Page 95 of Sucker For You

Eleven minutes by the bungalow’s clocktopus. . . and she was just cold.

Cold and hollow.

But safe.

She swallowed a second time and withdrew her hand.

“Welcome back to the surface, Buttercup.” Wes handed her a dishcloth. “Now, what’s on your mind?”

“I was. . .”

Whatwason her mind?

“I’ve been thinking about my clinical trial at the Medical Center in San Francisco,” she said. “I knew the Ceretobicin pills would’ve been subjected to animal testing before the first phase of human trials. It’s standard procedure. I read about preliminary evidence of the medication’s efficacy in my intake paperwork, too. Ceretobicin had been tested successfully on rhesus monkeys.”

“They can get migraines?”

“Yes. But primates have extensive laboratory protections. The trial methods would’ve been humane. Cephalopods don’t have those protections—or any protections at all. That’s why the Cephalopod Sentience and Welfare Act is so important. If it passes, they’ll receive a right to compassionate treatment.”

“Your medication wasn’t tested on octopuses.”

“No.” She twisted at the towel. “But Chase has been promoting trials for BioPulse’s newest experimental drug. It stimulates targeted areas of the brain’s motor cortex to reverse loss of muscle control from stroke, multiple sclerosis, tumors, alcoholism, nerve damage, or even low vitamin levels. Octopuses are ideal test subjects for it. Eight arms where nerve damage or other traumas can be induced, followed by an injection—and then researchers’ observation about whether complete muscle control returns. Cephalopods can regenerate severed limbs with full functionality. They can be tested through multiple traumas and multiple failures of the drug cocktail, through multiple amputations and more attempts, until a dosage and chemical combination works—”

“—which it seems like it does.” Wes tugged the towel away. He redirected Isabel’s attention to the tank, to their two-spot with her curious tentacles and her mischievous mind; her suckers were fiddling with the pump nozzle and a fresh shrimp he’d offered. “Look at her.”

“Yes.”

The Hydromotinzatedidwork. The octopus was mobile, her regenerated arms unimpaired and grasping her meal. . . except that even while they watched, one whitening limb released its prawn. The crustacean swirled to the gravel bottom of the aquarium and settled beside an uneaten sea snail. Drifting back into her coral and halimeda, the two-spot left it there.

Cephalopods could be fussy eaters, suspicious of unfamiliar food.

Their octopus liked shrimp, though.

Had the fisherman hauled in a bad catch?

It was possible. However, the creature evinced no interest in Isabel’s reconstructed pill-bottle puzzle, either. When she dropped the enrichment artifact into the tank and pointed it out to the octopus, the two-spot’s dominant eye acknowledged it. But the bottle remained floating at the surface, untouched. And those white splotches on her skin?

“How long has she had these?”

Wes squatted beside the aquarium. He frowned. “A few days?”

Two or three days was a significant length of time for an animal whose journey from paralarva to death spanned no more than two years. Even the giant Pacific octopus rarely lived past five.

“It won’t be a problem for very long,” Brianne had said on her call.

The operative had waved away concerns about BioPulse’s escaped cephalopod. Isabel had assumed she’d meant that a research octopus wouldn’t survive outside the lab. Ignorant of camouflage techniques, the two-spot would be easy prey for sharks, rays, gulls, or sea lions.

But what if Brianne had meant something else?

Disinterest in food. Dull, slow color changes. White blotches. Reclusive behavior. . .

And the implications—themeaningof those observations—hit her with a sudden tidal force.

No! No—

She thrust her hand back into the water, newly desperate for the octopus to engage with her, to pick up the shrimp, to shift hue in pleasure or fright, to react somehow—to do anything at all.

Nothing.