“Don’t beat yourself up, Miles Morales,” I say.

Gem laughs under his breath. “Easier said than done.”

He pulls at his collar like he’s wearing a tie that’s too tight.

I don’t know much about him. After his altercation with Nelinha during our chum year, I decided I didn’t want to deal with him any more than I had to. I guess Harding-Pencroft hasn’t always been easy for him, either. He’s the only Latter-day Saint at HP, as far as I know. How does a Black Mormon kid from landlocked Utah get interested in a career at sea? I’ve never asked. Now I hope we’ll get more chances to talk—not because I like him, or because I feel like I have to like him, but because he’s a classmate. Today I was reminded that anyone in my life can be taken away in the span of a heartbeat.

“What did you see,” I ask him, “when you looked at Dr. Hewett’s tablet?”

He frowns. “A dark shape under the water. Like a massive arrowhead.”

“The Aronnax,” I guess. “Some kind of submarine?”

Gem scans the horizon. “Not like any I’ve ever heard of. If that’s what attacked HP, and it’s after us…”

He leaves the thought unfinished. Any vessel that can destroy a square mile of the California coast is not something we can fight in the Varuna, even with assault rifles, zappy guns, and a luchador dolphin. If we can’t go to the authorities, which Hewett seems adamant about, then our only hope is to run and hide. That leads me to an uneasy question: Run and hide where?

Ester strolls over with Top at her heels and a dead squid in her hand. Without preamble, she hands me the squid, which is both warm and icy—and extremely gross.

“I found it in the freezer,” she says. “I put it in the microwave for sixty-five seconds. I didn’t do it any longer because I didn’t want it to get too squishy. I mean, it’s a squid, so it’s already squishy.”

She says all this without a pause and without meeting my eyes. Of course, she’s just trying to make me feel better. She knew I would want to give Socrates a treat, and she found just the thing.

I’ve heard “experts” say that autistic people have trouble with empathy, but sometimes I wonder if these experts have ever actually sat down and talked to autistic people. When we first met, I didn’t understand why Ester wouldn’t say something comforting when one of us was upset. I found her behavior a complex code, like jumbled words and signals. But once I cracked that code, I realized that she just does things a little differently. She’s more likely to do something nice, or offer an explanation, as a way of helping me feel better. She is, in fact, one of the most empathetic people I’ve ever met.

Top sits at my feet and wags his tail. He gives me his most soulful stare. I’m a very good boy. I almost killed someone earlier.