"Let Your Eyes be Open ..."

All the 'hoppers' were propelled forth by thrusters in their suits, and they landed firmly on the bottom of the sea, guarded by a perimeter of watchful eyes, bearers of loaded guns and harpoons. 'Echo' company were already off to distant depths - Edi and Runa had overheard they were going to look at "alternative sources for food, as well as filling for pillows, duvets and mattresses". 'Maybe that was the stuff they were hanging to dry in the garden', Edi thought.

They had now gotten to take their first steps on the muddy seafloor. Edi lifted his knee, and he could feel all the machinery framing in his bare flesh and bones, moving around as commanded by his own joints and muscle contractions, all of it pressurized for him to be able to breathe and walk around on such depths.

"Runa!", he called out, and the interface asked him if he wanted to establish a direct link to her coms. "Yes", he affirmed. "Runa! This is amazing! I feel like I am walking on the surface of the moon!", he cried out childishly and looked over at her.

"It is pretty amazing, yeah", she answered, and waved to him with her bulky, fully armoured arm. "Why don't you try jumping?", she asked rhetorically.

Edi got ready to make a careful leap, and flew 10-15 meters upwards in the water, and came down again with a crash, whirling up clouds of mud at his landing point.

"Woooo! Awesome! I feel superhuman in this thing!", he said to her. She did not really have a reply and began walking towards the commander, who was signing for all the 'hoppers' to approach him.

"Hoppers! I gather you have made yourselves somewhat familiar with your suits. They will protect you from the crushing, deep water pressure, they will keep you breathing, warm and moving - and you can even 'go potty' in them! Now, isn't that neat? Just beware, urine attracts foul little fish that will attempt to find any open crevices. But not to worry!", he informed but did not follow up this information with any practical reason not to worry about this.

"Let's dive into it", he said, trying hard to make a worthwhile pun, but it did not suit his chiselled jawline or neat and structured personality. "Instruct your suit by telling it the following: 'Gun', then 'ammunition', and, finally, 'SA mode'. Got it?", he asked, and held up his right arm.

"Ehm, sir... Mister Commander-sir?", a scrawny-sounding voice asked on the radio. "What... What does SA stand for, exactly?", he peeped, and then, instantly, retracted himself back into his imaginary shell. Edi caught a glimpse of who was talking, and it was the former engineer who had mustered up a sliver of courage - he was standing in the middle of the seven or eight gangs of 'hoppers'. None of the other 'hoppers' looked at him but kept their eyes fixed on the commander, having a shared sense of fear of asking the same, obvious questions, and a fear of doing anything wrong that could pop a hole in their suit or anything of the like - after all, they were armed with weaponry of - at least, to the 'hoppers' - unknown potential.

"It stands for 'shark attractor'. Basically, we will fill a couple of shooters with a liquid we have concocted up to get them to us, instead of us hunting them down all day", he explained. "Squeeze the small pumping device located right by your right hand. Now listen - this next part is really, really important: Do NOT squeeze it for more than four seconds. Approximately", he warned. They all heard someone making nervous sounds.

"What happens then, exactly? Commander, I have been squeezing my pump all the while you were talking", the chill guy muttered indistinctly. "Do I shoot my load?", he asked, making what had to be an unintentional innuendo, since he looked to be growing more and more nervous by each question he asked. They were all now focused on the chill dude.

"No!", the commander exclaimed, now growing nervous himself. He got off the channel, and he looked like he went live on another channel to give a message to someone else before he got back to the 'hopper' channel. "Mister 'hopper', tell me - what is your name?", he asked him.

"Ve... Vemund", he stuttered. "How do I... Like, empty my load?", Vemund asked him, now sounding scared, more than he was nervous - and keeping up with the dirty, though unintentional innuendos. Now, they could not see his face through all the moisture and vapour in his helmet. They had also walked and hopped a distance away from the brinks. The 'hoppers' were standing in a circle with the commander, and the guards had made a circular parameter outside of them, making their way over seafloor mud and dunes, through forests of kelp and seaweed. Watchful eyes and loaded guns, gazing into deep, dark, murky waters.

"Ok, 'hopper' Vemund. Listen carefully. Give the suit the following command: 'Empty chambers', and do not - in any instance - squeeze down the pump while doing this", he instructed Vemund. He began breathing heavier, close to hyperventilating, and the commander tried calming him down. They could still not see his face through his helmet, they could just hear his heavy, arhythmical breathing over the coms. Then - silence. He fell limp, and a fog of black liquid squirted out of the gun on his right arm.

"Ok, going live on the main com here. This is the commander, we have had an SA incident, we can't be sure of how big it is at this point. All troops rally to our position, this should be sector AJ25. I am pretty sure. Guards, confirm our position", he told every person that had gone out of the bubble. All the guards surrounding them confirmed they were at this position, whatever that meant. Edi and Runa and the other 'hoppers' had not been familiarized with any map coordination or grid of any kind, so they could not possibly confirm the outgoing information.

"Commander, what happens next? Do we just stand here in a circle, or what?", Edi asked, interested in doing more than just standing straight in one place.

"If we are lucky, the shot was a minor one - maybe it was a leak, even", he said, making his way to Vemund. His face became visible through his helmet now, and they could clearly see he was unconscious. "Are you ok, 'hopper'? 'Hopper'? Vemund?", the commander asked, tapping lightly on his helmet, trying to establish contact, or just to provoke out a response to make sure he was alive and well. "He's as limp as a wet biscuit. Someone carry him", he then commanded. Runa and Edi got together around him, trying to figure out how they would carry a limp lump of steel and fuel and man, without any of those elements being compromised. They decided to grab him by the limbs - Edi grabbing his hands, Runa grabbing his feet.

"Wow, these suits are strong", Edi remarked, panting. "How heavy do you think he is, Runa? Like... A ton or so?", he asked. Then, all of a sudden, a shadow as big and as fast as those bullet trains, swooped in from the abyss and grabbed Vemund, held him in its jaws, shaking him loose from Edi's and Runa's grip - Edi and Runa were flung away as ragdolls - the shark-like creature abducting Vemund into the darkness from whence it came. The guards and hunters opening heavy harpoon fire, one hitting the monster in the tail, and he was dragged away, as he tried having his jets firing in the opposite direction to try and stop it, and downwards to connect with the solid ground, the hydraulics in his legs trying to counteract the force from the shark, anchors shooting out from the soles of his suit, digging into the seafloor. But to no avail - the rope attached to the harpoon snapped like a thin string.

"Guards! How did you not catch that on your radars?", the commander roared on the coms. "All companies retreat on the inside - except 'Yankee', 'Hotel' and 'Whiskey'. We track the "hopper's" signal. Ready ASAP", he commanded.

The hunting crew propelled themselves in the direction the shark had taken off to, and the remaining companies went inside of the 'outer brink'. The 'sensei', as Edi had dubbed him, was in command of the retreat.

"Everyone, command your suits to go into the 'depressurizing mode'. Wait for it to finish, it could take quite a while", and they all did so. It went on for quite some time.

"What was that thing?", the timid engineer asked them, shook as could be.

"I... I think it was a shark. But I've never seen one that big", Edi said, in shock. One of the guys from 'Echo' - a 'gatherer' - chimed in.

"That was a shark, alright. They have grown to sizes none have ever seen before. They have no natural enemies in the seas anymore - well, except for bigger sharks, and maybe giant squid. Oh, and the extreme water pollution, of course", he supplied. "Just be careful. They circle this here bubble, scouting for prey either outside the bubble - or just on the inside", he told them. "But I reckon you will learn how to hunt them down soon enough".

The sensei got an incoming message. "Yes, sir", he said and looked at the 'hoppers'. "The commander would like a 'hopper' to join them in the rescue of 'hopper' Vemund", he proclaimed. "Any volunteers?", he asked. Few returned his asking glance, then Edi raised his hand.

"Let me go out", he said, puffing out his chest. Runa and the engineer helped him get his fish bowl-like helmet back on, and he commanded the suit to repressurize.