“Baba, you know I actually like having lungs, right?”she’ll say, dramatic sigh and all.“You don’t have to bubble-wrap the air.”
And I will tell her that I do, because that is what Nyeri’i fathers are for: bubble-wrapping the universe and pretending it is a reasonable use of time.
My comm hums softly from my pocket—an automatic nightly digest from the lab. I ignore it at first. I am off duty; I am in my daughter’s room; I am supposed to be a person, not a supervisor.
Flicker chirps at the sound anyway, leaping down from the window ledge to chase the phantom notification across the floor. I rub the bridge of my nose and pull the comm free.
“Just status,” I tell myself as the screen widens in my palm. “Nothing dramatic. Nothing on fire.”
The top of the feed is exactly what I expect: power draw within norms, climate stable, security seals engaged at 21:03 when I locked the door.
The next line is not what I expect.
22:47—ACCESS GRANTED
Authorized ID: WALKER, LYN
A thin ribbon of ice slides under my skin.
“Of course,” I breathe.
Flicker pauses mid-pounce, ears pricked. She watches me as if she can tell that something has shifted, that the air around us has gone from soft to brittle.
I scroll.
22:49—Neural array boot sequence initialized.
22:50—Pain-translation sandbox loaded: REVISION 3.2 (UNAPPROVED)
22:51—Live-channel ports pinged for handshake.
Live-channel.
She would not dare.
Except Lyn Walker absolutely would dare. She would look at a locked door and see a puzzle. She would look at a warning label and assume it applies to other people.
I should have revoked her clearance…but even if I had, she'd have taken it as a challenge.
My tendrils flare, heat prickling along my scalp. For a moment I simply stand there, comm lighting my face, Solvi’s perfectly made bed at my side, the city beyond the window humming along as if nothing is wrong.
Then the lab icon on the comm blinks from blue to amber.
22:52—AUTOMATED FLAG: UNAUTHORIZED LIVE LINK ATTEMPT.
I do not remember deciding to move. One moment I am in my daughter’s room, the next I am in the hall, coat snatched from the peg by the door. Flicker darts after me, protesting with a crackling trill as I shut her inside.
“Stay,” I snap.
The comm pulses again in my hand.
22:53—NEURAL LOAD SPIKE: 140% OF SAFE THRESHOLD.
22:53—Biofeedback channel…connected.
My heart pounds.
“Walker,” I snarl to the empty corridor.
