EPILOGUE
Cetacean Institute, Tiburon
May 1, 2258
“Welcome to the Cetacean Institute, here on the Tiburon peninsula, my name is Mindy and I will be your guide today. We’ll start off straight from the bat: here we have our whale hall. The common misconception is that whales are fish. They’re not, they’re mammals, warm creatures like you and I. Up until the twenty-first century they were hunted into extinction.”
“To hunt a species into extinction is not logical.”
“That’s putting it mildly. Here is archive footage from the 2120s of one of the last sperm whales being hunted…”
In the two days since the shark had been destroyed the hubbub over it had more or less flowed away. Through Gary Mitchell’s efforts more was being done now to keep tabs on Great Whites but also improve warning systems in the Bay Area. Even Starfleet would be involved, using their systems to help keep an eye on the Bay for predators. The odds were still slim; some scientists theorised that two fatal incidents in three hundred years wasn’t altogether bad.
“…Moby Dick was fiction though good fiction. If you come down with me, I’ll show you our shark hall. This is a relatively new exhibit.”
Marine biologists and scientists from all over were coming here at the weekend to discuss sharks. The furthest coming were from Pacifica, a world dominated by water and said to have sharks twice the size of a whale shark.
“Whoah, what’s that?”
“That is the carcass of the shark destroyed this week. As you see we’ve been able to mock it together and preserve it using water spray.”
Standing off to the other side was Carol Marcus with Gary Mitchell. They watched the schoolkids, which did include a couple of overly curious Vulcans, goggle at the shark.
“How do you feel now, Gary?”
“A little better. Like a weight’s been taken away from me.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows, Doctor April still wants me to see her.”
“Is Lenore okay?”
“She said she’s going to stay in Lake Tahoe for a week, I can join if I want, but I reckon she’ll want to be alone.”
Lenore had actually said a doctor had recommended time away so she could recuperate from the ordeal. She would come back better and stronger, Mitchell knew. Their parting at the transporter had been suitably emotional even for him.
“Jim?”
“He’ll be back next week.” Carol smiled, seeing one of the Vulcan children stand as close to the shark as possible, scrutinising it. “If only they saw what we did.”
“It’d turn them so green they’d look like a vegetable.”
The child caught Mindy’s attention: “Excuse me, you say like Moby Dick, Jaws was not based in reality and yet it must have been. Fatal attacks have occurred on this planet for centuries. Also, this very shark and the one over there…”
“You shouldn’t read too much into it. These were rare attacks.”
“Indeed, why was the creature not relocated or simply captured?” the Vulcan asked, little eyebrow raised. Mindy sighed with exasperation; she saw the others across the room and shrugged. “Sometimes the needs of the many outweigh the needs or wants of the few. Sometimes you have to act in the moment and that is what happened here. We still get to study this creature and find out about it.”
That seemed to placate the young Vulcan and Carol who mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ at her and took Gary’s arm. Leading him towards the steps she smiled. “David’s growing up so fast. I’m sure he said ‘Dad’ the other day.”
“When he’s older I’ll teach him how to fish.”
“So long as there are no sharks about, right?”
In the weeks following a memorial to victims of both shark attacks was erected in the Vulcan Gardens at Golden Gate Park. A shark sighted in the Bay that same week caused brief panic though it was not seen again.
Commissioner Barnard Clift faced a snap election.
Emerging topside of the Institute at its outdoor aquarium which lay empty, Gary rested against the railings.
“It feels good to see another sunset.”
“It does indeed.”
They stayed there in silence, leaving sharks to the memory and curious Vulcan children to a worn out marine biologist.
END
Gary Mitchell Lifeguard continues in Episode 6, “Sometime in the Morning”-
During a thunderstorm all Hell, as is often the case, breaks lose.
Note-
Good Vibrations was that alternate Mitchell and was also a pastiche of films like Jaws or mainly Jaws and so the plot was similar I suppose. In some respects the whole series was meant to be like that. Our Mitchell, but not, and with storylines echoing films and stuff. Books 2 and 3 went a different route -#2 was more an episode of Quincy (latter-day Quince) and #3 was some episode of Friends or Ed.
But with #4 I did disaster movies and thus this episode. This was a knock of Jaws 2 and the other horrific sequels. I also realised I could make it full circle from the first story. Since that story Mitchell has become a darker man and maybe it was the shark so here we tied it up. I suspect my own demons affect my characters; certainly Beverly Crusher is a little different to how she was.
Anyway, here we had it “Jaws 2 in Mitchell form. Rest assured there will be no more shark stories.