Dr. Jasmine "Jaz" Quinlan peered
out the window of her office inside the California Bay Aquarium.
The sun fought
to break through the early morning fog, a gray wall so thick
she could barely see the water.
Distinctive shapes lay at the water's edge. Her pulse picked
up a rapid pace as she willed the sun to breach the last of
the chilling summer fog.
Please don't let it be. She hoped she was wrong, she hoped
what lay in the sand was some washed up driftwood, not the
living, breathing creatures she loved.
As if in miraculous answer to her fervent prayers, the mist
lifted just enough to showcase at least a dozen bottlenose
dolphins.
They'd beached themselves, which meant they came to the shore
to die.
Shit! She grabbed for the phone and called for a rescue crew,
then quickly threw on her sweats, grabbed her jacket and medical
kit, slipping into her tennis shoes as she was running out
the door. There were no people on the beach yet, so the dolphins
hadn't been discovered.
The last thing she wanted was a crowd to gather. It made her
work so much more difficult when both the good intentioned
and the downright curious got in the way.
In a few adrenalin-filled seconds, she'd flown down the back
stairs, her shoes filling with sand as she raced the short
distance from the beach to the water line.
Her heart broke at the sight of the struggling dolphins. She
grabbed her kit and examined the first few she came upon, breathing
a sigh of relief when she detected their heartbeats.
"They're still alive. Let's get these hoists going!" she
shouted to the approaching staff members. Trucks with hoists
were brought onto the beach so they could get the dolphins
lifted and taken inside.
They worked tirelessly through the morning, loading the struggling
dolphins one-by-one while volunteers poured water on the sick
mammals to prevent dehydration.
Jaz wiped the sweat from her forehead, pushing away the annoying
curly red strands of hair that flew in her face from the stiff
ocean breeze. She'd long ago discarded her jacket and sweatshirt,
her body soaked with the efforts of maneuvering dolphins weighing
several hundred pounds. Thankfully, there were enough hands
available to turn each mammal enough to slip the hoist lines
underneath them.
The last of the dolphins were loaded up and delivered to one
of the aquarium's tanks by nightfall.
But her work wasn't finished. Now she had to figure out what
was wrong with them, and how to keep them alive. Simply returning
them to the ocean would have done no good. Dolphins beached
themselves when they were too sick to remain in the water.
They'd just end up on the shore again tomorrow.
Crowds had gathered around the beach and watched the process.
News crews hovered nearby, reporters begging for an interview.
Talking to the press was not her forte. She looked frantically
for Mandy Daniels, the aquarium's PR representative. Unfortunately
she was nowhere to be found.
That left her to tell the press something, anything to get
the cameras out of her face.
"Dr. Quinlan, do you have any idea what's wrong with
the dolphins?" asked one reporter, shoving a microphone
under her nose.
"Not yet, but we'll start tests right away." She
headed toward the aquarium, knowing that the media couldn't
follow beyond the gates.
"Do you think it's pollution? Perhaps
an oil spill?"
"Doubtful. There's no record of
a spill and the ocean around the aquarium is tested regularly
since we pump sea water
into our tanks."
"How long do you think before - "
"No more questions." Jaz reached
the gate, swiped her ID card and slid through without listening
to the tail-end
of the reporter's question. She'd never before appreciated
the sound of the lock automatically clicking the gates shut,
but now she was glad they kept the hungry reporters at bay.
With a sigh of relief, she hurried up the back stairs and
quickly changed into her wetsuit, then rushed to the pool where
her staff were already busily taking blood samples and monitoring
the vital signs of the ailing dolphins.
"Skin temperature and tone on this one seem within normal
ranges." Bob Pine, one of her assistants, looked up as
she entered the shallow part of the water, then bent his head
to his work again. She waded over to one of the dolphins and
immediately set in taking temperatures and extracting blood
samples, shouting out data to one of the other assistants standing
beside the pool.
They worked systematically on all the dolphins, who seemed
to exhibit no external symptoms of illness or injury. Which
meant whatever was wrong with them was internal.
After putting identifying markers on all the dolphins, the
staff hurried to the lab to process the blood work. Jaz existed
the pool and stripped off her wetsuit, intent on rushing up
to her apartment to change clothes and head to the lab. Unfortunately,
she was blocked in her progress by the one person she did not
want to see today.
"Dr. Quinlan, who authorized this
rescue?"
Claude Morton, administrator of the California Bay Aquarium,
peered at her over stylish glasses that probably cost more
than she made in one year. His Armani suit was completely out
of place in this environment, but to Claude, image was everything.
He spared no expense, at least as it related to his own personal
attire and living style. But spend a dime that wasn't in the
aquarium's budget, and he paled as if the money came out of
his own bank account.
"I authorized the rescue. Did you
want me to stand by and watch a dozen dolphins die on the
beach while a marine
mammal center stood less than fifty feet away?"
He wrinkled his nose, no doubt protesting the smell of the
water and mammals. Good.
"We are not responsible for what
occurs outside the aquarium's property, Dr. Quinlan."
"Now's not a good time to get into this, Claude," she
said, knowing calling him by his first name would irritate
the piss out of him. Claude preferred to throw around his own
PhD as if it were a Nobel prize and insisted the staff call
him "Dr. Morton.". In fact, it was well known he
came from old money, the colleges he attended practically bought
and paid for by his family.
Typically, she ignored him. Today wasn't typical. She started
to push past him but he grabbed her upper arm.
"We need to talk about this. You
have to move these dolphins out of here, now."
Wrenching her arm from his grasp, she
said, "They're
ill. They need medical attention. I'm not moving them."
His face reddened. "You will move
them. We do not have the funds for this kind of rescue."
"No, Claude. They're staying."
With a glaring look, he pulled his cell
phone from his pocket. "Fine,
I'll just have them removed if you won't."
Jaz breathed deeply to keep herself from
kicking her moronic boss in the balls. Then an idea struck. "Fine.
You do that. In the meantime, I'll go talk to the reporters
currently
drooling at the gate for a juicy story, and tell them the administrator
of the aquarium would rather a dozen dolphins die because it
might cost his multi-millionaire family a few thousand bucks
of pocket change to save their lives."
The redness left his face in a second as he peered around
the corner of the building, apparently finally noticing the
camera crews and photographers. Straightening his jacket, he
turned away from the crowd and sent her a scathing look that
didn't scare her in the least.
"You've won this round, Dr. Quinlan,
but I can assure you as soon as possible I will be relocating
those dolphins."
" You do that, Claude, and I will go to the press. Only it won't
be the kind of public relations you're looking for."
They stood practically nose to nose. Jaz was mindful of the
reporters behind her. Thankfully they were out of earshot.
"Why do you care so much?" he asked. "They're
just animals."
This was one of those days when she wished she could dive
in the ocean and live with the creatures she loved so much,
instead of imbeciles like Claude.
"They're mammals, Claude. Not animals. Mammals. Just
like you and me. Only they're smarter than a lot of humans
I know," she finished, hoping he'd grab the insult.
"They are a lower level life form.
At the aquarium they're here for the entertainment of our
paying customers. Hardly
the same as humans."
His comment brought her blood pressure up another notch, as
if she hadn't already struggled to hold in the ire which rose
by the second. The only reason she stayed on at this circus
fest was her fear that Claude would stop caring for the dolphins
if she left.
"If I had my way we'd free them
all, or close the stupid shows you insisted on bringing on
board. This place used to
be for study and research. Paying guests were more than pleased
to simply observe the dolphins and other mammals without having
them jump through a stupid hula-hoop to entertain them."
Claude sniffed. "The aquarium's
income has increased dramatically since I instituted the
shows two years ago."
Two years ago. Two years of a living hell. More for the dolphins
than for her. Why couldn't things go back to the way they were
before?
"You don't need the shows, Claude.
Why don't you let me help you put a program together that's
educational instead?"
He crossed his arms and peered at her
over his glasses. "You?
I think not. Go back to your lab, Dr. Quinlan. I'll speak to
the reporters about our rescue mission."
And when exactly did the rescue mission become his rescue
mission? Jaz shook her head and brushed past him without another
word. Before she did something stupid, like call him a dickhead.
Somehow, some day, she'd get Claude Morton out of this aquarium
and get all their lives back to normal.
Until then, she had dolphins to save.
* * * * *
"Dammit! Five more minutes
and I'd have been there."
Triton paced in front of the monitors. The sick dolphins now
resided in an aquarium. He'd heard their cries of distress
and raced to the shore, only to find the aquarium's doctor
had already arrived, as had her crew. What a fucking disaster.
For a month they'd been sick, and all of Oceana's medical
advances had been unable to help them. Triton had watched them
all, waiting to see if they'd beach, only they'd gotten to
the shore without him knowing.
"She seems to care about them."
Triton nodded at Ronan's voice behind
him. "True, but
she's a land human. I want the dolphins away from her and out
of that zoo."
"Nothing you can do about it now.
You know as well as I do that we can't just make twelve dolphins
disappear from
the aquarium."
He blew out a frustrated breath. "Yeah, I know." Oceana's
rules forbade calling attention to their civilization. Removing
the dolphins would be impossible. At least right now. "Let's
just hope the female knows what she's doing. If she further
harms the dolphins I'll - "
"You'll do what?" Ronan interrupted. "You
can't do anything to a land human. Our laws do not allow
interference."
"Tell me something I don't already
know."
"Trey," Ronan said, using his nickname. "You
have a warped view of land females. You can't blame every woman
for the pain Leelia caused you."
Trey ignored Ronan, concentrating instead
on scanning the dolphins' vital signs. "It's strange.
Whatever made them ill isn't showing up on our scanners.
None of the common ailments
are causing their distress."
Ronan sighed. "Probably something
man made, or a pollutant we haven't come across yet."
"Fucking great. Just what we need. A mystery we can't
solve." And in the meantime they could lose twelve of
their dolphins. Unacceptable. But what could he do? They were
in the hands of Dr. Jasmine Quinlan now. He knew of her, had
heard she was a brilliant mammalian veterinarian, but she was
still a land human and ignorant of the extensive knowledge
available in Oceana.
"Go up there and work with her.
See if you can't speed her along, or at least find out the
cause so we can work on
a cure down here."
No way had he heard Ronan correctly.
He turned and arched a brow at the tall, imposing figure
who was his brother and
the leader of the guardians of the sea. "Wanna tell me
that again?"
Ronan crossed his arms. "You heard
me. Go up there. We'll set up impressive credentials for
you. You can be another marine
mammal veterinarian like Dr. Quinlan. I'll make sure that the
land humans believe you've been assigned to assist her."
"Get someone else to do it, Ronan.
You know I hate land."
"You're the guardian of the dolphins,
Trey. Who else would you suggest I send?"
"Let Dane do it."
"Dane may have some of your dolphin
skills, but he doesn't have the same scientific knowledge."
Shit. He knew he'd have to be the one
to go. The safety and care of the dolphins was his responsibility. "I
guess it'll be me, then. But I hate this and you damn well
know it."
Ronan smiled. "I also know you don't
want anyone else messing with your dolphins."
He had a point. "Fine. Get me a
background and I'm outta here."
Ronan disappeared, leaving Trey to ponder the hundreds of
reasons why he didn't want to go on land. None of which had
to do with Dr. Jaz Quinlan. Impressive credentials, seemed
to be genuinely concerned for the dolphins' welfare. But all
he really knew about her read like a resume'. What he did know
was she was bound by land, something he simply didn't understand.
The lure of land. What was it about living above the water
that was so appealing? Leelia had found terra irresistible,
and had chosen a new life as a land human rather than spending
the rest of hers in Oceana.
With him.
Women. They never knew what they wanted. Trey knew, though.
They wanted whatever they couldn't have and no matter what
they got they were never satisfied.
