Mermay 2025 Series Part 2
Caretaker approached the tank at an obscenely early hour that morning. They waved at the sleeping mer. Whumper had made sure to put their gag back on the day before. The mer poked their head above the surface, tilting their head in a questioning manner. Caretaker put a finger to their lips, then inserted a key into the gag’s lock. The mer’s jaw flexed as Caretaker tossed the instrument aside.
“Testing again?” the mer asked.
Caretaker shook their head.
“No, no testing, I just want to talk with you, would that be all right?”
The mer’s eyes glanced away. When they looked back at Caretaker, they nodded, albeit hesitantly. Caretaker smiled, pulling up a rolling chair and sitting down.
“I’m Caretaker,” they said, “do you have a- I mean, what’s your name?”
The mer tried the name on their tongue.
“Caretaker,” they smiled a little, “I like it. I am called Whumpee.”
“Whumpee,” Caretaker said slowly, “am I saying it right?”
Whumpee giggled, then nodded.
“How did you learn English, Whumpee?”
Whumpee grinned widely, showing off their fangs.
“I’m a good listener, I learn languages really fast. Most mers do. I can speak whale, dolphin, and uhh… I don’t know what the languages are called, but-”
Whumpee started rattling off sentences in rapid succession, changing languages for each phrase. Caretaker would later find that Whumpee was fluent in most languages and their various dialects, including but not limited to Māori, Norwegian, Japanese, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. Whumpee even seemed to know ancient languages like Latin and Aramaic.
“You’re like a walking- well, swimming- translator!” Caretaker said in awe.
“We teach each other what we’ve learned on our travels, usually when we meet up at home.”
“I miss home,” they added in a quiet voice.
“Where is your home, Whumpee?” Caretaker asked.
Whumpee looked up, fear shining in their eyes.
“You’re not going to take more of us, are you!?”
“No! No!” Caretaker said quickly, “I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen. If I’m going to get you out of here though, I need to know where to take you…”
Caretaker stood, crossing the room to a large desk drawer. They opened it and returned with a map of the world’s oceans.
“Can you point out where you live on this?” Caretaker asked.
Whumpee studied the map for a few minutes. They pointed a finger to a spot that was several nautical miles away from the facility.
“Hm, there seems to be a few small islands there,” Caretaker said, “are they inhabited?”
“Well, sometimes we’ll play in the lagoons and coves, but there aren’t too many humans that come around.”
Caretaker nodded, taking a picture of the map and marking the spot on their phone. They took a deep breath, looks like they were really doing this.
“I have to get some things in order,” they said, “but I’m going to get you home. I promise.”
“Really!?” Whumpee exclaimed, their tail splashing some of the water out.
Caretaker shushed them, holding their hands up for silence.
“Yes,” they added in a whisper, “but we can’t let anyone else know. If Whumper finds out then this is going to get a lot more complicated and difficult.”
“Whumper is scary,” Whumpee agreed, “I don’t like them.”
“Well they can be… yeah, no, you win. They’re a real piece of work.”
Caretaker picked up the gag, and Whumpee scuttled back against the other tank wall.
“Wh-what are you doing with that!?”
“We can’t let Whumper know the plan, we need it to look like nothing is going on. So I have to put this on you, just for a little bit, I promise. I won’t even lock it. You can take it off whenever there’s nobody in the room. Security cameras aren’t really a thing in here.”
Caretaker left out the explanation for why that was. Whumper didn’t want any legal trouble for violating any ethics laws. “An unnecessary and limiting constraint that has set us back decades” they would say. Caretaker shuddered. They didn’t think Whumper was actually serious at the time.
Whumpee took the gag from them and put it on, nodding nervously. Caretaker smiled in what they hoped was a reassuring way, then headed out of the room to get their affairs in order. They would help Whumpee or die trying.
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