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PCRI, Molokai, Hawaii, Earth
August 29th, 2036
Terry met the cab at the curb in front of the institute. A robotic version, it rolled up and opened the door. It took his mother a few extra seconds to get out, leaning on the cane they’d given her at the hospital.
“Everyone here, Son?” she asked.
“Yes, Mom.”
She stopped next to him as the cab pulled away and looked at him. “I know you can’t be happy about this.” He shrugged. “Your dad—”
“I know,” he said. “You don’t have to go into it.”
She sighed and said, “It’s impossible to be sure how this will play out.”
“I know that, too,” he said. Terry followed her up to the office floor and the main meeting room.
All the doctors of the PCRI were there. As soon as she opened the door, a round of applause greeted her. She smiled sadly and held up a hand.
“Welcome back, Madison,” Dr. Patel said.
“Your recovery was amazing,” Dr. Jaehnig said.
She looked at Terry before answering. “I think there was outside help, but it really doesn’t matter right now.” She walked slowly with the cane over to one of the easels, which had been moved from Terry’s father’s office. She limped over to the most spectacular, “Killer School.” She lifted it off the easel, examining the art, then snorted and dropped it to the floor.
“I had nothing to do with any of this and never would,” she said. “All this...” She reached out and knocked the “Atlantis Reborn” poster off its easel. “All this exploitation. I’m disappointed you all went along with it.”
The circle of scientists gawked in horrified shock. Several looked at each other, while some wouldn’t meet her gaze. Terry sat in a chair by the door and felt horrible. Horrible that his father had lied to him. Horrible that he’d told his mother about the lies. Finally, horrible that he was in the middle of what looked to be the end of his life as it was.
“Madison?”
“Yes, Sanjay?”
“Did Matthew arrange your injury?”
The room fell deathly silent, except for the sound of Terry gasping. His mother turned and seemed to remember he was sitting there. “Terry, can you go to our apartment and wait?”
He didn’t want to, though at the same time, he didn’t want to be there. He got up and left without saying a word. Their apartment was empty, of course, and Terry looked out a south-facing window. A rain storm was slowly moving in. On the other end of the apartment, a window overlooked the bottlenose habitat. It only took a second to realize they weren’t all there.
Terry got off the elevator and entered the bottlenose habitat. For a change, he wasn’t greeted by the customary calls of his name. A female swam over and looked up at him.
“Hula, is that you?”
“I Hula,” the bottlenose said.
“Some of the Sunrise Pod are gone.”
“Yes. Sad. Not with pod.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“Warden take. Go big shore.”
Dad took them with him to Seattle, Terry realized. What the heck is he doing with several bottlenoses in Seattle? He found his answers a few minutes later.
Bored and worried about what was happening in the meeting room, Terry took his computer and opened a browser window. He’d been thinking about seeing if he could access the GalNet from home on the issued machine. The teachers said they could, though their access was limited to a certain number of users at the same time. He’d just logged on when his phone beeped for attention. It was Yui.
“Terry!” she said when he answered, obviously excited.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Have you seen the news?”
“News?” He wondered what he would have cared about on the news. “What news?”
“Terry, your dad; he was arrested in Seattle.”
Terry didn’t even say goodbye, he just hung up and quickly pulled up a regular browser. It only took a few seconds to find the story. “Hawaiian Marine Biologist Arrested on Charges of Animal Cruelty and Fraud.”
He quickly read the article. Inset within the story was a short video from a stringer showing his father being walked out of a hotel in handcuffs. Being walked out along with him were the two people Terry had seen with him just the other day. “Dr. Matthew Clark, co-director of the PCRI in Molokai, Hawaii, was arrested and charged today on multiple charges of animal cruelty and conspiracy to defraud investors.
“Dr. Clark was in Seattle, meeting with a large group of potential investors. They were being pitched a theme park, which would operate in the open ocean and highlighted Clark’s modified dolphins and killer whales.” The article hypertexted to another article on what the institute had been doing with the cetaceans. “However, Dr. Clark brought four of the modified animals with him, putting on a display at the Seattle Aquarium. Dr. Maia Taumata happened to be in town and attended the presentation, which was open to the public.
“Dr. Taumata, from Auckland, is head of the Earth Republic Animal Rights Commission. One of their more recent tasks has been to ensure that alien flora and fauna isn’t accidentally introduced to Earth. However, they also see to it that native life isn’t exploited illegally by aliens. Upon investigating one of the dolphins in Dr. Clark’s care, she determined that the animal had undergone implantation of a brain augmenting apparatus known in the Galactic Union as a pinplant, and not a simple translator, as Dr. Clark had professed.
“The animals were taken into protective custody, and Dr. Clark and two unnamed associates were arrested. We contacted the PCRI this morning and were surprised to talk to Dr. Madison Clark, Dr. Matthew Clark’s wife. She was injured on an expedition several weeks ago and was purported to be in a coma.
“Dr. Madison Clark provided us with a prepared statement. ‘The PCRI is not in the business of developing attractions of any kind. To the contrary, our mission statement is to provide rehabilitation for cetaceans who have themselves been the unfortunate victims of such misguided attempts to profit off their interesting nature. My husband’s endeavors were undertaken without my knowledge, and as such, the approval of the PCRI’s Board of Directors. We are severing all dealings with Dr. Matthew Clark forthwith.’ Considering the statement came from his wife, it was very strongly worded.
“Dr. Taumata further stated that investigators would be arriving in Hawaii in the next week to discuss the matter with Dr. Madison Clark, and decide on a course of action going forward.”
“I wonder if I’m going to jail, too,” Terry wondered aloud in the empty apartment.
Hours later, his mother limped in. She took one look at her son and knew he’d found out.
“You had Dad arrested?”
“No, Terry, your dad did that to himself. We fired him.”
“But why did they arrest him?” he asked.
“Well, the charges of fraud are a direct result of making deals on behalf of the institute, which he was not legally allowed to do. He made promises, signed contracts, and took money.”
“To help you,” Terry said, afraid he’d cry again, and furious at himself for it.
“No, Terry.” She limped over and sat on the couch next to him. “I know your dad told you insurance wouldn’t cover what we were doing, but that was just another lie. No, it didn’t cover all my treatments, or the payouts to the dead crew of the sub, but it did cover most of it. Our backers and the government would have helped with the rest.”
“Then why did he do it?”
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask him that ourselves.” She shrugged. “I want to think it’s just a misguided attempt at helping the cetaceans.”
“You want to, but you don’t think that.”
She shook her head no. “I’m afraid there’s a lot of money involved. A lot of it went right into his personal account.”
“How much?”
“Several million dollars. Maybe as much as $50 million.”
“Oh,” Terry said. “What Dr. Patel said in the meeting room?” His lip quivered a little. “Do you think dad hurt you on purpose?”
“No,” she said, “it was just a horrible accident.”
“An accident he took advantage of.” His mother looked down. She reached out to put a hand on his arm, but Terry pulled away and walked to his room. She didn’t try to follow, and he closed the door behind him. He dropped into a chair and stared at the other wall of his room. His phone rang, and he ignored it. Eventually, he lost the battle against his emotions.
* * * * *
