As the Millennium Osprey came in closer and closer to the island, a seal flew up in the air, and that was the signal of the start of the seal massacre.

RIP in pieces.

Killer whales had a distinctive hunting style, as they were incredibly social and great with teamwork, but with such abundant prey on the edge of the island, they didn't even need to communicate or work together to take down their target. They could kill baby and fully-grown whales with patience and finesse, so a mere seal was nothing compared to their prowess.

The boat slowed to a halt, and Nastasya rushed out with the drone in one hand and the controller in the other.

"Be careful, it's slippery," I said and aimed the camera at the hunt.

"Hopefully we'll actually be able to see something with this. I'll be pissed otherwise," Nastasya said, and barely a moment later, the drone zipped past me.

"Go, little buddy. You got this. Get us some nice footage," I mumbled to the drone as I snapped a picture and hoped it'd turn out. I looked at the screen. It just looked like a lot of fog.

More pictures couldn't hurt, though, so I kept taking them.

Robbie came out from inside the cabin, and he stood beside Nastasya with the controller in her hands.

"So that's what the drone sees?" he asked and pointed to the mini screen on the controller.

"Yep. You're catching on faster than I thought you would," Nastasya replied.

"Then why is it all white and a little bit of blue?" Robbie asked.

"Because that's the ocean and the fog."

"Where even is the drone?" Robbie asked, and both Nastasya and I looked up and scanned the air around us. I didn't see anything besides the brutal end of several seals.

"I—am not entirely sure," Nastasya said.

"How long is the battery life?" Robbie asked.

"About twenty minutes or so."

"That seems a bit ridiculous for ten thousand dollars."

"The picture quality is great, though."

"Really? Because all I'm seeing is white and blue still."

"You are such an asshole," Nastasya spat.

Oddly enough, it felt like my parents were fighting. My strange boat parents.

"Spin it around in circles so we can find it," I said. "Humans are pretty good at detecting motion since we're predators."

Nastasya moved the controls in a circle, but none of us saw anything.

"Excellent. Fantastic," Nastasya mumbled. "Just focus on taking pictures for your whale thing. That's what we're out here for."

The truth was that killer whales weren't actually monitored through my program, but I snapped a few more pictures to keep Nastasya happy and to document the rare finding in the Gulf of Maine. If the drone fell through, then I still wanted some evidence and a way to remember.

Another seal flew up into the air, and from where we were stationed a few hundred feet away, it seemed that some blood diffused into the water.

"Those poor seals," I mumbled and gazed into the water.

I watched them twice a day, almost every day with Logan, and even though they weren't my project, I still wanted them to succeed in life, which was a major reason why the alpha seal bothered me so much. It was difficult to succeed in life while dead.

On the other hand, though, it was also difficult to succeed in life without any food, so at least I could be happy for the sweet killer whales.

"What the hell?" Nastasya said, then looked at me. "It's already giving me a low battery warning. It definitely has not been twenty minutes or so."

I rose my eyebrows. "Really? We should send it back for being defective."

"Good idea. It'll be hard to find someone to ship it back from the bottom of the ocean, though."

"Do you have Amazon Prime?" I asked with a smile, then forced a more serious expression. She wouldn't understand that joke.

Nastasya took in a breath. "Not you too, Reagan. Don't betray me like that."

"Sorry. I didn't mean it," I said.

Nastasya didn't say anything else as she pulled the controller in tighter to her abdomen, and she kept her eyes up in the air to look for the drone lost in the fog. She mumbled a few unintelligible words as the killer whales continued their hunt.

"You got this, Nastasya," Robbie said.

Nastasya shushed him. "I said to shut up."

"No, you didn't," Robbie whispered, but with Nastasya so focused, she didn't notice.

Instead, she then launched the controller right into the ocean. It splashed up a bit and sank down with its lost brother, and Nastasya sat down on the wet deck and put her head in her hands.

"Fucking disconnected. Fuck," she muttered.

I didn't say anything, even though getting a replacement would cost way less if no new controller was needed with it, and that there was no sense in polluting the ocean any more.

"Nastasya, I'm sorry. I know you really liked the drone," Robbie said.

"I never even named it. That's the worst part. I never got to form a full emotional attachment to it," Nastasya said, then shook her head. "We should name it now."

I wasn't sure how good Nastasya was at forming emotional attachments to anything, but once again, I kept my mouth shut.

"The Challenger seems appropriate," Robbie said.

My mouth fell open. "No, that seems very inappropriate."

A soft buzzing noise filled the air around us, and when I looked over to Robbie, he had his phone in his hand, and I realized that the noise was bagpipes.

Amazing Grace, a timeless, emotional classic.

"If you don't turn that off right now, I'll throw your phone into the ocean too," Nastasya said, still covering her eyes.

Robbie stopped the song. "I've never seen you so upset."

"I know. This absolutely sucks. How does your boyfriend do it all day?" Nastasya turned to me.

"I think he fakes it most of the time—shit," I mumbled the last part and my heart sank into my stomach.

Great job, Rea.

Robbie smiled. "I believe you owe me ten dollars, Nastasya."

"Dammit. I thought he was screwed after he threw up. This is actually the worst day of my life. Thanks, Reagan." Nastasya shook her head.

"He's not—" I paused, "Logan? Oh, I thought you meant off of the island." I hesitated. "You know, like real life."

"How would I know him?" Nastasya asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Uh," I began, but Nastasya interrupted.

"Don't even answer it."

At least my first screw-up wasn't with anyone who lived with us and therefore cared, especially Darrell. But it meant that I had to pay a little more attention to what I allowed to come out of my mouth.

I worked so hard to let myself feel comfortable enough around them to say more of what was on my mind than with anyone else, but I had to rein it in and take a step back. Liberty and security were inversely related, and I had to put my mouth on a bit of a lockdown.

Lesson learned.

***

That evening at another fine dinner prepared by Brett, he couldn't keep himself contained about the events of the day.

"Shamu just fucking yeeted those seals. That was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. And that's what you guys get to do all day? God, I picked the wrong major." He shook his head. "I fucked up, man."

"It's not all about yeeting in marine biology," Jia said. "It's about sex, weird-ass adaptations, evolutionary fuck-ups, and occasional yeeting."

"Do you guys have beach parties a lot?" Brett asked.

"How many beach parties have we had out here, Brett? Use that knowledge and extrapolate, if you even know what that means," Darrell said.

"I'll extrapolate a definition from that information, thank you very much," Brett said. "Dick."

"Seriously. Brett has made it through college better than you have, dumbass," Jia said. "He hasn't failed his project and had to put off getting his degree for a year."

"Yet," Darrell said, but I wasn't quite sure how he could possibly fail. I wasn't even sure how Darrell could fail, but somehow, he pulled that off.

Brett just smiled. Not a smirk, but a smile.

He had to be the happiest person I had ever met in my entire life.

I looked over to Logan, and he stabbed at a crouton with his fork. The crouton broke in half, and Logan just stared at it.

I bit down on my lip to keep myself from laughing.

"Hey Toby," Jia said, and when Toby looked up at her, she continued. "Do you think we could possibly get the applicants for Paradise City out here? So they can see what kind of stuff we do out here."

"But then they'll see how horrible it is, and then they won't want to go through with it," Logan finally piped up.

"It's not horrible. You're just upset about your seals," I said.

"And this place is horrible. It sucks, and I hate it," Logan said.

I didn't reply to that. We'd discuss that during our depressing seal watch.

"Look, it's nice to know what you're getting into, and as long as nobody blows the negatives of isolation and no running water out of proportion, lots of rational humans would want to do this. Right, Brett?" Jia said.

Brett nodded. "Yes, but I don't think I'm the best person to ask if you want the opinion of a rational human."

"Okay, rational lizard boy. Carter, do you hate it here?"

Carter shook his head. "It's nice, and everyone is nice, as far as I know."

"What about you, Jia? Weren't you just complaining earlier about how much you want to go home?" Darrell asked.

"My opinion is irrelevant." Jia turned away from Darrell. "So, Toby, can we please get some company out here? I might actually die if we don't."

Toby shrugged. "Sure."

Darrell stood up next to Toby and rested his palms on the table. "But I didn't even get a chance to rebuttal, since I firmly believe this would be a terrible, terrible idea. Jia hasn't even worn makeup in weeks, so do you really want her making the decisions and representing us around here?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Jia asked.

"It shows a complete lack of motivation on your part. Right, Logan?"

"Don't involve me in this. I'm clearly in the middle of a depressive episode," Logan said.

Darrell gave a tight-lipped smile. "Maybe you should get over it."

Logan rested his head on the table. "To be, or not to be. That is the question. Wherefore art thou, Romeo? O Captain, my Captain, our home and native land."

"I didn't know you were classy and into Shakespeare," Jia said.

"I'm not. That's all I know, plus a little bit of Whitman and the Canadian national anthem. But yeah, I'm classy as shit," Logan replied.

"Oh," Jia said.

Toby shook his head, then stood up next to Darrell. "Well, since you guys clearly aren't well-read, maybe you should work on your social skills, or you'll never find employment."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that you guys are dumb as fuck," Brett said. "I'm the only smart one here. Me and Carter."

Carter turned the corners of his mouth upward, but it was far from a smile. "Great."

"Call me Toby. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would accept this job and didn't expect it to take ten years off my lifespan. I'll make arrangements with the university for your tour idea, Jia," Toby said.

I would know those lines from anywhere, even with Toby's modifications. Moby Dick by Melville. Very classy.

Fictional whales were just as valuable as real ones, in my opinion, and they didn't deserve to be harpooned. Reading it in high school, I spent the entire time rooting for the whale, like any decent person.

Jia clapped her hands together. "Perfect. I'll even clean the bathrooms, guys. My treat."

"You people disgust me," Darrell said, and he walked up the stairs without another word.

The rest of us didn't speak for a moment until Brett finally interrupted our silence.

"But dude, those killer whales were so awesome. Did you look them up in your whale thingy yet, Reagan?"

"Wow, killer whales. So amazing. So ruthless," Logan said, then stood up. "Rea, let's go. We have to do our mourning seal watch."

"But it's evening," Brett said.

"Do you want me to prepare a eulogy? I have a few words I'd like to say," I said.

"Just stop talking and walk," Logan said.

"And to answer your question—sorry, Logan, you can just ignore this—I don't really do killer whales. You see, they're classified with dolphins and porpoises," I said. "And every photo I got looks like blurred crap anyway, so there really isn't much evidence that this even happened."

"Rea," Logan said.

"Sorry, sorry. I'm coming." I shook my head and followed him out the door.

Please, don't let me waste your time.

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Hey everyone! That concludes our lovely two-part chapter. (And I did get it out pretty fast. I'm such a champion.) Thank you for reading!

So the seals and the drone have met a cruel fate. Poor Nastasya and Logan.

For today's question, how do you think Mr. "Negativity" Logan will handle such a loss? First, it was the original Racecar, now this.