Page 4 of Echo and the Homicidal Sea Panda

“It was an accident, Hank. I’ve already apologized multiple times. I said I’d pay for the repairs. What else do you want me to do?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hank sighed again, making a massive deal out of it. Echo’s damage was likely the most exciting thing that had happened to Hank in months, so he wasn’t sure why the old man was making that particular molehill into a mountain. “You want me to get started on the repairs on the boat or wait?”

“Start them, please,” Echo replied.

“And no to the engine overhaul?”

Echo paused a moment, mentally calculating what he had in savings. A thought hit. If the pod found out what he’d done, he might need that boat to escape a pitchfork-wielding mob. “Go ahead and do the engine work, too.”

“Fine. We’ll start in the morning,” Hank said, sounding much too pleased with himself. It didn’t last long before the complaining began. “Now I’ve got to go get three folks to move to other slips or listen to them bitch when they can’t get to their boats during our repairs. It never ends.”

Hank hung up without so much as a goodbye, just the grousing.

Echo clicked off his cell and pocketed it. After sliding the sample he’d been viewing before Hank’s call off the microscope’s stage, he added it to the set of new slides he’d made earlier in the day. Glancing up, he checked the clock beside the door and saw it was a little past five. He tidied his lab table, ready to get the hell out of there and hole up at home for the weekend.

Every night for almost a month, he’d packed up after work, grabbed takeout, and headed to the marina with dinner in hand, ready for a long, boring night. It was his first where he didn’t have to do that, and it felt strange. His mission wasn’t complete, but returning to orca waters would be a suicide mission after what he’d witnessed. He’d narrowly made it out alive as it was.

What the hell was he supposed to do with his nights?

Takeout and Netflix? That sounded lonely and depressing. Why, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t really all that far off from takeout and sitting in his boat all night, watching the moon and the waves for his entertainment.

An image of the orca swam into his thoughts.

“Knock, knock, Dr. Fisher.”

Echo flinched, shocked back to the present. He spun around and forced a smile. “What can I do for you,Dr. Diaz?”

“I need you… to come out… and have drinks with us.” Diego, Echo’s colleague and best friend, grinned as he slipped inside the lab and leaned against the doorframe. “I know you’ve had yourbig secret projectyou’ve been working on, but can you spare an hour or two and come have one drink with me?”

Echo hedged. It did sound a little better than being alone, but he wasn’t sure he was in the right headspace for company, even if it was with his favorite person on the planet.

“You haven’t shown your face in weeks. We miss you. Come be social.”

Diego was right. The two of them hadn’t hung out much at all in weeks—but it wasn’t as if they’d be able to talk with a table full of coworkers around them.

“Youmiss me. I doubt the others care all that much,” Echo murmured.

“They do,” Diego said.

Echo wasn’t as close to the rest of the team employed by Dolphin Bay Coastal Management as he was with Diego, but then they were the only two lab rats. They stuck close to the office most days while the others were collecting samples out in the field. DBCM worked hand-in-hand with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to survey and monitor the waters and beaches along the Washington State Coast. DBCM did most of the surveying and monitoring—and then delivered updates to NOAA on a regular or as-needed basis.

NOAA let them do most of the hands-on work, which was perfect for the pod. It meant fewer human eyes that might spot something unusual. Most, but not all, of the residents of Dolphin Bay were dolphin shifters, as were most of the field researchers, lab assistants, interns, and administrative staff he worked with. Therewerehumans who lived and worked amongst them, but almost all had dolphin blood in their veins, descendants of the pod’s founder whose husband had been human.

Those humans knew the pod’s secret.

The outside world did not.

The entire pod lived in fear of the outside world. Visitors weren’t welcomed with open arms, but as the pod’s size had grown into the thousands, determining who was and wasn’t supposed to be there had become harder and harder. Echo knew most, but not all, of his own pod members.

He didn’t know every human who lived there, either.

“We all see each other nearly every day. Theydon’tmiss me,” Echo replied.

“Okay,Imiss you coming out and hanging out with us.” Diego frowned. “When’s the last time we hung out together?”

“It’s been a while,” Echo replied softly.

Diego crossed his arms over his chest. He narrowed his eyes, searching Echo’s face. “You’ve been unusually quiet today. What’s up?”

---