she, too, is gone, and they're alone together.

Phil's eyes trail over the merman's body, every detail far more surreal and beautiful up close. He watches the way the scales reflect, even the dim light in the room, twisting back and forth through the water in a corkscrew fashion. Phil's head falls forward and rests on the glass.

"I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I feel like us scientists are no better than those kids who stick pins in beetles in the park, only we say things cleverly enough that no one argues with us. That looked like it was really painful, but I promise I won't do anything like that to you."

He doesn't even realise he's talking aloud until there's a murmur in his mind, almost like a trickle of thought. It wedges its way between his musings and, in a deep voice, whispers to the corners of his mind:

"Thank you, Phil."