Johns raised his eyebrows. “That’s not the way Nathan Graham sees it.”

“Nathan Graham is an idiot,” observed Utreje.

“But he’s a powerful idiot,” said Greenfield. “He came by our lab the other day, throwing his weight around, wanting to know when the project would be ready for field testing. He scared the hell out of Dr. Martin.”

“What an asshole that guy is,” said Pincus, shaking a french fry. “He asked me to keep separate records when I was working with Dr. Vine on that base phase bonding thing.”

“You’re kidding, really?” said Johns.

“Oh no. He’s always pulling shit like that. What do you expect? He’s from production.”

“So did you?” asked Johns.

Pincus snorted, “Please. I told him if he wanted a worm, he could look under a rock.”

“Ooh, what did he do?” asked Greenfield.

“Nothing. What could he do? He didn’t have anything on me. It would have attracted too much attention if he fired me. Dr. Vine would have asked questions.”

Colin stared at his cafeteria tray, wishing he had taken the cello after all. It would have given him something to do with his hands. He picked up his soda, gripping it hard, and forced himself to drink.

“Yeah, but you were lucky,” said Utreje. “He must have been in a good mood that day, man. I heard about this guy who handed an accounting report in to him late. Graham made him take off his pants and throw them out the window, along with the report.”

“Boy, I’d sure hate to be under his thumb,” said Greenfield.

“He’s ruthless,” said Utreje. “Martin should be scared, if Graham’s on his case. They say once he’s got something on you, he never lets you go.”

Colin raised the cellofoam cup to his mouth once more, squeezing it so hard it broke, spilling ice and cola in his lap.

Chapter 11 — The Habit of Air

Helix trudged down the street to Gate 29, carrying her divesuit, air tanks, and a battered tin lunch box. It was just like being at the orphanage, this feeling of dread she had as she approached the vat houses. She never knew what she was going to find when she got to her locker.

She’d started taking her equipment home with her after her third day, when she’d found the lock cut and her suit stiff with thickening solution. She missed half a shift scrubbing it clean. She had wanted this. She had gone against every one — had ignored Chango’s insistent pleas - to dive. Only Hyper somewhat supported her decision, letting her stay at his house after Chango left and started living out of her car again.

But as the odor of the vats hit her, infusing her nostrils with its pungent aroma, her doubts evaporated. It was worth it, worth all of it, to swim inside that smell.

Someone had scrawled the words “mutant sport bitch” across her locker with black caulking adhesive. How articulate, she thought, ignoring the expectant glances and snickering all around her. She opened her locker and got undressed, pumping her lower arms to get the blood circulating through them before wrapping them tight around her ribs and zipping the divesuit up over them. She joined the rest of her dive mates on the platform. No one spoke to her. They just lowered themselves into the growth medium and started making their rounds, clearing the grow med of agules. During shifts they did their best to ignore her, though they were forced to acknowledge her at certain times, like when decanting. Then the whole team had to coordinate their efforts to lift the sheets of biopolymer out of the vat and maneuver them onto the drying racks. And of course whenever she made a mistake, her dive mates were only too happy to point it out.

Helix plucked a small agule from the fluid and placed it in her collection bag. “Hey sport,” Vonda’s voice squawked over the suit’s speaker. “You missed a whole network. You can’t just pull them out, you’ve got to check to see if they’re connected to others. Didn’t we cover that in your training?”

They had, but her upper hands were not as good at fine work as her lower ones, and the tendrils tended to snap in her fingers before she could trace them. Helix glanced around the vat. Vonda was above and to the left of her, apparently at a better vantage point to see the agules in question. Helix swam up and over, located the agule cluster and dove back down to it. She tried to collect them gently, but they still kept breaking, and she knew Vonda was up there watching her though she didn’t say anything further. When she opened her locker at the end of the shift, a pile of agules fell out at her feet. “Missed a spot,”

said Vonda, and laughed.

Helix turned to her. “How did you get inside my locker?” she demanded.

“I watched you work the combination. I’ve been watching you a lot.” She nodded at the pile of agules.

“Those are all the goobers you missed today. It’s bad enough you have to be diving, but at least you could be good at it.”

Helix turned from her and picked up an agule, feeling her face redden. Vonda was right, she wasn’t very good. And she’d been so certain she would be. She never even considered any other possibility. She examined the agule, which was dry of growth medium and perfectly safe to handle. Long tendrils trailed away from its round, lumpy center. There was something oddly appealing about it, she thought, squishing it between her fingers.

When she got home Chango was there, standing behind Hyper as he downloaded her pirated cash card codes. She glanced up as Helix came in, a look of forlorn longing flashing briefly in her eyes before she hardened them and turned to Hyper. “You can pay me later,” she said. “Meet me at Josa’s.” She glanced once more at Helix, and then she was out the door and gone.

Hyper shook his head as the screen door banged shut in Chango’s wake. “She’s so afraid for you. She thinks you’re going to get vatsickness, and she doesn’t want to go through what she went through with her sister so she’s shutting you out, trying to protect herself from getting hurt again.”

Helix nodded. It was a reasonable explanation, but she still missed Chango. She needed Chango, to help her figure out how to handle the vatdivers, to take away the loneliness that followed her around like a shadow.

She dumped her gear in a corner by the stairs to the loft. Hyper wrinkled his nose as she came near.

“Are you going to take a shower?” he asked hopefully. She shook her head. She’d given up bathing about a week ago, so she could keep the smell of the vats with her all the time. It had it’s advantages and disadvantages. Her dive mates tended to keep their distance now, conducting their persecution from afar. She didn’t have to worry about them doing anything up close and personal, like beating her up on the way home from work. On the other hand, it had put a halt to any romance that might have developed between herself and Hyper.

She realized she didn’t really care, that the smell of growth medium was more important to her than human contact. She must be losing her mind, she thought.

Hyper was still downloading cash card codes. His transceiver headset lay on the table beside him amid the scattered parts of a circuit board he’d been disassembling that morning. “Can I borrow this?” she asked, lifting up the headset.

Hyper nodded, leaning ever so slightly away from her. “Go ahead. You’re going to call your friend, what’s her name, Night Hag?”

“Yeah,” said Helix.

“Good,” he said. “Maybe she can get you to take a shower. Does she have an olofax?”

Helix ignored him, taking the headset with her up to the loft. Today Night Hag was a red-head in a green satin ball gown. “Wow,” said Helix. “Going someplace special?”

“No, just having fun.”

“Well good for you,” Helix leaned back on Hyper's bed, making no effort to hide her arms, which Night Hag had yet to comment on.

“How’s the new job?”

“Awful, wonderful. I don’t know, Night Hag, I think I”m going crazy.”