Jisoo POV

We don't let Caleb drown. If we'd put it to a vote, I'm not sure he would've had enough support, but, Dr. Hewett insists we fish him out of the water. Then Jeongyeon and Jihyo haul him off for interrogation.

As soon as Lisa comes on board, I practically sprint to her. I hug her, which was totally unlike me. I didn't even care I was getting my shirt wet. I  couldn't believe it. I had almost lost my sister, my only family, and support in the world. I had just watched it happen, and I did nothing.

Lisa had to practically peel me off her. She smirked "Took you long enough to appreciate your amazing hot little sister, but I'll take it.

Our pleasant soon interrupted by Roseanne, who promptly slapped Lisa before hugging her until I heard a bone crack from Lisa's ribs.

The rest of the LI attackers we strip of their weapons, constrain with zip ties, and set adrift in the pontoon. Dr. Hewett assures us they'll get picked up soon enough – by the Coast Guard if they're lucky, by their schoolmates if they're not.

 'Land Institute doesn't reward failure,' he says. 'We must get underway.'

Jennie stares at him in disbelief. 'Sir, we've been attacked. We have wounded. We should call the Coast Guard ourselves.' 

Hewett gives her a pitying look. 'The authorities can't help us, Kim. We would just put them in danger, too. Finish your modifications and start the engines. The Aronnax will not be far behind.' 

Jennie doesn't look happy about it, but she hurries off to comply. I'm not too happy about it myself, but we have bigger problems.

House Orca has their healing work cut out for them. Moonbyul, Mina, Lia, and Momo all suffered flesh wounds from miniature harpoons. Roseanne thinks they'll be okay, but they'll need stitches. 

Completely unnecessary,' she complains, holding up one of the six-inch hooked projectiles. 'If you're going to shock somebody unconscious, why spear them, too?'

I don't have an answer. The fact that Land Institute would develop a Leyden gun that causes unnecessary pain doesn't surprise me, though.

The rest of our crew suffered only minor injuries. Roseanne urges Lisa to go to the sickbay so she can run some tests, make sure the poison is really out of her system, and I agree. Lisa assures her she's fine.

I don't believe her. Neither do Roseanne and Jennie, but I know the last thing she wants is to be confined in a small room belowdecks, attached to a bunch of monitors. She needs open air and the sea and her friends. She needs to watch Socrates swimming alongside our boat, happily chattering at me. After everything else that has happened today, her abduction has left me trembling with shock, terror, shame, and rage.

My fellow Cephalopods run around finishing Dr. Hewett's alt-tech modifications while I spend the day with Lisa. The pulse-dispersion unit is installed to block radar and sonar. Projectionmodules are fixed around the hull for dynamic camouflage. From the rail where I'm standing, I can't see any difference in the ship's appearance, but the Cephalopods look excited. They talk to one another breathlessly about specs and parameters like they're discussing magic spells.

'Can you believe this?' Jennie grins at me as she passes by. Getting zapped by Nayeon's gun hasn't slowed her down at all. If anything, it seems to have charged her batteries. Her smile fades, however, when I don't respond. She rests a hand briefly on my shoulder. 'You sure you're okay, babe?'

Then her housemate Solar calls, 'Oh, no way. Look at these phased-optic reaction times!'

And Jennie is off.

She is the most caring friend you could ever want, but you have to accept that sometimes you'll take a back seat to shiny new tech. It doesn't lessen the sharp feeling in my chest.

 In a matter of minutes, the Varuna is underway.

I look over the railing at the blinding sun-lit ocean. We head due west. Socrates keeps pace with us easily. He and I talk as best we can, but as usual it's all questions and no answers.

'Thank you,' I say to him, also using sign language to make my point more visual. 'I wish I could repay you.'

He gives me his sideways dolphin smile. I imagine he's saying, Yes, you owe me all the squid

A voice behind me says, 'I got upstaged by a dolphin.'

 Hwasa leans against a capstan. Her arms are crossed, her expression glum. Her dark hair is flecked with sea salt.

'My one job was to protect you two,' She tells me. 'I'm sorry.'

I'm tempted to snap I don't need a babysitter. But she looks so depressed I don't have the heart for it.

'Don't beat yourself up, Beyonce,' I say

Hwasa laughs under her breath. 'Easier said than done.'

She pulls at his collar like she's wearing a tie that's too tight.

I don't know much about her. After her altercation with Jennie during our chum year, I decided I didn't want to deal with her any more than I had to. I guess Harding-Pencroft hasn't always been easy for her, either. She's the only Latter-day Saint at HP, as far as I know. How does a girl from landlocked Seol get interested in a career at sea? I've never asked. Now I hope we'll get more chances to talk – not because I'm warming up to her, or because I feel like I have to warm up to her, but because she's a classmate. Today I was reminded that anyone in my life can be taken away in the span of a heartbeat, even if they are an annoying douchebag.

Two seconds later, Jennie joins us. She drawls her eyes over Hwasa and scoffs. Her jeans were permanently stained with grease. Her hair was looking like it had gold streaks in the sun and she was waving a socket wrench in her hand. After what she did to that LI attacker, I didn't want to take any chances.

I was hyperaware of the fact I was staring. That fact was also enough to make me angry again.

I was supposed to ask Jennie to the end-of-year dance after our trials. It was going to be perfect. Most of the planning was done by Roseanne and Lisa, that's why I was almost certain something was going to go wrong. And it did, but not in the way I thought it would go.

'What did you see,' Jennie asks Hwasa, 'when you looked at Dr. Hewett's tablet?'

She frowns. 'A dark shape under the water. Like a massive arrowhead.'

'The Aronnax,' I guess. 'Some kind of submarine?'

 Hwasa scans the horizon. 'Not like any I've ever heard of. If that's what attacked HP, and it's after us...'

She leaves the thought unfinished. Any vessel that can destroy a square mile of the California coast is not something we can fight in the Varuna, even with assault rifles, zappy guns, and a luchador dolphin. If we can't go to the authorities, which Hewett seems adamant about, then our only hope is to run and hide. That leads me to an uneasy question: run and hide where?

Roseanne strolls over with Hank at her heels and a dead squid in her hand. Without preamble, she hands me the squid, which is both warm and icy – and extremely gross.

I found it in the freezer,' she says. 'I put it in the microwave for sixty-five seconds. I didn't do it any longer because I didn't want it to get too squishy. I mean, it's a squid, so it's already squishy. Lisa wanted to meet Socrates too, but she's in the sickbay.'

She says all this without a pause and staring directly into my pupils. Of course, she's just trying to make me feel better. She knew I would want to give Socrates a treat, and she found just the thing.

I've heard 'experts' say that autistic people have trouble with empathy, but sometimes I wonder if these experts have ever actually sat down and talked to these people. When we first met, I didn't understand why Roseanne wouldn't say something comforting when one of us was upset. I found her behavior a complex code, like jumbled words and signals. But once I cracked that code I realized that she just does things a little differently. She's more likely to do something nice, or offer an explanation, as a way of helping me feel better. She is, in fact, one of the most empathetic people I've ever met. 

Hank sits at my feet and wags his tail. He gives me his most soulful stare. I'm a very good boy. I almost killed someone earlier

'He's already had tons of treats,' Roseanne assures me. 'The squid is for Socrates.'

'As long as it's not for me,' Hwasa says.

"I wish." Jennie scoffs.

'This is wonderful,' I tell Roseanne. 'Thank you.' 

I throw the squid to Socrates, who snaps it up eagerly. I wish I could bring it down to him and feed him by hand, but we're moving at a fast clip now, and so is he. I know he can easily keep pace with our boat, but I'm not sure whether he'll follow us or not. Dolphins have their own priorities. 

'He can rest on board if he gets tired,' Roseanne assures me.

It takes me a second to process that sentence. 'What do you mean onboard?'  I have a terrifying image of Socrates dancing around the deck with a pirate cap.

'Have you seen the captain's room?' she asks. 'Harding-Pencroft has always had dolphin friends. It's like Hank.' She scratches his ear. 'There's always been a Hank at Harding-Pencroft. I mean, before Harding-Pencroft was destroyed.'

I don't quite understand what she means about Hank and the dolphins always being at HP, but when she mentions the school's destruction, she gets agitated again. She starts tapping her fingertips on her thighs. The volume of her voice goes up several pitches. I wished Lisa was here to calm her down. She was always more close to her than us.

'Anyway, I came to get you,' she says.

'I – Okay. What's up?'

 I'm not sure I want to know. It has been a very long day already

'Dr. Hewett wants to see the prefects and subs on the forward deck,' Roseanne tells us. 'He's not well. I'm not an expert, but I would say he has diabetes and probably an additional underlying condition.' 

Jennie and I glance at each other uneasily. The idea that Hewett is ill doesn't surprise me. He has looked awful since ... well, always. Roseanne doesn't have much of a bedside manner, but I trust her instincts. She once announced loudly in the middle of lunch that my monthly cramps might not be so horrible if I increased my intake of vitamin B1. For the record, she was right.

'Okay,' Jennie says. 'Is that why he wants to see us? Because he's ill?' 

'No,' Roseanne says. 'I just thought about it, so I said it. He wants to see you because the prisoner is starting to talk.' She looks at her palms. 'Also, I have squid slime on me. I'm going to go wash my hands because that just seems like the right thing to do.

~~~