May 7, 2025

Merriweather Medical Research Foundation, Fredericksburg’s outskirts, Virginia

Dr. Thanakit’s email pinged in his inbox at 6:52 AM, which was fine as Elijah had been awake since four.

He had the kind of relationship with sleep that most people had with difficult relatives — civil, intermittent, not something he counted on. The office suited him at this hour: monitors on, everything else dark, the building overhead just beginning to stir.

He’d had iterations of this office for a long tim...