Underground_A Merfolk Secret Page 20

  Honestly, he didn’t know. Adrian had irrevocably changed the way he would relate to his brothers from now on; he had changed their dynamics forever. Adrian was going to be there for his birthday, and his graduation, and any other milestones that waited in his life. And Matt would have to care about Adrian, regardless if he had a messed-up life or not. Because for some arbitrary reason, now they had to care.

  “Okay, people. Out of the pool and into the showers! Come on! I don’t have all day to babysit you!” The team left the pool with friendly banter all around, but Matt wasn’t paying attention to it.

  He showered, he dressed, he took his backpack, and then he dragged his feet all the way to the entrance. Adrian was there.

  “Ready to have fun, little brother?”

  Stop calling me that, was a thought stuck in his throat. “Where are we going?”

  “Some place where Julian Brooks has never taken you. I guarantee you that.”

  24

  Options

  The bar at Brooklyn had become a recurrent place for the human side of all things merfolk. For Andrew, it had become a place to discuss the inner workings of merfolk muscles, where Gwen and Higgs had added invaluable insights into what he wanted to try in Chris’s therapy.

  Every Thursday for the past eight weeks had seen the four of them—Gwen, Higgs, Nathan, and Andrew—discussing everything from what had happened to Wallace, to what had happened to Scott, to the several drafts Diana had been working on with Nathan for the UN talks, to Gwen’s new job and how her celebrity status was wreaking havoc on coworker relationships.

  Today, though, things were looking grim. Higgs was off on some secret Pentagon mission, and Nathan had just finished telling them the details of the showdown between White and Julian.

  “I can’t believe they would risk taking Drake out,” Gwen said, nursing her beer.

  “I think White had the exact same sentiment,” Nathan said. “I mean, you know the guy. He’s straight as an arrow, but you could tell he was slightly off balance. He was doing damage control and the three of us knew it.”

  “What worries me is who’s doing this, you know?” Gwen said, leaning on the table. “They never found out who put Christopher in a coma. It wasn’t Wallace, Jason told me as much. Now there’s this guy sabotaging the Navy? I mean, were merfolk always this violent and we just didn’t know it?”

  “No, this is new for them, too,” Andrew said. “Chris was seriously rattled. They won’t leave, but he told me not to be surprised if he suddenly stopped his therapy. I’ve got this feeling that they will disappear, they’re just trying to figure out which way will have the fewest casualties.”

  “They can’t break the agreement without knowing if Drake’s alive,” Nathan said. “Because if he is and Julian leaves, then he’s basically leaving his friend to the sharks.”

  “Drake knew the risks,” Gwen pointed out, her eyes serious. “I hate to say this, but Julian will choose his kids over his friend. It’s like Andrew says, they are going to disappear, they’re just being smart about it.”

  Nathan suddenly stood up, opening his wallet to reach for a twenty-dollar bill.

  “What are you doing?” Gwen asked, surprised.

  “I’m not going to watch it all go down the drain because the military couldn’t keep one single merman out of trouble. I don’t know where Diana is or if she’s ever going to come back, but I do know where one Council member lives. I’m going to talk to Julian Brooks.”

  * * *

  Two booths down the line, Adrian raised an eyebrow along with his beer. “Told you they were talking about you.”

  Matthew didn’t know what to do. He’d been intrigued when Adrian had driven him into Brooklyn, and a little disturbed about his brother’s bar choices, but then Adrian had asked him how well he knew their human allies, and an hour later, here they were.

  “They meet every Thursday, from what I’ve seen,” Adrian added after Nathan left. “Usually there’s a fourth one, a tall, black guy.”

  “Dr. Higgs,” Matt muttered.

  “That one, yes! Do you want to know what they talk about all the time?”

  “You’ve already told me. They talk about us. Which is not exactly surprising—”

  “They talk about who you really are,” Adrian interrupted him. “They wonder if you’re out to conquer the Earth, or how high in the governments of the world you’ve infiltrated.”

  “It’s not like they can stop us on either account,” Matt said, unimpressed.

  “You’re missing the point, Matthew. The point is that they don’t trust you.”

  Matt pictured Andrew working with Chris, both laughing at some silly joke. He remembered Gwen, stitching up Drake after White had shot him. He’d seen the scar on Scott’s back, a wound that Higgs had treated. Most of all, he remembered how the four of them had in some way or another helped bring Chris home. “They trust us enough to help us when we need them. I have no problem with the rest.”

  Adrian looked at him, disappointed but not defeated. “You want to know what Dr. Higgs usually talks about when he is around?” Adrian taunted him. “Merfolk autopsies.”

  Matt stared at him, for the first time actually feeling sick. “Wha—what?”

  “Oh yeah. The good old doc is considered a merfolk expert by both the UN and the Pentagon. When Wallace killed those kids in South Africa, Higgs was called in to help understand our biology. Chances are he’s not here tonight because he’s dissecting Drake’s body.”

  “No…” Matt said, but his denial was weak. He had no idea what Dr. Higgs did or didn’t do, much less if Drake was dead or alive.

  “You think so highly of the Council, and you think so highly of your ‘human allies’, as you call them. Maybe this is the first lie I can help you see, little bro. Your allies are unreliable.”

  That hit a nerve. “How do you even know this?”

  Adrian took a swig of his beer, thoughtful. “I might not have been completely honest with you. I found out about you a while ago.”

  Matt tasted dread in his mouth. The few alarms that were still ringing at the back of his mind started to sound louder. A lot louder.

  “Relax, Matthew. I was just being cautious. You were under the Council’s protection, and I needed to understand what your position was. In time, I realized humans were part of the secret—the secret we’re told to die for. And here Julian was, inviting Andrew and Gwen into your lives.”

  “You seem to care a great deal about what the Council does,” Matt muttered, wishing he was old enough to get a drink.

  “Christopher shouldn’t be talking to humans,” Adrian pressed, unwilling to let it go. “None of us should. But it’s the Council, so who cares, right? Where do you complain about them, exactly?”

  “Who guards the guardians…?” Matt said, not looking at Adrian, but still seeing his point.

  “Exactly. Let’s say the reasoning behind you having humans around was sound. I still wanted to know more, especially why anyone should trust them. Soon I found out they met here, so I started coming, too. It’s a clever choice, this bar. Dark enough, secluded enough… Perfect for eavesdropping,” Adrian said with a smirk. Merfolk ears were better than human ears, but not by much. They had only heard half of the conversation at best.

  “And after all you heard, you still didn’t contact Julian,” Matt said, narrowing his eyes. “So much for your concern about our well-being.”

  “It’s not Julian I care about,” Adrian said, pointing his beer in Matt’s direction. Then he chuckled darkly. “The day I found out about you, that you might exist somewhere in the world, I had this idea of a picture-perfect reunion. Certainly not at a bar in Brooklyn, but of the two of us, talking. Relating. And then I did find you, with your picture-perfect family.”

  “Why am I not surprised you were spying on me, too?”

  “Let’s just say that if there’s something I’ve learned in life, Matthew, it’s that nothing is perfect. And the more I dug into your life,
the more worried I became for your fate. But I had to do this right, for you.”

  Matt snorted. “Right. What I can’t figure out is how you’ve been sneaking into New York City without Julian or Drake noticing. What else are you lying about?”

  Adrian laughed, but it wasn’t sincere. “I’m not that good. I can shield myself for a couple of days, tops, so that didn’t really give me much time to be around you, much less to learn anything about your Julian. No, in this day and age, you use every trick under the sun.” Smiling, Adrian reached for his wallet, and took out a black plastic card. The word SWIMMER was written in blue, along with a number. “I even joined the SWIMMERs. As a high-ranking member, there’s a lot I can access. A lot humans are willing to dig up for you if they think it might help the merfolk, though the irony is not lost on me.”

  Matt reached for the card, concerned. Up until now, he’d always pictured them as a bunch of idiots who wanted to meet mermaids. But Adrian was not an idiot. If there was something he sensed from his brother loud and clear, it was purpose. Adrian was a highly driven person, and whatever Adrian set his sights on, he would get.

  And he set his sights on me, didn’t he?

  At their table, Andrew stood up, and Gwen followed. They were getting ready to leave, and Matt turned to look at the wall so they wouldn’t see him.

  “You live in fear, Matthew. Fear of discovery, fear of being dragged into a cage because your precious older brother washed up on a beach in Maine. That’s not the life I want for you.”

  “Well that’s too bad, isn’t it? ’Cause the only one who gets a say about my life is me.”

  For one moment, Adrian’s eyes flashed with anger, but then he pushed it back. “Look, you want the truth, Matthew? I’m an outsider. I see things differently, more clearly. And I won’t lie to you ever again. The only thing I want is to know you, and for you to know me. You’ll be eighteen next month. Leave Julian for a while, come see the world. I’ll gladly show it to you.”

  Matt remained silent, unable to tell him to go to hell, but unwilling to follow him, either. Adrian’s enthusiasm dwindled after a minute.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said, dejected.

  “I don’t know what to believe. I can’t even fault those humans for their suspicions. I know Drake trusts them, and I trust Drake’s judgment a great deal, far more than I do Julian’s, actually.”

  “Right,” Adrian said, now looking disgusted. “The great Drake. Council member who oversees Europe and Africa. Has spies worldwide, and rumor has it there’s no computer he cannot crack. I wonder what your Council will do without him.”

  “You don’t know if he’s dead, so don’t count him out yet.”

  “Please. If he hasn’t reached out by now, he never will. Either he’s fish food or a human pet. Either way, his absence is going to leave you vulnerable. You know as well as I do that all of you should’ve left by this point. It’s beyond stupid that you’re still here, in plain view for the military to capture you.”

  Yes, that was exactly what Matthew thought, but he wasn’t going to agree with Adrian on this. Especially not against Julian. “Can we leave now?” he asked, sick of this place, of this talk—and of this man.

  “Sure,” Adrian said, finishing his beer. They both stood up, and Adrian leaned on the table for support before he could fully walk. He’d injured his hip on his last job, he’d told him, but hadn’t elaborated. Frankly, Matt wasn’t interested in knowing, either.

  “Hey,” Adrian said before they left the table, “I just want you to think about this, okay? You have options, Matthew. You don’t have to remain with the Council for the rest of your life.”

  * * *

  A red warning alert popped up on Julian’s phone as he reviewed the available routes to get his sons out of the US. He didn’t think they would be in this house for much longer. Frowning, he opened the message. Drake had set up all kinds of flags when it came to the government, the military, and the black market as a way to find possible merfolk in captivity or in trouble. In Drake’s absence, Julian was now being notified.

  Equipment to treat marine life had been requested. Highly specialized and highly expensive. The kind of equipment that aquariums would want but not necessarily pay for, at least not at once and not in such a hurry.

  Julian’s heart skipped a beat. Equipment could be tracked, no matter how far into the Pentagon abyss it travelled. The best part was that this equipment was to treat live specimens, so Drake’s chances of being alive had just skyrocketed.

  Easy there, Julian. All you have is one flag, nothing more.

  The doorbell from the lobby rang in the house. He wasn’t expecting Matthew so early, and his son wouldn’t ring the bell to begin with. When he saw Nathan Forest waiting, his earlier optimism about Drake evaporated. Was Nathan here to deliver the bad news?

  It was with steeled nerves that Julian opened the door a few minutes later, his three children hidden away in their rooms.

  “Dr. Forest,” Julian said as he shook hands with the man. “This is a surprise.”

  “Mr. Brooks, thank you for receiving me.”

  “That’s not a problem. What can I do for you, doctor?”

  Forest walked into the living room, and his eyes strayed to the pool, probably imagining them in their merform. A moment later, he turned to look at Julian, his expression serious.

  “I want to formally request an audience with your Council,” Forest said, taking Julian by surprise.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “The United Nations wants to extend an invitation to your Council for formal talks. I know you’re worried about Drake, Mr. Brooks. I am, too. There’s a good chance he’s still alive, and I sincerely believe that having the UN on your side will help him, and your family, get through this.”

  Julian took a moment. He’d been expecting news about Drake, not the UN talks to fall into his lap one Thursday night when he’d hardly slept the entire week.

  He took a moment to collect his thoughts, guiding Forest to sit down. “Did you know that I was the one who convinced Drake to do this? To talk to you?”

  Forest frowned, leaning forward on the couch. “It always seemed to me that it had been a Council decision.”

  “Eventually, yes. But that first morning, when Diana picked you up and drove you to our hotel, Drake didn’t want to do it. He thought it was too risky to give our history away. But I said that Chris had already made allies. That we wouldn’t have to start from scratch since the UN already had a committee formed. And once the idea grew on him, he took it to the extreme. These talks… I didn’t expect them for years.”

  Forest smiled. “I didn’t expect them for years, either. In all honesty, Mr. Brooks, I’m far more used to dealing with conflict and searching for peace, than starting talks with two willing, powerful parties. You’re like nothing we’ve ever seen.”

  “We’ve been hiding among you for so long it’s hard to imagine a world that knows about us. We won’t survive without a firm strategy and a lot of planning. Rushing these talks is a deadly endeavor for us.”

  Forest paused. He had to reframe his offer before Julian could shoot him down. “From the moment I saw Christopher in that hospital bed in Maine, I’ve wanted to know you. Your story, your needs. Your culture. I thought—I thought how cruel the universe was to give us a glimpse of a merman, just to see him die in our hands. But then he woke up, and nothing made sense. He wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t collaborate; yet he wasn’t afraid, either. Not in the way a creature of the sea should have been. He knew our world, and in time, I understood that he was part of it, somehow, somewhere.”

  Julian nodded. “The irony being that Chris is far more human than merman. This is the only life he’s ever known,” Julian said, searching for the warm energy of his son nearby. “He found himself in an impossible situation.”

  Nathan nodded. “It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. The UN wants to know you, Mr. Brooks. You’re playing the same game Christophe
r was playing when he wouldn’t talk. You give us all these pieces of a puzzle we don’t understand, and you won’t explain. So when Drake goes missing, or when your son washes up on our shores, we don’t know how to help you.”

  “To be perfectly honest, Dr. Forest, I’m not sure I can grant you an audience with the Council at large. Our other members remain hidden for security reasons, and I’m not in a position to decide policies and agreements. Until Drake’s fate is clear, I’m of little use to these talks.”

  “I respect that, I do. But if we start these talks, in any meaningful way, then it means you might come back. It means circumstances are keeping you away, not your goodwill. Truth be told, Mr. Brooks, I don’t think you realize what you mean to the world. How you’ve captured its imagination. If you come forward, officially, the world is going to back you up.”

  That’s far from likely, Julian thought with a rather dark view. The UN was powerless to make anyone do anything when it came to merfolk. But then…he thought about Gill McKenzie’s passionate speech, and about Gwen’s refusal to leave. And he also remembered the people who’d showed up to protest Chris’s imprisonment in ORCAS, even when they had not known what was really going on. Most of all, he thought about his sons, who had to live in a world that was hungry to take a piece of them. No, there was no way Julian was going to ‘officially come forward’, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t sit down and hear the other side.

  “I know what you’re hoping for, Dr. Forest, but I can’t offer you that. Not yet. I can, however, agree to start tonight with something small. If you would like to begin by talking, then I’m more than willing to listen.”

  25

  Backdoor

  Although Higgs’s first concern was Drake’s well-being, there were hundreds of details to solve before he could return to the merman. He’d had Nathan to do this back in ORCAS, and Major White had definitely run a tight ship when it came to organization and security. But this was not ORCAS, and Higgs didn’t know anyone here he could trust with the care of his patient. His request for special equipment had taken hours, and he’d spent the rest of the time looking for the actual equipment available.