Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eiza Chavez stood at five foot eight inches tall, but the black stilettos she comforted her feet with gave one the impression she was nearing exactly six feet. Black dress pants fit her well and a day wouldn’t go by where a black turtleneck wouldn’t wrap itself around her slender and lustrous neck. Through her shades, her brown eyes praised the state of the new oceanic institute built by Jiuming Zhang.

Escorted out of the helicopter by one of Jiuming’s men, she came out as elegant as she looked, her heels clacking against the concrete pavement, not that anyone could hear with the wind being chopped by the helicopter’s rudders. She tucked her straightened brown hair in the back of her ear as Jiuming and a bald man who looked as if he crawled out of bed with deeper eyebags than before appeared.

“Eiza! Delighted to see you’ve arrived!” Mr. Zhang saw fit to head towards Eiza with welcoming arms. Whatever. She figured she could be charming and passive as a well-trained lapdog just for a day. Whatever needed to be done to be in the good graces of the billionaire with a few short stacks of green to spare.

The helicopter’s choppers dwindled in sound.

Eiza could practically taste the alcohol-induced cologne from the man. She swayed off her sunglasses. “Thank you for the amazing opportunity, Zhang!”

“Zhang? Nonsense! I am Jiuming to you, my friend. You’re part of the Zhang Institute family now.”

Jiuming pulled away and pointed his hand towards the bald man, who only looked Eiza’s way as if she were an uncanny porcelain doll following him with her eyes.

She decided then and there that the man wasn’t very pleasant.

“Ms. Chavez, this is Jonas Taylor, the man who single-handedly killed a megalodon by stabbing it in the eye with a harpoon. He is now our head Handler of Haiqi.”

Eiza scanned the stature of Jonas. Pretty tall. Very bald, obviously. Conventionally attractive. Lips thin and tight in an ever-lasting pout. Quite fit. Yep. He’d definitely killed a megalodon. Perhaps she’d seen his face before, on the news.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, monotone and all, extending his hands towards hers.

She gave a warm smile as their hands met. “Nice to meet you. I find it intriguing that you are basically the first person to ever come face to face with the Megalodon. The scientific community has been in turbulence since the discovery that it resides under the thermocline, and many ichthyologists with decade-long careers left the field out of pure ego.” Eiza looked over at Jiuming for a quick second before returning her gaze at Jonas. “Not me, though. This turn of events has only reignited my passion for the ocean. I have to ask, did you ever notice any intriguing behaviors from the Megalodon that might point towards a separation of speciation from their once-thought cousins, the great whites?”

First a look of perplexion came to Jonas, then a thin line of his lips. His scale of facial expressions seemed incredibly too small for Eliza’s liking. “Well, when that thing was chasing us across the coast of China, the differences between the two species were the least of my concerns.”

Eiza lifted her eyebrow, taken-aback.

A nervous laugh came out of Jiuming. “Don’t mind him, Ms. Chavez. He’s brooding after a very traumatic event.” He pat Jonas on the back, who didn’t look very amused.

Eiza couldn’t pinpoint if Jonas’ weird response was a passive aggressive assertion towards no talk of the event, or if the man was only being honest and neutral. Either way, she decided to let it go. For just that day. She pursed her lips and pushed the other strand of hair behind her decorated ear. “I understand that. Forgive me if I am being insensitive. It’s just that, with this new discovery I am aching to learn more of these sharks. I’ve loved sharks since the day I was born.”

Jonas said nothing, and only looked down with cowardly eyes.

Jiuming put his hand in his dress pockets. “Ah, well then I see no point in procrastinating, then. How about I show you our research lab? Eiza, your things will be taken to your headquarters.”

Eiza anticipated Jiuming to outdo himself with his ambitions and new plans. She knew he was a man of fully practiced potential when he gave a last minute, fifty minute speech at the 2019 Pittcon Conference and Expo in Philadelphia. She heard from several professionals that the man had spent too much time socially drinking with his own colleagues the night before, and therefore never formed his speech to its best until ten minutes before he had to go on stage. She listened with his speech as he spoke with confidence and assurance plucked from the air. From then she knew he was her kin; he took himself seriously, and knew how to stay on top of his game regardless of slip-ups. As a struggling completer of a PhD in marine science, she had the bright idea of striking up a conversation with him after his time of speaking, and before she could even gush to her girlfriends about mingling with a respectable engineer, she was on his list of trusted sources and advisors on all things marine science and oceanography.

She thought of it all as she walked the elusive hallways of the institute. It was a proper place, screaming of organized study and modern design from its rooftops. She relished in the sound of her heels hitting the hard glossy floor; it reminded her of her newfound stage in life. Never would she have imagined she’d be studying an extinct species of shark, but there she was, ready to meet her fate under the eyes of the clear sky. And she would be the very first marine biologist to ever study Otodus Megalodon successfully. What an honor!

With Jonas at her side, who was doing anything but appearing as excited and passionate about the new project as she was, Eiza stopped at the sight of a door with big yellow lettering LAB EMPLOYEES ONLY.

Jiuming gave her a grin as he scanned his fingerprint onto the scanner and opened the door.

Eiza walked in, with Jonas right behind her. Over the lab tables was basically a front row view of the ever expansive lagoon of the new specimen. The twenty foot tall glass and blue hue took her breath away.

“Now this, this is our research lab,” Jiuming said. But Eiza paid attention to anything but that.

Instead, she brought her feet to the edge of the glass before she could even comprehend it, her coffee brown eyes scanning through the water — millions of gallons held back by only a few inches of unbreakable but breakable barrier; if a sudden pin was to magically make it disappear, her only saving grace… there would be none.

Eiza felt the faint scent of Jiuming’s cologne next to her. “She is quite tiny. Only six feet long,” he said.

Eiza turned to him, the highlight of the blue water caressing her cheek. “She?”

“She. Haiqi is her name.”

“Where is she?”

Jiuming nodded towards the enclosure. “In there.”

“When was she penned?”

“Yesterday.”

“Any notable behaviors?”

“We installed an underwater camera yesterday. So far she seems to be level-headed. No sign of malignancy. Want to see?” Jiuming guided Eiza to a nearby iPad Pro attached to monitors on a desk. He tapped on it, revealing several angles of footage of his new specimen. Jonas lingered right behind them, making his distance seem like a loud proclamation.

Jiuming scrolled through the time stamps and stopped at 4:55 a.m.

Eiza gaped a bit at the sight of the creature. It was practically a baby, but there was no way it could ever be mistaken as a great white pup. The body seemed more robust and the fins’ points were noticeably less prominent than any other shark species. And the color of the animal — only a bit muddled through the camera footage and the water — was as white as snow. Haiqi swam a few meters from the camera, and yet Eiza could pinpoint its icy blue eyes, which would be mistaken as murky marbles in the deep blue sea.

“Amazing,” she whispered. “Science will never be the same.”

“She’s been moving as smoothly as a current,” Jiuming commented, scrolling through a few more time stamps.

Jonas made his presence known. “For now.”

His presence was seemingly made nonexistent again as Jiuming continued. “Of course, we must take measures to ensure Haiqi won’t try to fight back against her housing. She won’t stay this adorable forever. We just finished installing 20,000 volt electric barriers in the tank, however they’re practically invisible, and so if she were to start attacking the glass, 100,000 volts of electricity would immediately activate.”

“And what if that were to provoke her further? We have a pretty good idea of these animals’ temper.” Jonas said.

Eiza looked back to see Jonas with his arms crossed. She founded him to be a bit of a contrarian in a sea of believers, and felt as if some force had forced him to be there, perhaps some form of shame and martyr-based guilt which could only be his own projection of a self-proposed role he commenced within himself due to the burden of being the first man to be under the Megolodon’s mercy.

She budded in. “Sharks are able to sense even one percent of a volt of electricity. The barrier would be enough to keep your shark in place. Especially since they’re sensitive creatures due to their Ampullae of Lorenzini. There was plenty of research done on this kind of topic back in the 1960s. A great white could be deterred with only 5,000 volts. 100,000 could potentially harm your meg. We have to remember that sharks are incredibly sensitive to any electrical currents.”

Jonas squinted his eyes. “Wouldn’t having a barrier on 24/7 eventually annoy the meg if it can sense it, then?”

“As long as those electrical currents aren’t traveling through the water, which they are not when the barrier isn’t activated, then no. She will just make sure to stay away as much as possible.” Eiza looked over at Jonas, them both in a glaring contest, and swore that instead of determined debate, she saw resignation and respect in his eyes. She then turned to face Jiuming, who looked as proud of himself as he could be. “Great job on that barrier.”

“Why thank you. We have everything in place now. The walkie-talkies are ready to use. Our system is updated. Everything is ready to function.”

“Has she been fed?” Jonas asked.

“No, not yet. That is actually your first task as head handler.” Jiuming smiled. “Or rather, our first task. To feed Haiqi we designed a crane to hold her meals. We have several seals in the upper deck, there’s a designated space for them.”

Eiza’s eyebrows knitted in questioning. “Seals? Live ones?”

“Yes. Transported from the Gulf of Mexico.”

“And you intend to feed them live to Haiqi? That’s a bit cruel.”

Jiuming shrugged. “Well as a predator, Haiqi might have a need to actually work for her meals, to stimulate her of course. I have a theory that she might get bored if we were to feed her stuff on a silver plate.”

Jonas spoke up before Eiza could get a word in. “We are feeding her on a silver plate.”

“Not necessarily. A predator of her caliber might need some extra stimulation. Eiza, wouldn’t you agree?”

Eiza chewed on her lip for a moment. Feeding sharks live meals was never a moral strategy for her, but she couldn’t deny that Jiuming’s hypothesis definitely made sense. They knew nothing of the megalodon, after all, and if it were to start acting squirmish due to not having its evolutionary needs met, it would just be an inconvenience to them. She licked her lips. “Certainly. Although modern sharks don’t really seem to have a problem with being fed already dead animals, we don’t know what the megalodon is like.”

“She certainly did seem to love the chase of preying on screaming humans,” Jonas added, who finally seemed to be getting on board with at least one conversation of theirs. He looked over at Jiuming. “I looked over your list of rules and regulations, and I’m inclined to agree with them. But everytime we feed her, we must find it imperative to just throw in the seal with the crane at a distance. Absolutely no one is to be within even 10 feet of that enclosure. I also want there to be a strip of paint painted around it to make an official benchmark of where to stand and not to stand.”

“Done,” Jiuming said, pulling out his iPhone. “I’ll tell Michael about it right now, before we go up there he’ll have it done.”

Eiza stepped back and forth, looking at the lagoon through the glass. “I want to discuss our first steps. After we feed her, we’ll make note of how she preys on and kills her meals. Uh, when did you say that the rest of the team will be here?”

Jiuming put his iPhone back into his pocket. “Within the next two hours, they shall arrive.”

Eiza put her index finger on her chin. “Right. We’ll make note of Haiqi’s hunting techniques. The lab assistants will start a daily log. After that, we need to get a blood sample of her so that Henry can start the process of unveiling her genetic code and ancestry.”

“Wait, how exactly are we going to get a blood sample from her?” Jonas added, his voice a bit interrogative. “And who’s Henry?”

“We will sedate her and bring her up on the crane, in a box of water, of course. And Henry is our lead geneticist,” Jiuming said rather coolly, as if he was telling Jonas obvious information.

Eiza could tell Jonas grew tense. The vein in his head was bulging out of his skin.

Jonas took a breath. “Are you sure you have the measures in place so that that happens smoothly?”

Jiuming stood unoffended. “Of course.”

“How many more people will be in our team?” Jonas sounded a bit too annoyed. “I’m not fond of a growing roster of Haiqi’s possible victims.”

“Well, there will be two lab assistants, Marcus Mayer and Elizabeth Anne Marie Taylor. The lead geneticist, Henry. The lead structural engineer specifically working for this project is Michael Swift. Then there is you, lead handler and senior diver. Then Eiza here, lead marine biologist. Rather a small team, but as much talent as any other.”

Jonas appeared to be prespirating. Eiza wondered if the man was right for the job. What exactly was he doing there?

“Would’ve been nice if you would’ve told me.” Jonas pouted. “A team no matter how small or big is a team, meaning meat. Meaning something Haiqi can eat if even the slightest hair is out of place.”

Eiza wanted to roll her eyes. The man clearly knew nothing. She was told he had credentials in marine science, but where was the science in that man’s head? She made her voice clear. “A predator isn’t going to attack unless provoked or hungry, Mr. Jonas. We will feed Haiqi consistently and constantly, so that she wouldn’t have to eat any human bodies that could splash into her territory, God forbid. Our skeletal to meat ratio makes the worth of attacking or preying on us practically nonexistent.”

“Really?” So then why did the other meg who went after my friends and I go after us anytime it could? In a sea full of hundred ton whales? Eh?” Jonas tilted his head to emphasize his point.

Eiza didn’t back down in the face of the anti-intellectual. “My theory? She was most likely pregnant. Probably agitated and felt disturbed with constant electrical impulses bombarding her Ampullae of Lorenzini from dozens of boats or ships. She entered a completely unknown territory she was not familiar with when she left that thermocline.”

Jonas said nothing. Defeated, he shook his head and looked away from Eiza’s brown and triumphed eyes. He gazed at the water. “Well, then, I don’t see how it could turn out any different this time around. This shark in our new tank isn’t evolutionarily accustomed to being on the surface either.”

“Maybe so, but it doesn’t mean we can’t take measures to ensure it lives comfortably. That’s the good thing about it being housed. We have a level of control.” Eiza said.

Jonas parted his thin lips, but he quickly zipped them back together again. Eiza surmised that there would be no pleasing Haiqi’s handler.

Two hours and thirty minutes later, the Haiqi Research Team — as Jiuming called them — was fully assembled on the upper deck. Jiuming had given an entire speech on how they’re all a part of something new right then and there, and that history would be made, and other charlatan drivel he probably repeated to himself in front of the mirror. He also announced that everyone would be greeted with complimentary welcome baskets in their quarters, as if to manipulate them into believing they were already a part of a big family.

Jonas mulled it over as each member greeted him one by one. Michael Swift was a tall lanky man with glasses, which was stereotypical as could be. Marcus was a black man who looked neutral in the face at his new job. Elizabeth was a scottish looking short woman with orange hair and an introverted look to her. Then Henry shook his hand, who was a Chinese American — judging by the native English accent — who couldn’t have been more than 5’5” and who showed a bit too much chirpiness for Jonas’ taste.

Or maybe he was just too old and bitter and everything was too glittery in comparison.

Eiza, well, was Eiza. A tall woman, who nonetheless despite her stature still couldn’t revel over Jonas, and someone who he knew to respect already. Attractive. Professional. Dressed for the job. Not a single wedge of mascara incorrectly applied or a single look that could indicate uncertainty or insecurity. She seemed knowledgeable enough, and maybe she would make a great addition to their team. For every doubt within the project it was obvious she could counteract it rather gracefully.

Truth was, as much as Jonas hated to admit due to the fact that he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else dying between a meg’s teeth, he needed help. He couldn’t research and handle Haiqi all by himself. He looked over the body of excited scientists and gave in to the rhythm.

As much as he hated to. There was no choice. Jiuming had already cooped them all up into a delicious five-course meal for the meg.

Jiuming escorted them all to the seal territory, like bait leading a school to fish to their deaths, a couple hundred feet from the meg’s lagoon.

Michael gave a formal introduction to the crane, which could extend up to fifty feet in the air. It had a metal hook hanging from its mouth, which Michael said could either hold a metal box or a tarp with an unknowing seal or small animal in it.

He brought out the tarp and said that it’s best to lure a seal by using its favorite treat, a small squid. Jonas cringed as he saw the man stick his hand into a smelly bucket to grab a squid and twirl it before an unsuspecting pinniped to get it to move above the tarp. Marcus and Elizabeth helped with positioning the seal on the tarp, and then Michael pushed a few buttons. The ending result was a poor dumb seal held in a tarp by the crane. Jonas noticed the bright yellow still drying paint on the concrete, telling any visitor in big bold letters to keep their distance. At least he was being listened to.

As Michael moved the crane above the lagoon Jonas could see Eiza move her hand to her mouth, as if to show empathy for the poor thing.

He was about to ask her if she’d ever seen a shark eat a live meal when a humming of Doin’ Time by Sublime hit him. He looked back to see Mac strolling towards them, singing “Bradley’s on the microphone with Ras M.G…”

“Came for the show?” Jonas squinted at Mac, who was beginning to produce small beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Just curious,” Mac said, standing next to him. He saw Eiza give his friend a look, most likely trying to guess Mac’s relevance within the institute. Mac tilted his head towards the people in front them. “This is our new crew?”

“Yep,” Jonas emphasized the P. “More possible casualties.”

Mac scoffed and shook his head, patting Jonas on the shoulder. “You need to lighten up, man.”

The crane was directly above Haiqi’s humble abode, the seal trying to wiggle itself out of its grasp.

Jonas saw Jiuming pull out his iPad Pro.

“So what do we expect to happen?” Henry piped up.

“Well, we’ll lower the seal into the enclosure, then Mr. Zha-”

A white torpedo shot out of the blue salty water 10 feet into the air, extending jaws clasping onto the brown fur of the whelping seal, ripping off some part of the tarp which was the pinniped’s only friend moments before. The crane squeezed as Haiqi hung on to the seal, trying to get it out of its grasp.

Jonas stared vigilantly and in awe at the pup thrashing its jaws, seemingly pulling the seal out of its haven and into its territory in a loud splash. Streams of sea fell onto the deck, but not enough to meet anyone’s attire.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Michael said, scratching his head.

“What a marvelous creature!” Jiuming beamed. “Did you all see that? Haha! I’m definitely saving this timestamp.”

“Amazing,” Eiza murmured.

“Damn,” was all Mac could say.

Everyone else seemed impressed with Haiqi’s little brag of her position as predator of the sea, however Jonas was anything but elated.

More chatter arose from everyone. Jiuming showed the iPad screen to Eiza. “Look! Look how she’s feasting.”

Jonas could see Eiza was cringing, but she was anything but not intrigued by the live footage. Scientific curiosity overtook her empathic nature, he guessed. She held the iPad towards her direction. “Just like her modern counterparts, she’s letting it bleed to death before continuing to eat. Fascinating.”

Jonas’ nightmare from earlier that day came back to mind. He, in the Mariana trench, shredded to bits the same way the poor seal was being shredded by Haiqi..could it be? Could Haiqi be his end?

“Jonas?” Mac called to him.

Jonas took a gulp, realizing his throat was dry and his eyes were off to somewhere he didn’t know he was even looking at. He turned to Mac. “Yeah?”

“You alright, man?”

Jonas looked at the crowd of scientists and the foolish CEO who waved around the footage of Haiqi like free candy, showing off his prized possession to anyone stupid enough to take the bait. Then he looked at Eiza, who most likely didn’t have even the faintest idea of what atomic, acidic bomb she had stepped on by getting out of that helicopter. He could’ve left, right then and there. He could walk further away from the tank of that damned fish and that probably dry yellow paint — his would be brother in law were it not for the cancer that spread along Suyin’s tissues, the proper marine biologist in the black turtleneck who rivaled him intellectually when it came to the science of sharks — but could she rescue herself if, by the universe’s desire to lead her down an unfortunate path, she were to trip on one of her stilettos and fall into Haiqi’s enclosure. What then, could Jonas provide for her? What could Jonas provide for any of those employees whose health insurance was provided by a megalodon-housing institute and whose contracts most likely demanded complete silence in an event of a catastrophic happenstance? The employees who were right then and there, laughing and engaging in an attempt at creating workplace bonds, who were only seeking to find meaning in their lives, and found themselves in a selfish and capitalistic driven scheme parading itself as righteous ‘exploration’ and ‘discovery.’ Could a sane mind take a paycheck from a madman who waved away nature’s warnings that came in the form of a 60 foot long prehistoric shark?

Jonas decided right then and there that the answer was no.

He could walk away from it all.

He could, were it not for the fact that he told himself that it was his duty to stay. He told himself he needed to pay his debts. Because of him the meg was in the modern world and it was the modern world he would owe savorism to.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Jonas told Mac.

The day was a long stream of scientific conversations and laborious repeatings of procedures and safety measure, not that he didn’t spend every minute hyper-focused, however he would’ve preferred to instead be in his new foam mattress, thinking about Suyin and dwelling on the fact that he still didn’t know how to be Meiying’s father. Jiuming tried to coerce him into sedating Haiqi right after the ‘show,’ however Jonas argued that’d be best to sedate her the next day as to procrastinate on becoming more and more acquainted with the beast.

It was 9 p.m. He sat on the bed, knees bent up and a journal in his lap. The journal was a gift from Mac. He remembered when he told Mac he thought of going to therapy to deal with Suyin’s death. A week later a journal ordered from Mac’s Amazon Prime showed up at his doorstep.

He turned onto the holy page. The one holding a photo of Suyin, Meiying, and Jonas. They were..on a beach, with blue waves behind them, and a sand bucket in Meiying’s hand. They were a family.

And he looked at Suyin. Her button nose. The smile that could bring him to her shores. The eyes that could heal with just a soft look. The blush on her olive skin and cheeks.

Oh..where had time gone…

A knock came to the door.

“Daddy?”

“Come in, Pumpkin.”

Meiying stood in his doorway wearing dolphin pajamas, a plush dolphin in her hand. She shuffled over to him, her narwhal slippers making small squeaky noises. “How was work today? Did you see Haiqi?”

“Yes, I did. Come here,” Jonas motioned her to come onto the bed, shuffling himself to the side.

“Is she dangerous and scary?”

Jonas breathed out and closed the journal. “Very.”

“What were you looking at?”

“You already know.”

Meiying reached for the journal, and Jonas didn’t hesitate on letting her do so. She opened it to reveal the family photo.

Jonas looked to the side.

“Do you think Haiqi misses her mama?”

A weak curve came to Jonas’ lips. “She probably does.”

“They’re just like us. The sharks.”

Jonas didn’t argue. He just roped his strong arm around Meiying, bringing her close to him.

Sometime, along the linear reality of his existence, Jonas had to move on from Suyin’s death.

And megalodons. And the fear that came from them.

But he started to wonder if maybe his fate would never allow him to rip himself from the grips of them…