Chapter 32 part 1
Chapter 32 part 1
Nyra
Morning crawls, a clock with its hands pressed to glass. I move through tasks on muscle memory: linen counts, inventory logs, sedative audits that are never as neat as the numbers pretend. The corridors smell like metal and lemon cleaner; the vents hum steady, trying to pretend the air down here is normal air and not the kind that sits in your lungs like a weight. Teyla’s shadow finds me in the supply corridor outside cold storage. She doesn’t clear her throat or call my name—she just appears, angled into the doorway, her clipboard tucked under one arm like the point of a spear.
“Walk with me,” she says.
We don’t talk while we walk. That’s how it is with her: most things are said in the silence between steps. I track the scuff on the toe of her boot, the loose hair that’s worked free of her braid, the way the guards planted at the end of the hall straighten when she passes, as if some animal in them knows to step wide. We turn into a maintenance alcove that smells like dust and cold copper, away from the cameras I pretend not to look at. She plants her shoulder blades to the wall, studies me the way you study a volatile chemical—respectfully, from a safe distance.
“They’re closing your trial,” she says.
I keep my face still. “Already?”
“Your file made it easy. Obedient. Quiet. Good with protocols. You don’t insert yourself into problems.” One corner of her mouth twitches, not a smile. “And the gamma eats when you’re in the room. He’s less likely to bite.”
“He’s sedated,” I say, because that’s the safe answer.
“Sedated wolves still bite.” She shifts the clipboard into her hands. “You’re being offered the assignment. Official handler. Gamma only, to start. Regular access. Full logs.”
A hook lodges under my ribs and pulls hard. I make sure none of it touches my face. “If I accept.”
“You’d be a fool not to,” she says simply.
I watch a tiny fleck of paint flake from the doorframe and fall. “What’s the schedule.”
“Rotations begin tomorrow. You’ll take the evening slot. Pre-sedation checks, nutrition, hygiene oversight, sensor recalibrations. You’ll report to me, then to central.”
My mouth is too dry. “You trust me with sensor work.”
“I trust you to follow instructions.” A beat. “And not to show off.” She lets the words settle. “You want it?”
I make myself breathe once, slow. I feel my own pulse, quick and greedy, trying to answer for me. I think of the stairwell, the cold metal under my palm; of a voice through steel saying closer and how it felt like the hallway itself moved when he spoke. I think of the gamma looking at me like he knew something I didn’t.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ll take it.”
No hesitation. I hear it in my own voice. So does she. Teyla’s gaze flicks over my face. “Paperwork is already moving. Don’t make me retract it.”
“I won’t.”
“Good.” She straightens, and for a breath she looks almost… relieved. Not for me. For the job. For the shape of the machine when the right part clicks in. “Get your metrics clean. If central asks you a question and you hesitate, say you need to verify. Never guess.”
I nod.
“And Nyra?” she adds, starting to move.
“Mm?”
“You look better.” There’s nothing soft in it, but it is, somehow, gentle. “You were… not well.”
“I slept,” I lie.
“Keep doing that. We need you steady.” She tips her chin toward the corridor. “Back to it.”
She leaves me in the hum of the cold pipes. I press my palms to the metal shelving and let the vibration travel up my bones until I feel steady enough to move. Handler. Official. Evening slot. A door opens in my head: not to a room, to a path. The map inside Redveil redraws itself around it. Sublevel Three, corridor C, sensor bay, hygiene stall, maintenance hatch, that door. Not just as a forbidden wall now, but as something adjacent to my route. Not fantasy. Proximity.
I float through the next hours, buoyed and terrified. I sign what I’m given to sign. I return trays and scanners. In the break room, two junior techs talk quietly about a bad run on Level 1—a drunk client, a handler with a broken hand—mundane cruelty stated like weather. Jana pours coffee with her left wrist wrapped, not meeting my eyes. I answer the questions I have to: yes, the gamma ate; yes, the shower was supervised; yes, he complied; no, he didn’t speak again. I keep my voice even. I keep my hands still.
The only time they shake is when I’m alone, in the narrow strip of mirror over the utility sink, where the fluorescent light paints me gray. I roll my sleeves, scrub to the elbows until my skin feels like paper.
Official handler.
Closer.
It lodges under the breastbone and won’t stop sparking.