Page 225 of Every Almost

Tavi had it broadcasting over the room's music system before she had even finished her sentence.

The opening of that creaking door started while the footsteps followed, and then that synth hit while the music built. Charliecould feel it in her bones, the way she always did with Michael Jackson, the same way certain songs bypassed the brain and went straight to the body. She rolled her shoulders, cracked her neck, and when that beat dropped, she launched into the zombie shuffle.

Arms out, stiff-legged walk, head snap, shoulder roll. The full choreography, or at least the version of it that every person under the age of 25 in America had learned in basements and backyards and school gymnasiums in 1983.

The crew lost their ever-loving minds.

Borran attempted the zombie walk and looked like a mountain animal trying to navigate an ice rink. Selowen picked up the arm sequence with unsettling precision on her first try, and her movements proved fluid and exact, making Charlie suspect Kaelari-Brontari hybrids were actually built for dance choreography. Maren tried, stopped, covered her face with her hands, but then tried again. Tavi threw himself into it with the full-body commitment of someone who refused to let anything be a limitation.

Charlie began laughing so hard she had to stop dancing in order to breathe.

"What the hell am I looking at?"

The voice came from the doorway, and Charlie didn't have to turn around to know who it belonged to.

"It's called the 'zombie shuffle,' Cap!"

Charlie turned around just in time to hear Reyna's response.

"The 'zombie shuffle?'" Reyna asked with a raised eyebrow as she watched Borran attempt the stiff-legged walk.

Tavi stopped his dance. "Yeah," he said, then turned to Charlie. "The Captain next, Charlie."

The room went quiet.

Charlie turned to look at Reyna, her posture clearly statingI am observing this from a safe distance and intend to remain here.

"Tavi," Reyna said.

"Captain," Tavi replied, stretching out the word.

"No."

"Aw, come on, Cap. It would be good for crew morale and all that."

"My crew's morale appears to be thriving without my participation in a zombie dance," Reyna quipped, her gaze stuck on a crew member in the back attempting the head snap over and over.

"I could just go ahead and make it a formal request," Tavi continued.

"You could," Reyna stated. "And then I could reassign you to waste reclamation."

"Worth it," Tavi said, without hesitation.

The room seemed to hold its breath. Charlie watched Reyna's face seem to calculate whether retreat was more dignified than engagement and concluded that a captain who backed down from a three-foot-ten Tessarae was one who'd already lost.

Reyna then walked to the center of the room with the measured, unhurried stride of a woman approaching a tactical problem. When she arrived, she looked directly at Charlie.

"Alright, Wickett. I seem to be forced into this. Show me how to do the zombie dance."

"'Zombie shuffle,'" Tavi corrected.

Reyna eyed him, but Charlie watched as Tavi held her gaze and didn't even blink, a smile beaming on his face.

Then Reyna turned to Charlie, and she felt her mouth go completely dry.

"Okay," Charlie said, swallowing. "Let's go with the arms first."

Then Charlie showed Reyna the reach with the bent-wrist zombie arms. Reyna copied it but it came up in a line clean enough to mirror a salute.