The recording studio...

How long? How long had it been since I first started being a part of Dethklok's employment? Too long. You want to know how I know that? The delays. Mr. Offdenson was right when he said the fans go murderous and insane whenever there's a delay. All over the world, there were reports of people committing suicide, riots, arson, and other atrocities to express their impatience.

But if you wanted someone to blame, blame Nathan Explosion for constantly deleting a MONTH'S work of sessions for the new album! And right now he was pondering on deleting the audio for the Thunderhorse music video.

"Here we go again," groaned Skwisgaar.

Pickles grabbed the remote. "Okay wait. Before we do anything drastic let's put this all into perspective Nathan. Okay? Look."

He turned on the TV to show news feed. "...Dethklok has spent a reported 500 million in the recording studio so far..." "...Fan suicide rate is up due to the album's late release..." "...Sources have corroborated that the band has recorded 16 individual albums, all deleted..." "...Sources say that the Dow Jones decline is directly related to DethKlok frontman Nathan Explosion's constant deleting of potential new albums..."

But it didn't matter. Nathan pressed delete anyway, much to our annoyance. "Now what's wrong, Nathan?" I demanded. "Not bloody enough? Not heavy enough? Not brutal enough? WHAT IS IT THAT KEEPS YOU FROM DELETING MUSIC?!" I screamed, shaking him.

"Well maybe it'll be better if I just kill myself," Murderface said. "Huh? Why don't you record that? Huh? Would that be brutal enough for you? Me being dead."

"It's not always about you," I snarled at the bassist. I groaned as I sat next to the other members of the band. "We're back to square one all over again. AGAIN!"

Nathan didn't flinch. "Yeah, that's right, Wood. But here's what we're going to do. We're going to re-re-re-record it right there." He pointed to a spot on a globe on the controls. "Right there."

I squinted at the specific location on the map. "I'll inform Mr. Offdenson."

(!)

Mr. Offdenson communicated with Nathan via a screen, "Okay, so you want to re-re-re-re-record it, in the ocean. In. I see, no problem."

Nathan shouted, "No! Not in the ocean, inside the ocean."

"Okay."

"In the heaviest, deepest, most brutal part."

"Alright."

"The Mariana Trench."

"Well, let me make some calls."

A few minutes later, Mr. Offdenson came back. "Well the good news is they're going to give you some more money to record this album. The bad news is they're going to send a producer down to work with you so I hope that's not a..."

"Whaaaaaaaaaa?!" Apparently, it was. Nathan threw a temper tantrum and threw stuff around.

"Mr. Offdenson," I called out, ignoring Nathan's immaturity. "How exactly are we going to re-re-re-re-record everything in the deepest hole in the ocean?"

"Well, Wood, I made a call to the US Navy and they agreed to let us buy one of their prototype nuclear submarines."

I blinked, "Wow," I said sarcastically. "That's not an environmental hazard waiting to happen."

"I know," said Toki. "Isn't its excitings?"

I shook my head. Children.

(!)

Somewhere in the meeting room of the tribunal... "Dethklok is recording an album underwater, and they're using a submarine," the senator reported.

"A nuclear submarine," the general pointed out.

"Yes... This could prove to be a most dangerous combination."

The general made his own report, "I may have a solution. We're now in touch with the underwater record label producer that Dethklok will use underwater. His name is name is Dick "Magic Ears" Knubbler, and he's a real piece of work." The general showed mugshots of a man with blonde hair, blue eyes and wearing rose-tinted glasses along with reports of the man's crimes. "Tax evasion, disfigured a co-worker at an office party, (Melted her face in acid), soliciting, prostitution, drugs; he's looking at a 25 year sentence. He'll do anything we want."

"Excellent, then he'll be our man on the inside. We'll contact him once the underwater record is complete, and get a full report."

But the general had other plans. "A report? Now's the time to take out Dethklok once and for all! They're just sitting there underwater. We'll make it look like an underwater accident."

"No!" Once again, the ancient looking man had the final word. "It is too soon. We must watch them..."

(!)

Five months. Five months of recording, repairing any broken instruments, checking the radiation levels in the sub with the crew, occasionally looking out the window to look at the strange undersea wildlife and cleaning up all the messes the band made. Worth it. And for once, Nathan wasn't deleting any months' worth of progress. In fact, he was very pleased with it as he listened to the recordings. "It's getting nice and heavy," he said. That's when he heard something strange. He adjusted Toki's guitar sessions. What we heard was the unmistakable sound of whales. "Your guitar's picking up strange sounds," he reported to Toki, turning the music off.

Toki shrugged his shoulders. "Well, dude, I didn't know that these pickups were that strong. It picks up the whales saying hello."

"Well, given the sounds of metal being blasted out of this sub," I said. "It's no surprise curious whales would come to investigate the noise. I have been noticing a lot of whale activity in the past four months since we started recording it."

"It looks like we's going to have to re-record it," Skwisgaar said.

"That's brutal," said Toki.

"That won't be necessary," I said. "I think the whales kind of set the ambience of the underwater theme to this album, right, Nathan?" I said it in a way to keep Nathan from deleting all that hard work and have us all stuck in this submarine for another five months.

"True," he said as he listened to the music again, much to my relief. "But we need to record a new song that has no whale sounds."

"Maybe we can isolate Toki," suggested Pickles.

Nathan pointed to something on the other side of the room. "What about that?"

(!)

The next thing Toki knew he was in a "liquid oxygen isolation submersion chamber" that was slowly being filled with a pink fluid. Toki looked around frantically. "What does this lights means?"

"He will die," a crewman said to me and Skwisgaar. "without a safety briefing."

"Hey I'll take it from here," Skwisgaar said. "Okay, buddy?"

"Swisgaar," Toki called out. "I think I need that safety briefings."

"Oh, really quickly," the blonde guitarist said, ignoring Toki's distress. "The reason I came in here is we're all going to order some food. Do you want something?"

The pink liquid was up to Toki's chest. "I can't think about it now. What are all these buttons flashing?"

"Start thinking about what you want because honestly i'm starting to get hungry."

"Anything! Gn-Gnocchi or something! It's filling up!"

"Okay, I'll write that down. And oh, by the way, don't screw this one up!"

The liquid reached Toki's neck. "What is this button, I think I hit it!"

"I got to get going, see you later." And with a press of a button, the tank was lowered all the way down into the trench.

"I think you really should have given him that safety briefing," I said.

"Eh, he'll be fine," Skwissgar said. "By the way, what will you be having?"

"Oh, uh...ratatouille, please."

Swisgaar raised an eyebrow at me. "A French peasant dish?" He scoffed. "Figures."

(!)

The band was doing another recording session, minus Toki, when the power blew out. "Hey guys... nuclear submarine power's out."

"Thank you," I grumbled. "Murderface for point out the obvious."

(!)

Pickles and I were in the engine room, trying to adjust the power. "Ah, here's the problem." I opened the fuse box. "The power cell's busted loose somehow."

"So," Pickles said. "Do you know how to fix it?"

"All we got to do is knock it back in that's all." I tried to push it in, but it remained in place. "Give me a hand, Pickles. But be careful with it!"

"Dude... stupid nuclear... I don't know what the heck's going on.. Who gives a fuck? Ain't my sub."

He and I gave it a good hard shove and after a few surges of electricity, the power came back.

"Hey, Wood," Pickles said as we climbed out the engine room. "How did you know how to fix a submarine anyway?"

I paused. "I...I don't know. It just...came to me."

(!)

"Hey guys," I announced as we ate our lunches. "Ensign says an unidentified vessel is requesting permission to board."

Skwisgaar made a coughing sound. "Oh, great. Probably some dick nose record producer comes to try and tell us how to make metal. Don't knows snakes from dildos about that. Ppht. Get in line."

"Okay calm down," I said. "Remember, we've got to be professional. Okay?"

"Unless he pushes us," said Pickles. "In which case I swear to god I will fuckin' knife him in the..."

"Yeah! Slice his face off," Murderface slurred, his sentence barely sensible with all those beans he was eating out of that pot.

"Dude, don't talk with your mouth full," I said.

"Yeah, I know mean, I mean, have a little decency," Pickles said in disgust. "We're stuck together in a friggin submarine for crying out loud."

Murderface dropped the pot, spilling beans all over the floor. "Fine," he said. "How about I starve to death? How's that?" He farted. "Excuse me." No he wasn't. And just when I thought it couldn't get any more disgusting... "Ugh, these boots are killing my feet!" He took them off, exposing his callused, sweaty, STINKY! feet. He farted again. That was it. I ran outside to get some fresh air. I barely heard Murderface say, "These feet stink!" and vomit all over the floor. I ordered someone to clean up the mess before we met the producer.

(!)

We met Mr. Knubbler waiting for us in the loading bay. He said in a nasally voice, "Hi guys. Sooo uh... let's hear this new album." He passed out. No one moved.

"Hey, I have those same shoes," said Murderface.

(!)

"You sure you're going to be okay?" I asked Mr. Knubbler as I sat him in a chair in front of a large speaker.

"Yeah, bear with me dudes. I think I made the trip a little too fast. My... my body's having a little trouble adjusting to the oceanic pressure down here. I'm sure I'll feel a little better once I have some Pop Rocks and Coke." He swallowed the sweets, and his nose began to bleed.

"You sure? We don't want you to get the bends."

"Nah, nah. I'm fine."

I shrugged my shoulders and joined the band in another room, watching Mr. Knubbler through a window. "Now shut up and listen to this, Dick," Nathan said. "This is metal. For fish."

"Fish don't gots no good metal to listens to," said Skwisgaar.

"Yeah, it's true," Murderface agreed.

"We all got the idea," I said. "After some whales gathered around to listen to our music."

Mr. Knubbler tilted his head. "Fish, huh?"

Nathan prepared the sample track, "This one's called Murmaider!"

"It's about mermaid murder," explained Murderface.

"The clue's in the title," I said. "And you might want to hold on to the arm rests of that chair."

"Why?" Mr. Knubbler got his answer when the song played loudly, almost sending him flying and shattering his rose-tinted glasses. "STOP THE TRACK!" he shouted over the music. He was so excited. "This is amazing! I mean, there must be billions of fish out there! It's a totally untapped market! And so many hits too!"

"Yeah," I said. "Like Electric Eel Chair, Scaled and Gutted and Undercooked, Scuba Tank Filled With Farts. We have Murderface to thank for the last one."

"Hey!"

Mr. Knubbler didn't care. "YEAH! You boys knocked it completely out of the park." I heard what he said under his breath, "I am back on top!" Hmm... He said out loud, "I'm going straight to the label!"

(!)

Mr. Knubbler was about to leave with copies of the recordings. We were there to send him off. "You know something Knubbler. Y'ain't that much of a dildo after all," Pickles said.

"Despite the chronic nose bleeds," I said.

Suddenly, Toki burst out of the water and crawled into the loading bay. "Not safe," he gurgled. "Not safe!" He threw up a pink fluid. "There's monsters!"

"Monsters?" I asked.

Mr. Knubbler said, not listening to Toki. "Like I said boys, when the label hears this they're literally going to shit fish. Literally." He laughed manically as he left in his tiny sub. I turned to Toki. "What do you mean 'monsters'? Did an angler fish scare you?"

"No!" He grabbed me by the shirt. "It's huge," he whispered.

"What?"

"My lords," one of the crewmen said. "You might want to take a look at this."

(!)

There was a seahorse outside, only...it looked more like Godzilla! "How did..."

"You and Pickles messing about in the engine room caused a leak," the crewman said. "You just exposed three tanks worth of nuclear fuel to the ocean!"

"Brutal," Nathan said. "Very brutal." I couldn't help it. I nodded.

(!)

Record sales for the new Dethwater were through the roof for the first time in several months. I glanced down at the newspaper a few weeks after we returned to Mordhaus. "'New Dethklok album so awesome, it blinds producer!' Poor Mr. Knubbler," I said.

"I wouldn't exactly say poor," Mr. Offdenson said. "He's actually quite happy."

I glanced up at him. "How? He's got no eyes anymore. I told him I didn't want him to get the bends. The pressure blew up his eyes!"

"Apparently, you haven't heard from his recent update." He handed me a magazine. The article had an image of Mr. Knubbler with new robotic eyes. And they came with a feature: they changed colors whenever his mood changes. "How did he get these?"

"We used some of the money we made to pay for his eye surgery."

I glanced down at the article again. "It says here he's staying as Dethklok's new producer." I scratched the back of my head. "I guess we should hand him the waivers as well before hiring him."

"Exactly."