9902 - Tealy and the Crew

It had started the same way.

4 AM. Eyes open. Brain running. The specific quality of darkness that existed at 4 AM, which was different from all other darknesses in that it had a texture of things-that-should-not-be-thought-about embedded in it.

Tealy waited for the object.

It came.

He didn't scream this time, because screaming about a number felt structurally different from screaming about a household object, and also because he was tired of screaming, and also because somewhere outside DumbDird was probably already holding the pipe and he wanted to at least attempt to handle this one himself.

He lay there and thought about 9902.

He thought about it from multiple angles.

9902 was not a thing he had encountered recently. It was not a significant number in any context he could identify. It was not a year. It was not a measurement. It was not a score or a record or a count of anything. It was 9902, sitting in his brain at 4 AM like a piece of furniture that had been delivered to the wrong address.

He thought about it more.

He thought about it harder, as though thinking about it with sufficient intensity would reveal what it was doing there.

He got up, went to his kitchen, sat at the table, and stared at the wall, and thought about 9902 for forty minutes, and arrived nowhere.

At 5 AM he texted DumbDird.

"It's a number this time."

"DURR WHAT NUMBER"

"9902."

A pause.

"DURR TALLY WHAT'S 9902"

"I don't know."

"DURR"

"I'm going to see a doctor."

"DURR GOOD IDEA TALLY"

"Don't bring the pipe."

"DURR OKAY"

"DumbDird."

"DURR TALLY I SAID OKAY"

He left the pipe outside when he came in, was the thing. Tealy chose not to investigate whether this technically counted as compliance.

---

He drove himself to the clinic at 9 AM because the 4 AM insomnia had transitioned into regular morning wakefulness in the way that exhaustion sometimes abandoned you right when you needed it most, leaving you tired but not sleepy, which was the worst combination.

He was on the main road, thinking about 9902, not screaming about it because he had achieved a kind of tired détente with the number, when he passed a car in the adjacent lane.

He looked over because you look at adjacent cars.

There was a cow driving it.

A full cow.

Seated in the driver's seat, hooves at approximately the ten and two position, in a sedan, in traffic, in Orlando, Florida, at 9 AM on a Wednesday.

Tealy looked at the cow.

The cow did not look back because the cow was driving and was maintaining appropriate road attention, which was more than could be said for Tealy, who was now staring sideways while moving forward.

He looked back at the road.

Drove.

Thought about 9902.

Looked back at the cow.

The cow signaled before changing lanes.

Tealy faced forward and kept driving with the energy of someone who had made a decision to simply continue, because the alternatives were pulling over and processing the cow, which would take time he didn't have, or integrating the cow into the ongoing texture of the week, which already contained towels and clothes hangers and a metal pipe and a number of no known significance, and in that context a cow driving a car was not the most structurally unusual thing that had happened recently.

He did not mention the cow to anyone.

He went to the clinic.

---

The waiting room was normal.

The receptionist was normal.

The magazines were normal, which was to say they were six months out of date and nobody was going to read them.

He filled out the intake form. In the section for describing his symptoms he wrote "intrusive thoughts about mundane objects and numbers while trying to sleep, specifically towels, clothes hangers, and the number 9902" and then looked at what he'd written and felt something.

The nurse called him back.

Normal.

Waiting in the examination room. Normal. The paper on the table that crinkled when you sat on it. Normal. The diagram of the human body on the wall. Normal.

The doctor came in.

Tealy looked at the doctor.

The doctor was wearing a white coat and had a stethoscope and a clipboard and was presenting, in every visible way, as a doctor.

The doctor was also Greeny.

Not kind of like Greeny. Not a Greeny-adjacent person. Greeny, in a white coat, with a stethoscope, holding a clipboard, looking back at Tealy with the expression of someone who had hoped this would not happen but had prepared for the possibility that it would.

"Greeny," Tealy said.

"Good morning," said Greeny.

"You're a doctor."

"I'm operating as one, yes."

Tealy looked at him. At the coat. At the stethoscope. At the clipboard, which had actual notes on it, because of course it did, because Greeny did not do things partially.

"Are you a doctor," Tealy said.

"I have the relevant knowledge," Greeny said.

"That's not what I asked."

"I have more relevant knowledge than most doctors you'd see at a general practice clinic," Greeny said, which was probably true and also not an answer.

Tealy sat on the crinkling paper and looked at his brother.

"Why," he said.

Greeny set the clipboard down in the way he set things down when he was transitioning into a longer explanation, which Tealy recognized from a lifetime of longer explanations.

"Standard medical practice for cases like yours," Greeny said, "would result in you being told you're probably fine and being given a prescription for something that addresses the symptom without investigating the cause. I find that approach unsatisfying."

"So you became a doctor."

"I positioned myself within the clinic to handle cases that warranted more precise investigation."

"Greeny, you're in disguise—"

"The coat is real. The stethoscope is real. The notes are real."

"The disguise—"

"Is a coat and a stethoscope, yes."

Tealy looked at the coat. It was, in fact, a real white coat. Not a costume. An actual medical white coat with a small embroidered name that said DR. G, which was either the most minimal possible disguise or a fully committed character depending on how you looked at it.

"Does anyone know you're here," Tealy said.

"Beric knows," said Greeny. "He helped me source the coat."

"Of course he did."

"He also said, and I quote, 'the clinic's booking system has a security vulnerability that made scheduling easier,' which I did not ask him to do and have chosen not to investigate further."

Tealy looked at the ceiling of the examination room.

"There was a cow driving a car on the way here," he said.

Greeny nodded once, the nod of someone filing a data point.

"Was it maintaining appropriate lane discipline," he said.

"It signaled before changing lanes."

"Responsible," said Greeny, and picked up his clipboard. "Now. 9902."

---

Greeny's examination was thorough in the specific way that Greeny was thorough about things, which was completely and with documented reasoning for every step.

He asked about sleep patterns. Tealy answered. He asked about the sequence of objects. Towels first, then clothes hangers, then 9902. He asked about stress levels, dietary patterns, screen time before bed, and several other variables that a standard clinic visit would not have included.

Then he asked about 9902 specifically.

"Does the number have any significance you've identified."

"No."

"Have you encountered it recently in any context."

"Not that I know of."

"License plate, address, receipt total, timestamp."

Tealy stopped.

Timestamp.

He picked up his phone. Went to his photos. Scrolled back.

The Thinking Space II completion screenshot that DumbDird had sent at 2:47 AM.

He looked at the file metadata.

The photo had been taken at 02:47:09.902 AM.

The last four digits of the timestamp.

He showed it to Greeny.

Greeny looked at it.

Looked at Tealy.

"Your brain retained the sub-second timestamp from a photo you viewed at 2:47 AM," Greeny said, "and it surfaced two nights later as an intrusive thought."

"It remembered the milliseconds," Tealy said.

"Yes."

"From a screenshot."

"Yes."

"Of DumbDird beating Thinking Space II."

"Yes."

They sat with this for a moment.

"So it's DumbDird's fault," Tealy said.

"Indirectly," said Greeny. "The causal chain goes: DumbDird beats Thinking Space II, sends screenshot, you view screenshot at 2:47:09.902 AM, your brain retains 9902, two nights later your sleep cycle activates it."

"It's DumbDird's fault," Tealy said again.

"The chain begins with him, yes."

Tealy looked at the ceiling.

"The towels and the hangers," he said.

"Likely unrelated. Standard hypnagogic object fixation. Your brain was primed by sleep disruption to latch onto ambient stimuli. The towel was probably the last thing you'd touched before bed. The hanger was probably visible when you opened your eyes the first time."

"So those were bad luck."

"Yes."

"And the 9902 was DumbDird."

"Indirectly, yes."

Tealy nodded slowly.

Greeny made notes on his clipboard. Real notes. In the neat, precise handwriting of someone who took documentation seriously regardless of the technical legitimacy of the setting.

"My recommendation," Greeny said, "is a consistent sleep schedule, reduced screen time after 11 PM, and if the hypnagogic fixation continues, grounding exercises before bed to give your brain a neutral focal point."

"And if that doesn't work."

Greeny looked at him.

"DumbDird has the pipe," he said.

"Right."

"It's effective."

"It's extremely effective."

"The methodology is unconventional," Greeny said, "but the outcome data is solid."

Two successful applications. Zero towel-related screaming post-application. One shirt successfully deployed as a pillow substitute.

"Outcome data is solid," Tealy agreed.

---

He called DumbDird on the drive home.

"DURR TALLY HOW WAS THE DOCTOR"

"It was Greeny."

A pause.

"DURR WHAT"

"Greeny was the doctor. He was in disguise."

"DURR TALLY GREENY IS A DOCTOR??"

"He was operating as one."

"DURR THAT'S REALLY COOL—"

"DumbDird, the 9902 is your fault."

"DURR WHAT—"

"The Thinking Space II screenshot. The timestamp. 02:47:09.902. My brain kept the last four digits."

The silence on DumbDird's end was the silence of someone connecting dots for the first time.

"DURR," said DumbDird.

"Yeah."

"DURR TALLY I'M SORRY—"

"It's fine."

"DURR, I DIDN'T KNOW YOUR BRAIN WOULD—"

"Nobody knew, DumbDird."

"DURR TALLY"

"What."

"DURR, DOES THAT MEAN I'M IN YOUR BRAIN?"

Tealy looked at the road.

"I'm hanging up."

"DURR TALLY—"

"Also I saw a cow driving a car on the way."

"DURR WHAT—"

"It signaled before changing lanes."

"DURR TALLY THAT'S AMAZING—"

"Bye DumbDird."

"DURR WAIT WAS IT A—"

He hung up.

Drove home.

Thought about 9902.

Felt nothing.

It was just a number now. A timestamp. Four digits at the end of the moment DumbDird had beaten the top 1 and jumped into a sandwich.

He could live with that.

He passed the intersection where he'd seen the cow.

The cow was gone.

The lane it had been in was empty.

Somewhere in Orlando, a cow had driven to its destination, parked responsibly, and gone about its day.

Tealy drove home.

Greeny was going to have to explain the clinic thing eventually.

He was looking forward to that conversation.