Chapter 93 | What Dr. Harlen Cannot Explain

Chapter 93: Chapter 93 | What Dr. Harlen Cannot Explain

Clinic day.

Quarterly assessment. Both wives. Eight-forty in the morning.

Dr. Harlen ran his assessments the same way he always did — methodical, quiet, no commentary until he had the full picture. Shira first. Then Mira. Then the comparative review against the previous quarter’s results.

He had been their attending clinician since the second week. He had never once changed the order.

—--

Shira’s assessment took forty minutes.

She ran the form sequence in the assessment room while Dr. Harlen tracked the signal pathway on the monitoring equipment. He asked her to run it four times. She ran it four times without comment.

On the fourth run the signal crossed the cutoff and held for twenty-two beats.

Dr. Harlen looked at his monitor.

He looked at Shira.

He looked at his monitor again.

"How long," he said.

"Twenty-two on the fourth," she said.

"The previous assessment," he said. "Your best recorded crossing was nine beats."

"Yes," she said.

He looked at the monitor.

He wrote something down.

He put his pen down.

He picked it up again.

"The nerve pathway," he said carefully. "In the section documented as non-functional at intake." He pointed at the monitor reading. "It’s functioning."

"Yes," Shira said.

"The documentation from intake classified this section as having less than three percent residual conductivity," he said.

"I know what the intake documentation said," Shira said.

He looked at the monitor.

He wrote something down.

He looked at it.

He put his pen down.

"Write it down," Shira said.

He wrote it down.

====

Mira’s assessment took fifty minutes.

The RF-7 ran the full calibration sequence. Her receiving channel opened at eight-forty hertz and held for the duration. Dr. Harlen tracked the vocal pathway activation simultaneously.

The two systems were running at the same time.

Not alternating. Not sequential.

At the same time.

Dr. Harlen looked at the readout.

He looked at Mira.

She was looking at the wall near his shoulder with the board in her lap.

He looked at the readout again.

He wrote something down.

He crossed it out.

He wrote something else.

Simultaneous activation of receiving channel and vocal pathway. Duration: sustained throughout session. Mechanism: unclear.

He looked at what he had written.

Mira’s board appeared.

Is there a problem.

"No," he said. "No problem. The results are—" He looked at the readout. "Unexpected."

Unexpected how.

He looked at the readout.

"The range on the tactile resonance has extended beyond your Gift’s documented classification parameters," he said. "Based on the intake assessment you should be reading surface frequencies at a maximum radius of approximately eight meters. This reading suggests—" He paused. "Significantly more than that."

She held the board.

She wrote: How significantly.

He looked at the readout.

"The equipment may need recalibration," he said.

Dr. Harlen.

He looked at the board.

How significantly.

He looked at the readout.

"Thirty-two meters," he said.

She looked at the wall.

He wrote it down.

=====

The comparative review happened in the consultation room.

All three of them at the table. Dr. Harlen with both assessment files. Kai with his hands flat on the table. Both wives in their positions — Shira to his left, Mira to his right.

Dr. Harlen looked at the files for a long moment.

Then he looked up.

"I need to ask you something," he said. "And I want an honest answer."

"Ask," Kai said.

"Has anything changed in the treatment protocol," Dr. Harlen said. "Since the previous assessment. Medications. Physical therapy frequency. Any new intervention I haven’t been informed of."

Kai looked at him.

"The specialty rotation," Kai said. "Both blends. Every morning."

Dr. Harlen looked at him.

"The food," Kai said.

Dr. Harlen looked at him for a moment.

He wrote in the file: Dietary intervention. Both blends. Daily. Possible contributing factor.

He looked at what he had written.

He underlined possible.

He looked at the underline.

He underlined it again.

Mira’s board appeared.

She held it toward Dr. Harlen.

It said: You have been our clinician for forty-eight Chapters. In that time you have written uncertain, possible, unclear, and unexpected in this file more than you have written anything definitive.

Dr. Harlen looked at the board.

We are not complaining, she wrote. We are noting it.

He looked at the board.

He looked at both assessment files.

"Yes," he said. "That’s accurate."

Write it down, she wrote. Whatever the results say. Write it down and let the results be what they are.

He looked at the board.

He wrote it down.

He wrote it all down.

====

In the hallway after the consultation Shira stopped.

Kai stopped behind her.

She was looking at the corridor wall.

"Twenty-two beats," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

"At intake," she said, "the assessment documented the pathway as non-functional."

"Yes," Kai said.

She looked at the wall.

"Non-functional," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She looked at the wall for another moment.

Then: "The noodle shop."

He looked at her.

"When this is done," she said. "The green awning."

"Yes," he said.

She wheeled herself toward the exit.

He followed.

===

They were at the clinic entrance waiting for the cab when Mira’s board appeared.

She held it where both of them could read it.

It said: Thirty-two meters.

Shira looked at the board.

"Yes," she said.

I could feel the entire clinic from the assessment room.

"How many patients," Shira said.

Fourteen. Plus staff. The man in room three has been tapping his foot for forty minutes.

Shira looked at the board.

"Is it annoying," she said.

Extremely.

The corner of Shira’s mouth moved.

Kai looked at the cab pulling up.

He was not smiling. He was considerably less successful than usual.

Mira lowered the board. She was eating a biscuit she had produced from somewhere. She was deeply unbothered.

Shira said: "Where did she get that."

"Nurse’s station," Kai said. "She took it when we passed."

Shira looked at Mira.

Mira ate the biscuit.

The man in room three has stopped tapping, the board came up. He’s asleep.

Shira got in the cab.

Kai helped with the chair.

Mira finished the biscuit.

===

The cab back.

Halfway through Shira said to the window: "Thirty-two meters."

Mira’s board appeared between the seats.

Yes.

"That’s the whole building," Shira said.

From the kitchen, the board came back. I can feel every floor.

Shira looked at the window.

"Dorothy Callahan," she said.

Unit two-twelve. She walks with her weight on the left side in the mornings. By afternoon it shifts.

Shira looked at the window.

"Her husband’s condition," she said.

Possibly. Or habit.

Shira looked at the window.

She was quiet for a moment.

"She approved of the floor joins," Shira said.

Yes, the board came back. She did.

The cab moved.

Kai sat between them and looked out the front window and said nothing and kept his face very still.

===

Back at the apartment.

Lunch. Specialty rotation. Both blends.

Mira ate her bowl. She ate with the focused quality of someone who had been told their Gift extended thirty-two meters and had decided to eat lunch about it.

Shira ate.

Halfway through she said: "The man in room three."

Mira looked up from her bowl.

"The foot-tapping," Shira said. "Did it bother you the whole session or just toward the end."

Mira picked up the marker.

The whole session, she wrote. I was tracking fourteen people and a foot-tapper.

"How did you track the assessment while tracking fourteen people," Shira said.

Mira ate a spoonful.

Multitasking.

"That’s not an answer," Shira said.

It’s accurate though.

Shira looked at her.

Mira ate.

He had a very consistent rhythm, the board appeared. After a while it was just background. Like a metronome.

"You used an involuntary foot-tapper as a metronome," Shira said.

He was very reliable.

Shira looked at her bowl.

The corner of her mouth did the thing.

She ate.

Kai ate.

He was looking at his bowl with the focused quality of someone who was entirely successful at keeping his face still and who was not fooling anyone.

===

After lunch Mira went to her room.

Shira stayed at the table.

She had the letter from Cara Venn in her hand. She had brought it to the table.

She looked at it.

She set it down.

She picked it up.

"The frequency address," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

"You sent the letter Tuesday," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She looked at the letter.

"Six lines," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She looked at it.

"Did you say the right things," she said.

He looked at her.

"I said the form was running," he said. "That the signal crossed twenty-one beats. That the next attempt was at five-fourteen."

She looked at the letter.

"That’s accurate," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She set the letter down on the table.

She looked at it.

"The second letter," she said. "If she sends one."

He waited.

"Let me read it first," she said. "Before you."

He looked at her.

"Then I’ll tell you what’s in it," she said.

He looked at her.

The underneath expression. Full and present and not going anywhere.

"Yes," he said.

She picked the letter up.

She took it back to her room.

===

That evening the system chimed.

『 Bond Level — Shira Voss: 3.9 / 10. 』 『 Bond Level — Mira Elys: 3.9 / 10. 』 『 MULTIPLIER: ×2,000. ACTIVE. 』 『 The system notes: 』 『 Dr. Harlen wrote possible and underlined it twice. 』 『 The system notes he has been writing possible for forty-eight Chapters. 』 『 Today he wrote it down and underlined it twice. 』 『 Progress. 』 『 Mira Elys used a foot-tapper as a metronome during a precision assessment. 』 『 Shira Voss said: that’s not an answer. 』 『 Mira Elys said: it’s accurate though. 』 『 The system notes this exchange correctly. 』 『 Shira Voss said: the second letter. Let me read it first. 』 『 Then I’ll tell you what’s in it. 』 『 The system notes that she has told Kai what was in the first letter. 』 『 She did not have to. 』 『 She has decided to continue. 』 『 The system is paying attention. 』 『 The dungeon unseals in seven days. 』 『 The system notes: seven. 』

Kai read it.

He put the phone down.

From Shira’s room the form started. Not the count version. The evening version that was slower and deliberate. Signal to cutoff. Through. Past it. Holding.

Twenty beats.

Twenty-one.

Twenty-two. ℯ

She held twenty-two.

She started again.

From Mira’s room the RF-7 at eight-forty hertz. Then her voice following the third phrase of the album. Fifty seconds. She had never held the third phrase for fifty seconds before.

She let it end.

She did not start again.

Instead the tactile resonance went through the floor — the whole building, all eleven units, the elevator shaft, the stairwell, Dorothy Callahan in two-twelve with her weight on the left side of each step.

All of it.

Thirty-two meters in every direction from where she sat.

Kai sat at the table and felt it through the Nerve Sense and said nothing about it and would not say anything about it until she was ready to tell him.

Some things were hers to hold until then.