Chapter 138

"Morning Fred," Bella greeted her colleague before their before-school staff meeting. "Did you see the news?"

"How could I not?" Fred laughed. "My wife showed me three articles this morning and I had family and friends sharing links with me too,"

"Are you talking about the mermaid news?" a fellow colleague piped up from behind them as they were all finding their seats in the staff room.

"Yes Kyla. It's crazy isn't it - the media has gone nuts!" Bella replied, sitting down next to Fred. Kyla took the seat on her other side. She taught history and classics.

"It is such an amazing discovery" Kyla gushed. "I have a unit on mythology that I teach – they'll need to update the curriculum about mermaid myths. We now have certainty that these 'myths' are based on facts, so this changes everything for how we perceive stories about mermaids. And other creatures too! Loch ness monster, yeti, pegasus, gryffons. What else is out there?"

"It does make you wonder," Fred agreed. "But so far mermaids is the only one with officially recognised proof,"

"I doubt it," Pete called out from across the room. He taught food technology. "It is all too fantastical and it has only been information so far – they haven't shown us any pictures or showed us an actual mermaid yet – it's probably all a big hoax! Mermaids existing? Pft."

"The research discusses keeping the anonymity of the mermaids who participated in the study," Kyla replied. "We can hardly blame them – look at what the media is doing about those two researchers. If a mermaid was public? That would be ridiculous!"

"True," Bella acknowledged. She wondered how Kyla and Pete would feel and react if they found out they were talking to and working with two mers.

Before the conversation could continue the staff meeting began.

OoOoO

Anna and Jessie didn't hear about mermaids until their lunch break. They were the only two in the office that morning, but everyone was there by the middle of the day. Of course, it was one of the first topics their boss Warren Preston brought up as he heated his lunch in the staff room, asking 'Has everyone seen the crazy news about mermaids!?'

"Yes, how could we not?" Anna replied rhetorically, "It is everywhere," she laughed good naturedly.

"True," Mr Preston agreed. "It is amazing that a discovery like that has taken so long to be known to science!"

"I suppose mermaids keep it to themselves," Jessie replied.

"Yes, true. I would sure love to meet one!" he said. "The research article had so little about what they are actually like as people. And there are no proper photos yet. But maybe that will be released soon,"

"What would you do if you met one?" Anna asked.

"You know what? I don't know," Mr Preston replied. "Perhaps just ask them what it is like to swim or what it is like to be a mermaid,"

"They'd probably just say that it feels normal to them – that it is what they know, that it is a part of them," Jessie smiled.

"That's probably true," Mr Preston took his lunch out of the microwave. "It would be nice to hear it from them all the same," he smiled.

"Well, I'm sure that'll happen for you, sir," Jessie smiled back.

OoOoO

"Do you reckon this is legit?" the man commented, turning a newspaper to their friend across the table.

"They're already a protected species! It looks legit to me!" the friend replied.

"That's wild!" He responded, eyes wide in amazement.

Rikki and Zane exchanged knowing smiles. Zane opened the draw and marked another tally on their little whiteboard.

OoOoO

Everyone had heard others talk about mermaids at least once in their days.

That evening after dinner, Rikki called everyone together in the dining hall.

"It is time for the 'great mermaid mentioning tally count'," she announced, producing an A4 sized whiteboard from behind her back.

"Honesty is important! We are only counting the tallies you genuinely took today," Rikki continued. "The in-person ones are what we are scoring."

All the adults brought their mermaid tally post-it notes forward for Rikki to add to the whiteboard. There was a clear bias towards people who worked in people-facing jobs.

Bella ended up with the highest score. Following her conversation with Fred and their colleagues in the morning, in every class of the five period day students were constantly talking about it. Some students even started doodling mermaids on their music scores.

Rikki and Zane were a very close second – three points in it.

Turns out teenagers gossiping about the latest news got more points than café patrons on a weekday. No one was too surprised.

"It has been amazing how chill most people have been about the news," Emma commented. "Like yes people are talking about it, and they are excited, but everyday people didn't seem too phased,"

"I agree," Anna replied. "The people I spoke to today were genuinely interested in meeting a mermaid – no one was wanting to go out and hunt for one or angry about the news."

"It is early days," Lewis commented. "But it is definitely looking promising."

OoOoO

Detective Isla Griffin grabbed the remote and flicked on the news as she collapsed onto the couch. Today had been a long day. Questioning people and gathering evidence and statements for a recent arson investigation. She had also finished off a report for another case. She was glad to be home.

The headlines were being announced; a natural disaster aftermath, mermaids are real, a political faux pas, and a new space craft. Wait. Mermaids? She did a double take.

Mermaids are real!?

Feeling suddenly more awake, she grabbed her phone and typed in mermaids.

"Whoa" she breathed aloud. So. Many. Articles.

She clicked into one. Then another. And one more.

Well. So…Mermaids are real.

The case from a few months earlier had still plagued her mind. The unexplainable evidence and the insistence of the kidnapper that the children and their parents were mermaids.

Obviously the man was the aggressor – he stalked and kidnapped children. And there was more than enough evidence to convince a jury (including a confession, albeit a motive related to mermaids). Ryan Tate's case was due to go to trial in two months, pleading guilty.

This news about mermaids added an interesting twist to the case. Were these families genuinely mer-people? If so, what would this mean for their rights? And what would the jury think about Mr Tate's motivations? It was likely to still going to be an open and shut case, but this sure added a spanner in the works.

As her brain whirred trying to grapple with it all, the news article about mermaids finally came on.

She focused in on the TV and the familiar news presenters.

"Mermaids are real. Yes you heard that right. While images of these magical creatures are yet to be released, scientists Dr Katya Alekhin and Dr Linda Denman have published their research about mermaids in the Journal of Animal Science and Zoology. Our reporter Mike Hahn has the story,"

The reporter outlined what the research article covered and then introduced an interview with the marine biologists responsible. Isla was engrossed as Dr Alekhin and Dr Denman answered the reporter's many questions. The scientists talked about the mermaids they studied as though they were equals – like friends. They also talked about keeping the anonymity of the mermaids involved in the research. They talked about working at the pace the mermaids were happy with, and that yes, anonymised photos of the mermaids may be released soon. Following the conclusion of the interview, the reporter proceeded to talk about the protected status of mermaids.
The news continued on to the next article but Isla wasn't listening. She turned the TV off.

She needed answers. Not in a professional sense, but a personal sense. She wanted to ask them a few questions. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that they were, in fact, mermaids. The length of time it took to engage police, the reluctance to go to hospital, the melted and burnt evidence, Ryan's claims. But she also never saw any tails or scales so she could just be spiralling in speculation. She knew that the families involved in the recent case lived out on Mako Island but they had a mailing address on the mainland. She didn't want to be a creep or freak them out. She had absolutely no desire to traumatise them further or try to expose them like Ryan had attempted. She just wanted to know if she was going crazy or not. And to be an ally to them if the genuine mermaid factor in the case prosecution caused previously unforseen problems.

Before she could doubt herself, Isla typed out a quick message and emailed Dr Alekhin and Dr Denman.

OoOoO

Katya cracked open another pistachio, sitting at the kitchen island at Linda's house.

"You have the best snacks," Katya grinned.

"Gotta keep our energy going," Linda winked at her across the island as she typed another reply to yet another email. "The amount of emails we are getting makes me think I need to hire a permanent assistant!" she laughed.

"Yeah, I suppose it is a great thing that the enquiries we are getting are genuine questions or invitations for interviews," Katya replied.

"Absolutely – the public having a positive opinion of mermaids is essential to the success of mer-safety for the future – especially now that it is not a secret anymore!"

Katya nodded her agreement, reaching into the pistachio bowl again.

"I think we need to get our friends' consent to release the anonymised photos of mermaids swimming. The public is clamouring and if photos are not released then I think we will end up creating media mermaid hunters, trying to get the next exclusive," Katya started.

"I totally agree," Linda mused as she opened their encrypted research folder. "Here we go!" she announced, opening the anonymised photos. Anna and Bella had volunteered to be in the photos and videos released in the early stages. Anna dyed her hair brown (obviously while in mermaid form) as red hair might be a give away to people looking to find the mermaids. Bella kept her natural hair colour because blonde wasn't exactly uncommon in Australia. Katya and Linda purchased high quality and secure software to significantly blur the mermaids' faces and arms – hiding any identifying features. The tails were on display though. The original photos were permanently erased once anonymised.

Katya pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Anna. Linda started selecting photos for possible release the next morning, half listening to Katya on the phone.

"Hey Anna, yeah everything is good here…yeah it has been crazy right? For sure. Look, Linda and I were wondering if you are happy for us to release the photos to the media tomorrow? Ok, yep. Thanks for trusting us with this," Katya paused. "We're going to start working on the video if that's ok? Great. Thanks again. Have a good night! Bye!"

"How was she?" Linda asked, looking over at Katya.

"Anna's good. She said everyone is still not really believing that this is really happening – with people knowing about mermaids. She said they had a number of mermaid mentions competition today – Bella won. She asked the others - over mindspeak I guess – and they all were happy for the images to be released, and they're happy for the video but they want to check it first of course."

"Understandable. Double check these photos for me, I would hate to send the wrong ones," Linda replied. Katya moved over and checked.

"Looking good," Katya commented. "Let's email them to the news companies that gave the most scientific and least sensationalised coverage first."

"'Least sensationalised' will be harder to narrow down," Linda laughed. "But yes. Let's do it now so it is ready for the morning news."

As soon as Katya and Linda sent off the photos, another email arrived.

"I wonder what it is this time?" Katya said.

"Another person is wanting to organise a time to meet with us to discuss the mermaid research," Linda responded. "Oh wait, it's from Isla Griffin. Why do I know that name?"

"Umm…" Katya thought for a moment. "Oh, isn't she the lead detective from our friends' case? She is involved in providing evidence for Ryan's prosecution. If she is emailing us…" Katya trailed off.

"We need to meet with her." Linda finished the sentence with a somber tone. "Let's send a reply."

OoOoO

The following morning, two photos were released and then very quickly spread around the internet. The first photo was of Bella and Anna swimming underwater, a birds eye view photo. They deliberately took the photo far to the south where they don't usually swim – with no identifyable reef or fish species. The second photo was of the two sitting in the shallows of a beach – tail half in the water, leaning back on their hands and looking at the camera. Again, great care had been taken to make sure nothing was identifyable, but the shot was taken further south just in case.

Believers were excited to have images of real mermaids and loved how pretty the tails looked with their golden orange shine. Skeptics kept going on about photoshop and prosthetic suits. Regardless, the mermaid buzz was not dying down anytime soon.

Dec '23 A/N 2: Hi everyone! This year has been nuts at work, and so I haven't had the energy to write much over the last few months. I am currently over halfway through the next chapter so I should be able to post it soon :) Also FF traffic stats have not been working since August, so I can't see if anyone is still reading my stories (which made it less motivating to write, as I thought people weren't reading...but I found out it is a glitch). Thank you so much Icy Petals for your encouragement, I really appreciate it xx

A/N: Hello everyone :D I hope you are well! I think I spent over 15 hours working on this chapter - so many little research things haha, trying to keep it believable. I hope you enjoyed it :) Let me know your thoughts :D

I know I say it every chapter, but I love reading your reviews :) Warm fuzzies, especially when you tell me what you think and your predictions. I started writing H2O fanfics (including this story) 12 years ago which is wild! Having encouragements over all these years is awesome - thank you so much :D Thanks so much to the following people for reviewing: kaitoechizen211, YaleAceBella12, Icy-Petals, Eleanoodle, and CrazyHayniac.

See you all next time!