we?”
“You do realize that if Dr. Shelby came in and heard you chatting with that little guy, she would kick you right off the team,” Erik said as he sauntered in. “She wouldn’t be happy that you named them.”
“I can’t just call them by their specimen numbers… Those are terrible names,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“You know what the doc would say: ‘they are study subjects, not pets,’” he declared in a stiff, nasal tone, perfectly mimicking their boss.
“I know they’re not pets,” Charlie said as she turned away from Mr. Darcy’s tank and loaded a delivery tube with several large, flat insects for the neighboring tank.
It held a larger creature that looked something like a cross between a toad and an alligator, with a finned tail and long, tentacle-like appendages that grew out from its jaw to frame its mouth. Unlike Mr. Darcy, this specimen was only a baby, but already twice the size of her neighbor. Thank the gods she had been collected from a swampy area some distance from the colony. Charlie didn’t want to even imagine just how big she would get out in the wild. Even the scientists seemed uncertain, and were excited to watch her maturation in captivity.
The nigris iumentum, the black water beast, was aptly named. Not only was the female highly aggressive despite being—as far as the scientists could determine—a hatchling, but she was as black as the darkest water. Unlike Dr. Santo and Dr. Shelby, who hailed the creature as the most beautiful specimen in the outer containment area of the vivarium, Charlie found her unnerving to look at.
“Hey, Nightshade,” she murmured, her skin crawling as the creature turned towards her.
The tentacles around the fanged mouth fanned out in a questing fashion. Charlie had no doubt that if Nightshade were larger the predator would take a shot at eating her. In one quick movement, Charlie ejected the large insects into the cage. Greedy tentacles snapped out in a flurry of movement as Nightshade consumed the insects, her finned tail whipping around her. Over the last month, she had already doubled in size. Soon she would be moved up to rodents. The thought of having to witness Nightshade’s tentacles ripping into one of the native feeder rodents made Charlie’s stomach turn.
Erik chuckled at her side and gave her an amused look. “I don’t know why you let that one bother you so much. Just think of her as a sort of octo-frog-odile. Slap a familiar face on her, and you’re good to go.”
Charlie gave him an unamused look. “You do realize there’s nothing comforting in that. If she had the intelligence of an octopus and the aggression of a crocodile, it would make her even more terrifying. Especially since we have no idea how big she’ll get.”
Growing up, she hadn’t thought that anything would ever truly make her miss Minnesota. But after being introduced to Nightshade, Charlie discovered that she had found the one thing that made her yearn for home. Next to Nightshade, the familiarity of moose, and the returning black bear and wolf populations—only recently recovering from nearly being hunted to extinction—would have been a far more welcome sight.
Erik shrugged. “If she gets big, we’ll tranquilize her and move her into a bigger tank—just like we do whenever we need to clean her cage. Just keep observing the protocols, and there’s no reason that everything won’t continue as it has been.”
“Yeah, okay,” Charlie said doubtfully. Brushing her hands off, she grimaced. “That’s the last of them. I’m off for the next three hours. Be back for the evening feedings and our closing duties.”
Erik leaned down and squinted at Nightshade as he logged the final information into the datasheet before he stood and stretched.
“Yeah. I think a break will do us both some good. The mornings start too damn early here, but at least we have our midday free. Try not to get too crazy,” he said with a playful grin.
“Nothing crazy for me,” Charlie said, a wry smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. They went round and round with this as part of their daily routine. “I’m just going to head down to the cantina and get something to eat. The midday storms should be hitting soon. Unless their supervisor is feeling particularly sadistic today, my friends should be there. Then home for a short nap.”
The freak midday storms had been an unpleasant surprise for everyone. Even the higher-ups hadn’t expected them. It was virtually