Warren Fahy - Fragment

The technician arched his eyebrows. “You’ve been humoring me a bit by letting me make my spiel, haven’t you, Dr. Bins-wanger?”

“Oh, call me Geoffrey No, I’ve learned a lot I didn’t know, actually,” Geoffrey assured him. “I’ve never seen anything like this beastie. Thanks for letting me check it out.”

The technician gave him a thumbs-up. “No problem. Did you see SeaLife last night?”

Geoffrey squirmed. This was the fourth time someone had asked him this today. First, his attractive neighbor, as he left his cottage. Then Sy Greenberg, an Oxford buddy researching the giant axons of squids at the Marine Biological Laboratory, had asked the same thing as they passed on the bike path near the Steamboat Authority. Then the dock manager at WHOI, while he was locking his bike outside the Water Street building where his office was located.

“Um, no,” Geoffrey answered. “Why?”

The technician shook his head. “Just wondering if you thought it was for real.”

That’s what the other three had said. Exactly.

Someone rapped on the window in the hall outside the clean room. On the other side of the glass stood Dr. Lastikka, the lab director who had arranged his tour. Dr. Lastikka made a telephone gesture with his hand to his ear.

“Jeez, it’s my lunch hour. Oh well, OK, I’m done.” Geoffrey handed the horseshoe crab carefully back to the technician and pantomimed to Dr. Lastikka, Tell them to hold!

Dr. Lastikka signaled OK.

“Thanks, that was really cool,” Geoffrey told the technician.

“Doing your lecture tonight, Dr. Binswanger? Er-Geoffrey?”

“Oh yes.”

“I’ll be there!”

“I won’t be able to recognize you.”

“I’ll wear the mask.”

Geoffrey nodded. “OK!”

This was why Geoffrey loved Woods Hole: everyone was fascinated by science, everyone was smart-and not just his fellow researchers. The general public, in fact, was usually smarter. Woods Hole, he confidently believed, was the most scientifically curious and informed population of any town on Earth. And it was one of the rare places, outside a few college campuses, where scientists were considered cool. Everyone showed up for the nighttime lectures. And then everyone adjourned to various taverns to talk about them.

Geoffrey exited the clean room through two sealed doors. As he tugged off his cap and mask, a lab assistant pointed him to a phone. The front desk patched him through. “This is Geoffrey.”

“There you are, El Geoffe!”

It was Angel Echevarria, his office mate at WHOI. Angel was studying stomatopods, following in the footsteps of his hero, Ray Manning, the pioneering stomatopod expert. Angel had been out of the office that morning and had left a message saying he was going to be late. Now the researcher was practically jumping out of the phone.

“Geoffrey! Geoffrey! Did you see it?”

“See what? Take it easy, Angel.”

“You saw SeaLife , right?”

Geoffrey groaned. “I don’t watch reality TV shows.”

“Yeah, but they’re scientists.”

“Who go to all the tourist spots, like Easter Island and the Galapagos? Come on, it’s lame.”

“Oh my God! But you heard about it, right?”

“Yeah…”

“So you know half of them got slaughtered?”

“What? It’s a TV show, Angel. I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you.” Geoffrey stepped out of the cleansuit as he spoke. He nodded as a technician took it from him.

“It’s a reality show,” Angel insisted.

Geoffrey laughed.

“I recorded it. You’ve got to see it.”

“Oh brother.”

“Get back here! Bring sandwiches!”

“All right, I’ll see you in half an hour.” Geoffrey hung up the phone, and looked at the technician.

“Did you see SeaLife last night, Dr. Binswanger?” she asked.

Geoffrey entered the office he shared with Angel carrying a few bags of sandwiches from Jimmy’s sandwich shop. “Lunch is ser-”

He was shushed by a cluster of colleagues from down the hall who had gathered to watch Angel feed his mantis shrimp.

Watching a stomatopod, or “mantis shrimp,” hunt was truly a spectacle not to be missed.

Geoffrey aborted his greeting immediately and set down his helmet and the sandwich bags. In the large saltwater tank, Angel had placed a thick layer of coral gravel and a ceramic vase decorated with an Asian-style depiction of a tiger. The vase rested on its side, its mouth pointed toward the back of the aquarium.

Angel pinched a live blue crab in forceps. “Don gave me one of his blue crabs. Thanks, Don.”

“I think I’m already regretting it,” moaned Don as he nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Whoa!” several exclaimed as Angel’s pet emerged.

“Banzai!” Angel dropped the unfortunate crustacean into the tank. Morbid fascination compelled everyone to watch.

The ten-inch-long segmented creature moved like some ancient dragon. Its elegant overlapping plates rippled like jade louvers as it curled through the water. A Swiss Army knife’s worth of limbs and legs churned underneath. Its stalked eyes twitched in different directions. The colors on its body were dazzlingly vivid, nearly iridescent.

“Here it comes,” Don groaned.

The blue crab sculled its legs as it sank through the water, and halfway down it saw the mantis shrimp. It immediately swam for the far side of the vase but the mantis lunged up and its powerful forearms struck, too fast for the human eye. With a startling pop , the crab tumbled backwards. The carapace between the crab’s eyes was shattered and the crab hung limp in the water.

The mantis shrimp moved in and dragged its quarry back into its vase.

The audience “wowed.”

“And that, my friends, is the awesome power of the stomatopod.” Angel sounded more like a circus barker than a stomatopod expert. “Its strike has the force of a.22 caliber bullet. It sees millions more colors than human beings with eyes that have independent depth perception, and its reflexes are faster than any creature on Earth. This mysterious miracle of Mother Nature is so different from other arthropods it might as well have come from an alien planet. It may even replace us someday …Bon appetit , Freddie!”

“Speaking of which, Jimmy’s has arrived,” Geoffrey said.

“Yay, Jimmy’s,” said a female lab mate.

“Glad you’re here,” Angel told Geoffrey. “I’ve got something to show you.”

Everyone took sandwiches. A computer monitor on the lab counter showed a cable newscast with the volume turned down. The SeaLife logo flashed behind the newscaster.

“Hey, turn it up!” someone called, as Angel simultaneously cranked up the volume.

“It’s only two miles wide, but if what the cable show SeaLife aired last night is real, some scientists are saying it might be the most important island discovery since Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos nearly two centuries ago. Others are claiming that SeaLife is engaging in a crass publicity stunt. Last night the show gave a tantalizing live glimpse of what appeared to be an island populated by horrific and alien life that viciously attacked the show’s cast. Network executives have refused to comment. Joining us is eminent scientist Thatcher Redmond for an expert opinion on what really happened.”

Everyone in the room groaned as the camera focused on the guest commentator.

“Dr. Redmond, congratulations on the success of your book , The Human Effect, and your Tetteridge Award which you received just yesterday, and thank you for giving us your insights today,” gushed the newscaster. “So, is it for real?”