Amp'd by Ken Pisani Page B

food to be on the surface so upon their release, they head not to the bottom but to the surface, where they are easy prey for the Caspian tern, a diving fish predator not indigenous to the region, having been trucked in to create a bird refuge (cost: $200 million)—by the same Army Corps of Engineers who, recognizing their error as they watched ten thousand tern scoop helpless endangered baby sturgeon from the river, attempted to remedy the mistake by relocating the tern (cost: $600 million), only to be stopped by the Audubon Society and a court order.
    So, the federal government employs a system of eight different federal agencies as well as local government, private consultants, university fish scientists, biologists, bureaucrats, administrators, and workers at a cost of billions of dollars—not to save the fish but to save the dam . And to employ this particularly unemployable one-armed fish counter, unless I can talk them out of it.
    I’m trained by the nice people at the federally funded Ick Ick project along with five other locals prepared to join fish counters already in the field. Among them is a man a full head shorter than I am; upon seeing him standing just through the doorway I assume there’s a step down into the room, and in acting accordingly I land hard, and I stumble into him as if trying to navigate with one leg for a change.
    â€œSorry!” I collect myself, extending my only hand in greeting. “I’m Aaron. Here to count fish. Although I can count to five better than ten.”
    â€œPercy” is his only reply as he slips his tiny hand into mine, accompanied by a fixed stare.
    It’s an intense gaze everyone here seems to share. They all stare completely unabashed at anyone in their fields of vision, like babies unaware of anything but the facial recognition for which they are primally programmed as a survival lure. When I spot an average-looking woman with the exception of nose and tits in equal prominence, she too catches me staring and seems to think nothing of it, staring back, our eyes locked like a pair of horseshoe magnets.
    With no further exchange forthcoming from Percy, I extricate myself and manage to approach her without colliding. As impressed as I am by her imposing breasts, I’m equally fascinated by that nose, pronounced and beakish in a way that renders the rest of her quite ordinary face extraordinary. Eventually discomforted by our optical intimacy, I’m the one who finally looks away, and therefore probably considered the socially inept oddball here.
    â€œDo you like fish?” she asks.
    â€œI admit, up until now I never thought of them as more than seafood,” I confess, and if that bothers her she doesn’t show it. “You?”
    â€œI’m concerned about the mass extinction of a species,” she states flatly, and then, as if mimicking me, adds, “You?”
    â€œI needed a job, and there’s not a lot I can do.”
    Her name is Lilith and like everyone I’ve met at Ick Ick so far, she seems undeterred by my condition. In fact, no one seems to notice my missing arm/hand unit at all—not in the same way others choose to ignore it as a means of avoidance but by being genuinely and completely indifferent to it. I assume working in scientific research puts one in contact with a variety of oddball personalities; if they can overlook the overbites and thick glasses, poor hygiene and rumpled clothes, shrill voices and personality tics bordering on Asperger’s in evidence everywhere at the orientation, what’s one arm more or less?
    I try to redeem my intentions somewhat to Lilith, mostly by overusing the word “fascinating” in expressing my feelings on extinction, dams, nature, conservation, and especially the fish we hope to save, although I know nothing about them yet. It’s enough fake sincerity to earn me a seat alongside her in our next training session.
    As our primary instruction