I don’t say anything. I conserve my energy.
“After he told me this, I started looking at the living creatures inside. I followed the shells with snorkels and then dive tanks. Grew up. Never forgot what he said. And one day, I went down in a Mir to oversee a geothermal installation, and I started thinking about the vents, where the water is toxic and warm. Acidic, like we’ve made the sea. But there was life there. Trapped. It couldn’t populate the rest of the sea because of the cold all around it. The animals there were boxed in, fit for a different world, for a world not of sunlight but of harsh chemistry. I wondered if we could bring them out, give nature a nudge, find something in their DNA that might help.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe you.”
“We started with the trees because they were simple and we could grow them quickly. I hired the absolute best. From what we learned with the trees, we were able to get two dozen species of gastropods living in existing sea conditions. And more on the way. The FDA thinks we’re working on algae for biotic oil production, that our proposed bills to relax some regulations have to do with that. There are politicians on our side, but others who will shut us down if they find out, who will think we’re playing God, creating little Frankenstein fish, that we’ll cause more damage than we’ll repair. But we’re only doing what nature does best. She just needs our help. Because we took her by surprise.”
I don’t want to believe him. I don’t care how it all fits, how this makes more sense than the monster I made up in my mind. I want to believe in the monster. I need to believe in the monster. It’s simpler. I can wrap my head around that. It’s more difficult to think that Ness is out to save the world. It’s more difficult to think that he sees anything in me.
“The feds are onto you,” I say. I want him to know he won’t get away with this, that it’s too late.
Ness nods. “I know. I think they suspect. They don’t want this either. If the market for shells crashes, entire departments will get shuttered overnight. It’ll be like the end of prohibition. No more jobs for the people who track down crooks. No more retail. No sales tax. All gone overnight. No one wants this, don’t you see? It’d be like turning the loch back over to the monster. The circus would have to pack up and go home.”
I shake my head. Ness reaches out to me, and I flinch. I can see that this reaction hurts him worse than the blow I struck. He is only holding out his hand, hoping I’ll take it.
“Come with me,” Ness says. “Come with me, Maya, and I’ll show you.” He turns and looks back to the lighthouse. A handful of figures can be seen up there, little dots on the ridge. “This is where the story ends. Right up there. Where it always ended. I was going to take you today—it was the plan all along. I was going to show you the sample we took from the Mir, you and me. I was going to show you the progress we’ve made.”
He frowns. His cheek is bleeding badly. “And then I saw the story this morning, with your name on it, and I thought I was an idiot to fall for you, that you were running that piece all along, that you were probably going to write about what happened on the sub, on the island, that I was setting myself up for all that again. While I was running back to the house, all I could think was that I made a mistake taking you to my most special place, my true home, that you—”
“I’m sorry I hit you,” I say. “I’m sorry about the piece that ran today. But I … I don’t believe what you’re telling me—”
“Why not? I’m willing to believe you. Right now. I believe that you had nothing to do with that story. I believe that you’ll set it all straight if you have the chance. I believe this, even though I have a long history of watching people betray my trust. A long history. But I believe you, Maya. Now I really need you to believe me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Ness, this is just too much.”
“Is it? You’ve seen the shells. You’ve seen inside them. You know they’re real. I need you to look past everything you know about me and the years of mistakes I made. Stop judging me by my father and his grandfather. Judge me by this week. By our time together. If that’s all you had to go on, what would you believe?”
I rest my face in my palms. My shoulders quake as I let out a sob, an exhausted cry. I expect Ness to reach out and comfort me, but he seems to know not to. I can’t believe any of this is happening, that my life somehow got caught up in the nexus of whatever it is Ness is trying to do and whatever it is the feds are investigating. All for running that damn story, for wanting to get back at the man I blamed for taking my childhood away.