“From his eyes and speech, he ought to be in a normal psychological state,” Keiko Yamasuki said to Hines in Japanese. She had a degree in psychology.

“Do you really believe that water is toxic?” Hines asked.

“Is there any question? Just like the sun has light and the air has oxygen. You can’t deny this basic fact, can you?”

Hines leaned on his shoulder and said, “Young man, life was born in the water and can’t exist without it. Your own body is seventy percent water.”

Subject 104’s eyes darkened, and he slumped back in bed, clutching his head. “That’s right. This question tortures me. It’s the most incredible thing in the universe.”

“Let me see Subject 104’s experiment record,” Hines said to the medical director after they left the patient’s room. When they reached the director’s office, Keiko Yamasuki said, “Look at the test propositions first.”

The test propositions displayed on the computer screen one by one:

Proposition 1: Cats have a total of three legs.

Proposition 2: Rocks are not living.

Proposition 3: The sun is shaped like a triangle.

Proposition 4: Iron is heavier than cotton of the same volume.

Proposition 5: Water is toxic.

“Stop,” Hines said, pointing to Proposition 5.

“His answer was ‘false,’” the director said.

“Look at all parameters and operations following the answer to Proposition 5.”

The records indicated that once Proposition 5 was answered, the Resolving Imager increased the strength of its scan of the critical thinking point in the subject’s cerebral neural network. To improve the accuracy of the scan of this area, the intensity of the radiation and the magnetic field were increased in this small region. Hines and Keiko Yamasuki carefully examined the long list of recorded parameters on the screen.

“Has this enhanced scan been done to other subjects and on other propositions?” Hines asked.

The director said, “Because the effect of the enhanced scan was not particularly good, it was canceled after four tries due to fears of excessive localized radiation. The previous three…” He consulted the computer, and then said, “were all benign true propositions.”

“We should use the same scanning parameters and repeat the experiment for Proposition 5,” Keiko Yamasuki said.

“But … who will do it?” asked the director.

“I will,” Hines said.

Water is toxic.

Proposition 5 appeared in black text on a white background. Hines pressed the left “False” button, but he felt nothing apart from a slight sensation of heat produced by the intensive scanning at the back of his head.