Dr. Herrera nodded, seemingly undeterred by his minimal responses. "Parents still there? Any siblings?"
The questions landed as they always did, sharp despite their innocence. Finn felt the familiar tightening in his chest. "Yeah, they’re still there." He delivered the answer flatly and hoped she wouldn’t inquire further into the second question.
She just nodded, clearly struggling with the one-sided nature of their exchange.
"Anything else?" he asked.
The words came out with a hard edge that he recognized as unnecessarily rude. He saw the flash of hurt in her eyes, just a flicker before she shuttered it behind her professionalism.
"No, that's all. Don't stay too late." Her voice was neutral now, the earlier warmth gone. "The building security does rounds at nine."
She turned and walked away, that bounce absent from her step. Finn watched her go and felt a twist of regret in his stomach. She'd been trying to be kind, to make him feel welcome. He'd responded by being an ass. Finn sat motionless for a moment, considering whether he should go apologize. Then he heard the lab door close behind him as she left.
Instead, he turned back to the computer and pulled up the next file. Patient 87. Male, 35, military veteran, TBI from an IED explosion three years ago. The symptom list scrolled before him: insomnia, emotional dysregulation, temporal lobe scarring, anxiety, depression that didn't respond to standard treatments.
Finn felt a cold weight settle in his chest. He clicked through to the brain scans, the gray scale images appearing on screen. Areas of damage showed as darker regions where healthy tissue should be. Patient 87's imaging showed reduced baseline function in the affected regions, with particular degradation in the posterior temporal lobe.
Just like his brother’s.
Chapter Four
ELENA
Elena could sense the drama in the lab this morning. As she was preparing her morning coffee, she couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the gossip among the research assistants. She didn’t have to listen hard to catch the key phrases:
"…literally reorganized my entire filing system without asking."
"Did you see him with the intake logs? Like he’s been here forever."
She let them have their grievance, at least for a minute. The subject of the uprising sat alone at the workstation near her office, back to the rest. Finn Cochrane, the new guy who was making waves. He wore the same style of button-down as yesterday, this one a shade of gray. He was already deep into the morning’s protocol review, scanning the pages in deep focus.
By Finn’s first day in the lab, it was abundantly clear that heoperated at another level than the other research assistants. Elena had decided to put that precision to use. On Tuesday morning, she asked him to audit the other assistants’ data protocols. She’d noticed Derek’s session timing inconsistencies and Joanna’s sloppy entries, but fixing them sat near the bottom of her totem pole of crises. Now she had someone who could handle it.
Elena set her mug down and flipped open the schedule, skimming over the day’s appointments. No major meetings, but plenty of sessions, and the latest batch of intake interviews to code. She risked a glance at Finn, who had not yet looked up.
At 9:30, Derek made his move. He walked to Finn's desk and tried to appear casual. "Finn?"
Finn kept his eyes on his work. "What?" he said with his usual brand of approachability.
"Quick question about the entry logs for group C."
"Is it about the session duration formatting or the timestamp fields?"
"Uh, both, actually." Derek slid a folder onto the desk. "I got flagged for inconsistent time notation. I've been using decimal hours, like 0.75, but some of the files use minutes?—"
"Forty-five minutes versus 0.75 hours," Finn finished, plucking a sheet out. "The system can't aggregate mixed formats. Everything needs to be in minutes for the analysis software. You can convert your entries with a batch script. I'll forward it to you."
Derek lingered for a moment. "Forty-five minutes, 0.75 hours… they're the same thing."
Finn finally looked up. "Then call it the same thing every time."
"Uh, thanks." Derek grabbed his folder and retreated.
Elena let another minute pass before calling, “Finn, can I see you in my office for amoment?”
He rose and walked over to her office. She gestured for him to close the door. “You’re certainly shaking things up,” she said.
Finn’s expression remained neutral. “I am aware. The audit revealed discrepancies, and I am taking steps to correct them.”
