Agent505

Somehow, within another few minutes, Megan and Sydney had climbed, rolled, and crawled their way into the back of Jessica's crew cab. Although there was a good deal of mud and rock into the back seat that reeked of fishy goodness, the four women were at least inside the truck now. "This is so wrong," Jessica said. "What are the odds that two real live mermaids would end up in the Sacramento River on a Thursday?" "You'd better buy a lottery ticket," Sydney muttered. "Where are we taking you?" Margot asked. "Keep in mind, I really want to help you, even without a reward." Megan suspected the girls were in it for the reward first and the honor of helping the mermaids second but didn't comment. Sydney gave them her address. "You'll have to take the interstate and head across the river to Concord." "Yeah, okay," Jessica said as she started the engine. "Of all the things to be doing on a Thursday." Following Sydney's directions, Jessica drove them to her apartment complex in

Sydney went anyway. Megan stayed low to the river, going so far as to rest her tailfin in the muddy bottom, holding her side as she rested. Above, Sydney quietly broke the surface. She held the oar of the rower in the back of the aluminum canoe. Aboard were two people, perhaps slightly younger than Sydney but adults. They had a backpack in the middle of the canoe with a small bag of Cheetos sticking out. "Hi, can you help me?" "Um, hello," the woman in the back asked. She was wearing khaki shorts and a white t-shirt which her red curly hair bobbed against. Her companion was also female, wearing something similar but with a blue shirt. "I just heard that speedboat- wait, are you okay?" "Sort of," Sydney replied. "It's a long story. I don't suppose you have a cellphone I could borrow?" "Would you rather get out of the river?" the companion in the blue tank top asked. "I'd prefer it doesn't get wet-" she shook her head. "Where'd you come from, anyway?" "The bay," Sydney

The waters of San Francisco Bay were murkier than the ocean, but Megan and Sydney discovered that they could see their way very well. That said, there were no wrecks or discarded tools between their previous landing and the shoreline north of Oakland and its surrounding suburbs of the greater bay area. Their swim was not completely private, however, nor was it solitary. Today's traffic in the bay was filled with several cargo ships and a ferry, mainly the ship that went between the Embarcadero at Fisherman's Wharf and Vallejo. No less than six private cruisers were also dotted around the bay, but none of them seemed to make any course alterations as the two mermaids passed beneath. From a pair of islands known as the Sisters, then to the Brothers, both mermaids traveled east. Megan was amazed to realize how shallow the bay actually was, having always imagined the waters were far deeper. She found herself having to catch Sydney, pulling her towards the muddy bottom when a

When she woke a second time, Megan could not know how much longer she had been put out by this serum. They had changed her top, providing her with a blue midriff that had the Legendary Lagoon logo on her left breast. As nice as the top was, had it really been necessary to give her another injection, given that she was already asleep when they wanted to remove her from the residence pool? Her answers came quickly, however, once she discovered that she was no longer in the residence pool. She was currently being held within a blue sling, underneath a white metal roof. Unable to see around the area, she could tell by the motion of the sling that she was inside of a moving boat. There was a conversation taking place around her. A woman was speaking. “If you’ll look at this map, you’ll discover that anywhere east of the Golden Gate, north of the San Mateo Bridge, and west of the I-80 bridge over the Sacramento River is considered in bounds. Anywhere beyond those points, and

Through their conversation - Sydney speaking and the others typing - Megan learned that Sydney had gone through quite a lot to get here. She had grown up in Concord, a city located several miles east of the bay. Sydney was a few years younger than Megan, but had already had quite an adventure in life, as Sydney had gotten married to her high school sweetheart following high school. The two would have a child named Erica before her husband Jason had went to Afghanistan with the army. Sadly, her husband would not return as he had been a victim of a roadside mine. Sydney had thus raised Erica by herself for the past six years, only to depart her job one day as a product designer for a company that made paddleboards, towables, inflatable accessories and the like before being captured by large men who resembled those that Megan knew very well. “I was asleep for most of the procedure,” Sydney had said into the waiting crowd. “When I woke, I had this tail and could not find my feet.

Feeling battered, bruised, and collectively seasick, the truck finally came to a stop some twenty minutes later and someone opened the door. Outside, Megan could see the back wall of a hanger with the name Aloha Air Cargo displayed on a banner. The only lights seemed to come from the building. If it was daylight at all, she could not tell. The truck had been parked in a way that they could not see outside the hanger, only the back end of the plane that would take them to Station B, wherever that was. Off to the side of the truck was the back end of a Lockheed L-100 Hercules cargo plane, the civilian equivalent of a C-130. Nearby was a tall, thin man with brown hair who was dressed as a pilot. "I don't mean to pry," the pilot began. "But are they-" "Yes," one of the goons replied. "And it's none of your concern. Your job is to transport them. Got it?" The pilot nodded. "Erm, yes." "The lady said to give them a shot of water before getting onto the plane," the goons said

Megan’s Mermaid Mayhem On a Friday afternoon, Megan had just finished working with Dr. Bennit and the team from the Special Invention Lab. They had been residing in Waikiki, staying at an expensive hotel and operating out of a non-descript warehouse on the east end of the tourist area. To say the work had been paradise would be an insult, for it had been an exhausting several weeks. In fact, it had taken nearly three weeks to finally get all of Michelle’s genomes and cellular patterns to dance together. That was the way that Dr. Bennit described the process, although checking and double checking every genetic modifier had hardly been Megan’s idea of fun in Hawaii. Leaving her phone in the hotel room, she put on her sunglasses and went for a walk along Waikiki’s lush tourist area. From her hotel west, the place was packed for a Wednesday evening, as tourists made their way from restaurant to cafe and past several live bands that entertained everyone. Genres included tropical