Ruby

“Why is the chart in pencil? Who checks the checkers? Is breakfast really served at midnight?”

The questions tumbled out of Ruby one after another along the glass walkway. Researchers at the window whiteboards stopped mid-argument. One quietly slid a stack of paper away from Ruby’s breath. Someone whispered “the Dragon,” the way you’d mention weather that might turn.

Only Imani Sato, who has drawn every line of the Labs’ biggest chart by hand for thirty-one years, kept sharpening a pencil.

“You’ll want Friday Hall,” Imani said. Every Friday at three, the Labs stop to watch someone prove a thing true. “Come practise.”

Ruby glanced back. A small, nervous Beast from the same morning was still frowning at the first whiteboard.

“Both of us, or neither.”

Imani studied them, then drew one careful new line on the chart. “Sit down, both of you, Ruby.”

The name settled, warm as a banked coal. Ruby opened a notebook already half full of one claim written forty different ways, and started the forty-first.

“Shepherd’s pie, three in the morning, still steaming,” the Cafeteria cook told the empty room, proud and slightly puzzled.

Ruby lifted the next lid and breathed on the soup, gently, the way you’d warm cupped hands. It began to bubble.

The Cafeteria serves the same four meals at every hour, and lately the hours were strange. With stretches of the old road dark for days, researchers got home whenever they could, grey fog on their sleeves.

So Ruby kept going. Friday Hall’s seats went out in rows. A fresh marker went beside every window whiteboard and its half-finished argument.

At four, a researcher shuffled in, damp and shivering, and stopped at the pie. They looked at Ruby’s face, then at the tidy steam.

“I heard the Dragon could melt the Glass Walk.”

“Probably.” Ruby slid over a fork. “Eat while it’s warm.”