She wanted a lot of things when she was small. She wanted Microwing shoes so she could run six inches off the ground. She wanted gills for swimming in the underground lagoons. She wanted whatever Amy Pasquale and Joyce Brilliant got for their birthdays, and her parents always saw that it was so, but that was BEFORE.

Something swishes, takes a slow turn in the center of the spinach-colored sludge, then drifts to the glass to gaze up at her. She is so repulsed by the sight she almost shoves the sphere out of her lap.

“Wow,” she says. “Wow. I love it. I really did always want one.”

He bows his head and squeezes his eyes shut. A tingle of shock prickles across her chest. He’s about to cry.

“I know it isn’t what you wanted. What we t-t-talked about,” he says.

She reaches across the table and clasps his hand, feels like she might start to cry herself. “It’s perfect.”

Only she’s wrong. He wasn’t struggling against tears. He was fighting a yawn. He surrenders to it, covers his mouth with the back of his free hand. He doesn’t seem to have heard her.

“I wish we could’ve done all the things we talked about. The S-Sp-Spuh-Spoke. R-Ride in a big buh-b-bubble together. These fuckin’ medical Clockworks, kid. They’re like hyenas pulling apart the corpse for the last goodies. The medical Clockworks ate your b-birthday c-cake this year, kiddo. We’ll see if I can’t do a little better for you next year.” He shakes his head in a good humored way. “I have to c-c-crap out for a while. A man c-can only take so much excitement when he’s g-got half a working heart.” He opens his eyes to a sleepy squint. “You know about m-mermaids. When they fall in love, they sing. Which I understand. Same thing happened to me.”

“It did?” she asks.

“After you were b-born”—he turns sideways, stretches himself out on the bench, struggles with another yawn—“I sang to you every night. Sang until I was all sung out.” He shuts his eyes, head pillowed on a pile of grubby laundry. “Happy birthday to you. Happy b-birthday to you. Happy b-b-b-buh-birthday, sweet Iris. Hap-p-puh-p-p—” He inhales, a wet, clogged, struggling sound, and begins to cough. He thumps his chest a few times, turns his face away from her, shrugs, and sighs.

He is asleep by the time Iris reaches the top of the ladder, climbing out of his pod and leaving him behind.

She shuts the hatch, one of eight thousand in the great, dim, clammy, cavernous hive. The air smells of old pipes and urine.