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kidding…
    Zooming through the surrounding sub lights, the attacking shoal of giant squid is staggering. Bioluminescent, most of the creatures are the length of Koko’s arm, but some pumping through the light shafts possess massive winged mantles topping out at whopping meter-lengths or more. Koko realizes the submarine’s twelve outer lights have keyed in the invertebrates’ swarming, collective aggression. The creatures flash like bar lights, and Koko is so completely freaked out she nearly drops the bolt cutters.
    Another mass of smaller glinting squid flexes through sub’s lights and then a second larger-sized group shoots past in the opposite direction. Crisscrossing back and forth, the squid appear to be searching for the source of the lights and are closing in on the sub fast.
    Koko kicks back, presses herself as close to the hull as she can, and her air cylinder hits with a dull clank. Deliberately slowing her breathing—
piff-ahhh… piff-ahhh
—she inches her way along the flank, and like a squishy overgrown trumpet one of the polypods wraps around her head and rips her mask and regulator free.
    Koko flails. The frenetic sucking sensations pawing her face quicken, and the bitter sting of cold water blinds her eyes. With her free hand, quickly Koko yanks the dive light from her shoulder and wags it out at arm’s length, hoping to distract the squid gripping her head. At once there is a notable slacking and Koko releases the dive light. The face-hugging squid cuts away altogether, and pumps after the bright beam as the dive light spins end over end into the blackness below. Unable to see, and using her attached line, Koko drags herself back along the hull until she reaches the spot where she entered the water. Surfacing with a rush, she tears her way up the toe-holds and is nearly out of the water completely when a fumbling tentacle loops her right ankle like a whip.
    Man, she’s had just about enough of leechy calamari bullshit. Twisting about, Koko kicks wildly at the tentacle as the suction cups rip her scuba fin free from her foot. Grabbing a higher toe-hold, Koko pulls her weight upward right as a second giant tentacle lassos her other ankle like a slick cuff.
    Oh, for the love of—
    Swinging the bolt cutters, Koko pounds at the slimy feeler and just below the waterline, a single rimmed eye stares at her droopily. Rolling over, the massive squid stretches and exposes its carnivorous, basalt-colored beak as its other squiggling tentacles attach to the sub’s hull. Veering riotously left, one of the tentacles whaps Koko square in the mouth.
    Call her Ishmael?
    Call me Ahab, sucker-puss.
    Koko jabs the bolt cutter tip right in the attacking squid’s eye.
    Detaching, the giant squid retracts backward with a huge, vociferous splatter. Spewed ink and frigid seawater splatters Koko’s face, and she doesn’t give the beast a second shot at grabbing her. Climbing topside to the open hatch, Koko skips the convention of the ladder and drops down to the deck below. Jumping upward she grabs the hatch handle and then locks the hatch off.
    “
Son of a bitch!
”
    Koko kicks off her remaining scuba fin. Reeling forward and dripping, she slaps at the helm’s controls.
    No messing around this time.
    Koko fires the engines, throttles back in full reverse, and the sub is free.
    Ten minutes later and cruising forward at surface level, however, Koko learns the distressed rudder has affected additional operational mechanisms. A subsequent software shutdown has led to a chain reaction, culminating in seizure of the sub’s deeper diving capacities. Maximum submersion depth? Two and half fathoms, barely over four meters. Running shallow and unable to dive deep, she and Flynn will be dead meat so close to the surface. Koko rips through the operational manuals.
    Three hours of forced system quits, runbacks, reboots… nothing works.
    †
None of Your Fucking Busines
s

THE SIXTY II

DISCUSSING DIRTY DEEDS
    The next