He almost mentioned the pill he’d taken. Wouldn’t that be their solution? Something temporary to mute the effect for the people they didn’t want heightened? But that involved explaining the party, and possibly getting his friends in trouble, and he hadn’t yet even researched whether it was an off-label use of a legal drug or something over-the-counter and legit or a controlled substance that could get him fired.
Better not to know, so he could claim ignorance. It would be nice to find out it was a legal option, but if it wasn’t, he’d feel obligated to leave it alone. He was already itching to take it again, to reclaim that blessed quiet that had been his, however briefly. He hadn’t wanted anything that much for years. He didn’t want definitive answers that would force him to decide.
Instead, after he’d packed his display, he drove to the Installation Center. Not the VA, not the clinic in the building where he worked, but the civilian place where he’d first gotten his Pilot installed. He hadn’t been in it since that appointment he’d made on his own in high school, and he wouldn’t have noticed much at that time, but now he took it in: the slick and modern design, silently speaking we are the future to the prospective patients; the baking cookies scent, designed to put them at ease; below it all, not waiting-room Muzak, but a low hum at a frequency that seemed to want to settle him, even if it couldn’t.
The clinician, a Dr. Nguyen, didn’t hide her surprise at seeing him. “Don’t you have your own doctors at BNL or the VA?”
“I do, but I’m allowed to come here, right?”
“Of course. Is there a problem?”
There has always been a problem, he didn’t say. He’d said it so many times, but nobody had listened. “I was wondering if there’s a way to . . . dampen the effect sometimes? To quiet my head.”
“You should be able to cycle down with the app.”
“Yes, but what if I can’t?”
“I can check if you’re working with the most up-to-date app.” She reached for her tablet.
“It’s current. What if the cycle-down isn’t enough?”
“I’m sorry. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
They never did. He took a deep breath. “Can you turn it off?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Can. You. Turn. Off. My. Pilot.” He repeated himself slowly.
The doctor frowned. “Why would you want that? Is there a problem with it?”
“I told you. It’s too loud. It never cycles down. You can look in my file; I came in about this years ago.”
“Are you sure you don’t just need to practice the exercises again to regain your focus?”
How many times did he have to say it? “This is not about exercises. I shouldn’t have to beg. It’s my head.”
“Yeah, but . . .” The doctor trailed off. “You’re literally the poster child for the implant. Your face is on our billboards. Won’t you be out of a job if you do that? Maybe you should think about it.”
David tried to control his mounting frustration. “It’s my head. Haven’t you turned them off for other people?”
“Only for medical reasons. If someone develops a tumor or seizures or that kind of thing. Look, I’m going to call in the counselor . . .”
“I don’t need a counselor, for fuck’s sake. I need my head to be quiet. Why can’t anyone ever understand that?”
He didn’t see her press a panic button, but she must have, because there was a knock on the door and then a burly white male nurse stepped into the room without waiting for a response. When the door opened, David caught a glimpse of a security guard standing in the hallway. He knew what it looked like: he was a tall, fit ex-soldier, yelling at a much smaller woman.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I just don’t understand why I can’t have my Pilot turned off if I want it turned off. It’s obviously possible, since you said you do it for people who medically need it removed.”
The nurse nodded like he understood. “It’s something we can do, but we usually encourage people to talk to a counselor first, to make sure you actually want to do this, since you spent all that money to have one put in. And to decide whether you want it turned off, or removed entirely, which we discourage because of the risks of scar tissue and brain damage . . . In either case, you’d need to schedule an appointment.”
“That’s ridiculous. I made this appointment. I’m here.”
“You made this appointment as a consultation, not a procedure.”
“Fine. I’m leaving.” He wasn’t getting anywhere. They had no reason to placate him; he had to deal with them if he wanted this done, and they obviously weren’t going to let him do anything while they thought he was threatening them. The security guard followed him out.
Fine, so what was next? He had tasted quiet; he was done with loud. He pulled out his phone and used the app to cycle his Pilot down. It was supposed to slow the rate at which the Pilot fired, like downshifting a car, but as usual, it had no effect.
* * *
• • •
A few days later, Milo messaged David to meet at a club near his apartment. It was a tacky suburban tiki bar franchise, tropical vibe thousands of miles displaced from the tropics.
“What do you think?” Milo asked.
“It’s a bar?”
“I’m working here. Weekends. Bouncer, when the DJ’s spinning.”
“Seriously? Congrats.”
“Thanks. It’s not much compared to you, Poster Boy.”
“I’m happy to recommend you anytime you want.”
“They won’t have me.”
“Of course they will. You might not be pretty enough for posters, but you can still do the presentations. And you like yours more than I like mine.”
“A, fuck you, and B, fuck you and your fucking noise.”
That was how it always went. David never knew if it was his term for the thing he was feeling that was off. Like nobody was speaking the same language as he was. At least Milo didn’t humor him.
He remembered the other night, and Alyssa, who had said that her sister thought David was a good influence. Thinking about her made him remember the quiet he’d felt on the balcony that night. “Hey, Milo? I don’t suppose you’d give me Karina’s sister’s number?”
Milo eyed him suspiciously.
“Not to hook up with her, I swear. My intentions are pure. I want to follow up on something we talked about at the party.”
“Let me ask Karina if she’s okay with that. I’m already in trouble with her over this job. She says I can do better.”
David didn’t want to push, so he dropped it. Later that night, Milo sent the number, along with a note saying he loved David, he trusted him, and if he did anything to hurt Alyssa, Milo would be contractually obligated to hunt him down and kill him. David agreed to the terms.
The harder part would be asking his question without sounding too eager, without implying interest he didn’t have, or interest he kind of had, but was secondary to his primary question. Life was complicated. He still wasn’t exactly sure how to phrase the greeting so he didn’t come off badly, like he was trying to use her, the exact thing Milo was warning him off doing. Hi, this is David from the party? Or Hi, this is Milo’s friend David? Remember that guy you got high with the other night? He didn’t send any of them.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
DAVID
David Geller-Bradley, please dial extension 1412.
David grabbed his report on prisons and Pilots off the printer and headed back to his desk, thumbing through the pages as he walked. Really, he should have armed himself with this information before the health fair the week before; he resolved to do better about that in the future. If he was presenting at a place with specific needs, it was important to research them in advance.
There was an e-mail for his supervisor stuck to the bottom of his repo
rt. Nina printed and filed all her e-mails. David thought it was odd and wasteful, not to mention she was constantly forgetting to grab them off the printer, so that they’d all gotten used to making extra deliveries. He knocked on her open door and handed it to her.
David Geller-Bradley, please dial extension 1412.
She pointed at the phone quizzically.
“On my way back to my desk,” he said. “I’ll get it there.”
He’d heard them the first time, of course he had. They hadn’t given him two seconds to reply. He didn’t know which department 1412 was in. There were so many departments. The funny thing was that everyone knew him, the poster boy, but he didn’t know everyone. Need a speaker at an event? Call David. Need a ribbon cutter? Someone to talk on the radio? David’s your guy.
David Geller-Bradley, please dial extension 1412.
He dialed extension 1412. “This is David?”
“Hi, David. This is Dr. Morton. Can you come see me in Health Services?”
“Sure thing.” He was supposed to say yes. Say yes, hear what any department wanted from him, decide if it fell within his purview. If he thought it was outside the bounds of what he was supposed to do, he went to his supervisor.
Tash Johnson peeked over their shared wall. “New poster, poster boy?”
“Maybe. New ask, I’m guessing. Maybe another health fair? They just like me best because I’m famous.”
Tash grinned; they were one of the three others in Recruitment, though David was the only one whose face had been in the first big ad campaign, so nobody else had the street recognition he had. The others didn’t seem to mind.
It wasn’t until he pushed open the Health Center door that he realized if they had wanted him to go to another fair they’d e-mail the date and say “be there.” No time-consuming visits necessary.
When he said he was there for Dr. Morton, the receptionist waved him through without making him sign in. “Third door on the right,” she said.
The first two doors were open medical examination rooms, but the third was a well-appointed office, the kind with diplomas on one wall, leather-bound medical journals in built-in shelves on another, and an enormous wooden desk at the focus. It had large windows, though they faced the parking lot. A brass clock ticked away on a shelf at eye level, and someone was running photocopies somewhere nearby.
“Dr. Morton?” David knocked on the open door.
“Shut the door and have a seat, David.”
Cold washed over David, even though this was not his supervisor or Human Resources or anyone in any position to give him bad news. There was something about this room, this desk, the clean-shaven white doctor with the yellow-gray comb-over that started just above his Pilot, that suggested a principal’s office, a sergeant’s rebuke, a telling-off. He shut the door and chose the right-hand chair of the two identical chairs on the desk’s near side, the one two feet farther away from the ticking clock, like that would do any good.
“David, as I’m sure you know, BNL runs Pilot clinics all over the country.”
“Yes, sir.” He tried to think of a reason BNL would send him to one of their own clinics. Maybe the doctor was going to ask him to do a recruitment video specifically to play on waiting-room televisions.
The doctor continued. “What I think maybe you don’t know, or haven’t considered, is that those clinics are the same entity as the corporation we work for. All one system.”
David was already sitting straight in his chair, but he sat even straighter. His back broke out in sweat.
“So, David, to spell it out, when an employee goes to a BNL clinic, it’s the same as if they came to see us here at Health Services. All the same system, you understand.”
David noticed that the paper file on the doctor’s desk had his name on it. He kept silent.
“So when an employee goes to a BNL clinic and asks to have their Pilot deactivated, that gets reported here. If the employee went into the clinic in an agitated state, that gets reported here as well. We obviously don’t share this information with Human Resources or your supervisor or anything like that—”
“Obviously.”
The doctor continued as if David hadn’t spoken “—but it is of concern to the company nonetheless. So it falls on me to ask you a few questions. Do you mind?”
David knew this wasn’t optional unless he planned on walking off the job today. “Go ahead.”
“Why did you visit the clinic instead of coming here or going to the VA?”
“I was under the illusion the clinic would be more private. I was wrong.”
“And why did you ask them to turn off your Pilot?”
“That wasn’t what I asked first. First, I asked if they knew any way I could dampen it a bit. Quiet it.”
“They said you were combative and aggressive.”
“I was frustrated, but I didn’t threaten or anything. Maybe I shouted a little, but only because I wasn’t being heard.”
“Is your Pilot malfunctioning?”
“I’ve said so a dozen times, but every time you all test it you say it’s working exactly as it’s supposed to. Eventually I stopped asking that question, since it makes me feel like I’m malfunctioning.”
“Have you considered you might just need to practice better focus?”
David didn’t answer, but instead scanned the diplomas on the wall. Chester Morton, doctor of psychology. Great.
“Have you considered the ramifications that decision might have on your career here? Your entire position hinges upon you being a brand ambassador, so to speak. How could anyone trust that you believed in the product if you weren’t using it yourself?”
David stayed silent.
“David, would you mind answering? Or telling me what you’re thinking?”
“I’m thinking it’s bullshit, sir, no offense, and an intrusion of privacy, that you would be talking to me about my job when your office is supposed to be here to talk about my health.”
“This is your health, David. Mental health is health, too, and you are clearly dealing with something I’d like to help you deal with before you jeopardize your job. Why didn’t you answer the question about focus exercises?”
“Everyone assumes user error when I say my Pilot is too loud, like all I have to do is practice and I’ll be fine. You have no idea how hard I’ve practiced. I’m a focus machine. How do you think I survived? Translate the inputs, integrate the inputs, do it all in a millisecond or you’re dead. I know it saved my life. I know the benefit of having all this information. But. It. Never. Stops. It never stops.”
“I hear you. Have you considered longer down-cycles?”
David fought the urge to slam his head into the desk. Longer down-cycles. Next the doctor would ask if his app was current. Nobody ever got it. He gave up. “I’ll try that.”
The doctor beamed. “Great. Why don’t you check back with me in two weeks and tell me how that’s going for you? I’ll put it on your schedule as a consultation so your supervisor doesn’t ask any questions.”
“Great idea, sir.” David forced a smile onto his face. If this doctor was good at reading people, he’d see right through it, but Morton looked like he’d just negotiated world peace. This was how it always went.
And what kind of bullshit was it that allowed the clinic to share his information over here? It hardly seemed legal, but if they were all the same system he guessed it made sense. He should have known he didn’t have any privacy. He was a public figure, the poster boy. They had invested in him. They wouldn’t let him go this easily.
Tash didn’t stand when David came back, but their voice carried over the half wall. “What was that about?”
“Consultation,” said David. “They have some dumb idea about the clinics.”
“Ugh. Have fun.”
David sat at his desk and listened to e
very finger every keystroke on every keyboard every voice on every phone work calls personal calls all the calls somebody’s headphones bleeding smooth jazz into the room every fluorescent light overhead with its own hum one bulb flickering three cubicles over Mackenzie Vogel eating her afternoon popcorn the smell of said popcorn slightly burnt someone else’s coffee someone else’s tea the microwave going with someone else’s late lunch and what jerk heated fish in an office microwave the printer in the corner and above it all his own thoughts incessant no app could fix this he had tried he had tried he had tried he had tried he had tried.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
SOPHIE
Sophie could think of approximately ten million things more likely than what David knocked on her door to ask. He might have walked in, sat in her desk chair, and said, Let’s get a pet chinchilla, maybe, or What are the ranks aboard a gravy boat?
She absolutely did not expect him to ask her if she knew where to get a Pilot deactivated.
“Why?” She let all her suspicions drip into her voice. “Is your company going to do a sting?”
He surprised her again by bursting into tears. She had no idea what to do. She racked her brain for any time ever that he’d cried in front of her, but if he’d cried as a kid, it was before she was old enough to remember. And that would have been kid tears, the sort elicited by unfairness or pain or fear of pain or the unfairness of pain, because weren’t those the same thing in some ways? If she cried at unfairness she’d never stop.
If someone cried in the circle, which happened sometimes, someone else grabbed the tissue box from the bar and offered them. She didn’t have tissues in her room and didn’t want to walk away right at this moment, so she opened her top drawer and pulled out one of the unmatched socks that floated between the balled pairs. It had pandas on it, and she kept hoping she’d find its mate again, but in the meantime, snot wouldn’t ruin it.
At least it made David laugh when she offered it. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, then blew his nose in the panda sock.
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