Sharkbait

I grabbed my purse off the seat and pulled my phone out, powering it up. As I expected, it had blown up with messages of all kinds. My phone’s voicemail was full, and I had thousands of text messages. I started filtering the results, starting by hiding anyone who was not on my contact list.

That got it down from ludicrous to merely unmanageable.

Sorting by person and stacking took care of those who had tried to call or message over and over. I tried to look through and gave up. I composed a short message thanking everyone for their concern, saying I was going to recover while Amy needed our prayers, and that I would be home and back to school soon. I also said that it would take me weeks to get through all the messages, so please don’t be offended if I don’t respond to you right away. I sent that to everyone on my contact list.

Mom’s phone dinged, and she smiled as she looked at the message. “That was a good idea,” she said. “Don’t worry about responding. Who do YOU need to talk with now?”

“Dad,” I said. I called Brent’s phone; he’d stayed in Miesville with Mark and Chase while Mom flew down after my kidnapping. “Hi, Daddy,” I said.

“By Luna, it’s great to hear your voice,” Brent said. “How’s my Sharkbait doing?”

“Fine, Dad,” I said. “I guess it’s Sharkbabe now.”

“Not for me. You’ll always be the little girl who would run under my chest on the Pack runs,” he said. “I saw your press conference at the hospital. Your makeup could use a little work.”

“I’d need a five-gallon-bucket of cover-up for this shiner,” I laughed. Ow. “Stop making me laugh! That hurt!”

“I’m sorry, baby. Have a good flight, and I’ll see you soon. I cleared a path out to the smoker so I could make your favorite tonight.”

“Ribs?”

“Yep. You can have all the broken ones,” Brent teased, making me laugh AGAIN. This time I gave a little yelp of pain, but I didn’t care. Daddy could always cheer me up.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, Vicki.”

I hung up and went back to my contact list, and one name jumped out. I hadn’t talked to her since my appearance on Fox and Friends, and I was curious about what the reaction was to it. I hoped she would have good news for me, and that she would be up already. I sent her a text, and she responded right away, so I called her. “Vicki! My God, girl, you’ve had a time of it!”

“I know, Ocean. I think I would be safer free-diving with sharks than having dinner with my family,” I said. “I’m heading to the airport now and going home, and I’ll be back in school tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you’re ready? I was just watching the news, and you looked, um, kinda like?”

“Like the surf steamrolled me on the rocks?” She laughed. “I wanted to talk to you about my Fox and Friends appearance and what we can do next. My Uncle Leo is right; I have a platform now, and I need to use it. What is going on at your end?"

"It's coming together a lot faster than I thought,” Ocean said. “We talked to the Florida researchers, and they are on board. They still have the software and website; it needs updating, but that’s it. They’ve also been working on a new design of shark tracker that we think can be useful, and it is far cheaper.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Satellite technology gives more complete data, but the tags are still expensive. That’s when a student had a great idea. We don’t care about setting up zones in the open ocean and deep water, because that isn’t where the critical habitat is we need to protect. What we need is all coastal.”

She was right. “And since tags only work near the surface, we don’t get much activity in the open ocean anyway.”

“Yep! So we shifted from satellite technology to cellphone technology, and the costs are far less.”

What? Are we giving sharks cellphones? Can you hear me now? “How does it work?”

“The tag passively listens for cell tower transmissions. When it has reception, the cellular tag activates and pings the towers in the area. We already have the technology to locate your phone, which now is on the dorsal fin of a shark. When it makes contact, it can transmit a text message with depth and temperature information saved every five minutes since the last upload. It’s not enough to track them precisely, but it’s better than nothing. The device then shuts down for fifteen minutes, resetting for the next time it is near the surface. With a larger battery, it can go for up to six months.”

Wow. It was a cool idea. “How does it attach? Do they have to puncture the fin?” Some tracking devices use barbs to attach to the body, or you have to punch a hole in a fin. Getting control of a big shark long enough to do this was dangerous.

“Even better. The team designed a system that uses rare-earth magnets and rubber ridges, with a pole you use to attach it. The front or rear of the fin hitting the center of the folding device triggers a spring closure. Combined with the rare-earth magnets, it securely attaches the tracker in less than a second without harming the animal. Closing the spring starts the tracker up."

“How cheap are we talking?”

“We have a quote for ten thousand at $255 each. The company won’t set up the factory for any order smaller than that.”

I did some quick math. “You need to come up with two and a half million dollars just to get them built.”

“Yes, and none of us have a budget that will allow us to move quickly. The upfront cost was the reason Florida didn’t move ahead. We might be able to put it in next year’s budget, but we were hoping you could help us with fundraising. That’s the fastest way to get there.”

I thought about it; we’d have to move fast, but that wasn’t much in the big scheme of things. “We need a fundraising site and a plan quickly,” I said. “I haven’t looked through my phone yet, but I’m sure I have television shows begging me for interviews.”

She talked to someone in the background for a minute, then came back on. “Don’t do anything today. We’ll get something put together by tomorrow so you have a place people can go to make donations. We’ll do it through one of the existing foundations, so it is tax-deductible.”

There was no way I was talking to ANYONE today when I got home. I was going to eat myself into a meat coma and sleep until it was time for school. “I can do that. Thank you for listening to me, Ocean. You have no idea what it means to me that you’ve been my friend.”

“I’m glad you’re MY friend,” she said. “It’s giving me street cred with my daughter and her friends that I know Sharkbabe.”

“I have to go, text me with any updates,” I said. “I’ll be in the air soon.”

“Have a good flight,” she said before she hung up.

“That sounded like a good conversation,” Mom said.

“It was,” I said. “Two-point-five-five million is a lot of money, though.”

“Two fifty-five for the transmitter, another forty-five for overhead, shipping, and advertising,” said. “Three hundred per. That’s low enough to get individuals to buy them and is low enough that a classroom or small group could afford it.”

I could tell Mom and Adrienne were linking, so I went back to reviewing my message. A few minutes later, I got a text from Unky Leo. “Get me a link, and you’ve got your first ten thousand. You’ll have to come up with the other 2.54 million on your own,”

I let out a squeal as they smiled; they had to have told Leo about it. “Thank you,” I said. I sent the same to my Alpha. It was a great start.

I sorted through my messages again, this time looking for ones from media companies. There were a lot of them, and some had offers of money. I deleted the ones from the sleazier groups. Still, a few outlets offered to pay. One magazine offered half a million dollars for an exclusive interview if I gave them full access to document my life for a few days. It was a lot of money.

I showed the email to my Mom and asked her what she thought. “It sounds good at first, Vicki. Half a million is a lot of money for your project, but you’re short-sighted.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they are willing to pay you half a million, they are doing it to take creative control. You don’t know what the editors will do with that access, or how they will paint you or your friends. They aren’t committing to printing or supporting your cause because they are paying for a product.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Also, their ‘exclusive’ means you can’t go on other talk shows or public appearances unless sanctioned by them. If you want exposure for your project, this won’t do it.”

“What should I do?”

“Give a lot of interviews,” Adrienne said, “But insist you have two minutes at the end of the interview to talk about your project. Get their agreement they will not just allow it, but show it. Make it clear that without that, you’ll go elsewhere. Also, the program must display the website and phone number for donations and include a link to it on their website. It costs them nothing, so make them do it. You’ll make more in donations from the widespread coverage than from an exclusive-rights deal.”

“And you need to get out and talk to people directly,” Mom added. “You have contacts at aquariums, right?”

“Some, but Ocean has a lot more, and the World Wildlife Federation has a lot more,” I answered.

“Make up some posters or photos with your picture and the sharks in the background. Heck, we’ve got some great underwater photos from our Bahamas trip last fall,” Mom said. She was right; Amy and I had done a lot of free-diving among the hammerheads and tiger sharks in the area. We’d had one of the photos blown up for my wall, with a reef shark in front of me and a tiger shark coming over my left shoulder. “Set up events where you can give talks on your project and have people come forward and get posters signed and donate.”

That could happen; it would be a lot of travel, but it was do-able. “It would be cool if I could get Ocean involved. I’m the new kid, and she’s been doing this for decades.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.” I sent her a long message with the idea, asking if she would be interested and if she could help me with contacts to get it going. I felt a lot better about this idea than anything else, because it was simple, and I got to go to aquariums.

The one thing I hated about the plan was that Amy wouldn’t be able to help. She’d always been there for me, and now when she needed me, I’d be running around doing everything else. I told them what I was thinking, and Mom quickly put my mind right. “There’s nothing you can do that her mother and mate won’t already be doing,” Liv said. “You need to live your life and call her with the stories.”

We’d arrived at the private airport, and we weren’t the only ones. Adrienne dropped us next to our plane, and we climbed aboard as the co-pilot stowed our bags. Ivan and Karen were sitting with their Betas and their drinks. After the greetings, Mom got me settled. “They let you all go from the Summit,” I asked.

“Everyone present had already given statements, so after your release and Beta Max’s death, there was no reason to stick around. The Council wanted us out of there before the press arrived,” Karen said.

“And I wanted to get home,” my Father said.

My stomach picked that moment to growl. “We should have stopped for food on the way here,” I said. “I can almost smell the barbecue.”

“Your wolf has withdrawn, and it’s affecting your senses, Vicki. Can’t you smell of what is in the cooler?” Mom smiled as Ivan slid it over to us.

We had to wait until after takeoff before Mom could prepare the meal. She brought me a plate with two Kaiser rolls, stuffed with beef brisket and sauce, and topped with a scoop of coleslaw. A big travel mug of sweet tea completed the meal. “Thank you,” I said to my father as I wiped off my face and fingers.

“Get some rest, love,” Ivan replied. “It’s going to be a long week.”

Father was right.