The Circle

shark
     is released, we’ll get, for the first time in history, a real look at how life at
     the bottom of the trench really looks, and how creatures like this cohabitate. Are
     we ready?” Bailey looked to Stenton, who was standing silently next to him. Stenton
     nodded brusquely, as if looking to him for the go-ahead was unnecessary.
    Victor released the shark, and, as if it had been eyeing its prey through the plastic,
     mentally preparing its meal and knowing the precise location of each portion, the
     shark darted downward and quickly snatched the largest tuna and devoured it in two
     snaps of its jaws. As the tuna was making its way, visibly, through the shark’s digestive
     tract, the shark ate two more in rapid succession. A fourth was still in the shark’s
     jaws when the granular remains of the first were being deposited, like snow, onto
     the aquarium floor.
    Mae looked then to the bottom of the tank and saw that the octopus and the seahorse
     progeny were no longer visible. She saw some sign of movement in the holes in the
     coral, and caught sight of whatshe thought was a tentacle. Though Mae seemed sure that the shark couldn’t be their
     predator—after all, Stenton had found them all in close proximity—they were hiding
     from it as if they knew it, and its plans, quite well. Mae looked up and saw the shark
     circling the tank, which was now otherwise empty. In the few seconds that Mae had
     been looking for the octopus and seahorses, the shark had disposed of the other two
     fish. Their remains fell like dust.
    Bailey laughed nervously. “Well, now I’m wondering—” he said, but stopped. Mae looked
     up and saw that Stenton’s eyes were narrow and offered no alternative. The process
     would not be interrupted. She looked to Kalden, or Ty, whose eyes hadn’t left the
     tank. He was watching the proceedings placidly, as if he had seen it before and knew
     every outcome.
    “Okay,” Bailey said. “Our shark is a very hungry fellow, and I would be worried about
     the other occupants of our little world here if I didn’t know better. But I do know
     better. I’m standing next to one of the great underwater explorers, a man who knows
     what he’s doing.” Mae watched Bailey speak. He was looking at Stenton, his eyes looking
     for any give, any sign that he might call this off, or offer some explanation or assurance.
     But Stenton was staring at the shark, admiring.
    Quick and savage movement brought Mae’s eyes back to the tank. The shark’s nose was
     deep in the coral now, attacking it with a brutal force.
    “Oh no,” Bailey said.
    The coral soon split open and the shark plunged in, coming away, instantaneously,
     with the octopus, which it dragged into the open area of the tank, as if to give everyone—Mae
     and her watchers and the Wise Men—a better view as it tore the animal apart.
    “Oh god,” Bailey said, quieter now.
    Intentionally or not, the octopus presented a challenge to its fate. The shark ripped
     off an arm, then seemed to get a mouthful of the octopus’s head, only to find, seconds
     later, that the octopus was still alive and largely intact, behind him. But not for
     long.
    “Oh no. Oh no,” Bailey whispered.
    The shark turned and, in a flurry, ripped its prey’s tentacles off, one by one, until
     the octopus was dead, a shredded mass of milky white matter. The shark took the rest
     of it in two snatches of its mouth, and the octopus was no more.
    A kind of whimper came from Bailey, and without turning her shoulders, Mae looked
     over to find that Bailey was now turned away, his palms against his eyes. Stenton,
     though, was looking at the shark with a mixture of fascination and pride, like a parent
     watching, for the first time, his child doing something particularly impressive, something
     he’d hoped for and expected but that came delightfully sooner.
    Above the tank, Victor looked tentative, and was trying to catch Stenton’s eye. He
     seemed to be wondering what Mae was wondering, which was whether they should somehow
     separate the shark from the seahorse, before the seahorse, too, was consumed. But
     when Mae turned to him, Stenton was still watching, with no change of expression.
    In a few more seconds, in a series of urgent thrusts, the shark had broken another
     coral arch and extracted the seahorse, which had no defenses and was eaten in two
     bites, first its delicate head, then its curved, papier-mâché torso and tail.
    Then, like a