Page 44 of Lagoon

She had thought she did want to have children, but she had to admit that her chances had been slipping away, each year, as she got older and older. It wasn’t just that it was harder to get pregnant in your thirties, it was that she was growing more and more used to being alone.

In the end, she supposed, she wasn’t sure if she was the sort of woman who could be a mother. Mothers were required to set aside their own pursuits and desires and dreams and goals, and subjugate all that to the betterment of their offspring. One could argue that mothers didn’thaveto do such things, but it was a bit of a biological imperative. With her clever, human brain, she could find ways around it, she supposed.

But she knew from talking to other women that it would always be there—a strain between her own needs and wants and the needs and wants of her child. She’d always feel guilty because she’d be elevating one to the detriment of the other. There would be posts on her social media timeline about mothers and self-care, people pretending there was a solution to this problem, but there was not. It was a friction that simply existed.

She thought some women found it easier to sublimate themselves to their children. She’d always loved her work so much, though. Maybe that was all there would be. She would just work, or so she’d thought.

But… now…

What if all that was gone?

She turned back to look at Jonathan, thinking about the fact that they’d sort of accidentally created an entirely new species here, and thinking about studying that, thinking about all thefirsts they could observe together, all the information they could compile, all thediscovery…

She sucked in a breath.

Jonathan looked up at her, narrowing his black eyes. “Something just happened to your scent,” he said in a gravelly voice.

“Did it?” she said faintly. She turned to Angela. “You’d want to go back, I suppose? You have family. Your mother. You were talking about your mother.”

“I don’t know what we’re talking about here,” said Angela. “Did someone suggest the possibility of us staying out here forever or something?”

“No, no one said that,” said Riley, shaking her head. “I suppose that’s not even a real possibility, is it?” However, the place was self-sustainable. It was too far out in the middle of nowhere to be able to be on a power grid, so the electricity was all from solar and wind power. They had the internet from satellites.

There was the food question, of course. The stuff in the freezers wouldn’t last forever, but maybe they’d be able to fish more easily if they were mutated in the way they were. There was food growing out here—animals and plants and all manner of things. If everyone thought they were dead out here, they might survive very well.

“I guess let’s go looking for Luther,” said Angela. “Let’s see what happened to him, how bad off he is.”

“Should I come along?” said Riley. “Maybe Jonathan and I should talk science things.”

“I’ve got the gun,” said Angela. “You should probably stick with me.”

Riley shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”

Angela looked her over. Sighing, she shrugged back. “Suit yourself.” She left the lab.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“WHO’S THERE?” LUTHERcalled, getting up from where he was seated. He had been given all of Nancy’s electronics by Harris before, but everything had gotten hairy, and he hadn’t had much time to try to break past the various securities she had in place.

Now, he was outside Nancy’s cabin, because he’d decided the easiest thing was to just use her fingerprint. He was sitting on her front stoop, all of her devices unlocked.

But he’d just heard footsteps, and someone was approaching.

It was Angela. She raised a hand, slowing as she approached. “How are you?”

“Been better,” he said, sitting back down.

“You feeling like you’re two seconds from snapping and filling me full of eggs?”

“No,” he said, going back to the computers.

She continued her approach. “Well, do you smell me?”

“I…” He twitched uncomfortably, now suddenly aware of her approaching scent. She smelled like Angela, like Ramirez, which was strange. He hadn’t been aware that he knew her well enough to know her scent. It was the sort of thing he usually only became aware of with people he lived with, truthfully. Some kind of change due to whatever he’d mutated into, undoubtedly. Great.

“Do I smell like sex?”

“Talk like that. That’s helping,” he said to the screen. “Seriously?”

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