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  Copyright 2020 by Serena Vale - All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  Savage

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Savage

  Chapter 1

  Nya felt giddy as soon as she stepped onto the wharf. There was a nearby window that was reflective enough for her to use as a mirror. Her dark skin was lightly tanned from her recent hours under the open sun, but her hair was short and hung just above her ears. Her figure was rotund but looks didn’t matter so much in this business. She was here for the science and still expecting to wake up as if from a phenomenal dream.

  The spray of the sea was enough to convince her that she actually was experiencing this. It still didn’t seem like it, it was too good to be true! Three weeks out of college and she had already found a benefactor that was willing to invest in her research! It was either a tremendously lucky windfall, or perhaps someone had found the means – and desire – to play a large practical joke on her.

  She remembered the day that she had received the letter confirming what she had been hoping for. A benefactor willing to shoulder all of the money she could want to conduct her research and all she had to do was prove that it worked? She’d heard of people having to wait their whole lives and half their careers for an opportunity like this. But that such a wind of fortune should blow from the Carver Group?

  She had danced like a mad woman when she’d received the letter. Every day since had seemed as surreal as if she were tripping on Acid. She’d barely been able to sleep for the last three days she’d been so excited. And it wasn’t until she had set foot in the marina parking lot that it had begun to feel as genuine as the air in her lungs.

  This was real, and the smell of salt in the air convinced her that she wasn’t having any kind of delusion. She was no stranger to the ocean; she’d been immersed in it her whole life. Even when she was on dry land, she was up to her eyeballs in it. But today, it felt as if she had never been this close to it in her whole life.

  “Stay calm… be professional… prove that it works…” she said, reciting her mantra over and over for every step that she took deeper into the South Shore Marina.

  The docks weren’t quite what she had expected them to be. South Shore was the likely place for everyone with money in Miami to come if they had a fancy for the sea. Playboys with money that liked topless girls and strong alcohol in tangent with the smell of the sea usually came here.

  Nya recalled that a few years ago this place had been the place to be if one liked to party on the water. She’d never heard of that trend really going out of style, and people with money could afford to party every day if they really wanted. But for the rest of the individuals in the country, they had to work at it.

  That didn’t dispel her fear of being here and thinking that she would be walking into some kind of a never-ending party. But despite that worry, she was relieved to find it as she did. She had imagined rows and rows of gleaming white private yachts, covered with women clad in bikinis and men in expensive suits as they danced to whatever the kids considered to be “cool” music these days as they splashed their way through bottles of expensive champagne and martinis.

  But the marina was, by and large, quiet. So quiet it was like it could have been a retirement home for expensive boats. The only sounds that she could discern here were the gentle lapping of the water against the wooden struts of the wharf or against the hulls of the many docked boats that were lined up on either side of her as she walked down the row. Occasionally there was the sound of a cawing gull, the splash of a fish, or even the muffled voice of the occasional person from inside their own crafts. But she paid them no mind as she looked for the ship that she was to board.

  She found it at the far end of the dock, three spaces over from dead last on the long boardwalk. She knew it to be the vessel, for her acceptance letter had contained a detailed itinerary of how and where she could find the boat when she arrived. There had even been a picture enclosed so that she would know for absolutely-damn-certain that she had arrived at the proper place.

  And it felt like she was waking up to a dream come true as she looked the vessel over, still expecting to be jolted awake at any moment.

  It was called the Sea Sprite.

  She was perhaps a hundred fifty to two hundred or so feet long and about forty wide if she had to guess. She counted three above-the-water decks, including the weather deck. But she knew the boat’s design was deceptive, recalling that there was at least one more deck – maybe two – beneath the water line. This was, after all, a research vessel, and not a party yacht like she had thought every other boat here to be. However, like every other boat that she saw in the marina the hull was gleaming white with a fresh shine upon it as if it had never put to sea before.

  She knew better than that, though. The Carver Group was on the front-line for marine biology and exploration. And this very vessel, she had read, had been in the water when some of the group’s greatest breakthroughs had come in.

  She looked the ship over from nose to stern. It had an impressive array of scientific equipment. Direction finders, radio, com-sat uplink gear, its own short-wave repeater, sonar, weather scanners… the works. The boat was a lab that floated and that she would be allowed to work upon it filled her with incredible pride.

  And just waiting for her along the port side was a white wooden staircase that would take her up to the weather deck just aft of the bridge. And the stairs seemed beckoning her to ascend them.

  “I got this, I got this,” Nya whispered to herself, and she climbed the wooden steps, toting her sea duffle and science bag with her. When she reached the landing on the boarding stairs, she saw that there was a single person standing on the deck. This one looked to be a man, dressed in white shorts and a matching polo shirt. It was appropriate attire for someone living in the Miami atmosphere. He stood with his back to her, a mop and bucket on the deck beside him as he cleaned the wooden panels of the flooring.

  She cleared her throat. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  The mop man turned around, and she saw he was a younger man, perhaps in his early twenties since it looked like his acne hadn’t finished clearing up yet. But his hair was neatly combed, and he looked fit for business.

  “Hello,” he said with a smile. “Can I help you?”

  “Hi, I’m Nya Wilson,” she said, and then her mind seemed to draw a blank for anything more to say. It was foolish to think that this boy would know who she is if he was mopping floors. “I was told to be here?” she said.

  The boy put his mop into the bucket and smiled warmly at her. “Ah, yes, we were told to expect you, Ms. Wilson.”

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t so foolish.

  She smiled, relieved. Part of her had thought that this would still be some kind of a terrible joke or that it wasn’t actually happening. That she had imagined the whole thing was still a thought that circulated on the inside
of her mind. Thank god, she thought to herself. Aloud she said, “Um… permission to come aboard?”

  The mop boy laughed at that. “Well, I’m not the captain but since we’re expecting you… permission granted.”

  She stepped onto the deck and felt instantly how the waves affected the rolling hull of the boat. It took only a moment for her legs to adapt. “Thank you,” she said taking two steps further aboard. “I was also told to meet with the owner.”

  “He’ll be waiting for you in his cabin. I can take you right to him. Just follow me.”

  Chapter 2

  She was led below to what was labeled “C” deck. Near as she could tell these were the living quarters for the crew and others. She figured that most of the rest of the ship would be dedicated to science.

  The cramped living conditions were no better than that of any college dorm, and she had been fine with such tight quarters. Living on a ship where a bunk with an extra blanket was a luxury should have been a breeze.

  Towards the bow of the ship, they came to a wooden door. It was nothing special, the door, made from everyday pine she thought. The only thing that was significant about it was the brass nameplate upon it that read “Admiral.” Nya was no naval expert, but she was pretty sure that a boat this size wasn’t usually commanded by someone of that rank.

  The boy that met her on the deck knocked on the door twice but didn’t bother to wait for an answer before he pushed the door open and permitted her to pass inside. What she found on the inside wasn’t what she had been expecting either.

  It was a cabin of some sort, and no bigger than ten by twenty feet, really. There was room for a simple bunk in the bulkhead, a desk, a chair, a shelf loaded with books, a private wardrobe, and shelves of spill-proof containers that held samples of marine life from fish to plants that looked ready for sea already. The room was faintly lit and sitting with his back to she and her escort was the man she supposed she had come to see.

  Unlike her escort, this man wore a pair of common slacks, a white lab coat, a tie, and he had a pair of wire-framed glasses upon his head as he looked down a microscope. But interestingly enough, he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who was interested in science.

  His attire notwithstanding, she saw that he had the sides of his head shaved and where the hair was missing were tattoos of half-naked mermaids. And though he wore a lab coat the sleeves had been cut off like some kind of a punk-rockers coat and the shirt he wore – while whole – had its sleeves rolled up revealing more tattoos along his arm. His wrists were covered in spiked bracelets, and she was certain that she could see an eyebrow piercing on his right side.

  “Excuse me, Dane?” the mop boy said.

  “Yeah?” the man with his eyes down the microscope said casually. Nya half-expected him to growl.

  “Ms. Wilson is here to see you.”

  The man at the microscope looked up from his work at the mop boy and the new arrival. With a flick of the wrist he pushed his glasses down over his eyes and Nya found something else that she had not realized about the man.

  He was actually kind of handsome.

  His eyes were a deep set of blue. His skin was bronzed from what she knew to be long hours spent under the sun, and despite his many tattoos and eye piercing he actually looked somewhat fetching.

  “Oh!” he said, rising to his feet and straightening the flaps of his altered lab coat. “I’m pleased to meet you,” he said, extending his hand to her.

  Nya put her duffle down and shook his head. “It’s nice to meet you as well, mister–”

  He shook his head. “Never mind the mister part. We’re informal around here. Call me Dane.” To the boy that had shown her to the cabin he said, “That’ll be all Mitch, thank you. And please tell the captain that the crew is complete and to cast off when he’s ready.”

  “Sure thing,” the boy said as he turned and walked out the door, closing it behind him.

  Taking his hand back, Dane put his hands in his pockets. “I’m glad you could join, Ms. Wilson.”

  “Nya,” she said, sensing that that was point he wanted her to make. “Informal, right?”

  He grinned.

  She blushed.

  “Can I offer you anything?” he asked, gesturing to his wardrobe. “We don’t carry much in the way of alcohol aboard – at least not the kind you want to drink – but I have a couple of bottles that I dip into on occasion. If not, I can have the galley whip you up something quick enough.”

  “Uh, no, thank you,” she said. “I had a pretty decent meal before I came down here.”

  He nodded. “Well alright then.” He rounded her and sat on the flat of his desk. “Feel free to make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you,” she said, setting her second bag down and settling into the chair that faced his desk as there was nothing else in the small cabin for her to sit upon. The rest of the area was dedicated to science and research. She found that she could easily appreciate that.

  “So…” Dane said, folding his hands in his lap. “That was an interesting paper that you wrote. It certainly got the attention of people who are a lot smarter than I am.”

  She wanted to make a comment about how that seemed easy enough, given his appearance, but she chose not to say anything. Science had certainly taught her not to take anything at face value. The same applied to people.

  “I’m glad that somebody liked it,” he said honestly. “I just didn’t think that anyone like the Carver Group would think that it was possible.”

  He chuckled. “Artificially create whale song? That’s a bold claim. And it would be a tremendous breakthrough… if you can prove it works.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  He nodded. “Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Still, every breakthrough in history sounded like a nut-job’s delusions at one point or another. Round-Earth… Heliocentric solar system… the telescope… Miracle gro… everyone laughed at the start. Now look at us. But we here at the Carver Group believe that everything deserves a chance. Success doesn’t happen overnight.”

  “Not without many failures beforehand, it doesn’t.”

  “Touché,” he said with a nod. “So… tell me about this design of yours. I read the paper but marine biology is more my thing. Marine engineering is a little out of my league.”

  She felt a small flutter in her belly, knowing that her moment to justify her research had finally come. She had rehearsed the speech a dozen times, making notes and alterations where she thought them to be suitable. But even so she felt that rush of adrenaline that burned within her.

  “Well… the design is simple enough. I’ve been analyzing whale song since I first went to school.”

  “Eight years now, right?”

  She nodded. “That’s right. Anyway, I started listening to different variations of the songs that I heard. Where they were taken… what time of year… what kinds of whales were singing those songs… like that. And after about three years I began to discern patterns in them. And with a little extra testing, I think I found a means to artificially replicate whale song.”

  Dane arched an eyebrow. “You found a way to talk to whales?”

  She shook her head. “Not exactly… there is no Rosetta Stone for whale song. But from the research I’ve conducted, variations in the song – pitch, harmonics, like that – I discovered that certain sounds were either the same or at least very similar in their nature. Kind of like proper English versus the vernacular, some words don’t change for either but in each some words take on a whole new meaning.”

  He rolled his eyes for a moment in contemplative thought. “Yeah, sorry, all I’m hearing is that you think you’ve found a way to talk to whales.”

  She chuckled to hide her slight aggravation. “The box that I’ve designed,” she said, starting at the beginning, “is a simple thing. Whales make certain thrumming sounds when they’re communicating with their own pods or even with others. I listen for the sounds that never change and from the documented
sounds that I’ve catalogued I think I’ve found a replicate some of the sounds that whales make. Specifically, I’ve isolated the ones that whales use to warn each other of danger.”

  “Okay, now I’m on your frequency. This is a benefit how?”

  She licked her lips, some of her tension leaving her. “The sounds that have been collected from whales are largely from land stations, tethered to small skiffs that float a hundred yards offshore in most cases. These are places where whales usually tend to turn up. And usually that’s where they get caught in nets… cut by propellers… poisoned by toxic runoff from shore… things like that.”

  “Depressing.”

  “Yes, it is. The centerpiece of my study comes from an incident in the Pacific Basin three years ago. Somewhere near San Francisco a male humpback was separated from his pod and caught in a fishing net. The boat that snared him happened to be running some top-grade sonar and they recorded the sounds that he made. But a mile away, the whale’s pod heard his sounds after he’d been snared, and they changed course rapidly and ran away.”

  Dane nodded comprehendingly. “They heard him screaming in pain.”

  “More or less… anyway, I got a hold of those sounds and during my second year of grad school I went out with a research team to the Alaskan ice stream. We encountered a pod of humpbacks there and I replayed those same tones through the boat’s aqua phone.”

  “And they changed direction, didn’t they?”

  She nodded. “And I’ve tested it on four different pods since. Two were humpbacks, one was a pod of gray whales, the other was a pod of sperm whales. The last two, incredibly, took longer to get the message but eventually they also turned away and ran. That’s what led me to believe that perhaps there is some kind of universal language that all whales understand. That day in San Francisco with a single trapped whale, I believe, gave us the universal whale call for “Danger Ahead.”

  Dane leaned back on his desk, his eyes rolling in contemplative thought. “And you think that if you pipe this sound through this box of yours you can keep whales from entering into places where they might get hurt.”