Humza and Jasper stumble into the lab, groggy and swearing but stop complaining when they see that she has brought each of them coffee. Liz watches the videos again as she’s buzzing in the subjects, taking notes, and then it is 8 pm and they are all busy gluing electrodes to the heads of fresh subjects and testing equipment. Tonight, her Six is a football coach with night terrors and her Seven is the insomniac dean of a little private performing arts college with a crazy silver thicket of hair that makes navigating the electrode sites difficult. Liz puts everything out of her mind and focuses on the numbers, the addition and subtraction of measurements, division by two, and then the tight swimmy scent of adhesive filling her head. She says nothing to Humza or Jasper. She is a true scientist, this above all things. She wants to make sure that their bias won’t skew tonight’s data.

All subjects tucked into bed for the nights, Jasper announces lights out and then slumps down, puts his head on his desk and groans. Humza asks if it’s ok with them if he streams techno off the internet because he’s going to be dead by 10 pm if something doesn’t wake him up. Liz cracks the tired ache out of her fingers and watches the overhead projection of the seven people each trying to find the cool spot on their pillows. Jasper wonders if they shouldn’t make another run for coffee and Humza declares that he’s going to Amsterdam on the overtime because it gives him something to think about instead of feeling sorry for himself. Jasper tells him to fuck himself. Liz worries that the insomniac will ruin everything but had managed to convince the woman to take a sleeping aid to counteract the discomfort of the wires, and already Seven is heading into light delta, followed by Four, then Two, then Three. Five thrashes a bit, twisting his wires into the pillow and then Six throws K-complexes and is out. Liz sits absolutely still, eyes flipping from Five to One to Five to One. Five offers up a deep gulping snort that Liz is certain will wake him, but he ekes it out and slumps into delta sleep. Which leaves One.

Liz stares at the overhead, muscles clenched so hard that she realizes her neck is aching from the angle. She shakes it out. Six shouts something about peanut butter. Jasper is flipping through the take out menus and arguing with Humza about which was the better 70s movie: Cannonball Run or Every Which Way But Loose. When Jasper makes the argument for Dom Deluise, One throws her first delta wave.

Liz waits for a second, to see if it will hold, then spins her chair around to her workstation. She queues up all videos and audio at once, hunches down, throws her headphones on to drown out the lab noise and stares down at the sleeping bodies. Her ears are filled with the slow even breathing of seven strangers. There seems to be a slight upturning of their mouths, as though they know she is watching, that this time she is listening. She does not breathe and hears the blood pound in her ears, in staccato relief against the exhalations. Finally in a voice she can only hope is a whisper, she breaks.

“Tell me what happens to the girl. Please. Just tell me.”

She closes her eyes and waits for a response.