It's July 15th, 2022, and Sarah Walker has finally scored her dream job—working with dolphins at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Socially awkward and academically driven, Sarah's never found love—but when she meets a tech genius whose inventions have the chance to make her research a reality, she finds herself falling for him. Together, their work could change the world … that is, unless someone else gets hold of it first.

Disclaimer: We don't own Chuck…

Chapter 5: In Too Deep

A little under twenty-four hours had passed since Sarah had met (re-met?) Chuck at MBARI. She still couldn't believe that the same guy from the beach—the one she'd imagined herself sharing a glass of wine with while enjoying sunsets together—had walked right into her lab. As a scientist, she didn't believe in serendipity, but what else could you call it? Even wilder was the fact that he seemed just as awkward when it came to interacting with people as she did … but in the most adorable way possible. He'd practically fallen all over himself apologizing for their disastrous first encounter.

When she thought about it some more—which, to be honest, was almost all she'd done from the moment Chuck and Ellie left her lab—she was a little sad that he'd felt so compelled to tell her how sorry he was for his lack of control over Ellie's ill-mannered pup. It made her wonder if people had been mean to him in the past, or given him a hard time. It wasn't fair, but she knew she'd gotten a pass on a lot of those kinds of things because of her looks. She'd spent years trying to counteract that, to prove that she was more than just a pretty face … always longing to find someone who was interested in her because of her intelligence, not in spite of it. Hiding her passion for science under a bushel had never been her thing—but she'd seen how cruel kids could be to those they deemed 'geeky.'

It was crazy, since she barely knew Chuck—but thinking about people bullying him or treating him badly made her feel protective … even furious. He was incredibly special; anyone could see that if they just gave him half a chance. Look at how he'd crossed the room to help her carry those water bottles and assuage her insecurities, after she'd made such an ass of herself.

God … that had been humiliating. She'd known she was babbling with every word that fell out of her mouth—but she hadn't been able to stop. The sensation she'd felt when his hand enclosed hers … it was the sort of thing she'd read about in cheesy romance novels. Warmth … electricity … followed by full-blown idiocy on her part. For the first time in her life, she cursed her near-perfect memory. She remembered every moronic thing she'd said to him in high definition, including introducing herself multiple times as she clung to his hand like some kind of barnacle … or a limpet … or whatever aquatic metaphor applied.

Then there was the man's intellect to contend with. As far as Sarah was concerned, calling Chuck Bartowski your typical, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill genius was nothing short of blasphemy. She'd spent the majority of last night poring over his notes and research for CHAT, and was blown away by how his mind worked. It was insane to think that he'd only been sixteen or seventeen when he'd designed and built the technology for the project. His ability to come up with simple, yet innovative solutions to complex problems—to understand the inherent correlations between art and science—was a thing of beauty. He was in a league of his own and it was starting to affect her in a number of unexpected and disconcerting ways. Pursuing Chuck would break every rule she had against mixing business and pleasure. She needed to find a way to lock that shit down, and quickly.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending how you looked at it—the man's magnetism was like the unescapable force from a supermassive black hole's gravity well. The only other time Sarah had felt anything even close to this kind of attraction had ended in disaster and heartbreak, leaving her incredibly wary. But unlike her college dating debacle, this time she wasn't being knocked on her ass by a smooth-talking Casanova with rugged good looks and a wandering eye. Chuck Bartowski was the farthest thing from smooth she'd ever seen … and yet he'd been devastatingly effective at breaking down her protective walls and capturing her imagination. His natural charm, intellect, and that radiant smile of his had a way of sneaking up on you, and before you knew it, you were struggling to think of anything or anyone else—at least, that was the case for Sarah. And it was a problem for her … a serious problem.

How the hell was she supposed to work side-by-side with this man and maintain her professionalism? She needed to distance herself and remember what had brought them together in the first place—her work. Everything else needed to fall by the wayside, no matter the cost … or how she felt. Last night, she'd promised herself to do just that—to not allow her budding crush on the self-proclaimed nerd to blossom into anything more and affect their working relationship.

Despite that resolution, her heart had still skipped a few beats when he'd called her right after dinner, apologizing profusely for bothering her while she was at home. At first he'd seemed nervous, stammering as he asked a few probing questions about her research and some of the approaches she'd used to gather her data—the latter of which he seemed to be absorbing at an alarming rate. She'd answered his queries in the simplest of terms, afraid she might go overboard with too much technical jargon and confuse him. But then he'd blindsided her, his questions turning on a dime and becoming incredibly complex—not to mention insightful. She'd found herself knocked on her ass for a whole different reason as she struggled to come up with answers that would dignify the amount of effort he'd obviously put into thinking about her work.

Chuck had listened to everything she had to say, not interrupting once. Then he'd flipped her world on its ear when he started to postulate—theorizing about methods and strategies they might try with Echo and Finn that had never even occurred to Sarah … or anyone else, as far as she knew. And he hadn't even met the dolphins yet. It was humbling and exhilarating in equal measure.

Right before she decided to turn in for the night—certain she'd just lie awake, staring at the ceiling with her mind blown—he texted her, asking if she'd be willing to meet at 8 AM instead of 9 so he and Ellie could get a proper tour of the Aquarium before it opened to the public. She'd agreed, her only saving grace being that Ellie would be there with them as a buffer. Sarah wasn't sure how she'd handle being alone with Chuck right now. She was in a lot of trouble when it came to this man and she damn well knew it.

The Bartowskis had, of course, arrived right on time. Chuck opted to stow a large duffle bag with Milton while Ellie fidgeted, eager to finish the tour that Sarah had promised her the day before. Knowing that they'd end up spending a lot of time in front of the otters' tank, Sarah strategically veered right, passing the otters by and directing Chuck and Ellie to two of her personal favorites: Jellies and the Open Sea. Everyone loved the otters, penguins, and dolphins—Sarah was no exception—but she thought it took a special kind of person to love something with tentacles.

Sometimes she felt bad for the jellies—or, as the Aquarium called them, the "brainless beauties." Even though that term might be anatomically accurate, Sarah took offense on the jellies' behalf. Maybe it was just because she'd spent so much of her life proving that that particular description didn't apply to her, but she thought the jellies had a lot to offer, despite their lack of a central nervous system.

Ellie made a small noise of protest when they passed the otters' tank, venturing deeper into the Aquarium and climbing the steps to the second floor instead. "Hey," she said, "aren't we going to—"

"We are," Sarah assured her as they crested the last step and strode across the wooden bridge—spectacular in its own right. "We're just going to see something else first. I promise you'll like it."

Now here they stood in front of the jellies' exhibit, watching the moon jellies drift through the water, their translucent bodies making Sarah think—as she always did when she saw them—of ghosts. "Those are my favorites." She pointed at the next viewing window. "And those right there are called egg yolk jellies—see how they have the yellow yolk-like blob right in the middle? It looks like someone cracked a few eggs into the tank."

Chuck snorted, walking over to take a closer look. "Great. Now I'm hungry."

"That," Ellie said—her eyes on the oval comb jellies gliding through the water inches from the glass, leaving what looked like the trail of a rainbow behind them—"is entirely your fault. If you hadn't stayed up so late working, you would've woken up at a decent time, and then you could've had breakfast with me rather than cramming a Pop Tart into your mouth as you ran out the door. I've been raising you since you were fifteen, Chuck Bartowski, and I swear, some things never change."

Sarah felt a pang of guilt. He'd been up late working on stuff for her, she was sure of it. But he'd said this kind of project was how he liked to blow off steam. She didn't need to feel guilty, did she? Surely he wouldn't be putting in this kind of time on her project unless he wanted to. But maybe he still felt bad about what had happened on the beach and was trying to make it up to her, in which case—

"If you knew I was up late, then so were you," Chuck said, derailing her train of thought. "Yet somehow you managed to make and eat a full breakfast, shower, and look … well, perfect." He waved a hand at his sister. "How is that even possible?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "I'm a doctor. Functioning well on minimal sleep is part of the gig."

He groaned, and Sarah cleared her throat. "Want to know something really cool?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. What was she, eight? But neither of the Bartowskis laughed. Instead they both looked at her expectantly—as if they were excited about what she had to say—giving her the courage to go on.

"Um," Sarah said, "I thought this might be interesting for both of you. See, most animals have a central nervous system—but the jellies don't. Instead, they have two decentralized nervous systems, one that controls their ability to swim and another that controls everything else, including eating and curling into a ball."

Ellie raised an eyebrow, looking interested. "Do they do that a lot?"

"What, curl up? Yeah, they do. It's some kind of spastic response. But anyway, the way I heard Rebecca Helm describe them once—she's an oceanographer I met at Woods Hole—is that they're sort of like the original computer network, and the little nerve bundles at the edges of their bodies are like mini-servers. The servers work in cooperation, talking to each other to tell the jelly's body what to do, because there's no master remote control … like a brain. The neat part is that, since everything's decentralized, if something comes along and takes a bite out of the jelly, it doesn't bring the whole system down. They can still function, even if a larger creature chomps off some of their tentacles."

She wound down, painfully aware that—as was so often the case when she was passionate about something—she'd gone on a bit of a rant. But the Bartowskis didn't seem to mind. Ellie looked fascinated, and Chuck was staring at the jellies in awe. He walked closer to the glass, watching the delicate creatures pulse and drift. "That … is freaking awesome," he said. "How long did it take for humans to invent the computer, let alone come up with the concept of redundancy with servers? But these little guys were doing it all along."

"Yep. They've been doing it forever," Sarah said, glad to have something to contribute that didn't leave her sounding like a conversational-tangent-hopping, lovesick teenager. "They've actually been around longer than the dinosaurs. Come on, I'll show you the Open Sea."

She led them away from the jellies—Chuck looked back over his shoulder like a little kid abandoning a newly favorite toy, making her suppress a grin—and to the Open Sea exhibit. The tank was massive, spanning two floors, with a 90-foot-tall viewing window.

"Don't worry," she told Chuck as they came to a halt in front of the glass. "There are jellies in here, too."

There were, indeed, jellies—but there were also sharks, sea turtles, pelagic stingrays, and huge schools of sardines that swam past the glass in unison like giant silver waves, their trajectory undulating in response to the presence of predators. Ellie's mouth fell open. "Sarah," she said, sounding reverent, "this is absolutely … amazing. And I mean that in the truest sense of the term. To see it like this—while the Aquarium is empty—it's so personal, like someone opened a window on the ocean and I'm somehow getting to peek inside. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. I just … there are no words."

The dumbfounded look on Ellie's face made Sarah smile. Her heart swelled to see the neurologist reduced to speechlessness by the sheer beauty of the ocean—the same way she herself felt every time she stood in front of this tank or walked the beach alongside the bay. "So you don't mind that we didn't start with the otters?"

"Not at all."

"I'm glad," Sarah said, watching hammerhead sharks and tunas glide through the darting schools of fish. It was an effortless ballet she'd never get tired of, no matter how often she had the privilege to watch. "And what you said—I feel the same way. Every day, I have to remind myself that my job here is real."

They stood for a few minutes in silence, watching the slow majesty of the sea turtles as they made their way through the tank. Light glinted through the water, reflecting off the fishes' silver bodies, making them look as if they were made of iridescent, gleaming metal. It was hypnotic and peaceful, and only the knowledge of their approaching appointment with Dr. Beckman and the trainers gave Sarah the motivation to break away.

"Okay," she told Ellie. "Time to make a choice. I'm not sure we'll have a chance to see both the otters and the penguins before 9—so you pick. The penguins are up here, and as you know, the otters are on the first floor. It's totally up to you."

"That's a tough one." Ellie tilted her head, giving it serious consideration. "I love them both. But you know what? Let's do the otters. If we run out of time, I can check out the penguins some other day."

So Sarah brought the Bartowskis back downstairs, pointing out exhibits and features of the building as they walked. They came to a stop in front of the otter tank, and Ellie let out a squeal of joy.

"Oh my God," she said, clapping her hands over her mouth. "They're so adorable."

It was true, the otters were on their best behavior. Mia had her green horseshoe in her mouth and was lying on her back, paws clasping the toy and her rear flippers sticking out of the water. Next to her, Jenny—the oldest otter in the exhibit, a stranding rescue who'd served as a surrogate mother to numerous orphaned pups—was sunbathing, her furry belly in full view. The exhibit's two youngest otters, Rufus and Ruby, were wrestling, flipping over and over and splashing each other. Ruby stuck her tongue out at Rufus—one of her favorite tricks—and then grabbed the duck toy one of the trainers had given her when she first came to the Aquarium and dived under the water, disappearing from view.

"I love them," Ellie said, sounding transfixed. "I swear, I could watch them all day."

Chuck cleared his throat, tapping his foot. And then, to Sarah's bewilderment, he began to sing. "If your tastes are like mine, you like cider, not wine…"

Was he singing to the otters? Yes, for some reason, he was.

"And your very favorite thing to doooo…" he warbled. "Is get a pretty girl dancin' to jug band music and a mess of mama's barbecue."

Was it Sarah's imagination, or had he glanced at her when he sang the lyric about the pretty girl? Either way, she couldn't help but picture the little boy within the man's body as he tried to step in time, his arms flailing about, looking as if he might be having some kind of seizure. The song was strangely familiar … and way too endearing for Sarah's tastes, making it harder and harder for her to stick to her promise of keeping her distance. He really needed to cut that shit out.

The problem was, Chuck had shown up this morning minus some of his shyness from their earlier encounters. Maybe it had to do with their conversation the night before. Or maybe he'd gotten his footing around her, after reading through all of her research—which, when he first saw her this morning, he'd proclaimed was brilliant ... making her blush, yet again. Either way, the more he relaxed, the more his true personality shone through—and the more nervous and enamored Sarah became.

Chuck hadn't been anything but professional with her—other than their first encounter, of course, and who could've blamed him for stumbling then? True, he'd called her beautiful … but that'd probably just been a casual comment, part of his apology for Peaches' behavior. Plus, from what Ellie'd been saying on the phone, he'd gone back to the beach to look for someone. Was it another girl? The whole situation was even more awkward, given that Ellie'd been trying to set them up without realizing they'd already met …

Desperate to distract herself, Sarah blurted the first thing that came to her mind. "Did you know that, biologically speaking, otters are in the same family as weasels?"

Oh, for the love of God.

Ellie stared at her. Chuck stared at her, interrupted mid-warble. In the reflection from the otter tank, Sarah stared at herself. She wished the glass from the tank would dissolve and the ensuing wave would wash her out to sea.

And then Ellie saved her from herself.

"Nope. Sorry, Sarah, but there's no way otters are related to weasels," she said, putting her hands on her hips, looking more like a disgruntled teenager than one of the West Coast's preeminent neurologists. "They are far too adorable. Weasels, by contrast, are just so … weaselly." She shuddered.

Turning his attention from Sarah, Chuck elbowed his sister. "Come on, Ellie. I seem to remember you having a crush on a certain red-headed Harry Potter character back in the day."

Ellie blushed a fiery scarlet. "Excuse me? Ron Weasley was amazing," she said in his defense. "And totally underrated—except for the part where he got jealous of Harry and Hermione when they were hiding out in the Forest of Dean. But it was the Horcrux that made him leave. And he came back, following his heart, which was the most important part."

Raising an eyebrow, Chuck grinned at his sister. "Does Devon like it when you talk nerdy to him?"

Sarah checked her cell phone, smiling at their banter despite her embarrassment. "Our meeting is in five minutes, so we'd better go. Afterward, if you have time, we could stop by the penguins' tank and say hello … see what they're up to …" Her voice trailed off. See what they're up to? Real smooth, Walker. What the hell was wrong with her? What could they possibly be up to, other than swimming or eating? It wasn't like the penguins were in their tank crocheting.

Less than two minutes since her last bizarre comment, and she'd done it again. She should come with a warning label: Awkward Under Pressure. Better yet, she should never speak again. How ironic was it that she was studying dolphin-human communication, when she could barely manage a coherent conversation with other human beings?

But Chuck didn't seem to mind her verbal fumbling. He was smiling at her, a wide, genuine smile that somehow diffused her anxiety. "I'd love to see what the penguins are up to," he said.

Sarah found herself smiling back. "Okay, then," she said—and then, to her horror: "It's a date."

OoOoOoOoO

On their way to the dolphins' tank, Chuck stopped to retrieve his duffel bag from Milton, who seemed to have taken quite the shine to him. They greeted each other like old friends, even though they'd just met briefly when Sarah had introduced them that morning. Somehow, Chuck had managed to charm Milton, too. It only served to reinforce her favorable opinion of him … like getting the approval of an overprotective parent. Please, she prayed, let him have a horrible flaw I haven't discovered yet … like stealing from small children or exploding frogs with M80s. But the truth was, she was starting to fear he was exactly what he seemed—an incredibly smart, equally nice guy.

"Whatcha got in there, Chuck?" Sarah asked as they climbed the stairs to the third floor. It was the most innocuous comment she could think of—but it didn't net a satisfying response.

He gave her a crooked smile, hefting the bag so she could hear the items shift inside. "Just a few things I threw together."

Intrigued, Sarah held the door open for him and Ellie as they walked into the staging area at the edge of the dolphins' tank. When they got out to the platform, Dr. Beckman, Casey, and two of the wetsuit-clad trainers—Lou Palone and Gertrude Verbanski—were waiting for them. Sarah made introductions all around, and Chuck shifted his duffle to his left hand so he'd be able to greet them properly.

She couldn't help but notice that when John Casey grabbed his hand and shook it, Chuck winced a bit. Casey was a great veterinarian—but he had a tendency to turn everything into a game of one-upmanship, especially when it came to his interactions with other guys. Chuck was one of the least macho men Sarah had ever met, something that was likely clear to Casey as well—and yet that didn't stop the Aquarium's vet from doing what Sarah's dad used to call "the old handshake test." It aggravated her. Her father had been the same kind of guy—always pushing his limits, needing to be the strongest and the best. It was one of the things that attracted her to Chuck—the way he was unabashedly himself, no matter the circumstances or the supposed competition.

Chuck retrieved his hand from Casey's grip, looking relieved, and extended it to Lou. "Hi," he said. "Nice to meet you."

Lou looked up at him—and up, and up. At just 5'2", she was far shorter than Sarah's 5'10" frame—and Chuck, at 6'4", had over a foot on her. A mismatch if she'd ever seen one. Sarah always felt like a lumbering behemoth next to Lou, whose wetsuit only served to emphasize her delicate build. She fought back a pang of jealousy as the trainer smiled up at Chuck from beneath her lashes. "The pleasure's all mine," Lou said, twirling a lock of her dark hair with her free hand.

Chuck smiled in response before he turned to Gertrude, and Sarah had to remind herself that she had no claim on Chuck, or right to be jealous. If he and Lou were attracted to each other, it would give her the perfect excuse to bury her feelings for him … deep, deep down inside. Maybe that would be for the best.

Gertrude, on the other hand, didn't display any interest toward Chuck whatsoever. Sarah thought the older trainer actually had a thing for Casey—but the taciturn vet didn't seem to notice. He was gentle, kind, and observant when it came to his patients; human beings—even smart, beautiful ones like Gertrude—were a different story.

"So," Dr. Beckman said when Chuck and Ellie had finished introducing themselves to the group, "it's time to meet the stars of the show." She gestured at the water; Sarah could see the vague shapes of the dolphins at the bottom of the tank, peering through the glass in anticipation of visitors.

"You got it, doc." Lou stepped forward, lifting the bucket of fish that sat at her feet. She knelt by the edge of the platform and tapped the water with an open palm—the signal for the dolphins to come.

Sarah could see Echo and Finn streaking up towards them. A moment later, the dolphins' heads broke the surface of the water, touching their rostrums to Lou's palm. Lou handed them each a fish in praise and leaned over to pet them in turn.

"So," Sarah said, turning to Chuck, "the one on the left is Echo, and next to her is our resident bad boy, Finn. He looks innocent, but don't let that fool you—he's as mischievous as they come."

Chuck stepped closer, looking down at the dolphins. "What about Echo?"

As if in response to Chuck's words, Echo slapped the water, sending it spraying into the air and soaking his shoes. He shook his head, looking rueful. "It's a good thing you're so adorable, and pregnant to boot"—he wagged a finger at her—"or I might have to pay you back for that one."

Echo gave a high-pitched whistle in response, one that Sarah thought she recognized as the dolphin's invitation to play.

"She likes you," Lou said, turning to smile up at Chuck. "And who could blame her. I know it seems counterintuitive, but she only splashes people she likes. Here—do you want to give her a fish?"

Chuck bent down, gingerly extracting a smelt from the bucket. Its gills were stuffed with spirulina; Sarah could smell the distinctive aroma from where she stood. "What do I—do I just—"

He looked so funny, holding the fish at arm's length and trying to suppress his disgust, that Sarah couldn't help but giggle. "Let Lou teach you a hand signal first," she said. "That way when Echo gets the fish, it'll be a behavioral reinforcement—or, as it's more commonly known … a reward."

Chuck dropped the fish back into the bucket, wiping his hands on his jeans, and Lou gestured for him to kneel next to her. "Okay," she said, "move your hand over the water and make a fist with your index finger extended, like a finger-gun … there you go. And—here she comes."

Echo turned sideways, lifted her flipper, and gave Chuck's finger a high five. A grin spread across his face as Lou said, "Good girl, Echo. Now you can give her a fish."

He tossed the fish to Echo, then looked at Finn—but the male dolphin pointedly turned his back and swam away. Chuck made an uneasy sound. "Um—is it me, or … does he hate me?"

Casey chuckled. "Yeah, he doesn't seem too fond of you, Bartowski. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was jealous."

He's not the only one, Sarah thought as Chuck thanked Lou for giving him the opportunity to interact with Echo. "So," she said in an effort to change the subject, "now that we've all met each other, I really want to know—what's in the bag?"

"Oh … a bunch of stuff." Chuck walked back to where he'd set the duffle, far away from the water. He bent down, rummaging through it. "So, um, my laptop … not that exciting … a couple cameras and a tripod … hang on. Here."

He pulled the laptop from the bag and motioned everyone over. Sarah stood next to him so she could get a close look at the screen—and couldn't help but notice how good he smelled, like some kind of spicy body wash. Everything about the man was a distraction. With an internal groan, she forced herself to focus.

"So," Chuck said, resting the laptop on a small counter at the back of the dive platform, "I did some research into methods of gathering EEGs on dolphins. When Sarah and I talked last night, she told me that typically, doing EEGs on cetaceans was really invasive, because the electrodes had to be surgically implanted in their brains, which—ugh." He shuddered. "She said that a few years ago, a group of Japanese scientists came up with a novel method, where they attached the electrodes to the dolphins' heads via waterproof suction cups. As long as they kept the dolphins' heads wet, the suction cups would stick. It seemed like a massive improvement—but I thought we could do even better."

He clicked a few buttons, and an image appeared on the screen. "Every study I read about, the dolphins had to be out of the water for the EEGs to be done. So I thought … what if I could design a wireless, waterproof sleeve that would fit over the dolphins' heads, with the suction cups and electrodes built in? Obviously they'd have to be trained to tolerate it, but they should be able to swim with the sleeve on just fine … and then we could transmit the signals remotely to some kind of recording device. This is what I came up with."

He swiveled the laptop so all of them could see. The sleeve itself was ingenious—a slick piece of neoprene designed to slide over the dolphins' heads, leaving cutouts for their blowholes and eyes. "The trick was coming up with an amplifier that would work underwater," he said, sounding as enraptured as Sarah did when she talked about the intricacies of dolphin-human communication. "Because, of course, it's not enough to generate the brain waves—you need to be able to broadcast them to the receiver, which will then transcribe them. We'd also need to come up with a system that would be able to handle data transmission at long distances and considerable depths—otherwise the sleeve would be useless—and to control for interference produced by the water, the dolphins' movements, et cetera."

He pointed at the screen. "See these? They're biosensors—we can place some in the sleeve and others in different spots on the dolphins' bodies. I found some interesting software created by a company called iMotions that allows researchers to combine EEG data with eye tracking, cardiac activity, respiration … you name it. And since everything I read says that multimodal analysis—not just vocalizations, but also tactile, chemical, and additional senses—are key to understanding dolphins' communication, I thought having a data feed from these sensors simultaneously with the information streaming from the EEG might be really helpful. I'm considering designing some kind of underwater mesh network to help with data transfer."

Even John Casey looked impressed. "You've got my attention," he said to Chuck—a rare admission. "What else did you put together?"

"Um—a CAD drawing of a reinforced MRI table that could accommodate the dolphins' weight. This one's nothing revolutionary—it's basically just a reinforced table that would fit over the regular, human-sized one—but I can build it for you … if you want." He clicked through to the drawing of the table and looked to Sarah for her approval.

She tried to stay focused on the business at hand instead of getting lost in his eyes. From far away, she'd thought they were a single shade of brown, but up close like this, she could see that his irises were a milk-chocolate shade at the edges, and darkened the closer they got to his pupils. They were beautiful—made all the more so because of the intelligence and kindness that they radiated.

"This looks great," she said. "I'm with Casey—I'm more than impressed. This is fabulous, Chuck. Thank you so much."

"Oh—this isn't all." He bent down, pulling a case out of the duffle. "So, I brought a hydrophone—"

"Hang on." Gertrude tilted her head, looking amused. "You just happened to bring a hydrophone on your vacation?"

"Um, no." He blushed. "I bought it yesterday. Along with this solid state digital recorder. And this tripod and camera … plus an underwater camera."

Sarah's eyes widened. How much money had he spent?

As if Ellie could read her mind, she leaned over and touched Sarah's arm. "Don't worry about it," she said, sotto voce. "Chuck can afford it. And honestly? He had more fun doing this than he's had on his whole vacation combined."

Sarah chanced a look at Chuck's face. Sure enough, he looked as if he was having a great time. "That's it, right?" she said, only half-teasing him.

"Uh … nope. I also experimented with some software design based on what we talked about. Here, check it out." He pulled out his phone. "Morgan, wake up."

There was a pause, and then the automated voice from yesterday said, "Hey, Chuck, how's it hangin'?"

Casey snorted, both trainers smiled, and Chuck turned bright red. "Restart in scientific mode," he said.

Another pause, and then the AI interface spoke again, this time in a woman's businesslike tone. "What can I do for you?"

Chuck matched her professional approach. "Using my laptop's audio as well as the video playback function, demonstrate the correlations you've made between bottlenose dolphins' vocalizations and behavioral contexts."

"Certainly. A moment, please." The computer hummed, and then images began to flash on the screen, accompanied by audio—a whistle-squawk as the animals demonstrated distress, either during removal from the water or when calves were separated from their mothers; squawks as two dolphins fought; high-intensity cracks and pops as dolphins fled from a predator. There were hundreds of them—video after video of the dolphins demonstrating aggression, foraging, play, contact, sexual, and social behavior, all accompanied by vocalizations … some of which Sarah was sure Chuck must've had to adjust in order for them to be audible to the human ear.

What she'd shown them yesterday in the lab was nothing compared to this. She couldn't help it—she gaped. "Chuck—how did you do this?"

"It's a pattern discovery algorithm." He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. "Morgan's pretty powerful—so I asked it to correlate multimodal elements of dolphins' behavior with accompanying vocalizations and categorize the signals accordingly. It mined the web for data—from studies, books, journal articles, that kind of thing—and this is what it came up with." He gestured at the laptop. "This is just preliminary, of course, but it's a beginning. I'd like to be able to examine how dolphins themselves categorize sound—that type of thing's been done with vervet monkeys and a few other species—not to mention analyzing pitch, intonation, and rhythmic aspects of the dolphins' vocalizations … but at least this is a start."

It was more than a start. It was amazing. "Please tell me that's it," Sarah said, feeling brave enough to give him a small grin. "Because otherwise, I might faint right here and now from sheer happiness."

"Um, please don't. This floor looks kinda hard. But yeah—I'm not done."

He reached into the duffle and pulled out a cylindrical black object. The top was transparent, and through it, Sarah could see a series of unfamiliar technological components, each looking more complex than the last.

Her mouth fell open. "What … is that?"

He fidgeted, looking nervous for the first time since he and Ellie had walked into the Aquarium that morning. "It's a speaker—but not just any speaker. Um—so, after I left your lab yesterday, I did a lot of reading … and I found out that a few years ago, the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology invented a speaker that had the ability to reproduce the full range of dolphins' sounds—not just the low-frequency noises that we can hear, which is of course just part of their vocalization range, but everything."

Chuck shifted the speaker from one hand to the other, scrutinizing it as if to make sure it passed muster. "The Tokyo project fizzled out because of lack of funding, but when I did some more digging, I learned that they'd partnered with a company called Fusion to create the speaker. I happen to know one of the guys at Fusion, so I emailed him and he was willing to share the specs with me … everything that wasn't proprietary, and I was able to figure that bit out myself. So I spent the rest of the day shopping for materials—and most of the night building this." He pointed at the speaker. "I know it's a sloppy job. I could do much better with more time. But I wanted you to have something that shows the potential of what your project can yield—and this was the best thing I could come up with on such short notice."

Sarah circled the speaker, not bothering to hide her disbelief. "Let me get this straight. You've basically spent the last twenty-four hours doing nothing but researching my project … and you were up all night building this speaker, which can go all the way up to 150 kilohertz … just to help me?"

He shifted his feet, looking embarrassed. "When you put it that way, it does sound a bit … obsessive. I'm sorry. I just wanted to help—and I thought this would be the best way. But if you think it's too much—"

She shook her head so vehemently that Ellie let out a snort of amusement. "I don't think it's too much. I think it's incredible. And I can't wait to see it in action."

Sarah had, of course, heard about this speaker when the news about it had broken—but, like so many other things in the scientific world, it was funding-dependent. While she might see the inherent value in such an invention, and view it as the key that might have the power to unlock the secrets that had fascinated her for so long, she knew for many others, it was an obscure technological development. When the speaker hadn't yielded the immediate results that the media frenzy around its development had hinted at, public interest—and, by extension, funding—had dried up.

She'd tried a couple times to reach out to Tokyo University about collaboration, but for one reason or another, her attempts hadn't yielded fruit … and until now, she'd never had the type of formal backing or knowledge that would have given her the ability to try to replicate the speaker herself. The fact that Chuck had dug up the original information on it—that he'd reached out to Fusion, something she herself had never tried to do, and then spent hours constructing a prototype of the thing—floored her. At that moment, she gave up all hope of squelching her crush. She'd just have to deal with it, and hope he didn't notice.

Dr. Beckman, Casey, and the trainers were inspecting the speaker, looking equally awed. "Your sister told me you were quite the engineer," Beckman said, glancing up at Chuck, "but I had no idea you were capable of creating something like this. To say it's impressive is an understatement."

"I hope it'll actually work," Chuck said, sounding abashed. "I mean, it should—there's no scientific reason why it wouldn't—but it's not like I had any dolphins at home to test it on. All I'm saying is, don't make too much out of it yet. Right now it's just a bunch of wires—and some piezoelectric elements I've never worked with before. Basically, the idea is that the piezoelectric components enable the speaker to be powered by the way the waves—in this case, the water in the tank—bob up and down. I had to do a lot of running around to find everything I needed." He cleared his throat. "And, of course, this only projects sounds for the dolphins to hear. The next step would be to develop the capacity for the speaker to be a unified piece of equipment that could record the sounds the dolphins make in response, and be able to play them back, correlated with behavior … but that's why I brought the hydrophone and recorder, for now…" His voice trailed off. "You know all that, of course. Sorry—I just got carried away. Didn't mean to, um, mansplain your own research to you."

Sarah smiled—then did her best to suppress it, lest it seem flirtatious. "You weren't. And never apologize for getting carried away about this stuff—I'm usually the one who's talking people's ears off. I'm glad you're so excited about it. It makes me feel less crappy that you stayed up all night working on this."

Chuck opened his mouth, but before he could say another word, Casey cut him off. "If you guys are done with the back-and-forth, can we see if this speaker-thing actually works worth a damn? I've got to check on one of the penguins in a few minutes, but I'm curious about this—and I want to make sure it doesn't stress Echo out. If it does, all bets are off. She's way too close to delivery to risk any kind of complications."

"Sure," Chuck said, looking relieved to have something to do. "So, here—let me just check and make sure the cameras are working—we'll have this one set up on a tripod and another one underwater, which hopefully one of you"—he gestured to Lou and Gertrude—"can take down when you put the speaker in the tank. Hang on." He grabbed the tripod from his bag and set it up, sliding the camera into place and then hitting 'record.' Then he handed the underwater camera to Lou and the speaker to Gertrude. Plugging the digital recorder into the hydrophone, he handed the latter to Gertrude as well. "Once you put the hydrophone in the water and drop in the speaker, everything will be all set up. Lou, all you have to do is press record on the camera—and I can control the speaker remotely, so once it's in place, you can leave it alone. The piezoelectric components will do the rest."

"This is so cool," Lou said as she and Gertrude strode over to the tank, stopping along the way so Lou could grab a snorkel from a pile of gear. "Definitely worth waking up early for."

They all lined up along the edge of the tank, waiting to see what would happen. Lou jumped into the water, followed by Gertrude. She let go of the speaker, and Sarah held her breath—but sure enough, it floated.

"Whew!" Chuck said beside her. "First hurdle down. Now…"

He pressed something on his phone as Echo and Finn swam over, investigating the speaker curiously. It emitted a whistle that sounded like a form of greeting; Echo whistled back, as if in response, and then Finn followed suit.

"That's the signature whistle I created for the speaker," Chuck said. "Like the ones the dolphins have. So every time Echo and Finn see the speaker, they'll be able to identify it by its sound."

That had been a smart thing to do—not that Sarah would've expected anything less. The dolphins had treated the sound as a friendly one, and responded in kind; so far, so good. "What else can it do?" she said.

"Well, basically it can make all of the sounds you just heard. Like, here, this one is correlated with play behavior." He pressed something else on his phone, and the speaker emitted a series of high-pitched squeaks.

This time, Echo nudged the speaker, the way she did when she wanted Finn to play. When the speaker didn't respond, she slapped the water with her flipper, splashing it.

"Wow." Sarah looked at Lou, who was filming the dolphins' interaction with the speaker—then back at Chuck. "What else?"

"Hmmm. I wonder—let's try this." He touched a few more buttons. The speaker emitted a few jagged pops—and then everything went to hell.

Both Echo and Finn attacked the speaker, butting it repeatedly, then slamming it into the side of the tank again and again. Waves spread out from the point of impact, water sloshing everywhere as Lou and Gertrude swam hard for the dive platform, pulling themselves up and out.

"Turn it off!" Casey yelled over the ruckus.

"I'm trying—but the connection—" Chuck looked stricken. The speaker sputtered, still emitting a few half-hearted clicks and pops as the dolphins attacked it.

"What sound was that?" Sarah said—but she had a sinking feeling that she knew.

"It's the one correlated with aggressive behavior. I didn't know—I should have thought—" Chuck stabbed at his phone, running his free hand through his hair in frustration.

At long last, the speaker fell silent … but the damage had been done. Unconvinced that their enemy had been vanquished, Finn and Echo continued their concerted endeavor to do it in. The thing was half-smashed and beginning to sink beneath the surface—but that was no impediment to their fury.

Sarah felt terrible that Chuck's hard work had met such a sorry end—but she was elated that his efforts had paid off. He, on the other hand, seemed mortified, peering in horror at the destruction the dolphins were wreaking on the speaker. The two of them spoke at the same time.

"Oh my God, Sarah—I'm so sorry. I had no idea this would happen. I can build another one, I promise … this was just a prototype, and a crappy one at that. I didn't mean to ruin—"

"Holy crap, Chuck, this is amazing. I've never seen them respond like this to an artificial stimulus. Wow … this is like seeing my dreams come true. But look, are they—"

She edged closer to the edge of the tank, vibrating with excitement—and knocked into Chuck, who was leaning over the water, staring dejectedly at the dolphins' determined efforts to make mincemeat of the speaker he'd spent all night building. His Converse-sneakered feet fought for purchase on the slippery concrete, and his arms did a desperate windmill as he struggled to keep his balance. Sarah had a front-row seat for the dismayed, disbelieving look on his face as he lost the battle and went plummeting, head-first, into the tank … just yards away from the enraged dolphins, in full view of the recording camera.

A/N: Sorry about the delay in getting this installment to you … we had a death in the family. It was a pleasure to get back to more pleasant things, such as writing this story! We did have to do a bunch of research on dolphins' communication and other, more technical stuff to write this chapter—we did our best, but of course, any mistakes are our own. Hope you like it! We'll pick up next week to find out whether Chuck fares any better than his ill-fated speaker. (Spoiler alert: He survives.)

As always, thanks for reading—and please keep your reviews, follows, and favorites coming our way! They really do make this all worthwhile.