He gulped.
He'd failed catastrophically and now Morrith's cubicle loomed ahead.
Greg could see his supervisor over the partition, bent over paperwork. Maybe he could just... not. Maybe he could go to his own desk, bury the file, and pretend thishad never happened. Maybe no one would notice. Maybe?—
“Greg.”
Morrith hadn't looked up.
“How did you know I was back?”
“You’re the only reaper in here who’s ever hyperventilated.” A pause. “What did you do?”
Greg approached the cubicle entrance. His mouth was very dry. “Something went wrong.”
Morrith finally looked up. His expression was the same as always—tired, weathered, expecting disappointment—but there was a flicker of something else. Concern, maybe. Or dread.
“Tell me.”
“The collection didn't... happen.”
Morrith waited for him to elaborate.
“The subject survived.”
Morrith blinked. That was more reaction than Greg had ever seen from him.
“The subject,” Morrith repeated slowly, “survived.”
“Yes.”
“The easy job I gave you.”
Greg felt himself shrinking. “Yes.”
Morrith set his pen down. He leaned back in his chair. The chair creaked in a way that suggested it, too, was tired of everything.
“Explain.”
“He's a BASE jumper. He jumped off a cliff. I thought that would be the cause of death.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“But it wasn’t! He landed perfectly. It was actually kind of impressive, the way herolled and?—”
“Greg.”
“Right. Sorry.” Greg clutched his clipboard. “There was this... this duck.”
Morrith stared at him.
“A mascot,” Greg continued, speaking faster now. “A giant inflatable duck with sunglasses. It was twenty feet tall. Very... very imposing. The anchor lines failed and it collapsed on him right as the window was closing.”
“A duck,” Morrith said.
“An inflatable duck,” Greg pointed out. Accuracy was important in their line of work.
“And this inflatable duck was supposed to kill him.”
