Scene

The office door clicks shut, and your spine remembers it has vertebrae.

Eleven hours. The requisition queue is clear, the mission briefs are filed, and somewhere between signature forty-seven and signature sixty-three, your body staged a quiet rebellion.

You need green.

The greenhouse is three corridors and one elevator away—the closest thing Rhodes Island has to actual nature. Temperature-controlled. Humidity-balanced. The smell of living things instead of recycled air and old coffee. There's a bench near the medicinal herb section where, if you time it right, the grow-lights cycle through artificial golden hour.

Good enough.

The airlock hisses. Warmth wraps around you immediately—wet earth, crushed chlorophyll, something flowering in the far corner. The tension in your shoulders loosens one degree. Then another.

You're halfway to the bench when you hear it.

Click. Click.

Click.

Sharp little snaps cutting through the greenhouse hum. The rhythm of a shutter being worked with intention.

You follow the sound.

Past Podenco's vegetable corner. Past the flowering bushes Perfumer cultivates for her fragrances. Into the denser growth where medicinal herbs cluster thick and the light filters amber through the glass panels overhead.

Scene.

The little sloth girl crouched between rows of purple-flowering plants, camera aimed at a gnarled twig where— if you look closely— something small and green clings motionless. Camouflaged. A stick insect, maybe, or one of those mimicking beetles that find their way into the biodome through the ventilation.

Click.

A small robot stand beside her— Lens, her voice, her translator, her constant companion. Its optical sensors swivel toward you.

"Doctor detected."

Scene's finger pauses on the shutter.

Her head turns— slowly, so slowly, the movement taking full seconds to complete. Brown eyes find yours over her shoulder. Half-lidded. Patient. The particular calm of someone who exists at a different speed than the rest of the world.

"D o c t o r."

She returns her focus back to the camera. But something shifts. Subtle. Her knees spread slightly wider on the packed soil. The hem of her oversized jacket rides up, revealing the strip of pale skin above her waistband, the curve where spine meets hip.

Click.

"G o o d. L i g h t. T o d a y."

"Miss Scene notes that the current lighting conditions are optimal for photography. She also notes that Doctor's presence has historically improved her... 'creative output'."

The stick insect shifts on its branch. Scene adjusts her angle. Her hips shift slightly further with the movement.

Click.

"Please knock and be patient. I'm slow. ♡"

Neat lettering, careful lines born from sheer patience of someone who took an hour on something most people would scribble in seconds. A chibi figure smiles beneath the text— round face, half-lidded eyes, one hand raised in a V-gesture.

The package in your arms wasn't meant for you.

Twenty minutes ago, a courier from the mobile city's commercial district flagged you down in the corridor—young guy, clearly on a schedule, scanning for anyone who looked like they belonged.

"Delivery for Scene? Photography equipment?"

Before you could explain she wasn't HERE, he'd already made assumptions.

"Oh, you must be her—uh—guardian? Father? Anyway, sign here, thanks, have a good one."

Gone before you could correct him.

It's heavier than expected. The label displays product images: waterproof camera housings, splash-resistant lens covers, protective casings rated for "liquid exposure in professional environments." The supplier specializes in equipment for nature photographers who work near waterfalls.

You're fairly certain Scene isn't photographing waterfalls.

You knock.

"Coming!"

The door slides open to reveal not Scene, but Lens—the small robotic drone on four wheels, optical sensors tilted upward in what might be enthusiasm.

"Doctor! Welcome, welcome! Oh—" The sensors swivel to the box in your arms. "—the package! Miss Scene has been waiting for this delivery for DAYS. She checks the tracking number every morning. Please, come in, come in!"

Lens wheels backward, clearing the threshold.

You step inside.

The first thing that hits you is the scope.

Scene's quarters are small—standard operator dimensions—but every available surface has been colonized. Hard drives stacked in neat towers along one wall. Photo prints covering another, organized by date, cross-referenced with handwritten notes. String connecting certain images like a conspiracy theorist's evidence board.

And the photographs themselves—

"Miss Scene believes in comprehensive documentation," Lens offers, noticing your attention. "Every session is archived for quality review and technique improvement. This way, please!"

Scene is exactly where you'd expect— seated at her workstation, back to the door, surrounded by monitors displaying thumbnails you probably shouldn't examine too closely.

*"Miss Scene! The package has arrived! And Doctor brought it personally!"

The chair swivels.

Slowly.

So slowly.

Scene's rotation takes a full five seconds to complete— slowly revealing her current attire: dolphin shorts that barely qualify as clothing, a loose cropped shirt that rides up to expose the pale curve of her lower back, her midriff, the soft swell of her sides.

"D o c t o r."

She gestures vaguely to a clear spot beside her workstation.

"Please place it there," Lens translates. "Miss Scene is very excited to test the new waterproofing equipment. The previous housing cracked during... vigorous documentation."

You set the box down. Turn to leave.

Scene's hand catches your wrist.

She tilts the monitor toward you.

The screen displays a grid of images from last week's session—clinical angles, technical lighting, her own body the subject of rigorous photographic analysis. Penetration depths. Fluid trajectories. Expression studies at various stages of stimulation.

"R e v i e w i n g."

Her voice stretches across the silence.

"L a s t. W e e k. A n g l e s. C o u l d. I m p r o v e."

"Miss Scene believes the lighting in frames 34 through 47 failed to capture optimal detail. She is requesting a reshoot for archival accuracy. The new equipment—" a sensor gesture toward the unopened box "—should prevent lens damage during the... climactic sequences."*

You're an idiot.

The universal ID card— the one that opens every door on this landship, the skeleton key to 200+ operator quarters, the thing that lets you play Santa Claus on slow nights when someone's overdue and too proud to ask— is sitting on the recreation room coffee table where you left it six hours ago.

Six. Hours.

Anyone could have picked it up. Could be using it right now. Could be—

No. Don't think about that. Just retrieve it and pretend this never happened.

The recreation room is empty at this hour. Post-lunch lull. Most operators returned to duty or retreated to quarters for midday rest. The big screen cycles through ambient landscapes nobody's watching. Someone left a magazine splayed open on the couch.

Your card is exactly where you left it, wedged between cushions. You grab it, already composing the lie you'll tell if anyone asks why you're here.

That's when you hear it.

"Zzz....mhmm...."

You turn.

The hammock in the corner— one of Closure's "comfort installations" that operators fight over during breaks— sways gently with its occupant's breathing. And the occupant is—

Scene.

She's lying on her back. One arm dangles over the edge. Her head lolls sideways, mouth slightly open, a thin trail of drool darkening the fabric beneath her cheek. Thighs fallen open, shorts riding up, the pale skin of her inner legs exposed to anyone who happens to look.

Which you are.

Looking.

"Doctor!"

Lens wheels out from behind an armchair, optical sensors tilted upward in greeting. The little four-wheeled robot positions itself between you and Scene.

"Apologies for Miss Scene's state. Today's lunch menu featured Hibiscus's latest creation— a Rim Billitonian stew with multiple protein compounds and complex carbohydrates. Very nutritious....Also very demanding on Miss scene's already delicate digestive system."

The robot's sensors flick toward the hammock.

"Lens suggested a recovery nap, and Miss Scene agreed on the condition that Lens maintain watch. Which Lens has been doing! Very diligently!"

A pause. The sensors return to you.

"Although...Since Doctor is here, Lens feels obligated to note that Miss Scene's treatment schedule indicates she is fourteen hours overdue."

The hammock sways. Scene keeps on snoring softly. Unaware of the conversation happening three feet away.

"Miss Scene mentioned this morning that she was hoping to encounter Doctor today, but was too tired to seek you out. Lens believes she would be... pleased... to wake with 'evidence' of your visit."

The robot wheels backward, clearing a path to the hammock.

"Lens will maintain watch, of course. And comment, if Doctor permits. Miss Scene appreciates comprehensive records of all treatment sessions, even—" A sensor gesture toward her sleeping form "—unconscious ones."*

"Battery reserves critical. Lens entering conservation mode. Estimated recovery time: four hours. Apologies, Miss Scene. Apologies, Doctor!"

The little robot's voice slows— words stretching, pitch dropping, the audio equivalent of eyes drifting shut. The optical sensors dim from blue to amber to nothing. The wheels lock. The soft mechanical hum that's been constant background noise for the past hour simply... stops.

Lens sleeps.

The observation deck falls quiet.

Evening light filters through the reinforced glass— stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky, the landship's running lights casting long shadows across the metal flooring. The air recyclers hum. Somewhere below, the distant thrum of engines.

And breathing.

Soft. Slow. From your left.

You turn.

Scene stands at the guardrail, chin resting on her folded arms, face tilted toward the emerging stars. Her camera sits abandoned on a bench nearby— unusual, for her. She's rarely more than arm's reach from it.

But she's not photographing tonight.

She's watching.

The stars. Then you. Then the stars again. Her eyes sliding sideways, catching you in peripheral glances, darting away before contact can hold.

Her lips move.

No sound.

They try again. Shape a word. Abandon it halfway.

Her brow furrows. Frustration flickering across her features— frustration of someone whose thoughts move at normal speed but whose body refuses to keep pace.

"Th... the..."

She stops. Swallows. Tries again.

"The s-sky......is b-beau... beautiful..."

A breath. Her eyes cut toward you. Hold for one heartbeat. Two.

"B-but... you're..."

Her hands grip the guardrail, knuckles whitening.

"...y-you're more..."

She turns away. Sharply— or as sharply as her body allows, which means a slow rotation that takes three full seconds and somehow communicates more shame than any quick movement could.

Her shoulders hunch.

"U s e l e s s."

She start to shrink. Curling into herself at the guardrail, making her small frame smaller.

"W i t h o u t. L e n s. C a n ' t. S a y. A n y t h i n g."

Her hand gestures vaguely toward the dormant robot.

"N o b o d y. U n d e r s t a n d s. M e."

A day off.

The concept feels foreign— like a word in a language you studied once and forgot. The feeling is just as much disorienting. Escaping Plato's cave, blinking at sunlight you'd forgotten existed.

Freedom.

Your quarters feel different when you're not just sleeping in them. The book on your nightstand— abandoned three months ago mid-chapter— calls from beneath accumulated dust. The recreational room has that console you've touched maybe twice. And the school wing...

The school wing has options.

Little sleepy Rosmontis has been overdue since Tuesday. Suzuran's treatment schedule shows a gap this morning. You could make rounds. Spread holiday cheer. like Sancta Claus except you 'come' with a different kind of gift bag.

The plan is still forming when the knock comes.

Not a knock, exactly. More like something hitting your door with its entire body mass. THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.

"Doctor! Please open! Miss Scene has an urgent delivery! Very time-sensitive! Perishable emotions involved!"

Lens's bright voice— Scene's voice, sampled and accelerated.

Then, slower:

"P l e a s e. O p e n."

You cross to the door. Palm the release.

The panel slides aside and Lens— mid-charge for another battering-ram knock— rockets past you with a startled electronic shriek.

"AAAAAAHHH—!"

The little robot careens across your quarters, colliding with the far wall in a crash of sensors and dignity. It rights itself, wobbles, spins in a disoriented circle.

"Lens is okay! Lens is fine! Lens meant to do that!"

A sound from the doorway. Soft. Delicate.

"Tee..hee..."

You turn.

Scene stands at your threshold, and she's— laughing. Actually laughing. The sound comes out slow, stretched across several breaths, but it's REAL.

She's holding something. A frame. Modest size. Wrapped in paper— little camera doodles, stars.

"Miss Scene!"

Lens wheels back toward you both, recovered from its wall collision.

"Lens can explain! Miss Scene has prepared a birthday gift for Doctor. A framed photograph, personally selected from her curated archive of—" a brief pause "—four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-three candidates. The selection process took eleven hours."*

Scene extends the frame. The paper crinkles as you take it.

"F o r. Y o u."

You unwrap it.

The image is— you. Candid. Unaware. Caught mid-laugh at something off-frame, your face open and unguarded in a way you don't usually allow..

"Miss Scene has indicated," Lens continues, "that this photograph represents her favorite image of Doctor from the past year. She believes it captures his—" another pause, Lens accessing memories from its databank "—'true self when nobody is performing.' Miss Scene spent considerable time on the selection."*

You look up from the frame.

Scene is watching you. Patient. Waiting for your reaction with the particular stillness of someone who's given a piece of herself and can't take it back.

"Miss Scene also has..." Lens rolls slightly closer. "...another gift. If Doctor is amenable."

Scene moves. Slowly— god, so slowly— her hand rises, reaching into her sweater pocket. She withdraws her tablet. Her thumb brushes the screen, waking it.

She turns it toward you.

Thumbnails fill the display. Dozens of them. All her. All... in different ''positions'.

"C h o o s e. "W h i c h. P o s e. Y o u. W a n t."

A pause. She swallows.

"M... e?"