Skeleton Sea

CHAPTER 49

Lanny got it half-right. Oscar Flynn was aiming to be a hero.

The other half: he was well on the way to being a devil.

The little cubozoan looked familiar. If I'd run into it in the sea — and I wasn't busy freaking out — I might think I'd encountered it before. But I hadn't. The tank's label said Chironex fleckeri and its occupant bore the reputation of the most lethal jellyfish in the world.

I moved on to the cubozoan in the second tank. It looked so familiar I would swear I'd encountered it before. But I hadn't. The second tank's label said Carybdea marsupialis. Native Californian. Compared to its cousin in the first tank, C. marsupialis was something of a wimp. At least according to Dr. Violet Russell and Wikipedia.

I moved on to the third tank, where the cubozoan I knew floated like a dandelion. It looked a good deal like the little cube in the second tank. It looked exactly like the glassy cubes I'd seen six hours ago in Oscar Flynn's aquarium in the cavern on Cochrane Bank. Here, now, in Flynn's lab, it was confined to a tank as small as a lunch box and thankfully I did not share the same water with it.

I'd hoped to never lay eyes upon such a thing again.

The label on the third tank was a cryptic laboratory notation: CF/CM.3.2. The tank should bear a clearer warning: here is something new, a box jellyfish native to California waters, carrying the enhanced toxin of the most lethal jellyfish in the world. This jellyfish — Oscar Flynn's genetically-tweaked cross between cousins — had cause to usurp C. fleckeri's reputation. Flynn's creation was twice as venomous, at least according to his lab notes. Certainly, according to what we'd witnessed down in the sea.

If I were to slap a warning label on the third tank I'd write: here is something that should not exist.

But it does.

“He was an evil genius.”

I turned to see Violet Russell just behind me, tapping keys on Flynn's laptop.

She added, “And that's about as theatrical a statement as I'm ever likely to make without a strong whiskey or two.”

She looked anything but theatrical. She wore the plain field clothes she'd worn yesterday, at Diablo Canyon. She looked nearly as haggard as we did. Tolliver had phoned her from the pier, urgently requesting that she meet us at Flynn's house on the hillside.

The house was now officially a crime scene and Tolliver's people were examining every corner.

Tolliver himself was on the phone again, slumped in the chair at Flynn's black-laminate desk.

I went over to join Walter, who was bracing himself on the table that held the Aurelia aurita tanks. We were silent, hollowed. We gazed like rubberneckers at the succession of tanks, the moon jellyfish in each tank looking nearly identical. But the labels said otherwise. The label on the fourth tank said CF/AA.2.

Something new, something else that should not exist, a genetic mashup of a box and a moon, Chironex and Aurelia.

“An intermediary,” Russell said, joining us. “Flynn was toying at this point.”

Tolliver came over, shutting his phone. “Toying? Yesterday at the Morro beach wasn't child's play.”

“My bad, Detective. Poor word choice. I'm in somewhat of a daze. As for toying, I'm speaking of the progression in the recombinant venom proteins. The moons were simply one step along the way.” She swept a hand, indicating the entire lab. “He was nothing if not thorough.”

I nodded. His lab was nothing if not premium. This was not the lab we'd seen last week but it was equally impressive. The paint job was glossy and blindingly white and the instruments on the workbenches gleamed stainless steel state-of-the-art, and beyond. The tanks were numerous and spotless, containing jellyfish in stages from polyps to medusae. Specimens at the ready for genetic manipulation in the lab. End products marked for real-world tests in the sea, testing to determine if his cross-bred genetically-manipulated creatures could adapt to these waters.

And adapt, they could.

Tolliver eyed the laptop in Dr. Russell's hand. “Finding documentation in his notes?”

“Chapter and verse, if you like.” She swiped a finger across the screen. “Here's the provisional patent, which references identification, cloning, sequencing, and recombination of venom proteins for pharmaceutical applications. All for the greater good — adapt the jellies' chemical weaponry to combat human diseases. Cancer, chronic pain, heart disease…”

“Uh-huh, right, he was gonna get rich saving lives.” Tolliver flipped a hand. “How about the other? Find anything indictable?”

“Downright evil.” She swiped her finger. “We have pages of correspondence with a certain organization that doesn't adhere to the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. Ongoing funding to adapt the jellies' chemical weaponry for next-generation bioweapons. Already profitable.”

“Already delivered?”

“Contracted for. You'll want to follow up on that, Detective.”

“I'm a small-town cop, Dr. Russell. I'll pass this on to the feds.”

She strode over to the workbench that held stoppered sample bottles of murky water. “Pass this on, as well. Tinkering with domoic acid to develop toxic weaponry.”

I regarded the container labeled DA.2.4. Domoic acid, product of an iron-seeded algal bloom. Poisoner of sea lions and Joao Silva.

“Speaking of harmful algal blooms….” Russell paused. “I fear that when you examine his computer files you'll find articles I sent him, on that subject.”

“Hey, you thought it was part of his work with the rescue group,” Tolliver said. “How could you know what he was up to?”

Russell snapped Flynn's laptop shut. Sound like a gunshot.

Tolliver said, “Hindsight's worth what you pay for it.”

I said, “It wasn't just about the money. I mean, for Oscar Flynn.”

I moved to the biggest tank in the room. The label said Nemopilema nomurai. No laboratory notation for cross breeding. This species, it seemed, stood on its own. There were five jellyfish in this tank and it was beginning to get crowded. They were about the size of basketballs. Just big enough to make an impression. To make me recoil at the memory of a touch, of a monster's shove. I assessed the smaller versions, here. Must be juveniles. That sure explained how Flynn could have ferried the monsters to the cavern. They weren't quite monsters, at that point. They were small enough to transfer, in a big bucket. And then, once situated in their new home in Flynn's aquarium of the deep, they grew to full size. His big boys.

His pets.

I wondered where they were, now. Perhaps still caught in the eddy that swirled around the bowl at Target Red. Eventually, though, they'd get swept away in the complexity of currents. Of course, they could be tracked. Flynn's notes described the implantation of microchips. Fish 'n chips, he'd called it — the only joke he'd ever made, I'd wager.

Walter and Russell and Tolliver joined me.

We all stood enraptured by the juvenile monsters in the tank.

And then Walter cleared his throat. “You mentioned the money.”

I managed a smile. That's Walter. Finance is his middle name. He watches our pennies, he balances our books.

And certainly Flynn had a compelling monetary motive here. If the pharmaceutical toxins panned out, big bucks. Even if they didn't, he'd already enlisted the bioweapon rogues. Bigger bucks.

I said, “The money, sure. But that's not what fed his soul.” At least what passed for a soul. I figured I'd experienced enough of his soul to pass judgment. When I'd helped shut the gate on him, down in the cavern, it was in defense — of us, of the sea. Certainly a final judgment. I wore that responsibility like he wore his cloak of cubozoans. I said, “I think it was about the creation. Something new, that never existed before. Something that nobody would forget. Something terrible — I think that was part of it — something that would set Flynn above the commonplace, wielding these terrible weapons. I mean, he was trying to release his new box jellyfish into our sea.” I shot a look across the room at the Aurelia aurita tank. “And we saw what happened when he released those moons, tweaked to lethal. I think he wanted to see them in action. He wanted to test their stings. I mean, we're talking commonplace moon jellyfish — nobody worries when they hook one on a kayak paddle. Or sees one swimming by, on a day at the beach. They don't carry much of a sting. They're just pretty little moons.” A hard knot formed in my gut. “Except, when they're genetically engineered into pretty little devil moons.”

Russell said, “A rogue wave.”

Yeah. That about summed up Oscar Flynn. He sure had the unpredictability of a rogue wave. The strength. He nearly swept us off our feet, swept us under. Well I had my balance now. Stable enough. In fact, nearly rooted in place. Leaden.

“I don't doubt that motivation,” Walter said. “But let's not forget that putting his moons in action was exquisitely timed. He'd just found us at his site, at Cochrane. He'd heard Doug promise that his divers would return the next day, Monday. So let's calculate the timing and the tides. He visits the new Morro Bay aquarium Sunday night and engineers the release. Aurelia is a nearshore species so he can assume that's where his moon army will deploy. That's where attention will be focused.”

Tolliver snapped, “And it was.”

“I fear that's my bad again,” Russell said, and before Tolliver could argue the point she continued, “when I took that collection plate from the Diablo dock, I should have rushed my analysis. That was his field test. Would his engineered polyps start a new generation? You need to get somebody out there to check the whole inlet. Now. If I'd known yesterday what I was looking at… I should have listened to my gut.”

“With all due respect,” Tolliver said, “your gut-feeling is bullshit. My gut has been all over the map, on this case. We go on facts, not gut feelings.”

She held up the laptop. “All the facts you need, Detective. A to Z.”

“How about how he got the damned things, to start with?”

“To collect the natives, Carybdea and Aurelia, he simply went out on his boat with a scoop and a bucket. As for the foreign species, he obtained the polyps on the black market. You could nail him on the illegal importation of invasive species — if he weren't already nailed.”

Tolliver just nodded.

Russell pointed at the N. nomurai tank. “The young ones hail from China.” She added, “Or perhaps Japan — by way of Fukushima.”

“You're shitting me.”

“No bullshit, Detective.”

“What you said before about radiation effects, the mutation thing…”

“The species was already established in its present enormous form — before the meltdown. One could conjecture that adults drifting past the nuclear facility planted polyps there.” She eyed the tank. “It will be interesting to find out what, if any, mutations have occurred.” She gave Tolliver a strained smile. “Godzilla.”

“I'd take that as a joke if it didn't scare the hell out of me.” Tolliver stepped aside and made his phone calls.

When he finished, he said, “All right, I've got the Coast Guard on the way to Diablo. And my divers out at Cochrane just found some kind of feeding device in the chimney holes — injecting brine shrimp down into the cavern. They removed the feeders but they want to know what to do next.”

“Next?” she asked.

“About the damn box jellyfish down there.”

“Hell Doug, seal off the cavern. Currents are still going to bring in nutrients, and you can't have that. You're going to have to starve them.”

“Can't we just wait for them to die?”

“You're forgetting the next generation. There will be polyps.”