There was a courtesy knock on the door and a doctor entered with no pause. The doctor was in the range of older than him but not as old as David’s moms. He was white and fit-looking, with a white coat hanging open over khakis and a green plaid button-down shirt and a navy tie. His tie was tucked into his shirt, but David didn’t know if that was accidental or on purpose. His left shoe squeaked with every step.
“David, right? I’m Dr. Cohen. What brings you in?” His expression looked as carefully curated as the walls, welcoming but neutral.
Most doctors were preceded by nurses who weighed you and checked your height and asked you questions, so this straight-to-the-point question made David stumble for the explanation he’d crafted in planning the visit.
“I’m—uh—I can’t tell if maybe something’s wrong with my Pilot.”
The doctor didn’t change his expression. “Oh, I hope that’s not the case. Let’s get to the bottom of this. What’s going on?”
“Well, it’s . . . the best way I can describe it is noise. It’s, like, everything from outside is coming inside at once, but then it’s all fuzzy around the edges, too, like I’m supposed to be paying attention to certain things, but each of those things has sub-things that want attention. Like petting a dog and becoming aware you’re petting every single individual hair, and every flea. And also it’s snowing, so there’s snow on the dog, and every single snowflake is different and wants to show me how different it is.”
“Whoa.”
“‘Whoa’ isn’t a thing you want a doctor to say.”
“Yeah, sorry, David. That sounds like a lot, and you described it well. Let me check the diagnostics on your implant.” He pulled a small tablet from his coat pocket.
It was cool they could read his Pilot without poking him. David peered over at the screen. “You’re getting that from my head?”
“The data’s encrypted, of course. We’re the only ones who can see it other than you.”
That hadn’t been David’s question. “It looks different from my app, is all.”
“Oh! Yeah, the user interface has a different purpose. I’m looking at your implant’s readouts, but it looks like everything falls inside the accepted parameters. No error codes, no misfirings, nothing out of the ordinary. Tell me, have you ever been diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder?”
“What? No. Are you saying it might be me, not the Pilot?” That was what David had feared most in coming here: that they would say something was wrong with him.
The doctor raised placating hands. “Sorry—processing disorders aren’t my area, so I don’t want to imply I’m making a diagnosis. Obviously, you know what you’re describing is not the typical Pilot experience, or you wouldn’t have come in today. That leaves me thinking either you should ask your parents to help you get tested for a processing disorder, or maybe you haven’t done the exercises enough. Did you practice the things we told you to? And play the game?”
David had made this appointment on his own, so a doctor telling him to ask his parents to make another appointment somewhere else implied the doctor was treating him like a kid. He tried not to let his annoyance reach his voice. “I’ve done all my exercises and played the game. I never had any problem processing my senses before this. Could the Pilot have broken them?”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Dr. Cohen laughed, and just like that, David was done with him. His question had been serious, even if it came out silly. A doctor shouldn’t laugh.
He must have noticed he’d offended David, because his tone changed again. “Look, David, I’m glad you came here with your concerns and gave me the opportunity to check that everything was okay with your Pilot so I could reassure you it’s working fine. Sometimes it takes a while to get the hang of it.”
“How long a while?”
“As long as a year, in some cases.” The doctor shrugged, further dismissal. A year! He’d be impossibly behind by then. “—Otherwise, if it’s working the same as everyone else’s, maybe your noise is everyone else’s normal and you just need to get used to it. I’d suggest starting the exercises over and maybe doing them once or twice more per day, to get you where you should be. Did you have anything else you needed to ask while I’m here?”
“Yeah,” said David. “Why don’t you have a Pilot yourself? Isn’t it kind of weird to be telling me what normal feels like when you don’t know yourself?”
The doctor smiled. “I’m Orthodox Jewish, so it’s against my religion to get one myself, but trust me when I say I’ve talked with enough people with Pilots to have a sense of normal. I was involved with the research from the beginning. Very observant, David. Anyway, I’ve got to get to my next patient, and I’m sure you’ve got places to go. Come back if none of those solutions gets you feeling your Pilot is doing what it’s supposed to do.”
David nodded and thanked him, knowing he wasn’t ever coming back.
CHAPTER TEN
VAL
In April, Sophie started seizing more often, though at least they weren’t the convulsive kind. Focal seizures, impaired consciousness, knocking out her awareness but not bringing her body down. She disappeared on an almost daily basis, disappeared for seconds or minutes to a place she couldn’t find words
