“Impossible.”
Four. Four times in . . . Welp. Still two minutes.
I take a deep breath, remembering a technique my old therapist used. I saw her for a short time after Tim and I broke up, when my self-confidence was six feet under, partying it up with disgruntled grubs and Mesozoic fossils. She taught me the importance of letting go of what I cannot control （others） and focusing on what I can （my reactions）。 She’d often do this crafty little thing: reframe my own statements to help me achieve self-realization.
Time to therapize Mark the Material Engineer.
“I understand that I’m asking you to do something that is currently impossible, given the inner shell of the helmet.” I smile encouragingly. “But maybe, if I explain what needs to be done from a neuroscience perspective, we can find a way to achieve a middle ground—”
“Impossible.”
I don’t head-desk, but only because Levi happens to enter the room right at that moment, nodding his good morning in our general direction and rolling up the sleeves of his Henley. His forearms are strong and insanely attractive—and why the hell am I even noticing them? Aargh. Kaylee let us know he’d be late because of something at Penny’s school. Which, I guess, is the name of his daughter. Because Levi has a daughter. I promise I’ll stop repeating this fact as soon as it becomes less shocking to me （i.e., never）。
Everyone greets him, and I feel a jolt to my stomach. We’ve been emailing, but we haven’t talked in person since yesterday, when I gave him official permission to abhor me—as long as he’s professional about it. I’m curious to see how he’ll play. In deference to his tender sensibilities I’m wearing my tiniest septum ring and the single Ann Taylor dress I own. It’s an olive branch; he damn better appreciate it.
“I see what you’re saying,” I tell Mark. “There are physical impossibilities inherent to the materials, but we might be able to—”
He repeats the only word he knows. “Impossible.”
“—find a solution that—”
“No.”
I’m about to praise the sudden variety in his vocabulary when Levi interjects. “Let her finish, Mark.” He takes a seat next to me. “What were you saying, Bee?”
Huh? What’s happening? “The . . . um, the issue is the outputs placement. They need to be positioned differently if we want to stimulate the intended region.”
Levi nods. “Like the angular gyrus?”
I flush. Come on, I apologized for that! I glare at him for shading me in front of his team, but I notice an odd gleam in his eyes, as though he . . . Wait. It’s not possible. He’s not teasing me, is he?
“Y-yes,” I stammer, lost. “Like the angular gyrus. And other brain regions, too.”
“And what I told her,” Mark says with all the petulance of a six-year-old who’s too short for the roller coaster, “is that given the property of the Kevlar blend we’re using for the inner shell, the distance between outputs needs to stay the way it is.”
Actually, what he told me was “Impossible.” I’m about to point that out when Levi says, “Then we change the Kevlar blend.” It seems to me like a perfectly reasonable avenue to explore, but the other five people at the table seem to think it’s as controversial as the concept of gluten in the twenty-first century. Murmurs rise. Tongues cluck. A guy whose name might be Fred gasps.
“That would be a significant change,” Mark whines.
“It’s unavoidable. We need to do proper neurostimulation with the helmets.”
“But that’s not what the Sullivan prototype calls for.”
This is the second time I’ve heard the Sullivan prototype mentioned, and the second time a dense silence ensues when it’s brought up. The difference today is that I’m in the room, and I can see how everyone looks to Levi uneasily. Is he the main author of the prototype? Can’t be, since he’s new to BLINK. Sullivan is the name of the Discovery Institute, so maybe that’s where it’s from? I want to ask Guy, but he’s off setting up equipment with Rocío and Kaylee this morning.
“We’ll be as faithful as possible to the Sullivan prototype, but it was always meant to be a vehicle for the neuroscience,” Levi says, firm and final as usual, with that competent, big-dick calm of his, and everyone nods somberly, more so than one would expect from a bunch of dudes who throttle one another over donuts and come into work in their pajamas. There’s clearly something I don’t know. What is this place, Twin Peaks? Why’s everyone so full of secrets?