Yacht Shock!

Zara Ortega treated her stretch of beachfront with all the earnestness of a rookie cop on patrol, as if she were still a rookie cop of the SHPD. She had aced all the tests, both the pen-and-paper ones as well as the physical fitness qualifiers, with flying colours. But for some reason the psych and med evaluations turned up inconclusive, not once, not twice, but three times in a row. We'll put you on the reserve list, they politely told her. In other words, that career path was on hold.

Still, a stint with the Sunset Hills Lifeguards was equally fulfilling to deal with threats mundane and esoteric. Why just this morning she had to break up a bunch of high schoolers who gave class a miss to hang out at the beach, at the favourite hangout spot in front of Eye Scream. It wasn't cutting class that was the issue, it was the fact that they were scrawling arcane sigils in the sand from one of the necronomicon volumes one of them had 'borrowed' from the library. They managed to cover nearly fifty feet of beach with a pattern that would do crop circles proud with eldritch symbols, their idea of a prank, before Zara brought out the sandboni to rake it all away before it could get wet from the seatide. No telling what would've happened if the waves touched it.

The boys, thus defeated, scattered quickly with jeers and catcalls. Perhaps a phone call to the Sunset Hills High School principal was in order.

It began, as too many of Andreva's days did, with her trying to pass as normal while doing her lifeguard job.

The sun was too bright, the noise too loud, and the sand everywhere. She had wandered over to the Eye Scream, jonesing for a triple berry, cherry ripple, chocolate splash cone. The cantankerous ice-cream guy, as always, was already on edge.

"You want what flavor?" he growled, scooping with more aggression than necessary. "I ain't got no 'Chthonic Ripple."

"I said cherry ripple," Andreva replied coolly. She accepted the cone, then promptly dropped it into the sand after a beach ball grazed her elbow. She froze. She stared down at the desecrated scoop. "... It landed in a perfect spiral," she whispered. And it had. The fallen ice cream had hit the sand and spread in an unnatural arc, almost forming a nautilus curve. Her breath caught. She scanned the beach, no signs of intrusion. Not yet. But those boys and their sand art...

Glad Zara cleaned up that mess...

"You gonna pay for that one too, or just stand there like a weirdo?" the man snapped.

Andreva blinked. "Did you feel the vibration when it landed? No? Hm."

Then she nodded, as if confirming something to herself, and stalked off to where she’d buried a waterproof recorder last week to track tidal whisper fluctuations. For a story. Definitely just a story.

Later, she would describe the day as "uneasy, with latent potential," which her editor would replace with "mild, breezy."

Her gills itched beneath her cap. That whole incident was a bad omen. The sea was stirring. She could feel it. And nobody listened.

"You're a fucking weirdo, you think I'm wearing that? No hats!" He crumpled the hat after Siegfried Mannheim turned his back.

He pulled from his back pocket and opened the letter he'd gotten, and plopped the stylized weiner hat farther back on his head. A kid came up to the booth. "Welcome to Hotdog, um..."
"uh Salty Dog, no relish, extra, um..."

"Hey jerkface I said a Chicago dog with jalapenos! What's your damage?"

"Hey fuck you, fart butt. Siegfried I quit!"

He clapped his hands together. Oh yeah, time to roll it thick in beach boobs. He was sure the stories about the crazy stuff was all California bullshit.

---

He smeared suntan lotion on fat-woman-in-the-wheelchair's back. She had a name but he couldn't remember, some kind of Italian nonsense. This was the worst job on the beach.

"Okay Mrs. Musserati-"

"Musetti."

"Right, Musetti. I want you to stay out of the sun. You know that all the men by the pier want to see you, but they'll come to you when they're ready. You're worth it. So stay under the umbrella."

Yeah, giggle it up, lard butt, and hope they don't roll you back into the sea.

"You're turning us down?! You're turning the full-ride scholarship down?!"

Jaklyn Fisher, known better to her friends and the general public on the beach as Jak, had nodded at not one Dean of Medicine when they'd said that, but three -- from three different top shelf Med Schools.

"I am. I've made my decision. Nothing can touch Sunset Hills, Dean. I'll be saving lives every day -- every single day. I'll be fighting off sharks. Honing my Heimlich and CPR skills. ATVing on the beach. Jetskiing on the water. Diving, swimming, snokeling, surfing, wave-boarding, water-poloing. Working on my tan. Apprehending old Nazis from their sub when it finally surfaces. Eating fish tacos. All while looking like this... and in a bikini. Yeah, Dean, I've made my choice. Or did I? Sometimes I think Sunset Hills Beach chose me."

---

It had been a rough day so far.

Andreva had lost her ice cream. Zara had broken up a gang of beach cultists, and Bobby? He was on whale oil duty. Not his finest moment.

Fisher was currently speeding along on her ATV, blasting through the edge of the surf. Standing in the saddle and looking foine, she left deep tracks in the wet sand that lasted until a few waves reshaped them. And that was when she spotted her target. Some little Niedermeyer had made a big-ass sand castle. Multiple turrets and baileys... walkways, huge walls, a moat, a draw bridge and a besieging army.

Giants were striding towards that scene. Giants who had every intention of kicking the shit out of that poor kid's creation. It was Bloompy and Pud, the two unlikeable teenaged boys Jak had had run-ins with before. They were lewd, crass bullies, snapping bikini straps, spitting in people's food, farting in snoozing sunbather's faces, letting the air out of diving tanks, whizzing into picnic baskets while families frolicked in the water.

Jak opened the throttle on her quadrunner as she tried to head the boys off at the pass. She shouted to people in the way, "Watch out, Sunset Hills Beach Patrol! I have a castle to save!"

Cassie thought about her days as a cruise ship doctor often. It had been such a perfect life! Meeting new people from all over the world, always a day away from being able to relax on a beach, good pay. But after the accident everything had changed for the worse and she couldn't step foot onto a gangplank without being crippled with fear.

Her one solace was that she could still be on the beach with hardly any symptoms, even if she couldn't go out on the water or even swim anymore. Thankfully, the Sunset Hills Lifeguards needed doctors and there was enough to do along the beachfront and back at HQ that she stayed busy.

---

That morning had been busy catching up on paperwork at HQ followed by a spicy chicken salad from Yumwich Burgers for lunch. While finishing her diet cola on the walk back, she had spied the well-built, lantern-jawed Ray Stang combing the beach with his high dollar metal detector. When she went over to chat, he showed her the strange medallion that he'd found washed up on the beach.

She felt bad having to confiscate it, especially once Ray started gushing about how great it would look with his puka shell necklace. But beach policy was clear that all ancient artifacts found were property of the city. She suspected city hall funneled them to the university for god knows what purpose, but she supposed that was better than it falling into the wrong hands.

Leaving the dejected Ray alone with his sad puppy dog eyes, Cassie headed back to HQ to start the paperwork on the medallion. The inventory count of lifeguard medical supplies she originally planned to do would have to wait until tomorrow.

Fisher had managed to save the castle in the nick of time, but the feeling of accomplishment was fleeting. A boat fire! Right at quitting time!

"You all seeing what I'm seeing?" the lifeguard asks, her blue eyes fixed on the orange spark and the smoke. She's wearing her suit and an orange bomber jacket, looking good as she cocks an eyebrow.

"Looks like one more save before we're all off the clock..."

Zara was stowing away the rescue floats in their appointed racks, already dried out from when she spritzed them with water earlier to rinse off the day's grime, when her sixth sense made her cock her head out towards sea. Telltale orange glow! And not from the setting sun on the horizon.

"Ping the coast guard!" They had them on speeddial naturally: the coast guard dealt with maritime situations such as ship accidents and vessel mishaps, but they would always be slower that the lifeguards, whose job focussed on saving lives. In two bounds, her lithe legs carried her to where the rest were; this emergency might need all of them!

Bobby frowns. "Damn, I was going to get ready for a hot date with a ... model, yeah. A redhead, too. Hey, do we get overtime?" He's already stuffing his kit back together, and getting ready to run for the beach.

At Zara's call he grabs the emergency radio, looking at the channel markings. He's used radios but not this one. "Coast guard this is Sunset Hills, um, Lifeguard. Boat on fire, two hundred yards from shore. Repeat boat on fire, big one. We're responding but we don't have a water boat. Over. To put out the fire. Over, really this time." Fuck!

"Grab some fire extinguishers!"

Andreeva can't stand Bobby. Fankly she thinks he's full of shit and doesn't believe a word out of his mouth, but she has the good sense to know that working together is the key to a successful result and that included saving lives. Zara, she wished she could be like her, but Jaklyn, whom she refused to call Jak, not so much. I mean, how the hell did she even move with those bazoongas in the way? Really, she looked like she belonged sliding up and down a pole in the questionable stripper bar downtown. Cassie, she liked. More importantly, Andreva was intrigued by the doctor's odd behavior. What had happened to make her fear the water?

Then came the bright orange light. Since she had no social life to speak of, she lived for the excitement of these random events. The icing on the cake was another dramatic story for her editor. She had to eat so ...

Grabbing a fire extinguisher, she followed the others.

As Bobby called in the yacht fire to the Coast Guard, Cassie stood at the control tower window, transfixed by the orange glow and billowing smoke as her mind was pulled back to the cruise ship. And the accident.

It had started with an engine fire too. And it had ended with the ship drifting for days, awash in bodily fluids as the medical center (her medical center) filled with the sick and infirm. Strange how the smell of salt and sand had been a comfort afterwards, even as the ocean itself now filled her with dread.

"I.... um, right. I'll get everything ready to receive any injured that you guys rescue," she stammered. She wished she could remember how many Valium were left in the bottle in her locker. She had a feeling she'd need to refill her prescription after the night was over.

Bobby isn't the most athletic of the bunch but they practiced this once during his training / onboarding. He'd theoretically performed the maneuver in Salt Lake City, too, but that was from a paddle boat. From this high octane speedboat, it was a nightmare.

As Jak roared into the vicinity, he tossed his medkit onto the seats, grabbed a float, and prepared to dive in - while the boat was moving. What madness was this?

He froze. Unwilling to go first, he grabbed his calf. "Cramp!"

Zara hung off the rails of the gunwale as Jak throttled them at speed towards the burning yacht, even though there were seats aplenty. It gave her the sensation of wakesurfing without the back tow, if one imagined the side hull as her wakeboard. Andri and Jak were yammering on about something something floatation devices, but the sea spray made it harder for Zara to hear exactly what they were saying, although her vision was perfectly clear thanks to her water-repellant spectacles; she could never bring herself to wear diving goggles except as a hairband accessory.

As they neared the yacht in trouble, Zara could see survivors in the water. Up top, Bobby made as if he was ready to dive in. No way she was going to let him beat her to it! With an arm fully extended to trail the water surface with her fingertips, she arched diagonally forward and launched herself at an angle from their own speedboat even as Jak slowed the engine down.