Early Ones

Twenty cells just under the surface of a mouse's brain, the ones that always fire a beat before the paw.

Weeks of a cue and a lever. Now a light picks out those twenty, only those, and the rest come in behind them in the order they learned, and the paw goes down.

Light the late ones and nothing starts. Light the early ones in a mouse that has stopped attending: nothing. It has to be leaning already.

And on some trials the whole run went through, front to back, and the paw stayed flat on the floor, the press done, all of it, where the lever never heard.