Tanked -

Karma leaned against the counter, holding a mug of terrible coffee. “You know,” she said, “most people would have just paid the ransom.”

And now he was in the hands of Chester “Chet” Marlin, owner of The Gilded Grouper, a man who served imitation crab and called it “artisanal loaf.”

Reginald, as if on cue, waved a tiny claw. It might have been a greeting. It might have been a command for more algae wafers. With Reginald, you could never be sure. And that was exactly the point. Tanked

“He calls himself a chef,” Karma muttered, her voice echoing. “He uses squeeze cheese as a binder.”

It wasn’t a mid-life crisis. Barn was only twenty-six. It was a specific, niche, and deeply humiliating crisis: his ghost shrimp, Reginald, had been kidnapped. Karma leaned against the counter, holding a mug

Karma was six-foot-five, shaved-headed, and had a sleeve tattoo of a koi fish fighting an octopus. She looked like she could snap a pool cue in half with her eyebrows.

He scooped the shrimp into the Tupperware with a smooth, practiced motion. Reginald didn’t even flinch. He simply shifted his weight, adjusted his antennae, and gave Chet a look that could only be described as smug. It might have been a command for more algae wafers

They emerged through a rusty grate into the basement of The Gilded Grouper. It was a fluorescent-lit horror show of canned goods and dust. And there, in the corner, was the tank.