The Siren, the General's Daughter Book One (16 page)

“What’s going on?” a tech asked, watching the Allegro men shake their heads.

“If we don’t hear from him in an hour, we’ll let the doc know. He didn’t look worried. Trust me, he always knows if there is something wrong. They call it the ‘Twin’ powers.”

“But they aren’t twins.”

“Same birthday, same time, exactly four years apart. They told you, they’ve been joined at the hip since Sam was born. We still haven’t been able to demystify it, but he is always right about her.”

Michael swam out of the bay and into open waters. He removed the neuroband from his throat. The constant white noise in his mind interfered with his perceptions. He swam to the kelp beds a few miles offshore and treaded water. He felt her presence and knew she was there—
somewhere
. Why hide, though? It didn’t make sense. Unless….

Holding back the surge of fear, Michael dove deep and scouted for her bubbles. He found her wedged on a rock and focusing her concentration towards the small leopard sharks that swam around her. Growling, he calmly approached her. He was livid! She had deliberately disobeyed him again after he specifically told her not to try to band yet!

Without warning, the sharks quickly turned and speed toward her. Ton sped out of nowhere and intercepted two as Michael slammed one in the snout with his fist. Ton went after a fourth when Michael grabbed his sister’s shoulder, jarring her out of concentration. He could see her eyes widen as she realized it was him.

“Get your little ass back to that lab now,” Michael hissed, pushing her before reattached the neuroband around his neck. Ton followed and imaged his displeasure with his ‘calf’, sending strong thoughts to Michael to ‘bite her tail flukes.’ Michael couldn’t help but grin. The whale was finally getting the idea about how to discipline land walkers! When they entered the tank, Ton roughly shoved Sam into the glass to demonstrate his anger. With a quick flick of his flipper against her, he turned and left. She just stared in disbelief.

“I believe you just got a cetacean version of a spanking, little sister,” Michael said loudly as he yanked her out of the tank. She blushed madly as the tech team snickered. Thank God that Recon wasn’t there! She would never hear the end of it. Michael shoved her into their offices and slammed the door behind them. “What the hell were you thinking? They charged you this time! Ton couldn’t handle all of them, either. I am
pissed
.”

“Lower your voice, everyone will hear you,” Sam whispered, jumping as he slapped his palm on the table.

“Good! Let them hear! Come on, we are going to see Dad about this.”

“No! Mike, please, we can wait until we get home. He’s gonna
kill
me!” Sam begged, grabbing his wrist.

“That’s not all he’ll do. And when Scott find out, you are in for it double. I can’t believe you! Put your lab coat on, you don’t need to parade around in that wetsuit for every man to drool.
Now
!” he shouted, peeling off his wetsuit and pulling on his cammie trousers and t-shirt.

The men in the lab looked with concern to the Allegro crew. They didn’t seem to be bothered.

“Is this normal?” one of the tech asked. He received a smile.

“Oh yeah, for her definitely. She’s gonna get a good old fashioned paddling from Daddy and then be good as gold for a week or two.” Nick sighed.

“You’re kidding me. You’re serious? Oh, that poor kid. He’s a big guy.”

“He loves her, don’t worry. Now, if they involved Scott… we might not see her for a couple of days. He handles her hard,” the man said absently as he returned to work.

The new crewmembers stared at him and watched silently as Michael dragged his sister out of the lab by the hand, her short legs running to keep up with him. Looking around at each other, the crew further understood the importance of maintaining silence. They had witnessed the genuine nurturing of their commanders, yet they instinctively knew there was a line not to cross. It appeared that their girl frequently stepped over that line. They were now privy to the family dynamics.

“You are going to give me whiplash! Slow down,” Sam snarled, trying to break her brother’s grip on her wrist. Much to her chagrin, both her father and uncle were sitting together reviewing a chart when they arrived. She moaned as all hope vanished. Michael shoved her into the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Hello. Thanks for knocking, son.”

“Dad, I am so pissed right now that I don’t care.
Sit
!” he ordered his sister. She sat, feeling the stares. Michael rapidly explained to them what had occurred including her blatant disregard of his instructions and her own safety. Scott’s cheek started to twitch and the vein in his father’s neck popped out. For a moment, he felt sorry for her.

But only for a moment.

“We will handle this when we get home tonight. Young lady, what do you have to say for yourself?” her father asked darkly. She looked at the floor, shaking her head. Scott was too angry to speak, which terrified her even more. “Michael, take her back to work. She is confined to the lab and the tank only upon necessity. You are also grounded for two weeks, Samantha.”

“Two weeks!”

“Make it a month. No phone, no flying, no TV,” Scott finally spoke. “I promise you, after tonight, you will never, ever consider disobeying any of us again. Get out of here. I don’t even want to look at you right now.”

Michael was as stunned as his sister with those words. They had never been spoken to like that. The girl broke into tears and ran from the room, not caring who saw her. Michael stood up slowly. “Uncle Scott, I think that comment was uncalled for. You really crushed her,” he said hotly, leaving to find the girl and bring some comfort.

Scott had tears in his eyes as he turned to his friend. “She’s going to kill herself, Joe. What can we do?”

“Pray hard. Other than that, I just don’t know.”

Scott nodded, standing. “I’ll be right back. I need to do some apologizing. I should not have said that.” He slowly walked to the labs, gesturing everyone to sit when they saw his entrance. They pointed to the testing room. His niece was sitting in a chair, hooked to electrodes, still crying softly. He sighed. Leave it to Sam to turn even her emotional pain into a science experiment. He rested his hand on her shoulder. She glanced at it but did not look up. He squatted beside her to look into her face.

“Honey, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken without thinking about how it would hurt you. Please, forgive me.”

She didn’t look at him, still sniffing. Her readings fluctuated wildly, with no patterns. They finally stabilized just before she spoke. “I guess we are a lot alike. Our tempers can get the better of us.”

“Yes, it’s the Jenkins curse. We both say things that we shouldn’t. Good thing Mike didn’t inherit that side from Mom.”

“I hate when we fight. It makes me feel so alone and unwanted. I’m not used to feeling like that,” she whispered. Scott reached for her hand.

“Look at me. Please? You know how much I love you. Honey, you terrify me. I’m begging you. Stop doing things like this, my heart can’t take it.”

“I’m really sorry,” she said, returning his squeeze.

He smiled, reaching for a hug. “We good?”

“Always. Uncle Scott? Could you do me a favor?”

“Anything, baby. What do you need?”

“I need you to tell my brother to get his head out of his ass and listen to me. He acts like he knows everything! I really think I figured out the I-band problem.”

Scott laughed, standing. “Let’s see what you’ve got then I’ll approach him. That cocky side he got from Dad, not me. I’m incredibly humble about my brilliance.”

Eagerly, she pulled out the tapes and ran a comparison on the computer. “Look- the sharks are responding to the hypothalamus, not the corpus, of the brain. Because their neurosystem is so primitive, they are unable to process advanced imaging. It confuses them, which puts them into predatory mode. See?”

Scott nodded, once again amazed. She continued. “Here are the readings when I was going through that saline loss.”  She handed him the strips. “It boils down to base needs. Maslow’s law. There is no emotion, no cognition… pure instinct. Now, if we can tap into that….”

“Ok, I am convinced. Did you explain this to Mike?”

“I tried, but we were too busy fighting. You know that’s how we work out the bugs.”

“Yes, I know. You guys should really find a quieter way, though. Dad’s afraid of you frightening your co-workers.”

“They know us well enough by now. Besides, heightened emotion increases our cognitive awareness between us. It’s that funky twin thing you tease us about. Look,” she said, showing him some more comparisons.  The brain function of the two was almost identical during the peak of their fighting. “Scott? He’s forgets that I’m the biologist. He’s not. This is what I’m trained in.” Her slate blue eyes pleaded with him to understand.

“Let me go straighten some stuff out with Mike first, then we’ll conference. I’ll get Dad here, too. It would help having a physician explain to a stubborn physicist how to adjust brain frequencies.”

“Which stubborn physicist are we talking about, you or Mike?”

Scott laughed, patting her thigh before leaving. He followed the pointing fingers of the Allegro crew to the closed office door. “Mike? I need to talk with you,” he tapped on the door.

“Come in,” he heard the low response. Scott entered, inhaling deeply. His tall, handsome nephew had his eyes locked on the computer screen and refused to acknowledge him. “Son, I’m sorry. I was wrong to say what I did. Like your sister pointed out, the Jenkins temper took over and does stupid things.”

“No shit. Scott, you really can act like an asshole at times. You disappointed me,” Michael said, turning to stare at his uncle.

Scott sat down. “I know. I disappointed myself. It will never happen again, I promise.”

“Yeah, right. How can I be sure of that?” Michael snapped, punching in some numbers.

Scott looked surprised. He had been prepared to face his nephew, not a young man protecting a woman. “Well, all I can give you is a promise to try. Fifty-six years of habit is hard to change overnight.”

“It’s about time you do. I’ll put up with almost anything, but the line is drawn here. I don’t care what you put her backend through, but we all need to protect her heart. None of us have ever been dismissed like that. It was so damn heartless.”

“You’re right, as always. I already spoke with her. Would it make you feel better if I abstain from her discipline tonight and let Dad handle it? As much as she scared me, I am willing to do that to prove to you I’m sincere.”

“You would do that?” It was Michael’s turn to look surprised. “She almost got herself killed today.”

“I would do anything for you, son. Even relinquish that part of my responsibilities this one time.”

Michael finally laughed, pushing away from his desk to study his uncle. Scott couldn’t decide who he resembled more at that moment, his father or himself. “I really like the condition of ‘this one time.’ Are you good with her now?” he asked, waiting for the nod. Scott also found it interesting how the young man had turned the tables on him. “Then I see no reason to spare her the added terror of dealing with you if you are up to it. I need to stand back, my feelings are too intense. I was there.”

“I have an idea.  Wanna hear it?” Scott got that twinkle.

Michael wrinkled his face. “Yeah, but I need a hug first. She scared the shit out of me.”

“I forget sometimes,” Scott embraced his nephew tightly, “that you aren’t much more than a kid yourself. Normal families don’t deal with this stuff.”

“Normal families don’t have a gremlin living with them. Thanks, you can let go now. What’s your plan?”

“Now, we will have to get Dad to agree, but here goes….”

***

“They’ve been in there for a long time,” a tech stated to an Allegro crewman.

“I know. Hey, whatever it takes for them to work things out. Our lives depend on their ability to function as a unit. You’ll understand when we go into the field. I have to admit, I wish I could have been raised in a family like that. I would never have dared doing half the stupid stuff I did.”

“You turned out ok, you’re here working as a lab manager.”

Nick smiled. “It’s all because of them. When they found out I wanted to stay under their command, they put me through school for training.”

“Just because you wanted to stay?” It was unheard of.

The man nodded. “I’m telling you, they are remarkable. Loyalty is the most important thing to them. That and respect. Give them both with a little hard work, and you will be in a good place. Oh, here comes Scott. He doesn’t look pissed.”

They watched as the two entered the testing room and closed the door firmly behind them. Within a few minutes, the yelling began. Smiles passed over the men as things returned to normal. Dr. Quimby walked in shortly and rolled his eyes as he heard the bellowing from behind the door. “I promise I’m going to fit this outfit with a sound proof testing room. I
told
them to wait for me…” he opened the door, “Ok, lower your voices, all of you. We are professionals.  There is no need to yell.”

“He’s
impossible
!”

“She’s demented!”

“I need a drink,” the father sighed, plopping in a chair and rubbing his head as his two children threw notes at each other.

Scott grinned. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Got a minute? I wanted to share a thought.”

***

On the way home, after Sam was reminded of her one month restriction, silence filled the car. With some convincing provided by his father and uncle, Michael had finally agreed to test his sister’s hypothesis and promised to look into readjusting the I-band for the different area of the brain. He reluctantly admitted that it made sense according to the evidence she proudly presented. He also admitted his desire to trash the whole project so Sam wouldn’t risk herself again. Although the temptation was unanimous among her family, they all agreed that it would be futile since she would only find something else to dismay them with.