“Um… Lee?”
He snapped out of his thought and looked at DeeAnn. “Huh?”
“Is it even possible that we could get her into the water? I mean the gear and everything? Is that even feasible?”
A new smile slowly spread across Lee’s face, and he glanced down to Dulce. “Hell yes, it is.”
Another tone sounded on the vest. As soon as the small gorilla had heard enough, she began hopping and clapping.
It was an exciting concept. Yet even as they both mulled the possibility over, neither noticed what Dexter, the small capuchin, was doing in the background.
It wasn’t until DeeAnn straightened that she finally noticed. Several yards away, beneath the mixture of green and yellow leaves of a banana tree, Dexter was rearranging Dulce’s blocks. Instead of the matching game, he had carefully stacked them. Into the crude, but very recognizable, shape of a pyramid.
24
It was strange.
To see young Sofia Santiago standing next to the top of the giant tank was surreal. Heartwarming but surreal. The last time they had seen her, Sofia’s bare head was hidden under a colorful scarf, her body so weak she had to be lifted into the water.
Now, she stood upright on her own two feet. In spite of the crutches, her balance was steady and she remained steadfast, staring down into the shimmering water where Dirk and Sally waited.
No longer wearing a scarf, the girl’s beautiful head was budding with dark stubble. Her warm brown eyes appeared even more enthralled than they had been the last time.
“Are you ready, Sofia?”
Grinning widely, she nodded and handed the crutches to her mother. Sofia placed her tiny hands inside Alison’s and stepped shakily onto the top step.
Behind Alison, Lee and Clay waited a couple steps below with her dive gear. DeeAnn remained standing behind the girl, on the edge of the tank, ready to catch her with a hand out. But she didn’t need it. After a second step, Sofia lowered herself down onto the step and sat upright.
As weak as she was, the improvement was simply astonishing. Her energy and strength were like… that of a different child.
But Sofia barely seemed to notice. Instead, she held up her arms while Clay wrapped a small weight belt around her. Then came her custom-made face mask followed by the waterproof ear buds.
Alison gently tested the seals with her fingertips before lightly touching the face mask to ensure it stayed in place. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Sofia answered, nodding. “I hear you fine.”
“Good.”
Alison raised a hand and motioned for Dirk and Sally to approach. They did so immediately, reaching the side of the tank and making sounds at Sofia.
“Hold on,” Alison smiled. “We’re not plugged in yet.”
She inserted her own ear plugs and reached down to power her vest back on.
“Dirk? Sally?”
Both dolphins turned their heads to her.
Alison. We ready. Now swim.
“Okay, okay. Just a minute.” She continued adjusting her own equipment while Sofia reached out and patted their noses. Both dolphins laughed.
It wasn’t about the swim. Last time Sofia had spent less than twenty minutes in the water and yet the changes were profound. It was a surprise to everyone, which led to a string of other discoveries including unexpected healing properties within the water. Properties that had seemingly been stored in the dolphin’s thin layer of blubber. Alison and Neely Lawton had found it.
Of course, whatever it was had yet to be defined. All they knew so far was that whatever was in those plants near Trinidad had made its way into the water, in addition to Dirk and Sally’s fat cells, where they were absorbed. Now those same properties were circulating throughout the water of the research center’s tank, where they were absorbed by anyone else in the tank, including Sofia.
Still, even if they hadn’t yet identified it precisely, they knew enough to know that a longer exposure of Sofia to the water would undoubtedly improve the potency affecting her own cells. And this time her swim wouldn’t be minutes, it would last for hours.
And it wouldn’t just be for Sofia.
When it was over and Sofia had left in the care of her parents, DeeAnn gazed at Alison from a chair in the observation area. Clay and Lee both sat nearby.
“How long should we wait?”
Alison exhaled, with both arms leaning back on the edge of a table. “I don’t know. A couple of days. Then we do it again. For her and for Juan’s sister, Angelina.”
“And by then it will almost be time to leave?”
Alison lowered her head and nodded.
John Clay watched her expression silently.
It was killing her. First the retraction and now the abandonment of their research center. The first place in her career where she had truly felt at home. And a series of accomplishments that were beyond meaningful. They were life changing. For everyone.
She raised her head but kept her eyes on the floor. “I never thought it would come to this — not even in my worst nightmares — to denounce everything we’ve done and abandon this place. It just feels… so wrong.”
“Like we’re running,” Lee added.
“Exactly.”
“You’ve changed the world, Alison,” Clay said. “Even if the world doesn’t know it yet.”
She stared at him, softly but still with a look of bewilderment. “Will they ever?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I used to think that all the world needed was truth. And even if it were shocking, we would all still manage to come away better off. We’d be better people. Enlightened. Or something. Instead, we’re having to hide, and run. So that everything we’ve discovered can’t be exploited.”
Alison shook her head. “My God, what’s wrong with us? Why are humans so self-serving?”
Clay smiled warmly from his chair. “Not everyone is.”
“Maybe not,” DeeAnn said. “But decent people are not the ones in power. It’s the power hungry that run the world. And our governments and our militaries.” She turned to Clay. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“It’s the same ones who talk about how great the future can be,” DeeAnn continued. “They’re always promising a better tomorrow, but when there’s a chance to really change the future, they fight over it like children. I mean, look what the Chinese did. They murdered their own people to keep it secret. Then when they couldn’t have it, they destroyed it all. God, what kind of mentality is that?”
Clay frowned. “It’s not unique, unfortunately. When survival is on the line, especially for an entire nation, values change quickly.”
Lee peered at Clay. “We’d do the same thing, wouldn’t we?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“So what are we doing this for then?” asked Alison. “We can’t possibly win. It’s just us and our tiny group. Against everyone else. What difference can we possibly make?”
Clay thought about the question. “Under the right circumstances, even the most unexpected person can make a difference.”
“Not always,” quipped DeeAnn.
“No. Not always,” Clay agreed, looking past them into the empty tank. “But we’re in a unique position. We have nothing to lose.”
“Nothing to lose?”
“We can’t force the world to change, Ali. All we can do is give it a chance.”
Clay knew the odds were against them. But he also knew that one day each of them would be gone. Laid to rest just like everyone else. And it would be forever. On the grand evolutionary timeline, their lives were little more than the blink of an eye. Everyone would be gone eventually, and all that would matter then would be what they had stood for. A truth he had just recently become acutely aware of.