Bower vs Stateview

Marky Bower would like you to know that he wasn't aware of the extracurriculars associated with Night Crew when he took the position. He thought it'd be walking the halls and exhibits, making sure tanks were in tact and all animals were accounted for. He used to love coming to Stateview Aquarium with his classmates and walking the exhibits and sticking his hand into chilled water tanks with little to no thought. And, really, he thought it'd be a whole lot of watching overhead lights reflect off water. He thought the worst that would happen was some teens breaking in after hours, sneaking around him Breakfast Club style, and begging him not to call their parents as he walked them out the front door.

He wasn't expecting to have a gun, let alone to use it. He didn't know about the imprisonment or the crime ring side of it all. He didn't think there'd even be people involved; it's an aquarium for chrissakes. He honestly, truly didn't know, and he wants you to know that.

With that being said, he also wants you to know that he really, really needed the money. And that doesn't make what he did okay, but he wants you to understand where he's coming from. He didn't ask questions or look behind curtains because his paycheck honest to God smiled at him every week. Because Night Crew paid his bills and had good hours for an overnight gig and it was the easiest job he'd ever heard of.

Marky Bower wants you to look me in the eye and say you wouldn't do the exact same thing if you were in his same work boots and Night Crew uniform. You would. He knows it.

(Is he laying it on too thick? Is he believable? Plausible deniability at least?)

Back to the matter at hand: Marky Bower didn't know, and for that he's sorry. Not sorry enough to go back in time and never take the job in the first place; no. He needed--needs--the money, and he quite likes the aquarium, thank you very much. But he is sorry, and that has to count for something. He's sorry for--and to--the selkies and mermaids and cursed individuals who were employed beside him against their will. He wants to ensure that you know he never would have reacted the way he did if he had known the full truth as he now knows it today.

Marky Bower, you see, he didn't have a tour guide or a pamphlet to tell him the names of the creatures he was encountering on his nightly walks, so he spent his time wandering the aquarium and coming up with names for everything. Some examples:

• Clown fish from the lobby display case expertly named Nemo, Nemo But More Yellow Than Orange, Female Nemo Probably, and Dave.
• A seal named Darla with a thick, white scar extending from the left corner of its mouth. (It is pure coincidence that Miss Calla Mae has a similar scar and is of Selkie descent.)
• A shark named Dumbo that always looked suspiciously like it was drowning. Like it had never been taught how to swim. Like it wasn't used to breathing through gills and not holding its breath underwater.
• A collection of stingrays named either Paul or Crysten. Marky Bower didn't spend enough time around that tank to notice any differences in the creatures. They are a unit.

As he said, he didn't have a tour guide or a lick of knowledge outside of show up and shut up to tell him the nitty-gritty details of Stateview's innards. He walked his beat. And he danced for the fish. And he did his job.

Unfortunately, as Marky Bower has learned, his job entailed guarding the poor saps who tried to go against his boss, recently revealed to be the faceless Remy Brokaw. (He really, really, really didn't know that part. Hand to whatever God you believe in. (Marky Bower himself is atheist, but would like to indulge the sentiment anyway.) He just showed up to work and went about his day; never even saw any higher-ups face to face.) And that's where he lands--here, beside Darren Link and Siani Bejerano with his hands uncomfortably cuffed behind his back, and Lou Marshall--sorry, Detective Luke Castillo--pacing the hallway outside the dolphin exhibit.

"I'm sorry can you start over?" Marky Bower says for the third time in forty minutes. "You lost me at the fish being people. I don't get it. Fish are fish."

"I'm trying here, Mark," Lou-Luke sighs. "Yes, fish are fish, but, sometimes, fish are people, and people are fish. Registered shapeshifters who are categorically fish-like. Transfiguration victims who are forced to become aquatic."

"The whats?"

"Do you live under a rock?"

"I live in an apartment, Lou. I invited you over to watch the game last month."

"We're putting a pin in this," Lou-Luke says mostly to himself. "Yeah, we're putting a pin in this."

"Do you guys get this?" Marky Bower changes tactics, addressing Siani and Darren now as Lou-Luke walks away to join the uniformed officers at the end of the hall.

"He's saying that someone trapped a bunch of people and forced them to work as animals in the aquarium," Siani explains gently. "And they think we had something to do with it."

"But I didn't." He draws his eyebrows together. "Did you?"

"No, Marky. Someone named Remy Brokaw did it."

"Darren?"

"Obviously not, dude."

And now Marky Bower finds himself with his mind racing because he didn't know the down-low on Night Crew, but now he does. And he knows Darren and Siani had nothing to do with it, and the same goes for himself. And this Remy Brokaw is probably some random guy from upstate with absolutely no relation to the R. Brokaw in his newly shattered phone's contacts. And fish are people, and people are fish, and would someone for the love of--

He didn't know. He doesn't know.

He's having a hard time getting keeping the story straight.

(Admittedly, things go a bit fuzzy around the edges here. Marky Bower was a little too focused on the things he didn't know and making sure he didn't know the things he didn't know to pay much attention to whatever happened after he stopped his elementary investigations and Siani and Darren were taken away. That's how he finds himself hurtling back towards full cognitive function in the back of a squad car.)

"You shot a cop, Mark," Lou-Luke says to the windshield.

"I didn't know."

"Yeah, you don't know a lot of stuff it seems."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means people are asking questions and you have more deflections than answers," Lou-Luke grits out as he meets Marky Bower's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Sorry I don't know everything, Lou."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Do I, Lou? Do I really know it? Because up until two hours ago I had no idea you were a cop. I thought you were my friend."

"We are friends."

"Friends don't arrest friends for doing their jobs."

"I'm doing my job, too, Mark."

"Your job sucks."

"Yeah..." he trails off with a sigh, effectively ending the conversation.

The rest of the ride is passed in silence. Lou-Luke gets increasingly uneasy in the front seat, and Marky Bower grows more and more confused in the back. The streets become more familiar and it becomes apparent that Lou-Luke is headed for Marky Bower's apartment and not the precinct.

"Marky, I need you to listen to me," Lou-Luke says to the windshield as he pulls over a block from Marky Bower's building. "Remy wants to apologize for the confusion."

"What?"

R. Brokaw.

"Remy is sorry for any confusion this has caused. I am too."

484-721-1037.

"I don't know what that means, Luke."

Marky Bower doesn't know. Remy Brokaw does.

"Yes, you do," Lou-Luke grates out before locking eyes with Marky Bower in the rearview mirror and dragging a blade clean across his neck.

(For as much as Marky Bower doesn't know, the things he does know are excitingly helpful. He knows how to get out of handcuffs. And he knows how to dispose of a body, how to cover up. He knows how to get a new phone and find a new town and say, "Collet Saluski," in the mirror over and over until his eye stops twitching. He knows how to get a new job and find a rundown apartment and leave his old car burning in the middle of a cornfield two states away.)

Marky Bower doesn't know anything, He wants you to know that first and foremost. He wants you to know that he knows how this all looks, how it all reads on paper, and he wants to tell you that your glass house looks very breakable today. And sure, if anyone could find him Marky Bower would be the only ex Night Crew member to get away unscathed. And yeah, Marky Bower has a vast understanding regarding the inner working of criminal ring logistics, but that's because he had a good lawyer who explained everything to him in great detail, no other reason. (None that would hold up in court anyway.) And it's a damn shame Luke Castillo's body was found in that dumpster four days after Stateview Aquarium was shut down, but all of that is inconsequential. The fact of the matter is: Marky Bower worked Night Crew for Stateview Aquarium. He worked there and he got paid handsomely for his time. But that has nothing to do with Collet Saluski. He knows even less than Marky Bower, I can promise you that.