by Mac Rogers
“Yup,” I said, distantly. “Just in our opposition files. Something I do every time we boot people. Total overkill, I know, I just like to, you know—”
“Do opp research on the media?”
“It’s stupid, it’s not even like Shel or Vonn are getting shipped to The New York Times or whatever, it’s just, whenever there’s people with a grudge out there I always wanna remind myself who they might talk to. So I’m just scrolling through…”
You’re disclaiming it too much, Dak, your voice said between my ears. You’re putting ideas in her mind.
Stuff it, Salem—it’s not a good answer but it’s the best one I’ve got.
Patty was sucking on some particularly tough jerky now. Playing it cool, making it hard to read any skepticism. Or maybe she was just genuinely curious. “Okay … I mean, we don’t disclose personnel movements; hell, they can’t even have visitors in Sierra facilities—their families think they’re on missions, so…”
“I know,” I said, getting irritated. “I didn’t get where I am by leaving stones where they were, though.”
“Okay.”
While we were talking, I kept scrolling through the windows open on the screen.
There it is.
The name I was looking for revealed itself. Rachel Lesser, 9Source. Flagged numerous times in our internal media coverage rosters as a sensationalist reporter with a raging hard-on for Sierra and its suspected development of weaponry. Bingo. I kept scrolling so there was no record I’d stopped there.
“Have there been any new stories on Quill Marine in a while?” Patty asked, like she was suddenly curious about the topic.
I went back to a window with search engine results, my stomach crinkling in annoyance. “Uh, latest is … about seven months back.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” She was upbeat, impressed. “It seems like we’ve gotten really good at squashing shit.”
I had one last thing I needed to check. I shifted in my seat so Patty couldn’t see the screen, trying not to look obvious about it.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, slowly, as I worked, “the sense I get is even if it’s an outlet we don’t own, or one of our affiliates doesn’t own, there’s usually at least one person in the newsroom we’ve got a lever on.”
Last week, Harrison had granted me clearance to delete security footage for our little cover-up with Lloyd and the moss. But did he remember to rescind the clearance afterward?
I double-clicked on a secured file that should’ve told me “access denied” … and it didn’t. Harrison had forgotten.
We were in business.
That done, I turned in my seat to look at Patty, hoping my look read as “We done?” without any unnecessary alacrity or ill will. She stared back … lifted the piece of jerky to her mouth to attempt another bite … then brought her hand down. It was a weirdly weary, sad move.
“Look, review whatever you want,” she said, her voice casual. “Just … if we were gonna rank the shit we’re worried about…”
“Like I said, Patty. There is a reason I am where I am.” Shorter than I meant to be.
“Okay,” she said. “You do you. I’m gonna stroll around downstairs.”
The victory felt hollow and awful. I hoped Patty was able to translate the tension into having something to do with the extra-stressful week, the Harp, the near-death experience. Anything was a billion times better than her knowing the actual source.
* * *
TWO HOURS later, all senior employees received the dreaded memo from Harrison: “Emergency Update, Conference Hall, 4:30 p.m. TODAY.”
We all filed into a room and took our seats at the conference table. It was a lot more people than I expected. Because the universe has an insatiable appetite for coincidence (and the gnashing of teeth), you just happened to be taking post on the meeting. I shot you a look on the way to my chair and you gave me another of your amazing micro-nods. Lloyd must have talked. I could have kissed you right there in front of everyone.
“Okay, folks, everyone settle in, we’ve got a lot to get through,” Harrison said wearily, leaning his knuckles against the lacquered walnut of the conference table.
“Fun call today, sir?” Patty asked. The room chuckled. Harrison did not.
“Lloyd, I’m gonna put you in the hot seat first,” he said, “and then we’re gonna talk about that.”
* * *
OF ALL the dedicated teams—the Moss team, the moss team, the Harp team, the Object E team, et cetera—Lloyd was a team unto his own. He bounced around all of them. Since, for all we knew, even the ship might be a biological organism, as chief xenobiologist (“Senior Man,” to quote Trip Haydon) he needed to be comfortable with every aspect of our assets here.
Still, whenever you put people on teams, rivalries are gonna be inescapable. It’s a good thing—it lends a healthy sense of competition to inform analysis and speculation. When Harrison asked Lloyd what he asked him, it normally would have sent bristles up and down the hides of all the other senior scientific staff. In an ordinary situation, someone on the dedicated Moss team would have piped up angrily and cried they knew this specific biology better than Lloyd, that Lloyd shouldn’t be the only one making such declarative statements, that’s why we have teams to begin with!
Except Harrison also used the “A” word. So nobody wanted to touch this. They were more than happy to watch Lloyd squirm.
“So, look,” Harrison began. “I’m just going to say this outright. Some of the people on the call I just took were from Allocations.” Everyone clenched. Allocations meant money. Money meant Trip Haydon. “They’re expecting me to follow up with a recommendation. So the question I have for you, Lloyd, is: has your assessment of Moss changed in any way?”
Harrison edged away from the floor—Lloyd was still sitting, but now seemed very much alone. Tactical cruelty.
“I … regarding…?”
“Regarding being able to save Moss’s life.”
Lloyd certainly felt the radioactivity and squirmed. He wanted to have a different answer, but, “I … don’t see how it can have changed, sir.”
“Explain.”
“Well … clearly, clearly, as long as we maintain the overall parameter, the overall mandate to not, of course, dissect—or vivisect, as the case may be—which obviously would defeat the purpose … it’s impossible for us to know enough about Moss’s biological processes to effect any kind of medical treatment I can imagine. And of course that’s still operating from the unproven assumption…”
“That he’s still alive.”
“Well, yes, as, as I’m sure the Moss Team can expound upon in some detail…” Lloyd looked to the room. No one took him up on it. He swallowed. “Um, but, well, very simply, nothing is … moving inside Moss’s body. Nothing that looks like a heartbeat, nothing that looks like circulation, nothing that looks like a cerebro-chemical process, nothing. The moss is our strongest observable data point to, to, to suggest dormant life. Beyond that we’d have to rely solely on the, the inexplicable body temperature and, heh, the fact that he hasn’t turned to dust. But, I mean, really, let’s be honest, we’re just looking at the outside of a house to, to try to diagnose what might be wrong with the plumbing.”
Harrison was rubbing the bridge of his nose. “So the only way to know enough about him to treat him is to cut him into small pieces.”
“Yes, obviously that’s the um … the pertinent dilemma.”
“Right.” Harrison sighed. He unexpectedly pointed to another scientist at the table, Dr. Ronz, an officious little mouse with thick brown bangs and even thicker glasses. She headed up the Object E team.
“Susan.”
She was so caught off guard it looked as if she’d forgotten the sound of her own first name. She looked about ready to point to herself and say, “Who, me?” But she didn’t, she just blinked extra hard behind her massive glasses as if to make sure she was still awake, and said, “Yes, Director?”
“I read your reports ev
ery week. Some of them could easily be copied and pasted from the one the week before.”
The mood in the room was changing palpably. Was this going to be some sort of grill session?
“Oh—sir—I—”
Harrison waved her off. “I know you don’t do that. I know it’s just the same data coming back week over week. I just want it on the record for this meeting. Do you believe your team has made any significant progress toward making Object E flight-worthy in, let’s just say, the last year?”
“Well, we certainly know a great deal more about the composition of the outer—”
“Can you make it fly, Susan?”
She gave a hard blink again. “No, Director.”
“Thank you, Susan.” He sighed, more to himself than to the room. Harrison sat back down. We were all watching him intently. “Then I really have no counterargument to take back to Allocations,” he was saying. His voice was loud and present, but again it seemed more like he was talking to himself.
After a few beats of silence, Lloyd piped up. “Counter-argument to…?”
I shut him up with a look. Harrison clearly needed a second with this one, whatever it was.
Uncomfortable silence swathed the room. As is so often the case with a silence like that, once the thing was said that broke that silence, we all wished we were back in it.
“I’ve been informed that we’re going to be implementing a restructuring process,” Harrison said at last. Chairs creaked, breaths were held. “Going forward, we won’t be maintaining a dedicated Moss Team or a dedicated Object E Team.” Gasps rippled through the room. “We’re not dropping anyone—I want to make that clear, no one’s losing a job today—but the Moss and Object E Teams will now be folded into the Harp Team, with an eye toward a new mandate.”
The faces around the table—everyone was perhaps 3 percent more terrified than they were furious. Susan was the first to speak.
“Respectfully—Director—” Her voice was breathy with the forced laughter of the incredulous.
“Before anyone says anything else”—Harrison held up a hand—“there is no point in arguing this with me. I don’t like passing the buck. I signed on to Sierra with open eyes, just like we all did. I’ll give my input, sure, but when a decision is made, I’ll back it. And this one comes direct from Trip Haydon.”
As a nonscientist, I had the smallest dog in this, so it was easiest for me to ask the most important question.
“What’s the new mandate, sir?”
He looked at me, grateful to have been given the go-ahead to vomit up whatever poison he was carrying in his system.
“To create a prototype clone of the Harp. With an eventual eye toward mass production.”
The room was no longer silent. Lloyd in particular started sputtering all sorts of vowel sounds. I had to wonder, which part of Lloyd was stronger, his ego or his fear?
“It just doesn’t make sense!” Lloyd finally managed to blurt. Harrison began trotting out all sorts of calming platitudes, none of which proved effective. “Moss is a verified, a, a verified extraterrestrial being!”
Finally, Harrison turned to the room, wincing. “Okay. Can someone—?”
“Object E is a verified extraterrestrial transport!”
Harrison noticed you. “Salem?” You nodded, approaching Lloyd with caution, as if he were an IED left on the side of the road. The rest of the scientists in the room were looking away, trying not to catch what Lloyd was afflicted with, I imagined.
“Hey—”
“Am I crazy? Am I crazy? These are, are the most important discoveries of all time!” He was pounding on the table now. “It doesn’t even—it—we’re not even trained to—they want us to, to just make another Harp?!”
“Lloyd? Lemme give you a hand,” you offered. Lloyd’s volume was coming down but he was still seething, spinning. “Let’s go grab some water, huh?”
He looked at you with a sincerity that would have been heartbreaking if we weren’t all so shaken. “We’re xenobiologists,” he pleaded, “we’re—forget science, just organizationally, it makes no sense! ‘Folded into the Harp team’?”
“I know, it’s—” Trying to get him to the door.
“Somebody say something!” He started up again. “Am I out of my mind?”
“LLOYD. SHUT UP AND TAKE A BREAK.” I used the voice I save for only the most out-of-control situations. My copvoice, my slapvoice. It worked. Lloyd stopped and gaped at me. “It’s okay,” I continued, once I was sure he was hearing me. “It’s okay. We’re gonna figure it out.”
“I feel like—”
“We’re gonna figure it out. Take a walk with Matt, give yourself a break.”
“Everybody needs a break, man,” you concurred. “Let’s just hang out.”
He gave in and you led him out. He kept muttering—sentence fragments mostly—but the gasoline had burned off and soon he was out of sight and sound. Harrison, meanwhile, was addressing the rest of the table—who might have been quieter than Lloyd but were no less appalled and concerned.
“Lloyd’s wound up, but he’s not all wrong. This is going to be a challenge. But it’s a challenge we’re going to meet. Okay? Let’s talk about how.”
For a split second I caught Patty looking at me.
Have I called him “Matt” in front of her before? I wondered.
13
I TRIED the new toy that night while we were in bed. I waited until we’d done it twice and you were in a doze. It was cruel of me and I didn’t regret it for a second.
“I WANT YOU TO EAT ME, MATT SALEM.”
You woke up like you’d been electrocuted. “Oh my God, what the fuck?!” Your hands had come up, ready to swat at whatever was making that godawful robotic noise.
“I WANT YOU TO LICK ME LIKE AN ICE CREAM CONE.” Beginning to lose my composure with giggles. Between that and you noticing I was sitting there with a black mask covering the bottom half of my face, the jig was up.
“Okay, that is … holy shit.”
“PLEASE TEABAG ME, MATT SALEM, IT IS ON MY BUCKET LIST.”
“I think that scared me more than, like, most incursions.” You lobbed a knuckle-punch into my arm. It stung like a bitch and I loved it.
“SCARED? IT’S JUST LI’L OL’ MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee.”
“Is that for tomorrow?”
Okay. No fun anymore. I took the voicebox off of my face. It was like a heavy-duty surgical mask, only black, with thick straps that wrapped all the way around the back of the head. The front of it bulged out with a filter-type apparatus that covered the mouth.
“Yeah, see?” I said, making a show of how it obscured my face. “It also works like a mask.”
“Two birds with one stone. Nice.”
“I thought so.”
I’d picked the thing up at a damn toy store earlier in the day. Hypervigilance was kicking in; I was maybe 70 percent sure I could’ve safely done a search online at home for voice modulators—maybe even gotten a drone to drop it off right at my doorstep next day. Conceivably, our employers shouldn’t have any sort of access to my personal internet account, my browsing history, my online shopping … but even a 30 percent chance that I was wrong seemed astronomically reckless. I paid with cash.
“God, you look sexy with your hair like that,” you chuckled. Taking off the mask had tousled up my hair in the back something fierce.
“I meant every word, you know.”
You kissed me for an exquisite moment. But now that you were somewhat awake you had questions; now that I had the mask the plan was definitely going forward.
“So we actually have this lady’s parking space on file?” you asked. I forgot sometimes that you were still new to Sierra and its insidious ways.
“Any reporter who even glances at Quill Marine, we get their shoe size.”
“Makes sense, I guess.” And then, oh God, you actually started rubbing your eyes. It was like two in the morning.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you can
go back to sleep! That was mean of me.”
“Right, fuck you.” You pushed me with your shoulder. “Like I’m ever gonna be able to sleep again now.”
“Christ, you baby, aren’t you a decorated combat veteran?”
“Or something.”
I put the mask back up to my mouth. “WANT ME TO TALK DIRTY TO YOU? A NAUGHTY BEDTIME STORY?”
“Yeah, metallic shouting, that’s what gets me hard. Put it down, Chief.”
I obliged, then tried to burrow. “C’mere. Cuddle with me if you’re not gonna sleep.” We arranged ourselves into some sort of knot, secure and blissful and contented. “We definitely shouldn’t meet here tomorrow. We both need a full night’s sleep.”
You chuckled softly. “Cool, I’ll see you here.” I bit your exposed skin. After (what I thought was) a warm moment, you said, “Is it weird, like…” And then trailed off.
“What?” No answer. I untied myself from our knot to get a better look at you. You didn’t look particularly pensive, more bemused. “Jesus, what? Don’t start a sentence like that.”
“… That we haven’t … with all the other secrets between us … that we haven’t talked about…?”
“Talked about what?” My momentary panic was ebbing, leaving a metallic taste in my mouth.
“Our stuff. Our service. Just … whenever I’ve been with people in the life before…”
I dropped my head back onto you, relieved and exhausted, though I’d have been at a loss to describe precisely why. “Christ, you mean swapped stories?”
“I mean … yeah.”
“Okay, I … look, you’re younger than me.” Trying to find my way back into a comfortable position, that sweet spot we had found so naturally, so quickly.
“Do you think I have a problem with that?”
“Not what I’m talking about.”
“Okay.”
“It’s like … did your generation have Mad Libs?”
“Jesus, my ‘generation.’”
“Like where you filled in the blanks in the sentences and—”
