Chapter 9 #2
“Maintenance issue behind the bathroom panel,” I say. “We’re moving you to suite one for the night while engineering checks it.”
Her wife squeezes her hand.
“Was it dangerous?” Mrs. Alvarez asks.
“No immediate threat.” Honest. Limited. Useful.
“Thank you,” her wife says.
I nod once. “Drinks are comped.”
Tom raises the bottle. “Already done.”
I leave before anyone tries to process fear in my direction.
The atrium is dim now, the bar half-lit for the two relocated guests. The rest of the facility sleeps around us.
Maren is on the floor near the main viewing window, back against the base of the glass, knees bent, shoes off, lab coat folded beside her like it has finally been defeated.
There’s an ice cream cup in her hand. Another unopened one sits beside her.
I stop.
She looks over. “Don’t make that face.”
“This is my face.”
“You have at least twelve. Don’t be difficult. I saved you ice cream.”
I look toward the sub bay corridor. Reyes is in the walls. Suite six is sealed. Maren has shadows under her eyes and a line of tension at her jaw that wasn’t there this morning.
“Flavor?” I ask.
“Vanilla.”
“Suspicious.”
“It was the least offensive option.”
“That’s what vanilla wants you to think.”
I walk over and sit beside her. The floor is cold through my uniform. The glass radiates a deeper cold against my shoulder. Beyond it, the reef glows in patches of blue and green, organisms opening and closing like the dark has a pulse.
She hands me the second cup. No spoon.
I look at her.
She offers her spoon, expression innocent in a way that would not fool a dead man, a child, or a reasonably observant shrimp.
“You saved me ice cream but not cutlery.”
“I’m a visionary, not a logistics department.”
“You built a submersible bay.”
“With spoons? No.”
I take the spoon.
Maren leans her head back against the glass. “I suspended the petting tank for tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“I hate that you’re pleased.”
“Good.”
“I also restricted nonessential east maintenance access.”
“Reyes?”
“Reyes.”
“And tours?”
Her spoon pauses. “Pending morning review.”
She looks at me sideways. The light from the reef catches the edge of her cheekbone, the tired set of her mouth, the place where her hair has started falling out of its pins. There’s a streak of marker near her temple. Blue. Probably from the whiteboard. Maybe from war with an equation.
She’s carrying something. More than one thing. A woman holding too many live wires because she still thinks letting go is the same as dropping them.
I should tell her about suite six. Reyes needs forty minutes. It’s been twenty-one.
She’ll hear scratch in the wall and build three explanations before I finish the sentence. Two might be right. One will be the version that lets her keep the facility whole until morning.
I don’t know enough yet.
“What?” she asks.
I look at my ice cream. “Vanilla is bad.”
“You’re lying.”
“About vanilla? Never.”
“You have a face.”
“Again, just the one.”
“Dutch.”
I set the cup down. The marker streak near her temple catches my eye again. It sits there, absurd and human. My thumb brushes the mark near her temple, then the smaller smear along her cheek. Practical enough to lie about for half a second.
Her breath stops. I drop my hand.
The room holds the contact in place after it is gone.
Blue marker smudges my thumb.
Maren looks at my hand. Then at me.
“Could attract predators,” I say.
For half a second, nothing happens. Then she laughs. Almost silent. Tired. Mine, says a part of my brain with no security clearance. I hit the thought with a shovel and still hear it moving.
“Marker?” she asks.
“Very dangerous.”
“Noted.” She touches the place on her cheek where my thumb was. She studies my face.
I let her. That’s either brave or stupid.
Her gaze drops to my thumb. “You’re contaminated now,” she says.
“Occupational hazard.”
She reaches for my hand.
I should stop her. I have a sealed suite, a missing explanation, and at least three reasons not to let the woman who built this place put her fingers around mine in the dark.
I don’t stop her.
The reef throws pale light over her knuckles, my scars, the cup of melting vanilla between us. The facility has the bad manners to go quiet in all the wrong places.
She turns my thumb toward the reef light and studies the blue stain like it belongs in a report. “You made it worse,” she says.
“Common outcome when I touch things.”
“That’s not true.”
Her thumb moves over mine again. The marker doesn’t come off. Her hand is warm. Her knee is three inches from mine.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she asks.
The honest answer would not let her sit on this floor for the ten more minutes she needs. So I move the marker on her cheek instead of moving the truth out of my mouth, and I tell myself the trade is for her.
I look from our hands to her face. “Lots of things.”
Her eyes narrow. “That was a tactical answer.”
“Yes.”
The corner of her mouth moves, but the smile doesn’t finish. She knows me well enough to know when a joke has armor under it.
My radio clicks. “Dutch.” Reyes says.
Maren’s fingers tighten once around mine.
I don’t answer immediately. That’s the mistake. She hears the silence.
I lift the radio. “Go.”
“Need ten more.”
“Five.”
He pauses. “Fine.”
The channel dies.
Maren lets go of my hand. The cold comes back fast. “Perimeter?” she asks.
“Perimeter.”
She nods, allowing the lie to live for now. Likely because she has too many fires and only two hands, takes the spoon from my cup, eats the last bite of my ice cream without asking, and stands.
She bends for her shoes. Tired enough that the first attempt misses.
I stand before she can try again. “Where are you going?”
“Lab.”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lift.
I point down the corridor. “Quarters.”
“I don’t recall promoting you to bedtime enforcement.”
I gesture toward the corridor.
“You’re walking me?” she asks.
“To reduce future paperwork.”
“Romantic.”
“Accurate.”
She picks up her lab coat and shoes. “Fine.”
We move through the atrium together. At the corridor junction, she stops.
“My room is twenty-seven steps from here,” she says.
“I know.” I look down the corridor toward her door. “Get some rest.”
“Dutch.”
“Please.”
I wait until her door seals behind her before I move.
I stand in the corridor for three seconds. Facility humming through the soles of my boots. I wipe my thumb on my uniform. The blue smear remains visible.
I finish perimeter at 0130.
Reyes sends one message.
Sample tested. Chitinous. Not trilobite. Unknown.
I stare at unknown for a while.
Then delete the message from my lock screen and leave it unread in the thread because that makes no difference but gives my hands something to do.
My quarters are on the staff level, two corridors from the secondary security office.
Small room. Bed. Desk. Locker. No window.
I chose no window. People think everyone wants a view down here.
People are wrong. I spend all day watching things move in the dark. Sometimes a wall should just be a wall.
I take off my boots and line them beside the bed. I take the taser off my belt, then the radio, then the baton. I leave the radio on the nightstand.
Then I put the taser there too. Then I put my boots back on.
Ridiculous. Reasonable.
I lie down on top of the blanket.
The facility breathes around me. The sound used to settle something in me. A world with defined edges and useful noise.
The facility keeps breathing like nothing is in its walls. Like Maren didn’t go still under my hand.
I stare at the ceiling.
Contemplate emergency routes.
Quarters to Maren: The junction, the two corridors, the staff hatch at B-2, every chokepoint anything would have to come through to reach her door before I did. I’ve cleared all of them tonight.
I do it again in my head anyway.