Chapter 6: Symptom Mapping
The apartment is silent except for the scratch of pen on paper.
I've been writing for two hours, filling a notebook with coded observations that would look like gibberish to anyone else. Medical shorthand mixed with personal symbols. Three sections, clearly divided.
Section One: Immunity Log
Paper cut (Day 1): healed in 5 minutes Deliberate arm scratch (Day 1): healed in 8 minutes
Gym injury, pulled muscle (Day 8): resolved overnight Exposure to clinic flu patient (Day 18): no symptoms, colleague noticed
Pattern: Minor wounds heal 10-15x faster than normal. No infections observed. Pain response remains normal. Scarring minimal to absent.
Hypothesis: Enhanced immune system. Accelerated cellular repair. Possibly genetic variant—need cover story.
Section Two: Auditory Phenomenon
Cameron statement to House (Day 16): "Looking forward to learning" - RING. Lie detected. Clinic patient (Day 18): "Sick for weeks" - RING. Actually three days. Clinic patient (Day 18): "Never miss medications" - RING. Six months since refill. Drug-seeker (Day 18): Multiple lies about back pain - RING RING RING.
Pattern: Sharp ringing sound when speaker deliberately lies. Pain level correlates with boldness of lie. Only triggers when speaker KNOWS they're lying. Mistakes, delusions, false beliefs do not trigger.
Problem: ALWAYS ON. Cannot control. Cannot turn off. Causes severe headaches in high-deception environments (clinics, politics, advertising).
Section Three: Observation Matrix
The third section is for deductions. Successful reads on people based on physical tells, micro-expressions, behavioral patterns. It's growing faster than the other two.
I close the notebook and lean back. The headache from clinic duty has finally faded to a dull throb. Four aspirin and two hours of quiet helped.
But I need to understand this better. Need to know the parameters, the limits, the ways to manage it before I lose my mind.
The medical library is nearly empty at nine PM. Just me, a couple of residents studying for boards, and the night librarian who doesn't care what I'm researching.
I've got my laptop open, headphones in, watching clips I pulled from YouTube. Political debates. Press conferences. Old courtroom footage. Anything with people talking where I can verify the truth afterward.
Senator A claims he never met the lobbyist. The ringing hits immediately. Later fact-checking confirms they met six times.
CEO B says the company is financially sound. No ringing. I check the records—actually true at the time of statement.
Defendant C swears he didn't commit the crime. Ringing. Later evidence proves guilt.
I catalog each instance. The ringing is consistent. Instantaneous. Reliable.
But it's also constant. Every lie, regardless of importance. White lies, social pleasantries, genuine deceptions—they all trigger the same response.
I switch to scripted TV. A drama with courtroom scenes. The lawyers are lying in character, and I wait for the ringing.
Nothing.
I rewind and play it again. The actor delivers the line: "I never saw that document." The character is lying. But there's no ringing.
Because the actor isn't lying. They're performing.
This is the key distinction. The power triggers on intent. If the speaker believes what they're saying, even if it's objectively false, no ringing. If they know they're deceiving, ringing.
Delusions don't trigger it. Honest mistakes don't trigger it. Self-deception probably doesn't trigger it, though that's harder to test.
But deliberate lies, even tiny ones, hit like a hammer.
I close the laptop and rub my temples. The headphones helped—blocking out ambient sound meant I could focus on the test subjects without environmental noise triggering episodes. But I can't wear headphones in the hospital. Can't explain why I need them without raising questions.
I need to turn this off.
Back at the apartment, I try everything I can think of.
Meditation: Sit quietly, focus on breathing, try to "will" the power off. A political ad plays on TV. The candidate promises lower taxes. Ringing. The meditation does nothing.
Alcohol: Two beers, hoping it dulls the sensory input. Same ad. Same ringing. Just now I'm slightly buzzed and still in pain.
Focus exercises: Try to concentrate so hard on something else that the power fades to background noise. Friend calls and says "Yeah, I'm fine, just tired" when he's clearly upset about something. Ringing. Focus did nothing.
White noise: Play static through headphones, trying to drown out the ringing with competing sound. It doesn't work. The ringing isn't actual sound—it's in my head, neurological, impossible to mask with external audio.
I sit on the couch at midnight, exhausted and frustrated. The TV is off. The apartment is quiet. And I finally accept the truth.
This isn't going away. There's no off switch. No volume control. I have a power that's always active, always overwhelming, and utterly beyond my control.
In crowded spaces, I'm going to be in constant pain. Around politicians or salespeople, migraines. Around anyone who lies frequently—like, say, Gregory House—it's going to be hell.
I need to adapt or I'll break.
Options: Avoid crowds when possible. Take maximum aspirin without liver damage. Build pain tolerance. Learn to keep my face neutral no matter how bad the spike is. Find excuses to step away when it gets overwhelming.
Not solutions. Just coping mechanisms.
I open my notebook and add to the Auditory Phenomenon section:
Cannot be turned off. Tried: meditation, alcohol, focus techniques, white noise. Nothing works. This is permanent. Phase 1 = uncontrolled, always active. Must learn to function through pain or risk exposure.
The notebook is filling up fast. Three different superhuman abilities, all in various stages of development, all impossible to explain.
And tomorrow, or the day after, or next week, the pilot episode starts. Rebecca Adler walks into the hospital with seizures, and I have to decide how much I'm willing to intervene.
Because I know it's a tapeworm. I know where it came from. I could diagnose it immediately and save everyone time.
But that would break causality. Change the timeline. Expose that I know things I shouldn't.
Only intervene when lives are at stake. Let canon flow where possible.
But where's the line? Rebecca Adler lives in the original timeline. If I step in too early, does that create a paradox? Do I risk changing something that cascades into disaster?
I don't know. And I won't know until it happens.
I close the notebook and hide it in the false bottom of my desk drawer—installed yesterday with supplies from a hardware store. If anyone searches my apartment, they'll find medical textbooks and boring research. Not documentation of impossible powers.
The clock reads 12:47 AM. I should sleep. Morning shift starts at seven, and House will be watching for any sign I'm different from normal doctors.
You are different. You just have to hide how much.
I turn off the lights and head to bed. The pillow is soft, the sheets are clean, and my head still aches from eight hours of detecting lies.
This is my life now. Superpowers that hurt, foreknowledge that's dangerous, and a brilliant bastard who's determined to figure out what makes me different.
Should be interesting.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, knowing that somewhere in Princeton, a kindergarten teacher named Rebecca Adler is about to have the worst day of her life.
And I'm going to have to decide how much I'm willing to change.
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