BBW: Anomaly Points Book 1

Carla dove over the side of the barge. I was about to follow her when the radio cackled to life. I looked at it, and I was this close to not ignoring it, but in the end, I did ignore it and splashed into the water. It was a nice day. We were alone in a lovely cove with a farmyard of animals complaining about life. Why wouldn’t I go for a swim?

I climbed back onto the barge about half an hour later. I checked my phone, and there were a number of messages. See, why do they need to talk to me when they can just message me? I had a long drink and browsed the messages.

“Volunteer Team One is back on the Manawanui”

“The water to the sheep pen is clogged. Please investigate and unclog.”

“A pod of dolphins have neared the quarantine zone, and we are trying to turn them around.” I guess the dolphins didn’t get the memo.

“Volunteer Team One have been evacuated to Auckland. Two of them are having serious difficulty.” Well, shit. Not unexpected, but shit.

“Several animals are showing signs of difficulty and may be starting mutation. Please check the following pens: Mice, cats, goats, rats, and the turtle tank.” We have turtles? I can certainly check the cages/ pens, but I don’t know what you expect me to do except say, “Yes, they are showing signs of difficulty.”

Sheep are horrible creatures. Goats are worse. What I did find was that my nose could pick out changes in some of the animals that were starting to mutate. Their smell changed.

There was not much we could do here. We would not stay overnight because I can’t process essence in my sleep. Yet. One of our jobs in the morning would be to remove the carcasses of the animals that didn’t survive overnight. They want to study them, and they don’t want the other animals in the cages/pens/tanks to eat them.

Cannibal sheep sound like horror movie material.

The sun was setting when Carla and I gave up for the day. No wild shark attacks. No dolphins want to mutate. The sheep haven’t turned cannibal yet. Some of the science experiments were completed successfully. Others were ignored. Their poop bags were empty.

Best of all, neither of us mutated.

We had an early breakfast, and while we were eating, Commander Lewis came in with good news.

“Ensign Jeong has woken and is in good health.”

I looked at Carla with an unspoken question.

“Short Asian chick,” she replied, then turned to the commander, “What about her mutation?”

“She tells us she grabbed her fish and used a knife to remove the eyes and ate them, wanting her eyes to mutate. It seems to have worked; her eyes look similar to fish eyes, and she now has exceptional night vision. She will be spending the day with specialists, but it looks like she will be able to join you in the cove tomorrow.” The Commander was looking pleased about that.

“So focussing on one thing might be a key?” I asked.

“It might,” Lewis responded.

“The others?” Carla asked.

“No change yet, Warrant Officer Toki is stable. Lieutenant Wihongi and Petty Officer McDonald are in critical condition.”

I saw Soph listening intently. She looks like a woman with a plan. I hope she talks to Carla about it.

The first job of the morning was to remove the bodies and transport them to the Manwanui, where they would be preserved for future examinations. It took two trips. I am pleased the remaining sheep did not turn cannibal on their dead comrade. The same could not be said for the mice and the rats. Or the fish. It was a horrible job.

They gave us protective gloves, and I insisted on a quality mask to protect us from the smell. I let Carla deal with the cats. I hate cats. Even with the gloves, she lost some scales to those claws. The plants were just heavy. Two of the sharks were dead and I felt I spent hours with a net over the sprat tank.

The barge was no longer a pleasant place to be with the stink of faeces, mutation and death. There was a pump and a hose, so hosing most of it away with seawater helped. We would not be swimming near the barge, though, and I am glad my super smell does not really work underwater.

We certainly know what tasks we will be assigning Ensign Jeong tomorrow.

We spent most of the day in the small boat upwind or in the water. My essence density had improved. Carla thought hers was at her limit. She kept going so she wouldn’t mutate and tested how close to the Anomaly she could get. I didn’t know if she could stop. Controlling essence was becoming second nature and did not require much conscious thought, so that helped.

The rest of the day went pretty much like the last. The weather had turned, though, and we had a couple of showers. That didn’t matter if you were underwater.

We got back to the Manawanui that evening to sad news. Petty Officer McDonald had died, and Warrant Officer Toki had deteriorated and was on critical life support. Lieutenant Wihongi was still critical but not on life support.

Commander Lewis is considering halving the number of volunteers for the second round because if three out of four sailors need critical care, they do not have the facilities for that. Equipment was being flown in from Wellington, Christchurch and Sydney, but there wasn’t much equipment or personnel to spare. A building on the naval base was being set up as a temporary hospital.

I was walking to our cabin when I heard voices coming from it. I turned around and went up on deck. Carla and Sophia were having a full-on argument. I assume Soph told Carla what she was planning, and Carla did not like it. I am staying well away from that shit. This is another reason I don’t do relationships.

Carla was more quiet than usual the next day. This was more than made up for my Ensign, “Call me Min-ho,” Jeong. This kid was going to drive me crazy with her incessant chatter. She was wearing the darkest pair of sunglasses she could get as the bright sun hurt her eyes. She would get used to them, she assured us, and she was so excited about them… blah blah blah.

When we neared the cove, we had her sense when she could feel the anomaly’s essence, and we stopped when she just felt it and taught her to control it and absorb it. We sat floating there for an hour and a half until we were sure she had it. I am sure if she had stopped talking, we would have been done in ten minutes.

She was struggling with the pressure before we got to the barge, so Carla and I swam in, telling her to stay and practice and only come closer when she was not pressured. If she needed to back away and have a break, she should.

While this meant we were saved from her continual chatter, it meant we had to do all the scutt work. I am sure somebody warned her, and this was a setup. There weren’t as many bodies this time, but there were a lot of strange mutations visible.

Thinking back to the first furred spider monstrosity I saw in the internet picture, that was nothing. One of the dogs looked like a dog/spider hybrid, but instead of being 2cm long like in the internet picture, I saw this one was dog-sized.

There were extra limbs, but I am sure the green goat was photosynthesising. There were wrong mutations as well. I counted three blind mice, but Carla insisted there were only two.

That cat needed to be put out of its misery as it had lost two legs and all its fur. The citrus tree that had small green fruit now had red fruit and seemed to be catching flies. There was only one shark left in the shark tank, and I am sure it now had two mouths, both full of teeth.

Bloody hell, I think the last sheep had turned cannibal.

It was a bloody horror show, and if this was a glimpse into the future, I did not want to be a part of it.

The Ensign made it to the barge mid-afternoon, took one look at the horror show, and refused to go any further. We gave her the job of loading the carcasses onto the boat. They were smelling, and the ensign stopped talking when she threw up. We sent the Ensign back with the bodies as she was struggling to stay on the barge.

I was bloody struggling to stay on the barge.

Lewis can send as many volunteers as he likes. Half of them will refuse to come if he just shows them video footage of this.

My super hearing caught Carla muttering that she would show Soph today's video and she might change her mind.