19. The Neuroscientist’s Heart
The Neuroscientist’s Heart
Matthias
The report is one hundred and eighty-seven pages long.
That should feel excessive.
It doesn’t.
Not after Meridian Memory Institute.
Not after Bliss, Naomi, Iris, Maribel, and Camille.
Not after seeing what Strauss built and what Rothman money made possible.
I sit at the conference table with my laptop open, the final version projected onto the screen.
Drug protocols. Conditioning methods. Withdrawal risks.
Counter-treatment pathways. Recovery indicators.
Memory anchors. Patient response variables.
Every observation from Oregon, every formula I memorized inside the dispensary, every adjustment we made after extraction, and every hard lesson I gathered across ten years of chasing Meridian’s shadow.
My life’s work condensed into a document no journal can publish.
Crew flips through the printed copy in front of him, stopping at a page dense with chemical pathways and treatment protocols.
“Well,” he says, “that’s bloody brilliant.”
His gaze lifts to mine.
“Bit of a shame no one’s ever gonna publish it.”
No one tells him that’s inappropriate.
Crew has a talent for walking straight into the truth without dressing for the occasion.
“Publishing was never the difficult part,” I say.
Steve looks up from the report in front of him. “Handing it over is.”
The room stills.
His eyes stay on mine, steady and blunt in a way I appreciate more than he probably knows.
“You don’t spend ten years building something like this so some idiot can copy it, misunderstand it, or turn it into another weapon.”
“No,” I say quietly. “I don’t.”
Jan rests one hand on the report.
“Then nobody gets the whole thing unless they’re qualified to use the whole thing.”
Victor’s attention shifts to her.
Jan turns a page.
“An emergency physician doesn’t need the full neurochemistry. They need to recognize the signs and know what not to do. A trauma nurse needs stabilization protocols. A psychiatrist needs recovery pathways. A neurologist might need drug interactions and counter-treatment guidance.”
She looks at me.
“Why would we ever hand anyone more than they’re trained to use?”
Dr. Riley Santos nods from the end of the table.
“Compartmentalized clinical access.”
Liberty, reading over Jan’s shoulder, straightens slightly.
“Tiered training. Recognition first, then stabilization, then treatment. Nobody moves up without being vetted.”
Dr. Tran nods.
“And supervised.”
Grayson appears on the wall screen from HQ, suddenly looking far too awake.
“Role-based permissions.”
Felicity leans into frame beside him.
“Zero-trust architecture. No downloads. No printing. Time-limited access. Every action logged.”
Grayson points at her.
“And behavior monitoring. If someone starts poking around outside their tier, the system flags them before they get clever.”
Faith is already typing.
“Every copy numbered and version-controlled. Every clinician tied to an agreement. Every institution audited.”
Daniel leans forward.
“Legally restricted. No redistribution. No publication. No institutional ownership. Breach the terms, they lose access and answer to us.”
Victor looks at me.
“You keep ownership. HAVEN protects it. We license access under your authority, one tier at a time.”
For several seconds, I can only look at them.
I came here prepared to give HAVEN evidence.
I didn’t expect them to protect the work itself.
Or me.
Jan’s expression softens.
“This is how future victims recover without putting the protocol into the wrong hands.”
Liberty adds, “And how doctors recognize what was done before someone loses years being misdiagnosed.”
The words reach places I rarely let anyone near.
Ten years of grief.
Ten years of failure.
Ten years of trying to turn my sister’s absence into something useful.
Victor’s gaze remains on mine.
“We’ll call it the Cross Protocol.”
I start to object.
He doesn’t let me.
“You earned that.”
The room quiets.
For years I imagined my surname appearing on a paper because I had solved something extraordinary.
I never imagined it would matter because strangers I will never meet might get to keep their memories.
I look down at the pages, at the work I once thought would die in secrecy, and it’s the first time in a decade that I don’t argue.
“I spent ten years trying to publish a cure,” I say.
Then I look around the table, at the people already turning it into something safer, stronger, and larger than me.
“Instead, we’re going to teach one.”
MacLeod’s Baby Bump Hotel, Matthias’s Suite, Sausalito, California. 1000 hours
The suite is too calm for the amount of evidence spread across my desk.
I sit with the curtains open to the bay, morning light falling over file notes, handwritten chemical pathways, and the institute records I copied before HAVEN pulled us out of Oregon.
Bliss is downstairs with Janice and Dr. Tran, safe enough for one hour of recovery work that doesn’t require me hovering like another clinician with a clipboard.
She told me this morning she wanted to work alone for a while.
I understood.
So I gave her the room.
After everything Meridian stole, privacy is part of healing too.
I write to the dead.
Or to the missing.
After a decade, I still don’t know which word belongs to Thandiwe.
The paper in front of me is thick hotel stationery with the MacLeod crest embossed at the top. Too elegant for what my hand has already begun to write on it. I keep my writing small and neat because disorder has never helped me carry anything.
My dearest Thandiwe,
I didn’t find you.
The sentence sits at the top of the page, spare and brutal. I look at it until the words blur slightly, then make myself continue.
I have written those four words in my head more times than I can count, but I’ve never had the courage to place them on paper. Perhaps because paper makes failure look permanent.
Outside, a ferry cuts across the water. People are moving through an ordinary morning with coffee, work calls, traffic, and complaints that probably deserve more gratitude than they receive. I don’t resent them for it. Resentment wastes energy, and I have already given Meridian enough of my life.
I searched every route I could find. Cape Town, Johannesburg, London, Geneva, New York, Bucharest, Dubai.
Every false agency, every pseudonym, every shipment of compounds tied to altered memory and behavioral compliance.
I found victims. I found doctors. I found men and women who used science as a knife and called the wound progress.
I draw in a slow breath.
I didn’t find you.
But I found a way to fight for everyone like you. I hope that’s enough. I hope you’re somewhere safe. I hope you remember me.
My hand stills on her name.
Thandiwe hated sad endings. She used to say people who ended songs in despair lacked imagination. Even grief, she insisted, deserved a final note that reached upward.
I can hear her laughing as she said it.
For the first time in years, the memory doesn't only hurt.
I almost smile.
There is more now. Something I don’t understand yet.
A record from the institute server, Subject SA-07-25.
South Africa. Twenty-five years old. Some fields are corrupted, some protected, some buried beneath labels Strauss never meant anyone outside the program to read.
I don’t know whether it connects to you, and I won’t insult you by pretending hope is evidence.
The pen presses harder.
But I am going to look.
I won't stop looking.
I read the letter once, then fold it carefully and seal it in an envelope. I write her name across the front in the language of home, then place it in the top drawer beside my passport and the photograph I’ve carried for ten years.
I keep my hand on the drawer handle before I close it.
Not goodbye.
Never goodbye.
Just...
Not today.
The laptop waits on the desk, the cursor blinking beside the restricted folder name.
Subject_SA-07-25
I sit, open the first protected file, and begin.
MacLeod’s Baby Bump Hotel, Matthias’s Suite, Sausalito, California. 1030 hours
Bliss finds me at the desk with the laptop open and the institute file spread across the screen.
I don’t hear the door at first. My attention is on the protected record, on the fragments Strauss hid beneath medical shorthand and coded identifiers, on the line that refuses to let me look away.
Subject_SA-07-25
The drawer beside me is closed. Thandiwe’s letter is inside it, sealed and out of sight, but my hand still remembers the weight of writing her name.
Bliss doesn’t ask what I’m reading. She doesn’t step behind me or try to see the screen.
She crosses the room slowly, her bare feet softly padding on the carpet, and sits beside me on the wide upholstered stool tucked beneath the desk, the kind meant more for decoration than work, but broad enough for two if neither person minds being close.
Then she rests her head against my shoulder.
The simplicity of it stops me more effectively than any question could have.
No one has leaned against me this way in years, not asking me to solve anything, only to stay.
“You carry so much,” she says.
I look at the laptop, at the broken file, at the country code and age that may mean nothing and may mean everything.
“It’s lighter now.”
“Because of the research?”
I turn my head enough to look at her. Her hair brushes my jaw, soft curls catching the morning light, and there’s color at her fingertips again, a faint smear of blue she must have missed washing off after yesterday’s painting.
“No,” I say. “Because of you.”
She looks away for a second, as though she’s still learning to accept being someone’s beginning instead of another ending.
Then her hand finds mine on the desk, her fingers sliding carefully between mine.
The file waits. For once, I let it.
Bliss studies the screen from the side, not close enough to read the hidden fields, only enough to understand that it has hurt me.
Her brow tightens. “You told me what that code means.”
“I did.”
She closes her eyes briefly, searching, then nods. “South Africa. Twenty-five.”