Turn 144 of 228

Discuss the next steps with Diane and contact Billy Jo

Lena stands in the new office. The clean carpet. The fresh paint. The second desk. The envelope. The note that says *division.* Diane is at her desk already, 840 pounds of naked bearded flesh settling into the new chair, the chair that corporate ordered specifically for her weight. The office is clean and the office will not stay clean and they both know it. The hum is warm. The morning light comes through the window. The parking lot is empty. January 2. The first day of the division.

"They reorganized us," Diane says. The beard catches the light. The yellow nails on the desk.

"We're not analysts anymore. We're not a branch. We're a division. The STREAM model is the company now. Every branch runs on it. Every branch is us."

Lena lowers herself into the new chair. The belly spreads across the thighs. The yellow toenails on the clean carpet. The body is 999 pounds and comfortable and the body is at work.

"Billy Jo's paper," Lena says.

"I know," Diane says. "I read it last night. The case study was clinical. This one is — it's something else. It's her. She wrote herself into it. She's the second data point and she named herself. The NIH emails have been sitting since October. Two from a program director at NIGMS. One asking for a grant proposal. One asking for replication data. Two biotech firms. Cambridge and Basel. Therapeutic applications. Licensing. Dollar amounts. She hasn't answered any of them."

"What worries you?" Lena says.

Diane leans back. The chair groans. The belly shifts. The beard is thick and the eyes are the ones Lena has learned to read — the ones that manage expressions like quarterly reports, except now the reports are breaking through the management.

"If the NIH follows up directly — if they go around Billy Jo to the university, to the journal, to Dr. Harmon — this stops being a case study and starts being a federal inquiry. They can subpoena data. They can request institutional review board approval retroactively. Billy Jo didn't have IRB approval because she didn't think she was a researcher. She thought she was a doctor treating a patient. Then she was a doctor who became a data point. The legal framework doesn't exist for what happened to her. The NIH doesn't care about the wish. They care about the mechanism. And if the mechanism is proximity-induced, then everyone in this office is evidence."

The office is quiet. The clean carpet. The fresh paint. The hum.

"What do you want to do?" Lena says.

"I want Billy Jo to answer the emails," Diane says. "Before they come to us. I want her to control the conversation. She's the lead author. She's the second data point. She has standing that nobody else has. If she responds first — if she frames the study, the proposal, the terms — we're not subjects. We're collaborators. If they come to us first, we're subjects. I've been thinking about this since November and I don't see another way through it."

Lena picks up her phone. The yellow nails on the screen. She texts Billy Jo: *Call me when you're up. Need to talk about the emails.* The response comes in four minutes. The drawl is in the text — Lena can hear it: *Headed to the shower. Just kidding. Headed to your office. Be there in twenty.* Lena almost smiles. The hum is warm. The body is comfortable. The division is new and the emails are old and the word is spreading and the spreading is *more.*

Billy Jo arrives at 8:40. She walks in naked, barefoot, the leather bag over one shoulder, the laptop in it. The body is bigger than the marathon — the stomach lower, the stretch marks deeper, the body hair thicker. The yellow nails. The unwashed hair. The bare feet on the clean new carpet. She looks at the second desk. She looks at the second monitor. She looks at the note on Lena's desk.

"They made us a division," Billy Jo says. The drawl is full.

"They made us a division," Lena says.

"And you need to talk about the emails," Billy Jo says. She sits on the floor. Not the chair — the floor. The bare legs crossed, the laptop open, the belly resting on the thighs. The clean carpet. The bare feet.

"I know I haven't answered them. I've been writing the paper. I've been — I've been sitting on your floor eating chips and pissing on your carpet and writing the best thing I've ever written and I knew the emails were there and I didn't open them because opening them meant deciding what I am. Am I the doctor? Am I the data point? Am I the researcher? Am I the patient? The paper answered it. I'm all of them. I'm the second data point and the lead author and the patient and the doctor and I can't pretend any of them are separate anymore."

Diane watches from her desk. The beard. The eyes.

"Answer the NIH first," Diane says. "Frame it. You're the lead author. You're the second data point. You have standing. You propose the longitudinal study on your terms — your cohort, your methodology, your data. You don't wait for them to come to us. You go to them. The biotech emails come second. And those are different. Those are money. Those are patents. Those are someone owning the word *comfortable* and I won't let that happen."

Billy Jo looks at Diane. The drawl is quiet. The yellow nails on the laptop.

"I'll draft the NIH response today," she says. "The grant proposal. Longitudinal study. Proximity-induced somatic transformation. Our terms. Our cohort. Our data. And the biotech firms — I'll respond but I won't license the raw data. The data belongs to us. To Lena. To the body that started it. Nobody owns the word."

The hum is warm. The office is clean and new and the three of them are naked and barefoot and unwashed and enormous and the division is the first day and the emails are the first step and the word is spreading and the spreading is *more.*