Beep

In the farthest, coldest corner of the transmission annex, my device picked up a clipped, reversed sequence.

Beeps, yes, but spaced in a cadence that didn't belong to any distress code I'd heard.

Beneath the tone, a whispering intonation.

Not English, not Russian, not speech at all.

The weakness of the unit can be a single small failing in a single man.

Beep.

Boop.

"Gotcha," said Ives.

He was huge, almost gross, but graceful.

"On the nose," he grinned, and turned up the volume.

Beep.

Boop.

[beep] [beep] [beep] .

You're just gonna beep him for this entire one.

It's gonna be like, "Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep."

It'll be like Road Runner on speed.

Yeah.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Or meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep, meep.

[laughs]

Uh-huh.

Goes, "Beep, beep, boo, beep, beep, boo.

Whoop, beep, beep." A week goes by.

"Beep, beep, boo, beep, beep, boo." Two weeks.

Are you kind of on pins and needles? Are you feeling excited? Are you feeling like-

Oh, yeah, I was on vacation, but I was checking my email every day.

Who is this? You're like, oh, no, you're supposed to say, hi, this is Albie.

Can I speak to? You're like, what? Who's this? Who's this? I love the beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Yeah.

Or a lot of

R.I.P. Bye.

Bye.

And it just happened to reach the end of its life at 5:00 in the fucking morning.

And all of a sudden, "Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep." I was, "What the fuck? What the fuck?" And then I'm like, there's a smoke detector here at the castle that, uh, for whatever reason, it's the one you always gotta change the battery in.

It'll start beeping on you.

But that didn't sound like it, but I went to that first.

I gotta get a chair, take the goddamn battery out, and then as soon as I got the battery in my hand, "Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep." Then I gotta walk around and see, is the beep louder or is the beep fucking fainter? And I'm naked, and it's pitch fucking black, and I don't wanna turn the lights on because then I'm gonna be awake.

[sighs]

I had this happen-

We do this all the time.

Beep did it.

Beep did it.

Even educated Beep did it.

We do this all the time.

And that's what he's saying.

We are so glad you're here.

Welcome to Beyond the Beeps.

The voices you hear in this series have participated freely without financial compensation.

Their insights are independent, unbiased, and not shaped by outside interests.

At The Incubator, we remain committed to fostering objective and balanced discussions to support informed learning.

Enjoy!

Welcome back, everyone, to Beyond the Beeps, Episode 26.

Today, we're going to talk about a word that we use a lot in the NICU, and that's the word vulnerable.