Page 5 of Lagoon

Inside, they were now in a nondescript entry way. A door was shut in front of them. Dr. White went towards it, touched a button on the side, and the door slid open.

“Oh, certainly,” said Dr. White. “We won’t really be doing the same job, but you’ll be the other doctor working with Dr. Greyson now. I would stay, to be truthful. It’s exciting work. But I have a little girl at home, ten years old, and I’ve missed too much. Sometimes, we have to make priorities, you know?”

“I understand,” she said. Children, a family, that was a thing she hadn’t meant to turn her back on, not exactly. But she understood enough about biology to know that her window was closing, rather rapidly, and that she was not the sort of person who could manage to have a split focus, anyway. If she was devoted to her work, it would just be the work, then.

Sometimes, she was sad about it, but only when she remembered, and she didn’t remember that often. So, in the end, she must not have wanted it that much, right?

“We talk each day,” said Dr. White, leading through the hallway. Most of the doors were closed, but a few were open, and she saw lines of beakers and sleek machines and tablet computers through the open doors. “We video call each other, and she says to me, probably three months ago, ‘Daddy, I miss when you lived with us.’ And I realized that, for her, it’s like I abandoned her. It broke my heart. I put in my notice the next day.”

“Of course,” she said. “You can’t miss out on your children.”

“No, indeed,” said Dr. White. “I’ll be here with you, probably for about two weeks, making sure you’re settled and that all the transitions are smooth, and then I’m off to see her again. To live with her again. I miss my wife as well, of course.” He laughed.

She laughed, too. “Of course.” She liked Dr. White. She was sad they wouldn’t be working together.

They reached the end of the hallway, and there was another closed door. Dr. White inserted his keycard and a little light blinked green and the door unlocked. “You’ll get these by the end of today, I think,” he told her.

“Oh, that’s good,” she said.

They emerged in a large room, with bright LED lights overhead. There were tanks of water all along the walls, each with different kinds of plant matter growing in them. Some looked to have things that resembled frog eggs growing in them.

In the center of the room was a long stretch of stainless steel tables, littered with microscopes, a titration unit, a Bunsen burner, and rows of flasks and test tubes. Riley took it all in.

“Jonnie-boy!” bellowed Dr. White at the top of his lungs. He turned back to her, and continued in a normal voice, “He’s around here somewhere. I said he should go to fetch you from the airport, and he agreed with me, but then he got distracted, as he often does.”

In the corner, Dr. Greyson stood up. He’d been crouched down, peering into a tank on the far wall. He whipped off a set of plastic gloves, brightening at the sight of her. “Dr. Stine! You’re here. So good to see you. I hope your flight was all right?”

“Yes, fine,” she said.

Dr. Greyson hurried over to shake her hand enthusiastically. “I’m so happy to finally meet you. This is very exciting.”

“Yes, well, I really don’t know anything,” she said. She gestured around. “What’s in these tanks?”

“Oh, we’ll get to all of that,” said Dr. Greyson. “You’ll want to see Bub first thing, I imagine.”

“Bub?” she said.

“He’s, um, well, he’s extraordinary.” Dr. Greyson’s voice changed, going reverent. “He’s the reason we’re all here. We’ll go to the lagoon.”

The lagoon. It sounded so luxurious and exotic, she thought. It was fitting, what with the sensation she’d experienced, that she’d been dropped into some tropical, primeval environment. There were lagoons in such places.

Dr. Greyson chuckled. “Actually, it’s probably not correct to really term it that. I don’t know if it quite fits the strict definition of a lagoon. There is a river out here, and it’s filled by that rushing water, closed off from the waterway, though, by a number of rock outcroppings. It’s small, and some people say lagoons should only refer to salt water. But I think it’s a bit romantic, I suppose, a lagoon, here in the heart of the jungle, where we have found this new and exciting species.”

“Yes,” she said. Her thoughts exactly. “I do want to see.” Her heart started to pound.

Dr. Greyson smiled knowingly. “Of course you do. Let’s go.”

“I think I’ll stay here if you don’t mind,” said Dr. White. “Hot out there in the afternoon, after all. I’d like to stay here in the air conditioning.”

“Suit yourself.” Dr. Greyson shrugged out of his lab coat, hanging it on a hook.

They went back out the door she’d just come through.

Riley was a little amused as they walked all the way back through the building. She could have simply waited at the front door for Dr. Greyson, she thought.

Out the front door they went, but they did not walk down the dirt path toward the cabins but instead went the other direction. The way was steep and rocky. It grew steadily more so as they continued on.

Finally, they arrived at a stunning spot. There was a waterfall, rushing down into a pool of water, surrounded by jagged rock formations. The water reflected back the blue of the sky, and the air felt cooler here, even though they did not quite have the shade of the trees. There were flowers growing on the far side, amongst the rocks, bursts of yellow and purple and red.

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