"Risa, rye reed roo!" Sounding ridiculous, I struggled to rip out the cursed tube.

"Be honest, you were never crazy about the whole commitment thing. You have your career, and God knows nothing can stand in its way."

"Risa, rye'll range."

"… plus you hate going out with my friends. Honestly, other than sex, I wonder if you even enjoyed spending time with me."

"Risa—"

She broke eye contact then, and even an emotional dunce like me knew what was coming next.

"The truth is, I met someone while you were gone."

While I was gone? I was gone four days! You'd think I was Ernest Shackleton, lost in Antarctica.

"… and he's fun and he makes me laugh. You even know him, he's in our biology class."

Tell me his name! Tell me and I'll flunk the bastard.

"Anyway, I'm sorry, but the way I see it, if I'm having doubts now, it's best we just break away clean. Here's the key to your apartment. Oh, I, uh, I sort of sold the engagement ring. I know that was rotten, but Drew and I needed the money to go to Cancun on winter break."

Drew? But we were going to name our firstborn Drew!

"I'll send you a check or something next semester, promise."

She left the key on my nightstand, leaned over and kissed me on the forehead, told me to "feel better," then helped herself to the orange juice from my breakfast tray and left.

* * *

David Caldwell visited me later that day, his turn at "cheering me up." He told me Hank was doing better, that our pilot never made it, and that the submersible had been recovered but no body was ever found.

The thought of those creatures devouring Donald Lacombe's remains made me queasy.

David wasted little time in dropping his next "cluster bomb."

"Despite your heroics, Zack, everything's canceled. The pilot's death, combined with the loss of a $12 million submersible… Jesus, it's a fucking disaster. While you've been lying here sleeping, I've had to deal with one helluva mess. Plus we lost all that great squid footage Hank took—"

"Forget about giant squids, David, there's something even more fascinating down there—Bloop!"

"Bloop?"

"Don't you ever pick up a science journal? Back in '97, the navy discovered these mysterious deep-water biologics, which they named Bloop. SOSUS picked them up."

"SOSUS?"

"Come on—the Sound Underwater Surveillance System. The microphones the navy used to detect Soviet subs during the Cold War!"

"Oh, that SOSUS… right."

"They're animals, David. Big, nasty undiscovered predators, only they swarm, like… like piranha. They attacked us in the Sargasso. They were after our giant squid!"

"Zack—"

"This is big stuff, David, an undiscovered species. You have to organize another expedition and—"

"Zack, you're not listening. It's over. No more expeditions. No more grants."

"What're you talking about?"