Warning: Reid tells me to tell you that he loves math and if he says any math that makes no sense then he is sorry but he is Reid so he has to say math.

Speech of Shame: RoBunnyBot is deeply ashamed that it has not updated in such a long time. RoBunnyBot is so ashamed that it cut off its bunny ears, but thankfully, Reid was there to give it a new pair of quicksilver bunny ears, just like Voldemort was there to give Peter Pettigrew a new silver hand. Yep, exactly like that.

Chapter 22

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Brown, Black - those were the colors available to Reid. One by one, he plucked the markers out of their neat new box and set them down on the cart next to the whiteboard. From five feet away, he tossed the empty box towards the trash can. With a cellophaneous rustle, the box crossed the event horizon, landing out-of-sight, out-of-sound, and out-of-mind, and leaving him free to dote upon the markers. Picking them up en masse, he arranged them into a multi-colored clock face in his left hand, his fingers curling around the barrels and his thumb orienting the caps according to the left-hand rule for certain unusual retrograde materials, such as negative index metamaterials, and certain unusual retrograde individuals, such as serial killers. Unlike the international standard, his personal clock face displayed only eight hours, from one o'clock to seven o'clock in the clockwise direction around eight o'clock in the center of the clock.

At one o'clock was Green for the first crime scene - the site of the abduction. Reid stared at the whiteboard, projecting upon its creamy cold surface the recent travels of his adult-like childhood. Silently and smoothly, a map of the Triangle superimposed itself over the surface. At first, the resolution was low, but after a second, it improved, the roads and streets and buildings and parks and houses and yards and rivers and creeks and lakes and ponds emerging from the cartography in such complexifying clarifying detail that the cartographer averted his eyes to inhibit the recall. The aversion stabilized the resolution. Looking back, the noise was gone, the signal was there, and the picture was pretty. Reid drew a green X over a quiet tree-lined street in the suburbs south of Raleigh.

At two o'clock was Red for the second crime scene - the site of the murder. Reid drew a red X over a secluded unpaved road in the flat featureless boonies 40 miles southwest of Raleigh, near the medium-sized town of Sanford, which, according to the distant travels of his child-like childhood, was the geographic center of the state of North Carolina.

At three o'clock was Black for the cities and towns capping and barreling the first and second crime scenes. Reid drew the black stars for Raleigh in the northeast, Sanford in the southwest, and Fuquay-Varina in the middle, halfway between the green X and the red X, the abduction and the murder, the pay forwards and the payback.

At four o'clock was Orange for the cell towers. Reid drew the orange squares (closed) for AT&T, the orange squares (open) for Verizon, the orange diamonds (closed) for Sprint, and the orange diamonds (open) for T-Mobile. Adopting the open/closed convention, he doubled the labeling capacity of the squares and diamonds, reducing the number of figures required from four to two, or rather, one, as squares and diamonds, both quadrangular quadrilateral equiangular equilateral tetragons, were both squares. This way, he avoided using the triangles and circles that were to be saved for grander purposes.

At five o'clock was Brown for the highways leading from the first crime scene to the second. Reid drew the brown curves for NC50 leading south from Raleigh to the junction with US401, US401 leading southwest to Fuquay-Varina at the junction with NC42, and NC42 leading west, then south, to Sanford. Just beyond the Cape Fear River and a few miles short of Sanford, he hung a right on Lower River Road, then a left on Gunther Road, before driving halfway down the dark deserted single-lane path to stop at the red X, where the UnSub had shot and killed his first and fifteenth victim amidst the quivering of branches overhead and the crunching of gravel underfoot.

At six o'clock was Yellow for the airways. Reid drew the triangulation diagram for the first crime scene. Without a doubt, the UnSub had been there, and so, Reid surmised, had his cell phone. No one, not even criminals intending to commit heinous crimes, went anywhere without their cell phones anymore. Cell phones, even when roaming, contacted the cell towers of their wireless carriers to sniff out the strongest broadcasts available. Cell towers, not merely broadcasters, received the signals within a range of 20 miles from all directions, so cell phones at all given locations incompletely estranged from civilization contacted at least one, possibly two, and maybe even three cell towers in their vicinities. If the UnSub had fallen to the allure of the blue-striped ball, then his cell phone would have contacted the three AT&T cell towers closest to the crime scene. The towers - Raleigh-ATT1, Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and Raleigh-ATT2 - would have formed the vertices of a triangle. The lines-of-sight between the towers - Raleigh-ATT1 to Fuquay-Varina-ATT, Fuquay-Varina-ATT to Raleigh-ATT2, and Raleigh-ATT2 to Raleigh-ATT1 - would have formed the sides. Within the orange vertices and yellow sides of the swirly sherbet triangle would have been the green X of the crime scene. In the prograde direction, Reid drew the lines-of-sight between the phone and the towers - X to Raleigh-ATT1, X to Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and X to Raleigh-ATT2. The lines split one triangle into three, or merged three triangles into one, whichever perspective felt the best at any given moment. For each of the other wireless carriers - the red checkmark, the yellow petals, and the pink T - he could have drawn a similar diagram, but he held back, because he felt, deep in the portion of the brain that was called the heart, that too many lines and too much yellow would have spoiled the pretty picture. The elements would have upset the unity of the composition. Reid was not an artist, but he knew art when he saw it. Like alliterative language, art passed both logical and aesthetic review.

At seven o'clock was Blue for the mathematics. Reid measured and labeled the sides of the triangles in the triangulation diagram. When a cell phone contacted a cell tower, the tower received the signal from the compass direction of the phone. From the first crime scene, the phone had contacted the towers of its wireless carrier within range of its signal. Reid eyeballed the compass directions from the phone to the towers - south-southeast at Raleigh-ATT1, northeast at Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and nearly due west at Raleigh-ATT2. Mathematically, compass directions were expressed as angles of arrival relative to due north. For due north and due south, the angles were 0° and 180°, respectively. For due east and due west, the angles were 90° and 270°, respectively. All other angles ranged from 0° to 360°. Reid eyeballed the angles of arrival corresponding to the compass directions - 160-something at Raleigh-ATT1, 30-something at Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and 270-ish at Raleigh-ATT2. He had a ruler, but no protractor, so he could not measure the angles directly. Instead, he calculated them using iterative applications of the lengths of the sides of the triangles, the law of cosines, the law of sines, the geometry and trigonometry of the right triangle, the sum of the angles in the triangle, and the number of degrees in the circle. At the end of the task, he labeled the angles of arrival - 162° at Raleigh-ATT1, 35° at Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and 269° at Raleigh-ATT2. His calculated values matched his eyeball estimates, so he folded his arms over his chest and nodded several times in satisfaction before performing similar measurements and similar calculations for each of the other wireless carriers and each of the other crime scenes. The activity - sequential, rhythmic, and repetitive like the chess and baseball games that he had loved and hated to play - felt good and right and true. In this case, as in most cases federal or personal, it was also useful, whether or not it appeared to be what it was actually was.

At eight o'clock was Violet for the mathematician. Reid's favorite color was purple, so he did not use it.

"Um, Dr. Reid?" a voice murmured hesitantly into his ear.

"Don't call him 'Doctor', Kevin. It'll give him a big head," a second voice chided the first. "Don't call him 'Reid' either. His real name is Itsy Bitsy Parker, and he's really Peter Parker's long-lost little brother."

"Garcia? Kevin?" Reid turned away from the whiteboard, plopped down into the nearest chair, and rolled himself up to the table. "Have you hacked into the databases yet?" he removed the earphone from his ear, unplugged the wire from the laptop, and addressed the denizens of the screen.

"That we have, Spiderboy!" Garcia declared cheerfully.

"What do you mean we?" Kevin grumbled. "I don't know what you could possibly mean by we. I only recall myself laboring over multiple keyboards burning my fingerprints off under the psychic flagellations of a shrill-voiced harpy buzzing around my head, poking me in the back of the neck, and shrieking out 'suggestions', 'directions', and 'orders', none of which were the least bit helpful for accessing the phone book that I wasn't supposed to be accessing."

"You forgot the part about the chocolate-covered peanuts," Garcia said.

"Oh yeah, and fed me chocolate-covered peanuts at lightning speed until I choked on my chocolate-covered saliva," Kevin recalled.

"Now do you know what I could possibly mean by we?" Garcia prompted.

"Yes, perfectly," Kevin concurred in accordance with his conditioning.

"Do we have access to all the cell phone data for all the wireless carriers at all the cell towers in and around the Triangle?" Reid appeared to ignore the exchange.

Appearances were deceiving. In actuality, he analyzed the exchange, breaking it down into its parts and building the parts back up into a fascinating whole that he found impossible to understand in words. Instead, he understood it as a painting projected upon the field. In the painting, an old couple, a man and a woman, stood in front of a small house with a pointed-arch window in the second story gable. Looking directly at the viewer through his round flimsy-framed spectacles, the man carried a three-pronged pitchfork in his hand to match the stitching of the same on his overalls. Looking off to the side, the woman wore an old-fashioned brooch at her collar and an old-fashioned apron over her dress. In his personal "American Gothic", Reid replaced the man with Kevin, the woman with Garcia, and the house with a set of wall-sized panels from the ENIAC, the first electronic computer designed and built to simulate the universal Turing machine. Looking directly at the viewer through his rectangular thick-rimmed glasses, Kevin carried a bundle of category 5 cables stripped to expose the twisted pairs, which matched, around his wrist, an undeniably masculine bracelet consisting of the same. Looking off to the side, Garcia wore a necklace bearing a glittering axe pendant and a T-shirt depicting a grinning Chucky and Bride of Chucky standing in front of a fulminating putrefying pile of human body parts. With an equivocal twitch of his lips, Reid cleared the painting, equal parts comforting and disturbing, from the field, but not before he had involuntarily whisked himself onto the canvas to wonder, just as involuntarily, what he would be carrying and wearing on it, what she would be wearing on it, what they would be standing in front of, and who was the her who would be standing in front of it with him.

"Forget the Triangle! We've got the phone book for all the cell towers in the entire country!" Garcia said triumphantly. "My...I mean, Kevin's...fingerprints are burning to begin. Awaiting your directives, Lord Eight (Eye)Ball(s) of Order Araneae, First Class..."

"Search the databases for all cell phones with angles of arrival of 162° at Raleigh-ATT1, 35° at Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and 269° at Raleigh-ATT2 between 7 PM and 8 PM on Monday, October 25th," Reid directed.

"Ummmmmmm...What?" Garcia and Kevin asked in unison.

"Monday, October 25th was the date of the first crime," Reid said. "The UnSub abducted the first victim from Raleigh between 7 PM and 8 PM that evening. That same evening, he drove her out to the woods near Sanford, where he shot and killed her in short order before going home for the night to go to work in the morning. The body was found the next day, on the afternoon of the 26th."

"Yeah, we got that part just fine," Kevin said. "But what about the angles of arrival that we're supposed to be searching for? What exactly...are...those?"

"162° at Raleigh-ATT1, 35° at Fuquay-Varina-ATT, and 269° at Raleigh-ATT2," Reid answered slowly and patiently.

"No, Doc Ock (Arachnid-Not-Cephalopod)! What he meant was 'what are those' as in 'what could those possibly mean'?" Garcia clarified.

"Oh, sorry..." Reid apologized for the misunderstanding. "The angle of arrival, or AoA, is the compass direction from which the radiofrequency signal of a cell phone reaches the antenna array of a cell tower. When connecting to the cellular network, the phone sends out a signal, an electromagnetic wave traveling at the speed of light in air, that propagates in all directions from itself. The signal reaches the towers within a 20-mile radius of the phone. Each tower receives the signal from a different compass direction depending on the location of the phone relative to the location of the tower. Each compass direction is expressed as an angle of arrival relative to due north. A signal from the north would arrive with an AoA of 0°, from the northeast 45°, from the east 90°, from the southeast 135°, from the south 180°, and so on and so on, all the way around the circle to 360°, or 0°, from the north."

"OK...So if a phone contacts a tower from the north-northeast, then the signal would arrive with an AoA of 22.5°, and the phone would be located somewhere on a line drawn from the tower at that angle?" Kevin reasoned. "But we don't know if the phone is on the line 1 mile away or 2 miles away or 20 miles away from the tower?"

"Yes, and that's why we need more than one AoA to determine the location of the phone," Reid replied with an excited bounce of his legs. "A line isn't a location. A location is a point. If the phone contacts a second tower from a second direction, then the signal would arrive with a second AoA, and the phone would be located somewhere on a line drawn from the second tower at the second angle. The two lines drawn from the two towers would intersect at a point, and that point would be the location of the phone. In theory, two AoAs at two towers are necessary and sufficient to determine the location of the phone, but in practice, it's preferable to use three AoAs at three towers, whenever possible, to enhance the accuracy of the angulation."

"That's why it's called triangulation, isn't it?" Garcia asked slyly.

"Yes," Reid replied.

"So that's why you kept repeating that word earlier! And here I was, thinking that it was because of your eight eyes disguised as two eyes that you had to say everything twice! Wait...Does that make sense? No...Don't answer that! Let me bask in my moment for a moment. Ahhhhhhh, finally, a flash of insight into the iridescent silken mindweb of the Amazing Spidersib!" Garcia exclaimed.

"In the databases, the values might be listed under 'AoA' for angle of arrival, or 'DoA' for direction of arrival, or 'AoI' for angle of incidence," Reid continued. "Each contact from a cell phone should generate a row in the database, and each row should include an entry for that column. From the crime scene, the UnSub's cell phone most likely contacted all the cell towers within range of its signal. Most likely, the signal arrived at three towers with three AoAs. We know the location of the crime scene, so we know the AoAs corresponding to that location. We know the AoAs for each of the crime scenes in this case. If we can make a list of all the cell phones that spent enough time at each of the crime scenes to contact the cell towers in their vicinities during the dates and times of each of the crimes, then we should be able to identify the single cell phone that was present at all twelve crime scenes during all twelve dates and times of all six crimes in this case. Working backwards, we can use the AoAs in the databases to identify the UnSub's cell phone and the UnSub himself."

"OK, gimme a second to check..." Kevin tapped on a keyboard at the periphery of the screen. "AoA...DoA...AoI...Got it! Verizon's got a column for AoA. Sprint's got a column for DoA. Yep, and each row includes an entry for that column. So far, so good, but...uh oh...no sign of AoA or DoA or AoI in the AT&T and T-Mobile databases."

"Are there any columns labeled 'ToA'?" Reid asked immediately.

"ToA...ToA..." Kevin checked the columns. "Aaaaaaa-ffirmative, but why are there so many of them? There are multiple columns for ToA-A1, -A2, -B1, and -B2. What exactly...are...those?"

"The time of arrival, or ToA, is the time at which the signal from a cell phone reaches the antenna of a cell tower," Reid explained. "Each antenna is not a single receiver, but multiple receivers separated by distances on the order of tens of centimeters in an antenna array. The incident wavefront of the signal reaches each receiver at a slightly different ToA, and the time difference of arrival, or TDoA, of the signal at a pair of receivers is used to calculate the phase difference between the sinusoidal waves at each receiver. Usually, two pairs of TDoAs at two pairs of receivers are used to calculate the north/south and east/west phase differences. The phase difference is then used to calculate the angle of arrival according to the phase interferometry formula sin θ of the angle of arrival equals the wavelength λ of the signal times the phase difference Δφ between the waves divided by 2π times the distance d between the receivers."

"Clearly," Kevin muttered under his breath.

"And the mindweb captures the unsuspecting prey," Garcia spoke in the hushed tones of a nature documentary during the climactic scene in which the ferocious lionesses sank their felines into the throat of the felled and fallen wildebeest.

"Actually, not all species of spiders use webs to capture their prey," Reid corrected. "Weaving a web requires a substantial expenditure of energy, so many species have adapted to dispense with web-weaving in favor of energy-conserving predatory strategies. Trapdoor spiders dig burrows in which they lie in wait to detect disturbances from the trip lines laid out around the covered openings, or trapdoors, from which the predators leap out to pounce upon the unsuspecting prey. Net-casting spiders weave small webs, or nets, launched by stretching them out to several times the body lengths of the predators to entangle the unsuspecting prey. Angling, or fishing, spiders spin sticky balls at the ends of trapeze lines swung by the predators to hook and reel in the unsuspecting prey. In each case, the predator uses silk in an unconventional manner to capture the prey, which is, of course, unsuspecting."

"That's the creepiest thing I've ever heard," Kevin announced in a post-traumatic monotone.

"Welcome to the Wide World of Dr. Parker and Mr. IB," Garcia said.

"M-M-Mr. IB?" Kevin asked tremulously.

"I-B, or IB, for Itsy Bitsy," Reid said. "It looks like an abbreviation, but sounds like an acronym. Right, Garcia?"

"Mr. IB, though madness incarnate, is not the intellectual inferior of Dr. Parker," Garcia confirmed.

"So what do we do with the ToAs in the databases?" Kevin changed the subject.

"We use the ToAs to calculate the AoAs," Reid answered. "First, calculate the TDoAs from the four receivers A1, A2, B1, and B2, and use the equation of the sine wave to calculate the phase differences from the TDoAs. Then, look up the wavelengths of the cell phone signals for the cellular networks and the distances between the receivers in the antenna arrays. The wavelengths should be in the ultra-high-frequency, or UHF, band for radio waves, on the order of 10 to 100 centimeters. The distances should be half- or quarter-wavelengths, depending on the layouts of the antenna arrays. Look up the specific values for the cellular networks and cell towers. Finally, use the phase interferometry formula to calculate the AoAs and search for each of the sets of three AoAs triangulating the locations of each of the crime scenes during the dates and times of each of the crimes."

"Uhhhhhhh...Can you write that down for us, please? Like...with...step-by-step instructions...and...a detailed example?" Kevin frowned deeply in an unequivocal expression of unadulterated confusion.

"Actually, you can just send me the pertinent rows from the AT&T and T-Mobile databases," Reid suggested. "I've sent you a list of AoAs to search for in the Verizon and Sprint databases, along with the date and time intervals in which to perform the searches. For the other wireless carriers, I'll calculate the AoAs myself."

"You'll...calculate them...your-r-r...s-s-self?" Kevin stuttered in halting disbelief. "You do realize that there are thousands of rows in each of the databases, right?"

"It'll be quicker to do them by hand," Reid said. "I'll need some data to begin, so if you could look up the wavelengths of the signals and the layouts of the antenna arrays at each..."

"Done! And done!" Garcia interrupted. "Faster than the whiplash effect that snapped Gwen Stacy's neck, I have just looked up all the specifications that you have failed to finish requesting and have indeed sent them your very merry way this very berry moment!"

"Thanks, Garcia," Reid said. "We can check back here when we're done. Hopefully, we'll be able to find a needle in a pile of needles. It's not that hard if you know exactly which needle you're looking for."

"You bet we will! And that's when I'll work my magic to dig up a veritable China Syndrome of dirt on the UnSub!" Garcia said. "Just you wait, you filthy demented little bag of bones, I'll get my Eye of Penelope on you one of these minutes, and when I do, you'd better be wearing your heavy-duty tinfoil hat, because I've got mind-readers in my arsenal of tricks and treats, and they're itching to stick their piles of needles into your filthy demented little skull to suck out and mash up your filthy demented little chocolate-covered peabrain!"

"Penelope?" Kevin whispered softly.

"Yes, my Liege?" Garcia turned to Kevin with a grin.

"Are you always like this when you work with the BAU?" Kevin inquired timidly.

"What could you possibly mean, my Once and Future Sovereign?" Garcia batted her eyelashes at Kevin.

"Are you always like...this...this...this feline furfural of hissing purring righteous drive coupled with the 100% rust- and patina-proof stainless steel efficiency of the most positronic of all positronic females? It's just so..." pause for effect, "...unspeakably..." pause for further effect, "...sssssssexxxxxxxy..."

"Ohhhhhhh..."

Reid clicked a button to drop the connection before he had a chance to access anything that he wasn't supposed to access. Alone in the conference room, he glanced through the piles of needles that Kevin had, eagerly or reluctantly (he wasn't sure which), sent him. As Kevin had warned, there were thousands of rows in each of the databases. Reid scrolled through the pages and lines and numbers - up, down, and up again - before focusing his eyes upon the first row. When beginning a task, what better time and place to begin than at the beginning?

There was no body. No arms. No legs. No hands. No feet. No fingers. No toes. No heart. No lungs. He could not feel a body, and he was unaware that there was any body to feel.

There was no world. No eyes. No ears. No skin. No nose. No mouth. He could not feel a world, and he was unaware that there was any world to feel.

There was no self. No brain. He could not feel a self, and he was unaware that there was any self to feel.

There was only a mind.

Signal incoming to signal outgoing, pages and lines and numbers to numbers and lines and pages, matter to mind to matter again.

Across the pages and lines and numbers, his eyes saw, and his ears heard. Pages, lines, numbers. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom! Numbers, black on white, no color on color, as he saw them. Numbers, white on black, tone on no tone, as he heard them. Seeing them, he saw their colors. Hearing them, he heard their tones. 1 Green, 2 Red, 3 Black, 4 Orange, 5 Brown, 6 Yellow, 7 Blue, 8 Violet, according to the circle of the clock. 1 C(4), 2 D, 3 E, 4 F, 5 G, 6 A, 7 B, 8 C(5), according to the line of the scale. He felt them on his skin - 9 Hot, 0 Cold.

Across the numbers and lines and pages, his hands darted, and his fingers dashed. Numbers, lines, pages. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap! The pencil twitched and flitted. The paper slithered and crinkled. Pencil was to graphite as paper was to cellulose. Graphite was to black as cellulose was to white. Black on white was to color as white on black was to tone.

Inside, in his mind behind his eyes and his ears, he saw the colors and heard the tones, and they were all different, Green to Violet and C(4) to C(5). Outside, in the world before his eyes and his ears, the colors and tones were all the same, black on white and white on black, as he saw and heard them. Inside and different. Outside and the same. Sometimes, he liked the one better than the other, and sometimes, he liked the other better than the one. Always did he like them different, and never did he like them the same.

Signal incoming to signal outgoing, outside to inside to outside, black and white to color and tone to black and white again.

Without having any hands, his hands darted across the page. One held the pencil. One held the paper. His hands were not connected to his arms. He had no hands and no arms. Without having any fingers, his fingers dashed across the page. Some held the pencil. Some held the paper. His fingers were not connected to his hands. He had no fingers and no hands. Without having any eyes, he saw. Black on white, Green to Violet, hands to fingers, pencil to paper. Pages, lines, numbers. Numbers, lines, pages. Without having any ears, he heard. White on black, C(4) to C(5), pencil to paper, graphite to cellulose. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom! Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap! His eyes and his ears were not connected to his brain. He had no eyes and no ears and no brain.

He was not hungry. He was not thirsty. He was not sleepy. He did not have to go to the bathroom.

His arms did not hurt. His hands did not hurt. His fingers did not hurt. His eyes did not hurt. His ears did not hurt. His brain did not hurt. Nothing hurt him. He hurt nothing.

No sight, but signal. Pages, lines, numbers. Numbers, lines, pages. No sound, but signal. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom! Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap! It was the best no feeling in the no body. It was the best feeling in the mind.

Numbers. Numbers not from where? Numbers not from words. Numbers not to where? Numbers not to words. Numbers from where? Numbers from pictures. Numbers to where? Numbers to pictures.

A picture was worth a gazillion bajillion umptillion words.

Pictures. Pretties. Pictures were thoughts. Pretties were feelings. Think pictures. Symmetry, sequence, rhythm, repetition, pattern, truth. Feel pretties. Beautiful.

Picture: wave. Axis: x. Units: -2π, -3π/2, -π, -π/2, 0, π/2, π, 3π/2, 2π. Axis: y. Units: -1, -1/2, 0, 1/2, 1. Translate pictures, words. Picture word graph. Wave word sine. Translate words, pictures. Symmetry, sequence, rhythm, repetition, pattern, truth. Beautiful.

Picture: numbers. Column: ToA. Rows: numbers. Column: TDoA. Rows: numbers. Column: Δφ. Rows: numbers. Column: AoA. Rows: numbers. Translate pictures, words. Picture word table. Numbers word ToA. Numbers word TDoA. Numbers word Δφ. Numbers word AoA. Translate words, pictures. Symmetry, sequence, rhythm, repetition, pattern, truth. Beautiful.

Pictures. Pictures from where? Memory, eidetic: seeing and hearing and touching and smelling and tasting memory. Memory, mnemonic: thinking and feeling memory. Eidetic memory or mnemonic memory? Both. Mnemonic pegs for eidetic holes. Eidetic fast for mnemonic slow. Symmetry. Beautiful.

Tick, tock, no o'clock. Tick, tock, no o'clock. Tick, tock, no o'clock. No time.

Left is right is left is no left is no right is no left. Up is down is up is no up is no down is no up. Right is left is right is no right is no left is no right. Down is up is down is no down is no up is no down. No place.

Row 384. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 385. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 386. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 387. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 388. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 389. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 390. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Rhythm. Beautiful.

Row 391. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. Match.

Stop! What? Match.

162° at Raleigh-ATT1.

Cross reference with Fuquay-Varina-ATT. Where pages? Where lines? Where numbers? Fast! Before the eyes come back! Faster! Before the ears come back! Fastest! Before the brain comes back! Fast! Faster! Fastest! Lost and found! Cross reference.

Row 275. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Heart comes back. Lub, dub, lub, dub, lub, dub. Lungs come back. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Slow. Slower. Slowest. No heart. No lungs. Eyes stay away. No eyes. Ears stay away. No ears. Brain stays away. No brain. No body. No world. No self. Mind.

Row 392. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 393. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Row 394. ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. No match.

Rhythm. Beautiful.

Pages, lines, numbers. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom! Numbers, lines, pages. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap! What was better than this?

Pages, lines, numbers. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom! Numbers, lines, pages. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap! Nothing was better than this.

Stop! What? No match.

Nothing wasn't better than this, because nothing was better than this. Nothing was better than this, because nothing wasn't better than this. Nothing was or nothing wasn't? Both. Symmetry. Beautiful.

Row 444. Repetition. Beautiful.

Row 444. 4 plus 4 plus 4 equals 12. 1 plus 2 equals 3. Pattern. Beautiful.

ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. Sequence. Beautiful.

Match. Truth. Beautiful.

162° at Raleigh-ATT1.

Cross reference with Fuquay-Varina-ATT.

Row 642. 6 plus 4 plus 2 equals 12 equals 4 plus 4 plus 4. Pattern. Beautiful.

ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. Sequence. Beautiful.

Match. Truth. Beautiful.

35° at Fuquay-Varina-ATT.

Cross reference with Raleigh-ATT2. Where pages? Where lines? Where numbers? Fast! Before the eyes come back! Faster! Before the ears come back! Fastest! Before the brain comes back! Fast! Faster! Fastest! Lost and found! Cross reference.

Row 273. ToA to TDoA to...

Stop! What? No match.

Begin at the beginning. End at the ending.

Row 273. 2 plus 7 plus 3 equals 12 equals 6 plus 4 plus 2 equals 12 equals 4 plus 4 plus 4. Pattern. Beautiful.

ToA to TDoA to Δφ to AoA. Sequence. Beautiful.

Match. Truth. Beautiful.

269° at Raleigh-ATT2.

Stop! What? Match.

162, 35, 269.
162. 1 plus 6 plus 2 equals 9. 35. 3 plus 5 equals 8. 269. 2 plus 6 plus 9 equals 17. 9, 8, 17. 9 plus 8 equals 17. Pattern. Beautiful.

162, 35, 269. 444, 642, 273.
162 is 9. 444 is 12. Difference is 3. 35 is 8. 642 is 12. Difference is 4. 269 is 17. 273 is 12. Difference is 5. 3 to 4 to 5. Sequence. Beautiful.

3 to 4 to 5.
Prime to not prime to prime. Pattern. Beautiful.

3 to 4 to 5.
3 plus 4 plus 5 equals 12. Pattern. Beautiful.

3 to 4 to 5.
3 squared plus 4 squared equals 5 squared. Equation, triangle: a squared plus b squared equals c squared. Picture, triangle: right, side 3, side 4, side 5. Triangle. Truth. Beautiful.

3 to 4 to 5.
3 squared plus 4 squared equals 5 squared. Equation, circle: x squared plus y squared equals r squared. Picture, circle: radius 5, center (0, 0), points (0, 5), (3, 4), (4, 3), (5, 0), (4, -3), (3, -4), (0, -5), (-3, -4), (-4, -3), (-5, 0), (-4, 3), (-3, 4). Circle. Truth. Beautiful.

Stop! What? Match.

9, 8, 17.
9 plus 8 equals 17. Killed 9. Killed 8. Killed 17. Pattern. Beautiful.

Killed 9.
3 plus 3 plus 3 equals 9. Killed 3 killers. Killed 3 muggers. Killed 3 hookers. Repetition. Beautiful.

Killed 9.
2 plus 7 equals 9. Killed 2 people was supposed to kill. Killed 7 people wasn't supposed to kill. Killed 9 people was or wasn't supposed to kill. Pattern. Beautiful.

Killed 8.
8 killed per day. 8 hours per clock. 8 colors per circle. 8 tones per line. Symmetry. Beautiful.

Killed 17.
1 plus 7 equals 8. 17 rounds per 8 killed. Pattern. Beautiful.

Killed 17.
17 killed per killer. 17 rounds per 8 killed. Concept, fractal: 17 rounds per 8 killed of 17 killed per killer. Truth. Beautiful.

Georgia, North Carolina.
14 victims, 12 victims.

Stop! What? No Match.

Georgia, North Carolina.
12 dead, 12 dead. Symmetry. Beautiful.

Georgia, North Carolina.
12 dead, 12 dead. 12 plus 12 equals 24. 2 plus 4 equals 6. 6 times 2 equals 12. 6 times 4 equals 24. Pattern. Beautiful.

Georgia, North Carolina.
2 alive, 0 alive. 2 in binary is 10. 0 in binary is 0. 10 in binary looks like 10 in decimal. 0 in binary looks like 0 in decimal. 2 in decimal plus 10 in decimal plus 0 in decimal equals 12 in decimal. 10 in binary plus 0 in binary equals 10 in binary. 10 in binary equals 2 in decimal. 2 in decimal plus 12 in decimal equals 14 in decimal. 14 victims, 12 victims. Pattern. Beautiful.

Georgia, North Carolina.
12 dead, 12 dead. 1 plus 2 equals 3. 1 is a loner. 2 is a couple. 3 is a family. Father, mother, child. Mr. UnSub, Mrs. UnSub, Baby UnSub. Dad, Mom, child. William, Diana, Spencer.

No arms or hands or fingers. No legs or feet or toes. No heart or lungs. No eyes or ears or skin or nose or mouth. No brain. No incoming or outgoing. No inside or outside. No pages and lines and numbers or numbers and lines and pages. No zooming or tapping. No colors or black on white. No tones or white on black. No pictures or words. No time or place. No body. No world. No self. No mind.

No thoughts. Feeling. Perfect.

A1, B2, C3, D4, E5, F6, G7, H8, I9, J10, K11, L12, M13, N14, O15, P16, Q17, R18, S19, T20, U21, V22, W23, X24, Y25, Z26.

Dad, Mom, child. William, Diana, Spencer.

Spencer.
S-P-E-N-C-E-R. 19 plus 16 plus 5 plus 14 plus 3 plus 5 plus 18 equals 80. 8 plus 0 equals 8. 8 times 0 equals 0. 8, 0.

Diana.
D-I-A-N-A. 4 plus 9 plus 1 plus 14 plus 1 equals 29. 2 plus 9 equals 11. 1 plus 1 equals 2. 2 times 9 equals 18. 1 plus 8 equals 9. 2, 9.

William.
W-I-L-L-I-A-M. 23 plus 9 plus 12 plus 12 plus 9 plus 1 plus 13 equals 79. 7 plus 9 equals 16. 1 plus 6 equals 7. 7 times 9 equals 63. 6 plus 3 equals 9. 7, 9.

Spencer, Diana, William.
8, 2, 7.
0, 9, 9.

Reid.
R-E-I-D. 18 plus 5 plus 9 plus 4 equals 36.

Spencer Reid.
80 plus 36 equals 116. 1 plus 1 plus 6 equals 8. 8 Violet.

Diana Reid.
29 plus 36 equals 65. 6 plus 5 equals 11. 1 plus 1 equals 2. 2 Red.

William Reid.
79 plus 36 equals 115. 1 plus 1 plus 5 equals 7. 7 Blue.

8, 2, 7.
8 plus 7 plus 2 equals 17. 17 loved: Spencer, Diana, William. 17 hated: Spencer, Diana, William. 17 loved and hated, 17 killed.

8, 2, 7.
8 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 7 o'clock. Center: 8 o'clock. Right: 2 o'clock. Left: 7 o'clock. Clock, circle.

8, 2, 7.
8 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 7 o'clock. Line: 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock to 7 o'clock. Clock, triangle, clockwise. Line: 7 o'clock to 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock. Clock, triangle, counterclockwise.

8, 2, 7.
8 C(5), 2 D, 7 B. Middle: 8 C(5). High: 2 D above 8 C(5). Low: 7 B below 8 C(5). Line: 7 B to 8 C(5) to 2 D. Scale, ascending, C(5).

8, 2, 7.
8 C(5), 2 D, 7 B. 2 plus 7 equals 9. 9 minus 8 equals 1. 1 C(4). Middle: 1 C(4). High: 2 D above 1 C(4). Low: 7 B below 1 C(4). Line: 2 D to 1 C(4) to 7 B. Scale, descending, C(4).

8, 2, 7, 1.
8 C(5), 2 D, 7 B, 1 C(4). Line: 1 to 2 to 7 to 8. Line: C(4) to D to B to C(5). Scale, octave, ascending. Line: 8 to 7 to 2 to 1. Line: C(5) to B to D to C(4). Scale, octave, descending.

8, 2, 7.
8 C, 2 D, 7 B. Alphabet.

8, 2, 7.
Line: 7 to 8 to 2. Line: B to C to D. Alphabet, ascending. Line: 2 to 8 to 7. Line: D to C to B. Alphabet, descending.

8, 2, 7.
8 Violet, 2 Red, 7 Blue. 2 plus 7 equals 9. 9 minus 8 equals 1. 1 Green. Frequency, middle: Green. Frequency, low: Red. Frequency, high: Blue. Wavelength, middle: Green. Wavelength, high: Red. Wavelength, low: Blue. Model, color, RGB.

8, 2, 7, 1.
8 Violet, 2 Red, 7 Blue, 1 Green. Top: 1 Green. Bottom: 8 Violet. Right: 2 Red. Left: 7 Blue. Polygon, quadrangular, quadrilateral.

8, 2, 7.
8 Violet, 2 Red, 7 Blue. Angle, α: 7 Blue. Angle, β: 2 Red. Angle, γ: 8 Violet. Side, a: 2 Red to 8 Violet. Side, b: 7 Blue to 8 Violet. Side, c: 7 Blue to 2 Red. Law, cosines: c squared equals a squared plus b squared minus 2 times α times β times cosine γ. Law, sines: sine α over a equals sine β over b equals sine γ over c. Polygon, triangular, trilateral.

8, 2, 7.
8 Violet, 2 Red, 7 Blue. Red plus Blue equals Violet. Violet in English equals/is Purple in English. Purple is made from Red and Blue.

Thought. Feeling. Perfect.

0, 9, 9.
0 plus 9 plus 9 equals 18. 1 plus 8 equals 9. 0 times 9 times 9 equals 0. 9, 0.

9, 0.
9 Hot, 0 Cold. 9 Summer, 0 Winter. 9 Northern Summer, 0 Southern Winter. 9 North, 0 South. 9 o'clock, 0 o'clock. Clock, poles.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
1 o'clock to 2 o'clock to 3 o'clock to 4 o'clock to 5 o'clock to 6 o'clock to 7 o'clock. Clock, circle, 0° latitude, equator.

9, 0, 1.
9 o'clock to 1 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 0° longitude, prime meridian.

9, 0, 2.
9 o'clock to 2 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 51°3/7° longitude, meridian.

9, 0, 3.
9 o'clock to 3 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 102°6/7° longitude, meridian.

9, 0, 4.
9 o'clock to 4 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 154°2/7° longitude, meridian.

9, 0, 5.
9 o'clock to 5 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 205°5/7° longitude, meridian.

9, 0, 6.
9 o'clock to 6 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 257°1/7° longitude, meridian.

9, 0, 7.
9 o'clock to 7 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, circle, 308°4/7° longitude, meridian.

8.
8 o'clock. Clock, center.

9, 0, 8.
9 o'clock to 8 o'clock to 0 o'clock. Clock, axis.

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Clock, center: 8. Clock, equator: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Clock, poles: 9, 0. Clock, sphere.

Over and over and over, again and again and again, Reid rotated the clock in his mind behind his eyes and his ears. His personal clock sphere displayed ten hours, from one o'clock to seven o'clock in the clockwise direction around eight o'clock in the center of the clock, below nine o'olock above the clock face and above zero o'clock below the clock face. Rotating himself around it, he saw and heard the clock from all perspectives, from top and bottom and around and along, from north pole and south pole and equator and meridian, from hot northern summer and no summer/no winter and cold southern winter. He saw the colors and heard the tones - the sights and sounds of the clock and the art and music of the sphere. The equatorial aesthetics were stable, the colors and tones unchanging around the circle of the clock and the line of the scale. The polar aesthetics were fickle, shifting randomly amongst the equatorial as the colors changed at lightning speed and the tones changed at thunder speed. He saw and heard them with his eyes and his ears, and he felt them on his skin. Nine o'clock was hot, and zero o'clock was cold. At eight o'clock, nine o'clock came in hot, and zero o'clock went out cold, and nine o'clock warmed up eight o'clock, and zero o'clock cooled down eight o'clock. Nine o'clock to eight o'clock to zero o'clock - he felt them in sequence in the Northern Hemisphere, where north was up, south was down, and order was descending. Nine to eight to zero. 9 to 8 to 0. 9, 8, 0. 9 minus 8 minus 0 equals 1. 1 Green, 2 Red, 7 Blue. Model, color, RGB, machine: Red (255, 0, 0), Green (0, 255, 0), Blue (0, 0, 255). Model, color, RGB, human: L for Long (564-580 nm), M for Medium (534-545 nm), S for Short (420-440 nm). Red, Green, Blue - the colors bounced off the clock as balls of paint cracking open to splash themselves upon...

Suddenly, a burning sensation, hot on his skin, then a biting sensation, cold to his bones. Burning hot to biting cold - the sensations hurt from outside to inside, from skin to bones. Something was here to hurt him. Someone was here to hurt him. From right to left, he jerked his arm away from the assault. From left to right, his arm sprang back to attack the assailant.

Arms come back. Hands come back. Fingers come back. Legs, feet, toes. Heart, lungs. Eyes, ears, skin, nose, mouth. Brain. Body. World. Self. Mind.

Reid jumped in his chair as he jolted his head up to gaze angrily at a blur of someone or something that he did not recognize immediately. Immediately, he wished that it would go away, so he could go back to the colors that were about to splash themselves upon...It was Emily Prentiss, her vision impinging upon his eyes and her voice impinging upon his ears. Quickly, so as to escape her notice, he averted his anger and swallowed his annoyance. He was annoyed with her for interrupting him, for barging in to yank him, by force, out of his beautiful mind that had retreated within its limitless confines only to find itself sucked out of its reverie to recoil from a world that rushed back to stick it with the needles, sometimes sharp and sometimes blunt, that were not part of the pile that was its favorite. For a second, he experienced the "it" of the something or someone as an indescribably irritating speck of dust that he desperately wished to flick off his body and out of his mind right now right away, but after another second, "it" became "she", and "she" became "Emily Prentiss" the concept, and "Emily Prentiss" the concept became "Emily Prentiss" the person, one of the few humans in the single pile that was his favorite and one of the few humans who might or might not (he wasn't sure which) place him at the periphery of one of the multiple piles that were her favorites, so he, although very annoyed at first, became only somewhat annoyed, then slightly annoyed, then no longer annoyed at all. After a minute, colors and tones faded to black and white and concepts faded to people, and he remembered that sometimes, he liked black and white and people so much that he forgot that sometimes, he liked colors and tones and concepts so much that he forgot that sometimes, he liked black and white and people at all. During the past however much time had elapsed since he had hung up on Kevin and Garcia, he had not only found a needle in a pile of needles, but also completed the clock that he had not realized was incomplete until now, so now was gradually becoming one of those sometimes that erred on the side of black and white and people. Gradually, "Emily Prentiss" the picture became "Emily Prentiss" the word, which Reid, without seeing it or hearing it, was suddenly able to speak.

"Yeah, Emily?" Reid stopped his hand from snapping up to slap her as it reached the edge of the table.

"Welcome back, Reid," Prentiss smirked. "For a minute there, we were worried about you, sitting here spacing out with your mouth open like a robot that blew its fuse."

"I was going to call Poison Control in case you had overdosed on Adderall again," Rossi surprised him from behind.

"I've never taken Adderall," Reid leaned back to glance up at Rossi hovering above his head.

"Good, and you should keep it that way," Rossi nodded in approval.

"Reid on Adderall? A scary thought if there ever was one," Prentiss said. "I don't think he needs it though. I'm pretty sure he makes his own. Probably in some kind of...mutant gland...in there..." she poked him in the cheek to ascertain that he was still as life-like as he used to be.

"Actually, humans do make their own Adderall, sort of," Reid said. "The ADHD medication Adderall is based directly on phenethylamine, a natural monoamine alkaloid found in the central nervous system of mammals. Phenethylamine, or phenylethylamine, consists of a phenyl group joined to an ethyl group joined to an amino group. Adding a methyl group to the ethyl group produces alpha-methylphenylethylamine, or amphetamine, the active ingredient in Adderall, commonly known as 'speed'. Adding a methyl group to the amino group of amphetamine produces N-methylamphetamine, or methamphetamine, the highly addictive illegal drug commonly known as 'crystal meth'. A deficiency in phenethylamine is associated with ADHD, while an excess is associated with schizophrenia. Adderall, a mixture of racemic and dextrorotatory amphetamine salts, compensates for the deficiency to enhance energy and focus for hours at a time. Crystal meth goes a step further, not only enhancing energy and focus, but also inducing states of euphoria, grandiosity, and paranoia, in addition to obsessions, delusions, and hallucinations. Taken together, the effects mimic the psychotic episodes of schizophrenia, and can continue for months after withdrawal of the drug in the form of amphetamine psychosis. A related drug is 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, commonly known as 'ecstasy'. The psychostimulant drugs speed, crystal meth, and ecstasy all belong to the phenethylamine class of neuromodulators regulating the neurological pathways underlying the emotional manifestations of empathy, intimacy, and love, not only outwards towards others, but inwards towards oneself as well."

"Haven't we had this conversation before?" Prentiss squinted to remember.

"Yeah, Hotch asked me what love was, and I told him about the chemicals involved in love, and I said that they were found in chocolate, and you said that you loved chocolate, and I said that the same chemicals were found in peas, and I was going to tell you all about the phenethylamine class of love chemicals, but Hotch told me to stop, so I stopped, but if I hadn't stopped, then I would have gone on to mention that the abbreviation for phenethylamine is P-E-A, so the acronym is..." Reid snorted as he chuckled, "...PEA."

"That was shortly after you joined the BAU, during the Frank Breitkopf case," he added.

"I remember," Prentiss smiled. "I always wondered what you were going to say if Hotch hadn't cut you off."

"You did?" Reid widened his eyes in surprise.

"How nostalgic," Rossi remarked sarcastically. "Now, if we could drag ourselves off memory lane for just a moment..."

"Where are Hotch and Morgan?" Reid asked.

"Giving the press conference with the fake profile," Prentiss said. "Apparently, the UnSub is targeting pregnant women because he is reliving the tragic loss of his own baby through unspecified means."

"But that's the truth," Reid said.

"Exactly," Prentiss nodded with a satisfied smile. "It's just vague enough to be perfectly true, as long as our profile is correct, no bells or whistles required."

"It was Morgan's idea to be as vague as possible while giving out all the details that might help the public help us identify the UnSub," Rossi said. "At least one of us was taking notes from JJ all these years."

"Notes, but not fashion tips," Prentiss laughed. "Morgan's giving the press conference in his usual 'I am a walking talking spokesperson for Fruit-of-the-Loom' get-up."

"Don't complain, Prentiss. It could be worse," Rossi glanced sideways at Reid.

"Worse?" Reid mumbled as he typed a list of numbers into a text editor on the laptop screen. "Worse...Worse...Worse. AoA to Δφ to TDoA to ToA. TDoA-A1-A2, TDoA-B1-B2..." he muttered to himself as his index fingers flashed, one at a time, left and right, across the numbered keys of the keyboard.

"I'm curious, Reid. Have you ever considered...oh, I dunno...learning to type?" Rossi leaned over his shoulder to monitor his activities.

"Type...Type...Type. A1, A2, B1, B2...TDoA," Reid continued typing, fingers to numbers, fingers to numbers, fingers to numbers.

"This kid graduated from Caltech," Rossi held out his hands towards Reid as he looked up at Prentiss. "Any guesses as to how he ended up such a Luddite?"

"How could he not have?" Prentiss asked. "It's obvious, Dave. You've gotta look at it from his point of view. Why use a computer if you are one?"

"'Normally, you'd use a computer to do this, but it was quicker just to do it by hand,' so speaketh the human computer," Rossi misremembered the words of an apparently positronic man who had done, in his five minutes of solitude in the meditative silence, the polar opposite of blowing his fuse.

"NO...MATCH!" came the sound of a shrill-voiced harpy through the laptop speakers.

"Nope, no match," Kevin shook his head with a calmer demeanor. "During the past ten minutes, we have successfully determined that the UnSub is not a valued customer of the red checkmark or the yellow petals."

"Search the AT&T database for this phone number: 404-555-1278," Reid responded immediately. "Match this phone number with the list of TDoAs that I just sent you. I found a hit in the AT&T database just now. The UnSub might be a valued customer of the blue-striped ball."

"Blue-striped ball?" someone murmured in the background far far away.

"Red checkmark? Yellow petals?" someone else murmured.

"Don't tell me that you're done already!" Garcia frowned. "No way that you're done calculating all those angles already...No way. Right, Reid?"

"Angles?" two someones murmured in unison.

"No, I'm not done yet," Reid replied. "But I found a hit, so we can use it to work forwards from the phone number rather than backwards from the AoAs and ToAs."

"Checking...checking..." Kevin typed at thunder speed. "Checking...checking...checking...checking...checking. Ohh...Ohh...what is this? A hit? A hit for that cell phone number at 21:14:35 on Monday, October 25th!"

"What towers did the phone contact at that time?" Reid asked.

"Fuquay-Varina-ATT, Sanford-ATT1, and Sanford-ATT2," Kevin answered. "Those are the towers triangulating the site of the second crime scene, where the UnSub shot and killed his first victim...somewhere near Sanford, North Carolina."

"Keep searching for the other crime scenes," Reid ordered as he stared fixedly at the screen.

"Searching...searching..." Kevin typed at lightning speed. "A hit! A hit for the third crime scene!"

Reid nodded, biting his lip and waving his hands for Kevin to continue. From afar, he heard a drone of voices and saw a blur of faces. He sensed the presence of people around him. Surprisingly, the pressure energized him, pushing or pulling him (he wasn't sure which) into a half-state between colors and tones and black and white. A whoosh of air tickled his face as a door opened, then closed. The air brought with it a voice, a face, a person. Another whoosh of air brought with it another voice, another face, another person. Sitting in front of the computer screen, he drank in the drone of voices, the blur of faces, and the presence of people around him. He delighted in the incoming and the outgoing, the take and the give of his familiar self surrounded by his familiar others. Incoming were not pages and lines and numbers or zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, but Emily Prentiss and David Rossi and Derek Morgan and Aaron Hotchner, four of the many people and few adult humans whom he would never hurt, no matter who or what he ended up at the ending. Outgoing were not numbers and lines and pages, or tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, but his skill and his will, him willing Kevin or Garcia or whoever it was who was burning its fingerprints off in front of the other screen of the other computer to pick up, through his skill, the individual pieces of the individual needle that, having been blasted asunder and buried deep under a pile of needles for such a long time, now longed to be pieced back together into its glinting metallic whole.

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

"Hit!"

The word echoed through the auditory channel, each hearing of it as rich and vibrant as each seeing of it through the visual channel, the tones and colors turning the cogs to ticktock the story of the clock. Gradually, colors and tones faded to black and white, and Reid looked up from the screen to look around the table. Rossi and Prentiss were there, as were Morgan and Hotch. Hotch had come in with the first whoosh of air, or had that been Morgan? Morgan had come in with the second whoosh of air, or had that been Hotch? He didn't know, and he didn't care to know.

What he knew was that the ten hours of the clock were not hours at all, but years. A year of the clock was a year of his life, and the ten years of the clock were the ten years of his life during which the clock, and that which he now found possible, mathematics to narrative, to understand atop and abottom and around and along its sphere as he had once understood it acenter alone, had been whole. Those ten years had passed, changing the interpersonal dynamics of the changing family, and he didn't care to know them again, at least not during one of the normal hours of one of the normal days of his one normal life.

Reid turned to his other family gathered around the table. In his mind behind his eyes and his ears, he saw his own vision and heard his own voice. Opening his mouth, he spoke the truth, and he was sure, in this moment that felt so good and so right and so true, that he was speaking it to those who would see its colors and hear its tones, as he, seeing them and hearing them and knowing them, opened his mouth to speak his words and share his gifts with them.

Note: A Word or Many About Reid's Beautiful Mind

This chapter is probably the weirdest in this story, and that's really saying a lot. It is an inside out view of Reid's cognitive processes, some of which may be more easily understood from the outside in, so here goes.

1) Hyperfocus

This is the phenomenon described in the second part of the chapter when there is no body/no world/no self. Hyperfocus is a state of intense concentration that completely blocks out everything but the activity at hand. It is strongly associated with both ASD and ADHD. It is more extreme than "focus", which is what Reid does at the end of the chapter when he is surrounded by people. Alone, he hyperfocuses. Around people, he focuses, but would rather hyperfocus. Hyperfocus can probably be experienced by anyone with the right drugs. Cue Adderall here. One level of hyperfocus is no body/no world/no self/mind. In this level, you can focus extremely intensely, assimilate incoming signals effortlessly, generate outgoing signals effortlessly, and be very productive and very creative for hours at a time in one sitting when you have no idea that you are hungry or thirsty or sleepy or need to go to the bathroom. Cue astronaut diapers here. The other level is no body/no world/no self/no mind. I would call this "Total Space Out". This is another state when you can be very creative and come up with lots of new ideas or gain new insights into old ideas without really knowing how you are doing it or even that you have a mind that is doing it, but you don't seem to be doing anything other than spacing out. Level 1 is useful for doing your math homework or writing fanfiction, while level 2 is useful for purely mental activities that don't involve any of your body parts moving. Also, an interruption during hyperfocus will make the hyperfocuser want to destroy whatever it is that is doing the interrupting.

2) Synaesthesia

This is the part where Reid sees colors and hears tones for numbers. This phenomenon is thought to be fairly common, maybe as high as 1 in 20 people. For example, when you think of the number 3, you might see "3" in your mind's eye (behind the forehead) as an orange digit at the same time that you see with your actual eyes (before the eyes) a big orange rectangle that flashes and disappears. In this story, I've made Reid a synaesthetic "associator", meaning that he sees and hears numbers in his mind's eye but not with his actual eyes in the world. If he saw them in the world, then he would be a "projector", but I want to differentiate between his inner and outer experiences, so I made him an associator. Colors and tones inside, black and white outside.

3) Visual vs. Verbal, Mathematics vs. Narrative, Pictures vs. Words

Visual and verbal thinking are the two dominant forms of thinking. The largest percentage but not majority of people use both on a regular basis, and smaller percentages are either primarily visual or primarily verbal thinkers. Reid uses both. He sees his vision and hears his voice. But I think his vision is more powerful than his voice. I keep writing that the auditory channel lacks the richness and vibrancy of the visual channel. His vision is faster and richer, and he has to devote a substantial amount of energy to translate the mathematics into the narrative, or pictures into words, which is why the narrative comes out sounding long, rambling, and odd. The vision is just so rich that he has to try to describe it all, and the message never gets through in its full glory. Contrast Reid with Sammy from the episode "Coda". Sammy is also a visual thinker, but he does not have much of a voice. Reid might have been more like Sammy in his early childhood. In "Memoriam", we didn't hear little Spencer say anything. I'm sure little Spencer knew how to speak, but speaking was probably not one of his favorite activities or easy for him to do, not like it is for him as an adult. Blather on, Reid! But let it be known, in the narrative of mathematics, that having no words to speak =/= having no gifts to share.

4) Eidetic vs. Mnemonic Memory

Remember the episode "Sense Memory" where smell was associated with memory for the UnSub? I loved that title for the episode. Eidetic memory is just sensory memory, primarily visual, but can be just as rich in the auditory and other channels. All people use both eidetic and mnemonic processes to recall information, even if all people do not remember as much volume of information as Reid does. Eidetic is far faster than mnemonic and can recall information for which there is no mnemonic, such as people's credit card numbers and those annoying software keys that you have to enter into Microsoft and Adobe products.

5) Pattern Recognition

This is a huge part of Reid's cognition. He is a pattern matcher, and he loves matching patterns. They are beautiful to him. That was the part with all the adding, subtracting, geometry, circles, scales, etc. Actually, there were many more patterns that could have been matched, but Reid threatened to lock RoBunnyBot up in a closet and feed it dog and cat food if it went on and on and on. RoBunnyBot had to stop, because cat food is super duper gross.

6) Emotions/Emotional Intelligence

This is not one of Reid's strong points. Remember the part in "L.D.S.K.", when he says that feels nothing after shooting Dowd? This has gotten him into a world of trouble in this story, since "feeling nothing" really precipitated the whole serial killing premise. Gideon was 100% correct about Reid. Reid does not actually feel nothing. He is not a psychopath. He thinks that he feels nothing because he has a low awareness of his own feelings. Not knowing what he feels is not the same as not feeling anything at all or not being able to feel anything at all. An emotion is like a signal that has to get through to his conscious awareness. In Reid's case, many emotional signals do not get through. Most of the time, he feels a calm peaceful happiness like a metronome. This is not the feeling one would label "happy", but more like "content". The strongest signals do get through. Anger is one that does. Anger is probably the strongest human emotion. Reid also has problems understanding his emotions, such that complex emotional stories involving couples, relationships, and families may be confusing to him until they are intellectually analyzed or metaphorized into "American Gothic" or the clock sphere or any of the many many many weird metaphors in this story. This is why there are so many weird metaphors in this story! Breaking down an experience to build it back up also helps. The term for this phenomenon of emotional awareness/understanding/labeling is "alexithymia", and it is associated with ASD, just as "cyclothymia", or intense mood swings/changes of emotion from highest high to lowest low are associated with bipolar. Most people have emotional experiences in a comfortable middle range and are in touch with their emotions but their emotions do not interfere with their functioning. Emotional regulation can be a problem for people not in touch with or in control of their emotions. However, being "alexithymic" does not mean that Reid does not feel emotions strongly when he does become aware of them. All of the emotions that he does feel are intense, and he may have trouble regulating them, thus causing the emotional fantasia that leads him to snap a victim's neck when the victim does or says something to anger him. Afterwards, the feeling is gone to be replaced by the intellectual fugue that causes him to conclude logically and incorrectly that he must be a psychopath, and since he is a psychopath, why not just accept his role as the Devil and go ahead and kill some more people? Oh, poor Reid, RoBunnyBot has tortured him so very much, and it loves doing it so very much.

7) Furfural

Surprisingly, this word is not but only sounds like one of RoBunnyBot's neologisms. It is a real word. The name of a chemical! :D

OK, end psychopathy for now. Next up, we return to the world of humans, and the profiles are finally revealed. Strangely, Reid hasn't plotted or carried out redrum in awhile. I wonder what this is leading up to. Soon after, we go back to the clock sphere. There were a few paintballs that bounced off the clock, so we're going to have to figure out where the paint splashes in Ch 24 or 25. Oh, poor readers, RoBunnyBot has tortured them so very much, and it loves doing it so very much.