AS WE ENTER THE ENORMOUS VAULT-LIKE STORAGE room where the wreckage is stored, I talk to Race about what I suspect. “This stuff was stowed on the defense ship that escaped the H2 planet, but I think the Sicarii must have gotten some demonstration of what the scanner tech could do when Congers’s ancestor went to that final meeting. Congers himself said as much a few days ago. It can be made into a weapon.”
“True, but maybe it wasn’t that powerful, or else his ancestor would have walked away,” says Race as we flick on the lights.
“We don’t know that. It could have been so powerful that he couldn’t control it, or that it took him out, too.”
Race peers down at the twisted hunks of wreckage. “You think they’re after the scanner here because they know exactly what it can do.”
“And maybe because they want to use it against us.”
I kneel next to the biggest piece and brush some of the dust from its surface.
“Then I hope Rufus Bishop and whoever’s working with him hid the scanner well,” he says in a grim voice.
I turn to him. “Do you really think he’s responsible for the theft?”
“Aren’t you the one who laid the fluorescent powder trap?” he says, his red eyes glinting with something like amusement.
“Yeah, but Rufus was in the atrium the entire time.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t scope it out prior to the factory fire.”
“I know, but . . .”—I can’t believe I’m saying this—“I think Rufus is a bigoted, paranoid asshole. But I also think he’s extremely intelligent and has his own code of honor.”
Race’s mouth tightens like he’s about to laugh. “Well said. So you think a Sicarii took it? Or do you think he is a Sicarii?”
I press my knuckles into the tile floor. “No idea. How are they here, if we’ve scanned everyone repeatedly and no one is orange?”
“Perhaps Dr. Shirazi will have some answers after she completes the autopsies.”
I nod and return to my inspection of the wreckage. Most of it looks like ordinary-yet-severely-damaged, high-tech gadgetry, in that there are screens and chips and wires. “Maybe we should pull some of these chips out and see if we have any way to interface with them.”
Race’s eyebrow arches. “It’s quite advanced.”
I mirror his expression. “And yet somehow, my dad built an entire satellite shield from it. And look.” I point to one open control panel. There are fingerprints along its edge, and inside . . . “It looks like something’s been removed.” There are ports within the compartment, little odd-shaped holes that are strangely familiar.
“The scanner has ports that looked just like those,” I blurt out as the connection is forged inside my mind.
Race leans in, squinting. “You’re sure?”
“Fairly. I thought the ports on the side of the scanner were USB, but they weren’t shaped quite right. There were three of them, though.” I jab my finger at each of the three holes where something used to connect.
“So your father removed the chips,” Race says slowly, clearly turning over possibilities in his mind. “And the scanner has ports identical to these—”
“I said it looked like they were, but—”
He holds up his hands, granting me my uncertainty. “It had ports similar to those. So if we knew what they were—or if we could find the missing pieces that fit into them—we could figure out what the scanner’s full capabilities are.”
“Which would be awesome if we actually had possession of the scanner,” I say with a humorless laugh. I move to a crumpled piece of debris as tall as my hip and touch one of the chips inside a gaping crack in the panel. As soon as I do, the hunk of metal scrapes along the floor and falls back before I can catch it. The thing splinters, spilling and scattering a dozen different components and chips that had been nestled within.
I go to pick up a few of them, but Race grabs my wrist. “Don’t.” He nods at one of the chips, which is oozing something viscous and brown onto the tile. “We have no idea what that is.”
“My mom can help us figure it out,” I say, feeling my muscles tense with energy and curiosity. A clue. A lead. Something to pin my shredded hopes on. We grab a broom and dustpan and carefully scrape the chips and the ooze onto the pan, then carry it to the morgue.
“Mom?” I call, immediately recognizing the whine of a bone saw coming from behind the closed doors of her autopsy room. When he hears it, Race winces and tells me he’ll wait outside.
A moment later, the whine stops abruptly, and my mother leans out of the chamber. She’s wearing goggles and gloves. A face mask is tucked beneath her chin. “Tate,” she says wearily. “I’ve just gotten started. Dr. Ackerman was going to assist, but once again he’s got his hands full.”
I glance around, noting the hum of a mass spectrometer against the wall. “Are you sampling those anomalies? Any signs of a parasite or anything like that?”
“I have a handful of odd cellular and chromosomal findings, but that’s it. I’ve done the thoracic and abdominal dissections. No findings that indicate parasitic activity.” Her lips press together for a moment. “In fact, all three of them seem perfectly healthy apart from the bullet wounds,” she says in an unsteady voice, reminding me that two of the men she’s been cutting open had been her friends for years.
“What are the odd findings? You mean the weird secretory glands in their skin? Did the other two bodies have them, too?” I ask, trying to bring her to a more objective place, where she can think of them as a collection of lab results instead of dead comrades, at least for the time being.
She switches into scientist mode quickly. “All three bodies had the additional secretory glands. I haven’t had time to further examine their function, though. But I’ve confirmed the DNA profiles as Charles and George, so even if the Sicarii somehow took them over, it didn’t change their basic genetic makeup. However, their chromosomes are somewhat strange. The telomeres are unusually long, and their levels of telomerase are off the charts.”
“Telomeres . . . like, the ends of their chromosomes?”
“Correct. The parts that protect the DNA sequences from degrading or mutating.”
“Aren’t they associated with aging or something?” It was all over the news last year, the idea that telomerase, this enzyme that causes those telomere endcaps to lengthen, might slow the aging process.
“That’s the theory. As chromosomes replicate, they degrade, resulting in a loss of genetic information and integrity. Telomeres keep that from happening as quickly, but they shorten over time, and when they get too short, the cell stops dividing and dies. Lack of telomerase and short telomeres are common in people with various premature aging disorders.”
“And both George and Willetts have a lot of telomerase.”
Her dark eyes are steady on mine. “The deceased Core agent does as well. Far beyond the normal range. Basically . . . immortal.”
My mouth drops open. “Like, they’d stopped aging?”
She nods slowly. “I’ve just started the intracranial examination. Perhaps I’ll find some answers there.”
She’s cutting their skulls open to look at their brains, hence the sound of the bone saw. “I just wanted to drop these components off,” I say. “They’re from the ship wreckage. I’m wondering if you can take a look at these?” I hold up the dustpan full of oozing chips.
She frowns and blows a wisp of hair upward, away from her face. “When I’m finished.”
“I think these might help us figure out what the scanner was supposed to be used for,” I tell her. “And what Dad meant when he said it was the key to our survival.”
She eyes the chips as I set the dustpan on the stainless steel lab table in the center of the room. “He might not have meant the specific device. He may have been referring to the overall tech—”
“No,” I say firmly, my throat getting tight. “I was there. I know what he said, Mom.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, and then the lines in her expression soften. “Okay. When I find a stopping point, I’ll take a look.”
I thank her and join Race in the hallway. He’s leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, and I wonder if he’s slept at all since arriving on the compound just over twenty-four hours ago. As much as I want to hate him, like Rufus, I feel a begrudging respect for him and the pressures he’s been under. He’s not the cold, merciless machine I thought he was when he was chasing us to get the scanner, and I understand his desperation now. He also cares about his agents, and he seems to regret what happened with my dad. I wonder what Dad would think if he knew we were working together now, if he’d be furious or if he’d understand that I have no choice.
It’s one more thing I’ll never know about Frederick Archer.Race opens his eyes when he hears me coming and pushes himself off the wall. “How are the autopsies going?”
I fill him in about the secretory glands my mom discovered in the men’s skin, as well as the strange telomere and telomerase findings.
“But no signs of the parasite?” he asks.
“None.”
His jaw clenches. “So we still have no idea how they move from host to host.”
“Mom’s working on it. She said she’d take a break to look at those chips, though. Even if we can’t figure out the Sicarii, maybe we can find a way to beat them.”
He crosses his arms over his chest once we reach the elevator banks. “We could do that a lot faster if we actually had the scanner.”
“Maybe we should go check how Angus is doing with Rufus,” I suggest.
It feels a little weird as we stride down the administrative hall together, me and Race Lavin, teaming up to fight a common enemy. I mean, on Thursday morning—just three days ago—I was choking him out on the floor of a Walmart. But he’s a calm, steady presence at my side, and right now, that makes me feel less alone in all of this.
We find Angus in the CFO office, mostly by tracking the hoarse barks of Rufus’s outrage.
“Did he confess?” Race asks as we enter. Rufus is nowhere in sight, but I can hear his grumbling coming from an office down the hall.
Angus glances at us and shakes his head, which is when I notice Congers across the room, tight-lipped and grim as he talks into a com device. My stomach drops. “Is he talking to the defense stations? Have they spotted scout ships?”
“No, thank God. No sign of them,” says Angus.
“Yet,” says Race.
Angus gives Congers a concerned look. “We’re bringing in another suspect. Rufus said he only approached and touched the keypad on the secure room after seeing someone else there.”
Race looks back and forth between Angus and Congers. The tension in this room is stifling. “Who?”
“My son,” Congers snaps before returning to his conversation. He’s telling his agents to stand down, and he’s obviously getting some pushback.
“If he really saw someone in the hallway who shouldn’t have been there, why didn’t he report it immediately?” I ask.
“Because of the fire in the factory!” Rufus roars from the other room, his gruff voice accompanied by the rattling of what I can only assume are handcuffs. Rufus must be close to having a stroke.
“Weren’t you working with Rufus on the security system?” I ask Congers as he ends his phone call.
He nods. “Just before the fire broke out, Rufus was supposed to be checking the surge protection in the circuit breakers along this hallway.”
“Making it either the perfect opportunity or an unfortunate coincidence?” Race says.
Angus scratches at his beard. He’s got grime smeared across his shirt, and his sleeves are rolled up, revealing his massive, freckled forearms. “I’d been in here all morning since you put that stuff on the door. But maybe five minutes before the fire, I’d left to go to lunch, and when I reached the atrium, I sent two guards from the main entrance back to my office to guard the scanner. It couldn’t have been unguarded for more than a minute or two.”
Kellan walks in with two other guards, surrounding a cuffed Graham Congers, who is stone-faced and pale. “Sir, I did what you asked. The guards searched Mr. Bishop’s quarters, and they’re in the process of searching the Core agents’ quarters as well. We haven’t found anything yet.”
That’s the reason Congers was telling them to stand down. No doubt the Core is pissed at having suspicion cast on them again. The whole thing is exhausting and frustrating. Someone has the scanner, and I’m desperate to have it back in my hands. It’s a vulnerable feeling, not knowing who the enemy is. For all we know, Rufus is being controlled by something that’s infiltrated his body and mind.
Kellan jerks his head toward Graham and touches the black light wand at his belt. “His hands were covered in the vitamin solution. Bottom of his shoes, too.”
“Because I was here and touched the keypad,” Graham snaps. “I told you that already.”
“Why?” Congers demands. “Why were you even in this office?” He looks utterly disgusted with his son, and my gut clenches.
Graham turns to his father, their gray-green eyes locking in a silent battle. “I wanted to catch whoever was trying to steal the device,” he says. “And I saw someone go in after Mr. McClaren walked out.” He looks away, swallowing hard under the anger in his father’s expression.
“Did you recognize him?” Angus asks, his gaze slanting toward the office where Rufus is being held.
Graham looks at me and then at Angus. “Yeah. He’s one of you guys. Pale-blond hair.”
“Brayton?” I ask.
Graham shrugs. “I don’t know his name. He’s a middle-aged guy. He was starting to punch in a code when I peeked in here, but he stopped when he saw me and took off.” He points to a back hallway across the suite. “The guy was sprinting. I was suspicious.”
“Where does that hallway lead?” Congers asks.
“To some other offices, an emergency exit to the building, and another hallway leading to the main corridor,” says Graham. “After I checked to make sure the storage room door was still locked, I went back there. That’s where I was when I heard the explosion. But the blond guy was long gone.”
Angus’s brow furrows. “Brayton is very ill. The last thing he can do right now is sprint.”
“He looked pretty damn healthy at breakfast this morning,” Congers says in a hard voice. “And you did deny him access to anything but janitorial duty, I believe. Plenty of reason for him to be upset.”
“He was definitely out of breath before he went into the factory,” I add. “But . . . his hands and shoes were clean when Kellan scanned them after the fire. No fluorescence. And if the timing is as you describe, he would have run straight from the hallway into the atrium, because the alarms went off a minute or so later.”
“Not to mention that I saw him come out of the elevators when the alarm went off,” calls Rufus. “I hate the bastard, but I can tell you he didn’t come out of this hallway.”
I rub at an aching spot on my temple. “We can’t forget that both Brayton and Rufus were in the atrium when the actual theft occurred. Even if either of them was trying to take it before, neither could have shot the guards and stolen the device.”
“Which means we may be dealing with a conspiracy,” says Congers.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Graham says quietly. “You know I’d never do anything like this.” He starts to take a step toward Congers, but the Black Box guards grab his arms. Graham grimaces. “Dad. You know I wouldn’t!”
Congers’s gaze snaps to his son. “You didn’t follow orders.” He looks away quickly, so he doesn’t see Graham’s shoulders hunch forward, like he’s been punched in the stomach. “Do what you need to do,” Congers says to Kellan.
Kellan and his guards lead a shell-shocked Graham to a separate office to question him further while Angus returns his attention to the surveillance footage, which is full of gaps. His meaty fists are white-knuckled with bottled-up anger.
I take a step back, the same frustration and fatigue rolling over me. “I need to go find Christina,” I say. “I’ll check back with you guys later.”
Congers barely acknowledges me because his cell phone is ringing, but Race makes as if he’s going to follow me out. “They were going to try to salvage the combat vehicles, weren’t they?” he asks me. “I was hoping we could take another look at the plans and the actual vehicles, in case your father used some of the same wreckage components.”
But as we reach the door, Congers calls out, lifting his chin away from the phone at his ear. “Lavin. Get back here.”
Race waves me on. I head down the hall and into the atrium, which is quiet now that all the patients have been moved. The acrid stench of burning still hangs heavy in the air, though, and the smoke outside lends a grayish cast to the dwindling daylight as I emerge into the open courtyard between the main building and the factory. A large squad of uninjured workers is busy clearing out debris from the factory floor. Then I hear a cheer from the parking lot, so at odds with the grim scene in front of me. I look out to the lot beyond the burned-out factory, and there’s a crowd clustered around what is unmistakably a row of combat vehicles. Six of them. I jog over to see more workers tinkering with them, wiping their shiny exteriors, welding panels, oiling the rails of the autocannons. Arrayed in front of the vehicles, a few feet beyond their hoods, are weapons consoles much like the one I used to blast a hole in the factory wall this afternoon. They haven’t been placed inside the vehicles yet and are hooked up to huge generators rumbling off to our right.
“Tate!” Christina’s hoarse voice is like pure relief to me, and I turn to see her walking toward me. Her eyes are red and swollen, and she’s rubbing at her throat, but still she looks happy. “Wait until you see this. Manuel is a genius.”
Standing head and shoulders taller than the cluster of folks near the consoles, Manuel blushes at her praise. “We were able to salvage these six from the factory floor, and we gassed them up and got them out here so we could complete assembly as quickly as possible. I’ve set up an interactive simulation using the available information about the Sicarii scout ships. It’s based on witness reports from Mr. Congers, Dr. Shirazi, and some of the other agents, but it was the best I could do. So as my volunteers do the simulation, I’m going to gather data on the system capabilities so I can calibrate these babies before we install them.”
He gestures at Christina and Leo—and Daniel Sung, who is among a small group of Core agents who has joined the effort to salvage the combat vehicles. “Leo said you got some kind of satellite shield up to protect the planet,” Manuel says to me, lowering his voice. “I want to do my part to protect that shield. Which means protecting Black Box.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I had no idea you guys would get this far so soon.”
“We’re not done yet,” Sung says as he flexes his fingers. His dark brown eyes shine with eagerness as he gazes at the weapons console in front of him. Right now he looks less like a disciplined young agent and more like a caffeine-fueled gamer about to try out the newest Call of Duty. “You want us to hop in and just start shooting, Manuel?”
Manuel chuckles. “You can try. It’s harder than it looks.”
Leo, Sung, and Christina get into three of the four gunner pits, settling in on the swiveling seats. Leo’s spinning like a top, but Christina sees me eyeing the fourth console. “Hey, Manuel, can Tate give it a try?”
He shrugs. “I don’t see why not.”
Leo snorts. “He already knows how to use them, as evidenced by the massive hole in the factory wall.”
“What am I supposed to do with those?” I point to the two padded circles that look like automated blood-pressure cuffs positioned in front of the cannon control sticks. “Didn’t exactly have time to figure it out during the fire.”
“They have these sensors in them that detect muscle contractions. Not exactly sure why.” Manuel’s black hair falls over his brow as he bows his head. “We’re following your dad’s plans exactly. I’m still trying to figure out what those lenses do. He didn’t leave a lot of explanations.”
That’s true in so many ways, and once again, my chest aches. “I know. I’m sorry—”
“No, don’t be. Your dad was a genius. I want to do justice to his designs, because, man, they are brilliant.” Manuel pats the hood of one of the vehicles. “I was thinking we should call them Archers. You think he would have liked that?”
The ache turns to a sharp pang. Would he have liked that? I return Manuel’s smile. “Yeah,” I say, my voice catching. “I think he would have thought that was cool.”
“Archers it is,” says Manuel, grinning. “Let’s see what they can do.”
With the Archers looming behind us, crawling with workers racing against the clock to get this tiny assault force battle-ready, I climb into the gunner pit. We all settle our arms in the cuffs and fiddle with the stick controls, which swivel along a circular track, too, that’s set closer to the view screens. Once we’re all in, Manuel fires up the consoles. On my viewing screen a shockingly familiar shape appears, one of the hovering obelisk ships of the Sicarii.
“If you see that round hole in the bottom half open up,” says Manuel, “watch out. We’re hoping the armor can withstand a hit, but Dr. Shirazi said it turned her armored minivan into a crushed soda can with one shot.”
“Let’s see if we can’t take them out, then,” mutters Sung, his chair swiveling, his eyes riveted to the shimmering obelisk on the screen. He jams his thumb on a button. On our screens, we see a blast of light fly at the Sicarii ship, but it spins out of the way.
We all start shooting, but as it turns out, Manuel is extremely good at creating simulations. The alien ships move just like the ones I’ve seen, fluid and lethal. Our consoles bounce and jitter as the program moves us across all types of terrain. We can’t control the exact direction or speed of the vehicle, because we’re gunners—not drivers. It takes two to operate an Archer. And it’s a good thing this is a simulation, because if this were real life, we’d be toast. Our shots fly wide, short, wild, high, off. Our consoles are rigged to shut down once we’ve taken three hits from a Sicarii ship, and I’ve taken two before I know what’s happening. My arms are sweating inside the cuffs, and I’m fighting to get my seat to swivel.
“These things have eye tracking!” Sung calls out. “It brightens the part of the screen you’re focusing on.”
Manuel scribbles something into a tablet, smiling. “Cool.”
I growl with frustration as I try to turn my seat. I’m a fairly accurate shot, but only when I can aim my guns. This console works as a three-hundred-sixty-degree display, and I can’t get my freaking chair to spin. One of the Sicarii ships on my screen keeps flying to my starboard and firing from there. “You’re going to have to oil these seats, Manuel,” I call out. “It’s fighting me.”
“You’re fighting it,” says Christina as hers turns smoothly. I glance over to see her eyes focused on the screen as she speaks, like she does this kind of thing every day. “I think the cuffs are connected to the seat swivel. Stop trying to control it yourself and let it do some of the work.”
Boom. She hits a Sicarii ship right in its artillery hatch, and it explodes on my screen. Behind me, a handful of workers let out a cheer.
A few minutes later, I’m out of the simulation after taking the requisite number of hits. Leo, Sung, and Christina battle it out while other factory workers and Core agents gather around to watch. Sung’s movements are a little jerky, and I think he’s doing the same thing I was, trying to force the chair to swivel instead of letting the cuffs detect his movements before he consciously thinks about it. But he’s a great shot, and he’s the one who figures out that the eye tracker is how to achieve weapon lock on a target.
It doesn’t save him, though. Soon he’s out, too, and it’s down to Christina and Leo. Both of them are grinning, swiveling and firing both of their guns at once while they taunt each other like brother and sister. Leo’s faster, but Christina’s more accurate. No matter where those ships move, she tracks them, and she gets more deadly the longer she works at it. The spectators start to make bets on whether Christina or Leo will stay in the simulation longer. It’s a badly needed few minutes of lightness and even fun in what has been a day full of tragedy, and I think everybody needed a break from the tension. And as I watch Christina and Leo take on those silent, smooth scout ships, I find myself wondering if even six Archers might be enough to make a difference.
“This looks like fun,” says a soft voice just behind me.
I turn to see Ellie Alexander, her white-blond hair tucked behind her ears, watching the simulations. She’s taken a shower and cleaned off all the soot, but it wasn’t enough to wash away the heavy weight that seems to be pressing on her. Rufus gave her a pretty hard time earlier, but the worst thing she’s done is to be loyal to her dad, and I can’t blame her for that, even if I don’t like him at all. “Hey,” I say. “How’s Brayton? Still feverish?”
She gives me a pained look. “He’s just worn out. These past few days have been awful for him.” She looks around, noting the hulk of the factory behind us, and hugs herself, rubbing her arms. “But I guess that’s true for everyone here.”
I nod. “Just so you know, a Core agent is telling people he saw your dad in the administrative hallway just before the scanner was stolen. He said Brayton ran when he realized he was being watched.”
She scoffs. “Does my dad really look like he could run anywhere? He’s completely drained.” Her fingers are bloodless as they clutch her biceps. She’s so protective of him. “Don’t tell me—they’re going to search his quarters.” She rolls her eyes. “They won’t find anything except painkillers. He’s being blamed for everything, when all he wanted to do was regain everybody’s trust.”
“That’s going to take longer than a day, after what he did.” I say it gently, but I have to be honest with her.
She presses her lips together and stares at the blacktop. “Everything takes longer than it should,” she whispers.
I take a step back. As much as she needs it, I’m not the right person to stand here and sympathize with her over how her dad’s been mistreated. He brought it on himself, and no matter how hard he might be trying to make things right, I still don’t trust him. I believe Graham about seeing Brayton in Angus’s office before the fire. I just have no idea what Brayton was up to—and I hope Angus is planning to bring him in for questioning.
“Look, Ellie, I need to help with getting these vehicles up and running. I hope Brayton feels better,” I say. When she gives me a nod, I retreat inside the back of one of the Archers as Ellie steps forward to watch Christina and Leo shooting down simulated spaceships.
The interior of the vehicle smells of oil and iron. There’s a large open space where the weapons console will fit. Scraping above me draws my eyes upward in time to see two women lowering a giant lens over the hole cut in the roof between the rails of the autocannon. It fits into the opening with a muffled thunk, and their faces and bodies above the glass lens are instantly distorted, suddenly appearing miles away instead of only a few feet. I slide my finger along the curved underside. “What are these for, Dad?” I whisper.
“Tate!” My mother’s voice is so sharp and urgent that I jump up and nearly crash my skull into the thick glass lens.
“Yeah?” I climb out of the Archer to see her jogging toward me.
Her dark hair flies around her face as she reaches me. “Race said you were here. I found something. I’m going to tell the others, but I wanted you to be part of it.”
For a moment, we stare at each other, and I realize that she’s deliberately including me. Not because I have any real authority, but because she wanted to show that she respects me. “Thanks, Mom.”
A shadow of a smile crosses her face. “You earned it, Tate,” she says softly, then heads for the atrium, and I follow her all the way to the administrative wing. By the time she reaches Angus’s office, her cheeks are pink and she’s out of breath.
“The DNA doesn’t match,” she announces.
Angus, Race, and Congers, who had all been clustered around Congers’s cell phone, which I assume is on speakerphone, turn to her.
“Elaborate,” says Congers, holding the phone in front of him. “We have Dr. Okpara on the line from our Washington lab.”
Mom glances at the phone and hesitates only a moment before continuing. “DNA from tissue samples matches what we had on file for George Fisher, Charles Willetts, and Devon Kerstein. But samples from their brains don’t match at all.”
I blink at her. “Like . . . their bodies were actually them, but their brains belonged to someone else?”
She gives me an odd look, and I can tell her scientist’s mind is struggling to find an alternative explanation. Congers looks down at his phone. “Did you hear that?” he says to it. “Now repeat what you just said to me, Dr. Okpara.”
A tinny male voice on the other end begins to speak. “I have just completed an autopsy on a partially decomposed body found one day ago in the basement of the building at the University of Virginia, where Dr. Willetts resided. DNA samples—all DNA samples, mind you—confirm that the body lying on my exam table is, in fact, Charles Willetts.”
Congers raises his gaze from the phone to look at my mother. His voice is dead calm as he says, “So who do you think you have on your exam table, Dr. Shirazi?”