Dragon looked at the email in her silicon mindscape, her virtual mouth slightly open, then produced something that in an organic would have been a stunned blink of shock.

"What?" she asked herself.

Checking the source of the email, she rapidly ran into the problem that it had come through the same untraceable heavily encrypted remailer service that Leet had used to contact Armsmaster. Even she couldn't penetrate it, and was hesitant to try, as the protections were ferocious and whoever was behind it had made it abundantly clear that they took a very dim view of hackers.

Demonstrations had been made.

People didn't try any more. The ones that had lived, anyway.

Deciding that was a dead end, she re-read the email again, virtually shaking her head, then called Colin. He needed to see this.

When the Tinker answered, his face on a simulated screen in her mindscape, she put a puzzled expression on her avatar's face. "I got an email just now," she began.

"I assume you get a lot of them," he replied, seeming somewhat distracted. Curious, she checked and found he was reviewing the sonar scans of the bottom of the bay they'd made, specifically the one showing the enormous apparently hand-written capital letter K, done in a fancy calligraphic style.

It was something she tried not to think about.

"I do. This one is… different."

"How?" he asked, looking more directly at the camera for a moment.

"It's the only email I ever received from a sea serpent complaining that my probes taste bad," she replied with a sigh of mixed disbelief and resignation. His head snapped around to meet her simulated eyes with his real ones, shock in them.

"What?" he yipped, his voice higher than normal.

"Look," she said, sending him the email, which appeared instantly on one of his monitors via the link he allowed her to his systems. He read it with a growing expression of confusion.

To: Dragon
From: Umihebi
Subject: Your tech tastes bad. Please fix.

Hi, Dragon!

I love the name!

Anyway, I was out for a nice swim a little while ago and someone kept throwing a little annoying machine at me, so I had to eat it in the end. It didn't taste very good. Titanium has a bitter aftertaste and the batteries were a little sour, although they were also nicely tingly. Overall I'd give it about two out of five, edible but wouldn't recommend to a friend.

Sorry, but that's what I think.

I know you'll be disappointed in that rating. When I found out it was your machine, I thought I should contact you and let you know, so you could make any newer models taste better.

Don't get me wrong, it was nice and crunchy, very fresh, the texture was fine, but the taste… Meh. I'm sure you can do better. Everyone knows you're the best. If you will accept a suggestion, perhaps you could put some Tabasco sauce inside it? My sister says that stuff is really nice and I'd love to try it.

Or ketchup.

I'm told crunchy things go well with ketchup.

Well, I can't spend all day chatting, I have all sorts of things to do, and the rest of the family wants a go on the computer, so I'll just be off. Thanks for listening. And if you do send any more little machines my way, remember the taste.

Thanks.

Have a nice day!

PS, I sent you a picture a friend of mine took, I thought you might like one. I signed it and everything.

Bye.

Umihebi

Dragon watched her best friend's eyes moving back and forth as he read the email. When he finished, he blinked a few times, then read it again. His face was completely blank although she could see a small vein in his forehead pulsing a little.

"Umihebi?" he asked after a long pause.

"It literally means sea serpent. I think it's meant as a joke."

"Is this email some sort of joke as well?"

Wordlessly she put the photo that had been attached to the email up on his monitor, the man recoiling in shock and squeaking a little in a very un-Colin-like way. He stared at the absolutely huge reptilian creature which was shown posing with its head resting on what they both recognized as the grounded tanker at the mouth of the Brockton Bay harbor, taken at night with a powerful flash, the skyline of the city visible behind it, and the Rig itself to one side, nicely framed. It was a very good picture.

The creature that was lying half submerged, the front half or so still being nearly a hundred feet long, dark scales glistening with water where they were draped across the bow of the ship, was giving the camera what seemed to be meant as a smile. More huge teeth were visible than any normal person would find even slightly reassuring, and webbed forelegs were holding in enormous hands a huge sign written in the same neatly calligraphed lettering that they'd seen before, 'Welcome to Brockton Bay, home of The Family.'

The sign looked like it was made from the side of one of the ships from the graveyard, carefully torn off by brute force, while the letters were incised into the metal with some horrifically sharp implement, which Dragon strongly suspected was one of the several-foot-long talons on the hands. The creature looked oddly cheerful in a somewhat Lovecraftian way.

The head was very familiar. They'd seen a nice high definition video of it in action very recently.

The eyes were definitely the same as Raptaur's. The expression was still one of intelligent amusement.

Armsmaster stared at the picture for a long time, then closed his eyes and swallowed a couple of times.

When he opened them, it was still there.

"I don't think it's a joke, Colin."

"Why is this happening?" he sighed.

"I have no idea. Nor do I have any idea how the hell that thing can use a computer."

Another input pinged for her attention. She momentarily checked it, then rolled virtual eyes, almost amused. "But it can. Umihebi just created a PHO account and used that image as proof of status. The forums are going a little… weird."

"Oh, god," he mumbled. "Can I move up there with you? Brockton Bay is getting too strange for me."

As she was thinking of a suitable response other than "Yes, please, Colin," he looked to the side, then sighed again.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Passive sonar alert. I put a filter on the microphones to log if anything in the water produced patterned sounds that weren't mechanical."

"What does it sound like?" she asked curiously. He glanced at her, then off camera, before with visible reluctance reaching out to operate a switch.

They listened. Slightly metallic music sounded through the lab, and across the link to Dragon, sounding like it was made by some enormous unseen hand hitting some huge metal structure rhythmically, with higher notes caused by smaller objects being shaken. She had a fairly good idea that it was the tanker being used as an instrument.

A bass voice started singing.

"Oh, yeah… Oh, yeah!"

They listened to the performance for a while, before Colin silently flipped the switch again.

"Yello." Dragon commented. "It's moved on from sea shanties."

"Fuck my life," Colin muttered, dropping his head to the desk.

"Hey, it could be worse."

"How?"

"It's not the 'Jaws' theme," she laughed, before disconnecting, leaving him looking worried. Wondering idly if he'd ever go in a boat again, she read the email one final time, then placed an order for a dozen bottles of Tabasco sauce.

Just in case.