Part 1, The Ticking Clock

  Chapter 1 - APT 5278

  I drop my satchel and glance up at the clock to note the time as I complete the sign in sheet. The clock is plain, white face and black numbering, hanging on matt grey walls that just go on and on. So much for one of the fancy apartment blocks, they use the same junk everywhere. The reception smells like someone burned sandalwood incense trying to cover the odor of cleaning products.

  “ID?” asks the receptionist, beginning to type at his workstation without even looking at me.

  I unclip the retractable badge holder on my hip and place it on the desk for him, “I should be on the schedule, my dad-”

  “I'll see if you are on the schedule shortly,” the receptionist replies, sliding my badge across his desk towards himself as he smooths down his black tie. He glances at my photo, barely looking at me. In short order he’s drawing a temporary swipe card from beneath his desk. “Guest access, Apartment 5278?” he asks.

  “Uh yes, Fitzgerald? And there should also be stable access?”

  He raises an eyebrow and furiously types for a moment, “Yes, stable X-67.”

  The receptionist holds the swipe card in mid air, and there is a shimmer of silver around its surface as his symbiont marks it.

  “Security is through that corridor,” he hands me back both my ID badge and the temporary swipe card.

  Security has two officers, both sitting at a shared desk before closed glass doors, as they see me coming one stands up, pushing forward a plastic tub for my belongings. I know the drill, I plop my satchel down and make a show of tapping my pockets.

  “There’s a metal container in the bag,” I explain before the first guard has even drawn the plastic tub close to him, “You can open it for inspection.” I’m already handing my guest card to the other guard.

  “No need,” he replies, “I have a Glaucidian.”

  “Crisp. Guess that’s what nice housing gets you?” I comment, watching the guard leave my bag untouched. Okay, a Glaucidian was an improvement over the usual, no unpacking for visual inspections.

  There is a silver shimmer on the swipe card again as the second guard handles it, and my bag is pushed back towards me by the first after he’s given a nod. With an electronic buzz, the glass door pops open as the locks release.

  “Clear for entry, you’re got two hours to get out before we send a Canis after you. Elevators are just at the end of the walkway,”

  “Two hours? Our request was at least four!” I can’t help but let my professional demeanor slip, this needs to be done today! I might not be the one doing it if we have to schedule a second visit, Directors usually have their calendars booked up at least two weeks out.

  The guard shrugs, “This is a secure building. You’re lucky you were even approved for access, who do you work with?”

  “R&D.”

  The guard raises an eyebrow, “Well, two hours is what you got.”

  I pick up my feet to jog down the central walkway, rows of apartments towering either side. Direct light from above barely reaches the bottom at this level. Each apartment is one beige door on a grey wall after another, mindless monotony without any character or color. The spacing between the doors is definitely more generous. The incense didn’t reach this far and all I can smell now is bleach from the night cleaning crews. At the elevator I punch in floor 52, swipe my guest card, and impatiently tap my foot as it rises.

  Apartment 5278 is the same as the others. Beige door on grey walls. At least the numbering on the apartment is inlaid black marble. Gotta give those jockeys something to brag about.

  I give the doorbell a quick buzz and wait.

  “Who are you?” comes a male voice over the intercom.

  “Conrada Dorrien. Dir Fitzgerald? I’m from Dr Dorrien’s lab. You should have gotten a memo about my visit?” I tug my ID from my belt on its extendable cord and hold the name and photo where it can be seen clearly from the camera.

  The door unlocks, and a man with slicked back greying hair and an unbuttoned white shirt opens it, his tie still hanging around his shoulders under his collar.

  “Senior Director,” he corrects, “I thought I was expecting one of his grad students?”

  “Gilroy is the one leading the paper. I’m here on his behalf, Sen-dir. I’m going to be doing the descriptive protocol, did they explain the process?”

  “You might as well come in-”

  “Can we go straight down to the stable? They only gave me two hours,” I rush my words out slightly too quickly to be polite.

  “You want to go see the stable?” he asks, rubbing his jowls.

  “It helps if you can see your symbiont while I’m doing the interview, make sure everything is the most accurate match.”

  “Very well, let me get a jacket.”

  Back down the elevator, back through the walkways of beige doors and grey walls, light barely reaching down from above. The level to the stables is via a second larger freight elevator. The door opens on a space better described as cells instead of stables. Empty black sided pens line a metal walkway with railings painted safety yellow that slowly illuminates with the stark white flicker of electronic lights. The air smells stagnant, with a distinct lack of bleach. Fitzgerald leads me down the pens until X-67, marked with a slip-out plate.

  I drop my satchel and pull out a pop up chair, a tablet, and place my metal tray on the ground. As I wedge the lid open, my collection of well loved colored pencils rolls within the case. Many are so short I’ve had to attach the stubs to extenders so I don’t cramp my hands holding onto them. In quick order I have my glossy laminated reference cards out and the protocol ready.

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  “Sen-dir Fitzgerald-”

  “Call me Herman,” he doesn’t look at me as he leans on the bars of the empty pen, vacantly staring into it.

  “Sure, Sen-dir Herman then. We’ll start with the head and notable features, and work our way down the body. Can you tell me which of these reference heads best matches your symbiont?”

  I hand him the first reference containing eight drawings with a variety of beaked and furred symbiont heads, labelled A through H.

  Fitzgerald takes the card and squints his eyes, “He doesn’t look like any of these…”

  “Just pick the closest, there’s some other subtypes we’ll get into next.”

  “Uh, C? I guess?”

  I’m already writing the letter down on the protocol data sheet pulled up on the tablet with my finger. I pass the C subtype card next, “And of these ones?”

  “Ohh, C6! Yes, definitely C6.”

  I pause, the tip of my index finger hovering over the screen on the next box of the data sheet. C6 is a procellariiform beak - long bills with two tubes that extend the nostril opening down to the end of the bill. With some hesitation I trace down a ‘6’ next to the letter. My other hand is already hovering over my yellow pencils.

  “And the color of the beak?”

  “Yellow, maybe a little grey?”

  “Do you mind if I multitask? Can you work through the cards on your own?” The man looks curious as I get out a clipboard and a blank sheet of paper to balance on my other knee. “Call out the closest match for each one and I’ll write it down.”

  He umms and ahs over the cards, steadily getting excited about the process of calling out numbers and letters one after another or debating between two subtypes as if the symbiont isn’t right in front of him to compare them to. I begin sketching on the blank paper, only pausing to add each selection he calls to my tablet. My hand is quick, marking the basic outlines of an animal in loose boxy shapes. As he works through the body parts, I check the color each time with him, changing pencils as I need. The list is extensive - mouth types, nostril types, eyes, pupil shape, coverings, markings, horns, neck shape, it keeps on going, working down the body in minute detail.

  The reference cards and protocol make the work more systematic. We use the standard Bates instrument, but our lab has added our own adjustments to the protocol. My father’s paper on the modifications is highly cited now. The drawings that accompany the reference cards are widely considered some of the most accurate documentation on symbiont body features available. The taxonomic community has even started calling it the Bates-Dorrien instrument now.

  As we get to the end of the reference cards, I draw a flexible tape measure from my satchel next.

  “We get some measurements now, I’ll call out the body part,” I instruct, “Start with the beak again, length from base at the skull to the tip if you could?”

  With a scan of the device on his wrist the stable gate opens, and Fitzgerald begins measuring the air within obediently as I call out each body part, one after another. There is another column of spaces for me to write each one down on my tablet and I continue my sketch between each measurement.

  I glance at the sensor face of my city-monitor on the underside of my own wrist, we’ve only got 20 minutes left. With a sigh I stop recording the numbers he calls out and furiously shade part of my sketch before I have to pack everything away again.

  “We’ll have to stop, I’m sorry. Do you mind if we come another time? I know this is your personal time.”

  “Eh, my supervisor didn’t give me much choice. You know how it is,” Fitzgerald comes closer, leaning over the bars to inspect my sketch with a congratulatory woo. “You got it pretty close!” he remarks, “You even got the patches on the wings, I didn’t mention that.”

  My pencil pauses, “I’ve seen other diagrams of Larus species symbionts before. I just assumed, sorry, I should have checked…”

  “No, you did a great job, I’m amazed. Can I get a copy to show my wife?”

  “We’ll send you a copy when the publication is complete. The final description will be in there as well as my digitized drawings,” I explain, beginning to pack away my pencils and the cards.

  “Oh, is that what you do for the lab? You do the drawings? Physical media as well,” he whistles, impressed.

  I nod obligingly in response, “The reference cards are mine too.” I can’t help the pride creep into my voice.

  “It’s not often folks get to go into creative fields! How rare, I’m kind of jealous.”

  I give a nervous but polite laugh, “I haven’t bonded yet. I’ll probably only get to do this another week or so. My twenty-first birthday was last month.”

  Fitzgerald draws in his breath quickly, “Exciting. With luck you’ll get something good and stay with us here at Murasaki, it’s always a bummer to find out your contract is being bought out. My family has been with Murasaki for four generations now!”

  “My father’s lab gets good work, we were serfs in the buyout fifteen years ago. Murasaki’s taken care of us though,” the story flows mechanically from my mouth, “I’d like to stay in R&D if I can…”

  “I’m sure you will! Murasaki always needs the next talented generation in its workforce,” the words sound like a corporate slogan, “Families usually end up bonding to similar symbionts!”

  “Thanks Sen-dir. I might see you again if we can get something on your calendar before then, but I’ve got to move before I overstay and security comes to find me.”

  Fitzgerald leans on the gate, “You can get back out?”

  “Yes, these places are all roughly the same! Ta again.”

  I pause as he turns his back to me, admiring the empty pen.

  I blink, and blink again.

  The long beaked head of the Larus turns to me, its wings tucked at its side in a pen so small it can barely stretch them. It watches me with dark gleaming eyes, as if it knows I can see it while Fitzgerald stares into the air at the side of its head. The pale yellow beak has nostrils as two long slits part way down the length, not a procellariiform. Four generations? Has to be nepotism that got him to Senior Director, the jockey can barely see his symbiont and Larus are a rare novelty more than useful tool. A dreg with a similar symbiont would be lucky to get unskilled service work.

  I lift my gaze to look down the rows of cells, a symbiont in each one after another, illuminated in the artificial electronic light. One stares mindlessly ahead, head bowed and eyelids drooping. More jostle silently with their neighbors in cramped quarters where wings and tails intrude into each other's cells. Scaled and furred, horned and beaked. Splashed in vibrant crimson and citrus on black or brown, patched with white spots and tawny stripes, faint glows of energy and smokey auras around them that only serve to contrast with their bleak subsistence.

  The ones close to me watch me back. They’re curious, they probably don’t get many visitors and the lights go out when no one is down here. Symbionts kept in stables are too large to roam free with their bonded, and not useful enough to build physical accommodations in corporate spaces. They don’t need food, or water, or sunlight, they get everything they need from their bond. So best keep them in the dark, and preserve the precious energy and space for the dregs who at least keep the corporate machine ticking. My gaze hardens and I swallow.

  I blink, and the cells are empty. I don’t want to look at their faces as I leave, but I know their heads turn to follow me as I pass.