Ophelia yanks her hand back immediately.
What the fuck?
Why is there a tooth on the floor? What happened? Who does it belong to? Why …
She stops and cocks her head to the side, giving the tooth a closer look. Something about it is wrong.
It’s too white, too perfect. Too flat on the bottom, no roots.
With a grimace, she reaches out and flips it over, revealing a hollow underside filled with circuitry and two tiny dangling wires.
The air rushes out of her lungs in a relieved exhale, and Ophelia rolls her eyes at herself. Maybe she should try not assuming the worst, for once. It’s just an implant. One of the old communication devices. Before QuickQ became the norm. Some older folks, in fact, refuse to make the switch, preferring devices that don’t require surgery to remove or upgrade.
In her house, her grandmother had had a museum-like display of the companies/products Pinnacle had gobbled up or taken out of business. In an old-fashioned glass case, one that wasn’t even fingerprint resistant or shatterproof, a white molar implant just like this one rested on a royal blue velvet stand.
Ophelia used to stare at it in fascination, wondering who it had belonged to, what stories it might have been part of, until her mother told her that it was probably just a product sample and to stop looking at it, as the household staff found her interest in it disturbing.
Still. Stuck out here on an R&E assignment was an odd time for someone to change or remove an implant.
Maybe she should mention it to Severin.
Only for him to point out that the implant is so old that it likely fell out? And that people forget things all the time? Or get divorced and deliberately abandon their wedding rings?
Ophelia purses her lips. No, thank you.
After a moment of hesitation, she picks up the implant and stashes it in her pocket with the ring. It feels like this is trying to tell her a story but she doesn’t have all the pieces yet.
Or it’s paranoia kicking in.
You need to be careful, Ophelia. Paranoia is the first symptom. How many times has she heard that over the years, from her grandmother, from her uncle, even from her mother, in response to, yes, occasionally an overreaction, but also every instance in which they didn’t care for her response and wanted to end all conversation on a topic? It carries with it the unspoken question that’s been hanging over her head her whole life: Exactly how much of her father is in her?
Annoyed with herself for going there, Ophelia collects the bag of chargers, stands, and then heads back down the corridor.
It doesn’t matter—that has always been and continues to be her answer to that question. She doesn’t hold some bizarre magical belief that DNA makes up the sum and total whole of a person, controlling their behavior. She makes her own decisions, about what to do and what not to do, based on her experiences and best judgment. Just like everyone else. She’s not controlled by some outside force, driving her to … do what he did. She’s not a passenger in her own body and brain.
Tightening her grip on the chargers, Ophelia turns toward the open door to the central hub to do her job.
But hushed voices on the other side of the draped plastic give her pause.
“… burned out,” Kate says, sounding agitated.
“We’ll do what we can before we have to replace it,” Severin responds.
They must have just come from syscon, returning from whatever problem Kate had referenced earlier. Their shadows, the two of them in gray scale and larger-than-life, flicker across the semiopaque screen of plastic in front of Ophelia.
“I’m telling you, it’s bloody odd. No one does that. A departing team may piss on the floor and smear shit on the walls, but nobody fucks with the generator,” she insists, leaning toward him. “They just left it. It could have started a fire and burned the whole place down.”
“But it didn’t,” Severin says, with—from Ophelia’s perspective—irritating calmness.
Kate tosses her head back with an exasperated noise. “Fine. Whatever. I’m just saying it means something. I don’t have a good feeling about this one.”
Ophelia starts to step forward, to offer her meager collection of oddities to Kate’s argument. Maybe that would help. A double win—a contribution to the team and proving herself slightly better than useless, which seems to be their general opinion.
But then Kate continues. “You know Ava is going to be a problem,” she whispers.
Ophelia stops. Ava. Kate has to mean Olberman. Who is dead. What does Ava have to do with anything?
Severin’s shadow stiffens. “You let me worry about that. I’ve got it under control. She won’t be an issue,” Severin says.
She. The grimness in his voice raises the tiny hairs on Ophelia’s exposed arms.
Is he talking about Ava … or her?
Involuntarily Ophelia takes a step back, moving away from the doorway. Out of sight, unless Kate or Severin were to lift the plastic and enter the corridor.
They don’t, though. Kate mumbles her doubt about his assertion and then they head toward the others at the table, with Suresh calling out a greeting and a reminder about the location of the meal-paks.
Ophelia waits a full thirty seconds after they leave to step out from the corridor into the hub.
Suddenly, paranoia doesn’t seem like such an overreaction.