A Pleasure to Serve

Every night at about nine forty, I listened for the sound of the ferry horn crooning in the distance.

It drifted through the windows of the cavernous kitchen at Wingsong Restaurant. The horn echoed low and tired across the Sound, gruffly telling other boats to get out of the way. It marked the last arrival from Seattle. After that, Blakeford Island closed itself off from the rest of the world. Anyone who missed the last boat either stayed the night or somehow caught a private boat back.

In the early days I used to time my prep to that horn. As soon as I heard it, my muscles tightened and my steps quickened across the tiled kitchen floor. I would dice onions, reduce stock, check the walk-in, then go back to the cutting board. The rattling of the restaurant’s old front entry door handle was my final signal: The night was just beginning, and the outside world wanted in.

Once long ago, that doorknob rattle inspired me, filled me with anxious excitement. Now it just told me how many lines on a spreadsheet were waiting for a table.

“Chef,” my latest head waiter said, leaning in at the pass, “table twelve wants to know if the duck is gluten free.”

“The duck is a duck,” I said.

She held her face neutral the way seasoned staff learn to do.

“Tell them yes,” I added. “Tell them the sauce is thickened with reduction.”

“It’s thickened with flour.”

“Then tell them we can do it without sauce.”

She nodded and turned away.

I plated the duck and wiped the rim. I placed a sprig of green herb on the side, adjusted it one last time, and slid it into the pass.

“Table twelve, course three,” I called.

I surveyed the full dining room. The same old candles flickered on white linen, glassware caught the light and reflected it back with sparkles in the diners’ eyes. Stereo speakers mounted in the corners played slow jazz. Conversations hummed low and controlled. The room smelled like candle smoke, citrus peel, and expensive vanilla potpourri.

Walter sat at table twelve, laughing at something his wife said, his wineglass already half gone. Around him were people I knew by name and by habit. Like Walter, these regulars occupied the upper crust of our island town. Retired surgeons, former executives, one woman who used to be a partner at a law firm and now took watercolor classes while chairing the Beautification Committee, which mostly meant stopping anything that looked like affordable housing.

Walter caught my eye and raised his glass. “Excellent, as always, Bernie,” he smiled at me across the small dining room.

I was about to thank him when a loud bang echoed from just outside the restaurant. Everyone jumped out of their seats to get a peek through the windows. The waiter and I raced out of the kitchen and through the front door.

There in the street was a small crowd of people, mostly dressed in jeans and hoodies, but some wearing odd animal masks. They seemed to be having some sort of impromptu parade down the main street of town. But it didn’t look like a happy parade. Despite the bright colors, those masks didn’t sit well with me. The sharp, elongated noses and sunken, hollow eyes weren’t friendly.

Many held sparkling fireworks, some carried instruments they played loudly, others held hand-painted signs that read “A.L.A.” or “Analog Liberation, Now!” Another BANG burst from the crowd. It turned out they were setting off small fireworks.

A voice from the crowd shouted in my direction: “Hey Bernie, keep Blakeford analog!”

I gave a feeble thumbs up and was about to say something clever when a police car siren sounded from a few blocks away. The crowd scattered and dispersed as quickly as they had appeared.

The waiter and I stood and watched the aftermath for a few moments, along with a handful of customers. Wisps of firework smoke dissipated like ghosts that the police car slowly drove through. Walter patted my shoulder and smiled again. “Never a dull moment, huh Bernie?”

The customers had a laugh and went back inside. I lingered for a moment. I thought I recognized a face in that crowd of protestors, the one that called out to me in the darkness. But the shadows made me doubt my eyes.

My Skren smart glasses pinged and a message appeared. Hannah.

Gage took his meds and fell asleep. What was that banging?

Just some kids protesting technology, I texted.

Ugh, she replied.

I dismissed the message and rushed back to my station to check the next ticket.

Blakeford Island wasn’t always like this. When we first moved here, it was dull in a way that felt luxurious. You didn’t need fireworks to make noise, just a T-shirt with a funny logo or a classic car. The houses were modest, even a truck driver or a retired janitor could afford to live here. That’s a big reason we moved from Seattle: good schools, cheaper rent, plus the restaurant I worked at had friendly clientele who treated us like human beings.

Then the money arrived.

It was subtle at first. Couples who worked in the tech industry across the water marveled at the charm and pace of life. They said they were done chasing status, but the $100,000 cars parked in their driveways proved otherwise. They purchased homes for prices that would have bought apartment buildings where I grew up and then renovated them with the latest tech gadgets: Skren home smart home systems with AI-enabled cameras that monitored everything.

Property values soared, and taxes followed soon after. Everybody’s rents climbed, including ours. The people who worked on the island moved farther and farther out. Teachers, medical assistants, cashiers, line cooks, dentists’ receptionists, anyone who needed a paycheck to survive, vanished from the local community when they weren’t working.

The ferry schedule became a brutal timetable that people arranged their lives around. A missed boat meant an unpaid hour spent waiting for the next one. A canceled run meant an entire shift ruined. The island still needed labor, but it refused to make room for workers to exist on it.

After a few years, one of the two elementary schools shut down because there weren’t enough kids. The building reopened six months later as a communal arts center with a painting studio, pottery kilns and a well-equipped woodshop. You could take a four-week class for three hundred dollars. There was a sign outside that said WELCOME HOME TO CREATIVITY.

Hannah and I got fed up with the lack of affordable housing. Our rent took almost half of our pay. We begrudgingly went to a city council meeting about housing when she was seven months pregnant.

The meeting room smelled like new carpet and expensive perfume. It was full of people with gray hair who wore soft, comfortable fabrics. Half the attendees were there remotely. They floated in squares projected onto a large screen, some as video images, some as digital avatars.

A councilmember, retired orthopedic surgeon, leaned into his microphone and said, “We all want to help. We just have to be careful about unintended consequences.”

Someone behind us whispered, “They want to turn this place into Seattle.”

A female cat avatar on a screen said, “We moved here for a reason.”

The crowd took the invitation to chime in.

“Upzoning will ruin the character of our island home.”

“We’ll be overwhelmed with noisy traffic and litter.”

Hannah raised her hand and stood when they called on her.

“My name is Hannah Chambers,” she said. “My husband Bernie and I live here. As you can see, I’m pregnant, due in two months. He works in a restaurant. I work for the clinic. We can barely afford our rent now. One more increase will put us out. Who do you expect will work in your restaurants and schools and clinics if we all leave?”

The room went quiet for a second, then filled with polite throat-clearing.

The retired surgeon smiled at her and said, “Thank you for sharing your perspective.”

Perspective. Hannah sat back down in her chair.

On the drive home, Hannah stared out the window at the dark trees that flew past us.

“They don’t want us here,” she said.

“We’ll be fine,” I said. The words came out like a reflex. I needed them to be true.

“Do you believe that?”

I kept my eyes on the road. “I have to.”

That winter my mother died.

She wasn’t young, but I still wasn’t prepared to lose her. After a phone call from a doctor in Seattle, I found myself in a hospital room sitting next to her bed. Her body was so still. I had never seen my mother like this; she was always moving, always keeping herself busy. My hand rested on her hand until her body stopped working completely.

She left me nearly two hundred thousand dollars. I felt like I was robbing her. This was money she’d saved through a life of never buying or doing any of the things she wanted. But to me it had to become something meaningful, not just a Rivian parked in our driveway.

So I drafted up a business plan and took it to the bank.

I put on a new blazer and the first necktie I’d worn in years. Hannah helped me practice my pitch, with words like margin, growth, and concept. I recognized the banker as an occasional customer at the restaurant. He’d occupied that desk for decades, and now he looked across at me through his Skren smart glasses. I went through my speech about local sourcing, community-building, seasonal events. I told him how the island needed something real, something that would elevate the local dining scene while at the same time paying homage to its natural beauty and roots.

He listened politely and asked, “And what do you plan to put up as collateral?”

“I don’t have much, but I do have seed money,” I said.

He glanced at my application forms through his smart glasses, then out the window at the harbor, then back to me. Something flickered in his glasses, indicating that their internal processor was crunching numbers, measuring my biometric signature, perhaps.

“You’ve established yourself on Blakeford,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed your cooking myself. That helps.”

I’m not sure what did the convincing, but it definitely wasn’t my necktie or overly-rehearsed sales pitch. I guess living in a waterfront property made everything feel less risky to people like him.

Either way, I got the loan. After talking it over with Hannah I digitally signed contracts and locked myself into the future I thought I wanted.

Wingsong opened that spring.

I chose the name because it sounded like something you would see printed in elegant script at the top of a locally-sourced menu. It sounded like a place where Blakeford residents would flock to for either hand-crafted cocktails or a one-of-a-kind culinary experience.

The first menu was simple and earnest: Oysters from the Sound, Dungeness crab when it was in season, a mushroom risotto made with chanterelles foraged by a group of friends, roast chicken with lemon and herbs, dessert that wasn’t trying to be anything too fancy.

I priced things so the locals could come every month or so.

The first weeks felt electric. The island was always hungry for something new, and Wingsong temporarily filled that desire. People congratulated me like I had cured some rare disease.

“This place is such a gift,” a woman told me at the bar, her bracelets clinking. She gestured at her grinning bar mates. “We manifested you.” They all laughed and held up their glasses.

Just then a firework banged right outside the restaurant. The women at the bar jumped and started giggling some more. I raced to the window, but saw nothing except smoke billowing outside. High-pitched cackles echoed off the concrete, and disappeared into the night.

Hannah occasionally brought Gage in his carrier and sat near the bar while I worked. Gage actually did have a rare disease, a genetic disorder that required daily medicine doses. She would give him a quick shot in his thigh and rock him gently while customers talked about property tax loopholes and their recent luxury vacations. I’d catch her eye and feel grounded again.

Then the customers gradually dropped off their peak and the bills came due. Labor was the main problem. In this business, it was always going to be a problem. But on Blakeford there was no local pool of potential workers, so I had to cast a wide net.

I hired a dishwasher from Bremerton and took two ferries to get to work. He lasted three weeks. A server from West Seattle was earning big tips. I thought she was a keeper until the ferry canceled one time and she stopped answering texts. I raised wages, covered fares, offered two shift meals and flexible schedules. They would quit anyway once the commute burned them.

Hannah started keeping a handwritten notebook with staff names, schedules and ferry times. It looked like war planning. The front was always changing. One problem solved would get replaced by three new ones.

“This isn’t sustainable,” she said one night while Gage slept. “You’re paying more every month and still losing people.”

“I know,” I said.

She watched me, waiting for me to say something to ease her. I couldn’t. I didn’t have anything.

A few nights later, Walter—one of my regulars—finished his glass of wine, leaned across the bar and said, “You’re undercharging.”

Walter was a retired tech executive. He’d worked at Skren for decades. Now he was the kind of guy who wore comfortable sweaters that weren’t flashy but were still very expensive.

“I’m what?” I asked him.

“I said, you’re undercharging.”

I laughed, humoring him. “I’m not trying to be that kind of place.”

He smiled like he was doing me a favor. “What kind of place do you think this is, Bernie?”

“A neighborhood place,” I said. “A place people who live here can actually come to.”

Walter gestured for another glass of wine. “They can,” he said. “They just need to decide it’s worth it. People don’t come here for dinner. They come for reassurance.”

“Reassurance of what?” I poured him some more Pinot Noir.

“That they made the right choice,” he said. “To live here, and to spend what they spend. You’re selling confirmation that they’ve made it in life. Price it like confirmation.”

I wanted to tell Walter to go to hell. But he was a regular.

Instead I went into my office after closing and pulled up my numbers.

The truth told a simple story, even simpler than Walter’s. If Wingsong stayed “affordable,” it would die a slow, painful death. Not because the food wasn’t good, but because the island made charging affordable prices impossible.

I stared at the spreadsheet on my screen until the numbers blurred. I put on my Skren smart glasses and let the AI think for me. The soothing voice that chimed in my ears told me what I already knew, but didn’t want to admit.

Hannah came in and stood behind me.

“Don’t do it,” she said softly.

“Do what?”

“You know what.”

I didn’t turn around. “I don’t want to lose this place, after less than a year,” I said.

“You’ll lose yourself,” she said.

I finally looked at her.

Her face was tired. She was twenty-nine but the exhaustion made her look older. I wanted to make her life easy.

“This will be good for business, for the both of us,” I offered.

“We need a real long term plan,” she said. “Not some quick fix reaction. If you raise prices, you’ll fill the room with people who don’t care about what you care about.”

“I’m not doing this because I want to drive a Porsche,” I said. “I’m doing it because I want Gage and you to live in comfort.”

Hannah’s eyes tightened. “And what about the people who make your comfort possible? The staff who commute because they can’t live here?”

I swallowed. “I can’t fix the island.”

“No,” she said. “But you can pick what kind of person you become on it.”

The next month, I raised prices; not dramatically, just enough for people to notice.

Almost no one complained. It was like a second act for Wingsong. The customers came back. They actually smiled more, lingered longer, ordered more wine and desserts. They talked louder with stories about how fortunate they were.

I raised prices again, and demand increased even more. So I leaned into it.

I bought soft light table lamps that made everyone look younger. I hired a photographer to shoot my food to make it look like art. I printed menus on extra thick paper. I trained the servers to say words like curated and experience and journey. I added a tasting menu called a “guided exploration of coastal abundance.”

Within two years, Wingsong was THE place to be. A reservation was currency, a new status symbol for customers to add to their portfolios.

Then the Skren salesman came.

His name was Trevor. He wore a tailored suit that cost more than all my monthly bills combined. He had a one–millimeter–thick tablet with the Skren logo embossed in gold lettering on the back and a white smile that suggested he had never seen a day without a country club membership.

“We’ve been admiring your success from afar,” Trevor said as he sipped from a glass of rosé. “We think we can help you double that success.”

We.

“And how’s that?” I asked.

“Genetic personalization,” he said, setting the tablet on his table. “It’s the future of fine dining culinary arts. Skren Biosecurity has perfected it.”

Great, I thought. Another tech evangelist.

I looked at the screen. It flashed diagrams of DNA helices, charts about flavor compounds and tastebud receptor optimization.

“I don’t understand all this, I’m just a cook,” I said.

Trevor smiled wider. “There’s not much to understand, really. Your guests submit a DNA sample, just once. It’s a simple cheek swab, painless, takes ten seconds. We analyze their genetic profile: taste receptors, metabolic markers, nutritional needs. Then with the help of our proprietary A.I. models, you design your own dishes that are molecularly optimized for their biology.”

“That sounds like science fiction,” I said.

“It’s science fact,” Trevor said with a grin. “Michelin-starred restaurants in Tokyo, Singapore, New York, they’re already doing it. You want to charge at their level, get your star? You need to offer what they offer.”

He showed me images via smart glasses SkrenLink. A sample menu popped into my HUD with prices I’d never imagined: $850 per person for a tasting menu.

“How much does all that DNA equipment cost?” I asked.

Trevor waved his hand. “The sample testing equipment is all you need, and it’s cheaper than a good chef’s knife. Everything else is outsourced. You send the sample data to our Skren labs. We send back meal data you can integrate into your prep. The real value is the database. Once you have a guest’s profile, they’re locked into your ecosystem.”

Ecosystem. Something about that word made my skin crawl.

Trevor seemed to notice. “One added benefit—something that makes Skren’s advancements in this area really stand out—is the safety benefits. Not only can you customize flavors and textures for your customers, you can also ensure that nothing you serve them can possibly harm them. The system includes warning flags that arise if you’re adding an ingredient or compound that could harm the customer, allergens for example.”

“That definitely does sound impressive.” I was actually impressed, even though I tried to hide it.

Trevor saw right through me. “I should add that this offer is exclusive, highly coveted in the industry,” he said. “Only our Head of Special Projects chooses which restaurants qualify. She’s highly selective. And she chose Wingsong.” He smiled once more.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Trevor left his card. It was heavy stock, almost like plastic, with the Skren logo embossed in gold.

That night I told Hannah about it.

She was giving Gage his nightly medicine at the kitchen table. She looked up at me, eyes sharp.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” she said. “Don’t.”

“It could elevate the restaurant, take us to the next level,” I said.

Hannah’s voice wavered. “At the clinic, we’re starting to see genetic screening requests almost every week,” she said. “People want to know their risks—cancer markers, heart disease, neurological conditions. It’s expensive. Most insurance won’t cover it, even if you’re symptomatic.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“The people asking for it are your well-off customers,” Hannah interrupted. “The people who can’t get it are your staff. And you’re going to start collecting DNA for fancy dinners while your workers can’t afford basic health screening?”

I didn’t answer.

“And it gets worse,” she said. “Once someone gives these companies their DNA, it gets sold on the open market.”

“You’ve actually seen this happen?”

“Yes, Bernie.” Hannah seemed incredulous that I doubted her. “One of my patients spent months tracking down her data, and had to pay a firm to expunge it from all her records.”

“I’m just talking about making personalized food, Hannah, with the help of technology that other restaurants already have.”

“This technology should be used to save lives.”

“It can save lives, Hannah. Once I get this up and running, allergic reactions in Wingsong will be cut to almost zero.”

Hannah smiled for the first time during the conversation. “You’re dead set on trying this, aren’t you?”

I called Trevor the next day. I almost hung up, but he answered immediately.

“Bernie,” he said, “welcome to your future success.”

Skren’s pricing model was simple: I paid for the testing equipment, which was cheap compared to my other expenses. Then I subscribed to a maximum number of customer profiles processed per month. In return, I got access to a growing database that told me exactly how to make each guest’s meal feel transcendent. Not just better-tasting, or healthier, but completely attuned to their biology.

The first guest to try it was Walter.

He submitted his sample with the enthusiasm of someone trying a new tech gadget.

“Bottoms up,” he said as he stuck the swab into his mouth.

The next day, I served him a dish designed around his genetic markers: specific umami compounds his receptors responded to, spice levels that matched his sensitivity, acidity levels calibrated to his palate.

After the first bite, he closed his eyes and chewed slowly.

“Bernie,” he said, “this is extraordinary.”

I felt a surge of something I mistook for pride.

Walter swallowed another bite and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Now this is what I call confirmation. I can’t believe you made this.”

I couldn’t believe it either.

Soon, genetic profiling was mandatory at Wingsong. You couldn’t book a table without submitting a swab sample. The database grew, prices rose, and demand exploded.

My customers didn’t simply eat the dishes we served; they took them in, like they would an opera. People loved being told the food was designed for them. Like Walter said, the exclusivity of it was the confirmation they craved. Only the most successful people could talk about “genetically optimized dining” at cocktail parties.

Hannah stopped eating at Wingsong. One night I asked her why.

“Because I don’t want my DNA in your database,” she said.

“The system is secure.”

She looked at me like I’d said something obscene. “Bernie, I told you what happens to medical data. It gets shared, sold, hacked. You think your restaurant computer is more secure than hospital systems? Do you trust every single one of your staff to keep it safe?”

“This is just for food, Hannah. Nothing else.”

“In your hands, maybe. But not in someone else’s.”

Investors started calling. I opened a second restaurant, and then a third, all with genetic profiling. A Seattle newspaper called me “the island’s culinary visionary.”

The city council banned all fireworks on the island. “For safety,” they said, “and to deter these A.L.A. protestors from causing any more disturbances.” Anti-technology slogans spray-painted on public buildings appeared more and more frequently. “Always watching. Always caring.” was the most common one. It was usually accompanied by a stenciled pair of eyeballs.

One night Hannah came home from the clinic, and I could see her pale face right away.

“What happened?” I asked.

She sat down at the table and didn’t look at me. “A woman came in last week. Mid-sixties, a retired teacher. Used to work at the elementary school before it closed.”

I waited.

“She wanted genetic screening,” Hannah continued. “She’s been having symptoms—fatigue, joint pain, cognitive issues. She thinks it might be early-onset something. She wanted to know.”

“Did you test her?”

Hannah’s hands clenched. “She couldn’t afford it,” she said. “Her insurance won’t cover these new tests. The out-of-pocket cost is over three thousand dollars.”

I started to speak but Hannah kept going.

“She asked if we offered payment plans. I had to tell her no, so she left. I just found out that this morning she collapsed at the ferry terminal. By the time they got her to the hospital, she’d suffered from a severe stroke.”

My chest felt tight. “Is she…”

“She’s alive,” Hannah said. “But she’ll never be the same.” She finally looked at me. “Her name is Claire, Claire Davidson. She taught kindergarten for thirty years.”

The name didn’t mean anything to me.

“She has a daughter,” Hannah said. “Works in your kitchen. Maddie.”

I felt a cold weight settle in my stomach.

“Maddie knows,” Hannah said, “that we could have caught it with the technology your restaurants use every day. She knows her mother couldn’t afford what your customers pay for without even checking their bank account balances.”

I wanted to tell her this wasn’t my fault. I didn’t control our messed up healthcare system. But I built a restaurant empire that proved the technology worked perfectly… for the right price.

Maddie started working for me the first summer after Wingsong opened. At least that’s what my records showed.

I remember that she was in her early twenties, hair always tucked under a hat, reserved and yet she always kept her eyes peeled. She worked the line with quiet precision, kept her station clean, and moved fast without looking frantic. She asked questions that showed she was thinking a few steps ahead, not just following instructions.

Maddie mentioned once that her mother was forced to retire when the school closed and I’d thought nothing of it. Retiring sounded perfectly normal to me. If it was problematic I would’ve filed it away with other tragedies I couldn’t fix.

Maddie never mentioned it again.

One night, when the rush slowed, she said, “Why did you change the bread?”

I was wiping down the station. “What?”

“The bread,” she said. “It used to be from that baker at the farmer’s market. Now it’s... different.”

“It’s still good,” I said.

“It’s fine,” she said. “But it’s not special.”

I looked at her through my smart glasses. She gazed at me through hers. “Do you want special, or do you want your paycheck on time?” I asked.

She didn’t flinch. “Why not both?”

I almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was so naive.

“I wish,” I said.

She held my gaze. “You’re the boss. You can make wishes come true.” Her grin didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Later that night, my longtime sous-chef Cory caught me during a lull. “She’s right about the bread, you know.”

“Cory, it’s dead tonight. Go home to your family.”

Cory was short for Cornelius. He didn’t argue when I told him to go home early anymore. Not after the commute got worse, or after his second kid; not after the rent went up on his apartment in Seattle and he started picking up extra shifts at a hotel bar near the pier on his days off.

He stared at me a second while he untied his apron. “You ever think maybe Walter was wrong, and that slick Skren salesman too?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. He shrugged and left.

Maddie started helping with bookkeeping when she noticed my invoices didn’t match my inventory. She was good at it. With the assistance of her smart glasses, she found errors I didn’t have time to look for. She negotiated with vendors. She even caught a bartender skimming cash.

I trusted her with more and more. Including access to the genetic database.

“I need someone to manage profiles,” I told her. “Cross-reference dietary restrictions with genetic markers. Make sure the data stays organized.”

Maddie looked at me. “You want me to handle people’s DNA?” she asked.

“You’ll have user access, not administrator. So you won’t be able to see anything private. It’s secure.”

“Of course,” she said.

I logged in to my admin account and set up her limited privileges. Her smart glasses blinked while I accessed the system, but I didn’t notice.

This arrangement made my life much easier. I was able to focus on the cooking, not the profile management. I invested in some new equipment that made the food match each diner’s DNA even better. Specialized sensors synced with my glasses and analyzed the food while I cooked, so I could make subtle adjustments to the flavor or texture while preparing each dish.

But then Maddie abruptly quit. She left no note or text, and didn’t even give me any notice. I was shocked but so busy with having to pick up the work she left behind that I didn’t have time to process or react to her leaving.

Several months later she opened her own place across town: Haphazard.

The food was good, some reviews said it was better than mine, but the dining room stayed half empty.

Blakeford didn’t want good. Blakeford wanted expensive, and Haphazard was what most people on the island would derisively call “affordable.” But despite its half-empty dining room, Maddie’s new establishment always seemed to be fully-staffed, even over-staffed, based on reports from my contacts. She was somehow able to attract a large pool of younger people who were willing to work for her, seemingly for far below average pay. I wondered what her secret was.

The invitation arrived on a dark December day. It was addressed only to Hannah Chambers, with no mention of my name.

You and a guest are cordially invited to a Winter Solstice Celebration. One night only. Five hundred dollars per person. Limited seats. A culinary ritual to honor darkness and return.

The card was thick, with tasteful typography that summoned images of a coastal escape.

Hannah slapped the invitation down on the counter. “You’re going with me.”

“Oh no I’m not. It’s addressed to you, not me.”

“Oh yes you are. Because you need to see her.”

“She could come see me anytime. She quit, remember? Without giving me any reason.”

“You need to be the bigger person. Show the community you care about new local businesses.”

We left Gage with a sitter, promising we’d be home in time to give him his evening shot. Hannah gripped my arm tightly as we left. I knew she hated leaving Gage at night.

Haphazard sat tucked between two shops, its windows glowing with golden light. Through the glass we could see the dining room packed tight, faces brightened by more candles than we could count.

At the host stand, a young man smiled wide. “Welcome, Mrs. and Mr. Chambers, to the Winter Solstice Celebration.”

Hannah almost blushed. “Thank you.”

He checked a list. “I see you’re a party of two tonight. Very good.” His smile tightened. “Right this way.”

We were led to a small table near the back. A live band played soft jazz from a platform raised near the entrance. Evergreen garlands hung from the ceiling. Candles were replaced after they burned low. The air smelled like citrus and pine.

Walter sat two tables over. At first he looked surprised to see me, then lifted his glass in greeting.

A server silently approached. “Good evening,” she said. “We are so pleased to have you join us. Tonight is about honoring the dark and welcoming the return of the light. Chef Maddie will be speaking soon. We’ll need to collect your genetic profiles if you haven’t dined with us before.”

She held out a kit with cheek swabs.

Hannah’s hand found mine under the table.

“I thought Haphazard didn’t do this DNA stuff,” she said.

The server tilted her head and smiled. “You are correct, we normally don’t. Just for this special occasion.”

I pressed Hannah’s hand. “Do you want to leave?”

Hannah looked up at the kit in the server’s hands.

The server took a small step away from our table. “You’re welcome to leave,” she said, “but unfortunately at this late hour the meals are non-refundable. I’m sure we can arrange for a gift certificate that you can redeem on a later date. But it would be a shame to miss out on tonight’s special event.”

Something changed in Hannah’s eyes. She pulled our hands from under the table and released mine.

“You know what?” she said. “I’ve never done this before, and now that we’re here I’m curious to see what all the hype is about.”

“Are you sure, Hannah?” I asked.

“I’m sure.”

Hannah took a swab from the server’s kit and ran it along her inner cheek. I did the same. We sealed them in the tubes and handed them back.

“Thank you,” the server said. “I promise these will enhance your experience immensely.”

The first course arrived twenty minutes later. Oysters dressed with something bright and sharp, a citrus granita that snapped on the tongue, then melted into brine. It was simple and precise.

Hannah watched my face.

“It’s good,” she said quietly.

My answer was an approving smirk.

The second course was mushroom broth poured table-side. The aroma rose and filled my head. It tasted like the forest floor after a summer rain. As I savored the broth, I noticed that the dining room seemed to have almost as many servers as customers. The business side of me wondered how Maddie could afford all that labor.

The servers and bussers all wore evergreen corsages. Some even donned masks that looked like forest creatures: deer, birds and rabbits.

Walter leaned over from his table. “Bernie,” he called softly, “isn’t this something?”

I raised my glass toward him. “To enhanced experiences.” Walter toasted me back with a wink.

The third course was fish. It was buttery, flaky, perfectly cooked, and accompanied by a vegetable element that tasted fresh despite winter. I shoveled the last morsel into my mouth and let my head tingle as the customized flavors danced on my tastebuds. I knew the next course was meat, and I wondered how it could possibly beat this fish.

But right after I swallowed that last bite, I started to feel off. Not sick exactly, but definitely not well. My heart was beating faster. A faint nausea rolled through my stomach. My hands went clammy and I felt a cold sweat running down my spine.

I looked at Hannah. She’d gone pale, and scratched at her throat.

“Do you feel—” I started.

She nodded and spit her food into her napkin.

Around the room, other people were shifting in their seats. Someone coughed. Walter’s wife put down her fork and pressed her hand to her chest. Suddenly someone vomited onto their plate. All the diners in the room gasped.

Just then, Maddie appeared.

She stepped into the center of the room and lifted a microphone. The band quickly gathered up their things and made their way out the entrance door. The space went silent.

Maddie wore a simple black dress. Her hair was pulled back tight. Her face looked calm despite the unease that pervaded the crowd.

“Good evening,” she said. Her voice carried with amplified gravity. “Thank you for coming to Haphazard.”

There was brief scattered applause, but then awkward silence punctuated by coughs.

“This night is about the solstice,” she continued. “It’s about darkness. It’s about what we do when the light feels far away. It’s about community.”

People muttered amongst themselves.

Maddie’s eyes moved across the room, then landed on me.

“I want to thank you, Bernie, for trusting me,” she said.

Someone groaned, not from Maddie’s speech. For some reason, someone else giggled.

She ignored it. “I learned a lot about how to run a kitchen. I learned how to manage a genetic database. But most importantly, I learned what people will pay for, and why.”

Walter winced and gripped at his neck.

Maddie’s mouth tightened. “Tonight,” she said, “we’re doing something a little different.”

I looked at Hannah. Her face was now completely white. She could barely breathe, but she managed to utter one whispered word: “Gage.”

Maddie lifted her hand. Two staff members moved with quiet efficiency to the front doors. Another moved to the back.

I felt Hannah’s cold, sweaty fingers touch my wrist.

The staff at the doors turned locks. The sound carried across the still room: clean metallic clicks.

Then the door to the kitchen swung open. They came in wearing masks, about a dozen of them.

These were not the cute forest critter masks from earlier. They were crude shapes, pale and rough, with long noses and hollow eyes. Their clothes were black, almost tactical. Each one carried a rifle.

The room froze. Then the screaming began. One of the customers bolted for the front door, only to be shoved to the floor by one of the masked figures.

Another masked figure lifted a rifle and fired into the ceiling. Plaster dust drifted down from above as the sick diners wailed and writhed with terror.

Maddie lifted the microphone again. “Silence everyone! Sit down.” She smiled.

Silence slammed back into place. People obeyed, and took their seats.

A masked figure moved through the center of the room and said, “Phones. Now.”

Another carried a bin. They began going table to table, demanding phones, watches, glasses, purses, wallets, anything that could hold a device.

My chest felt tight, my breathing shallow. Around the room, people were showing increasingly extreme symptoms—sweating, shaking, wheezing, gasping.

The figure with the bin reached our table.

“Phones,” the muffled masked voice demanded.

Hannah’s hands were shaking. She managed to drop her phone in the bin. I did the same. It took me several seconds to remove my glasses.

My heart was pounding harder now. It had little to do with fear. This was chemical.

Once everything was collected in the bin, Maddie turned to face us. “You’re wondering what you’re feeling.”

Walter propped himself up on his table. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m honoring darkness,” Maddie said. “I used your genetic profiles, all of them, every vulnerability, every marker, every receptor sensitivity. I designed tonight’s meal specifically for each of you.”

A woman at the front began to cry. Maddie turned to her.

“That’s right, Sharon, your oysters contained compounds calibrated to your blood pressure markers,” Maddie pointed at someone else. “And Carl, your broth included ingredients that interact with your metabolic profiles.” Then she fixed her eyes on me. “Bernie, your fish had allergens selected for your immune responses.”

Someone whispered, “Oh my god.”

“It’s all quasi-legal,” Maddie continued. “The laws just haven’t quite kept up, have they?”

Hannah’s hand tightened on mine.

“Why are you doing this to us?” someone pleaded.

Maddie’s voice rose. “My mother taught kindergarten here for thirty years. She started feeling sick and knew something was wrong, so she tried to get genetic screening. But she couldn’t afford it. She had a stroke because the technology that could have saved her was being reserved to make your lingcod taste better.”

Walter’s wife sobbed, “This is insane.”

“This is genetic personalization,” Maddie said. “You wanted food designed for your DNA? This is food designed for your DNA.”

Maddie lowered the microphone. “Good,” she said. “Now we’re going to leave.”

A man near our table started, “You can’t just—”

A masked figure pressed the rifle barrel into the man’s head and snarled, “Stand up.”

Chairs scraped. People rose, shaky and disoriented. Someone tried to hobble toward the front door but was corralled back with the butt of a rifle.

“Keep moving, single file,” Maddie said. “Out the back.”

The back door opened. Cold air rushed in. The smell of the Sound, salty and sour, filled the room.

We were marched out into a dim alley where rain fell. A yellow school bus waited, engine running, lights off.

“What the hell,” Walter said, voice gravelly now. “Do you know who I am?”

A masked figure prodded him forward. “Get on,” they said.

We climbed, limping and unsteady, onto the bus. The seats smelled like old vinyl and mold. This bus hadn’t been used in years. Some people were crying. Someone was praying through shaking lips.

A masked figure with a gun tromped down the aisle and barked, “Heads down.”

Another figure handed out black sacks.

Hannah stared at one, horrified. “No,” she whispered.

I leaned close. “Do it,” I said. I felt like I was about to pass out.

She pulled the sack over her head with trembling hands. I put mine on and the world went dark. The bus lurched forward.

My heart was hammering now, arrhythmically. The compounds were working. I could feel the pulse in my throat, jumping from tempo to tempo. My hands were going numb and thick sweat ran down my ribs despite the cold. I felt every slight jerk and bump of the bus as it made its way to whatever destination Maddie had in store for us.

After what felt like hours but was only minutes, the bus stopped.

“Get up, now. Out!” a voice commanded.

Hands pulled us up by our armpits. We were half-dragged down the steps. I felt soft mud squelch under my shoes. Rain hit my burning hands.

Someone ripped my sack off. Light stabbed my itching eyes and I blinked hard.

We were at a dock, not the public docks by the ferry terminal. This was a private one, older, with splintering wood rotten from decades of decay. The water below was black.

There, a solitary boat waited. It looked like an old salmon troller that could hold over thirty passengers on its worn fiberglass deck.

A masked figure pointed. “On,” they said.

We were herded onto the boat.

Maddie was the last one to board. She still wasn’t wearing a mask. Raindrops sparkled in her hair and on her face beneath the dock’s bright light.

“Everyone,” she said loudly over the boat engine noise, “welcome to the real solstice celebration.”

The boat pulled away from the dock. We watched helplessly as island lights receded behind us. The choppy seawater made us even more nauseous and reflected the island lights back like a shattered mirror.

I looked at Hannah. Her cheeks were wet with rain and tears. Her breathing was rapid, panicked.

“Bernie, I’m scared. What are we going to do about Gage?”

I wrapped my arm around her, too weak to answer.

Around me, people were getting worse. Walter clutched his chest. His wife was hyperventilating. A man collapsed to his knees. Then I saw something, spray-painted on the inside of the bulwark: two staring eyes, along with the words “Always watching. Always caring.” This was A.L.A.

Maddie stood alone near the bow, gripping the railing while she admired the view. Then she turned to us.

“Everybody, listen up! You took this island from us,” she shouted across the boat. “You took it and you called it a lifestyle choice.”

Walter growled between wheezing breaths, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Maddie snapped her head toward him. “I know exactly what I’m talking about, Walter. Thanks to people like you, I’ve become an expert in caring for a sick elderly woman who can barely go to the bathroom by herself.”

A woman called, “That’s not our fault!”

Maddie laughed once, short and sneering. “Whose fault is it?”

The boat cut through waves. Water sprayed up, cold on my face.

Maddie didn’t let anyone answer. “You come to our restaurants and you talk about community while you vote against housing,” she continued, “all while you turn advances in genetic science into luxury cuisine. It’s pretty obvious to me that none of you are innocent here.”

Her gaze swept the crowd and landed on me.

“Especially you,” she said, pointing. “Bernie.”

Maddie stepped closer. “Blakeford’s own visionary built an empire on genetic profiling. He collected your DNA. He stored it on his office computer, just so he could charge you more. He helped normalize the idea that your private biological data is worth trading for a perfect meal.”

I felt Hannah shifting upright beside me. “Maddie, please.” Hannah held out her hands. “Our son Gage… needs his medicine or he could die.”

Maddie threw her head back with a laugh. “Hannah, oh dear Hannah. You stopped eating at Wingsong right after Bernie built his DNA database. You knew. But I know something too. I know that it was you who turned away my mother at your precious clinic, all those years ago. And now here you are, a victim of your own greed and stupidity. Maybe someone will save your son tonight, but no one’s saving you.”

Hannah fell to her knees on the soaking wet deck. I tried to comfort her, but she pushed me away.

Maddie paced past us. “The database Bernie built?” she continued. “I copied it. All of it. Every profile, every marker, every vulnerability. That’s how I knew exactly what compounds to use tonight.”

Someone wailed.

“And now, it’s time. You’re going into the water,” Maddie said. “You’ll all feel what it’s like to be cold and powerless. Now you pay with your bodies.”

A woman screamed. A masked figure snapped a rifle up.

Hannah grabbed my arm. “Bernie,” she whispered, “we have to do something.”

I scanned the masked figures. Eight, maybe ten. Not all of them held rifles like they meant it. I saw one near the stern whose hands were shaking.

The boat slowed. Ahead was darkness. We could no longer see lights, just water and our clothes and hair flapping in the cold wind.

A masked figure shouted, “Line them up at the stern.”

The others began pushing us toward the side rail.

“No,” Walter said, voice cracking.

Walter’s wife sobbed. “Please, Maddie, please.”

Maddie’s face was hard. “It’s over,” she said. “Time for you to take one last swim.”

Walter turned suddenly, lunging toward Maddie with the last remnants of his strength.

A masked figure swung their rifle stock and hit Walter in the side of the head. Walter collapsed, blood already gushing from a gash at his temple.

Walter’s wife screamed. That scream changed everything.

The masked figure who had hit Walter stood frozen, as if shocked by their own action.

I moved toward that shaking masked figure, using the railing to propel my weak body forward. Fighting dizziness and cloudy vision, I grabbed the rifle barrel with both hands and shook it side-to-side.

The figure resisted, but still seemed disturbed by Walter’s blood. They tried to punch me with one hand but they slipped on the deck. We both fell, and I landed on a shoulder and rolled sideways. The rifle came partially loose.

Hannah appeared beside me. She grabbed the rifle stock and pulled hard. The masked figure lost grip. After a brief struggle I yanked the rifle completely free and stood with it while leaning against the hull.

“We’ve got a gun!” someone shouted.

People screamed and surged with renewed energy. A man grabbed a chair. Someone else tackled a masked figure.

The boat rocked with the commotion. A masked figure raised their weapon toward me. I didn’t think. I fired.

The shot tore into the night. The recoil slammed the stock into my shoulder. The bullet went wide. But the sound served as a rallying cry for the captives.

The masked figures flinched. People surged harder. The boat rocked again.

Maddie lunged toward the rail, shouting orders. “Hold them!”

But the guests were no longer guests. They grabbed whatever they could and fought in a frenzy with arms flailing.

A masked figure fired into the air. The crack was too close. People ducked, holding their hands over ringing ears. A woman slipped and hit the deck. She didn’t get back up.

All the momentum we had gained dissolved in an instant. Once again the masked figures took control. They surrounded me, poking their rifles in my face. I handed my rifle back and collapsed next to Hannah.

They pressed us all back toward the stern and against the railing. Maddie opened the transom gate that led straight to the icy cold sea. “It’s time,” she said.

“Enough!” Hannah screamed. Her voice pierced my ringing eardrums.

Maddie turned toward Hannah and sneered. “You don’t get to say enough.”

Hannah’s voice dropped, suddenly calm. “Maddie,” she said, loud enough to cut through. “If you do this, you will become exactly what you hate.”

Maddie laughed, bitter. “You think I care?”

“I think you do,” Hannah said. “I think you care so much it’s eating you alive.”

For a fraction of a second, Maddie hesitated.

Then, far across the water, something buzzed overhead. Drones. Next, a light swept the darkness. Its beam flashed wide and harsh, moving toward us. A siren followed.

“It’s the Coast Guard!” someone screamed.

The masked figures panicked. A few threw down their rifles and raised their hands.

A guest grabbed at Maddie. She kicked him off her, and shielded her eyes from the approaching light. Something in her face broke.

I limped over to her. “Maddie, I am so sorry…”

She scoffed. “Bernie, always the gentleman,” she said, voice low. “It always works out for you, even when you’re twisting your knife in someone’s back.”

Two government drones circled low above us. The Coast Guard boat drew closer.

“This is the United States Coast Guard,” a voice boomed from a megaphone. “Put down your weapons. Raise your hands.”

I raised my hands, and Hannah raised hers too.

Maddie stood still, rain on her face, her hands empty.

The Coast Guard boarded, moving fast. They disarmed anyone holding weapons. They zip-tied wrists and guided people away from the rail.

A Coast Guard officer approached me. “Sir,” he said, “are you injured?”

“No,” I said, voice hoarse. “But we’re all sick. Something in the food.”

The officer’s radio crackled. He spoke quickly into it, then looked at me. “Medical is en route,” he said.

Before the officer could walk away Hannah stopped him. “Our son Gage, he needs his medicine immediately! He’s at our house. You need to send an ambulance there now.”

“Give me your address and I’ll see to it right away, ma’am.”

Hannah and I gave the officer our information. After that we slumped down on the deck, barely able to move.

Walter was still bloody but sat upright now, supported by his wife. Another woman held her head and cried. Our captors were lined up, masks removed. Their faces looked younger than I expected. Several had tattoos that read “A.L.A.” in punk rock script. Analog Liberation Alliance.

One of the figures, a man with deep-set eyes, stared at me with pure hatred.

Maddie was the last to be led away. As she trudged past me, she looked straight into my eyes and spoke softly: “You’ll be fine. You always are.”

The hospital was chaos.

Coast Guard boats delivered us to waiting ambulances at a dock in Seattle. From there we were rushed to the hospital. The officers told us our devices were still “evidence” so Hannah borrowed one of their phones to call the sitter. No answer.

When we arrived the hospital was chaos. Many of Maddie’s captors were violently ill. I witnessed extreme projectile vomiting and worse. Thankfully the emergency room was already prepped; they’d called ahead with descriptions of the symptoms.

A doctor in scrubs approached Hannah and I as we were being pushed by orderlies in wheelchairs. “Mr. Chambers? Mrs. Chambers?”

We nodded and grunted affirmation.

“We need to ask you some questions,” she said. “Can you tell me what you ate tonight?”

Through nausea and delirium I described the courses as best I could remember. The doctor’s smart glasses recorded me and transferred data to her tablet, as well as a cloud-based healthcare system.

I told her about how Maddie personalized our meals to make us ill based on our genetic markers.

“Do you have those genetic profiles on file?” she asked.

Hannah and I looked at each other.

“My restaurant had them,” I said. “Maddie—the chef—she stole our DNA…”

The doctor held up a hand. Her smart glasses blinked several times. “We know,” she said. “The Coast Guard brief just came through. They’ve contacted the Skren profiling lab. They’re sending over the database records for all the guests.”

She said it so casually, like it was routine.

“Skren does that, so quickly?” I asked.

The doctor shrugged.

“Will we be okay?” Hannah asked, her voice thin.

“You’ll be fine. We should have antidotes ready within a few hours,” the doctor said. “We can synthesize countermeasures once we have your profiles to counteract whatever compounds were used.”

She squeezed Hannah’s shoulder and left to check on other patients.

Hannah leaned forward in her wheelchair and put her head in her hands. “Gage…” she groaned, “I need to know that he’s safe.”

I borrowed one of the orderly’s phones and called the sitter. Thankfully she answered this time. She kept asking if we were okay so I had to cut her off multiple times.

“Has anyone come to give Gage his medicine?” I asked in as strong a voice as I could muster.

“No.”

“Check his face and arms. Does he have any little red bumps?”

“Yes, I see some now. They weren’t here an hour ago.”

I looked at Hannah with wide eyes and shook my head. She grabbed the phone from my weak hand.

“Listen to me,” Hannah practically yelled into the phone. “I’m going to walk you through giving Gage his shot. It won’t be easy, but you can do this. You have to.”

Hannah walked her through the process. It was clear the sitter was not happy about it, but after ten minutes the ordeal was over. Gage had gotten his medicine.

I sat beside her. My heart was still racing now, but whether from the compounds or from everything else, I couldn’t tell.

Hannah chuckled sardonically. “A few hours,” she whispered. “They can fix it in a few hours.”

A moment later a woman wearing an EMT uniform walked up to us and asked, “You the Chambers?”

Hannah sat up. “Gage?”

“Yes, ma’am. I wanted to let you know that your son is fine. The local EMT just checked in on him. He’s at home resting with the sitter.”

We could finally relax a little. But Hannah wasn’t completely placated. “We almost let Gage die,” she murmured to me under her breath.

Down the hall, I could see Walter in a bed, on an IV, a bandage wrapped around his head. A woman was being examined, vitals taken, her eyes checked with a flashlight.

Everyone was being helped, quickly, efficiently, no questions asked about medical insurance or deductibles.

“Hannah,” I said in a hoarse whisper.

She looked at me.

“That mom,” I started. “Maddie’s mom... The screening she needed. How much did you say it cost?”

Hannah’s eyes filled. “Three thousand dollars.”

“How much will this cost?” I asked. “Tonight. All of this.”

Hannah’s voice was flat. “Per person? Probably twenty-five, thirty thousand. Emergency genetic intervention, custom pharmaceutical synthesis, ICU monitoring.”

Almost a year’s college tuition for one night in the hospital, I thought.

“Insurance will cover it,” Hannah added. “For them, for us… We all pay more for the additional coverage. But Maddie was right. It was me who told her mother that she’d have to pay for the genetic screening herself. And she couldn’t afford it.”

We sat in silence.

Two hours later, a nurse gave me an injection. “This should counteract the compounds,” he said. “You’ll feel better in about twenty minutes.”

He was right. Within half an hour, my heart rate normalized, the nausea faded, and my hands stopped shaking.

Hannah and I were fine; Walter was fine; everyone was fine. The system had worked perfectly.

The next day, Blakeford woke up to a story it could not control.

Helicopters and surveillance drones hovered over the harbor. News vans crowded the ferry terminal. People clustered around them, whispering about what had happened.

The island’s online groups exploded with posts about safety and crime and how this was proof that the A.L.A. was a mob of dangerous terrorists.

Terrorists. The word made me dizzy.

The city council called an emergency meeting to discuss “security measures.” There was talk of more police funding, of “tightening ferry access,” of protecting the island.

Notably absent from the conversations were the topics of affordable housing, healthcare, or access to genetic screening for workers.

Walter came to Wingsong two weeks later with a bandage on his temple. He sat at the bar like nothing had happened, ordering the reserve wine.

“You know,” he said, “we survived something together.”

I looked at him. “We survived because we had good medical insurance,” I said.

Walter waved his hand. “Details,” he said. “The point is, the island endured.”

Hannah didn’t come into Wingsong ever again after the solstice.

One night at home, after Gage was asleep, she sat at the kitchen table and stared at the Webb homeLink display mounted on our wall. Its screen flashed with Gage’s vitals: heartrate, breathing, oxygen levels.

“Did you see your data?” she asked me.

I sat across from her. “What do you mean?”

“From that night.”

“What data?”

“The homeLink app. I checked mine. It showed my vitals from that night. I almost died. Gage could have lost me, and you.”

“But he didn’t. We survived.”

“After seeing what this island does to people. Don’t you feel anything different?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it.

Hannah shook her head. “You don’t,” she said.

“That’s not true,” I said. “I’m different now, just like everyone else.”

“Are you? Or are you just settling back in to your old routine?”

I wanted to tell her no, of course not. But what I felt most, when I was honest, was relief that everything I built had not broken under me.

“I just need to keep working,” I said. “It keeps me from dwelling on all that… ugliness.”

Hannah’s voice went flat. “Of course it does.”

Maddie took a plea deal. The papers called it a “radical kidnapping plot, led by anti-technology extremists.” They interviewed island residents who talked about how thankful they were for law enforcement. A columnist in Seattle wrote a brief piece about class resentment and genetic inequality in our once peaceful island community. People on Blakeford called it slander and boycotted the newspaper.

Cory quit that week. He came into the kitchen after service and said, “I’m done.”

“Because of what happened?” I asked.

Cory shook his head. “Because of what didn’t happen,” he said. “People almost got killed and you raised our prices again. You called it security fees.”

“It’s a business,” I said.

Cory looked at me a long time, then said, “You used to be a cook.”

He took off his apron and left it on the counter. “Good luck, Bernie,” he said, and walked out.

I hired a new sous-chef from Seattle within a week.

That winter, the ferry horn still sounded at nine forty. The island still lit up for the holidays. And Wingsong stayed full.

People came in and told stories about the solstice night as if it was a thrilling detour in their otherwise dull and comfortable lives.

“We were so brave,” said a woman at table eight while pouring herself another glass.

“It was terrifying,” her friend replied, then smiled. “But what an experience.”

I wanted to tell them to stop talking about what happened, but instead I silently sent out the next course.

A month later, Hannah was waiting when I got home from work.

“Bernie,” she said, “I think you know what I’m about to say, but I’m going to say it anyway.”

“Hannah—”

“Don’t, Bernie. Just, don’t. I know you’ve tried to do what you thought was right. But after everything that’s happened… I mean, we almost lost Gage. The fact that you’re still going in the exact same direction as before, it’s no longer who I am, who I want to be. I can’t continue down that road. I want a divorce.”

I didn’t fight it. I knew that we may have survived that solstice night, but our marriage didn’t.

I kept myself distracted by increasing the time I spent at the restaurants. I moved into the apartment upstairs from Wingsong, not just out of convenience, but also to force me to focus on my work there. I even hired a new marketing consultant.

“We can’t ignore what happened,” she said. “Instead, we own it, position Wingsong as the island’s sanctuary: safe, protected, with enhanced genetic security protocols.”

I stared at the slide that said WINGSONG: WHERE YOUR DNA IS NEVER IN DANGER.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

That night, I got ready for bed in the small apartment at Wingsong. In the dark, I lay awake and listened to the building settle. I checked my Webb homeLink monitoring system, which still had access to Gage’s biometrics. Gage breathed steadily; his stats all displayed as normal.

I thought about Maddie in prison. Her meals wouldn’t be genetically tailored to match her palate. I thought about her mother collapsing on the floor at the ferry terminal. I thought about the hospital, the doctors, the antidotes synthesized in three hours. I thought about the three thousand dollars that would have prevented Claire Davidson’s stroke.

In the morning, I got up early and went to Wingsong.

The dining room was empty. I walked through the kitchen alone, checking stations, touching surfaces. I saw my face reflected in kitchenware.

The commHub pinged with a reservation alert. I turned to the hovering screen. A party of ten had booked the new “Sanctuary Tasting” with enhanced genetic security protocols.

I accepted the booking.

Outside, Puget Sound was gray and wet. The ferry crawled across the distant horizon. The horn sounded, but it didn’t feel lonely. It felt ordinary, just like I did.

And the island kept breathing, slow and satisfied, as if nothing had ever tried to drag it into the water.