The air smelled of salt, old metal, and forgotten things. Somewhere above them, the rain was gnawing at the roof like a patient predator, every drop echoing through the rusted piping like bones knocked together in the dark. You had kicked your boots off hours ago. They sat beneath the console, drying unevenly. Your socks were damp. So was the hem of your shirt. But Henry hadn’t said a word about it—he never did when you got hyper-focused like this. He just brought you tea and stared at screens until you blinked back to yourself.

He was sitting on the other side of the ancient terminal, the flickering green interface casting low shadows across his cheekbones. His fingers moved slowly across the keys, careful but precise—like everything he did, from patching up torn data strings to brushing the hair behind your ear before you fell asleep in camp.

“We should’ve never found this,” he said quietly, his voice barely above the static hum of the generator outside. “This strand wasn’t on any of the known genomic logs. Not Hammond’s. Not Wu’s. Not even the clandestine ones.”

You leaned forward, elbows digging into the edge of the desk, eyes darting across the genome map forming in front of you. A stretch of nucleotides repeating in deliberate rhythm, like a song someone had spliced into the DNA. Elegant. Intentional. Wrong.

“Someone built this. And it wasn’t just for show,” you murmured, tapping the space bar with the side of your hand. “It’s a regulatory loop—tied to neural development. This… Henry, this is brain engineering. Behavioral conditioning.”

His face shifted—like a glass window catching light the wrong way. Not fear. Not yet. But something colder: understanding. He stood, slowly. Crossed the room with the cautious grace of a man who knew what kind of predators might be listening, even in an empty lab. And when he reached you, he didn’t say anything. Just bent forward, placed one hand beside yours on the desk, and stared at the screen with you.

“They were making something obedient,” you whispered. “Not just smart. Not just powerful. Controlled.”

Outside, something groaned in the trees. Not the wind. Something older. You turned your head. Henry was close—close enough you could see the faint nick along his collarbone from last week’s field run, where a baby raptor had slashed him through his vest. He still hadn’t let you clean it properly. He never did when it hurt too much; he liked to act as if pain made him sharper. But you knew better.

“You know what this means,” he said, low. “If Zora finds out we cracked this code—”

“She’ll use it.”

He nodded. “Or sell it.”

Silence hung between you. The screen buzzed softly behind you both, still analyzing. A slow spin of truth you hadn’t asked for. You reached for the laptop lid, hand trembling slightly. Henry caught your wrist—not to stop you, but to steady it. His thumb traced the bone there, and his voice softened. “We could walk away. Say nothing. Burn the sample.”

You met his eyes. They were always kindest when he was worried. That soft panic behind his logic. The way his fear turned him tender. “And live with ourselves?” you asked.

He smiled, barely. “No. But we’d live.”

You stared at him, your Henry. With his stupid too-big field jacket and the smudged glasses he refused to replace. The man who hated confrontation but had once stood between you and a charging herbivore with nothing but a shovel and a snarl. The man who still wrote you notes on field napkins. Who called you professor whenever you got things right.

“I’m not walking away,” you said, voice steady now. “But I’m not letting you do this alone either.”

He let out a long breath—half relief, half dread. You closed the laptop together, fingers brushing. He didn’t pull away. “Guess we’re whistleblowers now,” he muttered with that sideways smirk you adored. “Sexy.”