Ryan Lockwood - Below

After talking to the yacht captain, Joe and Val had returned to the coast and met up with Nikkola, who had once been one of Val’s colleagues. His employers at the Weston Research Institute, a renowned marine studies group located in San Diego, had hired the squid-fishing vessel out of Monterey Bay. The boat had steamed down from California’s central coast the day before with Karl aboard. Once the vessel arrived, Val and Joe had met the crew and headed back out to sea to catch up to the shoal before it could travel far.

Through the salt-streaked pane of glass facing aft from the wheelhouse, Val watched as Joe leaned away from the gunwale, wiping his mouth. He walked unsteadily across the heaving deck toward the wheelhouse, his hands grabbing at anything available for support. At least instead of a uniform he had worn street clothes—a Windbreaker over a gray sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, all now soaked.

“Feeling any better?” She handed him a roll of paper towels as he entered the wheelhouse, dripping cold seawater.

“Never been better.” He grinned and wiped his mouth. “Always feels better right after you hack. I think I’ll probably be at this for a while, though.”

“You must be freezing.”

“Feels good, actually.”

“You and Sturman were in the Navy together. I thought for sure you’d be immune to the high seas.”

“We were on an aircraft carrier. Even the open ocean couldn’t really move that sucker much, except in a typhoon. I guess I’ve lost my sea legs, though.”

“I guess you have, son. Hah!” The Centaur ’s captain, a grizzled, squinty man in a heavy cable sweater, sat at the helm, a grin on his bearded face as he spit chewing tobacco into a plastic cup. Besides laughing at everything, he had a bad habit of commenting frequently on Val’s conversations with Karl and Joe. He didn’t have much to add.

Joe had been handpicked to join the others after his boss had talked to Southern California political officials. They wanted law enforcement to observe this unusual operation, and since Joe had been involved from the first reported squid attacks, he was the best choice. Because Humboldt squid weren’t technically native to Southern California waters and were now believed to be actively pursuing human targets, government officials had allowed the Weston Institute to organize the operation to try and capture the shoal. A lot of money had been donated, so the institute heads had jumped at the chance to help.

Val knew they wanted to figure out what was going on as much as she did, and the task provided a great opportunity for exposure and positive PR for the institute. But she wasn’t convinced that what they were doing would either be effective or set a good example.

“Karl, do you really think what we’re doing here is a good idea? I mean, are we sending the wrong message to everyone? That these animals are the enemy, and we’re here to try and to stop them?”

Karl looked up from the monitor of the Fathometer and shrugged. “I do not know, Valerie. Our expedition here gives me a great opportunity to observe the squid in their environment.”

“Inside a net is hardly natural.”

“Do not be so negative. This is unbelievable! Besides, it sounds like these squid really are becoming quite dangerous. If we capture this group, then you will have a lot more specimens to examine. And enough material for at least two or three papers, ja ?”

“I prefer to study living squid. It’s hard to study the behavior of a squid sprawled out on an examining table.”

Captain MacDonald slapped her shoulder. “But the dead ones are easier to eat! Hah!”

“I’m with Captain MacDonald. Let’s just round these bastards up for slaughter.” Joe was beginning to regain color, and his voice sounded stronger.

Val looked at Joe, then the captain. “At least you two agree on something.”

Joe smiled. “I just hope we can find them before this seasickness kills me.”

Val shook her head. What was the point? Joe and his pal Captain Ahab were like so many other people who didn’t understand biological science. Society tried to humanize every animal, making them all helpless victims or horrible monsters. That way of thinking was good for animals like cuddly-looking polar bears, but bad for cold-blooded fish and faceless, ten-armed oddities that lived deep in the ocean.

She said, “Joe, you already took something for the nausea, right?”

“Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I really didn’t think it would be this bad.”

“I have some pills stowed in my duffel, if you need them. It’s the red bag in the berthing area.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah. I better take another pill. Thanks.”

“You want me to get them for you?”

Joe waved his hand. “No, I can get them.”

As Joe began to lurch unsteadily out of the wheelhouse, Karl looked up at Val. “Valerie, I know you would prefer live specimens. But necropsies may help us figure out why this is happening now, with this shoal—you said it yourself. The squid you already examined was heavily infected with parasites, which were perhaps vectors, and very, very large. With more specimens, you might be able to theorize what is now merely a hypothesis, ja ?”

Joe paused in the doorway and turned around. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Karl, but I have no problem taking out what is a proven threat to people.”

“That makes two of us, copper!” The captain slapped Joe on the back as he walked out of the wheelhouse.

Joe yelled back from outside. “Just drive the boat, asshole!”

The captain laughed. “Our copper’s feeling a bit spicy again, eh? Maybe the man’s getting his sea legs back after all.”

Val wondered how long these men and their big egos could suffer being crammed together in the confined space. Karl alone seemed immune to the captain’s ribbing, instead focusing on the readout of the Fathometer. He had been glued to the device since about an hour after they had left shore.

Val didn’t like to work with other researchers, but Karl wasn’t so bad. The self-important Swede had a great work ethic and was friendly enough. Based in Southern California, he was a leader in the use of acoustic backscatter, or ABS, to describe the biological signatures of marine animals. He’d been brought into the growing squid circus once the very rich parents of a young man missing from the actor’s yacht had donated a lot of money to the Weston Institute—in exchange for a serious effort to capture and “study” the shoal. Of course, capturing in this case meant killing, but Val sympathized with the parents’ motives.

But she still felt a bit guilty for her part in this witch hunt. She had not lost a child to the shoal. Humboldt squid in a way were her children. And what a mother she was.

She had told Joe, the police, and everyone else that their best shot at finding the shoal would be through the use of more sophisticated sonar and, more specifically, by hiring Karl and his institute. She had led the vengeful parents right to the researcher—and they could afford to hire his institute. The national media exposure on the Humboldt squid attacks had now become ubiquitous, so Val tried to convince herself that the rich parents could have found Karl on their own. Mother of squid or not, she figured that it would be crazy to miss this opportunity now. And she had a free ticket to join in the effort. So here she was.

If anyone could find the shoal, it would be Karl. His doctoral thesis had been on validating the use of ABS to accurately identify different forms of sea life that were normally difficult or impossible to identify using standard sonar. Most of his work had been done in the deepwater environments farther north in Monterey Bay, where he had worked in the past with the crew they were with now. The rusty fishing seiner they were on—which looked similar to a trawler—was now officially chartered by the institute. It was still rigged for netting tiny market squid, but the group hoped they might use it to net the huge Humboldts.