Chapter Text
There is a common misconception that Littles do not do well in STEM fields. After all, only a small fraction of STEM majors are Littles–they are mostly made up of Caregivers followed by Neutrals.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that the nature of scientific progress requires vigorous concentration and study, something that Littles aren’t generally wired for.
Grace thinks the evolutionary psychology perspective is a bunch of nonsense. What STEM Littles lack in access and representation, they make up for in curiosity and the ability to look at predetermined rules and break them.
Which is why for the first time in his life, Grace is not the only Little at work. The Vat isn’t brimming with Littles, but there are enough of them to feel a baseline camaraderie—they weren’t Littles who had to fight for a seat at the table (technically most of them were kidnapped, but Grace wasn’t keeping count), waiting for someone to kick them out if any of them so much as breathed wrongly.
On the Vat, who you are didn’t matter—classification, nationality, religion, gender—all that mattered was that you could do the science that needed to be done.
Which is what Grace was struggling with at the moment. He still had another 2 hours before needing to check the results of the cell cultures. He was slouched over desk, his eyes burning slightly as he scanned the latest reports from the coma team. He pulls his sleeve over his wrist, using the soft fabric to rub his eyes. His stomach twists weirdly, and his shoulders are starting to hurt. He takes a shaky breath, looking around the room for anyone watching but there was no one else around. He vaguely remembers one of the assistants from another lab talking about lunch, but he waved them off. He reaches over to desk to grab a plastic container from his bag and crosses his ankle over his knee.
Grace rolls down his sock, revealing a small white patch on his achilles tendon. He takes a similar one from the plastic container, this time applying it to the ball of the joint before rolling his sock back up.
The sick bay provided free Little suppressant patches in the communal bin alongside toothpaste, birth control, menstrual products, and condoms. The name brand stuff they have is good if you need to stay big for special occasions; calculating the amount of nutrients needed for a four year coma, experimenting with the combustive powers of astrophage, designing a spacecraft to send messages back to earth–all regular activities of the Littles aboard the Vat. But with a year and a half to launch, regular patches are not enough.
It’s almost laughably easy how the Littles on the Vat have managed to stretch the limits of the effects of the patch suppressors. It's the equivalent of a tired undergrad student mixing six energy drinks into a flask to pull an all nighter for an exam. It's not recommended, but every Little who has made it this far has done something like that before–grad school isn’t a kind place for Littles.
Hatch’s department survives on caffeine pills so Hatch grabbing a box from their shared pantry locker isn’t an issue, while Dr Saylee, the experimental biologist from Dr Lamai’s team can grab a few boxes of regular Little patch suppressants when she works late nights. It takes less than 20 minutes for Grace to combine the two into a Frankenstein suppressor–the caffeine binds with the suppressant hormonal gel, increasing the body’s cortisol output which keeps a tired Little in fight or flight effectively making them stay ‘big’ for longer periods of time. Hatch and Saylee then share it with other Littles from various departments. Drastic measures for drastic times, there is nothing quite like the end of the world.
“Dr Grace?”
Grace flinches before composing his posture again. Xiao Ling, one of the lab assistants, bless her heart, says nothing of it and approaches him with a clipboard in her hand. “Do you have a moment?”
“Uh, yes,” Grace answers lamely, blinking at the harsh lights above them.
Xiao Ling hands him the clipboard. “The numbers from this morning, it’s lower than we expected.”
Ryland furrows his brows and scans the numbers. The numbers are lower than where they would like it to be by a small margin, but lower nonetheless. If the astrophage breeding numbers aren’t doing as well as they should be, they won’t be able to make enough for the launch. If they can’t make enough for the launch, the astronauts won’t be able to reach Tau Ceti. If they can’t reach Tau Ceti, then they can’t learn why astrophage is different there. If they can’t study it and send the results back to Earth, then everyone will die. Humanity will be lost. Everyone will freeze. His students will di–
“Dr Grace?” Xiao Ling, right there is someone else here.
He tries to answer her but his body can’t move, he can’t think.
“Dr Grace, are you alright?”
“I–I can, I don’t,” he manages to stammer out, his tongue uncooperative.
The words are stuck in his throat, he can’t breathe. His hands start shaking and tears fill his eyes. She touches his shoulder and Grace flinches from the touch, gasping for air. The lights above him were too bright. Everything was too too too too too too much.
“Okay Dr Grace,” Xiao Ling said, but Grace could hear the panic in her voice. “I’ll um, I’ll call for help, stay here. Don’t move, hǎo de?”
Grace presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to push the tears back in. He can vaguely hear Xiao Ling somewhere behind him, talking in Mandarin into the landline. He tries to pull his knees closer to him but the lab chair is too small, and his shoes keep slipping back onto the ground. He lets out a whimper when his knee bumps the metal edge, his mind too frayed to do anything else.
He has completely messed this up. Stratt is going to send him on the next jet back to San Francisco. A Little who couldn’t control themselves was a liability. His lack of control got him kicked out of places that mattered–his aunt’s house, his first student-teacher placement, the conference in Denmark. And now it would be the Taskforce. He needed to do this, to do his part to keep his students safe. Who was he fooling? He was nothing but a—
“Dr Grace,” a soft voice says and Grace lets out a whine. Without even removing his hands from his eyes he knows who that is.
Stratt puts a hand on his shoulder, crouching so she can probably look at him face to face.
“Dr Grace, I need you to come with me.”
Grace shakes his head and then winces from the motion. He can’t afford to go with Stratt right now. He has at least 10 more technical reports to get through and 3 science communication ones. His cultures are still on a timer.
“And why is that?” she asks, her voice still a steady calm.
He can’t make out the words so he just points to the sample fridge with a shaky hand.
“Do you have experiments right now?”
“Y-yeah,” he manages to stammer out.
“Dr Liu, can you manage the experiment for today? I will send someone from the other lab to assist you.”
“Yes, I can collect the results, Director Stratt. No need to find an assistant, Arissa should be back from lunch in 10 minutes.”
“See, Dr Grace, all is settled,” Stratt says gently. “We can go get lunch too.”
“No,” he tries to argue but he just sounds like a whiny child instead. It takes everything in him not to stomp his foot. Instead he removes his hands to stare at Stratt. She still has her overcoat on, probably just landed from one of her meetings. Behind her, Carl stands stoically, raising an eyebrow at him.
Stratt looks at him like she is dissecting a bug before slowly reaching out to him. She places a gentle hand on Grace’s forehead and he freezes. He knows she is a Caregiver, it was one of the first few personal things Grace learnt about her. But he has never really her act on her classification in person. It was like watching an endangered bird in the wild. Her hand is cold, and Grace can’t help but lean into it, letting it soothe his growing headache.
“You have a fever,” she concludes. “We’ll go to the drop zone in the sick bay, and you can–”
Grace shakes his head vehemently. “No–no drop zone, please, no–”
For all intents and purposes, it was a good place. There were enough Caregivers around the sick bay to keep an eye on any dropped Littles. The bedding there was softer than anywhere else on the Vat. There were enough toys and coloring books to keep anyone entertained for hours. But Grace hated it. He hated the overhead lights. How people could just walk in and see him there. If he was an older Little, he might love it—Steve didn’t really have an issue with the whole set up. In the few times Grace has dropped on the Vat in the last year or so was always alone in his room where he could cry and blubber without any spectators.
And now he has at least three—his lab assistant, his boss, and her bodyguard. What a nightmare.
“Okay, okay,” she assures him gently. “No sick bay. But we still need to get out of the lab, okay?”
In the end, she’s the boss, if she says go then Grace does.
He manages to stand on wobbly feet, leaning against the table for support. Carl already has Grace’s bag on his shoulder which is a little rude if you were to ask him.
Grace can’t bear to look at Xiao Ling as they exit—its the least he can do to protect whatever is left of his dignity.
In the hallway, he reaches a hand to grab his bag from Carl but the bodyguard just holds his hand instead. Grace pulls back as if he had been burnt. “No, want bag Carl.”
“You can get it later,” Carl says.
“No, no,” Grace stammers. Tears fill his eyes and he can feel his lips wobbling. Stupid Little hormones.
“Dr Grace,” Stratt chides gently. “You will get your bag later. It is not going anywhere else.” She holds out a hand to him., motioning down the hall. “Come, let’s go.”
Grace stares at the open palm as if it were an alien. He shakes his head and points down the opposite end of the hallway. “My-my room is that way. I take my bag and go sleep–”
“You are dropping,” Stratt says plainly, cutting him off. “You do not want to go to the drop zone in the sick bay, so we will go somewhere private where you will be comfortable, but you cannot be alone. Your room is not big enough for more than one person. You will hold either my hand or Carl's and walk, or Carl can carry you. Your choice.”
Grace’s face flushes with heat. “I walk myself…”
Stratt shakes her head. “You are delaying now
and will try to delay while we walk. If you cannot choose, I will help you choose.”
Sighing in defeat, Grace reaches for Carl’s hand, not wanting to look at Stratt.
“Good,” she says, and something uncurls in Grace’s lungs. “Let’s go.”
Carl’s hand is much bigger than his, it almost envelops the whole thing. Thankfully, Carl takes smaller steps—Grace’s admittedly shaky steps aren’t as quick as he would like. If Grace times it right, it would probably look like he’s just walking beside Carl rather than being escorted around like a child.
He’s really messed it up this time. He should be working on the slowing numbers Xiao Ling showed him instead of whatever humiliation trial this was. Stratt walked briskly ahead of them, twisting and turning further into the bowels of the helicarrier. The fluorescent lights make his thoughts become harder to hold on to, slipping like water between his fingers. He brings up his free arm and swipes across his eyes—the sweater catching the tears and snot that leaks out against his will.
His feet stop abruptly, no longer cooperating. Carl tugs on his hand before stopping as well. Something in his lungs stutters and shakes as he gasps out loud, trying to take in more air. A smaller hand is on his shoulder, another in his hair. Carl is still holding on as if trying to tether Grace back down to Earth.
Words are spoken at him and above him as Grace tries to blink the fuzziness out of his mind. Suddenly, arms are around him as Carl picks him up, putting his head against the larger man’s shoulder. Grace’s arms hung limply as his side as the growing pit in his stomach grows with the realization that he’s dropping dropping.
He sobs something ugly into Carl’s shoulder—a combination between a plea to let him down, an apology for ruining his jacket, and something smaller than Grace doesn’t quite know. A warm hand runs up and down his back as Carl walks faster.
Grace presses his eyes against the rough texture of Carl’s jacket to hide from the lights. He takes one last shaking breath before his whole world turns sideways and he drops like a stone.