Page 8 of Fractured Devotion
In the clinic, everything smells like ozone and expectation. I pass Mara near the east wing. Her voice is clipped and exhausted as she fields questions from a restless family. She catches my eye briefly, then looks away.
She’s changed her perfume again. I remember the way she used to wear citrus oils back when she first got here as a new staff. Now, it’s something heavier. Vetiver or cedar. The kind of scent you choose when you need to feel unbreakable.
Further down the hall, three interns huddle near the diagnostics station, visibly stiffening when they see me approach. I recognize them from the onboarding memo Mara forwarded yesterday. They’re new rotations from the university’s cognitive psych program. Fresh faces, all of them. Eager, wide-eyed, and still smelling faintly of overcompensation. One breaks away and trails behind me, pretending to study her tablet. She has a blonde braid, trembling hands, and a lanyard that reads Harper DuVall.
“Doctor Varon,” she starts, half a step too quickly, then falters. “I… uh… I uploaded last night’s vitals for Subject 17, but I wanted to flag a misalignment in the EEG overlay. I corrected it in the logs. I hope that’s okay.”
I glance at her. She’s young, maybe too young, and she says everything like she’s afraid it might be the wrong answer. Still, the correction was valid. I nod once.
“Next time, highlight the update in red. Subtle changes get buried otherwise,” I say.
She nods, clearly relieved, her shoulders softening under the weight of acknowledgment. When I turn the corner, she lingers a few seconds longer before vanishing back into the cluster.
“Doctor Varon,” Mara calls after me this time. “Dr. Rennick left his file on your desk. Subject 43. He flagged the REM regression.”
I nod again, not breaking stride.
Back in my lab, I close the door, secure the blinds, and sit in the dark.
Subject 43. Adolescent female with severe neuroassociative trauma. Baseline rewiring was initiated six months ago. Three days ago, she screamed during REM cycle and crashed into delta waves.
It shouldn’t have happened. Not with the current calibration.
The security footage shows nothing unusual, but that means little. Half the clinic’s systems were rebooted during the blackout, so there could be dozens of blind spots.
Or sabotage.
I file that thought away for now.
At noon, I’m due for a briefing with Rourke. He’s ten minutes late and smells faintly of the greenhouse, with a hint of soil and humidity clinging to his cuffs.
“You’ve been watching the integration numbers,” he says, settling across from me like a crow landing on a bare branch.
“Forty-three isn’t stabilizing,” I reply. “She’s regressing.”
“Temporary instability,” he counters. “Alec thinks it’s hormonal interference.”
“Alec’s thinking with nostalgia, not data.”
His lips twist into something unreadable. “So you’ve spoken?”
“We exchanged syllables.”
“Keep it that way.”
Night presses in, heavy and still, as I step into my second apartment three floors above Miramont’s west wing.
I don’t use it often, but when the days run too long, and the thought of the walk back to my place feels like a mile too far, this space becomes a second skin. The moment the door clicks shut behind me, I exhale, slow and controlled, like a valve releasing pressure.
The day peels off my skin with every step I take toward the bathroom. I undress in silence, each article of clothing falling to the cool tile floor with the soft hiss of surrender. One layer at a time, I strip away the pretense, the composure, the clinical detachment.
The proximity has always been intentional. Being this close to the lab ensures I can vanish into work if sleep turns traitor. It also means every hum of the generators below and every fluctuation in temperature vibrates up through the floor like a reminder of the life I’ve chosen.
I sink into the tub. The water is hot enough to redden my skin, but I need it. The sting makes me feel located.
I close my eyes.
There’s a sensation behind my forehead. It’s not pain, not quite. More like a pressurized thrum. Like a thought that wants to be born but can’t quite stretch its limbs.
