Page 11 of Gifted & Talented

Meredith, Five Years Ago

A quiet conference room, gray walls, the thrum of a solemn air conditioner. An interviewer with a clipboard, a patient with an appointment.

The scrawl of notes taken in the margin of a standard introductory question. “How would you describe your moods prior to using Chirp?”

The anxious shuffle of a tepid response. “Um. Well. I’m pretty, you know, anxious. And I have panic attacks sometimes and stuff. And, like, problems with depression sometimes. Not like, you know, suicidal or anything.” Quickly, defensively: “I just get depressed and stuff.”

“Understood,” said the interviewer—reassuringly, pacifyingly. Clinical ambivalence. “And how have you been feeling since you started using Chirp?”

“Um… better, I guess?” The patient, 76A—Colette Bothe to someone looking at her confidential file, though more importantly, Patient 76A—bit her lip. “Sort of? I mean… is it supposed to work right away? I don’t totally understand. Like, to be honest, I really did this for the money.” A sheepish, humorless laugh.

The interviewer’s eyes cut briefly up from his file before he answered with a carefully rehearsed, “Chirp is a biomantic monitor, comparable to an insulin monitor for diabetics. Not to get too technical, but when your brain chemistry shifts, Chirp administers the appropriate counteracting chemicals, not unlike selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. But pharmaceuticals of the past are no more effective than trial and error. Now, instead of taking antidepressants or antipsychotics that only serve as Band-Aids for your neurological condition, Chirp administers exactly what you need to manage your brain chemistry, as well as learning your tendencies over time and adjusting its reactivity to make you feel better.”

“Oh. Well, yeah, I do feel—” Patient 76A shifted in her chair. “Better, I guess.”

The interviewer’s eyes shot up from the clipboard again, his pen pausing above the file. “Can you explain that further?”

Patient 76A shrugged. “I was on antidepressants before, and I guess it feels the same. Ish.”

“Fuck,” announced Meredith from the small observation room behind the one-way mirror. “Ish? What the fuck isish?”

“Well, I have your chart here,” said the interviewer. “Thank you for filling it out, by the way. So, before we began your trial with Chirp, during the weeks you spent unmedicated, your average mood score was about a five, with dips here and there and some better days as well. And for the month since you began using Chirp, your mood score is an average of six.”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s… better.” Patient 76A began pulling the loose skin at her elbow. “But I thought I was supposed to be happy?”

“You’re damn right you’re supposed to be happy,” snapped Meredith.

“Relax,” said Ward, who stood beside her scrolling his Wrenfare phone. Meredith felt a surge of unspecific loathing.

“Fuck you,” she said, glancing at the clock before cutting another scowl at Ward Varela, her chief technology officer. “Why aren’t you freaking out? This is the twenty-fifth patient we’ve seen today showing no sign of significant improvement.”

Ward shrugged without looking up. “It takes time, that’s all. And anyway, it’s working, isn’t it?”

“Barely. That increase could be purely circumstantial. What if she got a better job or just bought a new vibrator?Fuck,” was Meredith’s economical summation. “We need a wow factor. We needlife-changing. We needcan’t live without it. Tyche isn’t going to be impressed that they threw us ten billion dollars and we responded with ‘better-ish,’” she concluded with venom.

“Haters gon’ hate,” said Ward louchely. He was over ten years Meredith’s senior and yet occasionally, talking to him was like ministering to the teenager in the back of the classroom, begging them fruitlessly to care about the quadratic formula or their own civil rights.

“This should have been an easy one,” said Meredith, more to herself than to him. “It’s just clinical depression, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like it’s bipolar or schizophrenia. This should be like pushing a goddamn button.”

“So should the female orgasm,” said Ward, “and yet.”

To that, Meredith spared him a glare.

“Meredith, this is just the first round of product testing.” Ward gave her ameaningful arch of his brow. “You can’t actually expect to heal the human condition overnight.”

“That isliterallywhat Foster expects me to do,” Meredith hissed. “Our whole valuation is riding on this.” She started to pace the small room, feeling the walls gaining ground on the breadth of her panic. “If Tyche doesn’t get the numbers they want, they’ll bail. They’llbail.”

“Sure, and that sucks,” acknowledged Ward with the air of an incoming lecture. “If Tyche bails, then your dad leaves another annoying I-told-you-so voicemail, some tech bloggers nobody’s ever heard of do some think pieces ravaging your reputation, and in a few years, you try again with a better product, something that actually works—”

“Thisproduct works!” snapped Meredith. “This is my fuckinglife’s work,Ward—”

“Mer, come on. Those are two different things—”

“I dropped out of Harvard for this. I signed withKip Hughesfor this.” She shuddered and rounded on him. “Don’t you get it? I gambledeverythingon this—”

“Harvard is a dinosaur,” Ward interjected with a shrug. “Their biomancy program is nothing compared to the one at Xiamen.”

Briefly, the image of Ward choking to death in a pool of his own blood floated uncharitably across the forefront of Meredith’s mind. Followed by the possibility of strangling him.

---