Leave the Bottom: Cook Islands

Melody Foster has a PhD in marine biology and a master’s in genetics, specializing in octopuses all over the world. When COVID stops all funding for her Octolab, she takes a consulting job in the Cook Islands for a deep-sea mining operation, looking for metallic nodules that litter the Pacific floor and contain the rare minerals needed for the electric vehicle industry. Issues with surprisingly intelligent guerrilla octopuses are monstrously hindering the operation, so billionaire Chinese mogul Jack Pa instructs “Dr. Mel” to fix the problem, or else.

With her very life at stake, Melody enters the operation’s saturation chamber at 500-feet sea depth, trying to put an end to the deliberate killing of her babies, while threatened by convicted rapists and murderers who are undergoing career rehabilitation from Chino Prison’s famous diving program. Will she survive it all long enough to discover the fate of her long lost brother, adopted away from her during childhood, and secure the funding needed to keep her lab open another year?

©2022 Randy L. Slapnicka (P)2022 Randy L. Slapnicka