The immaculate aping of the barracuda’s prognathous jawline, the staring white of an eye that was not an eye: Ha had never seen imitation like this before. The octopus’s real eye, half-open, barred into one of the barracuda-form’s stripes, looked back at her. In that moment, it saw her see it. For a second, not more, Ha and the octopus held eye contact. Ha raised a hand in a small, open-palmed gesture. She felt herself bunching up, trying to appear unthreatening. The form of the barracuda disintegrated: in less than three or four seconds it became a stingray, a shark, an eel, a flatfish in the
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