I missed the brief for the Tokyo expansion this morning. Fucking critical, yes, I know. But the old man was staring at the wall again, catatonic almost, and I just… I had to drive him to that goddamn geriatric neurologist in Fairfax. The whole trip, I could feel the cold dread settle in my gut, like being on a watch in a blizzard, every nerve screaming that I was falling behind, that the chain of command would see it, mark it down. And it’s not even a feeling, not really, more like a specific, clinical atrophy in my career, slowly, irreversibly setting in, and all I could do was watch the mile markers blur.