Breathing Counts as Excellent

For eight hundred years, the monsters beneath the Bureau had stayed behind their bars.

Management credited the locks.

The guards credited the wards.

I credited regular meals and a sunny place to sleep.

Then a new deputy director decided the entrance didn't need a rabbit, and I decided retirement sounded pleasant.

It took one night for the emergency alarms to begin.

But when Lucien Fox first stood over my cushion, all he saw was a small white creature doing nothing of measurable value.

He stared at me for ten minutes before asking what I was.

I would have introduced myself sooner, but he was standing in my sunlight.

"What is that thing doing by the door?"

Rowan Crane, our head of personnel, followed his gaze. Then he crouched beside my cushion and scratched between my ears.

"That's Pip. Our gatekeeper."

"It's a rabbit."

"She's a rabbit," Rowan corrected gently. "And she's been here a very long time."

I opened one eye. The deputy director wore a silver suit, polished shoes, and the expression people got when they had recently learned the word efficiency.

Fox shifter. Young, by my standards. Old enough to know better, by anyone else's.

"How long?"

"Eight hundred years."

Lucien Fox looked from Rowan to me.

"This Bureau receives millions in funding, and we're paying a rabbit to sleep at the entrance?"

I closed my eye again.

It was an excellent entrance. South facing. Sheltered from rain. Near enough to the kitchen that I could smell lunch before Martha announced it.

I had guarded it through six rebuilds, three plumbing disasters, and the brief, unhappy period when management decided employees needed motivational posters.

The posters had gone. I hadn't.

Director Aldric Voss had always considered that satisfactory.

Unfortunately, Aldric was currently sealed inside a mountain, shedding a layer of dragon scales and growing a new one. He called it a restorative retreat. Seth called it the world's longest spa appointment.

Whatever it was, it had left Lucien in charge.

"We'll review this arrangement," Lucien said.

He walked inside.

Rowan's hand paused on my head.

"Don't worry about him. He's settling in."

"He's settled on my sunlight."

Rowan laughed, although not quite as much as usual.

I rolled onto my other side.

There were worse jobs.

My salary wasn't impressive, but meals and accommodation were included. The pension was dependable. The medical coverage had recently been expanded to include molting, misplaced limbs, and accidental possession.

I had never needed it, but I appreciated the thought.

More importantly, my colleagues were nice.

Martha saved the largest chicken leg for me every lunch. When winter came, Seth tucked disposable heating pads under my cushion and pretended he hadn't.

Bram from finance complained about every expense, including the cost of staples, but on holidays he slid a paper bag of nuts beside my paws.

"Don't tell anybody," he always whispered.

As though I had been planning a press conference.

That afternoon, Rowan returned carrying a thick blue binder.

I knew it meant trouble. Nobody brought a binder to a rabbit because they wanted to share good news.

"Pip? Can you wake up for a moment?"

"I am awake."

"Both eyes, please."

I obliged.

He knelt, set the binder on the paving stones, and opened it with the care of someone handling a dangerous animal.

"Deputy Director Fox is introducing standardized performance reviews."

"For whom?"

"Everyone. Including gatekeeping staff."

"We didn't have those before."

Rowan glanced toward the building.

"Technically, we did."

I sat up.

"Then why haven't I seen one?"

He hesitated before drawing a yellowed sheet from the binder.

"The director always signed yours himself."

My name was at the top. Under duties, someone had written Entrance Security. Under evaluation, in Aldric's unmistakable handwriting, was a single sentence.

Still breathing. Excellent.

I stared at it.

Rowan produced another sheet. And another.

The paper changed. The ink changed. At one point the reviews had been written on parchment.

The evaluation never did.

"That explains the employee awards," I said.

"You have a very consistent record."

"Eight hundred years of outstanding breathing."

Rowan pressed his lips together. His shoulders shook.

Then he showed me the new rules.

No sleeping during scheduled hours. Eight complete patrols per day. A weekly report of eight thousand words. Individual incident documentation. Mandatory professional development.

"What's professional development?"

"A training course."

"In breathing?"

"Please don't say that in the meeting."

I read the rest. It wasn't difficult, exactly. Just long.

"All right. Where's the patrol form?"

Rowan blinked.

"You'll do it?"

"I'd like lunch tomorrow."

He handed me a clipboard small enough to carry in my mouth.

The Bureau had eighteen underground floors. The first nine held comparatively manageable residents: young shifters who had bitten somebody, cursed creatures waiting for treatment, and one water spirit who kept flooding public fountains whenever her boyfriend disappointed her.

I hadn't visited in a while.

On the first floor, three little goblins crowded their bars.

"Pip!"

"Are you working downstairs now?"

"I've got sunflower seeds. Do you want some?"

"No eating the shells this time," I told the smallest one.

He hid something behind his back.

I marked the first floor satisfactory.

The second-floor kelpie complained about his bath temperature. Maintenance had already logged it. The third-floor nurse asked whether I wanted my claws checked.

By the ninth floor, my clipboard had acquired a biscuit, two candy wrappers, and a request for a replacement kettle.

At the stairs leading to the lower levels, a duty officer stepped in front of me.

"Sorry, Pip. You can't go down there."

"I'm doing a patrol."

"Restricted access. The residents below ten are classified severe risk."

He looked at my ears with obvious concern.

"Some of them eat small animals."

"A great many animals do."

"Please don't make me explain to Rowan that something happened to you."

That was fair. Rowan already had enough forms.

I set the clipboard on the railing and cleared my throat.

"Everybody still alive down there?"

The answer came up the stairwell immediately.

"Yes!"

Many voices. Different sizes. Excellent coordination.

The officer straightened.

"Anybody planning to escape?"

"No!"

"Any fighting today?"

"No!"

I waited.

"Any other problems?"

Silence.

Then a careful voice said, "The pipe outside Cell Sixteen is leaking."

"Which pipe?"

"Cold water. Only a little. We put a bucket underneath."

"Fine. I'll tell maintenance."

I made a note and collected my clipboard.

The officer stared into the stairwell.

"They usually don't answer us."

From somewhere below, a chain scraped against stone.

Then it stopped, so abruptly that the silence seemed deliberate.

"Perhaps you ask too many questions," I said.

The officer looked down at my clipboard. His gaze rested on the biscuit balanced beside the inspection sheet.

"Should I log this?"

"The pipe? Yes."

"I meant the response."

I thought about Rowan having to design another form.

"Only if it happens again."

Back upstairs, I delivered the biscuit to Martha and the report to Lucien.

He held the single sheet between two fingers.

"This is your complete patrol?"

"Yes. The cold-water pipe needs fixing."

He turned the paper over, as though the missing eight thousand words might be on the back.

"You didn't enter the restricted floors."

"The officer wouldn't let me."

"So you stopped?"

"I checked from the stairs."

"By shouting?"

"They answered."

Lucien leaned forward.

"What if they lied?"

I considered that.

"They didn't."

He uncapped a red pen.

Across my report he wrote UNSATISFACTORY in letters large enough to frighten a junior clerk.

Then he circled my name.

"Tomorrow morning. My office. We need to discuss whether this position still serves a purpose."

I looked at the red ink, then at the window.

My patch of sunlight was almost gone.

That, at least, was a measurable loss.