29. Full Capacity #4
Reyna closed her eyes as she drew a breath, small and finite, but measured and effected.
Charlie watched her so closely, watched as Reyna opened her eyes again and locked on Charlie.
Her eyes became something strong, vivid, and grasping.
And for that single, individual moment, Charlie watched Reyna look at her.
Charlie realized she knew that look. She knew it because she had been wearing it for months, trying to hide it and failing miserably, attempting to haul it off her own face every time she caught herself aiming it at the captain across the Engineering Bay, or the galley, or the god damn bench in the Observation Room.
She knew the exact amount of work it took to keep it from showing.
But right now, it was on Reyna’s face. Aimed at her.
For one second, a second that seemed to last an hour, the whole floor that Charlie had been standing on tilted, because she had built every single day around the certainty that whatever this was she was carrying for the captain ran one direction.
She fully believed that it was hers to carry and hers to hide and something she would control and work through and figure out, no matter how long it took.
But now here was the same look, an exact mirror of it, gazing back at her from the one person she had been absolutely sure would never look at her like that.
Well, shit.
Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it was suddenly gone.
Charlie sat there for half a second with her heart hammering in her chest and her brain scrambling to catch up.
Her mind was already reaching for other explanations.
Maybe it was the light or the angle? The long day could be the culprit, or the adrenaline.
Anything that helped Charlie believe what she’d just seen was not what it had just, unmistakably, been.
Because there were only two ways it could go, and Charlie had already run both. Either she'd invented the whole thing, which meant she was further gone than she'd thought. Or she hadn't, and Reyna had shut it down. Fast. On purpose.
Charlie wasn't sure which one she wanted less.
One meant she was seeing things that weren't there. The other meant they were there, and Reyna had looked at them and decided no.
And that, Charlie could have told anyone who asked, was the more familiar of the two.
Reyna’s eyes fell as she set her hands flat on her desk. She closed her eyes, effectively ridding herself of any expression. Charlie watched her seem to reset, and then they were captain and crew again.
Reyna stood up straight, raised her gaze to Charlie again, and offered her a small smile. “Thank you, Charlie. Your work was truly exceptional today,” she said.
Charlie stared at the woman across the desk for a moment, and saw the same work being done to keep an expression hidden, held hostage. Charlie didn’t look away when she responded. “It’s just what I do.”
Charlie watched Reyna lower her shoulders and her eyes go soft, fixing her gaze on Charlie in a way that left her speechless. “I know,” Reyna said. “That’s what makes it exceptional.”
Later that night, another Earth Night was in full swing. The library was warm with bodies and Borran's cooking, and that same energy of the crew discovering communal joy, unwilling to let it go.
Charlie was glad to have the distraction. Initially. Because what ended up happening tonight was Tavi's fault.
But then, things like this always seemed to be Tavi's fault.
Halfway through the evening, Charlie had just finished explaining the concept of what a music video was to a room full of beings who could not fathom why humans would film themselves performing choreographed movements to accompany songs that already existed.
"So the song isn't enough," Torvax said from his position near the door, which he insisted was strategic observation while everyone else called it lurking.
"The song is enough," Charlie insisted. "But the music video is extra. Instead of just an audial experience, you get a visual representation as well."
"Humans created an additional sensory layer for an art form that already functions across auditory and emotional spectrums," Torvax said. "This is either profoundly creative or profoundly inefficient."
"I would err on the side of it being both," Charlie said. "In fact, that's kind of our whole thing."
"Show us one," Tavi said, because he could not just leave a perfectly stable conversation alone.
"I can't, Tav. You know I can't. I don't have any videos or even a player here. If I did, I would have shown you 'Back to the Future' months ago."
"Then how about you just show us a dance? Any dance. But it has to be a really good one. Was there one that everyone knew? One that everyone could copy?"
Charlie looked around the room. Twelve distinct faces were looking back at her. Even Borran's eyebrows showed interest. Charlie noticed Maren's shimmer was bright with curiosity, and Orion had his datapad ready, anticipating the dance to come.
"You once told me the 'Thriller' video had choreography that every human on Earth knows," Tavi continued, his eyes glowing with eagerness. "Show us Thriller, Spark Plug."
Charlie gave Tavi a look, her eyes reduced to slits as she stared at him. "I just want to say I'm not a very good dancer. I only know this because of..." Charlie paused, still having trouble with some memories when they were spoken out loud. "Because of Katie."
Tavi patted Charlie on the back. "Then all the more reason to teach us. We can carry it in her memory. All of us." Tavi looked around the room, and Charlie followed his gaze, watching everyone in their circle nod their heads in agreement.
Charlie would never let go of Katie. Ever. But one thing that made it possible for her to move through life in an existence without her was because of everyone on this spaceship. Many crew members of the Emberkind helped keep Katie alive for her by doing things just like this.
"Fine," Charlie finally said, looking over at Tavi and giving him a genuine smile. "But I'm going to need the song to pla—"
Tavi had it broadcasting over the room's music system before she had even finished her sentence.
The opening of that creaking door started while the footsteps followed, and then that synth hit while the music built.
Charlie could feel it in her bones, the way she always did with Michael Jackson, the same way certain songs bypassed the brain and went straight to the body.
She rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and when that beat dropped, she launched into the zombie shuffle.
Arms out, stiff-legged walk, head snap, shoulder roll. The full choreography, or at least the version of it that every person under the age of 25 in America had learned in basements and backyards and school gymnasiums in 1983.
The crew lost their ever-loving minds.
Borran attempted the zombie walk and looked like a mountain animal trying to navigate an ice rink.
Selowen picked up the arm sequence with unsettling precision on her first try, and her movements proved fluid and exact, making Charlie suspect Kaelari-Brontari hybrids were actually built for dance choreography.
Maren tried, stopped, covered her face with her hands, but then tried again.
Tavi threw himself into it with the full-body commitment of someone who refused to let anything be a limitation.
Charlie began laughing so hard she had to stop dancing in order to breathe.
"What the hell am I looking at?"
The voice came from the doorway, and Charlie didn't have to turn around to know who it belonged to.
"It's called the 'zombie shuffle,' Cap!"
Charlie turned around just in time to hear Reyna's response.
"The 'zombie shuffle?'" Reyna asked with a raised eyebrow as she watched Borran attempt the stiff-legged walk.
Tavi stopped his dance. "Yeah," he said, then turned to Charlie. "The Captain next, Charlie."
The room went quiet.
Charlie turned to look at Reyna, her posture clearly stating I am observing this from a safe distance and intend to remain here.
"Tavi," Reyna said.
"Captain," Tavi replied, stretching out the word.
"No."
"Aw, come on, Cap. It would be good for crew morale and all that."
"My crew's morale appears to be thriving without my participation in a zombie dance," Reyna quipped, her gaze stuck on a crew member in the back attempting the head snap over and over.
"I could just go ahead and make it a formal request," Tavi continued.
"You could," Reyna stated. "And then I could reassign you to waste reclamation."
"Worth it," Tavi said, without hesitation.
The room seemed to hold its breath. Charlie watched Reyna's face seem to calculate whether retreat was more dignified than engagement and concluded that a captain who backed down from a three-foot-ten Tessarae was one who'd already lost.
Reyna then walked to the center of the room with the measured, unhurried stride of a woman approaching a tactical problem. When she arrived, she looked directly at Charlie.
"Alright, Wickett. I seem to be forced into this. Show me how to do the zombie dance."
"'Zombie shuffle,'" Tavi corrected.
Reyna eyed him, but Charlie watched as Tavi held her gaze and didn't even blink, a smile beaming on his face.
Then Reyna turned to Charlie, and she felt her mouth go completely dry.
"Okay," Charlie said, swallowing. "Let's go with the arms first."
Then Charlie showed Reyna the reach with the bent-wrist zombie arms. Reyna copied it but it came up in a line clean enough to mirror a salute.
"Well, okay. Um, let's try the walk," Charlie continued. "Left foot forward, stiff, while the right foot drags."
Reyna tried, and it was horribly wrong. To Charlie, it looked like Reyna's body was doing something graceful and precise when the entire theme of this dance was to move like a reanimated corpse with no motor control.
"Less grace, Captain," Charlie instructed. "You're dead. You're a dead dancing person."
Reyna gave her a look. "You know, on Aurevia, the dead do not dance."