Rolling in the Deep Read Online Free PDF Page A

of them had made it perfectly clear that they knew what they were doing on this voyage. Imagine had provided them with an opportunity they had no other way of getting. While they were happy to play along, they were all cagey and unwilling to commit to believing in mermaids. Anne thought that was a real pity. Imagine could be very good to the people who helped the network achieve its goals, and a scientist who was willing to go on the record as believing in mermaids could probably write their own ticket on future documentary trips—as long as they were relatively photogenic, that was.
    The location was breathtaking, at least, even if the scientists were being pills. There was nothing but water in any direction, for as far as the eye could see. The horizon seemed to go on forever, limitless and terrifying. Kevin had already shot almost an hour of footage of nothing but ocean, filling his lens with that sweeping vista in an attempt to capture its enormity and reduce it to something that he could comprehend. He didn’t see doing both at once as any sort of a contradiction. Turning the limitless beauty of nature into the visual equivalent of a sound bite was his job, and he was good at what he did.
    “Excuse me?” They turned to see one of the Blue Seas ladies standing behind them. Her hair—a lovely shade of purple that was not normally found in nature—was tied back in a loose ponytail, and her face had a faintly shimmering quality that Kevin associated with good visual filters and Anne associated with stage makeup. Neither of them knew her name. The mermaids had kept mostly to themselves since coming aboard, partially due to contract restrictions, but mostly because they just seemed content with one another’s company. “I asked the captain whether we were allowed in the water now that we’ve stopped, and she said I should ask you.”
    “Me?” asked Anne.
    “No, him.” The woman indicated Kevin. “I know you’re not supposed to know when we’re going to be in the water, but we don’t want to risk being caught on camera until we’ve gotten used to swimming near the ship. You have the filming schedule for today?”
    “Yeah,” said Kevin, catching on. There were crews all over the Atargatis filming setup and getting footage that could be used to spice up later parts of the documentary, just in case the weather turned bad. “We don’t have any crews filming the back left.”
    “You mean rear port,” said the woman, sounding faintly amused. “Does that mean we can go in there?”
    “It should, yes, and if anyone has a problem with it, just tell them that you got my approval.”
    “Believe me, handsome, we won’t hesitate to throw you under the bus,” said the woman, and turned to go.
    “Wait!” called Anne. The woman stopped, looking over her shoulder at the diminutive redhead. Anne smiled hopefully. “Can we come along? I’d love to get some behind the scenes footage.”
    The woman raised an eyebrow. “Are you planning to blackmail the network? Because we’re not violating our contract. The penalties are obscene .”
    “No, but there’s no point in pretending we don’t know you’re here,” said Anne. “This way, when someone decides to debunk us, we have the footage to prove that it was never a hoax, just a dramatic production that some people took too seriously. Like Orson Wells and War of the Worlds .”
    “Didn’t people die because of that radio show?” asked Kevin.
    The woman laughed. “All right, fair enough. This way, you two, step right up and enjoy the show. It’s time to meet the mermaids.”
    She led them down a flight of stairs and around a corner, to the deck outside the cabins that were being used for the women of the Blue Seas professional mermaid troupe. Seven of the eleven were in evidence, including Teal and Jessica, who were in their tails, as they had been near-constantly since arriving on board. The two wheelchair-using mermaids were lounging on the deck itself,