Second Nature

Chapter 60

60 

Cade felt Haven's pulse. It had grown weak and rapid, but Gen would be here soon to heal her. 

"There!" Jimi said, pointing off to starboard. A couple dozen dolphins dashed toward the boat out of the dark sea, leaping and knifing across the glassy water. Cade's heart leapt up with them. 

"Oh, Gen, hurry!" Lana shouted. 

The pod reached the boat, chattering loudly. The sea boiled furiously around one dolphin who quickly took on the form of a naked woman. A baby dolphin darted close to the human Gen, brushing against her body, and Gen ran a hand across the baby's sleek face. Then a big dolphin burst out of the water, arcing high in the air and smacking back into the sea, and all the dolphins turned as one, and followed the big dolphin away at top speed into the night. 

Jimi leaned over the side of the boat and hauled Gen up on deck with both hands. "It's Haven," he said. "She's dying." 

Gen nodded slowly, seemingly dazed. She knelt next to Haven and pulled back the blankets. She put her hand on Lana's hand and pulled it away from the gunshot wound. Then she laid her hands on Haven's bare chest and closed her eyes. A fog spread from her hands, sparkling iridescently in the dim courtesy lighting of the cockpit. The fog grew thicker until Gen's hands and Haven's flesh seemed to merge, then disappear under an opaque, rainbow cloud. 

Jimi stood nearby. Lana remained kneeling beside her niece, her hands lovingly caressing Gen's bare back. 

In less than a minute, Haven opened her eyes. Cade sobbed and covered his daughter's face with kisses. Lana and Jimi were crying, too. 

Haven stared at Gen with huge brown eyes. "Gen, you're here!" Then the girl's grateful expression twisted into a frown and she began to cry. "Go away, quick. Army men are looking for you. Go now." 

Jimi wrapped a blanket around Gen and she stood. She leaned into him, seeming to be half-awake, moving in a dream. 

"Haven's right," Jimi said. "It's dangerous for you. You'd better get back into the water now. Go back to your pod." 

"I can't," she said. 

"Why not?" 

"My pod is gone. I told them to leave me," she said. "My final change is coming. I can't stay in the water, I need to be on land when it happens." 

Cade heard rolling thunder, fast approaching. He gave Gen a fierce look. "Christ, Gen, go, go, go! Over the side. Get out of here. I hear them. They're coming for you." 

She shook her head. "It's too late, Cade. You can't help me, and they can't hurt me. No one can stop what I'm becoming." 

The helicopters hurtled toward the boat like giant black locusts. They flew so low over the water, white froth churned in their wakes. Cade stood quickly and pushed Gen to the deck. "Everybody stay down!" he yelled. 

Three or four helicopters now stood off from the boat, the sound of jet turbines and whirling rotors deafening. An artificial gale rocked the sea and hurled stinging bullets of water through the air. Gen stood up and her blanket whipped away in the storm. She braced herself against the wind, naked in the bleaching glare of halogen spotlights. 

Scuba divers in black wetsuits scrambled up both sides of the boat at once, using electric-winch grappling gear. Rifles bristled in every direction, with powerful spotlights affixed to the barrels. One diver slid open the cabin door and disappeared into the boat's interior. Ferocious snarling and barking arose, followed by a loud yelp, then silence.  

The soldier stepped out of the cabin. "No personnel, sir. Just a dog. I hit it in the head with the butt of my rifle."  

A tall soldier approached Gen. He unclipped a two-way radio from his belt and shouted into the handset. "Team Leader, this is Foxtrot Leader. I count five individuals on board; not four," he said. "Two adult males, two adult females, and one female child. And sir, one adult female has purple eyes. Affirmative, sir, purple eyes. She must have been on board the whole time, hidden in the cabin." He stepped closer to Gen, his diving fins hooked to his waist behind him, his rifle light glaring in her face. "Team Leader, I am now standing five feet away from the subject, and I guarantee you that her eyes are purple." He played the light across Gen's body, head to toe. "That is a negative, sir. She is presently naked, and she has no deformities. She looks very, ah, fit, sir. Healthy. Great...health." 

The soldier listened to instructions then signaled the other soldiers, pointing up. A Skycrane helicopter slid into position, hovering only a hundred feet directly over the deck. Its rotor wash flattened the sea in concentric standing waves. A wire cage descended on a cable from the stainless steel capsule clamped under the fuselage of the Skycrane. At rifle point, the soldiers loaded Gen into the wire cage, and the cable hauled her up until she disappeared into a hatch in the bottom of the capsule. The hatch closed. Immediately, the helicopter banked and headed back toward the mainland. 

"What are they going to do to her?" Cade asked the tall soldier. 

"Mister, I don't have that information, and if I did I wouldn't be allowed to disclose it," he said. "You and your people got off very lucky. Team Leader was going to tear you guys apart to find her. Now we're pulling out. It's all over. We got what we came for. Boats are on their way to take you back to the island for twenty-four hour quarantine." 

He signaled the other soldiers and they all slid over the side of the boat and swam to wire baskets waiting for them in the water, dangling from three Nighthawk helicopters. The combat divers rode back up the cables and swung into the open sides of the buzzing locusts. 

A half-dozen inflatable boats appeared in the distance, zipping along the smooth water, approaching fast. Twin 50-caliber machine gun turrets poked from amidships of each boat. 

Haven went into the cabin and returned with Newpod. "I wiped Gen's magic off on him. His head wound is okay, see?" 

"Smart girl," Cade said. "Here, let me hold his collar." 

The boats surrounded the Donzi speedboat on all sides, and lashed the hulls together. They began towing the speedboat to shore.  

The four people and the dog huddled, holding each other. 

Cade had one other thing to hold on to: Gen had said that he couldn't help her and they couldn't hurt her.  

He had to believe with all his might that was true, or he couldn't take the anguish that caged his heart.