Page 45 of Sucker For You

“Then she isn’t representative of Monterey’s population.”

“No.”

Isabel joined him in squatting by the glass. She watched the two-spot fiddle with the pump. She’d need to stabilize the aquarium for its newest inhabitant, and soon.Functional protein skimmer, powerhead for additional circulation, salt mix, dive weights, water parameters of 1.026, pH of 8.2, 0 for nitrites and ammonia.It would be expensive. The octopus gave another wiggle at the pump with an inquisitive arm. . .

An odd arm.

“This two-spot isn’t injured.” She began to track the creature’s movements more closely now, studying texture and mobility and grip strength. “Do you see the disparity in the musculardevelopment of her third, fourth, and fifth arms, though? Compared to the first, second, and sixth through eighth arms?”

“She’s lost multiple limbs?”

“At some point. They’re almost all fully regrown, and she’s moving and engaging capably with her environment. She’s even creating hinge joints in her tentacles to crawl along the gravel. She’s not suffering from lasting nerve damage. I wouldn’t expect it, since cephalopods can regrow damaged or severed arms within two to four months. When the California two-spot’s genome was first sequenced in the early twenty-first century, scientists discovered it could edit its own RNA to recode genes important to its nervous system.”

“Like regrowing completely functional limbs?’

“Yes. But still—she’s not evincing any crypsis strategies. Camouflage. That’s not usual for a wild octopus.”

“Hmm. Maybe that biologist at MORI was researching this. Did she mention anything to you?”

“No. No one at the institute mentioned any strange behavioral patterns in the population here. This two-spot is older than the lab’s paralarvae. It’s still true that she could’ve hatched in the institute, though. She’s a juvenile, almost at sexual maturity. There’s no possibility that she could’ve been born in the wild and survived so long in the ocean without any camouflage skills. But—”

“—but if she hatched at MORI,” Wes picked up her train of thought, “how the hell did she end up in Monterey Bay?”

The question bubbled between them, unanswerable while they observed the two-spot’s exploratory changes of hue and texture as she skylarked around the tank: red to mottled pink, calm white, piebald green, and back to studded russet, before exploding with vibrant blue.

Howdidshe end up in the bay?

Maybe, also,why?

“She can modify the coloration of her body. That means the triple layers of her skin cells—the leucophores, iridophores, and chromatophores—are functioning, as well as her regrown arms. Look, she’s creating patterns. Tessellating. See those blocks and stripes on her mantle, and the papillae she’s raised on her head? But none of this is functional camouflage.” Isabel frowned again at the octopus’s silk-smooth and dizzying display, the animal switching colors, patterns, and fibers in as little as seven-tenths of a second, almost faster than a human could blink.

“Maybe she thinks she’s in Santa Cruz. She’s trying out tie-dye.”

Tie-dye:that dress.

Distracting whispers of heat licked Isabel’s ears at an echo of Wes’s smile and his laughter, before she quickly and firmly redirected her attention back to the puzzle of this strange two-spot. The octopus was ensconcing herself within the aquarium’s coral now, while still managing to prod the brainless (but seemingly resigned?) oyster from across the tank with a taunting arm. “Maybe.”

Wes rose off his heels to squint down through the water. He checked the mess of tubing behind the aquarium. “Could she have gotten loose from a home exhibit? She could be someone’s escaped pet. She’s responsive to contact with people.” Then he removed his dive watch—casually, sensibly—and dropped his hand into the tank near the two-spot’s calcium carbonate enclave.

Not sensibly.

Not what most people would deem sensible, anyhow.

The octopus—monster of the deep, kraken,nightmare—instantly latched onto his fingers.

Isabel stopped breathing.

How will Wes Monaghan react to her touch?

How would he respond to this strange, adhesive, grasping, tasting intelligence that so abruptly demanded a connection and tactile conversation with him? Questing arms and dual bands of suckers engulfed his hand, looping around his wrist. If he hadn’t removed his watch, the octopus would have stolen it. Deprived of those stimulating dials and textures, she crawled higher along his forearm, heaving at him with disproportionate strength, dragging him farther into the water with her. . .

And bent across the tank, with a venomous alien plastered to his body, circular bruises already rising on his skin under her grip? Wes was smiling.

He was smiling at the octopus.

“Persistent little thing, aren’t you?” He wriggled his fingers. A curlicued dimple appeared in his cheek while he teased the undersides of two of her arms. Brilliant washes of crimson bloomed over her mantle in response. Another row of suckers reached above the water to adhere to his elbow. She tugged, twisting him sideways.

Now he was grinning at Isabel, too.