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Octopus fritters are so hot right now, she told her control group. They tried to control the oil temperature with cooling breaths and ice cubes, and the fritters sizzled and popped. Jani ordered sixty for herself and her control group, who then wanted to control the juice that oozed down their chins and puddled in their collar. But they couldn't. They would just have to let the fritters squirt where they would.

Jani ate the first twenty with both hands. Twenty felt like eighty in octopus terms, and ninety in cuttlefish terms. She ran to the bathroom, let her tentacles loose and found them re-organized into phalanxes of ineffable toilette paper streamers. Jani screamed and they wriggled quietly into the next stall, where chewing sounds began.

The control group lost control and disbanded. The octopus plan had worked.