“You told the nurse to turn the light off. I heard you.”
“I changed my mind when I got inside. It makes sense for my job to leave it on. I like my job.”
Rage coursed through her. “What kind of chicken human being hides something like this? If you don’t need it, stand behind that decision. And you’re keeping that job? You got it taken out because you hate it, because it breaks something in your head, but you’re still going to sell it to other people? Do I have that right?”
“I’ve told you before. I don’t hate it. I think it’s good for other people, but it’s not good for me. If turning it off makes my head better, it’s a health thing, right? Why should I lose a good job over that?”
“Never mind. If you don’t get it, I don’t think I can explain it to you.”
She didn’t bother to pull her boots off. She tried not to stomp back to her room. People always accused her of walking off in a huff when all she wanted was to get away from whatever or whoever was frustrating her. Put stairs and a door in between and she could exorcise it without losing her cool completely.
Maybe she’d been hasty in envisioning him joining her cause, coming to meetings, making them a family affair, or near enough, but it truly baffled her how he was still willing to work for them. Even if she accepted his premise that his implant was bad, that the experience was worse for him than for other people, she still didn’t understand how he could make the distinction. He was a mystery to her. Not an enemy, still not a friend. She’d been silly to think otherwise.
Also, she really, really wanted a chocolate chip cookie, but she was not going back downstairs to forage in the kitchen if it meant passing the traitor on the couch.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
DAVID
It was just as well he’d left the false blue light on; the headache went away, but the noise didn’t. David ran through the exercises, telling himself he felt a little less focused, a little quieter, a little less able to process. He wanted so badly to believe it had worked that he was willing to deceive himself. For a while.
A week passed, two. He woke every morning and immediately assessed the situation. Loud bird? Check. Loud head? No need to ask.
“Most people who want this go to BNL, so I don’t have statistics to report,” Dr. Pessoa had said. “From what we’ve seen, it could take an hour or a day or a week.”
The thing was, he hadn’t noticed any change at all. He found himself irritated with everyone. Tash had asked what was wrong and he’d snapped, and now Tash was avoiding him. He wouldn’t have minded telling them, telling someone, but he knew better than to say anything about this at work. It was his stupid secret.
He went to his “consultation” with Dr. Morton in a stranger predicament than he’d been in at their first meeting.
“David, good to see you,” the shrink said. “Have you tried the things we talked about at the last meeting? Longer down-cycles? Meditation?”
All crap that had never worked for him. He chose the one truth he had to tell. “I’ve been doing the exercises like I did when I first got it.”
“Good, good, good. And has there been any improvement with the, ah, issue?”
That was trickier. If he said no, if he convinced them to believe him, they might send him for tests and discover his Pilot had been deactivated. If he said yes, it would be a flat-out lie and a betrayal of anyone else who might be in the same position as he was. There had to be other people like him. He chose his words carefully.
“I’m working on it.” A vague, useless statement. A doctor who actually cared would call him out on the nonanswer.
This guy was so focused on the result he wanted to achieve, he didn’t notice. “That’s great, David! Glad to have you back on board with the program.”
David lied through the rest of the appointment and then went back to his desk to stew. On some level, he was embarrassed. What if Dr. Pessoa was a quack who had taken his money and claimed to deactivate his Pilot without actually doing anything? She’d offered a persuasive reason not to bother turning off the light, but what if that was something she did to everyone who came to her?
In the end, feeling stupid, he knocked on his sister’s door again.
“What do you want?” She hadn’t spoken to him since she’d seen his light was still on.
“I need to talk to you. Please.”
“Anything you have to say, you can say through the door.”
“I can’t. I need your help, Soph.” He didn’t call her Softserve. He hoped she noticed.
“Fine.”
He opened the door. As usual, she sat on her bed, doing whatever it was she did that involved online organizing. He’d never asked.
“You’ve got two minutes.” She fixed him with a withering gaze. “Don’t bother sitting.”
He closed the door and leaned against it. “Soph, how well do you know that doctor we went to?”
“I told you. I went there once with a friend, but she has a good reputation.”
“I know, but . . . do you know anyone who got their Pilot deactivated there?”
“One person came to our group once, I think? Most people get theirs done at BNL.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
He looked at his feet. He had a mosquito bite on top of the right one that he hadn’t noticed, but now that he saw it, it itched. He felt suddenly ashamed to tell Sophie, like this was a personal failing, like the stupid psychologist was right and he was doing something wrong and that was why
