The Secret Lives of Fish - a sequel to The Thirteenth Year

Ch 17 - Antithetical

Cody's first thought, as he woke in a small glass tank, was that it was probably his fourteenth birthday. By human standards at least. As he stared at his cramped and aching tail, he could feel deep within his bones that he'd lost his last chance to get his old life back. All he had wanted was to go home, to finish middle school, and maybe convince Sam that they could make it work.

Now...now he could feel a difference. Before, when he had first left with his mom, it had felt like his legs were still a part of him. Like they had been resting under the surface of his tail. Now his tail felt sold and strong. It was even hard for him to picture his legs or imagine the feelings of his toes in the sand. Such sensations seemed so foreign. A tail was meant for swimming and chasing around the waves. Legs, that was something young merkids had, not grown mermen like himself. His perspectives were shifting, leaving him feeling uncertain and off-center.

He most certainly was a merman, there was no doubt about it. Even if he tried, he would never to able to live on land again. Looking at the glass walls that surrounded him, Cody couldn't help but give a shudder. He felt just like a fish on display. In the corner of his eye, he could see the cluster of scientists who stood around, gawking. Most of them were going about whatever it was scientists in a secret facility went about. A few stood around his tank with clipboards and pencils in hand. He could only guess at what kind of notes they were taking. His mind flashed back to the diver with the video camera. They had seen everything. They had recording everything. They were probably still recording him as he floated there. His head dropped in shame as a deep, not fully realized terror, began to ache in his chest. He was exposed. He was no better than an experiment. Not only had he endangered himself but his pod and all of his kind. What had he done?

Through his building horror, he remembered what Jess had told him. Was it true? Were all the people in this place like Sean? Had they all, somehow, been affected by a merperson? Jess seemed to think so. Staring at his hands, Cody turned them over and let his charged dance briefly over his fingers. Now that he had his tail back, he was more in control, but he still felt rattled and unstable. His charge could do a lot more than he had thought. He felt dangerous. Sean now...well...he had a tail. Shaking his head, he tucked his hands into his armpits. There had to be some mistake...right? Glancing up briefly he watched the various people move around the cluttered room. There were other tanks near his, but Sean wasn't in any of them.

Cody had to wonder if his former teammate was being treated the same way. Were they also studying him? He was a merman now, as hard as that was to believe. Wouldn't they also want to use him to learn more?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Even if he asked them, he wondered if anyone would be willing to answer his questions. They knew he could talk to them, but did they care? He had never thought of his kind, merpeople, as being something to be feared. Perhaps there was a reason the Elders and his mother were so apprehensive about him coming back. Did they know something like this could happen? Did they know that their kind could harm humans? Make them merpeople? Cody didn't think so. His mother would have warned him.

For the umpteenth time he thought about how different he was, even among his own kind. He was so torn between what he was, what he had been raised as, and what he thought he wanted to be. Merpeople didn't interact with humans. That was a simple fact. Even the young mers, who hadn't gotten their tails yet, never went on land. They could swim and breath underwater so there was no need. Cody had lost that ability as a baby because he'd been removed from the ocean. He was the anomaly. The stranger no matter where he was.

His terror was becoming more realized. His heart was pounding, and his head pulsed with the blood rushing to his brain with his rising panic.

His mind kept circling back to that one question - how could all of these people be like Jess? Jess who claimed to be able to hold his breathe for eight minutes. Was that true? Jess didn't lie, it wasn't a part of his character. Before last night, Cody would have trusted his best friend with his life. In fact, he had already trusted him with far more than that. Yet, here he was, in a tank. Jess... had Jess told them everything? He had nearly implied as much. He'd been betrayed. All of his secrets were out in the open.