...With laser beams...

This tank is different.

The water here is fresher, and there is no taste of other inhabitants. You know immediately that you are the only one now in this tank, but--impossible though it seems--you may be the only one who has ever been in this tank.

A cursory patrol gives little more information. It does not take long for you to inspect all the corners and map out your new environment. The knowledge brings some small comfort. You do not know why you are here, but you know where you are within this space.

Something moves at the edge of the tank. Yes! A touch circle. You recognize the white and black striped shape that has lowered into the tank. You swim over and touch it with the tip of your nose, as you have learned. A fish falls into the water. You snatch it up.

Playing the touch circle game alleviates some tedium. It always lowers into the water in the same place, but you never know when it will appear. You learn to be ready. The quicker you touch it, the more fish fall. And sometimes, randomly, gloriously, a whole school of fish drop into the water.

You are still alone in the tank, though.

Until a Creature slithers into the water near the touch circle place. This is no fish. It has long arms, somewhat like an octopus, but only four of them, and they are arranged oddly around its body. Its two longer, lower arms have fins at the end of them.

You eye the Creature warily. It is smaller than you by about half, and it has an odd smell. It does not smell like threat, but you can’t rule that out. You’ve taken a nasty bite from a seal before, once or twice.

The Creature hangs in the water, and you move around it slowly. Then the touch circle drops into the water. You are hungry--the circle has not dropped for some time--but the Creature is near it. Hunger and caution fight until you slowly edge forward and, quick as you can, touch the circle lightly.

A fish drops. One fish.

You are still hungry, of course, and the Creature hasn’t moved from its spot. And so when the touch circle drops again, you do not swim quite as quickly. The Creature watches you through its odd eyes, but otherwise offers no threat.

Soon enough you accept that the Creature will share your tank. It comes and goes, and eventually you make the connection that the touch circle only drops when the Creature is in the tank. You look forward to its arrival. You think of it as the Food Creature, since meals appear when it does. It is almost companionable.

And then, one time when the touch circle drops, the Food Creature reaches out an arm and touches you.

You flinch away in alarm, but it does not follow you. It just waits, patiently, by the touch circle. Again, when you swim in, it runs one oddly shaped fin down your side, and then waits.

The touch is not at all unpleasant. Each time you touch the circle, the Creature touches you. Eventually, greatly daring, you touch it back, running your nose quickly across its body. Its skin had an odd texture, like yet unlike a ray’s, but it smells like nothing you’ve known before.

Over time, the touch circle rises, so that each time it appears a little higher on the side of the tank. Eventually, you need to break the surface to touch it. The Food Creature often touches your dorsal fin. You are used to its touch by now; it’s a friendly Creature and this does not bother you. But one day, after it touches you, there’s a pressure on the fin, a pinch. You try to roll away, but the pinch remains. Your fin is heavier, as though something is holding onto it, and a weight rests on your back. But the touch circle gives you food, and the friendly Food Creature is there, and you try to ignore it.

Except that after you eat, the pinch is still on your fin. You try to dive to the lower, more comfortable part of the tank. But the deeper you dive, the tighter it pinches. You swim along the side of the tank, trying to dislodge the pinch, without luck. You swim higher, and the pinch eases. You discover that if you swim with your fin above the surface, your fin is comfortable. But you are not.

Long ago, before the Creature and the tanks, you swam in unenclosed water that was teeming with fish and plants and tasted like life. And you swam deep, close to the fish you fed on and away from those that would hurt you. And though you are the only one in this tank (apart from the intermittent Creature), the habit remains. While you rise occasionally, everything in you tells you to swim deep.

And so now, swimming not only high but right at the surface, you feel your nerves start to fray. Surface is fear, but deep is pain. Eventually, exhausted, you give in and stay at the surface, drifting.

When the touch circle drops again, you move listlessly towards it. You almost don’t care when a veritable feast drops. Again, you feel touch on your dorsal fin, but this time the pinch disappears. It takes a moment to realize, but then you dive deeply, comfortably. You swim around the tank, celebrating both your freedom and your full belly.

“How is the project proceeding?”

“As planned and on schedule.” She keeps all of her answers short and to the point. She knows he doesn’t really care about the training, or the creatures involved.

He looks into one of the tanks, to the animal circling within. “Lemon sharks,” he says with some disgust.

She bites her tongue. No good can come of rehashing this. Great whites need enormous tanks, makos and tiger sharks rarely survive in captivity, and reef sharks are timid. Social lemon sharks were the best option.

She hates when he visits the lab.

You’ve developed mixed feelings about the Food Creature. Though your meals have become more delectable, the pinch always appears on your fin when it’s around. However, the Creature has started to play games with you, using the touch circle to direct you. It even uses sound signals to tell you which way to swim. You catch on fast to this rudimentary communication, and you enjoy the distraction.

In time, you learn to ignore the pinch and become comfortable swimming at the surface.

One day, the Food Creature spends extra time with you, without the pinch, playing and rubbing you, and you enjoy the session immensely.

It is some time before your next meal, and this time it’s not fish. A different Creature drops into the water. This one is colored darkly and hangs in the tank, not moving. But most importantly, this one smells like food.

You’re reluctant to taste a Creature, but the combination of the smell and your hunger soon become overwhelming. You cautiously seize a limb.

It’s delicious.

Before you can help it, you’re tearing into the Creature, sating yourself.

Thereafter, your friendly Food Creature does not join you in the tank. You see it sometimes, when you breach, and it continues to play games with sound signals. You wear the pinch at all times; it has become part of your existence. And when you’re fed, it’s always a delicious smelling Creature.

You make the connection. Light colored Food Creature is for games. Dark colored Tasty Creature is for food.

A small part of you wonders what Food Creature would taste like.

“Are they ready to deploy?”

“Target training is complete.”

“Yes, but will they attack when they need to?”

“Associative conditioning has worked well so far. Of course, live divers aren’t going to be scented like our training decoys. And this all depends on them swimming close to the surface.”

“I don’t want excuses. I want guaranteed attacks.”

And what evil geniuses want, evil geniuses get, she thinks. Even when it’s needlessly complicated and more about the optics than anything. Of course it’s not guaranteed, she wants to tell him. You’re the one that wanted sharks with laser beams.

There are noises above your tank--loud noises, lots of noises. Screeching noises and rumbling noises that sound like rocks rolling back and forth across the ground.

An opening appears in your tank, a passageway. The water coming from it smells...alive.

You have not eaten in several days, and the smells are too strong to ignore.

Sound signals direct you to the passage, but you would have gone anyway. When you emerge, you are distracted by the myriad sights and smells. This is open water, like where you used to swim, bursting with fish and plants and life. It is glorious! You must explore!

Then the pinch tightens and forces you to rise. There are shadows on the surface, floating vessels that you want to avoid, but between the pinch and the sound signals you cannot.

You rise next to one of these vessels. There is a flash that seems to come from your own dorsal fin, then a brightness, painfully hot and loud, that scares you back underwater. The water tastes like nothing you’ve ever experienced as debris rains down around you.

Creatures appear in the water. Dark Creatures--Tasty Creatures. Despite the chaos around you, your hunger takes over. This Creature is moving, alive, but you easily catch it and eagerly take a bite…

Which you spit out immediately. This tastes nothing like the Tasty Creatures you normally feed on. But there are more. Perhaps this one is bad. You try another.

Still awful. But the chaos in the water is combining with your hunger and a new, salty taste to drive you into a frenzy. You try to eat the Creature anyway, ignoring the taste, tearing out big bites.

The pinch tightens. Sound signals echo off every surface now, along with percussive thumps that disorient your sensitive system. The murky water is filled with debris. You don’t know what to do, and you thrash about, hungry and confused and upset. You turn to swim back to your tank. The water is dull there, but at least you were safe and fed.

But there is a noise, like a thousand rockslides, like an underwater volcano, and a rush of heat and bubbles and pressure pounds into you and blows you backwards.

Suddenly all is quiet. The water is still filled with debris, but there are no more sound signals. No more chaotic shadows. No more Creatures. The pinch on your fin disappears, and an object falls away from you and drifts slowly downward, disappearing into the deep.

You dive experimentally, and nothing stops you. You reach a comfortable depth, and continue swimming away.

Away from your tank and the Creatures. Away towards water that you vaguely remember, clean and teeming with life.

You stretch yourself and pick up speed, swimming straight for the first time in a long time.

Away.

Free.