Bradon swam up to the cage and evaluated the new Merslave. The webbing between his toes had begun to climb up his legs, but he wasn’t transitioning from Human to Mer fast enough. “You have the potential to cause us an awful lot of trouble.”

“Isn’t that too bad for you,” the half-merman growled, reaching through the cage toward his captor. 

Behind Bradon, the door swished open and the familiar sound of Seria’s tail-fin-rings jangled as she swam nearer. “The delegation will arrive within the hour.  How’s our test subject?”

“The language center hasn’t converted yet,” Bradon said. “He still speaks human.”

Seria’s face grew worried as she considered.  “Inject the rest  of the fish oil.”

“But–“

“Do it!” She hissed.  “If he isn’t converted by the time the humans arrive he could betray our contact.”

“Count on it, you evil Siren.”

“It’s Seria, my dear.” She swished over to a chair and sat down, allowing her tail to flow freely in the ocean current.

Bradon swam to the cabinet where he emptied the remaining pills into a bowl, carefully extracting genetically enhanced fish oil with a syringe. “Humans are so strange. Baby oil is not made from babies, Girl Scout cookies are not made from girl scouts, and not a single Allen wrench is made from someone named Allen.  But they make fish oil from real fish.”

 “Posiden’s salty beard, Bradon. What do you expect of a species that shops from their television at 3am?”