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Breath frosting from their mouths, Cooper, Jeff, José, Steve and Steve’s buddy Bo Pan stood in a loose circle, staring down at the cargo they’d hauled out to the middle of Lake Michigan.

When Steve Stanton had spoken of his ROV, Cooper a.s.sumed he knew what to expect: a boxy metal frame, about six feet wide and tall, maybe ten feet long, yellow ballast tanks on top, a couple of turbines in the back and a pair of robotic arms in the front. Throw in a camera suite and a long-a.s.s cable, and you were in business.

But this?

For starters, it wasn’t yellow. It was covered in elephant-gray material studded with little points, kind of like acoustic foam. Ten feet long, sure, but there was nothing boxy about this contraption. The ROV’s front end came to a streamlined point. From there, it flared wide with the outline of a fish before tapering down again to a pair of flippers in the rear, like those of a Cape fur seal. On each side was a wide fin, like that of a penguin.

Jeff stared down at it. He crossed his arms, frowned.

“It’s fuzzy,” he said. He looked at Stanton. “You made an ROV with fur?”

“It’s an ant.i.turbulence material,” Steve said. “Helps adjust the water flow for greater speed. Once it gets wet it looks very different.”

Cooper reached down and gently poked one of the furry points with a finger — felt like a stiff foam.

Steve shot out a panicked hand. “Please don’t touch!”

Cooper stood, held up both hands, palms out. “Wow, sorry.”

The kid blinked, looked around, saw that everyone was staring at him. He forced a smile.

“The material is just delicate is all,” he said. “My bad, I should have asked everyone not to touch it earlier.”

Cooper felt Jeff glaring at him. Jeff had that suspicious expression on his face again — the ROV was beyond state of the art, something altogether new, and that bothered him. Jeff subtly held up his hand, thumb rubbing against his fingertips: that thing looks like big money.

Cooper nodded. Of course Steve had money; he was part of some lawyer’s cla.s.s-action lawsuit. Millions of dollars on the line. Cooper felt bad for the people who now ran Delta Airlines; this was going to wind up being one high-toned b.i.t.c.h of a lawsuit.

José craned his head around, looked at the ROV from all sides.

“Hey, Jefe Steve,” he said. “Where do you connect the control cable?” José insisted on calling everyone jefe, Spanish for boss. He looked around the deck, as if he suddenly realized he was missing something. “And where is the cable? Is that in the other box?”

He started toward the smaller of Steve’s two boxes, the one still strapped to the deck.

“Please don’t touch that one, either,” Steve said. Again, the words were rushed, nearly panicky.

Jeff glared. Cooper felt uncomfortable — the customer was acting very strange.

Steve shook his head, forced another smile. “There isn’t a cable. The Platypus is remote controlled to some extent, but mostly autonomous.”