They were birds. They didn’t know what we were trying to do. But my idiot of a husband had other ideas. He started flapping his hands up and down and walking along the chasm edge in a waddle.
I groaned. Oh my goodness.
Blue 48 stared at him.
“What’s going on?” Viktor’s voice came over the comm line.
“Reed is… mimicking a penguin.”
A roar of laughter burst through my headphones.
A single emperor penguin’s head peeked over the edge of the ramp, and the next moment, it stood on the iceberg surface, blinking in the light.
“It’s working,” I reported.
Cheering broke over the comm line. I watched as another popped out. Then four at once, jostling at the top of the ramp, spilling onto the surface and waddling immediately toward the iceberg edge without hesitation, toward the water far below.
One after another after another, black-and-white bodies came out of the chasm.
Reed grinned up at me from the surface of the iceberg.
The birds soon became a huge mass of black and white. Their calls filled the air. Then one brave bird took the plunge. I watched its tiny body fall through the air. It hit the water and disappeared, only to bob back up seconds later.
One by one, the others took off from the edge, arcing out over the sheer wall and hitting the water cleanly, disappearing and surfacing and immediately swimming away.
“They’re coming out.” Nate took over and kept a running commentary for the team while I fought sudden tears. Reed stood watching the spectacle. Scores of emperor penguins climbed out of the earth, walked past him, and jumped back into the ocean they had come from. Somewhere in the mass, Mama Blue 48 left the iceberg too.
“Viktor, she’s off. Swimming back to her family,” I let him know.
“Understood.” I heard a sniffle. “Get your man back and come back home, Daniel.”
Before we headed back, I did remember to hover over the research vessel.
“Nate.” I made sure the line was private, just him and me. “I’ve something for you. I’m going to drop it now. Ready to catch?”
“What? Oh. Ah… okay.” He lifted his hand to shield himself from the rotor wash. I could see his scrunched-up expression as I dropped a nonbreakable messenger tube with the folded note from Garrett. He caught it neatly and gave me a thumbs-up.
The last words I heard from him as we flew back toward Waypoint Station were, “That asshole.”
12
Daniel
A week later
Reed’s broad shoulders disappeared around the corner at the end of the corridor, and I broke into a run after him.
“Reed. Stop.”
He did not stop. I followed in his wake, syringe in hand, my white coat snapping behind me. The corridor was narrow, the overhead lights humming, and Reed’s boots hit the linoleum in heavy, rapid thuds that echoed off the walls.
“Catch him!” I shouted.
“No one dare!” Reed roared as the people lining the corridor flattened themselves against the walls as he came through, someone pressing into a doorframe to let him pass. The smell of lunch drifted from the stairwell above us—Theo’s soup, something with garlic. Reed thundered up the stairs and hit thecafeteria door with his shoulder. It swung wide. Adrien, who had the misfortune of standing directly behind it with a full tray, executed a sideways lurch that sent his juice sliding but kept the tray level.
Reed said sorry but did not slow down. He cut around the long central table and put the full width of it between us, then turned and stared me down.
“No.”
