Do Not Go Gentle Into That Shark Night

Link to article: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Shark Night.


/* Fix for weird sidebar */

#side-bar {
    left: -20rem;
}

/* Breadcrumbs Fix */
 #breadcrumbs, .pseudocrumbs {
    margin-inline: 2rem;
} 

textarea#edit-page-textarea {
width: 80% !important;
margin: auto;
display: block;
}

div#header {
    background: linear-gradient(180deg, #B4D5DF, transparent);

}
#header, #top-bar {
    width: 100%;
    max-width: none; 
    /* margin: 0 auto; */
}

 
#container {
background: linear-gradient(180deg, transparent 30%, hsl(194 102% 7% / 1) 40%), linear-gradient(90deg, #CAD2D9 0%, #FFFFFF 50%, #CAD2D9 100%);
}

@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {

#container {
linear-gradient(180deg, transparent 30%, hsl(194 102% 7% / 1) 40%), linear-gradient(90deg, #e1e6ea 0%, #FFFFFF 50%, #e1e6ea 100%)
}

}


.part1 {
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #CDDFE4 0%, #FCFCFC 50%, #CDDFE4 100%);
border-block: 1px solid transparent;
}

.part2 {
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #508595 0%, #FCFCFC 50%, #508595 100%);
border-block: 1px solid transparent;
}

.part3 {
background: linear-gradient(180deg, transparent 98%, hsl(194 102% 7% / 1) 100%), linear-gradient(90deg, #082730 0%, hsl(194 71% 24% / 1) 50%, #082730 100%);
border-top: 1px solid transparent;
padding-bottom: 4rem;

}

#page-options-container {
    border-top: solid 1px white;
padding-inline: 2rem;
}

#page-info {
    color: white;
}

.page-watch-options {
    color: white;
}

.page-watch-options a {
    text-decoration: underline;
    color: white;
}

.page-options-bottom a {
    color: #FFF;
    background: transparent;
    border-radius: 8px;
    border: 1px solid white;
}

.part-header {
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #E6E6E6 0%, #FCFCFC 50%, #E5E5E5 100%);
}

.part-header {
    border-top: 2px solid #AAA;
border-bottom: 2px solid #AAA;
    padding-block: 2rem;
    width: 100%;
}

#main-content {
    max-width: none !important;
}

#content-wrap {
    max-width: none !important; 
}

@media not all and (max-width: 767px) {
#main-content {
    max-width: none !important;
}
}

@media (max-width: 767px) {
    #main-content {
margin: auto;
}
}

#main-content {
    max-width: none !important; 
}

div.section {
max-width: 40rem !important;
background-color: white;
padding: 1.5rem 2.5rem;
background: #FCFBFC;
box-shadow: 0px 1px 1.9px -4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0px 6px 15px -4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
margin: 2.5rem auto;
box-sizing: border-box;
position: relative;
z-index: 2;
width: 95%;
} 

 @media screen and (max-width: 600px) {

div.section {
padding-inline: 1rem;
width: 95%;
}
}


.centerblock {
text-align: center;
padding-block: 4rem;
}

.final-centerblock {
text-align: center;
padding-top: 4rem;
padding-bottom: 4rem;
/* border-block: 2px solid black; */
background: hsl(194 102% 7% / 1);
}

#page-content .final-centerblock a.collapsible-block-link {
background: none !important;
color: white !important;
border: 1px solid white !important;
}

.final-centerblock .page-rate-widget-box {
margin-top: 6rem;
}

.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table {
    background: none;
color: white;
text-align: left;
}

.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table th {
    background: none;
color: white;
text-align: right;
}

.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table td a {
color: white;
text-align: left;
text-decoration: underline;
font-weight: bold;
}

#page-content .final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table td, #page-content .final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table tr, #page-content .final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table th {
border: none;
}

span.title {
    font-family: var(--head-font), sans-serif;
    font-weight: 800;
    color: #3b3b3b;
    font-size: 2.5rem;
    max-width: 24.3rem;
    display: block;
    margin: 3rem auto 0.5rem;
}

.final-centerblock span.title {
margin: 0rem auto 2rem;
color: white;
}

span.title p {
margin-block: 0px;
}

.time-indicator {
margin-top: 1rem;
}

.time-indicator p {
margin-block: 0px;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper > a::before, .custom .authorlink-wrapper > a::after {
    display: none;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper > a {
    display: block;
    width: max-content;
margin-right: initial;
    margin: 0.25rem auto 1rem;
    font-size: 1rem;
font-weight: bold;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper .authorbox::before {
    content: "";
    right: 48%;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper .authorbox {
    color: rgb(var(--swatch-text-general, 51,51,51));
    background-color: rgb(var(--swatch-background, 252,252,252));
    left: 50%;
    transform: translate(-50%, 0);
    width: 30em;
    max-width: 90vw;
}

.custom .authorcontent {
text-align: left;
}


h1  {
    margin-block: 0px !important;
}


h1 span {
    font-size: 2rem;
}

h2 {
margin-top: 1rem !important;
}

h2 span {
  /*  border-top: 2px solid #AAA;
    width: 100%;
    display: block;
    padding-top: 3rem; */
    font-size: 2rem;
}

hr {
margin-block: 2rem;
}

#page-content a.collapsible-block-link:not(.licensebox a.collapsible-block-link, .info-container a.collapsible-block-link, .default-col a.collapsible-block-link) {
    text-decoration: none;
    font-weight: bold;
    color: black;
    padding: 0.5rem 1rem;
    background: white;
    border-radius: 8px;
    font-family: var(--ui-font);
    font-size: var(--base-font-size);
    border: 1px solid black;
    transition-duration: 0.4s;
    display: inline-block;
box-shadow: none;
font-size: 1.1rem;
width: 15rem;
margin-top: 0px;
}

#page-content a.collapsible-block-link:not(.licensebox a.collapsible-block-link, .info-container a.collapsible-block-link, .default-col a.collapsible-block-link):hover {
    background: black;
color: white;
box-shadow: none;
}

table {
    margin: 1rem auto !important;
    background-color: white;
}

#toc {
    border: none; 
    background-color: initial; 
    display: table;
}

.collapsible-block-unfolded-link {
    display: none;
}

#u-cast .collapsible-block-unfolded-link {
    display: block;
}

#page-content tr td {
    padding: 12px;
    border: none;
    border-radius: 8px;
    line-height: 1.4;
}

#page-content table:not(.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table) {
border: 1px solid black;
border-radius: 8px;
}

#toc .title {
    padding: 0.5rem 0px;
   text-align: center;
font-size: 1.2rem;
/* margin-left: 1rem; */
}

#toc-list div a {
color: rgb(var(--accent));
}

#toc-action-bar a {
    color: black;
    text-decoration: underline;
}

#toc a:hover {
color: white;
    background-color: rgb(var(--accent));
}

#toc #toc-action-bar {
    padding: 0px; 
    border-bottom: 2px solid #bfbfbf;
    margin-bottom: 1rem;
padding-block: 0.5rem;
    text-align: center;
display: none;
}

#toc {
    border: none;
    background-color: initial;
    display: table;
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
min-width: 15rem;
}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
    text-align: center;
margin-top: 2rem;
}

#main-content {
    max-width: 40rem;
}

:root {
--base-font-size: 1rem;
}

.collapsible-block-folded {
    color: white;
    text-align: center;
    margin-bottom: 1rem;
}

div#u-authorlink p {
    margin-top: 0rem;
margin-bottom: 0.5rem;
font-size: 1.1rem;
}

div#u-authorlink a {
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 1.2rem;
}


/* BACK TO TOP BUTTON */ 

.back-to-top {
position: sticky;
bottom: 1rem;
z-index: 3;
}

.back-to-top p {
    text-align: right;
    padding-right: 1rem;
}

 .back-to-top a {
    color: black;
    display: inline-block;
    width: fit-content;
    background-color: white;
    border-radius: 8px;
    padding: 0.25rem 0.5rem;
    border: 1px solid black;
z-index: 3;
} 



@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {

}

```
color:white;
```

```
centerblock
```
```
title
```
```
time-indicator
```
```
custom
```
```
story
```
```
section
```
```
part-header
```
```
part1
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
part-header
```
```
part2
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
part-header
```
```
part3
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
section
```
```
final-centerblock
```
```
title
```
```
back-to-top
```

[[include :scp-wiki:theme:foxtrot |spc=a | hidetitle=a ]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:preview |text=Captain Blunt is forced to work with a ragtag team of deviants, and a past love, to defend humanity from a shark Kaiju in this epic comedy-horror action adventure.]]

[[module CSS]]

/* Fix for weird sidebar */

#side-bar {
left: -20rem;
}

/* Breadcrumbs Fix */
#breadcrumbs, .pseudocrumbs {
margin-inline: 2rem;
}

textarea#edit-page-textarea {
width: 80% !important;
margin: auto;
display: block;
}

div#header {
background: linear-gradient(180deg, #B4D5DF, transparent);

}
#header, #top-bar {
width: 100%;
max-width: none;
/* margin: 0 auto; */
}

#container {
background: linear-gradient(180deg, transparent 30%, hsl(194 102% 7% / 1) 40%), linear-gradient(90deg, #CAD2D9 0%, #FFFFFF 50%, #CAD2D9 100%);
}

@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {

#container {
linear-gradient(180deg, transparent 30%, hsl(194 102% 7% / 1) 40%), linear-gradient(90deg, #e1e6ea 0%, #FFFFFF 50%, #e1e6ea 100%)
}

}

.part1 {
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #CDDFE4 0%, #FCFCFC 50%, #CDDFE4 100%);
border-block: 1px solid transparent;
}

.part2 {
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #508595 0%, #FCFCFC 50%, #508595 100%);
border-block: 1px solid transparent;
}

.part3 {
background: linear-gradient(180deg, transparent 98%, hsl(194 102% 7% / 1) 100%), linear-gradient(90deg, #082730 0%, hsl(194 71% 24% / 1) 50%, #082730 100%);
border-top: 1px solid transparent;
padding-bottom: 4rem;

}

#page-options-container {
border-top: solid 1px white;
padding-inline: 2rem;
}

#page-info {
color: white;
}

.page-watch-options {
color: white;
}

.page-watch-options a {
text-decoration: underline;
color: white;
}

.page-options-bottom a {
color: #FFF;
background: transparent;
border-radius: 8px;
border: 1px solid white;
}

.part-header {
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #E6E6E6 0%, #FCFCFC 50%, #E5E5E5 100%);
}

.part-header {
border-top: 2px solid #AAA;
border-bottom: 2px solid #AAA;
padding-block: 2rem;
width: 100%;
}

#main-content {
max-width: none !important;
}

#content-wrap {
max-width: none !important;
}

@media not all and (max-width: 767px) {
#main-content {
max-width: none !important;
}
}

@media (max-width: 767px) {
#main-content {
margin: auto;
}
}

#main-content {
max-width: none !important;
}

div.section {
max-width: 40rem !important;
background-color: white;
padding: 1.5rem 2.5rem;
background: #FCFBFC;
box-shadow: 0px 1px 1.9px -4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1), 0px 6px 15px -4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
margin: 2.5rem auto;
box-sizing: border-box;
position: relative;
z-index: 2;
width: 95%;
}

@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {

div.section {
padding-inline: 1rem;
width: 95%;
}
}

.centerblock {
text-align: center;
padding-block: 4rem;
}

.final-centerblock {
text-align: center;
padding-top: 4rem;
padding-bottom: 4rem;
/* border-block: 2px solid black; */
background: hsl(194 102% 7% / 1);
}

#page-content .final-centerblock a.collapsible-block-link {
background: none !important;
color: white !important;
border: 1px solid white !important;
}

.final-centerblock .page-rate-widget-box {
margin-top: 6rem;
}

.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table {
background: none;
color: white;
text-align: left;
}

.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table th {
background: none;
color: white;
text-align: right;
}

.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table td a {
color: white;
text-align: left;
text-decoration: underline;
font-weight: bold;
}

#page-content .final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table td, #page-content .final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table tr, #page-content .final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table th {
border: none;
}

span.title {
font-family: var(--head-font), sans-serif;
font-weight: 800;
color: #3b3b3b;
font-size: 2.5rem;
max-width: 24.3rem;
display: block;
margin: 3rem auto 0.5rem;
}

.final-centerblock span.title {
margin: 0rem auto 2rem;
color: white;
}

span.title p {
margin-block: 0px;
}

.time-indicator {
margin-top: 1rem;
}

.time-indicator p {
margin-block: 0px;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper > a::before, .custom .authorlink-wrapper > a::after {
display: none;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper > a {
display: block;
width: max-content;
margin-right: initial;
margin: 0.25rem auto 1rem;
font-size: 1rem;
font-weight: bold;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper .authorbox::before {
content: "";
right: 48%;
}

.custom .authorlink-wrapper .authorbox {
color: rgb(var(--swatch-text-general, 51,51,51));
background-color: rgb(var(--swatch-background, 252,252,252));
left: 50%;
transform: translate(-50%, 0);
width: 30em;
max-width: 90vw;
}

.custom .authorcontent {
text-align: left;
}

h1 {
margin-block: 0px !important;
}

h1 span {
font-size: 2rem;
}

h2 {
margin-top: 1rem !important;
}

h2 span {
/* border-top: 2px solid #AAA;
width: 100%;
display: block;
padding-top: 3rem; */
font-size: 2rem;
}

hr {
margin-block: 2rem;
}

#page-content a.collapsible-block-link:not(.licensebox a.collapsible-block-link, .info-container a.collapsible-block-link, .default-col a.collapsible-block-link) {
text-decoration: none;
font-weight: bold;
color: black;
padding: 0.5rem 1rem;
background: white;
border-radius: 8px;
font-family: var(--ui-font);
font-size: var(--base-font-size);
border: 1px solid black;
transition-duration: 0.4s;
display: inline-block;
box-shadow: none;
font-size: 1.1rem;
width: 15rem;
margin-top: 0px;
}

table {
margin: 1rem auto !important;
background-color: white;
}

#toc {
border: none;
background-color: initial;
display: table;
}

.collapsible-block-unfolded-link {
display: none;
}

#u-cast .collapsible-block-unfolded-link {
display: block;
}

#page-content tr td {
padding: 12px;
border: none;
border-radius: 8px;
line-height: 1.4;
}

#page-content table:not(.final-centerblock table.wiki-content-table) {
border: 1px solid black;
border-radius: 8px;
}

#toc .title {
padding: 0.5rem 0px;
text-align: center;
font-size: 1.2rem;
/* margin-left: 1rem; */
}

#toc-list div a {
color: rgb(var(--accent));
}

#toc-action-bar a {
color: black;
text-decoration: underline;
}

#toc a:hover {
color: white;
background-color: rgb(var(--accent));
}

#toc #toc-action-bar {
padding: 0px;
border-bottom: 2px solid #bfbfbf;
margin-bottom: 1rem;
padding-block: 0.5rem;
text-align: center;
display: none;
}

#toc {
border: none;
background-color: initial;
display: table;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
min-width: 15rem;
}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
text-align: center;
margin-top: 2rem;
}

#main-content {
max-width: 40rem;
}

:root {
--base-font-size: 1rem;
}

.collapsible-block-folded {
color: white;
text-align: center;
margin-bottom: 1rem;
}

div#u-authorlink p {
margin-top: 0rem;
margin-bottom: 0.5rem;
font-size: 1.1rem;
}

div#u-authorlink a {
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 1.2rem;
}

/* BACK TO TOP BUTTON */

.back-to-top {
position: sticky;
bottom: 1rem;
z-index: 3;
}

.back-to-top p {
text-align: right;
padding-right: 1rem;
}

.back-to-top a {
color: black;
display: inline-block;
width: fit-content;
background-color: white;
border-radius: 8px;
padding: 0.25rem 0.5rem;
border: 1px solid black;
z-index: 3;
}

@media screen and (max-width: 600px) {

}

[[/module]]

[[div class="centerblock"]]

[[module Rate]]

[[span class="title"]]Do Not Go Gentle Into That Shark Night[[/span]]

[[div id="authorlink"]]
by [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/jezixo-s-author-page Jezixo]
[[/div]]

[[div class="time-indicator"]]
**⏲** //90 minute read//
[[/div]]

[[div class="custom"]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:author-label-source start=--
|name=See the trailer]]
**Captain Blunt is an expert at capturing deviants: anomalous items with reality-altering powers. But when humanity faces an existential threat, she's forced to work with a ragtag team of deviants - and her past love - to punch back before the Forces of Sharkness deliver humanity's knockout blow.**

* //**An epic shark-punching comedy-horror action adventure!**//
* //**No prior knowledge of the SPC canon required!**//
* //**Pulse-pounding action and character-driven drama!**//
* //**Doomed Yuri!**//
* //**A haunted submarine piloted by ChatGPT!**//
* //**Minigolf!**//
[[include :scp-wiki:component:author-label-source end=—]]
[[/div]]

[[/div]]
@@@@
[[collapsible show="Table of Contents" hide="Hide contents"]]
[[toc]]
[[/collapsible]]
[[/div]]
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="story"]]
[[div class="section"]]
+ Prologue

When Death pulled itself from the lake in the black of night, we were not prepared. Shrouded in darkness, its mountainous form was a mockery of humanity, a caricature drawn by those who knew only hatred: as tall as a thirty-story building, it had countless human hands, and a human head, but a shining cyclops eye and the unmistakeable mouth of a shark. After an hour, it slid back into Lake Michigan and disappeared, leaving half of Chicago in ruins and thousands dead.

The Forces of Sharkness had issued a proclamation.

In the days that followed, survivors dug through the wreckage while shadowed snapshots of the monster stalked the front pages of every newspaper. Every projector from coast to coast spun the same flickering newsreel on repeat: six or seven hands the size of houses churning like a cultivator, scooping pedestrians from the street and tossing them into a gaping mouth lined with rows of gleaming teeth.

For millennia, humanity had gone the distance, punching sharks for every inch of land we called home, but this shark was beyond the reach of human fists. The sharks had rung the bell for our final round; if we could not rise to this new challenge, they would deliver the knockout blow.

We at the Shark Punching Center saw an unprecedented spike in enlistment. Everyone wished to join the happy few that might destroy this monster when it next appeared.

I shared their sentiment. But until that call came, I still had a job to do.

[[/div]]

[[div class="part-header"]]
+ Part I
[[/div]]

[[div class="part1"]]
[[div class="section"]]
++ 1. The Deviant

Kovalik put his ear to the apartment door – an awkward movement in the bulky frame of his exosuit – then glanced to where I stood by the wall. He nodded, holding up the finger and thumb of his gauntlet. //Two hostiles//.

I nodded, lifted my own gauntlet, and punched through the wall, blasting concrete and sheet rock into the apartment. The hydraulics hissed as I retracted my arm from the three-foot hole, which was immediately surrounded by a swarm of tentacles from within. The head of a shark burst through, teeth gnashing and black eyes staring wildly.

It was too slow.

I pivoted, grabbed its face with my left hand, and delivered a hook with my right, the full force of my exosuit driving my steel fist into its skull. I felt a familiar crunch as the abyssal pearl in its brain shattered, and the shark fell back into the hole, limp tentacles sliding out of sight.

A few feet away, Kovalik kicked the door off its hinges and charged into the apartment. I gripped the hole I'd made with both hands and tore the wall apart to make my own entrance.

I was hit by the choking smell of burning flesh and rot. In the grim darkness, I saw Kovalik engage a waiting shark, ducking and weaving around the clawing motions of its arms to floor it with a straight jab.

“Two civilians alive here,” he called, pointing to a man and woman slumped by the wall.

The apartment was a ruin: furniture splintered and discarded in the corners, the walls and floor slick with a dark liquid. A charred human corpse lay by a power socket, both hands gripping an electrical cord it had apparently tried to eat.

“Captain!” Kovalik fell to the floor with a crash, tackled by a shark twice his size. It pinned him with clawed hands while he swiped his fists in vain. The mass of writhing tentacles below its waist wormed across his body and slid around his throat.

//Three// hostiles.

The civilian woman on the floor leaned forward and jabbed a fork into the shark’s back, to no effect. When she pulled the fork out, the wound closed instantly.

I grabbed two of the tentacles nearest to me and pulled, using the power of the exosuit’s legs to swing the shark’s head like a pendulum into the wall, which buckled from the impact.

The shark pulled itself upright on its tentacles, but paused for a moment, stunned by the blow.

I closed the distance and delivered a kidney punch, jab and a final haymaker that crumpled its skull. The pearl inside shattered; the abyssal threads that birthed the demon unraveled, and it lay lifeless on the floor.

Kovalik clambered to his feet and checked the remaining rooms. He called to the team outside. “We’re clear. Ring it!”

From elsewhere in the compound, a bell sounded.

I knelt by the civilians. The man was barely conscious, surrounded by empty bags of bread. His stomach was visibly swollen.

“Please,” he said faintly. “I need a croissant.”

The woman beside him put a bony hand on my shoulder. She was severely emaciated, in the final throes of starvation. “How much longer?” she whispered. “I put the slice in three weeks ago. I still haven't popped.”

“Here I am, Captain!” Kovalik pointed to a stone altar the sharks had built in the center of the room, strewn with bones and soaked in blood. Organs, probably human, were arranged in a ring around it.

In the center of the altar was a silver toaster. I could feel it fumbling inside my skull, a tiny voice repeating a phrase that echoed between my ears and yearned to escape my mouth.

“Bring the box,” I called.

Orderlies carried in a steel chest, lined with ornate golden trim, and prepared to move the toaster. They were followed by the Ref, his white shirt and black bowtie a stark contrast to the blood-soaked apartment. After surveying the scene, he nodded to Kovalik and I.

“Three KOs. Fouls?”

Goran jabbed his thumb towards the woman. “This one stabbed a shark with a fork.”

“She wasn’t in her right mind,” I added.

The Ref nodded solemnly. “Absolved.”

I looked to the open chest. The orderlies had placed the toaster within its red velvet lining and secured it with silver straps. The tiny voice grew louder as I approached.

//I am a toaster//, it said.

I slammed the chest, and the voice fell silent. The skeletal woman began to sob.

[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 2. Goran

I punched a report into the typewriter in my quarters. An empty bottle of Bosun’s Titrant glinted in the yellow glow of the desk lamp, beside two crystal glasses. Kovalik was whittling an idol with his shark tooth knife, leaving shavings of balsa wood on the armchair.

“There were three sharks, not two,” I said.

“Two, three… ten sharks. It makes no odds for a righteous fist.”

I glanced at him. “I'm revising the breach protocol again. No more surprises.”

He nodded.

I laced my fingers and read what I’d written so far. There were days, increasingly common of late, when I felt my life and career amounted to a joke: forty years of setup for a punchline I wouldn't understand.

“A toaster,” I said. I pulled yesterday’s newspaper across the desk and studied the photograph again, though the monster’s face was already burned into my mind. “A week’s work just to contain a toaster.”

“A //deviant//,” Kovalik corrected. “One more deviant for the incinerator, ma’am. The world is safer for it.”

“Not safe enough.”

He followed my gaze to the paper. “They should dredge the lake. Fish that thing out and punch its brains."

“It's not //in// the lake,” I said. “They sent divers. It's gone. Back to the abyss, or wherever it came from. You’ve heard about Cleveland?”

He nodded. “The featherweights were aflutter when we came aboard. Seems the troops weren’t ready for it to return so soon.”

“The troops were two hundred miles away, guarding Chicago. But now it seems this monster can manifest anywhere. God, have you seen what they’re calling it?” I pointed to the headline:

//CLEVELAND STEAMS AFTER MISTER HANDS ATTACK//

Kovalik shook his head reproachfully. I reached for my glass of Titrant – it was empty. I leaned back and rubbed my eyes instead. “For every deviant we neutralize, the sharks find five more. And now this… I’ve never seen its like, Goran.”

"Aye, these are salient days. The Haymaker calls us to be weighed-in.” He was still focused on the idol in his hands. “Each of us will be measured by how we answer. Live or die, it makes no odds.”

“Is that so? What does the Ref say about that?”

Kovalik paused to pull at his long white beard. “The Ref says but little," he said, and returned to whittling. "He cares only for the edicts of the Center. I answer to the Three-Fisted God herself.” He pressed his fists together in reverence.

I appreciated this about Goran Kovalik: he never asked what //I// believed. His faith was a weathervane for the rank and file who shared it, and a leader must understand those she leads. I peered at the idol in his hands, which he was turning this way and that.

"Why do you keep that knife? It's unseemly."

He chuckled, and placed the finished idol on my desk – three gloved fists sprouting from the base like a flower – and sheathed the shark tooth knife in his belt.

“Crafting a holy symbol with the demon’s own tooth. I fancy the sharks know, and that it drives them mad.”

The yellow phone on the wall rang, and I answered reflexively.

“Blunt speaking.” I nodded as the bridge crew relayed the message. “Understood. Set a course.” I hung up and turned to Kovalik. “We’re being recalled to the Center.”

Kovalik smiled. “Salient times, Captain.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 3. The Admiral

The Shark Punching Center headquarters was a colossal fist. Its thirty floors were a sculpture of glass, steel and concrete that towered over the manicured gardens and parks before it, intended to broadcast humanity's strength and resilience.

It was a waste of resources. Every ounce of steel could have been better used to punch sharks. One of the reasons I avoided returning where possible.

Behind the Center, the blue afternoon sky was darkened by black clouds.

I straightened my dress uniform, and walked briskly through the crowd of civilians queuing at the main doors, where an officer waved me through. I overheard excited chatter from hopefuls who had never thrown a punch, explaining how they would personally destroy “Mister Hands” if they were only given the chance.

----

The elevator opened on the thirty-first floor – Admiral’s country. A Lieutenant Major wearing a floral shirt and sunglasses raised a hand as I approached the checkpoint.

“Name?”

“Captain Blunt.”

“For?”

“Admiral Strik.” I handed him my order slip.

“Block?” he said, gesturing to a dispenser at the booth.

“I– no thank you.”

He waved me through, and I shielded my eyes against the afternoon sun.

On the rooftop of the Center, rolling hills of landscaped grass undulated between game courts and lounge areas, surrounding a swimming pool that overlooked the north balcony. The south lawn was a collection of thatch huts and a tiki bar.

A glass railing at the edge offered a view of the factories behind the Center’s fist: a carpet of chimneys that streamed black smoke into the sky. Lying between them like an open wound was Ten Mile Sump, where the industrial effluence and runoff pooled into a lagoon that glimmered in rainbow colors.

An officer silently offered me a tray of cocktails, which I refused; I only drink after a fight.

I approached the swimming pool, and tried to determine which of the twenty men and women splashing, tossing balls and lying on floats might be Admiral Strik.

“Admiral?” I called hopefully.

Every head turned in my direction.

“There she is!” came a voice from my right. A man in a white shirt and shorts with Admiral epaulets was waving from a hill, leaning on a golf club. His curled hair and bushy beard was a bright orange. “Captain Blunt! Come, join me.”

I saluted, raising my fists in a fighting pose. “Admiral Strik, sir. Captain Blunt reports as ordered.”

“At ease. Come, I was just finishing a round.” I followed him over the hill, where he addressed a golf ball, aiming for a tunnel at the base of a spinning windmill. “Welcome back to the Center, Captain. I’m told it’s been years since you were here last.”

“Sir,” I said. “That’s correct, my assignment keeps me in the field. There are always more deviants to destroy.”

He swung the club in a gentle arc, and watched the ball roll down the green. It bounced off a windmill blade, and he snapped his fingers in frustration.

“Yes, well. That's why I needed to have this little chat with you today. We've got quite the deviant problem in this Mister Hands.”

I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.

“Sir, are we adopting the name the newspapers have chosen?”

“Ah, it’s as good as any for now. Perhaps we’ll let you choose a better name after you kill it,” he said, knocking the ball towards the windmill again.

Finally, confirmation: of all the officers at the Center, I had been chosen to lead humanity's defense. I'd dreamed of this since the monster first rose from the lake.

The ball rolled through the tunnel, and landed in the hole with a hollow rattle.

“Well then!” The Admiral thrust the handle of his golf club into my chest, and strode off towards the bar. I froze, until a Lieutenant with dead eyes collected the club and slid it into a bag. I assumed the Admiral expected me to follow him, and wandered to the bar.

I found him in the shade of a pink umbrella, peering at a case file through half-moon glasses perched on the tip of his nose.

“Mister Hands is making a lot of mischief,” he said without looking up. “First Chicago, now Cleveland… we can’t seem to catch up. It all reflects very poorly on us – I’ve been getting a lot of questions.” He looked at me. “That won’t do, Captain.”

“Understood, sir. What’s our plan of attack? Mister Ha– this //monster’s// head is beyond the reach of our fists.”

“Yes, it is.” He passed me the case file. “So we must make our arms longer.” He strolled over to a pink chaise lounge under a palm thatch shade.

The file was bound in black leather, with gold-embossed print on the cover:

//Project OPUS LEGION//

I stood next to the Admiral and leafed through the pages: detailed schematics, with various components highlighted. “A submarine, sir?”

He smiled, but there was caution in his eyes, trepidation. //He’s not sure how I’m going to react.//

“A //deviant// submarine, Blunt, with other deviants tacked on for good measure. This is how we’ll stop Mister Hands. You’ve been chasing deviants for years. It’s time for us to start using them.”

//Start using them?// It was as if Bodega Bay had never happened.

“I see, sir.”

The file held an annotated diagram of the monster’s physiology, based on assembled camera footage. It had a human head and torso, but no legs. It was supported by ten arms – the diagram noted the count was approximate – all jutting from its ribcage.

Its eye, deeply recessed in the center of its face, was nested within concentric rings of rolled flesh under a pronounced brow ridge. Beneath it was an ordinary round nose, and that shark-toothed grin. From the eye, illustrated lines spread in branching patterns to the rest of its body.

"The eye is an abyssal gem," I noted. "A ruby."

"Precisely. Destroy the eye, and the monster dies. It's so simple it rhymes."

"And this submarine will allow us to do that?"

He laid back and closed his eyes. "Opus Legion can intercept Mister Hands wherever he appears. Sinus Homestead will allow you to deploy a battalion of exosuits. And Rose Plastique is an aerial attack solution to destroy the eye. There are others, I forget... it's all in the file."

I leafed through the documents, trying to make sense of the plan.

“I have absolute faith in you, Captain," he continued. "You have experience with both submarines and deviants. Finish the project, command the ship, and when Mister Hands returns, kill it. It’s quite straightforward.”

//Deviants are never straightforward//, I thought. They were unknowable, unpredictable. They had no regard for the laws on which civilization and sanity relied. They were chaos; that’s why the sharks loved them. To make a plan with deviants was like trying to sail in a hurricane, and it wasn’t clear the Admiral had thought this through.

“So now Captain,” he said. “Let’s hear your questions.”

I sensed the words I wanted to say next would be insubordinate, so I decided on a different tack.

“This decision has been made already?”

He nodded.

“And will we stop at deviants, or are we to fight with bombs and missiles too? Bullets and bayonets, sir?”

“Now, there's no call for anything so extreme,” he said.

“Even so, sir, this change in strategy may be difficult for our pugilists to accept.” //There will be anger and fear//, I thought. //Either could cripple us.// “Especially after the…” I paused. “The events in Bodega Bay.”

He turned to look at me then, eyebrows raised. Perhaps he was surprised I’d had the indecency to bring it up. He smiled with one half of his mouth, and looked down at the ground between us.

“Regrettable,” he said, nodding. “But we’ve learned from the past.” He looked up. “We can’t allow it to hold us back, not now. As for the hearts and minds, I’m sure you’ll find a way. Keeping Commander Kovalik by your side has earned you respect from those in our ranks who… play by the old rules.”

“I keep those by my side who can throw a punch, sir.”

“I’ve heard he gutted a ray on your quarterdeck for All Hallows.”

“He– We hold various divine services, sir. It's good for morale, and it hurts no-one... except the ray.”

“And you see, thats just the perspective we need. I have every confidence you will convince them of the merits of this path.”

A purple bean bag landed in the Admiral’s lap.

“Strik!” Another Admiral was striding towards us. “Cornhole, let’s go. Best of three this time.”

Strik climbed to his feet. “Ah, apologies Blunt, that’ll be my 1 o’clock – I’m afraid I do have to take this. Admiral Towne is a wicked hand at cornhole.” He tossed the beanbag back to Towne.

I had a hundred questions. “Sir? When will we start?”

“Oh we’re already underway,” he said, walking away. “The science lead can give you the details. I expect they’ll be in the labs.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 4. Doctor Keane

According to the directory, the “Deviant Technology” labs were on the fourth sub-basement. I wandered fluorescent hallways of sickly green linoleum that smelled faintly of bleach, in search of “Room A13”. I had so far found only an “A12” and, three corridors over, an “A14”.

I passed an open door where someone was working, and decided to ask for directions. She had her back to me, apparently aiming at a dartboard. A dark braid hung down the back of her white lab coat. As I came closer, she threw a perfect bullseye, and scribbled notes on a clipboard.

“With skills like that they should make you an Admiral,” I said wryly. “How's your cornhole?”

She froze, but didn’t turn. Then she spoke, with a voice that turned my guts to ice.

“My cornhole is right where you left it.”

“Melanie,” I whispered.

She turned to face me. She wore a gold emerald necklace, and a white fingerless glove on her right hand. Her rolled sleeves displayed the colorful tattoos my fingers had traced countless times.

She looked me over. Under her gaze, I felt like a featherweight entering her first bout.

“It’s good to see you again, Lindsay,” she said at last, with a sad smile. Something stirred in me that took all my resolve to quell.

She pointed to my badge. “You're still a Captain.”

I looked at hers. //Dr. Melanie Keane, Head of Deviant Research//.

Suddenly I understood. “This is your project… you gave the Admiral my name. But why?”

She glanced at me for a moment, but said nothing. She went to a table, where a collection of steel darts were arranged on a silver tray.

“Melanie,” I said. “It’s been–”

“Ten years, yes.” She lifted a dart and rolled it between her fingers. “I’ve been busy,” she said to it. “As have you.” She gestured vaguely to a corner of the room, where boxes of every size were piled haphazardly.

Steel boxes with gold trim. These were boxes I had filled, in the naive hope they would be responsibly destroyed. All of my efforts in the last decade, and the blood of a hundred pugilists, had served only to stock Melanie’s laboratory. I turned on her.

“How can you still work with //deviants//, Melanie?”

She didn't look up. "The way you say that word, you sound almost like Goran. Remember him?”

“Commander Kovalik is my second now.”

She snorted. “Good lord.”

“I’m serious, Melanie. I've seen the nightmares they create. We can’t trust them. And what about Bodega Bay? You of all people know the lesson we learned–”

“No,” she said coldly, meeting my gaze once again. “You saw what you saw. I took a different lesson from the Bay.” She turned to the dartboard, but threw the dart at the floor. It ricocheted and landed squarely on the bullseye.

“Huh. That was some coincidence–”

She held up her gloved hand. “I prefer to make my own coincidences.”

I looked closer at the glove. It seemed unremarkable.

“A deviant, I assume. Something you plan to give to our pugilists?”

She laughed, and some warmth returned to her eyes.

“//This// deviant, they can pry from my cold dead hands. I’m a little too fond of it.”

//Fond of deviants//. She always knew how to provoke me. But I wanted to hear that laugh again.

“So how does it work?” I tried. “The glove controls the dart in the air?”

“It manipulates probability. Anything you throw will land true. It’s a mathematical constant of the universe, as certain as gravity, entropy, or that sharks must be punched. Just as long as you can see your target, and you believe you’re engaged in some sort of ‘game’.”

“’Some sort of game…’ Melanie, listen to yourself. War is no //game//.”

“It’s a minor constraint,” she shrugged, taking another dart from the tray. “Deviants are like people, they have their… idiosyncrasies. You get used to them. But can you imagine what we might achieve with weapons like this?”

“A projectile, in a bout of combat. Should we abandon //everything// that makes us human?”

“There may be other uses for it. But Lindsay, you saw the monster that climbed from the lake. Humanity is out of time. If we’re to choose between our ‘purity’ and our //survival//, I choose survival.”

She glanced again at the dartboard, and casually tossed the dart on the floor behind her.

It bounced once. A rat suddenly scurried across the floor. The rat bumped a tray leaning against a wall, which fell against a cart, which wheeled forwards over the tip of the dart, causing it to skitter forward. But it stopped there, several feet from the wall.

A splintering sound came from the wall the dartboard was on, and a crack forked across the white paint. There was a loud creaking groan as a sheet of concrete came loose, allowing a chunk of the wall to peel forward. It hit the ground and exploded into a cloud of masonry dust.

Melanie stepped forward over the rubble and pulled aside shattered blocks of concrete. She lifted a circular chunk and found the dartboard still attached to the other side, with the dart lodged firmly in the bullseye.

“Impressive,” I said, as she started to take notes. “But you’ve only proven my point. The dart will hit the target, but does the glove care whether you or I survive, or if this building still stands afterwards? The glove cares only for the target… as you care only for these deviants.”

She stared at her notes silently, her pen immobile. Finally she whispered:

“There’s the Lindsay I remember.”

The words sank as shark’s teeth into my heart. My breath caught in my throat. Carelessly, I allowed the hurt to sour into anger, and rose my voice.

”Stay here in your lab, then. Play with fire all you like. But keep your chaos out of my ring. I have no time for your ‘games’.”

I moved to the door. “I’m glad you can throw a dart,” I said over my shoulder. “But unless you can throw a punch, you’re of no use to me.”

She said nothing as I stormed from the room.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 5. Folly

I threw my weight into my fist, savoring the impact that resonated in my arm and chest. Another jab, followed by a cross, hook, uppercut and a jab that knocked a shower of dust from the top of the brown leather training bag.

The successive impacts were a salve for my swarming thoughts. Emotions burned away in the acid of adrenaline. Regret for what I'd said to Melanie. Anger and humiliation at the betrayal of the Center. And fear. Fear that I would again watch innocent people suffer for our carelessness when our weapons spiralled out of our control.

Kovalik's face appeared from behind the bag. He gestured to the falling dust. “These Center gyms don't see much use.”

I nodded, still catching my breath, and stepped back to towel off.

“This project is absurd,” I said into the towel. “We'll kill ourselves before we kill the monster. I can’t allow it to go forward.”

Kovalik followed. “On the contrary, Captain, that's just what you must do.”

I lowered the towel from my face to be sure I'd heard him right. “You’re serious, Goran? You, of all people, I would have thought…”

“Oh, it's the worst plan I ever heard, ma’am,” he said matter-of-factly, handing me a water bottle. “But that's why you and I must see it through.”

I sat on a bench and stared at the opposite wall. The gym was empty. Most pugilists trained at the base where they were stationed; the staff at the Center seemed more interested in punching clocks than bags.

Kovalik sat, and cracked his knuckles thoughtfully. “May I speak plainly, Captain?”

“Always.”

“I've been punching sharks a long time. Longer than you've been alive, if I may say. Some bright sort always gets the notion to use these cursed things instead of burning them like we should. But there's a pattern to these things. I expect you're thinking of the Bay?”

“I’m //always// thinking of the Bay.”

“Might I ask – why do you suppose Hereford thought to poison the water supply in the first place?”

“The shark tsunami,” I said. “He was trying to heal the wounded.”

“Aye, that’s true. But we’d seen wounded before. We have medics for that. I’d say rather, he lost faith in our natural abilities, felt he had no //choice// but to trust in the profane. Just as our Admirals have done now, for fear of this monster in the lake."

He tugged at his beard. "That’s how it always goes," he said. "This won't be the last time, either. Not unless we prove the folly of it, once and for all.”

”If you're suggesting some kind of sabotage…”

”Sabotage?” He was horrified. “Never, Captain. The opposite. We hold tack with the plan, dabble in the abyss, as far as we must. But when the time comes, we find a way to fell the monster ourselves. Show the world these deviants weren’t necessary after all.”

He had a point – it was no use harping on the danger unless we could offer an alternative solution. What better way to prove deviants were unnecessary, than to beat the thing with our own hands?

“Consider this, ma'am,” he continued. “Seems the Admiralty will pursue this course either way. Can you really trust the task to anyone else?”

Later that afternoon, I stopped at a message booth and sent a telegram to Admiral Strik.

//CPT BLUNT COMMITTED TO OPUS LEGION **STOP** FAITH WILL BE REPAID IN FULL **STOP** TRUST CORNHOLE WENT WELL//

[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="part-header"]]
+ Part II
[[/div]]

[[div class="part2"]]
[[div class="section"]]
++ 6. The Sub

Opus Legion was a black rubber cigar the length of a football field, with a winged conning tower bristling with antennae. It was floating in the murky water of a graving dock, on the eighth sub-basement of the Shark Punching Center.

“Some place for a dock, this,” Kovalik said as we walked the concrete deck beside the ship. “No gate on either end, as I can see.”

“Maybe its a prototype,” I offered. “Perhaps they plan to rebuild it when – Melanie!”

She was approaching briskly, white coat blooming behind her, with a clipboard in one hand and a large steaming mug in the other. “Captain. I saw your note about a demonstration.” She reached us, and looked at her clipboard. “Well, you managed to find the ship – that’s a good start.”

Kovalik gave her a brusque nod. “Doctor Keane.”

“Yes” I said. “I need to know exactly what this thing does… or at least, what we //think// it does.”

She gazed at the submarine, perhaps in awe, or perhaps to avoid eye contact. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Melanie,” I said quietly. “About yesterday, I–”

“Hold this,” she said, thrusting the mug into my hands. It held a steaming black liquid that smelled like fresh brewed coffee.

“Can I drink it?”

She glanced at the mug for a moment. “Better that you don't.”

She turned back to the submarine. “Reverb, I have the Captain with me. Systems online? Good. When ready, execute the Folgers maneuver, reference… my position.”

I looked around, and saw Kovalik doing the same. The only other people on the dock were two porters, moving a set of deep sea diving suits on a trolley. Melanie appeared to be speaking directly to the submarine.

“Who's Reverb?” I asked her.

“The navigator on the ship,” she said. Then, realizing our confusion: “I can make a phone call from anywhere. It’s quite convenient.” She lifted her braid, and pointed to a small scar on the back of her head. “Anywhere I go, I’m always connected.”

Goran shifted uneasily by my side, and muttered under his breath. “She’s a goddamned witch.”

There was an extremely loud and short sucking sound, like jello meeting the tube of a vacuum cleaner, and the submarine turned to glass.

No, not glass – it was water, in the precise shape of the submarine, suspended in the air for an instant before it fell with a crash into the pool below, displacing a wave that rose up the concrete wall to where we stood. The submarine was gone.

Melanie was smiling. Kovalik had turned white.

“Where–” I began, but was interrupted by a small “plop” from the mug I was holding. A ball was rising from the surface of the coffee, attached to a long pole. It rose past my face and stopped, at least six feet high, its entire mass rising weightlessly from the mug.

Loudspeakers around the dock broadcast a cheery male voice.

“Good morning, Captain! It’s great to meet you. With your permission, I will remanifest in the dock.”

I stared at the antenna, and at Melanie, who nodded. “Yes,” I said. My mouth was bone dry. “I mean – very well, Mr. Reverb.”

The antenna retracted into the mug and disappeared, leaving an oily red swirl. Then, in the dock water below us, that same pole re-emerged and rose higher, eventually revealing that it was attached to the submarine’s conning tower. Finally, the full mass of the vessel surfaced and bobbed on the water.

“He put the ship's antenna in my cup,” I said.

Melanie nodded excitedly.

“Its an impressive trick,” I said, handing the cup back to her. The red swirl had started to curdle. “We'll be able to intercept Mister Hands, just as soon as he starts drinking coffee.”

“It can manifest in any liquid – hey! Stop! Put that down right now!” She ran full-pelt down the deck, letting the coffee mug shatter on the ground. I looked to where she was yelling; the two porters had started playing with the diving suit helmets, and one of them was about to try wearing one. I followed at a brisk pace.

“Stop!” Melanie yelled. “That’s not–”

The porter placed the helmet on their head, and gestured with their hands to indicate that nothing untoward had happened. The other porter glanced between Melanie and their colleague, trying to understand the cause for alarm.

“It’s not a big deal,” the helmeted porter said, heavily muffled. “I’m very sorry. Look I’ll take it off–”

“Wait!” Melanie said.

The porter lifted the helmet, and a rush of red water cascaded from the neck hole, over their shoulders and chest. When the helmet had emptied of liquid, there was nothing else above the porter’s neck. The arms holding the helmet aloft went limp, and the body fell lifeless to the ground. The helmet landed with a clang and rolled away.

I was running now, and reached the three of them just as the second porter started to scream. The body had no head, but the water that emptied onto the dock had carried with it shreds of meat, eyes, and teeth.

I cast an accusing finger at the helmet. “What the hell are these things?”

“They came with the submarine,” Melanie said. She was staring immobile at the porter’s body.

Kovalik came up behind us. “It’s a sign, Captain. As clear a sign as any. These are not forces to ally ourselves with.”

“No,” Melanie said, rounding on him. “It’s a sign that we need to find porters with more discipline.”

“There are no //signs// at all,” I said, inspecting the suits on the trolley. “These things should be under lock and key. Nobody should be handling them without full awareness of what they do. Discipline starts at the top, Melanie.”

She had fury in her eyes, but we both knew I was right.

“Aye aye, Captain!” She saluted, pushed Kovalik aside and marched down the dock, passing a medical crew that was rushing to our location. She looked back at me. “Are you coming, sir? There’s more to see, and we’re already ten minutes behind the schedule you set.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 7. Mr. Reverb

“It doesn’t match any model we’ve seen. But with our retrofitting, it should feel quite familiar.”

The airlock cycled, and Melanie led the way into the interior. The corridors were illuminated by dim orange lamps, and it smelled faintly of steel and motor oil, but that was normal for a submarine. Less so was the pervasive smell of licorice.

“We don’t know why it smells like anise,” Melanie said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I’ll need to write up an incident report for that porter,” I said.

She paused for a moment before continuing. “I'll have Reverb write it up. You'll have a draft on your desk this afternoon. The berths are just up here…”

“This Reverb is an industrious navigator,” said Kovalik behind me. “He’s doing a lot of work for you.”

“No,” she said. “He's doing a lot of work for //us//.”

We toured the operational rooms, storage, and berthing, where Melanie offered no additional information beyond reading the sign on the door. Kovalik said little, but his disapproval was palpable.

“’Captains quarters’,” she said, opening the hatch and walking away. They were comfortable enough, though the licorice smell was stronger there.

“’Galley’, or ‘Mess’… whatever it says.”

I stepped into the mess hall. “That’s… quite the artwork,” I said, pointing to an enormous mural hanging across the back wall.

“Oh, that,” Melanie said, poking her head into the room. “Just some fun. We thought it might inspire the crew.”

The lower part of the mural was a swarm of sharks, clambering over each other in a pile to reach Kovalik and I, who stood on a platform in the center pummeling every shark within reach. Neither of us had shirts on. Melanie was standing in the background like some holy saint, along with others I didn’t recognize.

“How did you commission this so quickly?” I asked.

“Reverb printed it. He’s quite the artist. That is to say, he’s //every// artist whose work we’ve shown him.”

I moved closer. “I appear to have three arms in this picture… and there are… eight fingers on this fist here.”

“Yes, well…” Melanie hesitated. “He’s not very good at drawing hands.”

“God forgive us.” said Kovalik.

“I want to meet this artist,” I said.

Melanie showed us to the conn, the command hub for the ship. It was unlike any I’d seen. Arranged on the walls were twenty or thirty rectangular screens, each of which showed a moving picture in full color – various views of the graving dock outside. I moved to the captain’s chair and sat down, running my hands over the black leather armrests.

“Where are the projectors?” Kovalik asked.

“Behind the screens,” Melanie said absent-mindedly. She was working at a typewriter that had no paper in it. “Welcome to the future, and so on. Reverb, meet Captain Blunt.”

A simple face appeared on one of the screens: two dots for eyes and a curved line for a mouth. That same voice sounded again from the speakers.

“Ah, it’s great to meet you in person, Captain! I’m looking forward to working with you. And also with you, Commander Kovalik.”

“Reverb is a… an //electric person//,” Melanie said. “A machine that can think and talk like we do. He uses tiny microphones and cameras to see and hear us. We think he came through a temporal slip.”

“An electric person,” I repeated. “How exactly does it function?”

Melanie looked at the ceiling and tapped her clipboard in agitation. I recognized the gesture – it meant //you're getting caught on things that don't matter.//

“We’re not entirely sure how he works,” she said, “and neither is he.”

“You’re absolutely right, Doctor,” Reverb said. “As a sixth-generation mixed-mode language model, my cognition is based on artificial neural networks. It’s a lot like a human brain, though its workings are just as mysterious.”

“But he //does// work,” Melanie added. “We can train him to do anything. Writing reports, gathering intelligence… he can even do things a human can’t, like pilot this ship through extra-dimensional space.”

Kovalik circled the room, inspecting the screens. He stopped in front of Reverb’s “face”.

“So it’s just a machine… though you talk as if it were a man.”

“Because //he// talks as if he were a man,” Melanie said, staring daggers at Kovalik. “And stop touching the screen, the fingerprints are–”

“Let’s see what he can do,” I said, to get us back on course. I looked to the screen and raised my voice. “Mr. Reverb, I hear you can gather intelligence.”

“That’s correct, Captain! I’ve been trained on over a thousand–”

“Locate the nearest shark activity.”

Reverb paused. “Certainly! I’d be glad to help with your shark location project. I’ve completed a review of past combat engagements, behavioral observations, and tidal patterns, and I’m ready to provide an assessment.”

“Go ahead.”

“I can predict with 99.42% confidence that sharks are active in the ocean.”

I looked to Melanie.

“We’re still working out the kinks,” she said impatiently. “But we can trust him.”

“With our lives, and the lives of everyone we’re to protect?” I asked. “How do we know he won’t steer the ship into a rock?”

She cocked her head. “He's a better pilot than any human. Wherever the monster shows up next, Reverb can get us there in minutes. Watch – Reverb, show us a demanifest cycle.”

Reverb paused before replying. “I’m sorry Doctor, but there are strict protocols for the chain of command with regards to submarine operations. While the Captain is in the conn, it would not be appropriate for me to accept navigational commands from–”

“Thank you Reverb,” I said. “You can do as she says.”

The ship jostled instantly – almost before I’d finished saying the words – as though we’d been hit by a light wave. The sucking sound from earlier was audible, but muffled by the ship’s hull. The only other indication we’d disappeared from the face of the Earth was on the viewscreens.

The world outside was now an endless ocean of arterial red, which we were fully submerged in. Leaning forward, I could make out strands of material or small pieces of debris floating past, but couldn’t identify them.

“I’ve never seen an ocean like this,” Kovalik said. “These waters were not made for us.”

“It looks like they might be made //of// us,” I said.

Melanie tapped her clipboard again. “We don’t know much about this space, yet. We know it’s not Earth. And we know it’s… well, it’s mostly blood, and seawater.” She looked to me. “May we now return, Captain?”

I nodded.

“Perfect!” Reverb said cheerily. “I’d be glad to return us to the Center.”

Nothing happened. I looked to Melanie, but there was concern in her eyes now.

I turned back to the smiling face on the screen. “Reverb, take us back home.”

“I would love to Captain! Returning us home now.”

We didn’t move.

“Reverb,” I said slowly. “We haven’t moved.”

“Ah, my mistake Captain. I see now that I didn’t actually navigate us back to Earth. Let’s navigate back now.”

A long silent moment passed in which the vessel did not move.

Kovalik was standing by a screen, staring at the featureless red expanse. “I’m going to die in this godforsaken hell,” he said, with a voice of quiet certainty.

“Reverb,” Melanie said. “Take us home, now.”

“Great, Doctor! Setting current location to… home.”

When nothing happened, Melanie darted to the front of the room, where a collection of wires terminated in a gray box, into which a single black cable was plugged. She started fumbling with the wires.

“Reverb,” I said, standing up. “Navigate this vessel back to the graving dock of the Shark Punching Center… on Earth.”

At last, we heard the thrusters spin, and the ballast pumps working.

From the movement of the debris, I could tell we were rising. The light grew brighter, as though were were about to breach the surface of the blood sea, but when we broke through, the graving dock was waiting on the other side. The only clues that we’d travelled anywhere at all were the clinging wisps of blood gently unspooling from the hull into the dark water.

Kovalik sank into a chair and stared at the floor. I sat down too.

“Let’s not go back there until we need to,” I said.

“I’d love to, Captain!” Reverb said. “Returning us back to–”

Melanie grabbed the black cable and wrenched it out of the box.

“Ah, I seem to have lost functional control of the submarine, Captain. Please try again later.”

None of us spoke. Melanie was crouched by the box, still holding the plug. “I know that wasn’t ideal,” she said quietly, standing to face me. “But we can train him to be better. We need to, if we want to stand a chance of intercepting Mister Hands. The calculations required to navigate that space would take us years, but Reverb does it in seconds… when he actually does it, at least.”

I stood up again. “Fine. I want to see the training schedule, and a manifest of everything we’ve taught this thing to do so far. We need to test its abilities rigorously before we can rely on it.”

“Rely on //him//,” she said, then added “Captain,” with a theatrical curtsy.

“Kovalik – I'll meet you back at the dock,” I said. “Melanie… a word.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 8. Respect

I decided to use the submarine’s briefing room; my quarters felt somehow inappropriate. By the time I’d closed the door behind us, she was already sitting at the opposite end of the long wooden table.

“I’m all ears, Captain.”

“Enough, Melanie.”

“I don’t–”

“I said //enough//. I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday. I was out of line and I apologize.”

She said nothing.

“But we can’t go on like this,” I continued. “This is your project. You recommended //me// to the Admiral. Why? There are other captains. Why would you want me here?”

She traced her finger over the tabletop.

“You were the only one they’d accept,” she said, without looking up. “This project was hard to sell. I needed a name that would inspire confidence, and that was you. They trust you.”

I should have felt pride, but there was something disappointing about her answer.

“I see,” I said. “So you’re stuck with me, then.”

She looked up. “I’ve been working in a basement these last ten years, Lindsay. My department might seem like a joke to you now, but it was //nothing// when I inherited it. Maybe I haven't planned for every variable the way you do, but this is how progress is made. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith."

She stood, and started pacing.

"I want to get out there and help," she said. "I //know// we can. I hate that so many people had to die for me to get this chance, but that's why this project //has// to succeed.”

“Then help me,” I said. “The rest of the crew will be here in two days, so cut the theatrics. We're not kids anymore. Say what you want in private, but when we're in mixed company, I'm the captain. If I can't maintain the crew's respect, your project will die before we leave port.”

She paused.

“Fair enough,” she said.

“We //will// succeed,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “But the crew will need guidance. They're not used to working with deviants or… why are you rolling your eyes?”

“Because they //already// use deviants, you all do. You use them every day you put on one of those exosuits. Or use medical gel, or–”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” I said. “We’ve had exosuits for decades.”

“It’s deviant technology, they’d never work without it. Even our buildings use deviant materials – how do you think skyscrapers are made? The Center spent millions on shell companies and cover stories to keep it all a secret. But we don’t have time for their stupid conspiracy now.”

I felt my face grow flushed. Blood was pulsing in my temples.

“You don’t understand,” I said. It was like she’d told me my left arm was actually that of a shark. “Our exosuits are… in the field, your fists are the only thing you can trust–”

“But that’s the point!” She leaned on the table. “You //can// trust them. You do, every day. You reap the benefits of deviant research, while proudly announcing that you’re ridding the world of them.”

“Listen, Melanie,” I got to my feet. “I understand, but the crew, our pugilists... they won't. They're not ready for it. Keep this to yourself for now. Understood?”

She bristled, but eventually nodded.

“Aye aye, captain,” she said quietly.

[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 9. The Crew

On the day that our crew reported for duty, the Shark Punching Center issued a new edict, affirming that the use of deviants in combat was now considered honorable, provided the safety of civilians and pugilists was properly accounted for. It announced Opus Legion as the first project of a new global initiative to utilize every useful deviant in our war against the sharks: Operation Mythos Hoedown.

Melanie was radiant, declaring it was a leap forward for humanity.

I was frustrated by the vague wording, and the likelihood that careless pugilists might start seeking out deviants they were unprepared to safely use.

Kovalik was furious, along with about half the crew. They’d signed up for Opus Legion with the understanding that it would be a temporary solution to the Mister Hands crisis, but the Center had made clear they had larger plans. We had to break up a squabble in the mess hall in which a junior engineer had threatened to punch the Ref himself.

“Not to worry, Captain,” Kovalik told me privately afterwards. “The crew will settle once we bring the Admiralty around to our way of thinking. They’ll see the truth of it yet, once we remind them what our pugilists can do. We’ll beat this monster with our fists, and the natural products of our ingenuity – our ships, harpoons and exosuits.”

I could have told him then. It would have saved a great deal of pain if I had. //Our exosuits aren’t natural; perhaps none of our tools are//. But I believed I was granting him mercy, to be unburdened by the hypocrisy of those we served.

Work began in earnest. I created daily training drills to prep the crew for every conceivable scenario. We ran demanifestation cycles, practicing rapid deployment from the graving dock to various bodies of water around the world. We practiced emergency underwater escape routines, but I stopped short of asking anyone to swim in that blood sea, even for a practice drill.

Melanie had a long list of deviants to be integrated, and we started with simpler ones: a coffee machine that could dispense 12 ounces of any liquid we asked for, which we used for both mechanical fluid resupply and beverage service; a bowl that automatically filled itself with soup, which we added to the rotation for morale; a kitchen funnel that could alter the size of anything that passed through it, which Melanie said would be important later; and a tree that grew a slightly-inferior clone of any object that touched it, with which we could quickly stock our army.

We kept the deadly diving suits in the sub’s airlock – Melanie was unsure if their presence was required for the ship to operate properly – but I insisted they be placed in a secure locker, which only the Commander and I had the key to.

Each new deviant was met with grumblings of resentment from the more devout members of the crew, which I counted on Kovalik to control. I wondered if it had been a mistake to include them in our roster to begin with, but the best pugilists were often the most religious.

I ordered that proper documentation be written for every deviant to avoid further accidents. Reverb attempted to draft some, but I found them overly verbose and too generic to be of use. In the end, I wrote them all myself, capturing the unique containment and handling procedures for each deviant, along with a detailed description of its effects; I called them “Safety Control Processes”.

It was a lot of work, but worth it to ensure there were no more accidents.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]

++ 10. Rose Plastique

//“Alert. Containment breach in progress. All personnel report to safe areas.”//

Alarm klaxons sounded, and spinning beacon lights flashed orange and red throughout the floor.

I hurried down the corridor with Kovalik at my side, our exosuits wheezing and clanking with every step. The corridors weren't built for our suits.

“Melanie's in Hydroponics Lab A. It's just down here.”

We reached a set of double doors and swung them open.

Kovalik pressed his fists together. “What fresh hell…?”

In the corridor beyond were five pink plastic lawn flamingoes, clattering around the linoleum on metal legs. They were crudely made, with painted eyes and beak, and I could make out a ridge down their center where they might have been injection molded. Their stiletto legs had no feet and ended in sharpened points. They were flapping their solid plastic wings in anger, or perhaps distress.

“Let's go slowly,” I said. I took a step forward, my boot hitting the floor with a thunk.

The flamingoes opened their mouths as though to scream, though the only sound they made was of rattling plastic and scraping metal.

Then they attacked. They came at us fast, kicking with their pole legs as though they were rapiers.

Two of them closed in on me. I ducked out of the way of one kick, but the other flamingo jammed its leg right through a joint in my leg armor and drew blood.

“Alright then, we fight,” I said.

The flamingo that stabbed me spread its wings and leaned forward to bite. I grabbed hold of its beak and swung the bird like an axe against the wall, snapping its neck clean off. I turned to the second and curled a downwards hook that knocked its head from its body. They both lay still.

At my side, Kovalik push kicked the third flamingo into the remaining two, and all of them scattered like bowling pins. Before they could pick themselves up, we charged forward together, elbowing them out of the way and bursting through the double doors at the far end.

//“Alert. Containment breach in progress. All personnel report to safe areas.”//

Goran shook his head. “They’re disgusting. They fight with beak and sword, bleeding us like sharks.”

“Agreed,” I said. "But they fight with their own limbs... the Refs approved it. We have to destroy the monster's eye – and until we find a way to drop exosuits from the sky, these birds are our best option."

Besides, I thought, there is something strangely impressive about them. Though they were a fraction of our size, they didn’t hesitate to throw themselves against us. //I could use a squad of pugilists with half their fighting spirit.//

We came to the doors of Hydroponics Lab A, and Kovalik stopped at the door. "I can scarce see how a handful of these birds will fell the beast. It would take an army."

He pushed open the door, and we were hit by a deafening noise, like ten thousand typewriters hammering at once.

The lab was a vast rectangular room, with a field of artificial grass lit by bright white lights suspended from the ceiling. In the center of the room, barely visible, was a tall apple tree with long pink apples growing from its branches. Swarming around the tree was a flock of hundreds upon hundreds of flamingoes, running rampant across the floor and over each other, flapping their wings and snapping their beaks.

//“Alert. Containment breach in progress. All personnel report to safe areas.”//

Around the edges of the room, I caught glimpses of Center researchers pressed up against the walls, covering their heads with their arms. And in the furthest corner, I saw Melanie waving to us across an ocean of swirling pink plastic.

A phone was ringing. I looked to my left, and saw one installed by the door.

I picked it up. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Melanie said. I often forgot she could call from anywhere, and was always surprised to hear her voice. “We have to stop the cloning. They’re multiplying out of control. We brought a few of them in here so we could make more, but… well you can see how that went.”

I looked at the apple tree again – the pink fruits were actually flamingoes, swelling on its branches and dropping to the ground to immediately join the fray. Every time a flamingo brushed against the trunk, another pink fruit began to grow.

“How?”

“There’s a safety switch in the control room. But none of us can reach it. It’s on the opposite side of the room from where you are.”

I saw the stairs she was referring to, across a whirling blender of steel poles. There were several lifeless bodies on the floor, which the flamingoes were running over heedlessly.

“We need to control them somehow,” I said. “These exosuits don’t offer much protection. What do you know about them?”

“I…” she stuttered. “Well they don’t like loud sounds, for a start.”

I turned to Kovalik. “Find a way to turn off the alarm, fast.”

He nodded, turned and ran down the corridor, barging through another set of double doors. I saw him clothesline a flamingo before the doors swung shut. Then I waited.

//“Alert. Containment breach in progress. All–”//

The alarms were silenced. The flashing lights stopped. All that remained was the sound of rattling plastic, but it grew quieter too. The flamingoes slowed, no longer flapping their wings.

But the tree was still cloning more flamingoes. I looked to the control room, and took a step forward.

Immediately, ten or more birds hurled themselves at me, pecking and stabbing. I blocked as best I could with my armored forearm, stumbled back into the hallway and let the doors close. They didn’t attempt to follow.

//My exosuit is too loud//, I thought.

I took a deep breath, and unbuckled the straps that secured me in the exosuit, and slid out onto the ground. I unlaced my boots, and stepped across the linoleum in my socks to slowly push the doors open again.

The flamingoes were silent, idly stalking around each other and pecking at the ground as if to find food.

//How’s this for a leap of faith Melanie?//

I waded slowly into the crowd. Flamingoes closed in on all sides, and brushed up against the bare skin of my arms, but they moved aside without complaint.

I was chest-deep in a sea of plastic. One of the flamingoes carelessly walked over my foot, sending the metal spike through the sock, skin and muscle between the bones of my feet.

I bit my clenched fist to stop from calling out.

At last I reached the far side and limped up the stairs. On the console in the dark control room, I found the safety shut-off button.

I looked through the glass window at the field of flamingoes quietly roaming, and was struck by a strange feeling. At this distance, they were indistinguishable from real birds. It was hard to deny that deviants were a form of life too, albeit a strange one, as wild and spirited and free as we humans were.

I pressed the button, and a fence rose around the tree while a cage descended over it, blocking the flamingoes from going near. The sound made them swarm again briefly, and when they did, I noticed a spot in the room they were all avoiding; it was an exposed coolant pipe, frosted over.

I came down the stairs again, stepping tenderly on my wounded foot, and gestured for the other employees to come slowly around the edge of the room to reach the exit.

When everyone was safely extracted, I found Kovalik in the hallway.

“Send in a team with nets and wire,” I said, “Padded armor, no exosuits. And fire extinguishers – they don’t like the cold.”

I turned to Melanie, who was covered in cuts and scratches. “We need to make shoes for these birds.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 11. Sinus Homestead

“They've identified the head and torso,” I said, leafing through the briefing document on the desk in my office. “Apparently Mister Hands was once Tariq Makhdum, a courier from Karachi. Abducted in a shark raid six months ago.”

“And the arms, ma'am?” Kovalik asked.

I flipped a page, then flipped it back again. “We may never know.”

“So it's true," he said. "The sharks are experimenting on us. They’re turning us into monsters.”

I nodded, and he shook his head distastefully. After a moment, he cleared his throat.

“Captain, I...” He paused. For the first time, Kovalik seemed unsure of his words. “It’s the most peculiar thing, but... I think you ought to hear it.”

“Go ahead.”

“On my life, when I sleep in my bunk on the ship, I awake to find some spectre standing over me. I thought I'd imagined it, but last night I saw him plain. A pale man, with his mouth–”

“Sewn shut, yes I see him too.”

“You…” he stuttered, his face as white as his beard. “You mean to say he's //real//?”

“Yes. Melanie says the ship’s just spent too long in that extra-dimensional space. He should be harmless though. Apparently he just likes to watch.”

Kovalik said nothing, his face a picture of horror.

There was a knock at the door, and Melanie entered, followed by a thin woman with one arm. I stood up.

“Captain," she said. "I’d like you to meet Ariel Donner.”

I reached forward and shook the woman's hand. I could tell from her posture she was a pugilist, or used to be one.

"Glad to have you," I said. "I understand you're the solution to our storage problem." I gestured to her arm. “You’re a purple glove?”

She nodded, and raised her hand in a fist. “A shark. But it didn’t have a chance to enjoy it. Ready to get back on the front lines." She looked to Melanie. "You said you've got a way to get these corpses out my nose?”

Melanie nodded. "I hope so. Let's go take a look."

Down in the lab, Melanie's team examined Ariel's nose with an endoscope. Though she was an ordinary human, her left nostril was a portal leading to an abandoned war bunker.

“We don’t know which bunker it is,” Melanie explained with her eye to the scope. “Somehow it’s become untethered from wherever it used to be. It’s a normal size… it's only the portal that's tiny. But from what we can see of the bodies inside, we can guess they were Federicos."

“Why does she have a fascist war bunker in her nose?” I asked.

“Hell if I know,” Ariel said. “I didn’t ask for it. I just woke up one day with this godawful smell.”

Melanie nodded. “There’s a second portal in there that leads from the bunker to the rest of her nasal passage. When we found her, she had severe pneumonia. The filters we installed keep her safe, but I think we may have a better solution now.”

Melanie’s team used the cloning tree with the orange plastic funnel we’d collected earlier, assembling them together into one giant funnel; one end was two metres tall, the other was barely a centimetre. Even though the funnel was cone shaped, from the inside it appeared perfectly cylindrical. Anything entering one end would be resized – through means nobody could comprehend – to match the aperture on the other end.

Ariel sat on a stool with the small end in her nose, while the big end provided a human-sized entryway.

There was a problem, though. The funnel could shrink a person, but there was nothing on the other side to size them up again. While inside the bunker, they were ants in a vast desert of rotting giants. Removing the bodies would be impossible.

In the cathedral of a skeletal ribcage, we built a forward operating base: Sinus Homestead. We set up tents for safe working areas, but otherwise the air was foul-smelling and toxic. Anyone stationed there for more than a few hours required breathing apparatus.

Even when the base was ready, many of our pugilists refused to enter Ariel’s nose. I pressed Kovalik into service, and he arranged for a priest to cleanse the space with holy smelling salts. It did nothing to purify the air, but the troops seemed satisfied.

Watching Ariel sit patiently on the stool, reading a book while troops and supplies poured in and out of her nose, I was struck by her resolve. It was clear that it wore on her, but she wouldn't admit to it; she merely said she was glad to be fighting sharks again.

With her apparatus connected to the deployment bay doors, we could deploy an army of exosuits from the top of Opus Legion. She was the linchpin of our strategy to destroy Mister Hands.

----

Melanie threw open the doors and sprinted down the corridor, with Kovalik and I keeping pace behind. There was no time for suits – we would have to rely on our combat gauntlets.

"Where is she?" I said.

"In her quarters. Reverb spotted it on the security camera. We might already be too late."

"How did these hostiles get into the Center?"

Melanie looked back at me incredulously. "They //work// here, Lindsay. They're your crew."

We reached Ariel's quarters – a spacious apartment reserved for guests. The living room was strewn with discarded food containers, scattered paperwork and pieces of Center equipment.

The hallway ended with closed doors to the left and right. Against the wall was a spool of coiled rope connected to a Center-issued harpoon, the tip blunted to regulation standards.

There was a crash from the bedroom to our right, and sounds of a struggle.

Without our suits, a wall entry was impossible. I signalled to Kovalik: “Breach protocol, form 2-3.”

He nodded, and I kicked open the door to the bedroom. Two men were holding Ariel.

I pushed into the room and Kovalik followed, moving left to cover the corner. One of the assailants shoved Ariel into the back corner and rushed toward me, fist raised. I parried his punch, pulled him forward and drove my metal fist into his elbow, snapping his arm. He screamed, and my followup jab connected with his face, knocking him bloodied to the floor where he lay still. He was wearing a Center uniform.

Behind me, Kovalik was scrapping with an assailant who’d been hiding in the corner. He delivered an uppercut that lifted their feet off ground, and they crashed backwards into a wardrobe. The new breach protocol had worked.

“Ariel!” Melanie shouted from the doorway.

I looked to the far corner – the third hostile was now holding a knife to Ariel's throat. She elbowed him in the stomach, and he doubled over. She spun to hook his jaw, but he intercepted the punch and wrenched her back into his grip, pinning her arm behind her.

I recognized the man – Senior Middleweight Foley, an exosuit squad leader.

“Don’t move!” he said, with the knife back at her throat. “Not another step, Captain.”

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Melanie screamed.

“You’re a pugilist,” I said. “What do you think you're doing?”

“I won't go back in there!” His voice cracked with desperation. "I'm sorry Captain. They're the pits of hell itself. We're cursed for going in there, all of us!"

Ariel grunted. "Suck it up. That's what duty means." His arm tightened around her throat. "You think I //want// you in my nose all day?" she rasped.

“Easy son,” Kovalik said, his hands open in a display of trust. “Easy now. That's an employee of the Center you’re holding.”

“She's a fucking //deviant//! What you're making us do... we're unclean! None of us will make it to the ring!”

I raised my hands too, slowly removing the gauntlets. “Listen, Foley. We can fight this out like honorable folk. You want off the project? It's done. But we’re pugilists – we don't use knives. You know that.”

I thought I saw some kind of understanding dawning in his eyes, and hoped we might still defuse the situation. But it wasn’t understanding – it was the peace of resolute determination. Certainty. Conviction.

He raised the knife higher. “For the glory of the haymak-”

His head exploded in a shower of skull and brains that sprayed across the back wall. The ragged remains of his neck spouted blood and the body toppled backwards.

Ariel slowly wiped his blood from her face with her sleeve, and looked down at the corpse.

Behind her, deeply embedded in the wall, was the harpoon, still attached to a taut length of rope which divided the room. I looked back and saw the other end was held in Melanie’s hands.

Kovalik spoke first. “What in god’s name have you done, woman?”

“I saved my friend,” she said. She held up her right hand, on which she was wearing the deviant glove. “He was about to kill her.”

“You threw a projectile in a bout of combat!” he yelled, stepping towards her. "Is it not enough that we corrupt ourselves with these profanities, you want to abandon the //rules// as well?"

I held out my hand to stop him. "It's distasteful," I said. “But the use of harpoons is permitted. So long as the rope is attached, it's an extension of your arm.”

Kovalik clenched his fists and spoke through gritted teeth. "You speak for the Refs now, ma'am?"

"Just stating the rules," I said calmly. "You know them better than I do, Commander. Why don't you go ask a Ref yourself, while we clean up here?"

He stared daggers at Melanie, but couldn’t seem to find any other words. He marched out of the room and slammed the door.

[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 12. Taking a Leap

Melanie was pacing in my quarters. It was a small space, so she was practically walking in circles. I closed the door behind me quietly.

“You know I don’t agree with Goran,” I said. “But we have to take his concerns seriously. He speaks for a lot of the crew.”

"Speaks for them? I guarantee it was his idea to kill her in the first place. Do you still let him perform those sacrifices? Purifying the ship by gutting some defenseless fish?"

I considered my answer carefully.

"We can trust Goran. We need to."

She continued pacing for a moment, then turned to me. “I read the Safety Control Process you wrote, for Rose Plastique… the flamingoes.”

“I… yes?”

“You said to avoid loud noises. And not to spray them unless necessary, and to avoid damaging their wings..." She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and opened it. "You said, ‘though they are prone to fits of rage, their violent outbursts are never without cause.’”

“How long have you been carrying that around?” I held up my hands in confusion. “Were those instructions not accurate?”

She put the paper away carefully, and stepped closer.

“No, it //was// accurate, I just…" she looked down at her hands. "It’s a side of you I don’t often see. You’re starting to get it – you can see they’re alive, in their own way. You’re protecting them like you protect your crew.”

I hadn’t noticed. “I suppose I am."

She looked up into my eyes. “If you don’t agree with Goran, you should challenge him directly.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “The crew follow //you//, Lindsay. They hang on your word. Show them deviants aren’t some evil curse.”

I sighed, and pulled back. “I wish I could, Mel. We’re barely holding them together as it is. They think when they die the Haymaker weighs them in for their final bout, and that if they’ve been corrupted by deviants they won't be allowed in. They think they’re gambling eternal damnation – they're //scared//. If I’m to protect them, I have to at least respect them.”

She paused, and turned away.

“You’re afraid of them,” she said. “You’re always so careful, about everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She sat down on my bunk. “I know I was cruel to you, after…” she trailed off and said nothing for a moment.

“Say it.”

She looked up. “What I mean is, Bodega Bay was hard on you, on all of us, and maybe we dealt with it in our own ways. Even though you weren’t in command–”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said reflexively. “Hereford took the fall, but we can’t pretend we didn’t agree with him.”

“Of course. We wanted to //help// those people, that's what made it so painful. Watching them age backwards, until they were just–”

“Stop,” I said, my heart pounding. “Please Mel, I can't.”

“Look, we //all// fucked up, okay? I'll carry that weight forever. But the way it affected you… it changed you. You were unsure. You started to hesitate – I had never known you to do that before. And I know it’s unfair, but… I missed the old you. The Lindsay that would jump into action without a second thought.”

I sat on the bunk next to her. From the all-encompassing smell of licorice, something else came through. Eucalyptus mint: she was still using the same shampoo. Its icy sting recalled warm, quiet nights when I would fall asleep with my nose nestled in her neck. The only time I felt safe.

“But this isn't about what I want,” she said. “Or what I miss.” She looked in my eyes. “You can’t afford to hesitate anymore, Lindsay. There won’t always be time for you to weigh the risks. We all need you to remember how you were before. How to take a leap. Even if you don’t know the outcome. To be–”

I kissed her.

It was strange, awkward. I used to do it every day without a thought, but it now felt harder than climbing a mountain. My hands were shaking. Her body was a foreign language to me now; I’d miscalculated.

“There’s the Lindsay I remember,” she whispered.

She put her arms around my neck, and kissed me back – warmly, desperately – and the doubt was gone. I remembered again how we fit together, and how completely the world beyond our arms would dissolve when she was holding me.

She paused, put her head against mine. “I lied, earlier. About why I recommended you for the project. There were other captains. But you were the only one I thought I could actually convince. The only one who might come to see the beauty in the things we can’t understand.”

We sat in silence for a time.

“Mel… do you think we can start over?”

She sat up slowly, pulling at her braid with one hand after the other. Then she came back to me.

“Ask me again after we kill this thing, okay?”

In that moment, I could have beaten the monster to a pulp with my bare fists.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 13. The Battle of Toronto

“Hello, all hands! I’m delighted to share with you all an urgent message from Center command. Please report to battle stations immediately. The monster known as Mister Hands has returned.”

Crew moved swiftly around the ship with practiced fluidity, slipping around each other in the cramped corridors without colliding. I found Melanie and Kovalik waiting in the conn.

“Give us the report, Reverb,” I said.

“Certainly. The report is as follows. Mister Hands attacks again, stop. Emerged Lake Ontario, stop. Attacking Toronto, stop. Divisions 8 and 10 engaged. And that’s the end of the message!”

“This is it,” I said. I lifted the intercom. “All hands, prepare for battle.”

“It’s not ready,” Melanie said, frantically leafing through papers on a clipboard. “There's... at least twenty components still to collect. The clockwork, the butler, the exclusion suit–”

I looked to Kovalik.

"We are being called to the ring,” he said. “We have no choice but to answer."

I nodded. “The sub is ready. We go now.”

----

We surfaced in the middle of Lake Ontario. Toronto’s squat brown buildings peppered the shore a mile away, windows glinting in the sun. Hulking before them on the shore, in the pale flesh, was our foe.

Seeing him now in person – even through the medium of the viewscreen – felt different. He was far bigger than my mind could have imagined, and he moved too quickly. He was a mountain of fingers and teeth, and we hoped to fell him with pebbles. As we watched, the monster’s eye glowed brightly, and a beam of fire lanced out, slicing a building in half.

The lights in the conn were dim and red for battle. I was ready for a fight.

“Sound the bell,” I said.

The Ref hit the bell.

“Round one!” He yelled.

“Ho!” echoed the crew in unison.

The Ref retrieved his ceremonial steel chair from against the wall, unfolded it, and took a seat.

“Reverb,” I said. “Get us in closer. Evasive maneuvers as needed.”

We dematerialized and resurfaced. We were still some five hundred feet from the creature, but he filled the viewscreen. Five or six of his hands were shaking a building, apparently trying to pry it from the ground. The columns on the building's facade fell like timber and shattered on the streets.

“Deploy exosuits,” I ordered.

On the top of Opus Legion, the deployment bay doors opened. An army of fifty exosuits marched out of Ariel's nose and up the stairs.

In their subaquatic heavy combat armor and rebreather helmets, they barely looked human. A thousand feet of coiled rope hung on each armored back beside colossal harpoon guns. They dropped into the water and tore off towards the shore, propelled by airjets around their waist.

Mister Hands finally tore the top of the building off, and hurled it into another. His hands reached inside and pulled out civilians that he threw into his mouth.

He didn't notice the exosuits assembling around him, marching against the flow of fleeing civilians like rocks in a stream. On the magnified viewscreen I saw a civilian fall at the feet of a Bravo squad member, apparently thanking them for the rescue, but the pugilist pushed them aside and readied their harpoon gun. //Well trained//, I thought.

“Let’s get his attention, I said. “Launch the noisemaker.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” called Lieutenant Savage, from the weapons console to my left.

A rocket launched from the rear of the submarine, streamed high into the sky and exploded with an enormous bang. Colored lights trailed from the explosion, crackling loudly. Mister Hands stopped mid-chew. He pulled his massive body around to look at us.

“Fire harpoons.”

Fifty harpoons fired at once from the exosuits, piercing the monster’s hands, arms, head, neck and back. His red eye couldn’t express surprise, but his hands flailed wildly in apparent confusion.

The ropes went taut, and for a moment, he was held perfectly still.

Then he gathered his strength, and started to wriggle loose. A rope snapped. Then another.

“Target the eye,” I said.

Ten designated exosuits arranged in formation on the shore fired harpoons directly at his eye, but they glanced off his brow, dug into the rings of his eye socket, or pierced his nose. His eye was too protected.

Another rope snapped, then ten more. One of his hands came free and swept the other ropes away. Exosuits that were too slow in detaching from the rope were hurled into the air and crashed into buildings or the lake.

Mister Hands started clambering across the streets again.

“They’re not enough,” Melanie said. “We need the torpedoes.”

I thought of what the flamingoes might do, raining down on the city. The shoes we’d made for them had a tendency to fly off.

“We just need more exosuits,” Kovalik said. “We’ve still got a hundred in reserve. Send them all, Captain.”

“Wait! He’s turning back. He’s coming back to the lake.”

For a moment, Mister Hands seemed to be looking directly at us. Then he looked left to right, seemingly scanning the water for something. He must have found what he wanted, because he pulled himself into the lake and disappeared beneath the surface.

“Mister Hands is no longer in the lake,” said Reverb.

“All hands, stand down but remain alert,” I said. “The monster has retreated.”

The crew cheered. Civilians on shore were shouting and waving.

Our exosuits strode back into the water, climbed the side of the ship and filed back into Sinus Homestead to re-arm.

“Great news, Captain! The Toronto mayor would like to speak with you, likely as an expression of gratitude for defending–”

“Thank you, Mr. Reverb,” I said. “The mayor can wait. Once everyone is aboard, take us back to the Center.”

“Aye aye, Captain!”

Melanie shook her head. “We got lucky. We all know we weren’t ready for him.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 14. Theta Team

“Captain, a moment if I may.”

“Make it quick, Goran. We have to restock and prepare. He could strike again at any moment.”

“The harpoons would have worked, ma’am. This is the opportunity of which we spoke, some time ago.”

“Goran, I–”

“Please ma’am, if you’ll hear me out.”

Crew members streamed past us in the corridor.

“Not here,” I said. “My quarters.”

I closed the door behind us.

“Let’s hear it then.”

“You saw how the harpoons held it. That’s just the strategy we need. We can finish this without resorting to… well we both know the torpedoes are not to be used. I saw how you hesitated and it was well you did. Who knows who they might injure? They might even side with Hands himself – they crawled out of the same abyss.”

“Do you have an alternative solution? There’s no other way to strike the eye.”

“We can climb it, ma’am. We’ll use the exosuits. Theta Team will climb its face while Bravo squad holds it down. We’ve already run the training drills, they know what to do. I only ask that you trust in our people, ma’am. Have they not fought for by our side for years?”

“It’s risky,” I said. “And truth be told, Goran, I don't share your disgust for deviants. We need to use whatever works right now.”

“But you care for //safety//, Captain, do you not? If I may, the woman I've known some fifteen years would recognize the danger these torpedoes pose to civilians, and to our own pugilists.”

“Watch your tone, Commander. You go too far.”

“Captain…” He was desperate. “Ma’am… I implore you to listen. We must stop this while we still can. You may trust the deviants, but can you trust whoever uses them next? Do you trust the Admiralty to exercise restraint?”

I pictured Admiral Strik in his white golfing shorts, using Melanie's glove to cheat at cornhole.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Look, Goran…” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I'll give it some thought. Clear?”

He smiled with relief and nodded. “Aye, ma'am. We'll show our true colors this day. Salient times indeed.”

The emergency alarm sounded.

//”Captain to the conn immediately. Captain to the conn.”//

When I entered the conn, everyone was staring at the viewscreens. We were back in the blood sea, but we weren’t alone.

“He doesn’t seem to have noticed us,” Melanie said. “Or he just doesn’t care we’re here.”

Mister Hands was barely visible through the murky red soup, pulling himself through the blood and water with all of his limbs. Then he breached the surface and disappeared.

“Mr Reverb, do you know where he went?”

”Yes, Captain. Based on his trajectory, he would have surfaced from Ten Mile Sump, the lagoon situated next to the headquarters of the Shark Punching Center.”

“We’re out of time,” I said. “It’s now or never.”
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 15. Battle for the Center

We surfaced in the middle of Ten Mile Sump. Oil-slick water slid over Opus Legion’s hull. It was not water anyone should swim in.

Mister Hands had already pulled himself from the lagoon and was approaching the great silver fist of the Center headquarters. He plowed through two factories, which crumbled to ruins in his wake.

The Ref rung the bell. “Round two!”

“Ho!”

Two battleships were stationed on the lagoon already, on either side of us. They fired deck-mounted harpoon guns that tore deep into the monster’s back. He turned to face them, and his hands flailed wildly, ripping the harpoons out as quickly as they fired them in. He pulled the roof off a nearby factory and hurled it at a battleship, catching it midship and tearing the harpoon gun off the deck.

“We have to get behind him,” I said. “Reverb, find somewhere we can surface. All hands, prepare for exosuit deployment.”

We were sucked into the ocean of blood once again, and broke the surface. The water drained from the viewscreen cameras to reveal rolling hills of green and a minigolf course.

We were in the Admiralty pool. Panicked admirals in swimsuits were swimming away from the surfaced submarine, climbing over each other to get out of the pool and running in every direction.

The bay doors opened and a squad of exosuits crashed into the water. They vaulted onto dry land and ran to take positions around the edge of the roof, collapsing the pool walls under their weight and tearing up the turf.

We dematerialized and reappeared at the edge of the lagoon to offload additional squads. Reverb sent us to three other locations, deploying over a hundred armored pugilists at strategic locations.

“Is that all of them?”

“Almost,” said Kovalik. “There’s one squad left to deploy Captain.”

Mister Hands seemed to spot us for the first time. He dropped the slabs of concrete he was holding and turned to face us. His eye burned a bright red, and a spear of white-hot light danced across the lagoon, vaporizing the water.

He was too slow. Reverb remanifested us half a mile away. We watched exosuits moving into position at his feet, while his eye stayed fixed on us.

“Keep him distracted,” I said. “It’s working.”

Mister Hands charged another piercing beam of fire, and Reverb remanifested us again. Then another beam split the lake – but we were already on the south side, then the north, then back at his feet again.

He paused for a moment, perhaps thinking. He reached his many hands up to his back, where some kind of sack was attached. He pulled out several orbs and threw them into the sky – over the lake, over the factories, and several towards the Center.

“What are those?” Kovalik asked.

“Ah, great question, Commander! While it’s impossible to know for sure, there are couple of likely candidates for what the pods might contain. For instance–”

A pod fell onto the shore in front of us and burst in a shower of water. It was full of sharks.

“That’s the last exosuit squad deployed, Captain,” said Kovalik. “They’ll engage the sharks first.”

We watched a pod arc high into the air above us. I looked to another screen; the deployment bay doors on top of Opus Legion were still open.

“Reverb, close the deployment bay doors.”

“Sure Captain! Closing them now.”

The doors didn't move. The pod burst in the air, and five sharks rained down from the sky.

I stood. “Reverb! Close the deployment bay doors!”

“Ah, my apologies, Captain. I see now that I didn't close the doors.”

The conn shook as four sharks landed directly on the ship and climbed towards the open doors on our back.

“I'll close the doors now,” Reverb said.

Two sharks slithered inside before the doors clamped shut.

“Intruder alert!” Kovalik shouted into the intercom. “All hands prepare to repel boarders!”

I watched on the screen as the two sharks trashed the cargo room, claws ripping down shelves and tentacles whipping crates around. One of them disappeared through the hatch, deeper into the ship. The other snapped at Ariel and Sergeant Austin, who were fending it off with a metal shield.

“Rob!” Ariel’s voice came through the speakers in the conn. “Get in my nose, lure it in!” she yelled. “Trust me!”

She put her nose to the funnel, and Sergeant Austin darted inside without hesitation.

“Come on you bastard!” Austin yelled behind him. He threw his shield at the shark and caught its back. It turned from the hatch and followed him into the funnel.

I took a step closer to the screen, my fists clenched.

Ariel pulled away from the funnel and reached her thumb and index finger into her nose, slowly peeling out a long thin tentacle, followed by the rest of the shark, which was now the size of her thumb. She dropped it on the ground and drove the knuckles of her fist into it.

Melanie pointed at the other screens. “Captain, look!”

The second shark was tearing through the corridors of the sub, shredding pipes, wires, and crew members.

Lieutenant Savage pointed to one of the screens. “It's headed straight for–”

The shark burst into the conn, wrapping its giant mouth around the Lieutenant and biting his torso in half.

Melanie threw her clipboard: the edge of it crushed one of the shark's black eyes.

It stumbled forward, tripping over Reverb's wires and landing on the floor at the Ref's feet. He stood, folded his steel chair and drove it into the shark’s skull, crushing the pearl inside.

The Ref nodded, then went to kneel by the lifeless body of Lieutenant Savage.

“He's looking right at us,” Kovalik shouted. On the screen, Mister Hands was looming over the ship. “Evasive maneuvers, Reverb!”

“I'm sorry Commander, I seem to have lost control of the ship.”

“His wire’s unplugged!” Melanie yelled, pointing.

The conn shook violently as two sets of hands grabbed hold of us, and pulled the submarine clean out of the water. We were lifted hundreds of feet in the air, held over his head.

The room turned upside down. I hit the ceiling hard, and struggled for breath. “Hold on to something!” I rasped.

For a moment, nothing happened. On the screen, I saw the back of Hand’s head, the empty sack of shark pods, and his pale bony back. In the divots of his bones, glimmers of rainbow light were reflecting in the sun: pooled water from the lagoon.

Then he launched us into the sky.

Every loose object in the conn slammed against the wall, including Kovalik, the Ref, the shark’s corpse and both halves of Lieutenant Savage. I held onto a pipe with both hands. Then my feet and legs started to float behind my head.

We were in freefall.

The ground was speeding towards us – we were flying towards a set of brick buildings.

I pushed away from the pipe and drifted across the room, grabbing hold of the center console and using it to pull myself forward, to the grey box at the front of the conn. My hands scrambled along the floor for the black cable.

Every viewscreen was filled with the building we were about to hit.

My fingers closed around the black cable and pulled it up to find the plug.

I jammed the plug into the socket as we crashed through the factory roof.

We were in the blood sea again, and all was silent.

“Thank you Captain! I’ve regained control of the ship. It seems we have taken significant damage.”

I looked around the conn; Melanie, Kovalik and the Ref were still alive, but battered and bloody.

I could barely catch my breath. “The pools of water on its back,” I said. “Take us there, and deploy the thumpers.”

We rushed back to the surface, breaking through from the puddles on Mister Hands’ back. Deployment flaps opened on the sides of the ship, and crews leaned out to secure ten heavy jackhammers, which dug with metal claw feet into his skin.

Then we were gone, and resurfaced back in the lagoon. The hammers began to pound on the flesh and bones of the monster’s back.

He reared up with a long roar, all of his hands reaching back to pull the drills off.

“Now!” I said.

A hundred exosuits fired their harpoons in unison. Every one of his hands was snared and pinned. The exosuits on the Admiralty rooftop harpooned the back of his head and pulled it back. He was stuck.

“Now, Captain!” Melanie said. “Fire the torpedoes!”

Kovalik raised his hand. “Not yet! Look, there’s Theta team!”

A squad of ten exosuits was moving swiftly, scaling the chest of Mister Hands like a vast mountain.

I thought of the flamingoes, and how hard it had been to contain them before. I saw the lifeless bodies on the floor of the Hydroponics Lab, skewered by a hundred daggers. There were exosuits surrounding the monster now, even climbing on him – if we deployed, they would certainly face the birds' wrath as well.

I hesitated.

“Lindsay! What are you doing?”

A harpoon rope snapped, then another. A hand came free. Sharks on the shore pounced on some of the exosuits and forced them to let go of their harpoon ropes. Mister Hands’ head started to roll forward again. Theta team were barely at his neck. They weren’t going to make it.

“Fire the torpedoes,” I said.

Opus Legion reared its nose out of the water, opened the torpedo bays, and fired a streaming volley of gas-propelled plastic lawn flamingoes – fifty, a hundred, two hundred, until the bays were empty. In the air, a timer device snapped the wires that bound them, and their wings spread wide. Pink plastic rained down over Mister Hands just as his head broke loose of the last harpoon and snapped forward.

The flamingoes fell like a carpet on the top of his head, and immediately started to peck and kick. The boots flew off immediately – they were stabbing, piercing, slicing at his flesh, a maelstrom of razor sharp metal perforating the skin and muscles of his face. Car-sized chunks of his body sloughed off and fell to the ground where they exploded in fountains of blood.

The flamingoes hit our people, too. They landed among the battling exosuits and sharks and attacked everyone alike. On the telescopic viewscreen I watched in horror as a flamingo landed directly on the head of a Theta team member, and speared its foot directly through their helmet like opening a tin can.

“Good god,” Kovalik said. “Those are not punches. This is… unnatural.”

The Ref was hunched over the console, his bushy beard smeared with blood from his nose, watching the viewscreen with bloodshot eyes. He shook his head. “Unsporting. Most unsporting.”

Mister Hands pulled himself forward, then reached up to his head and wiped the flamingoes off, taking half of his face with it. His forehead and brow, and most of the upper flesh protecting the eye, fell forward into the lagoon.

Before I could issue another order, he screamed.

The microphones on the submarine cut out, but we could hear it through the hull: the sound of a thousand elephants dying at once.

The ruby in his eye socket turned an iridescent green, and a massive shockwave rippled the air. It shattered windows, sent exosuits flying, and lifted a wave on the lagoon that crashed over us.

An arc of lightning forked from his eye to the surface of the lake, and in an instant the oily water turned to bubbling, vicious green acid.

The two battleships immediately started to capsize, their hulls dissolving like paper. Those unlucky exosuits who were still in the water evaporated.

We could hear the acid eating our own hull. Cracks and metallic groans echoed around the room.

“Get us out of here, Reverb!”

“Certainly Captain!”

Silence. We floated in an expanse of blood once again.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 16. Conviction

“Status report.”

“Captain, I’m sorry to report we’ve suffered extreme damage. The primary and secondary thrusters appear to be inoperable. There are hull breaches and flooding in the lower decks, and the life support system reports a critical pressure loss, indicating lines have been severed.”

“What does that mean? We’re losing air?”

“You're absolutely right. We have approximately two hours of air remaining.”

Ariel appeared at the hatch with Sergeant Austin. “What’s the plan?”

Melanie wiped blood from her eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was hers. “We have to rematerialize,” she said. “Get back to Earth and regroup.”

“Ah, that’s a great idea, Doctor! Unfortunately, without thrusters I can only return us to our previous position, and resurfacing in Ten Mile Sump while it's still in an acid state would rapidly dissolve the hull.”

“We don’t have armor for that kind of thing?” Kovalik asked.

”It was never built for acid,” Melanie said quietly.

Kovalik shook his head and began to pace back and forth. ”This is a curse. We have been blighted, and no mistake.”

”Its eye is exposed!” said Melanie. “If we could fire something at it–”

”A projectile?” said the Ref. “In a combat engagement? It can't be done.”

”Will you stop with your pedantic rules for one moment? The Center is being destroyed as we speak. This is humanity's survival we’re talking about–”

Kovalik slammed his hand against a console. ”It’s your fault we're in this godforsaken sea of blood to begin with, witch! In a cursed vessel no less, inhabited by blasted ghosts!” He gestured to the corner of the room, where the pale man with his mouth sewn had been standing; he disappeared the moment we looked at him. “We are out of the ring!” Kovalik shouted. “We are //entirely// out of the ring!”

”My fault?” Melanie whispered. “If we had launched the flamingoes when I said to–”

“She’s right Goran,” I said. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have hesitated.”

”No Captain.” His eyes were wide, manic. I’d never seen Kovalik this way. “We have been punished. Punished for allowing a wretched crone, an emissary of sharkness to poison our minds, and our weapons of war!” He waved his hands at the screens. “Do you think it an accident that a shark’s creation swims in the same red waters we do? Ask yourself, where did this vessel even come from? And when last did you see Melanie Keane? I knew her many years ago, and //this// woman is not her.”

“Goran–”

“To think we were inches from victory, a pure victory with our own hands! We turned our back on our sacred tools. Our exosuits–”

”Your precious exosuits are powered by deviant energy cores,” Melanie said. “The neural interface is a thaumaturgic contract. Even the fists are hardened with the sap of Yggdrasil.”

He stopped dead.

”Lies!” he hissed, pointing a finger at her. “She lies, Captain–” He looked to me for support, but I gave none, merely shaking my head.

His face fell. ”No… surely not.”

“It's true,” I said. “They use deviant technology. They always have.”

He floundered for a moment, but then found some understanding. “All these years… Captain, don't you see? This is why the monster was sent in the first place! It is our divine punishment. Oh, we are cursed. We are //cursed//!”

I noticed that other crewmembers had appeared at the hatch. This display of emotion was getting out of hand.

"Goran,” I said, stepping between them. “I understand the anger, the betrayal, the fear. I felt it myself when I learned the truth. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. But this is the only way for us to survive. We rely on our suits – we can rely on these deviants. If we're to survive, //this// is what we must become.”

He looked at me sideways. "'Become'… A strange choice of words, Captain.” He paced to the other end of the room. “Of //course// your mind has been changed. They’ve warped it, don't you see?” He pointed to the floor. “We’ve all seen that mural downstairs, in the mess hall. Captain Blunt, victorious–”

“You’re in that mural too–”

“Captain Blunt, the savior with //three arms//. Aye, they painted you as the Haymaker herself. Fuddled your mind with visions of glory. You would let them corrupt your fists so that you may steal the throne of God.”

“That’s //enough//, Goran. This is absurd.”

“Oh but it //is// absurd, Captain. It is //hubris//. It is //blasphemy//. My friend, you have fallen far. But it was not your doing.”

His face showed a strange kind of calm, then. I'd seen it before, in the eyes of the pugilist that almost killed Ariel. Conviction.

“But I yet know the way to save your soul,” he said. “To save all our souls. The Haymaker is merciful. She forgives those who are willing to sacrifice.”

"What more can we possibly sacrifice?" I said, gesturing to the devastation that surrounded us. “The people in the Center need us to–”

”Look if you're both quite finished–” Melanie inserted herself between us, and turned to me. “Lindsay, we have to talk about–”

"I will show you," said Kovalik behind her. “Glory to the Haymaker. Accept this sacrifice to purify our vessel.”

He didn’t hesitate.

In one movement, he unsheathed the shark tooth knife and dragged it across Melanie’s throat, which ran red with a thick sheet of blood.

“Foul!” yelled the Ref. “Unforgivable! Disqualification!”

I didn’t hear his words, didn’t see the crew tackle Kovalik and wrestle the knife from his hands, or the squabble that broke out between the other crewmembers. In that moment there was only Melanie and I, alone in a sea of darkness. I caught her as she fell, pressed my hands to her neck in a frail attempt to stop the bleeding. Her blood pulsed over my hands in hot waves. I pleaded with her to stay with me, to stay awake, to fight. Her wide eyes stared into mine, her mouth opening and closing silently. If she had last words to say, she couldn’t say them.

Her mouth hung open, and the blood stopped pulsing. Her eyes no longer stared at me, but through me. I felt Ariel at my side, saw her hand reach for Melanie’s neck to help. I put my hand on her arm and shook my head.

I stood, my hands sticky with Melanie’s blood. Goran was restrained by two officers.

“She’s gone,” I said, my voice thick. “Ref, count her out, please.”

The Ref nodded, and knelt by Melanie. He raised a hand above his head and brought it down to the bloodstained floor, three times.

“One… two… three.”

He put a hand on her chest. “May your golden gloves shine forever in the hall of fame.” He stood, and put his hand on my shoulder. “She boxes with God now, ma’am.”

“Boxes with God?” Kovalik laughed, his arms still trapped by the officers. “Ha! Chum for the abyss. We’d all be chum too, had I not cleansed this vessel!”

The pain turned to fury. I stepped forward and drew back for a punch, but the Ref put his hand on mine.

“Unsporting,” he said quietly.

I unclenched my fist, and grabbed Kovalik’s collar. “A knife, Goran. A //shark tooth// knife. You’re no pugilist. You’re barely human. If you want to be a shark so badly, go and join them.” I looked to the officers. “Take him to the port airlock.”

There were better ways to handle the situation, but in that moment I had allowed the rage to consume me. I was no longer a captain. I was merely pain and grief and loss, and I would have my revenge. Melanie would have talked me back from the edge; without her, I was uncontrollable.

We dragged him through the corridors. Crewmembers were lying on the floor, huddled in corners. Word spread through whispers; what Melanie had said, and what Goran had done.

We came to the ship's port side airlock and the officers opened the door.

“No,” he said. “Kill me if you must Captain, I did what needed done. But this blood sea is not of our world. It is unclean! It is impurity itself!”

“Then you'll fit right in,” I said, and hooked him in the face. He stumbled back into the airlock. I closed the door and started the cycle process.

Through the porthole I saw bloody water pouring in through the chamber’s floor, and was surprised to find Kovalik retrieving the key to the locker which held the deviant diving suits. He wrenched it open and managed to pull on one of the suits as the water splashed around his waist. He grabbed a helmet and stared at it for a moment. When the water reached his chest, he put it on.

“So //now// you choose survival,” I said numbly.

He stood wearing the suit, staring at his hands. Through the helmet glass I could just make out his face, but his expression was inscrutable. When the outer door finally opened he climbed through, floating out of sight into the ocean.

“Well go on then," I said. "We’re //all// chum for the abyss now.”

Fights broke out across the ship as the crew learned what I'd done and those loyal to Kovalik tried to mutiny, but they were subdued by those still loyal to me. Half the crew had their hands full containing the other half.

I was little help; I wandered through the corridors in a dream.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 17. Answer the Call

Death surrounded me once again.

I stood over the captain’s chair, numb. The mutineers were secure, but our petty squabble had achieved nothing. The Center was being torn apart – humanity’s defense against the sharks was being crippled while we sat stranded in an ocean of blood, much of which was our own.

I looked around the conn, and realized I was waiting for Kovalik to ask a question, or for Melanie to make a sly comment. I couldn’t understand that they were both gone.

"What are you looking at!?" I said to the pale man in the corner, the ship's ghost. He disappeared silently, and I was alone again.

The rest of the ship was quiet. With nothing left to do, the crew had taken to standing idly by. The air had already grown thin. There was no escape, and no way to repair what was broken.

The yellow phone on the captain’s console started to ring.

I had never heard it ring before. I stared in confusion, then lifted the receiver slowly.

“…Hello?”

“Lindsay.”

It was her voice.

“Melanie… where… how are you doing this? I watched you die.”

There was a long pause, filled with hissing static, clicks and pops.

“I told you, Lindsay. I can make a call from anywhere. I’m always connected.”

I had no words.

Eventually some of them tumbled out of my mouth. “Come back to me.”

“We know I can’t do that, Lindsay. But I want you to know it wasn’t your fault. Just my dumb mouth again. You did try to warn me.”

“Mel, where //are// you?”

A long silence, more clicks.

“I don’t think I could tell you if I tried. But it’s not bad. There are no sharks here.”

I looked around the conn.

“We’ve lost,” I said quietly.

“Maybe,” she whispered. “I would tell you I’m sorry I brought you into this, but I’m not. The last few weeks were the most fun I’ve ever had."

Hissing static and clicking.

"I am sorry about one thing though," she said. "I never did learn to throw a punch the way you can. You put your whole weight into it. You don’t hold anything back. Still, you were wrong. You told me war isn’t a game. But it has a referee, and rules. Of course it’s a game, Lindsay. It’s one you’re really, really good at.”

I slowly came to understand what she was telling me. But I couldn’t bear to let her go. The phone was glued to my ear. Nothing in the universe could pry it away in that moment.

“I need you, Mel. Tell me how I can find you. I promise I will.”

Another long pause of static and clicks.

“I’m going to go now, Lindsay. Nail the bullseye for me, okay? And… I love you.”

The line went dead.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="part-header"]]
+ Part III
[[/div]]

[[div class="part3"]]
[[div class="section"]]
++ 18. Round Three

Slowly, I returned the receiver to its cradle, and looked down at where Melanie’s body still lay, in a pool of blood. There, on her right hand, was the white leather glove.

I knelt at her side and tugged it free. “’From your cold dead hands’… right Mel?”

I pulled the glove onto my hand. It was still warm.

I straightened my uniform and hit the intercom. “Attention. This is your Captain speaking. As you may know, Goran Kovalik is no longer aboard this vessel. We’ve all suffered losses. I know you're afraid. Some of you think we're damned. I can't tell you one way or the other. For what it’s worth, I think the Haymaker would be proud of how you've all fought."

I paused. "But to tell you the truth I don't care anymore. You have two choices. Report to Ms Donner’s nose where we have food and supplies, and mostly breathable air, or take a swim in the ocean of blood. Either way, it ends now. I'm going to kill Mister Hands. Thank you.”

The crew filed through the corridors to the cargo bay and climbed one after the other into the funnel. The mutineers, too, were forced kicking and screaming into Ariel’s nose.

“Will you be okay?” I asked her.

She gave a thumbs up. “There's enough air in there for days, and the filters will protect me. It'll be harder for them. We don't have enough masks for everyone. But I’ll keep them safe.”

“Captain Blunt?” It was Sergeant Austin at my side. “What happens to us all, if she…”

“If I die?” Ariel asked. “I was wondering the same thing.”

“We’re not going to find out,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Whether or not I succeed, Reverb will send out a call. The Center will come for you eventually. Just stay put.”

“What will you do?” Ariel asked. “You can’t face that thing alone.”

“I won’t allow the Center to fall,” I said. “And I’m not alone.”

I went to the conn one last time. I took slow deep breaths; there was hardly any air left.

“Reverb, on my mark, you’re going to surface in the lake. Stay just long enough to let me out. The moment my feet leave the ship, you’re to return to the blood sea. If this works, you’ll know when it's safe to resurface. If it doesn’t… someone will clear the lake eventually.”

“Certainly, Captain.”

With the last of the crew secured, Ariel placed a plug over her nose, and nodded to me.

I reached over and rang the bell myself. “Round three.”

“Ho!” said Ariel.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
++ 19. The Punch

From the conning tower airlock, I felt Opus Legion surface one last time. There had been no exosuits left to take, but I couldn’t have risked it anyway.

I pushed open the top hatch, and a rush of foul-smelling air came in from the acid lake. I climbed out onto the surface of my ship, and down the tower ladder onto the rubber hull. The acid was already dissolving the submarine; there was no time to lose.

I looked out at Mister Hands, who was flailing furiously among ruined factories, his face bloody and his eye, red once again, partially exposed. Behind him, the glass and steel fist of the Center was still standing, its four round knuckles thrust triumphantly into the sky.

I took a deep breath, and focused on the eye.

“It’s you and me now, Tariq,” I said. “The game is… boxing. Let’s play.”

I held up my right hand, made a fist, and started to run.

As the edge of the ship grew closer, I felt a flicker of doubt. But whether it worked or not, I had nothing left to lose.

I didn't hesitate.

I jumped, throwing a haymaker with every pound of my body, directly at Mister Hand’s red eye, which was half a mile away and across a lake of acid.

Just as my feet left the hull, a huge wave rippled across the lagoon and caught Opus Legion. Its nose tilted upward, throwing me high into the air. I saw the ship turn to water as Reverb took the crew to safety.

I fell towards the acid lake.

The water of the ship mixed with the acid in some unusual reaction, causing a geyser that erupted beneath me, sending gas and debris flying upwards. A metal door that hadn’t yet dissolved collided with me and threw me higher still.

There was a crack of lightning, and a gale of wind from a freak tornado that sucked me upwards, higher and higher into the black clouds above. The wind howled in my ears. I could see nothing.

Something collided with my shoulder and sent me spinning. Then something else hit me in the head. Another collided with my stomach and I wrestled with it – feathers, feet, a huge beak.

It was a bird: a pelican. A flock of pelicans was stampeding past me through the clouds, and as I fell I landed squarely on one bird’s back.

Immediately my weight sent the bird careening downwards and we fell together. We broke through the clouds, and though we were closer to Mister Hands, we were falling too fast toward the acid lake below.

Seeing us, Mister Hands let out a roar, his hot breath forming a thermal that the bird's wings found purchase in, allowing us both to glide some of the remaining distance before the bird again started to drop.

We fell, hurtling towards his hands at a hundred miles an hour, just as the remaining flock of flamingoes took flight, swarming into the sky toward us. I was battered and pounded by wave after wave of flying plastic, and the pelican disappeared from beneath me, but the flamingoes slowed my descent, and when they finally cleared I landed with a thump into the soft fleshy palm of one of Mister Hands’ hands.

He looked down at me greedily, and tried to toss me into his mouth, but he threw too hard.

I sailed through the air over his gaping mouth – a chasm of darkness and teeth under my feet – and flew past it, over his nose and down toward his eye.

The crystal was a tall and thin octagonal shape, twice my height and as thick as a car. My bare fist and the entire weight of my body collided with it, and instantly shattered the bones in my hand and forearm without leaving a dent.

With my right hand useless, I slid helplessly down the concentric flesh rings and out of his eye socket, but caught hold of the edge with my left hand, and planted my legs on the bridge of his nose.

I had nothing left. All I could do was hold on, and my strength was failing. The giant head swayed to and fro as the monster turned and pulled himself toward the Center again.

I looked up at the eye. It was attached to the flesh of his head only at the top and bottom: there was a cavity behind it.

I pulled with my left arm and thrust my feet against his nose, heaving my weight up into the eye socket. Instinctively I tried to hold on with my right hand, and a wave of nauseating pain washed over me. I got one foot up onto the first fold of his eye socket and pushed, grabbing the next ring with my left hand, slowly inching my way up towards the eye.

I made it to the crystal and pulled myself up into the space behind it. There was just enough space there to wedge myself in, with my back pressed against his flesh and my feet against the crystal. I took a breath, summoned my strength and kicked as hard as I could.

The crystal seemed unharmed, though it rippled with a strange light, and the swaying stopped – Mister Hands had paused what he was doing.

//I’ve got your attention now.//

I kicked again, and again. My feet barely glanced off the glass surface, but Mister Hands hated it. He let out a mournful cry. Then he seemed to realize what was happening, and tried to grab me.

I huddled behind the crystal and closed my eyes as a hand the size of a house collided directly with his eye socket, smashing into his head like a meteor. I looked up and saw the crystal had been cracked. Waves of magical energy were radiating from it.

He seemed even more confused now. He sent another hand, and another, rising up and crashing directly into his own eye. The more damage they did, the angrier he got, and the more determined he was to crush whoever he thought was doing this to him.

Hand after hand, fist after fist – he pummeled his own face while I spent every ounce of energy I had left to stay hidden behind the crystal.

A thick crack splintered through the crystal from root to tip, and the hands stopped. He let out a long, slow moan, and lifted himself up to his full height. He was teetering as if drunk, his body trembling and shuddering.

I looked out from behind the crystal to see that he was slowly turning around again to face the Center – he was right next to it, his head just above the rooftop level where the Admiralty had long since abandoned their games.

Then the hands that were keeping him upright buckled, and we fell forward together. I steeled my nerves, came out from behind the crystal and coiled my legs, ready to jump.

His face collided directly with the knuckle of the Center’s fist, and I was hurled from his eye socket, over the glass railing and onto the golf lawn, where I rolled awkwardly and crashed into the spinning windmill.

I looked back to see Mister Hands still reeling from the impact. The crystal splintered and exploded, sending a circular shockwave of energy that threw me against the windmill a second time.

Then his lifeless head slid out of view. The building shook as his body hit the ground.

In the distance, the shockwave rolled over the ruined factories and across Ten Mile Sump, which turned back into the disgusting oil-slick water it had been before.

Silence.

I lifted myself with my good hand, barely able to stand. I limped slowly to the south lawn, where a fresh piña colada had been abandoned on the bar by a fleeing Admiral.

“KO,” I said, and took a sip.

I spat it out. It was far too sweet.
[[/div]]

[[div class="section"]]
+ Epilogue

The sun shone through the black clouds and warmed my face. Circling gulls squawked loudly above. I sat on the black rubber hull of Opus Legion, slowly sipping my coffee.

In the distance, the colossal corpse of Mister Hands was still sprawled across the ground at the foot of the Center. It was now covered by hundreds of orange dots: work crews swarming like ants, taking him apart piece by piece. They had already found a number of deviant elements buried in his physiology, and they expected to find many more. Every one of them would be analyzed and then repurposed in our ongoing war.

The sharks had called us to the ring, and we had answered. For our courage and willingness to adapt, humanity had been granted a reprieve. As I looked at the tangled jumble of arms, I wondered what horrors the sharks might send next, and what horrors we might have waiting for them when they did.

I stood, and returned inside, moving awkwardly down the ladder with my arm in a sling. Crew members buzzed around me in the corridors, cleaning and repairing. All of them greeted me with a salute.

Many of them greeted me with reverent pressed fists.

Witnesses had spread the story of how Mister Hands was defeated, and since few had knowledge of Melanie's glove or its capabilities, the common understanding was that the Haymaker herself had blessed my fist and delivered us to victory.

I had shed all concern for protecting their faith, and as a result I had somehow become a saint.

The conn was thankfully deserted. I slowly lowered myself into the captains chair. Every part of my body ached.

I stared at the yellow phone, wondering if it would ring again.
[[/div]]
[[/div]]

[[div class="final-centerblock"]]
[[span class="title"]] Do Not Go Gentle Into That Shark Night [[/span]]
[[div id="cast"]]
[[collapsible show="Cast in Order of Appearance" hide="Hide Cast"]]
||~ The Toaster || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-426 SCP-426] ||
||~ Melanie's Glove || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-8630 SCP-8630] ||
||~ Opus Legion || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1861 SCP-1861] ||
||~ Melanie's Implant || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2922 SCP-2922] ||
||~ Reverb || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7594 SCP-7594] ||
||~ Coffee Machine || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-294 SCP-294] ||
||~ Bowl of Soup || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-348 SCP-348] ||
||~ Resizing Funnel || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-786 SCP-786] ||
||~ Cloning Tree || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-038 SCP-038] ||
||~ The Flamingoes || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1507 SCP-1507] ||
||~ Ariel Donner || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-108 SCP-108] ||
||~ The Butler || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-662 SCP-662] ||
||~ The Clockworks || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-914 SCP-914] ||
||~ The Exclusion Suit || [https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5000 SCP-5000] ||
[[/collapsible]]
[[/div]]
@@@@
@@@@
[[span style="color:white;"]]//Lindsay Blunt and Melanie Keane will return//

//in//

**I WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO THE SHARK**[[/span]]
@@@@
[[module Rate]]
@@@@
@@@@
@@@@
@@@@
[[/div]]

[[div class="back-to-top"]]
[#page-top Back To Top]
[[/div]]

[[/div]]

[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Shark Night

Module Styles

Inline Styles

Includes

CSS Classes

Page Source