Skye City: The Darkness of Emmilyn

Feeding the Mutants

We walk through a glass tunnel covered in barnacles and emerge in a dome filled with sand and turquoise water like a miniature seaside below the sea. My head hurts just thinking about the logistics of that. Huts with thatched roofs sit on wooden platforms joined by walkways, reminding me of those tropical holiday resorts for wealthy people. I could happily sit here for a few hours and drink at the waterside, just forgetting my troubles.

As selfish as it may sound, I want to pretend the agony is not real, like Myla and Killow are not missing and Rupert is not dead, and I am with my mother and everything is fine and I have these lovely new clothes. All the bad stuff never happened and the stupid war can go fuck itself.

As we cross one of the walkways and take deep relaxing breaths and admire the beauty of our surroundings, I jolt and jump sideways because a fucking sea monster with a long neck pokes its hideous head from the sea within a sea. 'M-mutant!' I point to the scaly beast with a whale body which is lurking just feet away and I jog sideways on wobbly legs as the others casually remain within biting distance. Are they frigging blind?

'Relax, it's just a plesiosaur!' My mother smiles like a psychopath as I wonder how on Eryx something so big found its way into the dome. It must have come through a huge pipe or something. Clearly Camari is not as safe as I thought. 'These ones are completely harmless, but an elasmosaur would be another matter.'

'Nothing this big is completely harmless! I can't believe you brought your daughter to a place swarming with mutants. What if one gets hungry?' I say.

'Then Dynah can deal with it,' my mother says as the mutant vanishes into the water, no doubt preparing to pounce.

'Dynah, whatever you do, don't take your eyes off the damn thing,' I say and I could swear she almost rolled her eyes. Her brows definitely twitched and how is she is not experiencing all kinds of post-traumatic stress disorder right now? I am tempted to point this out, but then I might trigger those emotions, but seriously how is she so calm? She almost looks like she is at a therapeutic petting zoo.

'They have pleasant auras, affectionate, playful,' Dynah says but I am so far from convinced. This could all have been avoided if I had quietly explained our previous mutant encounter to my mother, but here we are, and my bubble of denial lasted about five seconds.

I reach one of the huts with thatched roofs and sit at a wooden table on the circular platform as the others catch up. I place my shopping bags down, feeling a touch safer away from the water's edge, but too nervous to relax without a strong drink. If one of those things climbs from the water I swear I will have heart failure.

My mother approaches a bar, saying, 'Do you have any fish buckets?' and I sneer like what?

'Sure, they're twenty five credits.' The human barman opens a large fridge which is crammed with buckets of fish and he removes one, placing it onto the bar.

'Ew, grim.' I waft my nose as I stare at the slimy silver fish hanging over the brim. They are small and skinny and I know what must be coming next, but they hardly look big enough to satisfy the hunger of that mutant. They would serve as more of an appetiser before the main course. Us.

My mother pays with her Citicard, collects the bucket and returns to the walkway without getting her daughter a drink first. Charming. I watch nervously from the platform as she throws one slimy fish into the water and then another and they float on the rippling surface. Within seconds the hideous heads of mutants emerge – three of the long-necked things and several that look like killer dolphins but thankfully smaller than orcas.

The fish are gulped down by two hungry mutants and my grinning mother throws another fish, saying: 'Come and have a go, it's fun!'

'No thanks, I'll just sit here,' I say, but Otess and Dynah hurry over, throwing fish into the foaming water and gasping as they are devoured by the mutants.

'Come on, Emmi, you don't know what you're missing out on!' my mother says.

Rising from my stool, I tiptoe along the walkway and collect a fish by the tail, holding the slimy thing in my fingertips at arm's length. I turn to face the water and before I can drop the fish, a long-necked mutant – a plesiosaur – lunges and snatches it from my hand. I scream as splashes soak me, hurrying back and checking to confirm I still have all my fingers. 'My lovely clothes! I'm soaking wet and stinking like fish now.'

'Who cares? Let's just have fun!' My mother throws another fish into the water and the others keep throwing, provoking a feeding frenzy and I just watch wide-eyed from the safety of the bar table, still waiting for that drink.

When the bucket is finally empty, I cautiously approach the group and say, 'Great, we can move on now.' My mother takes the bucket to the bar and I turn to hurry along the walkway then scream and stop dead. An unreasonably long neck has reached from the water and a mutant face is staring right at me, just inches from my nose. It looks like a frigging dinosaur with its grey skin, beady eyes and huge mouth with weird rectangular teeth poking outwards.

'D-don't eat me,' I say and my mother approaches and strokes the damn thing on the head.

'Look, it's perfectly tame. It's been bred this way and it's totally used to people,' my mother says, and Dynah and Otess approach the beast to stroke its long scaly neck. I take a deep shaky breath but my legs sensibly refuse to move.

'Come on, Emmi,' my mother says. 'For a girl who's faced such a tough life, you're being remarkably, erm...'

'Remarkably what?' I put my hands on my hips.

'Timid,' my mother says.

'Timid? That's a friggin' swimming dinosaur!' I shriek, pointing at the mutant which I could swear is frowning condescendingly now. I gave the damn thing a free fish, the least it could do is act grateful.

'Plesiosaur,' my mother says.

'Same thing! Today, I'm a princess. I'm not touching any mutants,' I say.

'Plesiosaurs,' my mother says.