Sharon remained still as the other three soldiers took position behind her. The patrol leader made another gesture and swam towards the base; as a prod touched her tailfin, Sharon did half a loop in a sudden jerk, as if the weapon was still electrified. It was obvious that they wanted her to follow the leader. That little misunderstanding clarified, Sharon turned towards the other soldiers with an uncertain smile and swam along.
The base was five minutes from the minefield's edge -- probably much less if they didn't follow a somewhat convoluted path across the depth mines. Sharon spotted a series of faint greenish lights beyond a good half-kilometer of heavily polluted water, and assumed that most of the base had to be underwater since there were at least five levels of lights. Sharon tentativly pointed a finger towards the lights, and a soldier nodded.
About a minute later, they passed by the last mine, and save for their destination everything went dark. Sharon rolled to look upwards, causing the four troopers to unlock their weapons again. They were under solid rock! The base was completely hidden inside a huge natural cave. Having seen that, Sharon began to feel a very faint vibration coming from directly below her; however, she could neither see anything or pinpoint it with the sonar.
Her echolocation, or perhaps some mermaid instinct that got jammed into the mixture, told Sharon that this small island was once a volcano. The water in the immediate vicinities of the complex were clear, save for the omnipresent stench of gasoline -- the four men and the mermaid were, basically, in the center of a polished hole. No fish. No plants. Not even those, among the marine creatures, which can survive in the hardest of environments. The fact that a wall was made of solid concrete, interrupted only by windows and squared openings, only completed the artificialness of this environment.
The leading soldier turned toward Sharon. She could distinctly see his helmet-mask scanning her unusual but attractive form one more time as he signalled the other three to remain near her. The patrol commander then hurried next to the concrete wall, where an airlock swallowed him between steel jaws.
Sharon didn't have to wait for long. A larger airlock located below the first opened, and a soldier touched her shoulder pointing towards the opening with the other hand. Interesting she thought, Private Ivan didn't use the prod. The inside was a featureless large room whose squaredness was, if anything, accentuated by the smooth corners. Seconds after Sharon and the men passed through, the airlock closed with a heavy clang and the water was pumped out until there was no more than half a meter inside. Sharon squatted in the middle of the room, hands resting on her tail, as the three soldiers got rid of their scuba gear. She noticed that all through the difficult operation, at least one of them always had his weapon aimed at her. A red light replaced the neon lamps which were illuminating the large room, and the three soldiers left from the only door. Sharon could make out feelings of surprise and disbelief in their comments, and she was almost sure that one of them mentioned the danger of being eliminated for having seen too much.
The door closed ermetically after them, and Sharon was left there to wait. She dared to take off the decades-old helmet, and proceeded to do the same with the nailbow -- clever weapon as it was, it was wiser to not even try to fight.
"Ubi sum?" she asked to the featureless room. The door (conveniently placed just above the water level) opened again. Sharon couldn't make out the figure at first, the bright light beyond the door blinding her, but after a moment managed to recognize the figure as
Mon Sep 20 16:25:06 1999