(ON HOLD) High C's (A Mosasaur's Story)

Ch. 3

The boat ride took all night and Lagoon woke up to the sound of the ship's horn as it approached the shorelines. The sea water tastes less fresh and more like gasoline and oil, making him wanting to avoid it at all costs. He huffed water out of his nose to breathe some air. He could barely see the sunlight through his mask but he could hear the seagulls fly around above him. He felt the warm sun start drying off his supposed-to-be-wet skin. Coral whimpered at the horrible smell of rotten shorelines and boat gas, getting anxious again, the fact that her skin also started drying up on her back gave her some sun burnt pain. She hadn't slept at all.

Lagoon heard Huston talking to the man on Shore, a Hispanic man named Manuel who runs the park and tally's how much money Huston would get with his haul he just pulled in.

"I got two mosasaurs here with a little added bonus." Huston says

Manuel looked up at him from his papers, "And what is that bonus?"

"You see that one on the far right there? That is a female who is carrying some fresh live young in her belly.... er... how many offspring does a mosa carry?" Huston pondered

Kenny walked by watch the rest of the crew carrying a crate full of fresh meat for the other animals. "about 20, but usually one or two actually make it to adult hood." He heaved the heavy crate onto the truck and went back to help out the others.

Manuel stopped and put his pen down. "Whoa whoa, we cannot have 20 mosas in our tank, it will get too crowded-"

Huston interrupted him, "Well, send them to other parks or put them in separate tanks, use the dead ones for show and tell, I'm sure you can think of something."

"Right.. well, how much do each weight?" Manuel pointed his pen at the two mosas

Huston never checked their weight, he was in too much of a hurry to get back so he had to think up a quick lie. "Ehhh the female, she's about 30 tons and the male here is about 50." he grinned

Lagoon and Coral were offended for they did not weigh that much.

Manuel started writing the check, "Right... your total is 40 million, take it or leave it."

Huston raised his voice, "40 million!? Why not 400?! It's a clear 400 million here!"

Manuel ripped it off the check book and waved it in front of him, "Take it... or Leave it..."

Huston growled and aggressively took the check out of his hand, he definitely wasn't going off empty handed, "Fine, what's the next task?"

Manuel rubbed his forehead and mumbled, "I'm surprised you haven't retired already..." he then said "Let your crew relax with their families for a week then come back Monday for your next mission." He gestured the dock workers to drive the crane over to the mosas. The end of the crane carried a large carrier for the mosas to swim into to be moved to their tank.

The boat platform lowered a bit as the crane dropped enabling Coral, the first one, to swim a little, she tried to get away but to be blocked by men holding large barriers blocking her from going anywhere, Lagoon was still strapped and blind folded but was underwater so he held his breath during the transaction. The walls were narrow so she couldn't turn around and they used meat and sticks to beckon her inside. She only moved in from the sticks poking her back end. She growled as she was strapped to the carrier again and when the crane started lifting her into the air, she panicked and tried her best to flail her body hoping to break the chains but it was no use.

They drove her and lowered her into the Mosa tank. They dropped her at the shallow end, vets put some ointment and sunscreen on her sun burnt back scales and pushed her into the deeper water of the tank and quickly moved away in case she came back to lunge at them. Coral swam away but only to bump into a wall at the far end of the tank. This confused her, She started to cry out for Lagoon but heard no answer for he wasn't retrieved yet. Her crying was hoarse from crying to much for so long and she swam around, terrified and stressed. They quickly shot a small dose tranquilizer at her from high up to calm her nerves a bit. She was forced to chill out. They knew that all that stress could kill her quickly over time.