"And she decides what the scores mean."
"Her team interprets. The Panel decides." He pauses. "In practice, the Panel follows her recommendations about ninety percent of the time."
Ninety percent. So Ashworth's interpretation of my bubbles is effectively the verdict.
"Finish the assessment," Cal says. Gentler now. "Answer honestly. Don't try to game it — they've seen every version of gamed answers and it reads worse than the truth."
I go back to the bubbles. Cal goes back to grading. But the room is different now.
Somewhere a woman with a hard face and a webcam is building a framework around me. And the framework is made of numbers, not stories.
Numbers don't know everything.
I fill in the last bubble. Set the pencil down.
"Done." Even on stupid behavior surveys I want to be the first one done and race myself to the end.
Cal takes the forms. Flips through them. He won't interpret them, but he reads them — I can see his eyes moving, taking in my answers the way a teacher reads an essay they can't grade but can't stop caring about.
He looks up. Something in his face that I can't name. Sadness, maybe. Or recognition.
"Alex. Whatever her team says, whatever the Panel does with it — " He stops. Starts again. "The assessments measure what you do. They don't measure what you are."
He says it like it matters. Like he's been telling himself that.
"Have you ever seen a mark on someone’s wrist?"
He stares at my wrist. The pen behind his ear falls. He doesn't notice.
"Yes," he says. Quiet.
"Where, who?"
He picks up the pen. Sets it on the desk instead of behind his ear. A man putting his tools down.
"Bonded mates," he starts. "Among shifters. Marks appear when a bond is —" He hesitates. Chooses his word carefully. "Settling in."
He looks at my wrist. At me.
Sven appears in the doorway. Time's up.
I pull my sleeve down. Stand.
"Cal."
He looks up.
"Thank you. For telling me what you were."
Something moves in his face. The same something I saw in Sven's one-second softening. The cost of caring in a building designed to contain.
"Come back tomorrow for the extended battery," he says. "I'll have coffee."
Chapter eleven
Leo finds me in the yard.
Not the common room — Sven's new protocol keeps me out of enclosed spaces with other residents. But the yard is supervised, daylight, open air, and apparently whatever risk algorithm they're running decided that outdoor proximity is manageable if there's a staff member within arm's reach.
