Outlier: One mistake can destroy everything. Read Online Free PDF Page B

way. They had spent two months on the USS Coral Sea. The sailors were big and friendly. Tony watched them exercise and run laps around the ship. He tried to keep up, but he couldn’t. They were kind and gave him encouragement. On their third night, they watched Star Wars in the ship’s theater. Tony was amazed. Surely this new country would offer him and his family something. Some way to make things right. Some way to heal his past.
     
    They’d ended up in a refugee camp near Houston, where they’d stayed for three months. Then Tony’s mom got a job through a distant cousin cleaning houses. Tony went to school and learned English as fast as he could. He was a natural in math and science. He studied medicine, as that proved to be the easiest path to get his education paid for by the US Government. After graduating at the top of his class from Baylor College of Medicine, he interned at University General Hospital. He received many offers, but accepted a meager position and a meager salary as a coroner, and he’d been there ever since. He despised those who flaunted the system. Those who worked angles to get ahead. His experience with the heavy-handed North Vietnamese Government left a lasting impression, as did the pirates. He felt his calling was to protect. To help find criminals, rather than heal innocents.
     
    Which is precisely why this case bothered him so much. There was zero scientific explanation for this. Zero cases in medical history. Sure, a sudden increase in blood pressure would cause an aneurysm, which happens when the walls of the blood vessels in the brain rupture. But this wasn’t a simple aneurysm. Those are local and only affect certain areas. This affected the entire brain at once. Not just the vessels and arteries. All parts of the brain seemed as though somebody had injected some foreign fluid into them, forcing the fluid and the brain matter to find the path of least resistance. In this case, it was the eyes and nose. Yet there were no marks. No signs of puncture or even the smallest gauge.
     
    Theoretically, a sudden and significant increase in overall blood pressure could cause such trauma, but there would be signs of that everywhere. The only sign of any trauma was in the inner cranium. No evidence of heart valve rupture, no evidence of micro-abrasions elsewhere. How was this possible? Perhaps a localized microwave or sound wave device? That would require the victim to remain stationary in order to allow such a device to be applied. Something like that could not be effective at a distance greater than a few centimeters.
     
    He began to theorize. To think in terms not of science or medicine but of fantasy. What did the character Holmes say? When the obvious is excluded, one must consider the non-obvious? When the rational is excluded, one must consider the irrational? Yet everything had to be explained according to the laws of chemistry, physics, and biology. Perhaps under hypnosis, one could remain silent and passive while such a device was applied? Possible. Perhaps under hypnosis, a syringe could be inserted under one eye, and the brain filled that way? Not all drugs were known. Perhaps a drug that made the victim passive while such a microwave device was applied.
     
    If that were the case, what would be the motive? Why her? Why that way? Why in her home? Just then the phone rang, stirring him out of his uncomfortable uncertainty.
     
    “Dr. Nguyen,” he answered.
     
    “Hey Tony, this is Bernie over at Memorial. I just looked over that file you sent me. Any ideas? Cause I got nothing.”
     
    “Hey Bernie; yeah, I’m just wondering about that myself. Nothing I can think of outside of the outlandish. Anything I’ve come up with requires some kind of externally applied force, either direct injection or some kind of externally applied microwaves of some sort. Which would mean that the victim was somehow pacified for the duration. At least a few minutes. Which means this was a very