Uni's Unicorn

Chapter 16 - On the Beach

Tyson had arrived at the top of the North Island peninsular, Cape Reinga and could tell that Uni was a way ahead of him yet. Pressing, 'automatic' he allowed his pod to take over tracking her.

Flipping his communicator to 'HomeBase' he gave his name as Tyson, and asked to speak with Professor Marshall.

"You have passed voice-recognition test. We will connect you to your father, Tyson," the robotic voice answered.

Within seconds, his father's voice sounded in his ear, "As you will know, Son, I'm very busy here so give me the quickest update you can."

From experience, Tyson knew his father wanted the most condensed version of the events of the past day. "Uni is in the Pacific on her own and she's heading, swimming, home."

"That's good, Son. She's well capable of that. Keep following her tracker. Anything else?"

"No, I'm onto it Dad. It's under control here, now."

Taking over the controls again, and looking down at the screen he saw that Uni's signal was no longer active. He panicked, putting his orb into automatic mode again, then waiting while the pod travelled on, he turned it off, waiting for the blip of the light to return.

His panic disappeared just as quickly as it had hit him; it was there again, both on his watch, the yellow light blinking at him like a slow heart-beat.

Shooting his pod into a faster mode, he tracked the signal, watching the blip now on the front screen of the pod as well.

She had travelled fast, and now was closer to the shore of a beach that came in view. People were on the strip of sand which had a net of some kind across it, but the people were grouped together as though hovering over something.

Watching them move away from the shore, he flew down closer, towards the signal until he was over it. Turning the craft when he saw that the signal was indeed, passing under the waters moving out to sea, not into shore, he flipped on the radar sensor and hovered over it before moving with it. He could see shapes of larger fish swimming with the one carrying the microchip, about half a dozen, no, four, now five, more...

Where was Uni? The shark-shape fish was too small to have swallowed all of her; then how did it have the micro-chip inside it?

Turning his craft around, he headed for the beach, realising suddenly that a helicopter circled right above him. Shooting his craft further out to sea, he swung it around, back to shore, flipping his radar to detect the path of the helicopter. It was coming down to land, heading above the net which Tyson could see was there for ball games like tennis or such. Scattered rackets suggested badminton.

Hovering the other side of the landing helicopter, Tyson guided his pod to the center of the group of young people. One man was dressed differently. While the teenagers wore beach clothes, he was dressed in trousers and a shirt.

A quad of paramedics were climbing from the helicopter, two carrying a stretcher and the others carrying doctor's bags. Before they arrived at their target, possibly an injured teen, Tyson, trying to ignore his feeling of impending doom, zoomed the pod's camera in as close as he needed it to be, focused it on the centre of the group. Someone lay there. While a girl held one hand, another sat sobbing on the sand. The teens parted to allow the incoming team passage to her.

It was Uni; paler then he'd every seen her. Eyes closed. His eyes went down the length of her seemingly small form, the navy towel-wrap still there, her legs, a white towel around her leg, with half of it crimson red. He choked and fought to regain his breath.

Horror of horrors. One of those sharks had her tracker in it which could only mean one thing. It had taken her foot off. At first he thought it to be impossible, then, he realised the flesh containing the micro-chip could be stripped off but not the artificial bone structure of her foot.