Depth

TWELVE

LINNEA HAD BEEN TORTURED before she was killed and deposited in Simone’s waiting room. Simone did a quick search of the office and her apartment. There was no one else there—just Linnea’s body, wrapped in her coat, topped with a hat and veil. The coat hung open, and under it she was naked, with cuts and bruises on her face and stomach, a few puncture marks in her arm, and several red cigarette burns crawling up her leg to a single, blackened cigar burn on her inner thigh like a smudged thumbprint. No obvious sign of how she’d died. The ends of her hair were matted with dried blood, and stuck to her chest. It was a thorough going-over.

Simone turned away from the body. There was something too easy about it, too natural, and it chilled her. She could almost imagine Linnea was merely asleep in her coat, wearing red stockings and waiting up late in bed for the husband who never came home. Well, they were together now, whether they liked it or not. Simone pressed her hands down on the desk for the secretary who would never exist. She bent her head. Linnea wasn’t her friend, but Simone hadn’t disliked her, which was more than she could say for a lot of people.

Normally she’d call Caroline now to tell her a case had come to a body in her office and she was going to call the cops; she’d ask Caroline to come over, smooth things out, maybe let her lean on her shoulder a little. It wasn’t the dead body. Simone had seen bodies. And it wasn’t the sense of invasion. It was something else. She found herself thinking of Trixie, and the way she’d looked when Simone kicked the trash-can pyre into the sea.

“Phone,” she said, and her earpiece beeped, ready to be given an order. “Call Peter.”

“Hey, soldier,” he said when he picked up. He said it with a creak in his voice that she recognized, the way he talked as he was sitting up in bed and stretching, like he had after sex, asking her if she wanted something to drink. Then he’d walk to his kitchen naked and bring back a few beers. They’d lay in bed and drink, the sweat from the bottles slowly dripping down their arms and onto their bodies.

“Hi,” Simone said, realizing she’d let the pause linger.

“You called me.” He was smiling; she could tell.

“Did I wake you?”

“Don’t worry about it. I had to work late, I was just grabbing a few hours where I could.”

“If you need to sleep, I can call back—”

“What’s wrong, Simone?”

“Can you…” she trailed off. “Can you meet me at the battlefield? I don’t want to talk about this over the phone.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She could hear him moving, putting on clothes.

“Thanks.” She hung up before he could reply. She turned around again and leaned back on the desk, taking a long look at the body. She memorized the way the body fell, one arm over the back of the chair, head leaning. Natural, but not. Just the wrong side of alive. She stared at the burns again, circles of different sizes, like a map of the solar system, and the lines of dried blood like empty riverbeds. Then she tightened her coat around her, turned out the lights, and left, locking the door behind her.

Outside, it was colder than it had been when she’d gone inside. How long had she been staring at the body? It hadn’t felt long, but it must have been an hour, at least. The night was brittle, and the fog rose up like steel walls.

She went over suspects who would put the body in her office. This wasn’t about someone trying to frame her; it wasn’t calculated enough for that. It was a warning. Whoever had done this was telling her they were willing to kill—and worse—for the painting, and leaving Linnea in her office meant, “find the painting, or you’re next.” But find it for whom?

Simone sighed as she realized who had done this. No one else made sense; it had to be him. Charming Dash Ormond. Linnea was just another of those dead bodies that always seemed to end his cases. But Simone didn’t know who’d hired him. She could call and ask, but Dash would just deny the whole thing. And there wouldn’t be a shred of evidence on the body pointing to him, either. Cold, beautiful Dash would be clean about it. He must have been cleaning off the blood when he went to “wash up” during her visit. She must have really scared him, waiting like that when he’d just gotten back from leaving a body in her office. She wouldn’t be sending him any more drinks at the bar, she thought. Maybe she’d send him a bottle of something wherever he ended up, though.

She got to the battlefield first. It wasn’t too far from the office. It wasn’t really a battlefield, either. That was just what Simone and Peter had called the Douglass Farm Building as kids, when they played with their army figures, laying out strategies and maps for taking over hostile territory. The corn was usually the hostile territory. They attacked from the potatoes.

There were a lot of farms around the city. Most produce was grown in the ocean as algae before being turned into paste for 3D printers, or in the crystal floating houses that bobbed on light plastic, hovering on the waves, built for this environment. But there were a couple of farm boats and a few dozen farm buildings. Not all buildings broke the water’s surface at the twenty-first floor. That was just a generalization. New York had had an upward slope once. The Douglass Farm was a building that, because of the height of the floors, had a partially submerged top story—a foot or two of water at the bottom and nothing to stand on above. No one had known exactly what to do with buildings like this—rooftops on the ocean, with nothing livable beneath them. Then someone got the bright idea to open up the rooftop, leaving the rest of the building in place. They coated the inside with thick, insulating layers of desalination filters, and then covered the rest up with soil: a seaside farm with constant freshwater underneath, and if the waves started looking high, just put up a big tent for a while. The vegetables grown on them always tasted saltier and windier, somehow, but they were cheap compared to the stuff from the mainland or other countries.

The farms were strangely beautiful, too. The desalination filters—so many of them together—resulted in the walls of the buildings being crusted over in salt, making them look like the tip of an iceberg sticking out of the sea, leveled into a plateau and patterned in rows of plants. When she was little and they’d scaled the fences to sneak in, like she did now, Simone had thought it something from a fairy tale. Tonight it looked like a mountain of bone. Beyond the fence, the farm was still laid out as it had been back then. She headed for the borderline, where the potatoes met the corn, and squatted down to touch the dirt. Then she stood, lit a cigarette, and waited.

Peter showed up when the cigarette was half gone, eleven minutes after they’d hung up, even though he lived much farther away.

“Hey,” he said, when he was still far enough away to just be a shadow in the fog.

“Hey,” she said back. He came closer. He was wearing a plaid shirt, open more than he would normally wear it. She stared at the gap in the fabric where his skin and chest hair showed through. He glanced down at where she was looking and buttoned the extra button. She took another drag on her cigarette.

“What did you want to meet about?” She looked up into his eyes. “You sounded upset.”

“There’s a dead body in my office,” she said. He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t put it there.”

“I didn’t say you did,” he said, taking a step back.

“I just didn’t want you to have to ask. It’s Linnea St. Michel. She’s been beat up pretty bad. Cuts, burns… someone wanted something from her.”

“And then they left her for you?” Simone shrugged. “Kluren isn’t going to like this. That’s why you called me, right? To report it. You didn’t want me to… help you hide it, did you? Pitch her in the water?”

“No,” Simone said. “She deserves better than that. But Kluren is going to lock me up as soon as she sees the body.”

“Yeah, but you’ll get out. Caroline can help with that.”

“The body is a warning. Someone wants me to…” She turned around. She didn’t know how much Peter knew.

“You kept digging, didn’t you?”

Simone took a long drag on the cigarette. She could vaguely feel him stepping closer, a faint heat on her shoulders. “Yeah.”

“So who is the body a warning from?”

“Don’t know. I mean, I know the delivery man, but not the guy who sent it.”

“Who’s the delivery man?”

“You’re not going to find him, and if you do, he’s going to be cleaner than a bar of soap.”

“So you’re not going to tell me.”

“It’ll make things more complicated if he thinks cops are sniffing around him.”

“You’re going to have to tell Kluren something.”

“I’ll tell her the body was there when I came in. I don’t need to tell her my guess as to who put it there.” Peter was silent at that, but she heard him kicking the dirt behind her. She turned around and found him closer than she’d thought, almost face to face, except that he was looking down at the ground. She reached a hand out, half the distance between then, but then pulled it back. When he looked up, she focused on his eyes, and how they seemed almost colorless in the dark.

“Okay, soldier. Show me this body.”

HER OFFICE WAS A forensic circus within twenty minutes. Peter had walked back with her, both of them silent. When she unlocked the door and opened it for him, he didn’t say anything but laid a hand on her shoulder and tapped his earpiece. His hand stayed there, almost locking her in place as he talked to other officers on duty. The forensic team showed up with two uniforms who spoke directly to Peter, ignoring Simone, except to occasionally glare at her, as though the dead body was her fault. They took the place over pretty quickly, dusting and shining lights and examining the body while Peter and Simone waited in the hallway outside.

When Kluren showed up, she had two more uniforms with her and was barking orders at them. Simone hoped for a moment she might not even see her, but after Kluren glanced in the room, she came back out, that same water-snake smile on her face.

“Some fish you throw back, but they just don’t learn. They swim right onto the hook again.” She stared at Simone, the gold in her irises twinkling. “I was having a nice dinner, you know.”

“You still could be,” Simone said. “I’m sure the restaurant is saving your table.”

“I’m pretty sure I told you to drop this case.”

“Sometimes, you throw something behind you, you find it on the bottom of your boot later.”

“That would explain the smell.” Kluren looked back into the room. “We have a cause of death?” she called at the sea of blue around her.

“Chief,” said one of the techs, deliberately putting himself with his back to Simone. “She didn’t die from the cuts. It was a heart attack, probably from stress and the drugs in her system. I’ll have to run some tests to confirm, but I’m fairly sure.”

“We know what drugs?” Kluren asked.

“Barb of some kind. We already did a quick blood test. I’m guessing one of the more upmarket truth serums. I’ll know more at the lab.”

“Okay,” Kluren said with a nod. She looked back up, as if suddenly remembering Simone was there. “Weiss, cuff her, take her to Teddy. I’ll do the interview myself.”

“Cuffs?” Simone asked. “You can’t think I did this.”

“You’re a person of interest in two murders now. I don’t think you’re dumb enough to kill her and then keep the body in your office, but you know a hell of a lot more than you’re telling, and for some reason you seem to think that’s your right. It isn’t. I told you you were off the case, you didn’t listen. Now you get the cuffs. If I can make it stick, you’ll get some prison time, too, maybe a year if I’m lucky, and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll realize that we’re the professionals and you’re just the daughter of a dropout cop who left the force when things got tough. You don’t know better, Pierce. We do.”

Simone bit her lower lip and inhaled. She put her hands behind her back and let Peter cuff her. Kluren stared at her, squinting for a moment. Simone wondered what her lenses told her.

“You can take the cuffs off her once she’s in Teddy,” Kluren said, waving them off like they were children.

Peter led Simone out of the building and took the cuffs off her. Simone nodded her thanks.

“That went better than I thought it would,” he said.

“Yeah?” Simone rubbed her wrists.

“I thought she’d be a lot louder, maybe order all your stuff taken away for testing.” Peter walked next to her, his hands in his pockets. He was still out of uniform, and he smelled like leather.

“She could still do that.”

“Nah. She would’ve done it in front of you, hoping you’d throw a fit.”

“I throw fits?”

“I guess not.”

It was a quiet night. The fog seemed to muffle other people’s footsteps and hide their shadows. Simone walked slowly beside Peter. They’d gone a few more blocks before he spoke again.

“You know, you could escape.”

“And do what? That won’t help my case.”

“I have that boat.”

“No, Peter.” She said it firmly enough that he just nodded and kept walking.

“So what are you going to tell Kluren?”

“I walked in, found a body, called you.”

“And when she asks why it was left on your doorstep?”

“I don’t know. I guess she hasn’t solved that case she said she was going to solve yet.” The words came out with a tang of nastiness that seemed to vibrate the fog. She took a deep breath. She had to keep cool.

“That jab about your dad stung?” He asked. Simone fished out a cigarette and lit it, then inhaled deeply. “Your dad was a great cop. My dad always said so.”

“Dad didn’t talk about life as a policeman,” Simone said, her voice low in the fog. “Or why he left the force. Just… work. How to think, investigate.” From the time her mom left, he was a detective, and she was his protégée. All he talked about was work. Never Mom, never their life before she was gone, never even what was right or wrong. Just how to be a detective, how to solve the case. She had a sudden memory of him, showing her how to load a gun when she was eight years old, pushing each bullet neatly into the row of the clip.

“Good… carefully, though, don’t crowd them.” He’d had a low, gruff voice, and large, rough hands that cradled hers. “Then we push it into the gun here, till it clicks.” He had moved her hands so that she loaded the clip of the gun. “Good. Then we just point and shoot, like this.” He had knelt behind her and moved her arms forward. “Both hands… brace yourself, it’s going to knock you back pretty hard when you fire it. Remember, shoot them before they shoot you.”

“How will I know if they’re going to shoot me?” Simone had asked.

“You’ll know. And if you’re wrong, it won’t matter, as long as you shoot first.”

“Well, he was a good cop,” Peter said, bringing her back to the present. “And he didn’t quit when it got tough. He and Kluren solved a really tough multiple homicide; once it was wrapped up, he quit. He waited until he wasn’t gonna mess anything up by leaving. A stand-up guy, my dad always said.”

“Thanks.”

They got to Teddy, and Peter led her onto the boat and down to the interrogation rooms. A few cops glanced up at them, but then went back to what they were doing. When the department had taken over the ship, they’d cleared out a number of small bunks to create the interrogation rooms, bolting a steel table to the floor and throwing in a few cheap tin chairs. The two-way mirrors, which took up almost an entire wall, didn’t match the old bolted bulkhead. They shone too sleekly, felt too clean. Simone sat down in the chair facing the mirror.

“I’m going to need your weapons,” Peter said apologetically. She nodded and unzipped her boot, pulling her gun from it and placing it on the table. She didn’t zip the boot back up but instead unzipped the other, letting her legs breathe. “Thanks,” he said, taking the gun. “I’ll get us some coffee.” He left her alone, staring at her reflection. The overhead light was strong, and from where she sat she could see how it cast shadows in the hollows of her eyes. She leaned back and took off her hat and trench coat. Peter came back in, put a paper cup of coffee down in front of her, and sat down opposite. He had his own cup of coffee and blew on it, making the steam wave out like a gray flag.

They sat in silence a long while. Simone drank all her coffee, burning her tongue on the first sip. Peter got her another, but this one she only held until it got cold. When Kluren finally showed up, she was a shadow in the doorway, looking down at both of them.

“Weiss, out.” Kluren said. As he left, Peter shot Simone a look that was hard to read—pity? solidarity? Simone turned to Kluren, trying to keep her face level, unreadable. Kluren took her seat and leaned back, staring at Simone. Her gold irises seemed to twist, as if amused by Simone’s attempts to shut herself down.

“Isn’t it unusual for the chief to be doing the interview?” Simone asked, still holding her coffee.

Kluren put her hands behind her head, leaned back, and looked at the ceiling. “I can run my boat however I want.” She took her hands down and leveled her gaze at Simone. “Now why don’t you tell me about the case I told you to drop?”

“You got everything off my server.”

“I’m sure you’ve made some progress since then.”

“I dropped it, just like you told me.”

“Do you really think lying is somehow going to get you out of this mess? Your client was murdered and left in your office. I know you’re not dumb enough to do that, even if you act like it most of the time. And I know that whoever left it there staged it as a warning, not to frame you. I’m your life preserver, here, Simone. I’m being very nice.” She leaned forward, her arms making a triangle, pointing at Simone.

“You said you wanted to throw me in prison.”

“Would you prefer to end up like Linnea? ’Cause I don’t see this playing out any other way.”

“You think I’m gonna let myself get sliced up?”

“Let? I think you’re running towards it with open arms.” She leaned back, slapping the table. Simone stared at her, trying to decide if Kluren was angry that Simone was putting herself in danger, or just angry at Simone for continuing to exist.

“I’m trying to solve a case.”

“One I told you to drop.”

Simone put down her coffee and folded her arms. “You’re not my boss.”

“Which is a shame, ’cause you need a boss. You’re the sort who drowns because she doesn’t realize she’s underwater till it’s too late. Now tell me who sent you the warning.”

“I don’t know.” Simone held eye contact with Kluren, daring her ForenSpecs to say she was lying.

“Then you’re not doing a very good job investigating, are you? Did you find out what the package was for, or who the blonde was?”

Simone kept holding Kluren’s gaze but said nothing.

“Cute, the silent thing. ’Cause if you answer a question, you think I can tell if you’re lying. Or maybe you’re hoping I’ll tell you what we know about the little art deal your client was working on.” Simone raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t think we knew about that? We know more. So just tell us who left you the body and we can get on with solving it. You might even get to go free, depending on how I feel in the morning.”

“Did you really just say that?” The door had opened halfway without either of the women noticing, and now Caroline Khan pushed it the rest of the way open and gave Kluren a questioning look. “The mayor is trying to cut down on police corruption, Kluren. Let’s try not to say exciting and provocative things in front of the private detective, hm? Wouldn’t look good in the press.”

Kluren stared warily at Caroline, but stood. “Does the mayor have an interest in this case?”

“He will if I tell him he does,” Caroline said with a smile.

“Now who’s saying provocative things in front of detectives?”

Caroline folded her arms and nodded in Simone’s direction without looking at her. “She might be an untrustworthy bitch, but she also knows I’m here to get her out, so I think she’ll be good for a while.”

“You can’t take away a suspect.”

“She’s a person of interest, not a suspect, which means she can go if she wants. If you upgrade her to suspect then you have to arrest her, and then she gets a lawyer and you don’t get to talk to her again anyway, so why not just let her go and I’ll have a little chat with her and decide what’s best for the city? Right now, I’m going to be a lot scarier than you think you’re going to be.” She leaned back on one of her heels, arms still crossed.

Simone stared hard at Caroline, but Caroline wouldn’t make eye contact. Kluren, on the other hand, was staring at Simone and smiling.

“Sure, fine. Besides, if whoever killed Linnea kills her… my life would get easier. Go.” She waved them off like insects.

Caroline strode from the room without looking back, and Simone quickly zipped her boots, grabbed her hat and coat, and followed her. Caroline still wouldn’t make eye contact, but as Simone came closer to thank her, she spoke first.

“Don’t say anything,” Caroline said. Her voice was cold. “Come with me.”

“I need my gun,” Simone said. Caroline finally turned to look at her, and Simone felt like she was being prodded with a red-hot poker.

“Get it,” Caroline said. Simone turned around and spotted Peter in a corner. She walked up to him and he handed her her gun back.

“I called her,” Peter whispered. “She didn’t sound happy. What’s going on?”

“Thanks,” Simone said, putting her gun back in her boot. She turned back around to find Caroline was halfway down the hall, so Simone ran to catch up. They walked off the boat in silence. They walked a few blocks more before Caroline finally turned around.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she said. Simone shrugged. “And I really don’t like you right now. And if you don’t trust me, I don’t know why I should trust you.”

“I’m sorry—” Simone started, but Caroline cut the air with her hand and Simone stopped.

“I don’t want to do this right now. I don’t have many friends.”

“Me neither.”

“I know. But I bailed you out because… for old times’ sake. And because I know Kluren is gunning for you, and it’s unfair. But I’m angry. And things aren’t good between us.”

“I know,” Simone said, staring at the wooden bridge under her feet. “I fucked it up.”

“Yeah.” They stood there in silence. Simone looked up at Caroline, who was staring at her, her mouth slightly open, her face more slack than usual. But when she saw Simone looking, she clenched her jaw and turned her head, staring off.

“I’m going home now. You should find somewhere to stay. I’m guessing cops are still swarming all over your apartment.”

“Yeah,” Simone nodded. “Thanks, Caroline. And I really am sorry.”

“Good night.” Caroline turned around before the conversation could continue. As she walked away, she threw her hand up in a gesture that was half wave, half “go away.” Simone stared after her until she was gone, then turned and walked in the opposite direction.

She walked for a while with no particular destination. The storm on the horizon was growing ominously closer, but she didn’t care. She felt as though she ought to be thinking about something: the case, the comments Kluren made about her father, how she could make it up to Caroline—but her mind was curiously blank. She was blank all over. She was breath in a body in a city on the ocean, and that was all there was.

SHE WOUND UP AT Danny’s because it was the place that made the most sense to go. She could have tried Peter… but that was complicated and messy, and he would have kept asking about what was going on with Caroline.

All the lights were out except the neon one that read, “The Great Yanai,” and the sliding door was locked. Simone dictated a message to him over her earpiece saying she was outside, and a few moments later he waded out of the shadows behind the glass and opened the door.

“Sad,” he said, looking her over.

“So are your pajamas.”

He looked down at the bright yellow briefs he was wearing. They had a large cartoon octopus over the crotch. “These? I like these,” he shrugged, then looked back up at her. “Come on in. What happened?”

“Client’s dead body showed up at my place, police hauled me in, Caroline got me out, but told me she really didn’t want to see me, so now I can’t go home, I can’t go to Caroline’s. I was hoping I could crash here.”

“Why not call up that delicious tourist of yours?” They walked forward through his office and up the back stairs to his apartment.

“deCostas?” The thought of it made her mouth bitter. “No.”

“How about you give me his number, and I call him up, then?”

“I forgot to take photos of him naked for you, sorry.”

“That’s okay. Some things are better left to the imagination. Anyway, the couch is yours. I have some blankets and a pillow somewhere around here.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, you took me in when I had nowhere to go. This is the least I can do—besides all the free help I give you.” He walked into his bedroom, and Simone sat down on the couch. It was comfortable. It would do for the night. She took off her boots and lay back. Danny came back out with a thick blanket and pillow and put them down on the sofa next to her. For a moment he stared at nothing, that vague look he got when searching the web, then he smiled down at her. “You wanna talk about it?”

“You just read the police report, didn’t you?”

“A prelim report from one of the on-the-scene techs. Your apartment is still being processed, but the word torture stuck out.”

“My client. Linnea,” Simone breathed the name out softly and felt a stab of guilt in her lungs. She fished in her pocket for a cigarette and took it out. “You mind?” Danny shook his head. She lit it and inhaled deeply, filling her chest with something else. “Linnea. Tortured, left in my office. Some sort of warning.”

“Who from?”

“Dash Ormond, I think. Don’t know who he’s working for, though.”

“Dangerous Dash? I thought we liked him.” Danny sat down next to her on the sofa.

“We liked him when we weren’t in his crosshairs. But he’s just the weapon. Someone else is pulling his strings, and that someone wants the painting Linnea had and thinks I know where it is.”

“Why do they think that?”

“Because she hired me to spy on her husband, to make sure he didn’t double-cross her.”

“You want to go over this from the top for me?”

Simone inhaled deeply on her cigarette. She didn’t usually share her cases. She didn’t like asking for help.

“Can I ask you something else, first?” she said, without looking at Danny.

“Sure.”

“What do you know about my dad?”

“Only what you’ve told me.” Danny leaned back into the sofa.

“Seriously?”

“I know he ran the business before you. I know he taught you. I never looked into him. It seemed… You’re the first person I met when I escaped, you know? You’re the first person who saw me for who I was and helped me, and, yeah, we both know you did it ’cause you knew I’d come in handy, but you also did it ’cause you’re a good person.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are. You’re not always a good person, and you don’t trust people, and you’re kind of a bitch sometimes, but I don’t mind that. I was raised assuming no one could trust anyone except the people we worked for. That’s why I don’t mind it in you. That’s why you’re still one of my few real friends. And I know you might not trust me completely, but it doesn’t matter to me that you don’t, because I know I’ve never dug into your past—or your family’s. That’s not what friends do. Or so reruns of ancient TV shows on the web tell me.”

Simone smiled and inhaled deeply on her cigarette. “You’re a good guy, Danny.”

“I’m the product of a secret government experiment, all the information on the Internet, and what’s left of New York.”

Simone shrugged. “Still…” Her cigarette was nearly out; she had been dropping ash on the floor. “Sorry,” she said, staring at it.

“I’ll get it in the morning. Just put it out in the sink.” Danny motioned at the kitchen, and Simone rose and walked over, throwing the butt in the sink and running the water. “Why did you ask about your dad?”

“Something Kluren said. Can you… will you find out what you can for me?” She shut off the water and looked at him. He was staring at her—really staring, not online.

“I can…” he said slowly. “But are you sure you want to know? I never had real parents, exactly, but it seems like a weird thing to go looking into. What if I find something—I wouldn’t say bad, but… something you wouldn’t want to know?”

“You won’t,” Simone said. “You’ll get some files and some information, but you won’t know what it means. I’ll know.”

“So?”

“So, you can’t hold anything back, and anything you do tell me—I won’t blame you. That’s what you’re looking for, right?”

“And I don’t want you to be… hurt, I guess.”

“I’ll be fine, Danny.”

“You want me to do it right now?”

“No,” Simone said, walking back over to the sofa. “We can do it in the morning. And then I’ll tell you all about the case… and then maybe I’ll throw myself in the ocean.” She smiled without meaning to.

“It worries me when people say things like that and smile.” Danny stood, and Simone lay down on the sofa, pulling the blanket over her.

“Thanks, Danny.”

“Anytime, boss.” He shut the light and padded quietly to his bedroom. Simone closed her eyes. Outside, she could hear the ocean washing softly against the building. It was so dark in this room—nothing but waves and black.