Page 43 of Lagoon

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Angela. “He said it came over them, right, like some kind of rage fit?”

“A rape fit,” said Riley and then she—horrifyingly—giggled.

Behind her, Angela smirked.

And then Jonathan came into view and they both stopped laughing.

He was still Jonathan, but his skin was not skin anymore. It shimmered, smooth and slick, like a salamander’s. His features were still human shaped—he did not have the flat nose or the bulging eyes on opposite sides of his face that Bub’d had—but his eyes were black, all black, no iris, no white, just black pupil. His fingers were webbed. He was wearing a lab coat and a pair of pants, but no shirt beneath. His feet were bare. Webbed toes as well.

“I’ve been crying,” he said. “As much as that happens for whatever I am now, I suppose. There aren’t tear ducts in the same way, I don’t think. Anyway, apologies for… for…” His voice broke.

Riley went to him out of instinct, and she wrapped her arm around him. “Oh, God, Jonathan, God, I’m so sorry.”

He collapsed into her for a moment, letting out a shuddering, sobbing sort of breath, but then he pushed away. “That’s not a good idea, the closeness, Riley.” He turned his back on her, shaking his head.

She backed off. “Wait, do you want…?”

“It’s a scent you’re giving off,” he said. “It’s odd, because typically, when you smell a scent you identify as an animalistic sex scent as a human, there’s a barrage of shame and embarrassment mixed in there with whatever other arousal you might feel. Less of that, really, which is disturbing. I’m wondering if there’s been some effect on our emotional behavior—”

“A flattening?” said Riley. “Me too.”

“You think we smell like sex, Dr. Greyson?” said Angela in a low voice. She had her hand on her gun.

“You smell like women, I suppose. Or whatever we are. If I’m laying eggs, am I really the man? You women seem to have retained uteruses, however, so if you’re going to maybe carry the eggs until maturity, maybe that means you’re still female. In cases like this in nature, we would usually say, however, that the fertilization element—whatever participant has the testes, that’s the male. But testes and ovaries are essentially the same things in humans. It’s just a question of what hormones work on them in utero. So, could they change with the right hormonal soup applied to them?”

“Okay, I get that—for you—it’s a big question about whether or not you’re a man or a woman or whatever,” said Angela. “After all, you’ve been a white man your whole life, so your identity has been a source of comfort and power. The rest of us have have had to learn to dissociate from our identities to various degrees already, since we aren’t white men and the world doesn’t revolve around us. Can we go back to the part where you can’t handle touching us because you feel the danger of losing control again?”

Jonathan ran a hand over the top of his head. He had hair there, some hair, but it was falling out. Clumps came off when his webbed fingers touched himself. He brought a shaking hand down to look at, fingering the hair as it fell between his fingertips. He let out a funny, strangled noise and collapsed into a nearby table, holding himself up for balance.

It was quiet.

“I gave myself another injection last night,” said Jonathan. “But when I looked at a sample of my blood this morning, it didn’t seem to have worked at halting the progression the way it had. On the other hand, I may have stabilized. Under the microscope, things don’t seem to be mutating anymore. So…”He looked up at them. “I don’t know what that means. We have to ask ourselves, did the other men behave the way they did because they hadn’t had this injection or because they were the sort of men who couldn’t keep control of themselves under the best of circumstances?”

“You’d like that to be true,” said Angela. “You’d like to believe that your morality is going to save us, doctor, but know this. You bring that stinger thing you’re packing near me or Riley and I will put as many bullets into you as it takes to keep you from coming any closer.”

Jonathan nodded slowly. “Understood, Ramirez.”

“Jonathan…” said Riley. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Where’s Luther?” said Angela.

“He and I were both… understandably distraught,” said Jonathan. “I gave him another injection, took a sample of his blood, and then I think he went off to grieve privately. I don’t know.”

“Great,” said Angela. “You two split up, and we said we needed to—”

“We didn’t say anything about sticking together,” muttered Jonathan. “His blood isn’t mutating either, anymore, if anyone is interested in that.”

“We did want Luther to try to get into Nancy’s laptop or phone or something,” said Riley. “I think we need a rescue, and the first place to start is apparently to contact Anderson Scott—”

“No,” said Jonathan.

“No?” said Riley.

“No, I don’t want to bring this back to society,” said Jonathan. “We’re a danger, aren’t we?” He tilted his head to one side. “Maybe the two of you could go back, I suppose? But me? This? No.”

Riley thought about it. Regardless of who they told, they’d be sequestered somewhere, undoubtedly. They were oddities, andthey’d be studied. Her body had been altered, she knew that, and maybe it could be changed back surgically, but likely not.

Maybe just… a hysterectomy? Did she want that?

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