Chapter 2 #2
Her mouth twitches again. Then she sets her coffee on the floor and sits. Back against the lower display panel, knees bent, tablet across her thighs. Just a woman sitting on the floor beside a petting tank before sunrise because she can.
That’s a thing that happens sometimes. There are no calendar invites for sitting on expensive floors with Maren Vale.
It started because I was eating ice cream here after a late rotation and she sat down to tell me why I was wrong about Kevin’s motives.
She took my spoon. I let her. We never made rules after that.
I sit beside her.
My back hits the panel. Cold through my uniform. Good angle on the atrium entry, the gift shop reflection, and the service corridor. Good view of the tank. Better view of her.
Maren nudges my boot with the side of hers. “What’s that face?”
“This is the one I came with.”
“No, that’s your someone-has-done-something-stupid-and-I’m-deciding-whether-to-intervene face.”
“That’s most of them.”
“Fair.” She picks up her coffee, takes a sip, and makes a face.
“You built a billion-dollar underwater habitat and still can’t get decent coffee before seven,” I say.
“I didn’t build a society capable of respecting morning bitterness.”
“You approved the machine.”
“I was vulnerable. It had chrome accents. I have regrets.”
“No, you don’t.”
She looks at me.
I look at the tank.
Her shoulder stays near mine. “No,” she says after a moment. “Not many.”
The tank hum fills the space between us.
A small trilobite shifts at the far wall. Gouda. I know his gait because he lists left like a shopping cart with one bad wheel.
Maren follows my gaze. “Is that Gouda?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You absolutely know what I mean.”
“Strange thing to accuse a man of at work.”
“You named one Gouda.” She laughs.
I keep my eyes on the tank. “You have arrivals today,” I say.
Her laugh fades, but not all the way. “I always have arrivals.”
“Senator’s son asked for after-hours petting tank access.”
Maren sighs and tips her head back against the panel. The movement exposes the line of her throat for half a second. “I’ll talk to him at orientation,” she says.
“You talk to him and he gets a story about the brilliant director making personal time for him.”
Her eyes cut sideways. “And you?”
“I tell him no, he gets bored.”
She grins. Then her tablet pings. She looks. Her thumb stops moving first. Then her shoulders. Then her breathing goes quiet in a way that’s not calm. Her spine straightens. Her mouth settles. Her eyes make the screen into a problem she can solve.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
I wait.
She looks at the tablet for one more second, then turns it face down on her thigh. “Evaluator is making his descent,” she says.
“Evaluator?”
“Yes.” The word is normal. The rest of her isn’t.
“Problem?”
“No.”
Same answer she would give if the atrium were on fire but she’d already identified two exits and a towel to smother the flames.
I’ve heard that no before. From men with blood on their sleeves. From a lieutenant with dust in his teeth saying we still had time. From myself, for years, in mirrors and grocery store aisles and places that had no business feeling hostile.
No means many things.
“Evaluator has a name?” I ask.
She takes too long to answer. “They usually do.” She reaches for her coffee again. Her hand is steady. She drinks even though I know the coffee is terrible.
The trilobites shift as a group. A ripple through their clustered bodies, shells brushing shells. Their legs move faster beneath them. Pebble slides half an inch up the curve of the wall.
Her expression changes back into science. A problem with legs and measurable variables. “They’re reacting to something,” she says.
“Environmental variance.”
She gives me another sideways look. “Don’t weaponize my own vocabulary at me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You absolutely would.” She leans forward, bracing an elbow on her knee. “The far wall is closest to the secondary thermal line. If there was a microshift overnight, they may be stacking into the range they prefer. Nia mentioned cleaning yesterday. Could be substrate disturbance.”
Every specimen still faces away from us.
“They’re not moving toward something,” I say. “They’re moving away.”
Maren’s eyes sharpen. After a moment, she says, “Animals in enclosed systems often orient away from perceived disturbance. That doesn’t necessarily indicate external threat.”
“No one said threat.”
“You implied it.”
“I observed it.”
“Dutch.”
There are several ways she says my name. The professional one: clipped, usually because someone with too much money has done something that could become my problem. The amused one: softer at the end, usually because I’ve said something true in the least helpful way available.
This one’s new. A request, for space. “Okay,” I say.
I stand and offer her a hand.
Her hand is warm, her grip firm. She rises without leaning on me much.
Maren doesn’t lean unless physics wins an argument.
She lets go slower than she needs to. Some part of me logs the duration, pressure, the half-second past necessary.
I don’t write it down. Some observations don’t go in a file. They go somewhere with worse security.
When she’s on her feet, the director comes back in layers. Face composed, voice already arranging the next three tasks.
“I’ll have Nia run a full check before guest access,” she says. “I’ll review the east grid before tours. It’s probably nothing, but I’d rather not have a child announce on social media that the trilobites are unionizing before I’ve had breakfast.”
“You don’t eat breakfast.”
“I occasionally stand near food.” She points her coffee at me. “I’ve eaten several protein bars in my life.”
“Name one flavor.”
“Rectangular.” Her smile appears again, smaller this time. It doesn’t stay. “Do you need anything for arrivals?”
“Senator’s son contained preemptively. Gift shop armed with plush Kevins.”
She glances toward the atrium, then the research corridor. Split attention. Duty pulling one way, the evaluator pulling another.
“I’ll check the sub bay,” I say.
She nods. “Reyes sent a note about the east grid.”
There’s the woman on the floor again, visible for one second through the director. Then gone.
“Yeah,” I say. “I heard it.”
Her fingers shift against the tablet. She wants to say something else. I can see it queue up and fail inspection. It leaves no wreckage. Just a blank place in her expression where a sentence should have been.
“Thank you,” she says instead.
“For what?”
“For noticing things.”
“That’s the job.”
“No,” she says. “It isn’t.” Then she turns and walks back toward the research wing.
I stay by the petting tank. Because I need to confirm the corridor clears, the atrium remains calm, and the trilobites don’t suddenly decide to provide a stronger argument for whatever they’re doing. Also because I watch her walk away.
Halfway to the research corridor, her shoulders change again. A small tightening across the back before she disappears through the research wing door.
The lock seals behind her with a soft pneumatic sigh.
I look back at the tank. Then I add a second note to the log.
Specimens continue avoidance posture.
Behind me, the resort stretches awake. Outside the glass, Kevin isn’t where I can see him.