Page 26 of Sucker For You

With that regulated pH, temperature, and lighting?

Cephalopods.

A sign drooping from a magnet on the glass read: “Octopus bimaculoides(hatching tank).”

MORI was attempting the difficult feat of lab-raising two-spot paralarvae.

Apparently, the effort had been successful; a laminated label numbered the days since hatching: 26.

There were octopuses here.

Isabel moved past Wes and the facilities manager, toward the researcher and her tank. She scanned the day count and the dim water. A few remaining egg casings were tethered to the aquarium’s mesh lid and around its ecosystem of living rock, and transparent cephalopod paralarvae no larger than grains of rice drifted in sporadic bursts of bubbles. Those bubbles were likely meant to simulate the siphoning jets of a female octopus caring for her eggs. They also mimicked hydrothermal springs, like the ones in the canyon.

Her inhale was sharp, loud, excited. “Impressive.”

“What?” The biologist turned, and frowned.

Obviously, Isabel had disturbed the woman’s focus and her work.

“Sorry.” She should have kept quiet and retreated. Instead, she tucked her hair behind her ears and leaned closer, watching miniscule suckers brush against glass and rock with weightless curiosity. Her words kept coming. “This is a well-designed research environment. It’s clearly taken the octopuses’ physicaland psychological needs into account. What are your thoughts on the National Institutes of Health’s proposal about granting experimental protections to, and establishing baseline lab conditions for, all members of theCephalopodaclass?”

“What?” again. The biologist’s frown sank toward a level equal with the Mariana Trench.

“Canada has a law like this, but the United States doesn’t, even with the scale of its laboratory industry. The NIH proposes—”

“I know what the Cephalopod Sentience and Welfare Act proposes.” The woman’s voice was cold. Cold was fine. With her scowl, maneuvering her crossed arms between Isabel and the octopuses, it also verged on hostile.

That was understandable.

Minimizing a need to conceal her surprise and irritation whenever colleagues interrupted her work had been one of several reasons why Isabel had eagerly taken night shifts at the Seattle Aquarium. After sneaking a last look at the tank and nodding at the frowning scientist, she returned to Wes and the facilities manager with a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth.

“I thought you’d like it here.” Wes grinned outright.

Brianne said, “You mentioned a Canadian lab law. Are you—”

Wes cut her off. Still smiling, he pointed at a map of the bay’s canyon tacked above a tank of deep-sea corals. “So: topography. Any areas of special interest? Or species? There’s a list in my assignment brief, but that’s just paper. What I want to know is: what’s really out there in the water?”

“Oh. Probably otters?” Brianne turned to him and shrugged.

“They’re a crowd-pleaser. Did you know,” he asked the three of them, though the cephalopod biologist ignored him, “that aquariums in Tokyo and Dubai have paw-sized holes bored into the otter exhibits’ glass, so tourists can stroke their toes? Cute little jerks.”

“Interesting. . .” Brianne tapped her nails on her water bottle. Her head tilted, attention fully redirected. “The Monterey Bay Aquarium could do something similar to supplement its funding. Marketing could sell the encounter as an exclusive experience and—”

“But the otters in Tokyo and Dubai are river otters,” Isabel interjected. She trailed after Wes and their guide back through the labyrinth of seawater pipes, past a volunteer hauling a bucket of algae—who started to wave at their group, before slipping on the wet floor near a pool of leopard sharks, yelping, and grabbing at a mop to stabilize himself. She continued, “They aren’t endangered. The Pacific’s sea otter population is. Even if it’s not banned in other countries, a germ-exchanging interaction like that—when the animals are already vulnerable to infections likeToxoplasma gondiitransmitted by domestic cats—would likely be illegal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Under California’s state laws, too.”

She knew those laws very, very well.

Apparently, she knew them better than Brianne seemed to understand the environmental and legal ecosystem in which MORI conducted its research. Maybe that wasn’t surprising. Isabel glanced back at the octopus tank, its biologist motionless beside the glass.

“Well, if I can’t get an otter fix in the aquarium,” Wes held open the lab door now, waiting for her, “I’m going down to the beach to scout. Want to join me? Or stay inside? The wind’s cold out there.”

It was.

But now the biologist was upping the day count on her tank’s erasable sign: 27.

With a lifespan of under two years, those paralarvae wouldhave passed their prime of sexual maturity by next August, well on their way to death.

Chase’s ring cut into her skin when Isabel’s hands fisted under her sleeves.