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“So you’re going with self-termination”

“Not so fast I was prepared to” He tugged on his bottom lip, let it snap back into place “I ran the standard brain analysis required with any self-termination or suspected self-termination That’s the puzzle here The real puzzle”

He scooted his stool over to his workstation, gestured over his shoulder for her to follow “This is his brain,” he said, tapping a finger on the organ floating in clear liquid and attached to wire thin cables that fed into the mainframe of his computer “Abby Normal”

“I beg your pardon”

Morris chuckled, shook his head “Obviously you don’t h classic videos That’s fro is, this brain is abnormal”

“He had brain dae?”

“Dae—well, it seems an extreme word for what I’ve found Here, on the screen” He swiveled around, tapped soain, on the surface, completely as expected But we show the cross section” He tapped again, and the brain was sliced neatly in half “So hts, ideas, er, hate People speak of the heart, Lieutenant, but it’s the brain that holds all the ic and mystery of the human species It elevates us, separates us, defines us as individuals And the secrets of it—well, it’s doubtful we’ll ever know them all See here”

Eve leaned closer, trying to see what he indicated with the tap of a finger on the screen “It looks like a brain to me Unattractive but necessary”

“Not to worry, I nearly ,” he went on while the monitor whirled with color and shapes, “the tissue appears in blues, pale to dark, the bone white Blood vessels are red As you can see, there are no clots or tu Enhance quadrant B, sections thirty-five to forty, thirty percent”

The screen ju patience, Eve started to shrug, then leaned in “What is that? It looks likeWhat? A se?”

“It does, doesn’t it?” He beaer than a flyspeck erprint, a child’s oily finger But when you enhance again”—he did so with a few brief coe closer—“it’s more of a tiny burn”

“Hoould you get a burn inside your brain?”

“Exactly” Obviously fascinated, Morris swiveled toward the brain in question “I’ve never seen anything like that tiny pinprick e, a small stroke, or an aneurisraical cause for it”

“But it’s there”

“Indeed, it is It could be nothing, no ue headache or dizziness It certainly wouldn’t be fatal But it is curious I’ve sent for all of Fitzhugh’s medical records to see if there were any tests run or any data on this burn”