Roger's Blog

Ella’s pregnancy continues to move forward, although due to her complicated genetic origins there’s uncertainty about the timeline. While the ultrasounds still show that the fetus is human, its gestation tracks more with that of an elephant.

Adult Maria is the OB/GYN and she is familiar with unusual genetics (considering her family history). She’s also a time traveller, and when she confidently set Halloween as the new due date of the birth, we wonder if that came from an analysis of the pregnancy or just by knowing the future. We didn’t ask. Either way, Ella is in good hands.

Samantha’s life continues to be pushed farther and farther toward becoming primarily a mermaid, which is a path she’s seemingly been on for decades due to her friendship with Remora. Now that Remora is the merfolk queen, it’s apparently inevitable. Samantha’s acceptance of her role as UN Ambassador would be the final confirmation.

However, the other side of the ledger features her husband Dave and daughter Maria. Dave has been supportive of her recent decisions, but a permanent life under the sea would be asking a lot of him. He loves coaching basketball and he’s good at it. Since the sport is only played on land, he would have to give up his life’s passion.

Then there’s Maria, the future time traveler. The adult Maria is obviously not a mermaid, so Samantha knows her daughter’s future won’t be oceanic. Even now, young Maria is seeing her aquatic summers as a fun vacation, not a permanent lifestyle.

When Queen Remora offered the ambassador job to Samantha, the first order of business was simply getting the infrastructure in place. That included finding a location for the New Atlantis embassy. Remora provided Samantha with a real estate budget, and within a month Samantha had rented an entire floor of a New York City midtown high rise, just two blocks south of Central Park. It’s a short Uber ride from the United Nations building. Sweet.

Samantha recruited a dozen merfolk to be her staff, which wasn’t easy. She didn’t sugarcoat what it’s like to live as a human on land, and that drove off most of the aquatic creatures who expressed initial interest. The ones who still volunteered showed exceptional motivation. Gill Narwhal asked to be on the team, but his mother Nora insisted that he graduate from college first. Dave was grateful not to lose his star player.

After the weekend, Alex and Pam reported to the genetics lab to give Rupert the update on this month’s transformation. As with previous occurrences, there was no consistent pattern which makes it impossible to safely correct his genetics. If attempted without a predictable schedule, Alex could become a St. Bernard permanently.

Samantha was given the news and while she’s frustrated, she also has a researcher’s excitement in wrestling with an intractable problem. Of course, that’s not shared by Alex and Pam who just want to get on with planning a wedding that doesn’t carry the risk of “Browser” making a surprise appearance.

Alex’s monthly canine transformation took place on Friday which was fortunately a holiday so he wasn’t at work at the time. Pam dropped him off at their coworkers’ house before her own change into a cat.

For the coworkers Jenna and Doreen it was their first meeting with “Browser” and they doted on him. He was enjoying the visit until the following evening when the fireworks started outside.

Alex discovered that as a St. Bernard his instincts can override his intelligence. He knows that fireworks are airborne pyrotechnic, but he can’t help the emotional triggering. Pam, however, was there to guide him through the ordeal. This nurturing side of her is one we’ve never seen before.

Pam’s son Deke and his mate Ella haven’t really been a part of our world in recent years. While we were all going to Mars and back and manning the genetics lab, they were making a career out of being concert roadies. They generally worked for Bambi, but during the Mars voyage they carried the amps for other acts.

However, they’ve recently become a presence in Pam’s life, which impacts others as they’re about to make Pam a grandmother. For all her snark, Pam was an excellent mom cat to her litter and she wants to be just as involved in the next generation.

Suddenly everyone becomes involved, especially the staff of the genetics lab where Ella originated and met Deke. In particular, Alex is going to go from single guy to grandparenthood. (Of course he’s getting used to transformations.)

Queen Remora presented Samantha with the ambassadorship as a fait accompli, but Samantha didn’t exactly object to it. Of course, helping others is a reflex for Samantha, and here she can assist an entire aquatic nation. (I’d call it a subspecies, but Remora wants to emphasize the commonalities between humans and merfolk, and I’ll defer to her.)

In short order, Samantha was given full citizenship with all the perks of being a merfolk official. Those included a mermaid name, a title and protective seahorse guards, Stan and Ollie. There is now nothing that distinguishes Samantha from any other underwater denizen (aside from the three-fourths of the year that she spends on land). As a process, this is sort of an inevitable outcome, going back to how the two first met when Samantha was in grade school.

Now we know what Queen Remora had in mind; she wants Samantha to represent the government of New Atlantis at the United Nations.

It makes sense. Since the Mars mission Samantha is still one of the most famous people on the planet, and the assumption will be that she’s helping out the merfolk as a favor. Everyone knows that Remora was a crewmate on her trip to Mars, and that a merman plays basketball for her husband Dave.

During the UN sessions Samantha will retain her familiar human form. Similarly, the rest of the embassy staff will be merfolk doing the twelve-hour transformation thing. (The summers that Samantha spends as mermaid will be kept under wraps.)

Now it’s a matter of Samantha finding the time. She says that Rupert and Rosalind have taken a lot of pressure off her in running the lab. They’re no longer constantly transforming themselves, and since they’ve settled down as plants they’ve become adept administrators.

It’s become a tradition for Samantha and a select group of friends to spend the summer as merfolk. At one time this included visitors such as Pam and even Samantha’s grandson Leonardo, but now it’s come down to a core of herself, little Maria, Vince, Feryl and Morgana.

Making the aquatic journey will also be Gill, returning home after his first year at Havens University. His mother Nora was waiting for him, and she was also eager to see Maria who has become her protege. Once at sea, Vince and Feryl became blue whales instead of merfolk, which is a form they both enjoy.

Alex enjoyed his day at the dog park; so much that when he found out that it was closing due to budget cuts, he sent the non-profit owners a check for $5000 once he became human again. He must be well-off to have that kind of money, but then, his hobby is mountain climbing which is an expensive avocation.

At any rate, the dog park will keep going for a while. The question is, how long will Alex continue becoming a St. Bernard for a few days a month? Once again his transformation took place on a completely random time frame so the data point was useless.

May is always a time of change at the genetics lab. Okay, with all the transformations that continuously take place on the premises that requires some elaboration. Basically, the lab’s experimentation shuts down for the summer so Samantha can spend that time as a mermaid. Rupert and Rosalind will oversee things in her absence.

That necessitates saying goodbye to this year’s group of lab mice. As I’ve previously reported, Samantha could never bear to euthanize her test subjects, so as an alternative she turns them into flowers. Being perennials, they have a longer lifespan than they would have otherwise. She gives them agency in the process, choosing the type of flower they want to be.

Pam’s life continues its complicated journey with a visit from her son Deke and his companion Ella. The pair are about to make Pam a grandmother in a matter of months, and questions swirl about the nature of the offspring.

Ella’s genetic history was cause for concern, but fortunately Samantha has allayed some of those fears. The ultrasound indicates that the baby is indeed human, and not the pachyderm that Ella began life as. Still, the fetus’s kicks are awfully strong; almost with the strength of…well, an elephant.

Either way, Pam and her fiancé Alex have indicated a willingness to be involved in the baby’s upbringing. Of course, that would have to work around Pam’s twelve-hour cat/human cycle, and Alex’s current “were-St. Bernard” condition.

Pam and Alex patiently waited in the genetics lab, and by mid-afternoon Samantha had the answer. During their camping trip the pair had been speared by the same fishhook, and Pam’s merfolk DNA had gotten into Alex’s system. If he had never previously been transformed, nothing would have occurred. However, since he’d once turned into a St. Bernard for a few hours in January, that remained saved in his genetic memory as his alternate form.

It was a very small dose, so instead of a 12-hour cycle like Pam’s it’s more like 28 days as a human and 3 days as a canine. That’s just a rough estimate, though. It’s important, however, since Samantha has to know exactly how long the cycle is in order to restore Alex to being human 100% of the time.

With the city’s strict leash laws, Pam had to procure one for Alex. Fortunately there was a superstore a half mile away, and Pam accurately guessed his collar size. She also bought dog food for his breakfast.

It was Friday morning when Pam woke to find that Alex had reverted to the St. Bernard he’d become in order to survive the mountain avalanche in January. Despite the bewildering development, they kept their heads and knew they had to get him to the genetics lab.