Chapter 35

A week later...

Alan knocked on the door and pushed it open.

"Yeah. Oh, sorry Cleo gotta go...see you later...love you." Lewis hung up the phone.

"Alan, what can I do for you?"

"Guess what?" he began excitedly as he sat down.

"What?" Lewis replied mockingly. Alan ignored the friendly jibe. He was going to tell Lewis. Alan had battled with himself for the week wondering what he should do. He decided to go to his mentor, Lewis McCartney.

"I may be onto something. I think I have credible proof that mermaids in fact exist." Alan wasn't sure whether Lewis had suddenly paled or whether it was just the light; he ignored it when Lewis replied.

"Proof?"

"Yeah," Alan took his laptop out of his bag and set it on the desk. He turned it around, "Take a look at these."

Lewis' P.O.V

A million thoughts were racing through my mind. This was not good news, not good at all. What if he told his aunt? How did he even get on this tangent? This could put my entire family at risk. What will Cleo say?

"Proof?" I replied.

"Yeah, take a look at these." He swivelled his laptop around to show me some files. They were stills of defined sonar images, really high tech equipment. In these, it clearly showed my friends and the children swimming to the mainland and back to Mako on the different slides. Each one had been annotated with speeds and times.

"Are you sure these are credible? They could be a pod of dolphins," I said trying to dissuade him.

"No. I have the live scans too, these creatures were going much too fast to be dolphins or any other type of fish for that matter. Even faster than an average speed boat." He saw and believed my fake disbelief. "Come on Lewis, there is something amazing here."

"You're right but you're going to need more than just some scans to convince me," I tried to smile. "Are you going to file a report?"

"Not yet."

Thank the Lord.

OoOoO

Normal P.O.V

A week later after returning Linda's device, Alan set up motion activated cameras around the areas where the mermaids most commonly swam, unknowingly, again the next morning, the mers travelled to work their normal way. Lewis had told them about Alan, but sonar scanners reached a large area, they would be picked up on the device no matter their route.

As soon as Alan got to work, he opened his laptop to see look through the photos, he knew the creatures would not be in the water overnight so he clicked open the pictures for that morning. The first twenty or so were just of shoals of fish, sharks and one small pod of dolphins. He clicked to the next photo.

"No way." He breathed. There was a photo of nine tails, seven small and two large. There it was proof. The tails were a gold colour but he saw a few tails with a reddish tinge. He looked a little bit closer, the ones with reddish tails were mermen, the rest were mermaids. He couldn't see their faces but it seemed like the mermaids had had offspring.

He opened the next frame. There was two mermaids swimming over the reef, large smiled on their faces. He had seen those faces before. Could it be? It was! Lewis' wife Cleo was in that picture smiling at him. Did Lewis know his wife was a fish? Did he know the other mermaid? She looked very familiar. It dawned on him. He had met that woman at Lewis' birthday party, the owner of the cafe – Rikki. He quickly closed the file as a colleague walked past.

OoOoO

"Alan, just the man I wanted to see," Lewis said as he passed Alan in the hallway on the way to his office. "Mr Handler told me to tell you that you need to file that biodiversity report before the end of the day,"

"Can I talk to you privately?"

"Sure," Lewis asked questioningly. They went together to Lewis' office. Alan shut the door behind him. Alan got straight to the point.

"Were you aware that your wife is a mermaid?" Lewis' jaw dropped in response; he quickly recovered himself.

"Are you serious? My wife? A mythological creature, that's absurd."

"I have proof." Alan replied ignoring Lewis' disbelieving tone.

"Proof? May I see this proof?"

Alan produced the photo.

"This...this has to be a fake." Lewis said flustered.

"Lewis, I saw this download with my own eyes. There is no use pretending. Your wife is a mermaid and she is not the only one. I was just wondering whether you knew."

"Yes, I knew." Lewis said in defeat. "Please, please don't tell anyone, she could be put in a cage and...and experimented on! I love her..."

Alan nodded, he knew that would most likely be the case if the knowledge got to the wrong people.

"Please don't tell..." Lewis pleaded.

"I...I'll think about it."

"You've met her, she's just like any other human...just with mutated DNA..." Lewis continued, "So is Rikki, you met her too. If you exposed them it'd ruin their lives"

"I'll consider the options. Lewis, this is an amazing discovery, it'd make me rich. I know there are others."

"Do you have other photos?"

"Yeah." Lewis' heart sank. "You can't identify who they are, though it is evident that the mermaids can breed. I take it you already knew this?" Alan asked. Lewis nodded slowly handing the photo of Cleo and Rikki back to Alan. He put his head in his hands. Alan thought that Lewis was going to break down soon, he looked devastated. Alan weighed the options. If he exposed them he would gain a lot of money for the research and become famous amongst the biologist community. However, if he did, the two women in the photo would have to deal with the exposure and possibly get in serious trouble. It would also break the heart of his friend and mentor, Lewis McCartney and his kids. It would also negatively affect their friends and children. Thinking about it, Alan didn't really need the royalties from the research and Lewis would be devastated. He had made his decision.

Alan reached over and patted Lewis' shoulder. "I won't tell."

"Are you serious?" Lewis asked hopefully.

"Yeah...I promise. I just couldn't do that to you man,"

It took a few seconds to settle in before Lewis jumped and hugged his friend tightly, "You have no idea how grateful I am to hear that. Thank you, no, seriously, thank you so, so much."

Lewis was still weary but at least it was a start. Alan felt he had made the right decision – the look on Lewis' face was worth it.

That afternoon, he burned the photos and uninstalled his monitoring equipment. Their secret was going to be safe with him, for Lewis' sake.

A/N: Thanks so much for reading. I have to say though I am a little disappointed that I'm not getting as many reviews as I used to. Thanks so so much to Beaker77, candygirl96, for being the people to have reviewed chapter 34. Also thanks to onlinegirlgoing4god, Sophia68696, RikkiAndZaneH20 and wella4ever25 for being the only ones to have reviewed since Ch 31.

Please, please review. I'll give a shout out for those who review this chapter, thanking you very much. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope my busy schedule will allow me to upload another soon.