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The three minutes when she thinks about how to kill herself are her three minutes. They’re sacred. They’re what keep her sane. That is why she really, really doesn’t like it when, three floors below, strange footsteps interrupt her ritual.
only a matter of time before the Twitter hyenas find another corpse they can chew on.
Mångata. In Swedish, this is the reflection the moon makes as it traces a path across the water.
one of her favorites has just materialized in front of her eyes: a tremulous, broken silver line. Mångata. A sign from the universe outside, meaning whatever Antonia wishes it to mean. Which is why the universe sends them to us, so that we can do what we want with them.
No one who lives here can have the slightest contact with reality, or the remotest idea of what it means to be human.
In any case of violent crime, the decision about an autopsy doesn’t depend on the family but the examining magistrate. Who is conspicuous by his absence here. Everything about the crime scene in this investigation is wrong—it doesn’t follow any protocol or respect the criminal procedure law or any of the established norms. Only one pathologist? No backup team, no police inspectors (apart from him, of course)? Why is that?
training has led her to create an emotional barrier that turns them into facts, parts of a hieroglyph that begins with an image and ends with a result.
Crime series on TV give such a distorted image of forensic work that sometimes even the police believe in miracles.
easier to do yourself a bit of harm to avoid doing a lot.”
Working as a cop helps. Being so close to all of that, seeing other people’s misfortunes, it gives you a kind of magic shield. As if it couldn’t happen to you.”
what a think tank is: a bunch of rich university nerds who think they know better than anyone else what the world should be doing.”
According to a recent theory, a black swan is a dreadful event with huge impact that neither science nor past events could have anticipated, and which can only be rationally explained a posteriori. Like the 9/11 attacks, the real estate crisis of 2008, or fanny packs becoming fashionable again.
our unit has no ties. No hierarchies. No internal rivalries. No bureaucracy. Just one intermediary, with code name Mentor.”
Mentor has a team of experts who always operate outside normal channels. No medals or prizes or promotions. And the spearhead, in the field, two people. A shield bearer…” he says, pointing at Jon, “… and a Red Queen.”
“To find a solution, you have to know where you are relative to the problem.”
“Because as well as knowing where you are, you need to know when, is that it?”
Taking into account the latitude and the date, the sea is completely iced over, so the oil tanker cannot advance at any great speed. Is that the end of the experiment?”
only one person in seven million would give that answer.”
“The only thing more difficult than having all the right numbers in the EuroMillions lottery is to get them all wrong.”
In there you have someone who’s spent her whole life trying her hardest to hide in plain sight.”
science is only just standing on the threshold of the human mind. A cavern that is kilometers deep.
the most powerful woman in Spain, chair of the biggest bank in Europe, takes a deep breath, looks away, and remains silent. A silence that oozes so much guilt it’s almost visible.
“There are decisions that simply cannot be made. Choices nobody should ever be obliged to make.
Fear and anxiety stimulate the production of norepinephrine in the adrenal medulla. That will make the compound more effective.”
“It won’t make the subject more intelligent,” Dr. Nuno continues, “nothing can do that. But it can slightly modify the behavior of the hypothalamus, making it produce a greater quantity of histamine. Permanently, that is.”
“The additional histamine enables the subject to be permanently alert. Their cognitive faculties are reinforced. Their attention, perception, ability to solve problems, and their memory will always be at a maximum. Pure and simple.”
