The Dead Drop

The first time Marcus stole secrets, he threw up in the office bathroom afterward. Now, three years later, the nausea had been replaced by something worse: numbness. He moved through his days like a sleepwalker, a corporate spy trading in proprietary algorithms and strategic plans, nothing resembling a human being anymore.

He came home to find Sarah already in her swimsuit, standing by the back door.

"Swimming?" he asked, though he knew the answer. She swam every evening now, ever since the miscarriage. Forty lengths of the pool, back and forth, until her body gave out.

"You should come," she said, not meeting his eyes. "The water helps."

Marcus watched her dive in, her body cutting through the blue with practiced grace. She'd been a competitive swimmer in college. Now she swam to escape a house that had become too quiet, a marriage that had become a stranger's.

Buster, their golden retriever, pressed against Marcus's leg. The dog had stopped sleeping in their bedroom months ago. Sometimes Marcus wondered what animals sensed that people couldn't.

"You're becoming a zombie," Sarah had told him last week, her voice gentle but devastating. "I look at you and I don't see anyone."

She was right. He'd sold his soul piece by piece, each corporate betrayal making him hollower than the last. The money was good—extraordinary, really—but it couldn't buy back the ability to look in the mirror and recognize the man staring back.

Sarah climbed out of the pool, water streaming from her hair like tears.

"I got an offer," she said quietly. "A teaching position in Oregon."

Marcus felt something crack open in his chest.

"When?"

"Fall semester. They have a good swim program. I could coach."

Buster whined, pressing his wet nose against Marcus's hand.

"What about us?" Marcus asked.

Sarah looked at him then, really looked at him, for the first time in months.

"That's up to you," she said. "But you can't be a spy forever, Marcus. Eventually, even the living have to choose whether to wake up."