I Have No Excuse

Untitled Part 39

I was actively searching for my sister this time. Faking smiles and enthusiasm and pleasantries through and around flocks of people as I hunted. I found her with her little clique. Several guys were around them. Either they were boyfriends or they were hitting on the girls. Quite honestly I couldn't care less about that. Right now I needed Nat.

"Nat." I filled my voice with fake cheer and I approached. "It's good to see you."

"Jazz, it's good to see you as well. It has been a while."

"Almost an entire week."

"I assume your trip went well?"

"It did. Rather boring compared to this."

"Yes. It's so hard to find good entertainment nowadays. Excuse me everyone. I'd like to catch up with my brother."

I followed my sister outside and into the small garden. The grass was far livelier than the areas around it due to the watering it got. Each blade was thick and healthy. The flowers flowed in a circle around the path to the single fountain where my sister stopped. It was warm and the lights from the building made the world around us seem far darker.

"So what do you want?"

"Can't I just want to talk to my favorite sister?"

"No." Came the clipped response.

"Ok then. I wanted to ask ya a few things."

"Of course. What is it?"

"Do ya have any idea who Shane's boss is? Who runs that building? Anyone else who works for him? Anything?"

"Nope. The guys a mystery. Only mom and dad know who the guy is. They do visit him at various locations though. He isn't always in that building apparently."

"Where?"

"Geez. So pushy."

"Nat. Please."

"...They usually bounce around to the high tech buildings around on the other side of the bridge. There's a few of them. Half of the guys who work in those places are idiots. So simple minded."

"What are they doing there?"

"How should I know? I avoid going anywhere further than the lobby whenever I can. I only go because dad wants me to start training in basically ripping people off. Gotta keep the 'family business' going. I talk to the idiots. Not try and figure out what they're doing. I'm not doing the dealing and I don't plan to do it anytime soon."

"Could ya start paying attention?"

"You want me to Spy on mom and dad?"

"No. Not exactly. I want ya to start asking about the idiots jobs and... further your training and just... coincidentally tell me about it."

"You're a piece of work. You know that?"

"I can live with that. So how about it?"

"... If I get caught it's your fault and I had no idea what you're doing."

"Ok."

"And you owe me one."

"Meaning?"

"If I ever need someone to do something stupid that I don't want to risk I'll call you."

"Basically cause some damage to some people ya don't like."

"Yep."

"Ok. So Where exactly are these places?"

"Ocean Klean Tech. You know the whole 'because the ocean matters' place. They really need a better catchphrase. Then there's that place far on it's own down the road almost reaching that shut down skydiving place they had a few years ago. That place is really creepy. Then the other one is basically your competition for donations. It's another mer facility, but it's run by whoever Shane's boss is. Place is practically a zoo though. You can pay to get in and see what they have."

"Anything else ya can tell me?"

"Every single one of them is either an idiot or is like everyone else here."

"So they're assholes."

"Yeah. Try not to get yourself jailed."

444444444444444444 The Fours Are Crafting Some Sort Of Device!4444444444444444

The following day after work we were off. The place was definitely more glamorous than our facility. The one at the desk was a little slow, but cheery nonetheless. Much better than the last lady we had to deal with. They had a variety of mers on display and it even appeared that they were taking and selling the scales of some of them. Had their own little gift shop and everything. Yep. She was right. This was more a zoo than an actually facility to help them. The ones here seemed rather healthy besides the missing scales and most of them had pods or trines. They had a lot of Geminus Avium. Trine upon trine stared out at everyone with anger and a few even looked fearful, but those were few and far between. The main emotion that we saw was anger and I couldn't really blame them. They were being stared at on a regular basis and their scales were being yanked out on top of being forced to share space with mers outside of their pod or trine. I had to wonder just how many had gotten injured and killed before they got them to begrudgingly accept that they were going to have to share the space. Many of them had scars of some kind or another from those fights. They didn't even have the materials to make any nests. No flora. No coral. Nothing. They were in blank tanks that looked like our quarantine tanks. They had nowhere to hide.

Then there was an outlier. A Scindo Lascivio of blue and white coloration. Species nicknamed the Soundwave. Only there was something very wrong with this one. This one was quiet. This one was still. A species that communicated and scouted long distances by sound alone was silent. It was a form of echolocation that they could use and create with even the simple movement of its fins which was why it was always constantly moving. It made them deadly hunters at night as they didn't need to rely on their sight. But not this one. Not even a twitching fin to churn the water to make sure it didn't get snuck up on. And even weirder were the all of the Fractura Videte that clung to it. They were of various colors and subspecies. Likely from various nests and had either lost them or were runts and abandoned. Two nearly identical besides color Fractura Ante who seemed rather fidgety under the stares. One black Fractura Bestia whose ear fins didn't so much as twitch. And three Fractura Geminus whose wing fins opened and closed gently. Normally Scindo Lascivio didn't accept Fractura Videte as having the extra weight would slow it down and dampen the vibrations that they made with their fins. And yet this one didn't seem even slightly bothered by its company and they all seemed rather happy to be there.