The next day, the oral exam began. Professor Finch sat behind a dark oak desk, a human skull to his left, a brain in a glass jar to his right. He didn't ask about the blood supply of the internal capsule or the nuclei of the thalamus. He asked:

Finch’s eyes flickered—just once—with something like recognition. He leaned forward.

“You close the file,” she said. “You walk outside. And you remember that the brain you’re studying is not the one in the jar. It’s the one reading this sentence.”