“I don’t choose who dies. I have nothing to do with it,” the Lagoon Watcher crowed from behind the table as he shook his cuffed wrists, which had a chain connected to his ankle restraints. “It’s all done at the molecular level-maybe even the sub-molecular level. We’re talking chemical and genetic manipulation. It’s like a virus, but fully sentient and intelligent.”
Harry Trainer nodded at his three interrogators as if he had just made a brilliant point that would make them throw open the door, strip off his orange jumpsuit and let him walk on home. Apparently, he didn’t notice Sneed’s dumbfounded gawk, Aaron’s amused smirk, and even his friend Swartzman shaking his head with a frown. The accused murderer had rambled on for a half hour without any of the three men getting more than a sentence or two in at a time. As Trainer recited the whole ecological history of the lagoon-practically from the Big Bang-Aaron had deja vu from his high school days when he just planted his head on his desk and dozed off.
No worries. All they had was a trail of dead bodies, a swarm of psychotic animals, sixteen missing explosives and a toxic lagoon. Meanwhile, this guy kept playing the Mr. Green card. Every time they asked him how he did it, he insistently denied responsibility. He blamed polluters and politicians for laying the foundation for what he called a “computerized bacteria invasion.”
Trainer’s hair looked frazzled and nearly electrified; he sported a bandage covering the cut an eight-year-old supposedly inflicted on him. With all that, and the gaunt cheeks tracing the outline of his jaw, he resembled just the kind of street-corner sign man that warns of tiny invaders.
“I haven’t got the foggiest idea what you’re yammering about,” Sneed said. “Don’t you dare screw with me, old man.” He cocked his head towards the suspect with such a menacing scowl that even the Lagoon Watcher took notice. Trainer straightened his back in his wooden chair. “I have enough evidence to lock you away until your final breath. You might even earn a date with a syringe just like the ones you were carrying in your jacket in that elementary school-you sick son of bitch. You can forget an insanity plea. No jury will accept that from a man with a doctoral degree hanging on his wall. As I see it, you’ve got two options. You can admit what you did, tell me where you hid the bombs, and help us clean up this toxic shit. Maybe then, a jury will have just an ounce of pity for you. Option Two: You can keep speaking in riddles like you’re fucking Nostradamus. If you wanna see where that’ll end you up, I’d be much obliged to show you.”
The Lagoon Watcher tried throwing up his hands. His shackles prevented him from raising them above chest level. “You didn’t even consider the truth for one second. The evidence clearly demonstrates the impossibility of my involvement. I tried to prevent this calamity. It’s the Big Sugar and the Big Cattle and the…”
“Quit sticking the blame on everybody else!” Sneed growled. “You murdered all those people in cold blood.”
“I would never!”
“You took their heads. Where did you put them? In some secret lab of yours? Where did you take the explosives? If you kill any more…”
“Explosives? I don’t know a thing about that. But if that’s the subject we’re on, what about all the rocket exhaust from the launches at the Space Center? How could you blame me-the defender of the lagoon-for what’s going on when you’ve got tons, and tons of airborne debris from these launches seeping into the water? Wouldn’t you think this played a bigger role in triggering the bacterial mutations?”
“Okay Harry, that’s enough.” Swartzman finally waved his friend quiet. Aaron noted that it took bringing up the sore subject of NASA’s launch emissions, which nearly got Swartzman canned, for him to interject. “You’re not doing yourself any favors with these tirades. Pretend this is a research paper and just get to the point.”
Aaron had read plenty of academic research papers-reluctantly, of course. They were about as clear-cut as the user manual for the space shuttle. It didn’t matter that his professor might understand it. Of all the people in the room, only Sneed’s opinion truly mattered regarding Trainer’s fate. Aaron didn’t want anything for the Lagoon Watcher short of an extended stay in the slammer after his kidnapping of Mariella, and his brawl with Moni. Yet, he could see through the political ramblings. He recognized the man’s basic point: there’s no way he could have managed all of this, at least not by himself.
After nearly losing Mariella in the Enchanted Forest following Trainer’s arrest, Aaron knew that the threat against the girl, and Moni hadn’t ceased. He’d love to take the girls windsurfing out there one day and see them laughing and smiling without a fear in the world. Yet the lagoon still reeked of decay.
“A research paper might be kind of ambitious right now, Mr. Watcher. I mean, Mr. Trainer,” Aaron said. His professor rolled his eyes as if Aaron had wasted perfectly good air by opening his mouth. The Lagoon Watcher focused on him with those erratic blue eyes, momentarily calm. “We’ve done some investigating and I know you’ve gotten down and dirty digging for answers too. It can’t hurt to compare notes. Right?” The man nodded as eagerly as a kid who had been asked whether he fancied visiting an amusement park. “So what have you seen in the water?”
“Well, all kinds of fascinating phenomenon,” the Lagoon Watcher began. Already, Sneed crossed his arms and leaned his head off to the side in a sculpture of disinterest, as much as The Thinker is a sculpture of calculating thought. Aaron reassured Trainer by scooting forward in his chair. “Dolphins have become mischievous thieves for their masters. When you see a bird flying all crooked, and following you around town, you know it’s one of their spies. Gators and snakes are like the frontline soldiers. And that turtle you tagged, Herb, it’s a real wild one. It swims like a barracuda.”
“Come on, Harry. We all know you gave that sea turtle lifts on your boat to spook me,” Swartzman said.
“You think I’m giving the turtle rides? I couldn’t even catch it in a speed boat,” Trainer said. The professor covered his face with his hand and sighed. “These enhancements are part of their remodeling of the local species. Now, they’ve started melding two or three species together and finding new tasks for them. They’re crafted to adapt to their environment, however hostile it may be to other forms of life. It’s amazing that it all starts with the little guys.”
“You mean the bacteria?” Aaron asked.
“No, no, no. I’m talking about the other little guys-the smaller ones.”
Aaron and his professor exchanged puzzled glances.
“You’ve seen them right?” the Lagoon Watcher asked. “The carbon-mechanical hybrids? That’s one name for them. Really, there is no category for organisms, or machines, like this. Herb, how do you think their nervous system functions?”
“There’s nothing unusual in the infected animals besides bacteria,” Swartzman said. “The bacteria are the source.”
“No. The bacteria are their weapons,” the Lagoon Watcher said. “They’re the foot soldiers. They’re not the generals. That would be the smaller guys.”
“If there really is something else in the infected animals, how come we haven’t seen it in their blood?” Aaron asked.
“Are you examining the blood of dead animals?” the Lagoon Watcher asked. Aaron nodded. “Well, there you are. Try capturing a live infected animal. Don’t bother with blood that’s been outside of its body for more than a few seconds. You need to get a piece of live tissue under a microscope. Otherwise the little goobers will scurry off.”
“Oh right, because these hybrid beings are smart enough to know when a microscope is coming and recognize the second their hosts die,” Swartzman said.
“You got it,” Trainer said, without detecting his friend’s strong hint of sarcasm. “They’re real clever. Now do you see how this works? Bacteria are dumb. They can’t control an animal, much less a person. But these hybrids imbed themselves into the nervous system, and the brain. They rearrange the chemistry, and the interior makeup. We’re talking more than just redecorating here. The hosts acquire the same biological preferences as the bacteria. They crave iron and sulfur. They relish baths in sulfuric acid-like what the lagoon is turning into. I don’t understand how they do it, but somehow they tinker with the genetic code, and the hormones get all out of whack. Then the animal takes orders from their hybrid masters.”
His aggravation finally swollen so large that it popped, Sneed smacked his hand on the edge of the table. “Listen old man, blaming your crimes on corporations and politicians is offensive enough, but at least it doesn’t insult my fucking intelligence. Now, making this a yarn about body snatchers? This doesn’t sit well with me. Do you think I’m a complete idiot? Or are you still trying to sucker me into declaring you insane?”
The Lagoon Watcher slumped to his side. He raised his hands so he could bury his face in them, but the shackles limited his reach. Instead, he wiped his nose on his shirt. The man’s theories had been ignored for decades, yet he apparently had never lost the impassioned belief that he stood on the right side. This time, Aaron believed that he did.
Those “hybrids” could serve as the missing piece that fills the enormous hole in this case, Aaron thought. Moni had described a gator with the two snakes growing out of it. Aaron had seen that video of the dolphins with human hands. These mutations went beyond what bacteria alone could do. The murder victims had organs removed cleanly from the inside almost as if they were disassembled from their bodies. Aaron had first compared it to tiny construction workers. Maybe those early impressions were right on the money. If they could remove organs, they could carve off a head just as smoothly.
Sneed signaled to the officer standing behind Trainer. The husky man approached the inmate’s back. If they dragged him out that door, they wouldn’t see him for a long time.
“Hold on a second. I’ve got another question,” Aaron said.
“Will this episode of the X-Files ever end?” Sneed remarked, as he waved the officer back into the corner.
“I only wish it was fiction,” Swartzman said. “I’m afraid that what Mr. Trainer described might be all too real.” Almost giddy, the shackled man tapped his feet. Then the professor delegated the next move to his student. “Didn’t you have a question for the gentleman?”
Despite the gravity of the moment, Aaron couldn’t contain his goofy grin at having his professor finally recognize that he could actually help him in a tight spot. It counted as more than a tight spot, really. The task was stopping a false conviction of one of Swartzman’s friends-the man who had saved his career. And then they had this little issue with the heinous water quality in the lagoon.
Aaron cleared his throat and dove right in. “When you saw these hybrids, what were they made out of? What exactly has been blended together?”
“I’d call it nanobot, but it’s not anything like we know it. I could call it a highly adaptive virus, but it’s not completely organic.” The Lagoon Watcher held his hands in a ball as if he were molding a new form of life. “It’s nanobiotechnology. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface in this field, or that’s what I thought until I saw them. Someone has advanced it centuries into the future. Part of it is a composite metal. I’m not sure if it’s a shield or a battery pack or a mini computer. It might be all three. This metal can slice and dice its way through anything in the body, even bone. Then it has interfaces made of biomaterial that work sort of like keys. They unlock a genetic code and change it. When they need some bacteria soldiers, they pop one out and it starts dividing into an army.
“Remember the Borg on Star Trek? It’s kind of like that, but a tiny version of those cyborgs.”
Wearing a serious expression, Sneed leaned in close to the man. “I had no idea it was so serious. Are the Klingons involved too?” The detective threw his head back and guffawed. “What about the guys with the pointy ears? I bet they’re inside our bodies blasting their phasers.”
As the officer behind him joined the laughter, the Lagoon Watcher’s face burned so hot that Aaron could see the red through his over-crisped tan.
“Stop it! This is no joke,” Trainer said. “The hybrids are real. If you’re looking for who’s responsible for the polluting of my lagoon and all the murders, blame them, not me. Want evidence? Look into a microscope for once in your life, and you’ll see.”
Sneed got in the man’s face again. This time he didn’t seem so jovial. “I don’t need to search the globe looking for the killer who poisoned the lagoon. I’m looking right at him. If you’re an innocent man, why’d you kidnap that child?”
“Kidnapping? Please. I was trying to save her,” Trainer said.
“From the real killer?” Swartzman asked.
“From herself,” he replied. “Or, what’s inside her. I heard that she hasn’t said a word since spending the night along the lagoon. That’s consistent with the behavior of the infected animals. None of them can vocalize. The hybrids are in that girl. I’m not sure how strongly they’ve taken hold, or whether they can control the human brain, but they’re doing some damage, or else she would talk. I was looking for a blood sample so I could at least see how potent the bacterial infection has become.”
When Aaron thought of the diminutive girl, he couldn’t compare her to the frenzied snake that tore through the window screen after him, or the dolphins drowning those teenagers in the harbor. She didn’t bath in sulfuric acid and eat bowls of iron for breakfast. But at the same time, he knew the girl didn’t come anywhere close to acting like a normal kid. He had assumed that the apprehension that backed her into a silent corner came from her fear of being victimized again. Perhaps what really scared Mariella was dwelling among people and socializing in a culture she didn’t understand. How could little bio-machines make sense of a second grader’s world?
He couldn’t say for sure whether the Lagoon Watcher had just blown open the case. For Mariella, and Moni’s sake, he wished that he hadn’t. Not this way. But if Trainer was right, Aaron couldn’t let the girl succumb to the invaders inside her body.
“You believe me, don’t you Herb?” the Lagoon Watcher asked.
“It certainly is plausible. But it’s not important whether I believe you. It’s all about what this man right here believes.” The professor pointed at the detective seated beside him.
“Damn straight,” Sneed said. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
Trainer hung his head.
“Then it’s a good thing we can test this hypothesis,” the professor said. “We’ll go over some live samples from an infected rat tomorrow and see if we find what you described.” Trainer nodded eagerly. His face beamed as if he were one step away from leaping out of his seat and clicking his heels together as a free man. “I didn’t say it would completely exonerate you. But it might lead us to the real inventor of this bizarre technology and help us clean up the lagoon.” Swartzman faced Sneed. “What do you say? Can we have another day or two to examine the suspect’s claim?”
Sneed gazed upon the pencil-pusher as if he would rather yank his tie until his windpipe caved in than give him the privilege of yet another scientific jaunt.
“You’ve got two days until I start lining up a grand jury,” the detective said. “If you find anything, you better get it on video or else I’m liable to accuse you of forgetting.”
Swartzman nodded in spite of the obvious slight. With that, Sneed had the other officer pull the Lagoon Watcher from his seat, and drag him away. The moment before his head passed out the door, the man stopped and faced his three former interrogators.
“Since you’ve only got two days, I figure I better tell you.” Trainer planted his feet and resisted the guard’s tugging on his arm. “The most startling stuff is at the bottom of the lagoon. Not at the sea grass beds, but deep in the Intracoastal channel that runs down the middle. Show the detective a few photos from there. That’ll be proof enough.”
Catching the look in Swartzman’s eye telling him that a certain lucky student would be taking that dive, Aaron groaned. He better make sure his wetsuit doesn’t have any holes. Too bad he didn’t have one that was mutant gator proof.
“What exactly will I find down there?” Aaron asked.
“It’s a colony. God knows who it’s for. Just make sure that you…”
The officer finally dislodged the Lagoon Watcher from the doorway and slammed the steel frame shut. As Aaron watched his professor’s sullen expression, he chewed on a dreadful feeling that Swartzman would never see his friend again.