And if human brains had achieved such remarkable feats… then by the same standard, the potential of dolphin brains could be even greater in some ways. They’d already established that dolphins were much smarter than previously thought. Their “echolocation” was vastly superior to man’s best sonar technology. And Sally’s ability to read Alison was becoming almost uncanny.
Alison didn’t take her eyes off Sally. Instead she stepped forward, maintaining eye contact and studying Sally’s expression. Alison turned her mouth only slightly toward the microphone on the desk and when she spoke it was clear and deliberate.
“So, Sally… what else can you do?”
12
Alison was still standing in front of the tank when she was interrupted by the sound of the double doors opening behind her. She turned to see Bruna, the center’s admin assistant, standing between them. Her dark eyes searched across the expansive room before finally finding Alison.
“Miss Alison, someone is here to see you. It’s Mrs. Santiago.”
A look of worry briefly passed over Alison’s face, and she turned to face Bruna. “Sofia?”
The short, overweight assistant shook her head. “She’s alone.”
Alison gently touched the tank before turning away and heading for the door. Bruna’s announcement was eerily similar to the first time they’d met Lara Santiago. When she had come to talk, it was a plea for her daughter. At the age of eight, Sofia was dying of leukemia. She’d asked if her daughter could talk to their dolphins as one of her last wishes. But Alison and her team arranged more than that.
Now Alison followed Bruna back out and into the wide hallway where Lara Santiago was waiting. Her demeanor was more relaxed than Alison was expecting.
“Hello, Mrs. Santiago,” she smiled. “Is everything okay?”
Lara nodded. “Yes. Thank you for seeing me.”
“How is Sofia?”
The expression on Lara’s face became mixed. “She is doing well,” she replied. “And her blood cell counts have improved dramatically. But improvement is now slowing.”
Alison immediately frowned.
“The doctors think that what Sofia experienced was a temporary change. And that her blood cells and her condition will turn down again into its final stage.”
Alison and Bruna remained quiet, listening.
“My husband and I don’t believe that,” she said. “What Sofia experienced over the last few weeks was too… incredible. It even shocked her doctors. The same ones who now insist it is only temporary.”
Lara Santiago worked to contain her emotion before lowering her voice. “But we don’t want to give up.”
Alison smiled and reached out, squeezing the woman’s arm.
“Miss Shaw,” Lara continued, “I didn’t tell anyone about Sofia’s experience here. Neither one of us did.” She glanced through the glass into the giant tank. “The doctors think it was a temporary remission, but we think it had to do with your dolphins. We… we have to bring her back.”
The smile on Alison’s face faded, and she stared at the woman as if frozen. It was something she’d just said that struck Alison like a hammer. They didn’t tell anyone.
Yet it wasn’t the words she’d spoken — it was how she said them. Lara Santiago had not used them as a threat, but something in the tone of her voice told Alison that she might. In other words, neither she nor her husband had told anyone, but they would if they had to.
They believed the dolphins were the key to Sofia’s mysterious recovery, and they wanted to get her back into the water. And keeping the secret was their leverage.
Alison glanced at Bruna, the only other witness to the exchange. Her expression gave no indication of having noticed Santiago’s subtle implication, making Alison wonder if she had imagined it. But it didn’t matter. Whether Lara Santiago intentionally implied it or not was almost irrelevant. The message was the same and it underscored exactly what Clay had told her. As soon as someone found out even part of what Alison’s team knew, everything would change. Rumors would spread like wildfire, and attention would focus on them like a giant spotlight. Then eventually on IMIS.
And by then it would be too late.
After a long silence, Alison managed a warm smile. Her hand lay still on the mother’s arm. When she spoke, it was in a quieter voice, matching Lara’s.
“Bring her in.”
She found Clay in the lab. Alison entered calmly through one of the heavy double doors, and without saying a word, held them until they closed softly.
Both Clay and Lee watched her cross the room to their workstation where she simply stopped, staring at them.
“Lee, can you give us a few minutes?” She spoke in a low voice.
“Sure,” he said, promptly standing up. “I’ll, uh, go talk to DeeAnn.”
Alison watched him exit through a smaller door at the back of the room, leading outside. The room was momentarily awash in bright sunlight until the door swung back and closed with a loud click.
Alison turned to Clay, seated in front of her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“You’re right,” she said plainly. “As much as I want it not to be true, you’re right.”
Clay raised an eyebrow, curiously.
“IMIS. Dirk and Sally. Everything. It’s not safe. When people find out about it they’ll come for them, won’t they?”
Clay nodded. “It’s human nature.”
Alison lowered herself into the chair next to him and exhaled. “There’s nothing more powerful than the self-preservation of any given species. No matter what the cost.”
“It’s how it’s always been.”
She nodded solemnly. “I just spoke to Lara Santiago downstairs, the mother of Sofia, the girl we helped. She knows it was no fluke. She knows it was the dolphins. Now Sofia’s weakening again, and she wants to bring her back.”
“And?”
“And I don’t think she would take no for an answer.”
Clay leaned back in his chair, ignoring the pain. “There is one thing more powerful than self-preservation.”
Alison nodded. “A parent trying to save their child.”
They both sat quietly as the room fell silent. The monitor on Lee’s desk displayed a small window with a live feed of the habitat downstairs. On it, Lee could be seen approaching DeeAnn, at which point he reached down and patted Dulce’s head.
On the rest of the monitor and behind the video feed, a much larger window displayed part of IMIS’s vocabulary, mapping small parts of audio profiles to corresponding words. The massive system was still discovering new translations. And while most of the word choices seemed obvious, a few did not. They seemed odd, indicating IMIS still had a long way to go in understanding human context.
Alison looked at Clay’s chiseled face and was continually struck at how every time she looked at this guy, he seemed to grow more handsome. She realized it wasn’t merely his face or build. It was his character. He knew she was still fighting the idea of the retraction. But even now, after she finally saw the danger with her own eyes, he would never say, “I told you.” He would never even imply it. He understood what IMIS meant to her. What it meant to all of them. And Alison knew the last thing Clay would ever do was make that struggle worse. Instead, he simply waited for the rest of them to see it.
“So now what?” Clay asked.
Alison didn’t answer. Instead, she felt her mouth resisting to say the words. She thought of all they had done and the many young children who visited them, especially those wearing the blue T-shirts with pictures of Dirk and Sally. The children loved those dolphins. And finally, painfully, she thought of little Sofia. When the words came, it was an effort just to get them past her lips. “We undo it.”