From the Deep

Guilty Conscience

Ian found it difficult to speak to people after that. 

He had to speak to Sara the next day, because she had Questions. Specifically as to why several hours of footage were missing from the night's recording. Ian invented a story about power surges and the failures of modern technology and suggested she talk to Charles about the faulty lab equipment. He was not very good at lying, but Sara couldn't call him out on it, because of course it was ridiculous to think that Ian would do something like erase several hours of footage because he had some sort of embarassing incident at night.

Instead she said, "I've been thinking about things. And I've had an idea. We need more people on this, more minds trying to figure Andersen out -- our team is just too small to understand her."

"Are you suggesting we bring in more scientists?" Ian asked.

"No," said Sara. She shifted the camera in her hands. "I'm thinking of streaming footage of Andersen live. What do you think?"

"No."

"What?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't think it would be a good idea."

Sara blinked in confusion. "Okay..." she said slowly, "but why not?"

Because we're already keeping her in a cage and we're already watching over her every second of every hour of every day and because she doesn't belong to the rest of the world, she belongs to us, she's ours, but it's not even that, she's not ours, she's hers and we can't do that to her....

But instead of answering, he changed the subject. "Why would you want to do that, anyway?"

"I feel like the six of us, we're just spending too much time here around Andersen. We're too... too used to her. We may not be noticing things. Or there are all those things we're noticing and not understanding. But if we open up this constant footage to people around the world, maybe someone somewhere will come up with an answer that none of us could ever have thought of."

"Sara..." Ian hesitated, trying to understand how to say what he didn't want to say, didn't mean. "Look, you know I don't really want more people on this project."

"No," said Sara coldly. "I didn't know that." She leaned against the counter -- they were in the staff room -- and crossed her arms as she looked up at Ian. "I know you don't want to invite more people into the lab. You've made that clear -- trying to maintain a friendly working environment and whatever. But I didn't realize you wanted to keep other people completely out of the know. In fact, I quite remember you being the one so eager to leak the story and get the public all excited about it."

"Well," said Ian. "I've changed my mind."

"Clearly," said Sara. She gave him one last odd look and left the room. 

The odd looks continued all day. When Ian rejoined the team about  a half hour later, he could tell immediately that Sara had been talking about him. There were plenty of raised eyebrows and glances over shoulders. For the most part, Ian tried to ignore them. He had other work to do. 

And he tried to ignore Andersen, too. It hadto be his imagination that she was looking at him too, questioning looks that he didn't feel like facing. She might have a soul -- she might be a person -- but there was no way she was capable of giving him that kind of look. 

It struck him as quite odd when he realized about halfway into the day that he was now thinking about her 100% like a person. Like a conspirator, somebody trusted with a guilty secret, and he was terrified of her giving that secret away. Every time she opened her mouth and made a sound, he was terrified that she would make some kind of reference to what she had told him the night before, somehow call him out on it. He wasn't sure how possible that would be. But he entirely believed she could do it.