The sturgeon was huge. It drifted like a ghost beneath the ancient dock where four figures stood, peering at it through the dark water. Time, mutagenic pollution, and the eternal dimness of Motorcity had produced these pearly white fish. They were quite gentle, a rare trait among the animals that made their homes beneath Detroit Deluxe.

Claire sprinkled another handful of the pellets (kitchen leftovers courtesy of Jacob) into the dark water and watched the sturgeon glide towards them.

"This is actually... pretty nice!" Claire said. Chuck let out the figurative breath that he'd been holding ever since he'd suggested this little outing back at the garage.

"Really?" he managed to squeak out.

"Yeah, they're cute." Claire dropped another pellet in the water and watched the fish silently rise to the surface again, it's eyes nacreous and staring. She nervously brought her hand back, "Well, kind of cute, at least."

"R-Right! I was thinking that we should come here because it's Lake St. Clair, you know? And your name is Claire. Get it? 'Cause the names sound alike?" Chuck babbled, slowly trailing off.

Claire ignored him. It seemed the only sane thing to do.

Mike stepped over and put hand on Chuck's shoulder. This seemed to stop Chuck from completely deflating in embarrassment.

Julie was the one to break the weirdness. Thank god for Julie. "Well, I'm glad we came. Feels good to go someplace new, and this week has been waaay too stressful."

Mike tossed his own handful of green pellets into the water.

"Alright! Who's up for a dip?"

"Wait. You want us to swim here? With the fish monsters?" Claire looked aghast.

"What's the matter Claire? I thought you said they were cute?" Julie teased, nudging Claire with her elbow.

"Sort of cute. And that doesn't mean I want to, like, snuggle with them."

BING!

Julie's holoscreen chimed, breaking up the discussion - she checked it and frowned.

Mike noticed. "Problem?" he asked.

Julie quickly silenced the message alert. "Nothing. It's nothing. Just a call from my internship. My boss can be a little, uh, demanding." Julie sent Claire a significant look.

It was all Claire could do to keep from sighing. How could Julie stand all this double life stuff? "Sounds like you better go take it," Claire said dutifully.

"Yeah. Ugh, I'll have to go all the way over to Roseville to get decent reception."

That was probably true. It was also true that when her father's face popped up on the answering screen she was better off being far away.

Julie walked towards her car, her boots clipping hollowly on the dock and her keys jangling in her hands. Internally, Claire wished her luck dealing with her dad. Julie always needed more luck, in Claire's biased opinion.

"I'll be back in a few," Julie called as she settled in behind the wheel.

All three of them watched as Julie took off, going from zero to sixty (and beyond) like it was nothing.

"Sounds like her boss is pretty strict," Mike said as 9 Lives disappeared from sight.

You have no idea.

-

It was different without Julie around. A slightly awkward air settled over the group. Or, at least Claire felt that way. Looking at her two companions, she doubted that Mike had ever felt that way in his life and Chuck probably never felt anything but awkward.

Mike decided to prove her right. "So about that swim?"

"But I didn't bring my swimsuit." Chuck fiddled with the hem of his shirt.

"No big. We'll all go in our skivvies."

Chuck looked ready to pass out.

Despite herself, Claire wanted to see where this was going. Just because she wasn't looking to buy anything, that didn't mean she didn't want another gander at how they assembled them down here in Motorcity. She wondered what her friends would think if they knew she might get to see the infamous Mike Chilton, public enemy number one, splashing around in his undies.

And she wondered how Chuck would look all wet and shirtless. More curious about it than she expected, actually. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. It's not like his body had ever been the problem...

A sequence of urgent-sounding beeps cut through that awkward train of thought.

"Wait wait, that's the proximity alarm," Chuck said as he pulled up an electric blue holoscreen. Information unspooled in long lines of text across the page.

"Which one?"

"LACL18. You know, the one of the ones we stuck out there when that giant lamprey kept coming around and messing up the water intake valve."

"Hold up, are you saying that there was a mutant lamprey swimming here and you still were ready to just hop in?" The tone of Claire's voice could in no way be classified as 'happy'.

But this time it was her turn to be ignored; Chuck was already typing away. Claire looked over his shoulder and saw that he had pulled up a map detailing a twenty mile radius around their location.

"See anything?" she asked.

He jumped a little at her proximity. "Uh, nothing yet!"

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time a sensor has raised a false alarm," Mike said.

Chuck's shoulders relaxed. "Yeah, that's for sure." He reached over to flick the 'X' over at the corner of the screen-

Then stopped.

Two tiny red dots floated just on the edge of the map. Now three. Now four. Now more, and they were slowly but surely heading towards their location.

Claire hated Motorcity.

"Oh no. Oh no oh no ohnoohnoohno..." Chuck half-whimpered as he enlarged the map. Then: "Mikey we got a problem here!"

Mike was there in an instant. "What is it, Chuck?"

Chuck hit a few more buttons. "I don't know yet, but there's about a million of them, and they don't look friendly!"

Chuck's arm beeped again and this time Dutch popped up on a new screen. "Chuck, man, you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Yeah, and I'm not liking it! Got any info on what could be causing these kinds of readings?"

"Not on my end. But I'll take an educated guess and say that you should get the hell out of Dodge before these things blow into town."

"Don't have to tell us twice," Chuck said as he closed the window.

"C'mon guys, looks like Mutt's getting a workout today," Mike said as he started off toward the shore.

Claire grabbed his arm. "But, what about Julie? She's my ride!"

"No time! Julie'll meet us on the way," Mike gave Claire a lopsided grin, "Looks like you're riding with me and Chuck."

Shit.

"Ugh," Claire said as she stared at Mutt's cramped passenger seat that already held a gangly Chuck shyly patting his leg, "didn't we do this already?"

"No time for talk," Mike yelled as he slid over the hood of the car and swung himself into the driver's seat, "It's time to burn rubber. We got to move, now!"

Claire might be prissy, but she wasn't stupid. She hopped in the car just a second after Mike and sat herself down on Chuck's bony thighs.