Ultramarine | The Darkest Minds Fanfic

Chapter 16, Sheena

　　"Do you think he would be willing to help?" I asked. "With these?"

　　"Oh, I think the only reason he hasn't trampled over me and sat down on this chair is because he doesn't know you're working on this." He said, "Should I send him your way?"

　　"Please, that would be most helpful." I said.

　　"You got it." He stood up and was ready to leave, but I called him again.

　　"Liam?" I asked.

　　"Yes?" He whipped his head back.

　　"Could you grab some...fruits, the next time you go out?" I asked. The lack of vitamins in everyone's diet had started to show—probably less obvious to others, but I noticed.

　　"Oh, sure." He said, "Anything else?"

　　"Just Chubs." I said. "For now."

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Chubs came in only less than a minute later. "Liam said you are working on the cure?" was the first thing he said.

　　"I don't want to keep your hopes up, but yes." I said, "There is no real breakthrough at the moment though."

　　"What do you have so far?" He asked as he sat down on the chair Liam brought in, propping his glasses up a little.

　　So I repeated my findings to him. After hearing my words, he sank into a deep contemplation. Then, he started flipping through the papers, and noting things down here and there.

　　"I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert in Neuroscience or anything, but I don't get why they don't use fMRI to do the scanning." He said, "Look at these images. They are all PET or MEG, no fMRI, but—"

　　"—fMRI is more accurate when spatial precision is concern." I continued, "If they are trying to pinpoint the mutated area, wouldn't spatial precision be crucial?"

　　"That's what I thought, too." He said, "I understand that there could be some time-sensitive factors we didn't took into account," he tapped the end of the pen on the paper, "But what I don't get is why they didn't use cross references? Like that should be the logical thing to do, right? So unless there are a third factor we haven't found out about yet, or—"

　　"The mutation wouldn't show on a fMRI scan." I finished.

　　He nodded, solemnly.

　　So what wouldn't show on fMRI? I used to have a lot of trouble learning about different neuroimaging techniques, and the only reason I passed Dr. Thorne's endless quizzes was because Jack reviewed the class materials with me, over and over again.

　　So, if my memory serves me right, fMRI relies on observing blood flows to detect brain activities, and it is precisely because it uses blood flows as the indicator and not the neurotransmissions or neural oscillations that cause it to be less chronically accurate...

　　Wait.

　　Oh, god. I almost jumped before I caught myself, and started flipping through the papers furiously.

　　"What?" Chubs yelped, but I didn't answer him, not right away.

　　"Here!" I found the page I was looking for. It had some EEGs on it. "See? The patterns of brainwaves in a mutated brain are similar, but the amplitude is significantly higher."

　　"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" He asked.

　　"I'm not gonna guess what you think I'm saying. I'm gonna tell you—" I said, "—it is an electrophysiological mutation, not a structural one. Our brains send out stronger electric impulses, but the physical compositions—"