Archive of Our Own

This transcript has been declassified and translated into English at your convenience. 

PROLOGUE

The year was 1957:

Dwight D. Eisenhower was sworn in for a second term, in which he continued his goals of suppressing communism, reducing federal deficits, and assisting in the decline of McCarthyism in the United States. He also had the squirrels of the White House “relocated”, as they were digging up his golf course. 

Sponsored by the First Lady of the United States, Mamie Eisenhower, the first nuclear-powered submarine logged its 60,000th nautical mile (110,000 km) on February 4th. The USS Nautilus was named after the fictional Nautilus in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, and matched its fictional namesake’s endurance. With her advanced nuclear propulsion system, she broke many records in endurance and speed, and traveled to places not previously traversable by submarine. She was essential to both World War II and the Cold War. 

The Treaty of Rome was signed by a handful of European countries. This treaty was one of the most important treaties of the European Union since the Treaty of Versaille, being a predominantly economic agreement. It assisted with reducing import taxes between members, established a customs union, and sought to create a single market for goods and services across states. It proposed agriculture and transport policies and established the European Commission. I missed this question in my macroeconomics test, so hopefully you’ve learned something and don’t also fail Econ 201. Anyways. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established July 29th as a multinational organization that encouraged clean and peaceful use of nuclear energy, technology, and weapons. Dwight D. Eisenhower's “Atoms for Peace” speech called for the creation of an international organization that supervised nuclear use around the world. His speech was the main push for the creation of the IAEA eight months later. 

And lastly, in 1957 Paul McCartney met John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton.

Amongst a few other things. 

MMPIII

Sometime, somewhere, deep in the Soviet Union there was a nuclear weapons plant. This specific plant (as there were many) was 25 hours by train from Moscow, Russia in a province not many have heard of. The Chelyabinsk Oblast was on the eastern slope of the Southern Ural Mountains—the range that separates Europe and Asia, bordering Kazakhstan to the south. This province had an incredibly diverse range of landscapes, including plains, rivers, lakes, and forests. Nearby said nuclear weapons plant was the Techa river, which provided many villages in the area with drinking, bathing, cooking water, and most importantly: a place for this foreboding facility to dump its noxious waste. 

The Mayak Production Association facility was built hastily between 1945 to 1948 for Cold War efforts, and there were more than just a few oversights when it came to worker safety. Corners were cut with dull safety scissors, guidelines were abandoned day one, and baseline radiation exposure was raised for fun, convenience, and efficiency. They were there to make weapons after all, not run a theme park. The lethal effects of radiation exposure were still being researched, anyway. If something didn’t kill someone that next day—who cared, right? OSHA wouldn't exist for another few decades (and was an American corporation, so it’s not like the Soviets would have followed it anyways), but the fines would have surely gone into the millions, if not the billions. 

The Mayak facility had a few career options, most notably positions in emergency medicine, physics, engineering, and management. Careers in physics and engineering were particularly heavily sought after, as several physicists were needed to build and—most importantly— maintain a nuclear facility. 

An engineer and a manager at this plant were currently surveying one of the twenty water cooling tanks around the facility. Elvira Ruby (management) and Yelena Neptune (engineering) were having an uneventful time in Cooling Tank System #14.

“Damn, it’s been a month since this one’s been checked. We’re supposed to survey them weekly,” said Ruby, referencing the checklist on her clipboard. 

“It’s not like we have more important things to do,” Neptune responded sarcastically from the floor, where she had been reading off the data from the dials. “Maybe we should make Midnight do all of them. It’s not like he wants to be around people anyways,” She tapped the dial to make sure the needle wasn’t stuck. “The temperature’s normal, 143 degrees celsius.”

“Noted. Cooling?” responded Ruby.

“Fine. Water level is fine too.” 

“How’s the mSv?”

“Ehh, normal. It’s floating around 254 degrees,” Neptune said as she stood back up from checking the dials, stretching her back. “Whoever made this plant could’ve made the effort to put the dials at a convenient level. Working to help the fellow man and all that.”

“Well, we’re not here because it’s convenient.” Ruby rolled her eyes to some non-present boss making her do this. 

* * *

Elvira Ruby was one of two managers at the Mayak plant, and to most she was either the preferred—or only —manager that carried their weight. She was very satisfied with her job, and worked hard to maintain it. At times it was difficult, mostly dealing with other higher ups, but felt like this was where she belonged and needed to be. They were more than just “satisfactory” at their job, they were exemplary. They were praised for continually eliciting high morale in their workers, and had the lowest turnover rate due to their managerial skills. She was there for her workers, both professionally and personally. If any worker had a complaint about the facility or other workers, Ruby would do their due diligence to ensure that complaint would be seen and fulfilled. They were a forgiving leader, and often would take the extra time to check in to see if there was anything that they could do to improve the workers' experience at the Mayak plant. 

Ruby enjoyed Neptune’s company. They regarded Neptune as a very capable engineer, and also as a person overall. Neptune was incredibly knowledgeable about her career, but not all of her intelligence was wasted on engineering. She was well known as the facility gossip, and would much rather prefer to sit and talk with her associates than focus on her job. That’s not to say she was a slacker; when she wanted to, she would do weeks’ worth of work within a few hours, but of course that only happened when truly necessary. Ruby did her best to encourage Neptune to stay on task, but Ruby also appreciated spending down time with her. She was generally fun to be around, and often made the tedious work of tank surveying palatable.

“Alright, everything’s done here. Let’s do the others,” Ruby said, tapping their clipboard with their pen. Ruby and Neptune made their way back to the far side of the tank and through decontamination. 

Decontamination was quite the meticulous process, and probably why the tanks were not surveyed as frequently as they should’ve been. The task included several back-and-forth sessions of scrubbing, washing individual layers of protective suits, cycling waste water, and complaining. The protective suits themselves were bulky, loud, and difficult to move in, and getting in or out of them was a multi-person process. The brushes used for the scrubbing were coarse and often left red patches and welts on personnel’s skin after a few sessions. This made surveying the tanks not only tedious, but physically painful to boot. 

“If I have to do this six more times I think I’d rather just take the radiation,” remarked an irritated Neptune, harshly scrubbing her legs.

* * *

Neptune despised checking the water treatment tanks, but tamped down her loathing as the other engineers had checked them countless times since she last did. If she’d had to survey with Midnight instead of Ruby, she would have strode out of work and poured a stiff drink as soon as she got home. At least surveying was something different and she got to be up from her desk for once. She also enjoyed being with Ruby, and they were able to talk freely in the tank about whatever they wanted. It certainly wasn’t a physical breath of fresh air, as they were breathing in thick wastewater air, but it could somewhat be considered a metaphorical one. 

By the time the two were back from surveying, the rest of the day’s work was in full motion. The physicists were working on whatever important equations and logistics to be solved. The engineers were turning and checking very important dials, no doubt. 

The medical staff—composed of Diana Carnation and Fyodor Ochre—had been instructed to check-in with all faculty members and administer them a flu shot. Healthcare was a right (therefore a requirement in the Soviet Union) and these two were on staff to fulfill that requirement. This mostly led to a lot of interruptions of the physicist’s and engineer’s work, as the medical staff would pompously barge into their workspaces and begin their inoculations. 

* * *

Diana Carnation was an incredibly focused and efficient medic. She was practically perfect for the job, in the sense that she was able to heal people without being too overwhelmed with the trauma that comes of being a first responder. Some would refer to her as being far too cold or apathetic for this field of work, but she argued that those qualities were preferred, if not necessary. She believed that efficiency and speed was required, small talk with the patient was only needed when there was no more active work to be done. She often walked the patient through what she was doing, as explaining the reasons for her actions seemed to calm most patients and would help them be more understanding about her poking and prodding. She did the most she could, and often did things considered “overkill” to make sure there would be less complications later. Fyodor Ochre was a good balance to Carnation’s excessive nature, adding touches of empathy and realism when needed. 

* * *

Fyodor Ochre was a collected, self-confident, and warm paramedic. He was exceptional at his job, and made sure that his patients were as comfortable as they could be given their situation. He focused much more on the emotional aspect of trauma, supplying emotional comfort and distractions when needed. He was a paramedic because he was helping the community, not that he was helping himself. He put his patients before himself most of the time, and was far more willing to risk his life to save a patient than any other of the paramedics. Just because he was willing, however, does not mean he didn’t know there was value in keeping himself safe. 

Medical care in the Soviet Union was free, but it was often common courtesy to give gifts to nurses and paramedics as appreciation for their work. This included anything from flowers to chocolate to cognac—and it coincided with one of Ochre’s other hobbies: cooking. Just as there was a balance to medical care, there was balance in cooking. Ochre and Carnation would often trade and share gifts with each other; spending many nights drinking and de-stressing from the day behind them. Despite their differences, they made an excellent health care team. 

While Carnation and Ochre were setting up their flu shot kits, the physicists could be heard from across the main office. 

“You’re acting awfully suspicious today, Thistle. Do you have anything to say about it?” Autumn accused, starting the morning off strong. His burnt orange hair was sticking up at odd angles, adding to his eccentricity. 

“We just got to work, man. You do this every time. It’s only been like twenty minutes,” Thistle sat in his seat with already glazed eyes. 

“And? That's twenty minutes of time where you have been suspicious.”

“Of what?” asked Atlantic genuinely. 

“Don’t encourage him,” Stone looked over at Atlantic, her gray eyes also glazing over due to the overstimulating high energy this early in the morning. Fortunately, Carnation and Ochre were coming over now, and had pulled Autumn away mid-accusation. 

Ochre liked Autumn, even if he was a little eccentric at times. He was horrifically intelligent and specialized in nuclear physics, but his job was not where he invested his energy. Autumn was, as most people would say, quite paranoid, and Ochre agreed. He was exceptionally determined and strong headed, and that crept into his work and his more personal ideals more often than not. Autumn was devoted to conspiracy and believed that the Americans had developed telepathic mind control machines that could listen to the inner thoughts of any Soviet at any time. He was well read in American culture, American nuclear development, Soviet science fiction, extraterrestrial life, and all sides of the Space Race information that was available at the time. He was more worried about aliens exterminating the Earth than the Americans winning the Space Race, although Space Race fears were a close second. He often distracted his colleagues with his conspiracies, dragging some into hour-long arguments. The only reason why he wasn’t fired at this point was his knowledge of nuclear physics was too valuable to lose. He would often accuse his fellow coworkers of being an American spy–or worse, an alien–but when asked for evidence to back up his claim, he would often tell others to disregard his previous statement. Ochre enjoyed his eccentricity and would lightly play Devil’s advocate to see if Autumn’s claims could be backed up, which oftentimes they could not. 

“-And are you right or left-handed, sir?” said Ochre, his eyes glazing over the checklist. 

“I’m left-handed,” responded Autumn. Ochre looked up and was silent for a moment. 

“Really? You’re left-handed?” Ochre finally responded in disbelief. 

“Why? Does it matter?”

“Sir, please pick up your things and follow me. We are to report to Demyan Midnight.”

“It’s not that big of a deal is it? I just use a different hand to jack-”

The two of them walked through the facility, checking the folders outside of each tank to see if Midnight had checked out. Autumn was chittering the whole time, asking why being left-handed was such an issue, then about how the Americans were anti-left-handedness and that the great Soviet Union should be pro-left-handedness, then to whatever other American conspiracy was currently floating around his mind. They walked past a few of the tanks and came upon Cooling Tank System #5. 

Ochre’s eyes scanned the punch card to see if Midnight had checked out. Autumn had fallen silent for the first time in the several minutes that they had been walking around.

“He should be in this tank at the moment–” Ochre glanced up from the punch card, looking through the window that Autumn had been silently staring at. “Oh my god.”

* * *

Demyan Midnight didn’t have a particularly good day that day, but he usually wouldn’t allow himself to have a good day to begin with. 

Midnight was, for lack of a better term, an insufferable bastard. He was not liked both at the facility and in the rest of the world, and frankly couldn't care about what other people thought. People often considered him to be sleazy and sulky; someone who often cut corners on important things. He was withdrawn and hostile to basically everyone he met; he was the type of insufferable where he would never explicitly say what he was thinking, but would allude to it. He was unforward and roundabout with awkward or sensitive issues, and often would point out problems just to wait for other people to solve them. 

He dressed almost exclusively in black (he wore dark grey on rare occasions), which drove the nail in the coffin for his pretentious, depressed disposition. He had a large golden incisor tooth on his left side, which added to his unsettling appearance. There had been a knowingly false rumor going around about it for a while: it was commonly known that soft metals absorbed radiation more effectively than other materials, and so they had joked that Midnight was a walking beacon of radiation. This gave the faculty members an excuse to avoid him, as they were doing so “for their own health”.

He was simultaneously a ‘yes man’ for his superiors, and a terrible manager to his inferiors. He would often make quick, confident decisions based on terrible judgment and then blame something or someone else for the repercussions. Very few times did he ever truly realize the consequences of his actions, but would never in his life admit them. Even if, say, he had greenlit the facility to dump nuclear waste downstream, affecting thousands of peoples’ water, killing several and permanently harming full families generations down the line, he would not acknowledge the damage done and simply wave off anyone who brought it up. Which is a dick move. 

Most people would look upon this spindly murdered man and feel a pang of grief or hollowness in their chest. But most people don’t know Midnight. 

* * *

Ochre and Autumn ran back through the facility, the only sound being their frantic footsteps against the industrial paneling and their panicked breathing. They burst through the doors of the main office, desperately trying to catch their breath in front of everyone. They stood there, not knowing what to say or how to say it. 

Eventually, Ochre was able to spit out something in between labored gasps. 

“MIDNIGHT–POOL– BAD.” He was wildly gesturing to attempt to communicate more, but it just seemed like he had lost all motor control in his arms. He waved to signal the others to follow and they all ran back to the treatment tank. 

They came up on Tank #5 and crowded the small window, workers pushing each other out of the way to see. For those who had the unfortunate opportunity, they could see a pair of professionally dressed legs floating on the water’s surface, the rest of the body out of view. 

Ruby had been redressing themself in the protective suit that they had put on and taken off ten times that morning. She entered the tank and slowly walked around, assessing the situation. Ruby picked up Midnight’s clipboard that had the tank checklist, and noticed that it was only partially filled out. They walked to the edge of the walkway, leaning over the railing to look at Midnight. He was floating face-up, the right side of his head level to the water, exposing a substantial blunt force wound on the left side of his face. They stepped back from the railing and nearly tripped on something; there was a large metal wrench on the floor, its side splattered with blood. They stood back up and put their hands on their hips, slowly scanning the area for anything else. They turned back to Midnight, his jaw slightly open, treatment water flowing in and out of his mouth. Ruby scanned the area one last time, then grabbed the clipboard and headed to decontamination. 

The others impatiently waited for Ruby, talking then shushing each other. 

“What do you think happened?”

“Clearly Midnight wanted a quick swim–”

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

“God, I hope not. I wanna go home early.”

“I don’t think we’re going home early considering there’s a murder–”

“Just let me believe that something good happened for once.”

Ruby finally came out of decontamination, her face flushed from the heat and irritation, her dark red hair frizzy. The hall was silent, everyone looking expectantly at her for information. 

“There’s been a murder,” Ruby stated. The others dramatically gasped, as if there was a predetermined cue for them all collectively to gasp. They chattered excitedly, asking questions and making wild statements. Ruby hushed them. 

“Here is Midnight’s clipboard. He didn’t finish the checklist.” Ruby looked down at the details of the clipboard. 

“Wonder why,” Neptune said, dryly. 

“He said the mSv level was ‘above average’ and that was the last thing he checked at 14:16.”

“How ‘above average’? What about the other things?” Opal leaned forward and took the clipboard from Ruby. She scanned the checklist, her face falling. 

“Oh my god.” If Opal hadn’t already been stressed due to the murder, she was fully panicking now seeing the tank details. 

“Oh my god–my god we need to shut the plant down, we need to cool the tanks, we need to–” Opal was visibly shaking, and she turned to hurriedly walk back to the main control room. Ruby put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her from leaving.

“Opal, there’s been a murder here.” Another dramatic gasp followed Ruby’s statement. “We can’t have people just leave, we have to solve this.”

“The tank details are really high, I’m worried.” Opal was desperately trying to regulate her breathing, especially now considering she couldn’t do anything about it. 

“It’ll be alright, the tank is still within a normal range,” Ruby reassured. Opal didn’t say anything in response and shrank into herself. Ruby took a quick breath and readjusted herself, turning toward the rest of the group. 

“Now, let’s get to work. Does anyone have any grievances against Midnight?" Ruby redirected. 

"Yes, literally all of us do. We all hate that son of a bitch," Ochre responded, the others nodding in agreement. 

“I don’t–?” Opal looked up, her face flushed. Some people were surprised at Opal’s statement, as it was fairly unanimous that the whole office hated Midnight. 

“Well, what about alibis?” Ruby continued. 

“Everyone was mostly in the main office, I didn’t see anyone leave for a long enough time,” Malachite said. 

“What’s a ‘long enough’ time to you?” Neptune asked him quietly. Malachite whispered back, “However long it takes for your mom to–”

“Well, can anyone vouch for you, Malachite? Where were you?” Autumn snapped. 

“I just said I was in the office–are you accusing me?”

“I’m not accusing you, I’m just–”

“How do you know it wasn’t someone else here?” Malachite countered. 

“Yeah!” the group started to murmur to one another about who might be the culprit. 

“How do we know it wasn’t you?”

“Maybe the killer is still running around somewhere.”

“What if they want to kill everyone else? Huh? What then?” 

“Shut up– Everyone shut up!” Ruby yelled, raising her hand and waving it sharply around to get the group’s attention, overlapping accusations quieting. 

“Neptune and I were surveying the other tanks while he was supposedly being murdered. We were checked into Tank 14 like–what?” Ruby turned to Neptune for reassurance about the time, “–a full ten minutes before and after his last note? We were halfway across the plant when this happened.” General murmuring an agreement. “Now. Nobody leaves until this is settled. Any arguments?” The group was quiet for once following Ruby’s statement. 

“Alright, let’s get back to the office and settle this.” Ruby herded the group through the hallways of the water treatment tanks back to the main office. They sat amongst their tables, uselessly attempting to get back to work. Ruby settled into a moderately secluded cubicle and had the others wait. She sat and wrote down some preliminary questions on a notepad and secured it to her clipboard. 

“Carnation, can I see you first?” Ruby called. Carnation peeked her head through the open doorway, smiled, then sat down opposite Ruby. Carnation’s pink hairpin pulled her dark hair back, bringing some color into the dimly lit cubicle. 

“How are you feeling? Are you doing alright?”

“Not too bad to be fair. It’s stressful because it’s a murder and all but–c’mon." Carnation gave Ruby a look to suggest that this wasn’t that bad of a scenario; all of the good people were still alive. 

“Fair, but we still need to investigate.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“Alright, where were you?”

“I was doing annual inoculations for the staff in the main office with Ochre,” Carnation recounted nonchalantly. “Some of them seemed a little pissed about it, saying we were ‘interrupting their work’ or something. I just said that it’s hard to do physics when you’re dying of the flu, but they shrugged.”

“I’ll be sure to set up inoculations on an off-day next year,” Ruby noted. “What were your feelings about Midnight?” Carnation glanced up at Ruby with a displeased look. Carnation picked through her words carefully, telling the truth while attempting to not incriminate herself. 

“He certainly made life–challenging for me,” Carnation said after a moment had passed. 

“Was it that way for you?” Ruby gave a similar look back to Carnation as an affirmative answer. 

“Challenging is a good word to describe it.” She looked back at her clipboard and continued. “Has anyone seemed off or suspicious today?”

“Not that I’ve seen. I’ve been focused on inoculations.”

“Do you know of anyone with any strong motives against Midnight?” Carnation’s eyebrows raised at that question. 

“It’s gonna be a long day for you, isn’t it?”

Ruby sighed. “It is. You’re all good for now, you can go.”

“Good luck. I’m gonna go check the body with Ochre. See if you missed anything.” Carnation had been playing with her pink hairpin for the majority of the conversation, snapping it and resetting it unconsciously. She stood up from her seat and walked back to the main room, leaving Ruby to think. 

* * *

Ruby called in Autumn. He came in and sat down quietly. 

“How are you doing with all of this, are you alright?” Ruby asked. 

“I’m…managing,” Autumn slowly responded. His eyes were hidden underneath his orange hair, focusing on the room around Ruby.

“Do you need water or a snack..?” Ruby slightly bowed her head to see if she could get eye contact from Autumn. 

“Water would be nice,” Autumn nodded. 

“Atlantic?” Ruby called. Atlantic, one of the physicists, appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Could you bring a glass of water over for Autumn? Thank you.” 

“Of course.” Atlantic’s long, dark blue skirt made a low fluttering sound as she turned and strode off to get water. 

“Alright, let’s start off easy. Where were you?” Ruby tapped her pen on her clipboard. 

“I was mostly doing physics equations with the others in the main office,” Autumn responded. Atlantic came in quietly and set the glass of water down in front of him. “Thank you,” he said, then he took a long drink. 

“What else were you doing, if you were ‘mostly’ doing physics?” She asked.

“Investigating others for counter-intelligence affiliations,” he said confidently. Ruby sighed at his statement. 

“Who did you accuse this time? Just spywork?” Autumn began to list possible subjects, counting them on his fingers. 

“I believe that Neptune is a spy, Thistle is a spy, Stone is a spy, and Beige is an alien.”

“That’s a new one.” Ruby’s eyebrows were upturned in curiosity. 

“I just think that these people are worthy of investigation,” he said candidly. 

“I’ll write that down, I guess. Any strong opinions about Midnight?”

“I suspected him first.”

“Suspected him to die first?”

“No, I suspected he was a spy. But I guess him dying first isn’t such a wild assumption. He was practically begging to be killed,” he said. Ruby shut her eyes momentarily due to his last statement and wrote something for a long time on her clipboard. 

“Has anyone else been suspicious in terms of the murder today?”

“Everyone.”

“That’s what I thought. Thank you for your time.” Ruby smiled as he got up and headed for the door. She sat in silence for a moment, wondering how she would be able to figure this out when most of her workers were suspect on a good day. She was deep in thought when there was a soft knocking on the doorframe. 

“Ruby, I have something important.” Ruby looked up and saw Carnation with a worried look. “Midnight’s tooth is missing.”

“Oh god.” Ruby took a moment, looking past Carnation in thought. There was a moment of silence between them. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Yeah. It might’ve just been knocked out when he got hit but…it seems important.” Carnation said. Ruby nodded.

“Could you bring Ochre in?” 

“Absolutely.” Carnation turned on her heel and left. Ruby heard her bark “OCHRE!” across the office. Ochre appeared in the doorway hesitantly.

“Ochre, can I speak with you?” Ochre shuffled over to the seat facing Ruby. “How have you been managing? Are you alright, do you need water?”

“No, I got some earlier,” he said, playing with his yellow patterned tie. “I’m alright, mostly helping other people stay calm to distract myself, I guess. Definitely shaken, but I’ll deal with it later.”

“Good, thank you for helping the others. Where were you during the murder?”

“I was in the main office doing vaccinations with Carnation.”

“Yes, Carnation said the same thing.” Ruby wrote a quick note on her clipboard, connecting their alibis together. “Thanks again for doing that.”

“It is my job, so,” Ochre shrugged. 

“Do you have any strong opinions about Midnight?”

Ochre hesitated. “Yes. Very strong.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“He’s made a lot of decisions that have harmed people. I’ve seen it firsthand.” Ochre’s eyes drifted away. “The joke of ‘job security’ can only go so far, right?” Ruby attempted to conceal a smile at the last statement. 

“Have you noticed anyone being suspicious today? Anything out of place?”

“Nothing outside of the normal chaos, no.”

“Thank you for your time, I really appreciate your work.” Ruby smiled at him as he got up and left the room. He passed by the engineer’s tables, overhearing their chittering about current events. 

* * *

“Ok,” Malachite whispered, leaning in. “Did you do it?”

“No, but I wish I did,” responded Neptune, her head cocking back in her lament.  

“You can't say that,” hushed Malachite, stifling laughter. He leaned back and readjusted his green button-up, smoothing out the wrinkles from leaning forward.

“Ok, I’m glad I didn’t have to do it myself.” Neptune’s head bobbled slightly for theatrical effect. 

“Fucker–someone’s gonna hear you!”

“And they’ll give me a peace medal,” Neptune said, throwing up her arms. Malachite pulled her arms back down. They both looked over at Opal to see if she had heard their conversation. 

“Do you think she sucked up to him just to kill him? To seem all innocent about it?” Neptune asked in a hushed tone, still looking over at her. 

“I don’t think so? She seems genuinely torn up about it, I personally wouldn’t go through all that effort before and after. I don’t think she did it, and I also don’t want to make her any more upset by joking about it this loudly.” Malachite elbowed Neptune to punctuate his point, his dark green shirt clashing with her light blue blouse. Neptune rolled her eyes but told herself to be quiet about it. Across the table, Opal and Beige were having their own conversation.

“I know a lot of people didn’t like him but I don’t see why that’s a reason to kill him.” Opal was visibly distraught and had been sequentially wiping her eyes with her white handkerchief. 

“Maybe no one killed him but he just hit his head, slipped, and drowned?” Beige unconfidently suggested. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Opal asked, thrown off by the absurdity of the statement. 

“Well, we haven't weighed that option yet, have we?”

“Because it’s a stupid option.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause between them. “I think I have a headache,” Beige finally said. 

“Seems like it,” Opal said dryly. Beige paused again, confusion creeping onto his face.

“Are you not getting a headache from all of this?” He genuinely asked. 

“No?” She didn’t try to conceal her concern. 

“I’m gonna go get water,” he said, standing up from his chair. 

“Good idea.” Opal turned back to her papers to see if she could try to get some work done while all of this was happening. The plant is going to explode, she thought. No, Ruby said it was in a normal range. She didn’t believe that. She started to work on simple equations, something to take her mind off of everything. With each new step of the equation, she realized she had done the last step wrong. 

The plant is going to explode. 

She gave up after a while, the mental strain of everything being too much. She looked over at Neptune and Malachite chittering to themselves. She sighed and got up, bringing a stack of equations with her as if she had any plans to work on them. She walked over to the other end of the table and set herself down. 

“Hi Opal, how have you been doing?” Neptune asked, reaching an arm out to her.

“I’m–overwhelmed, certainly,” Opal sighed, putting a hand on her forehead. 

“I can understand that,” Malachite said, nodding toward Neptune. “I mean work is stressful and all, but not murder-every-day stressful. No one is used to this.” Beige had come back from getting his water, noticeably paler than before. His brown patterned shirt contrasted with his face. 

“Are you feeling alright?” Neptune asked Beige, genuine concern in her voice. 

“Yeah I’m–I’m alright. I’ve got a pretty bad headache.” He looked up. “Why?” 

“No–no reason. You look great, man,” Malachite butted in, looking over at Neptune. 

“Thank you! You look great as well!” Beige smiled. 

* * *

Ruby’s voice chimed through the office. “Malachite, can I see you next?”

“Make sure to get your acceptance speech ready, you’re next,” he whispered to Neptune. She playfully sneered at him. He got up and walked over to the cubicle. 

“Hello, Malachite. How are you doing?”

“Pretty good.” He replied, sitting down in the chair. He paused, looking slightly past Ruby for a moment. “Should I be good? Should I be mourning or something? How do normal people react to a situation like this?” Malachite asked. 

“Don’t ask me about what’s ‘normal’ right now.” Ruby looked up at Malachite from her clipboard, exasperated. “I have no idea what ‘normal’ is.” Malachite nodded in agreement. “Where were you?”

“Main office.”

“What were you doing during the murder?”

“Engineering things.”

“Were you with anyone?”

“The other engineers.”

“Opinions on Midnight?”

“Bad.” Ruby simply wrote down “Bad” on her clipboard.

“Has anyone else been suspicious?”

“I don't like Autumn, but that's more of a personal thing. I’m sure he has the ability to hate someone that much, but I honestly don’t think he’d be able to do it, y’know.” Malachite’s eyebrows raised at that last statement. 

“Plenty of people do things that we don’t expect them to. Not to make Autumn any more suspect, obviously, but someone here did it.” 

“The dude is a twig,” Malachite said flatly.

“So was Midnight. Arguably more so,” Ruby responded. Malachite’s expression flattened in defeat. Ruby sighed, and debated whether to ask a new set of questions. They leveled their clipboard on their lap and looked at Malachite. 

“I feel like this will lead nowhere, but do the vacations have to do with any of this?”

“No.”

“You can understand why I have to ask that, right?” They looked up at him apologetically. 

“Yeah.” Malachite paused and looked away for a moment. “It’s a personal commitment I keep to.”

“Bird watching?” Ruby had overheard him at one point and was trying to pull at the conversation. 

“Yes, bird watching.” 

“Bird watching is a personal commitment that requires you to take weeks off of work?” 

“Yes,” Malachite responded unwaveringly. Ruby was surprised at his lack of a response but respected his dedication for privacy. Malachite had been going on weeks-long vacations since he joined the plant a few years ago. After being probed by Midnight about it, he’d stated that he’d been doing these trips far before being employed at Makak, and it was not simply a ploy to get off of work. Ruby respected his privacy, as he worked tirelessly when he was there, so she hadn’t asked any questions until now. She tabled the conversation for now, as prying with no evidence was unfair to him. 

“Alright, you’re good to go. Could you bring Neptune in?” Malachite nodded and silently walked out. He was walking back towards the engineer’s tables when he was intercepted by Thistle. 

“What did they ask you?” Thistle demanded. 

“What–?” Malachite was startled; he didn’t interact much with Thistle, let alone be interrogated by him. 

“What did Ruby ask you?” Malachite responded with a confused stare. Thistle continued with a set of quickfire questions that Malachite repeated in disbelief.

“Like did she ask about the murder or about being a spy–”

“A spy?"

“–or doing illegal activities–”

“ Illegal activities?"

“Do they take bribes–?”

“ Bribes?”

“–Did she say anything related to the black market?”

“ Black market?! What the hell are you talking about? Why are you asking about the black market?” Malachite briskly looked over his shoulder towards Ruby’s cubicle. “She just asked me where I was and what I was doing.” 

“Oh–well. Nevermind then.” Thistle started turning to walk back. 

“No, hold on.” Malachite was still thrown off by his questions, and placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

“Why are you asking about the black market?”

“Uh–I was just curious?” Thistle suddenly got something in his eye and was unable to keep eye contact with him. Malachite’s face went through the motions of realizing something, then coming to a confused conclusion. 

“How are you a part of the black market and this bad at keeping your mouth shut?”

“Well, how do you do it?”

“I’m not in the black market.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I just fucking birdwatch a lot.” Malachite paused. “Why are you this comfortable talking about it? Are there other people here who are market members?”

“Um–” Thistle looked away. 

“God.” Malachite grabbed his shoulder and pushed him to Ruby’s cubicle. Ruby looked up confused. 

“I thought I asked you to bring in Neptune?”

“Yeah, well, someone interrupted me and I thought it would be more important to interrogate him first.” Malachite gestured to the seat across Ruby as he leaned up against the doorframe. “Take a seat, Thistle.” He reluctantly sat down, his hands folded in his lap. 

“I was still walking back to the engineer tables before Thistle, here, started demanding for the questions you had been asking,” Malachite started. “He wanted to know if you had asked about things relating to spywork, which sounds like he’s been talking to Autumn a lot,” he counted off the topics with his fingers. “Asked about illegal activities, asked if you took bribes, and specifically asked if you were interrogating us about being in the black market. To me–” Malachite pointed at his chest, “–that sounds like he’s projecting a bit.” 

“I mean–” Ruby started. “Most people dip into the black market every once in a while, it’s taboo but we all have to do it at some point for one reason or another. It’s not like state-run storefronts are stocked or have decent products.”

“That’s true,” Malachite struggled for a moment. “It seemed like he had a lot more to lose than a usual dabbler would. A casual market patron would not be this worried about being questioned about it.” Malachite’s frustration made finding the right words difficult. “It’s just that we have a murder on our hands and, I don’t know, maybe the Black Market Guy might have some answers.”

“I understand that, and I appreciate you bringing this up. Thank you, Malachite. I can take this from here.” Ruby sat back in her chair and waited. Malachite realized that meant he was excused from the conversation, and awkwardly left the doorway. He walked back to the engineer tables and sat down with a huff. 

“That bad, huh?” Neptune said as she started to get up from her seat.

“No, Thistle’s going right now.” Malachite said, glaring out towards the window. 

“I thought I was next?” Neptune hesitantly sat back down. Malachite pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I was coming out to get you, right? And Thistle walked up and started berating me with questions about what Ruby said. He asked me if they said anything about bribes, or illegal activities, or the black market and I was like ‘what the fuck’, right? I guess it made things easier but you’d think his self preservation skills would’ve stopped him.” Malachite’s arm was holding his head up, his hand clasping around his forehead. Neptune, Beige, and Opal were sharing worried glances at each other as he was recounting this. 

“Honestly, that’s impressive,” Beige said. 

“So he just outed himself as a black market member? Is that it?” Neptune asked.

“I mean, who knows right? If all the market members are as smart as him I think this murder is gonna be solved pretty fast.” Malachite leaned forward on the table. 

“How do you know that it was a market member who did it?” Beige asked, returning a glance from Neptune. 

“It seems pretty obvious? Who else other than black market members would do this?” 

“There are plenty of people who just do one crime. I mean, if you had to just do the one, this seems like it. Go big or go home, right?” Beige suggested. Autumn speed-walked toward the engineer’s table and slammed his hands down onto it once he got there. 

“I think Thistle is a spy because–” There was a long pause from Autumn, as he gathered his breath and his words. “ –because he’s weird.”

“That’s not a reason,” Opal said. 

“Is it not? Plenty of bad people were weird people first,” Autumn pointed at the group. 

“I’d say that you’re weird, Autumn.” Malachite looked up at him, unamused. 

“No I’m not,” Autumn said quickly, taking a step back from the table. 

* * *

Ruby reclined in their chair, the back of it hitting the cubicle wall. “Thank you for being cooperative, Thistle. Let’s start off easy. Where were you?”  

“Today, or in general?” Thistle wearily asked. Ruby’s face washed with reluctant patience. 

“When the murder was happening, around 1:45 to 2:30pm today.”

“I was in the main office with the other physicists.”

“Would it be easy to assume you were doing physics?”

“Yes, I was doing that. With Atlantic, Autumn, and Stone.” Ruby wrote on their clipboard. 

“Do you have any connections to the black market, big or small?” Ruby looked up from her clipboard, already knowing the answer. Thistle moved comfortably in his seat.

“How much is too much? I know people are super involved in it and spend most of their lives in it, and there are people who, y’know, just dabble on weekends.”

“Care to name names?”

“Well–um. No, I don’t know anyone.” 

“Is there anyone else here who’s a market member?” Ruby asked, staring down Thistle. He averted his gaze aggressively. 

“N-no.” He refused to look them in the eyes. Ruby sighed. 

“I can make it a lot easier for you in the long run if you give me names.” Thistle finally looked Ruby in the face when she said that. 

“What is this? McCarthyism?” He accused. 

“No, we’re the commies here,” she reassured. 

“Oh, right,” Thistle remembered. Ruby decided to move forward with the other questions, then circle back. 

“Opinions on Midnight?” Thistle made a couple of faces to himself in silence. Ruby was confused with his inability to decide whether to talk or not. “Telling the truth will be better in the long run. Almost everyone else didn’t like him either.”

“Ok, yeah. He wasn’t great.”

“Has there been anyone else here that has been suspicious in terms of the murder today?”

“Not in terms of the murder, no.”

“In terms of what, then?” Ruby readied her pen. 

“I think most people are just generally suspicious. Not in the way that Autumn thinks, but there’s definitely some characters here.” Thistle had realized that generalized statements were the best for him right now, and Ruby didn’t appreciate that realization. She looked at him, unamused. 

“You can go, for now. But don’t think you’re done.” Ruby waved him off, and he left sheepishly. She leaned forward onto her desk and held her head in her hands in thought. 

“This would be so much easier if none of these people were here,” they said to themself in anguish. They decided that they needed a short break before going back into interrogations. Ruby got up and stretched, miscellaneous joints cracking and straining from stress. They strode out of the cubicle to the chaos further down the office. 

* * *

“You’re also–” Autumn was pointing at Neptune now. “–off.”

“What the hell do you mean by ‘off’ ?” Neptune’s hostility made him rethink his statement, his voice slightly wavering from now. 

“Um, well,” he nervously laughed. Ruby passed by the table from getting a glass of water and Autumn shot her a helpless glance. She smiled and said nothing, sipping expectantly and watching the show. 

“You’re acting too normal for all this to be happening.” Autumn turned and pointed to Stone. 

“First Thistle was weird, and now I’m normal?” Stone’s eyebrows arched like a mother who just heard some questionable news. Autumn shrank a bit. 

“Y–yes.” Autumn stuttered. Stone’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment as she looked around. 

“Are you accusing only the women here?”

“No, no, no–” Autumn reached out his arms in defense, knowing how fucked he was. 

“First Neptune, now me?”

“No, I accused Thistle first–” Autumn attempted to point out. Their arguments were overlapping, others barging in when they heard something out of context. 

“You misogynistic son of a bitch–” Neptune interjected. 

“What I was trying to say was–”

“What you were trying to say is that women are always to blame–” Neptune and Stone were yelling at full force, Autumn was not helping by trying to talk over them to clear himself. Ruby was fully enjoying themself and after a few more expletives were thrown she walked over and ushered Neptune into their cubicle. 

“How have you been doing? Seems like you were having fun out there.” Ruby smirked, purposefully letting Neptune vent. 

“God, he just pisses me off sometimes,” Neptune huffed, still coming down from her rage. “I don’t care if he did it or not, I want him locked up.” Neptune crossed her arms and sat down, breathing slowly. “Otherwise, I’m doing well considering the circumstances.” 

“A lot of people aren’t that torn up about it. They’re mostly worried that they’re next.” Neptune chuckled at that last statement. “Look, I know you didn’t do it, considering I was doing tank checks with you far before and after it happened.” Ruby’s shoulders were considerably more relaxed talking with Neptune than with the others. “Do you have any information? I don’t want to say that I’m at a loss here because that would make the murderer comfortable, but…” Ruby trailed. 

“I’m sorry, I really don’t have anything more than Autumn accusing people for fun.”

“Anything about the black market members?”

“No, not really,” Neptune scratched her nose.

“Well, let me know if you hear anything. Thanks again for being helpful and thank you in general for being sane. Could you bring Atlantic in?”

“Of course. I’ll look out for things.” Neptune got up, stretched, then left. She walked back through the main office and tapped on Atlantic’s shoulder. 

“Ruby wants to see you,” Neptune said, giving her a warm smile. 

“Oh, thank you!” Atlantic got up from her seat and swiftly walked to Ruby’s cubicle. Neptune walked back to the engineer’s table and sat in her seat, slightly relieved from the talk with Ruby. 

“Oh god, I have such a bad headache right now.” Beige was leaning back, his hands at his temples. 

“Yeah, I get that. It’s still stressful even if we didn’t like the guy.” Neptune leaned back, attempting to get comfortable for the long haul. 

“I dunno, this feels bad.” Beige grabbed the table to stabilize himself. 

“That's strange. I thought people’s headaches would go away when Midnight did,” Neptune chuckled. 

“Yeah, I thought so too.”

“Do you need something? Like some pain medication?” Opal asked, worried at how quickly his headache seemed to be developing. 

“The only things Carnation and Ochre have to deal with it is iodine, cocaine, and cognac,” Neptune said. 

“I’ll take all three,” Beige immediately responded. “I’m gonna grab more water and go to the bathroom.” Beige stood up and walked more briskly than someone with a headache typically would. The others noticed this shift.

“Is ‘headache shits’ a thing and I just didn’t know about it?” Neptune asked Carnation and Ochre, who had been walking over. Malachite laughed. 

“I haven’t heard of that before, but at this point I don’t think anything could surprise me,” Carnation said as she pulled up a chair. 

* * *

Ruby settled back in her seat in the cubicle. 

“Alright Atlantic, how have you been doing? Do you need some water?” 

“I’m managing as best I can.” Atlantic flattened her dark blue skirt on her lap. “And I had some water earlier, thank you.” 

“Where were you?”

“In the main office.”

“What were you doing?”

“Physics things with Stone, Thistle, and Autumn some of the time.”

“Some of the time?” Ruby looked up from her clipboard intrigued. 

“When he wasn’t theorizing and antagonizing the engineers. Usual things.”

“What are your opinions on Midnight?” Ruby asked.

“Not great.” Atlantic sighed, choosing her words. “He’s done things that I personally wouldn't approve of and he stresses–stressed me out. Considerably.”

“Has anyone else been suspicious?”

“Not any more than usual. I’m sorry, I don’t have any more information.” Atlantic apologized. 

“Don’t worry. This has been one of the easier interviews, trust me.” Ruby tapped their pen on their clipboard again. “Thank you for your cooperation. Could you bring in Stone next?”

“Of course. Thank you.” Atlantic swiftly left the cubicle. She passed Beige coming out of the bathroom on her way to Stone. Beige sat down at his seat, somehow even more ill-looking than before, now visibly shaking. 

“Hey are you doing alright? You look a little sick,” Ochre asked, staring at Beige concernedly. 

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m feeling fine–other than the headache.” Beige scrunched his face. The nuclear waste disposal agent was walking into the main office, clearly already on a mission. 

“Nah, he just threw up,” Mint said passively while continuing towards the treatment tanks, leaving the conversation to deal with this disruption. 

“Dude…” Beige said defeatedly, subconsciously wiping his mouth. 

“Are you alright?” Ochre walked over and put the back of his hand on Beige’s forehead. He turned to Carnation. “Can you see if we still have the charcoal? Beige, do you know why you threw up?” 

“It was just–my headache was so bad I think it was from that.” Beige looked up with a worried expression at him. Ochre shook his head.

“People don’t get a fever from pain.” Ochre was visibly unsettled. “This is weird,” he muttered to himself. 

* * *

Stone knocked on the doorframe of the cubicle; her thin, grey skirt casting a straight shadow into the room. 

“Hello, Stone. Thank you for coming in.” Ruby enjoyed Stone’s company. With most of the other faculty being chaotic individuals, she appreciated Stone’s straight-forwardness and repose. A no-nonsense individual in a sea of full-nonsense people. 

“Hello Ruby. Nice to see you.” Stone tucked away early grey whisps behind her ear. 

“Let’s get right to business. Where were you?”

“I was in the main office doing physics with the others.”

“Are you a part of the black market?”

“How does that relate to the murder?” Stone asked, pulling her silver bracelet around her wrist absent-mindedly. Ruby looked up from her clipboard, surprised at Stone’s unusually indirect response. 

“It seems like a relevant question for the circumstance.”

“I don’t see how they’re related.” 

“Earlier today, Thistle implied that he and others here were a part of the market–”

“Who are the others?” Stone cut in. 

“I don’t know, but it seems like a logical jump to assume that the killer is a part of the market system.”

“Not to me. Market connections don’t necessarily mean murder.”

“But it could mean motive.” 

“Fair.” Stone sat back in her seat, arms crossed in front of her chest. Ruby wrote down “inconclusive, defensive?” next to the question of black market status on her clipboard. 

“What are your opinions on Midnight?”

“Extremely negative,” Stone said. Ruby appreciated her forwardness, and wrote down her response verbatim. 

“Has anyone else been suspicious in terms of the murder?”

“Beige sure has been sweating a lot for not liking him.” Stone’s eyes hardened remembering how suspicious Beige had been acting. 

“Interesting. I’ll look into that, thank you. Could you bring in Opal next?” Ruby wrote on their clipboard some more. 

“Of course.” Stone got up and called for Opal once she was out of the room. 

* * *

“Hello! You asked for me?” Opal said as she sat down. 

“I did, thank you for your cooperation. Please, make yourself comfortable.” Ruby patiently waited as Opal smoothed out her white blazer to begin. 

“Firstly, I want to ask if you’re doing alright.”

“I’m managing as best I can. It’s all very frightening.” Opal exhaled shakily. 

“It is, I agree. Could you tell me where you were earlier?”

“I was in the main office engineering with Neptune, Beige, and Malachite.”

“Do you have any connections to the black market, or know anyone who does?”

“No, I don’t have any connections. Other than Thistle earlier, I don’t know anyone.” Opal was visibly disturbed by this question and its implications. 

“What are your opinions on Midnight?”

“I know many people don’t agree with me but I thought highly of him. I think he was a good leader and, although he made some questionable choices, he followed protocol to the best of his ability.” 

“I know this has been hard on you, especially considering how the others have been acting–” Ruby reached her hand across the desk to comfort Opal. 

“No, don’t worry about me,” Opal stated genuinely, taking Ruby’s hand in thanks. “I know they didn’t like him and that’s within their right to. It doesn’t bother me.” Opal smiled warmly at Ruby, despite the grief visible on her face. 

“Has anyone else been suspicious? In terms of the murder today.”

“No, I haven’t seen anything. I am worried about Beige. He hasn’t been feeling well.”

“Thank you for your time. If you could bring him in next I would appreciate that,” Ruby said. Opal hesitated for a moment, her face falling. 

“Has anyone checked the tank? Are you sure it’s in a ‘normal range’ like you said?” Opal asked. Ruby was about to respond with some reassurances when Opal cut in again. “The equations have been off for a few weeks now. I’ve had all of the other engineers recheck them again and again and at this point I don’t want to ask anymore because I’ve been bothering them with it for so long. I know something has been off with the tanks and no one believes me,” Opal pleaded

“I believe you.” Ruby said, a whole new level of solace radiating from her. “I’m sure the tank will be alright while we solve this. I can’t have people come in and out during a murder investigation. I apologize for this being so stressful.” They both sat in silence for a moment, dealing with stress and grief in silence. 

“Thank you. I hope we’re able to figure this out,” Opal said genuinely. 

“I do too,” Ruby said, disheartened. Opal left the cubicle and was fronted with the usual chaos in the office. 

* * *

“I think Beige is an alien–” Autumn was aggressively pointing at Beige across the table, who was being attended to by the medical team. 

“Shut up, Autumn,” The group said, statements overlapping. 

“Ok.” Autumn’s face scrunched in defeat. Opal came over and placed a hand on Beige’s shoulder, motioning towards Ruby’s cubicle. He nodded and shambled to Ruby, waving off Carnation and Ochre. 

* * *

“Hello Beige,” Ruby’s face subtly fell from a smile from seeing Beige in his current state. “Are you feeling alright? Opal was worrying about you. You’re looking a bit sick.”

“I’m alright. I think I’m just having an overreaction to the stress.” The side of his face scrunched as he uncomfortably sat down. 

“Are you sure? I can go get–”

“No, I’m alright,” Beige asserted. “Carnation and Ochre have been on my ass for a while now, I’m fine.” It was clearly painful for Beige to talk a lot. Ruby decided to get on with the necessary questions so he wouldn’t have to exert himself. 

“Alright, where were you?”

“Office.”

“What were you doing?

“Engineering.”

“With the other engineers?”

“Yes.”

“What are your opinions on Midnight? Please be honest, I’ve heard enough sugar-coating about the guy.” Beige looked up at Ruby with an expression that said ‘if you say so.’

“He’s a motherfucker.” Beige’s ‘opinion’ gave him the strength to enunciate clearly. Ruby nodded her head and was content with the answer. 

“Has anyone else been suspicious?”

“Thistle was being weird about the whole black market thing with Malachite earlier. I’ve had a headache for most of the day. Paying attention to anything is not worth it,” he said. Ruby nodded sympathetically. 

“Are you, or anyone you know of, a part of the market?”

“No.” Beige dragged his hand across the bottom part of his face; an attempt to release some of the stress from it. 

“Have you eaten anything today? Do you think you were poisoned?”

“No, no. I had breakfast at home and I haven’t had anything else here. I’ve been practically waterboarded by Carnation and Ochre but that was after the headache.”

“Alright, you can go. Get some water or lie down or something.”

“I’ll be fine.” Beige got up from the chair and had another wave of nausea hit him. He walked out of the cubicle, stabilizing himself with the doorframe. Ruby looked back at her clipboard and reviewed what little information she had. They got up and from the door called Thistle back in. Thistle came in; a disgruntled expression on his face signifying that he thought he was done. 

“Thanks for coming back in, Thistle.” Ruby gestured for him to sit down, as he had been awkwardly standing, hoping that this conversation would be the short, standing type. Ruby sat down herself and reevaluated her composure. 

“It would be extremely helpful if you were able to tell me who the other market members are.” Ruby said. Thistle began to feign ignorance and she interrupted. “I will make it worth your time. If one of the other market members is guilty, we’ll be able to find the murderer a lot sooner. And if you’re the murderer, we could mitigate some of your punishments for telling us.”

“Still sounds a lot like McCarthyism,” Thistle mumbled under his breath. Ruby leaned forward on her desk, forcing Thistle to pay attention.

“Who are the other members?”

* * *

Carnation leaned forward on the engineer’s table. “So back to the wrench. Does anyone know where it came from? I haven’t seen a wrench like that here.” 

“You haven’t? Clearly you’ve not been coming to work often.” Neptune sat back in her seat. 

“What do you mean?”

“Those are around all the time. They’re from the tool closet,” Neptune gestured vaguely in the direction of the closet somewhere. 

“Tool closet? More like–uh–tool closet–hold on I’ve got it,” Ochre struggled. The others were silent, too exhausted to stop a bad joke incoming. 

“Yeah of course it’s a tool closet, the engineers use it.” Ochre looked around with an ecstatic smile, his arms expectantly raised. He was applauded by sighs and hands pressing temples.  Carnation looked up at him when he said that. 

“Oh my god. Only the engineers have access to the closet.” Carnation’s eyes were boring a hole through the Union while realizing the implications of this statement. 

“Yeah? So? It’s not like anyone else wants to use them.”

“So? So the killer is an engineer.”

“Or someone just stole an engineer’s keys and used them to get to the closet?” Malachite interjected. 

“No, that’s too complicated for anyone here to figure out.”

“Oh, fair,” Malachite responded, agreeing with the lack of general intelligence in the group. They may be nuclear scientists, but that doesn't mean they can put two and two together. 

Ruby came out of the office, followed by a visibly guilty Thistle. 

“Ruby, an engineer did it! Only engineers could access the closet that the wrench came from,” Carnation ran over to Ruby in excitement. 

“Interesting. We’re getting somewhere.” Ruby corrected their posture and commanded themself. “Thistle just told me that both Neptune and Stone are also a part of the black market.”

“What the fuck, man.” Stone turned away in disbelief. Neptune let her arms fall, her hands hitting her legs in frustration. 

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Keep your goddamn mouth shut,” Neptune said. Thistle turned to Ruby.

“You said I wouldn’t get in trouble,” he said, exasperated. 

“You wouldn’t get as much in trouble with me. I didn’t say anything about them,” Ruby gestured. Thistle’s face fell even further. 

“So, let me get this straight,” Atlantic interrupted. “I’ve been working with two capitalists and a conspiracy theorist?” She asked, pointing at Thistle, Stone, and Autumn, respectively. 

“Yes,” Ruby responded. 

“And you ask me why our physics is so bad?” Atlantic accused, crossing her arms. Ruby’s mouth opened to make a retort, but fell silent. 

* * *

“Alright. Let’s take a step back,” Ruby said. Half of the staff took a physical step back, only then to realize it was a metaphorical one. 

“What do we have,” they mumbled to themself, “We have–” raising their voice to speak to the group. “ –a body, a wrench, and a missing tooth.” Ruby was now slowly pacing inside the circle that the faculty made around them. “We also have three black market members—which doesn’t necessarily mean motive,” they said the last statement defensively, raising their hands up. The market members glared at each other, but mostly at Thistle. 

“We also have a wrench that only engineers could access. But the only black market member who’s also an engineer was with me during the entirety of the day, more importantly, during the time of the murder,” she said, gesturing at Neptune. “There would have to be something wrong with me if I didn’t notice her sneaking off.

“Additionally, we have people who hate Midnight enough where they would consider admitting it purely for fame and notoriety,” Ruby continued. Neptune nodded vigorously.

“Certainly, the killer is an engineer. Black market standing is really just a stressful hobby at this point.” The market members nodded solemnly. 

“So–” Ruby pulled a chair from one of the tables and dragged it into the middle of the circle of workers. “–any engineers willing to go first?” They were met with silence, the engineers all simultaneously not making eye contact with anyone. 

“Great.” Ruby clapped her hands together. “Malachite, if you would.” Malachite got up from leaning on his table and sat comfortably on the island of a chair. 

“Did you do it?” Ruby asked quickly. 

“No.”

“Damn it,” Ruby muttered quietly. She looked around and was met with bewildered stares. 

“Sometimes that works, alright?” She stretched and began to pace around the chair. 

“Do you have any motive or reason to kill Midnight? General annoyance doesn’t count,” Ruby clarified. 

“If annoyance doesn’t count, then no.”

“Has anyone heard anything that would be considered motivation?” Ruby turned to the rest of the group, looking expectantly. People shook their heads and gave no response. 

“Did you use a wrench today?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you used a wrench?”

“Last week.”

“Are you short on money at all? Any reason to steal gold to melt down.”

“You know how much I get paid. It’s also not like bird watching is an expensive hobby.” 

“What do you do on your ‘vacations’?” Autumn asked with tangible skepticism in his voice. 

“Bird watching,” Malachite said as flatly as he had been responding previously. 

“Man has never watched a bird in his life,” Autumn whispered to Stone. 

“What kind of birds?” asked Ruby. 

“All of them. Mostly emus.”

“There's no emus anywhere around here,” said Autumn. 

“They're very elusive.” Malachite was beyond serious; his confidence was compelling enough for them to believe him. Or at least have them believe that Malachite thought there were emus anywhere in the Soviet Union. 

“Was there any point today where you were not with someone, or any part where you were alone?” Ruby continued, attempting to get the conversation back on track.

“No,” Malachite responded. She looked around and there were nodding heads, confirming that he had been with people all shift. 

“Were there any times where any of the other engineers were not within your line of sight?” 

“I wasn’t watching people as if they were going to kill someone. The only reason why I know Neptune wasn’t with us for some time was because you said she was with you. Any of them could have left for enough time and I wouldn’t have noticed. It’s not my job to helicopter-parent people, that’s yours.” Malachite tilted his head toward Ruby. She held an expression that agreed with his point. 

“Alright Malachite.” Ruby gestured that he was done, and she looked at Opal. Opal sat down. 

* * *

“Do you have any reason to kill Midnight,” Ruby asked, knowing that asking the question was fruitless. 

“No, of course not!” Opal responded genuinely. 

“Did you use a wrench today?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“This may seem insensitive, but why don’t you hate him?” Ruby asked. Everyone looked in anticipation for Opal’s answer, as it was something that most people wanted to ask but didn’t have the heart to. Opal looked away, expecting this question to come up eventually.

“Let me be clear, I don’t like him like that, alright? There was nothing between us in any way. I just thought he was a good leader, he followed government protocol well. I know he didn’t make some good decisions, but don’t we all make mistakes? Don’t we all have bad judgment sometimes?”

“Bad judgment doesn’t lead to hundreds of civilian illnesses and deaths,” Beige whispered to himself, his voice ragged from the pain. Neptune could only hear pieces of what he said, but she certainly heard the tone it was in. 

“I understand why people don’t like him,” Opal continued. “I’m not going to argue with others about their opinions, but it’s just really hard for me to hate people, I guess. Even if someone does horrible things, they’re still human, right?” Opal had been tearing up, but holding herself together. Ruby nodded and admired her mentality. 

“Thank you for telling us that, Opal. I really appreciate your honesty,” Ruby said. “Has there been any time today where you’ve been alone, or not seen one of the other engineers without someone?” Opal breathed deeply, regaining her composure.

“Not that I remember. Other than Beige going to the bathroom because he felt sick after it already happened, I don’t remember anything. But like Malachite said, I also wasn’t paying attention.” Opal felt inadequate being unable to remember such mundane, yet important details. Ruby thanked her for her cooperation and motioned Neptune to sit down next. 

“What do you do at the black market?” Ruby asked. Neptune inhaled and glared at Thistle. 

“Nothing more than him. Mostly low-stakes gambling and stuff. I’m mostly there for fun and to hang out with my girlfriends,” Neptune responded. 

“ ‘Girlfriends’ like fun gal pals, or ‘girlfriends’ like–” Ruby made a motion with their wrist. 

“ That one,” Neptune responded, referencing the second option. Ruby nodded in approval, impressed at the implications of the plural form. 

“Do you have any motive or reason to kill Midnight?” Ruby asked again. 

“No,” Neptune said. Ruby looked around again for any objections. There were none. 

“Was there any point where you were alone at work today?”

“We surveyed the tanks first thing and I’ve been with the group ever since.”

“Was there any point where you did not see any of the engineers after coming back from the tanks?”

“No, but again like both of them said, I wasn’t paying attention to that.”

“Do you have any need for money or gold?”

“I could get ten times the gold his tooth could offer for less effort than this interrogation has been.” Neptune sat back, reassured by her own statement. 

Stone remembered something and whispered to Atlantic to confirm. She nodded, her eyes widening in excitement. Stone went up to Ruby to ask her if she could go grab something with Stone and bring it back. Ruby’s eyebrows raised in satisfaction, and allowed the two women to leave. 

“Alright Neptune, you’re good,” Ruby said. Neptune got up and resumed leaning on Beige’s chair, comforting him and bringing him water when he asked. Beige started to get up from the chair that he had been sweating in, and Ruby motioned for him to stay seated and said to not overwork himself. He nodded in gratitude. “You’re not looking good, Beige,” Ruby said.

“I know,” he responded. 

“Do you need money or gold?”

“No.”

“Have you used a wrench today?”

“No,” Beige wiped away sweat from the corner of his mouth. 

“Was there any point where you were alone during the time of the murder?”

“No,” his mouth twitched, but he was too tired to put his hand up to cover his face. Ruby looked at the other engineers and they also felt at a loss for words, feeling guilty for not paying attention earlier.

“Were there any points that you didn’t see one of the other engineers during the time of the murder?”

“No.”

“Do you have any motive or reason to kill Midnight?”

“No.” One side of Beige’s mouth slightly curled back in disgust, adding a wrinkle to his nose. Neptune froze.  

She knew him well enough to know when he was lying. She knew him well enough to know that the corners of his mouth would subconsciously curl when he would lie. She had joked before that the truth was leaking out of him and he couldn’t hold it back. 

Even without knowing his tells, she knew he had a sufficient reason to kill Midnight. 

Midnight’s illegal nuclear waste dumping was enough of a reason. Beige’s mom dying from it was enough of a reason. He hadn’t talked much about it when it happened, it was mostly Neptune probing for answers and not realizing it was about his mother’s death. He had been asking how to get things from the black market, as what he was looking for wasn’t available in the government-owned stores. He had been looking for a coffin. 

“Oh God,” Neptune mouthed to herself silently. She remembered back weeks ago when the nuclear dumping initially happened she said something to Beige.

‘I wish someone could just deal with Midnight, y’know?’  

Neptune would’ve shuddered if she wasn’t frozen. She remembered the look in his eye when she said that to him, an abnormally attentive expression washed on his face. She thought at the time it was just a facial tic or something, as it had gone away almost immediately. 

* * *

Stone and Atlantic had come back holding a Geiger counter, looking triumphant. The rest of the group looked confused. 

“We remembered that gold and other soft metals absorb radiation a lot, so we can at least find the tooth with the Geiger counter,” Stone said. The other’s faces lit up with excitement, hopeful that some progress could be made. Atlantic swept the Geiger counter around the room, jokingly scanning some of the faculty members from time to time with the counter slowly maintaining soft clicks of background radiation. 

She got closer to the center of the room and swept over Malachite. 

Click. Click. Click.

She swept over Opal. 

Click. Click. Click.

She swept over Neptune, who had been leaning against Beige.

Click. Click. Click. 

Neptune looked up in surprise and took a step back while Atlantic continued to follow the counter. She scanned Neptune but it lessened in frequency. 

She swept over Beige, who was laboriously leaning back in his chair.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

The room was silent save the Geiger counter’s screaming. People stepped back from Beige, even if they were already across the room from him. Atlantic was awkwardly holding the Geiger counter far in front of herself, trying to get her main body away from the source. It didn’t seem to be coming from just one part either, all of Beige was setting off the counter. 

“He’s radioactive! That means he’s an alien!” Autumn screamed, attempting to shield himself behind a metal desk. 

“He’s radioactive because we work in a fucking nuclear power plant.” Ruby turned to Autumn in disbelief, her tension dropping for a moment due to his appalling statement. 

“Beige, empty your pockets and take off any metal you’re wearing,” Ruby said. Beige was mildly delirious from the sickness, and had just clocked in mentally for the first time in a while. 

“If you say so,” he said, unbuckling his belt. 

“This is not that kind of moment, Beige,” Ruby said in response. 

“Oh.” Beige removed his belt unceremoniously and patted his pockets, taking out his commonly carried items like keys, wallet, and his watch. Atlantic scanned those items, and while they still clicked far more than they should have, when she scanned Beige after, he was still clicking more than the other objects. 

“Are you sure you’ve taken everything out of your pockets?” Ruby asked. Before Beige could answer, Atlantic lunged a bit more forward. His right front pocket was clicking more than his left. He looked up at Ruby. 

* * *

“Alright…” He pulled a small, dull object out of his pocket; the Geiger counter was practically screaming at the golden tooth. 

“Oh yeah, dude. You’re fucked,” Atlantic stated, referencing the radiation. Beige could only nod in response. 

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Ruby asked, looking at the object in his hand. 

“Well,” Beige said, slumping back in his chair, too tired and nauseous to really give up any fight. “The dude stinks. So I gave him a bath.” The group sat in silence, too shocked by his blunt response to say anything. Neptune was the first to speak.

“I could have helped you.” She was heartbroken, almost betrayed. She didn’t want one of her closest friends being sent off to prison for an arguably good act. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you get out of here, or gotten rid of the tooth, or at least helped decontaminate. I’m sure most of the people here would’ve helped you, to be honest.” Her face was red; she was too frustrated to cry. “But why didn’t you tell me? Why did you do it by yourself?”

“I did it for my mom. Not for me.” Beige was at peace, both with his actions and with his belief that he was going to die from the exposure. There was another long silence. 

“How did you do it?” Ruby asked. Beige breathed in deeply, cocking his head to the side.

“I mean, the guy’s not very big, is he? I’m sure any of us here could do it easily, maybe not you Autumn, but most of us without too much trouble,” Beige protested. Autumn wanted to speak out, but realized that Beige was right. 

“I really just wanted to talk with him, that's all. I said ‘hey, you kinda killed my mom and hurt a bunch of people with the whole nuclear dumping thing, could you, like, apologize, or at least acknowledge it?’ and he just dismissed me and continued surveying. I don’t think he ever realized he wasn’t immortal in his whole life until he was over the railing.

“I’m honestly not surprised that Opal and Malachite didn’t realize I was gone. I was only gone for like five or ten minutes but both of you were zoned in this morning with engineering stuff. I probably could have taken longer to go through decontamination and you still wouldn't have noticed,” Beige said. Opal looked appalled but Malachite only nodded his head. 

“So you weren’t poisoned?” Carnation asked. 

“I mean I’ve got radiation poisoning, absolutely, but that was my fault. No one actively poisoned me,” he said. The rest of the group slightly relaxed from that. 

“I’ve got nothing against you guys, don’t worry. I’m not on a murder spree right now. Unless you can find a way to kill my mom again, I think you’ll all be fine,” Beige stated.

“Does that mean we’re done now? Can we go?” Opal asked Ruby desperately, still worried about the levels in the water treatment tank from earlier. Ruby had barely got out an affirmative statement when Opal was already out the door. 

And good thing she did it. 

Opal was right about the levels being high, as the Mayak plant exploded at 4:22pm, Sunday, September 29, 1957. 

* * *

The government of the Soviet Union neglected to acknowledge that the plant had exploded, let alone the extent of the damage, until 1989, and even then officials downplayed the situation. Roughly nine thousand square miles of land, more than ten thousand evacuees, and generations worth of radiation-related health effects were purposefully left unrecognized until a whole thirty two years later. Once revealed, the Atomic Energy Agency classified the Mayak disaster at a Level 6 accident, which put it as the third worst radioactive contamination event ever, preceded by Chernobyl and Fukushima. It took a full week for the local government to begin evacuating over ten thousand people, still without giving an explanation for the evacuations. Roughly 2,000 people were evacuated almost two years after the event. 

Britannica’s entry for the Kyshtym disaster states: “It was eventually revealed that the Kyshtym disaster was a consequence of the failure to repair a malfunctioning cooling system in a buried tank where liquid reactor waste was stored. For more than a year the tank’s contents grew steadily hotter from radioactive decay, reaching a temperature of about 660 °F (350 °C) by September 29, 1957, when the tank exploded with a force equivalent to at least 70 tons of TNT. The nonnuclear explosion blew off the tank’s one-metre-thick concrete lid and sent a plume of radioactive fallout, including large quantities of long-lasting cesium-137 and strontium-90, into the air.”

Wikipedia’s entry for the Kyshtym disaster states: “The workers at Ozyorsk and the Mayak plant did not immediately notice the polluted streets, canteens, shops, schools, and kindergartens. In the first hours after the explosion, radioactive substances were brought into the city on the wheels of cars and buses, as well as on the clothes and shoes of industrial workers. The land area exposed to radioactive contamination was termed the "East Ural Radioactive Trace". Fields, pastures, reservoirs, and forests in the area were polluted and rendered unsuitable for further use.” 

After the 1957 accident, the plant stopped dumping its nuclear waste in the Techa river, and dumped it in shallow lakes near the plant instead. Lake Karachay is still the highest contaminated place on Earth to date, where 4.4 exabecquerels of waste was dumped into the shallow 110 acre lake over the course of the plant’s dumping history. 4.4 exabecquerels of radiation is about 4 quintillion becquerels, or 10 billion curies of radiation. For reference, the Chernobyl disaster released over 5 exabecquerels of radiation.

The CIA learned about the 1957 Mayak accident two years after the explosion, but kept it secret to prevent consequences for the American nuclear industry.

The modern day level of radiation in Ozyorsk is allegedly safe, but a 2002 study showed the Mayak nuclear workers and the riverside population are still affected.

* * *

Diana Carnation devoted the rest of her life to healing and assisting those affected by the Mayak event, and went back to the Mayak plant itself less and less. The Ed Gein murders in November of that year exponentially developed the field of anthropology and Carnation leaned more toward pursuing anthropology than emergency medical care. 

Elvira Ruby continued working in management for other high-clearance Soviet programs. Their managerial work was highly praised for its efficiency and the high morale of their workers. They dedicated more time to appreciating and visiting art museums, and opening up their worldview to other perspectives.

Aleksy Autumn discontinued their work as a Soviet physician, and delved deeper into conspiracies, theories, and the like. They contributed a non-inconsiderable amount to Soviet Intelligence agencies when they retired and passed, as the government had been keeping an eye on them (and eventually did a full investigation of their house) since their first theory was posed at the Mayak plant. 

Fyodor Ochre dedicated the rest of their life to medically assisting those that were affected by the radiation. Their work in emergency care inspired many, and influenced both their patients and their patients' loved ones to live life to the fullest. They didn't save the world by any means, but they were an essential light in many people's lives when they needed it most. 

Nikolai Malachite discontinued their work at the Mayak plant and moved closer to wherever they were traveling to all these years. They live a far more fulfilled and comfortable life. 

Yelena Neptune was not punished or reprimanded for their black market excursions, as the facility had worse things to deal with, and Neptune wasn’t doing anything that the upper-management weren’t already doing behind closed doors. Neptune left their job anyways, and continued to go to the black market as it was more fulfilling and mentally stimulating compared to the rest of the world. They found close friends there and traveled with them frequently. 

Gregor Thistle was reprimanded and fired from the Mayak facility for his black market associations and use of cronyism, but was able to evade jail time on a few technicalities (with the help of some of his close contacts.) Thistle continued to be involved with the black market (at a further distance than before). 

Anastasia Stone had a warrant out for their alleged crime of “Speculation”, which is “defined as any form of private trade with intent to make profit… a crime per article 154 of the Penal Code of USSR.” They have been unable to be found by Soviet police forces to be tried and convicted for their alleged crimes. Stone enjoyed the tropics of Cuba for the rest of their life. 

Bazel Beige was [hospitalized for weeks after], after recovery he was found and tried of murder later that year. They were sentenced to fifteen years and sent to a labor camp. After half of their sentence was finished they were granted parole for good behavior, and haven’t committed any other crime since. They are fully accountable for what they did, but hold no remorse. 

Demyan Midnight’s actions were not held accountable, and neither were the actions of any of the other board members who allowed the dumping of the waste in that way. After the 1957 accident, dumping in the Techa River officially ceased, but the waste material was left in shallow lakes near the plant instead, and are currently cited as still being the most radioactively contaminated bodies of water to date. 

Sasha Atlantic discontinued their work in physics and followed their passion in herpetology. They found a wonderful museum and research center to work at, and they give tours and organize panels for citizens and students to learn more about the world. 

Daria Opal discontinued their work at the Mayak plant and sought work for the Soviet Space program. Opal did not work on Sputnik 1, which launched a few days after the Mayak explosion on October 4th, but they did tremendous work on the following projects.