From the Deep

Apology

"I feel like I need to make an apology to the team," said Ian.

It was two weeks later, and Ian was adressing everyone. He had gathered them all together in the staff room, even the intern, and now they were all perched on various chairs and countertops as he stood in the empty space near the doorway and made his speech. 

"I realize that my conduct as of late has been... unnecessary. Unfair. Yes. I haven't been as respectful of all of you as I needed to be, and that is what I am apologizing for."

People were nodding. That was painful for Ian to see, but he pressed on.

"And I owe you an explanation."

He tried not to meet Monica's eyes as her nodding sped up.

"I haven't been myself lately, as I'm sure you've all noticed. The reason for that is simply that I've had a lot weighing on my mind. I had ethical questions that I didn't know how to answer. I could barely face them myself, and so you must understand why I didn't feel able to bring them up with any of you."

"Are you bringing them up now?" said Charles.

"Yes," said Ian.

"Good," said Sara, who was particularly eager to discuss "ethical questions" concerning the deletion of important video footage. 

Ian clasped his hands behind his back and fought an urge to pace; that was a habit only when he was really nervous, and the team knew it. "My doubts are all, of course, about Andersen. You see, I just don't know if we're treating her right."

"How do you think we should be treating her?" asked Nigel, surprised.

"That's the thing," said Ian, "I don't know." He brought his hands back to the front and rubbed them together nervously. "I've have a feeling for quite a while now that Andersen deserves more. That, somehow, it isn't right for her to be closed up in such a small space as this, with all of us staring at her every hour of every day. That, Sara," he added, "is why I didn't really like the idea of the twenty - four - seven live footage. I feel that Andersen does deserve some privacy."

"Fine," said Sara curtly. "I get it. You could have just said."

"I know," said Ian, "and I'm sorry."

"Ian --" said Nigel, shaking his head. "Ian -- I just don't get it, I'm sorry -- are you saying we shouldn't be studying Andersen at all?"

"No." Ian shifted uncomfortably. "No, I'm not trying to say that at all."

"Because I understand how you might see it as being unfortunate that we have to put Andersen in a cage. Yes, it would be very nice if we could let her out in the ocean and watch over her there as she goes swimming off into the sunset all free and happy. But we couldn't. We'd lose her. We couldn't watch her, couldn't learn about her. You know this."

"I do," said Ian, "and I'm not arguing."

"Then why are you bringing this up at all?"

"Because these are the same questions that I was asking myself for so long, and as you can see, they are so hard to answer ethically. I know what we need to do, Nigel. But sometimes... sometimes it feels difficult to do it."

"All right then, Ian," said Monica. "What is it that you want us to do?"

Ian was finally forced to meet her gaze. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "I don't know. I was hoping one of you could tell me."

The room was silent for a moment, as everybody looked uncomfortably at the ground and faced the fact that, as annoyed as they were with Ian, none of them could to any better.

"Then we'll just have to keep going on the way we've been doing things," said Monica. "If there's nothing we can change. And of course we'll think about Andersen -- of course we'll keep on worrying about her health and safety and well being. No filming her for the world to see. No outside eyes. She trusts us -- she told us so herself -- and so we'll justify that trust."

"That sounds good," said the intern.

Ian nodded.

It wasn't the complete ethical overhaul he had secretly been hoping for.

But to get that he would have to tell them about Andersen having a soul, and he was never ever going to do that.