“They told me to bring you back alive,” he says. “But if I can’t do that…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him raise his free hand. The injector needle protrudes from the inside of a ring slipped on his middle finger. It reminds me of the gag handshake buzzer Dev used to torment me with when we were little. I don’t want that to be my last thought.

Gem fires another shot. It ricochets off Caleb’s hooded forehead and splashes a few inches from my ear. Hewett yells, “Stop firing!”

I try to struggle. My body won’t obey me. Caleb sneers. The blood from his nostrils makes him look like he’s got walrus tusks.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he decides.

He pulls back his hand to slap me with his poison buzzer ring—but help comes from an unexpected direction. Right next to us, a mass of sleek blue-gray flesh explodes out of the sea, and Caleb is body-slammed into oblivion under the weight of a six-hundred-pound bottlenose dolphin.

The resulting waves push me under. My sinuses fill with salt water. I’m sinking, flailing my weak limbs.

Then the dolphin slides underneath me, gently nudging me to the surface. I wrap my arms around his dorsal fin, which is marked with a prominent dark streak.

We break the surface. My first word is a cross between a choke and a sob. “Socrates?”

I have no idea how he found me, or how he knew I needed help, but his familiar clicks and squeaks leave me no doubt what he is saying. I tried to warn you, silly human.

I lay my face against his smooth, warm forehead and start to weep.

We don’t let Caleb drown.

If we’d put it to a vote, I’m not sure he would’ve had enough support, but Dr. Hewett insists we fish him out of the water. Then Kiya and Dru haul him off for interrogation.

The rest of the LI attackers we strip of their weapons, constrain with zip ties, and set adrift in the pontoon. Dr. Hewett assures us they’ll get picked up soon enough—by the Coast Guard if they’re lucky, by their schoolmates if they’re not.

“Land Institute doesn’t reward failure,” he says. “We must get underway.”

Tia Romero stares at him in disbelief. “Sir, we’ve been attacked. We have wounded. We should call the Coast Guard ourselves.”

Hewett gives her a pitying look. “The authorities can’t help us, Prefect. We would just put them in danger, too. Finish your modifications and start the engines. The Aronnax will not be far behind.”

Tia doesn’t look happy about it, but she hurries off to comply.

House Orca has their healing work cut out for them. Meadow, Eloise, Cooper, and Robbie Barr all suffered flesh wounds from miniature harpoons. Franklin thinks they’ll be okay, but they’ll need stitches.

“Completely unnecessary,” he complains, holding up one of the six-inch hooked projectiles. “If you’re going to shock somebody unconscious, why spear them, too?”