Xaviers!

After getting approval to use the school's medical imaging equipment and helping Cam do the necessary modifications for the CT scanner to accommodate Bruce's size, Tosh looked to Cam.

"Everything good on your end?"

Cam had hooked his laptop up to the computer normally used to run the scans. "Everything looks fine over here. We should be able to get some pretty clear results."

"Assuming Bruce doesn't break the machine," Shogo said, finally out of his jacket and rocking a lab coat at Cam's insistence.

"Pfft. He'll behave," Tosh answered as he began stripping to his shifting suit. Shogo hummed "Big Spender" and Tosh rolled his eyes.

"How separate of a personality is Bruce, anyway? Entirely self-sufficient?" Cam said, as he toggled some settings on the machine.

Tosh disrobing seemed to have no effect on him.

"That's actually hard to answer, definitively anyway. He's mostly just me with less intellect and fewer inhibitions, but... there is sometimes something... I dunno... other about him. Though that could just be due to the way that part of me coopted the personality traits of Homo Dudicus over there."

"That is not proper Linnaean taxonomy.

The fewer inhibitions bit is interesting as well; that could also be the result of a reduced mental capacity. I'll be very interested to see the outcomes of this test. Could you be more specific about what sorts of things Bruce does that you would not?"

"Punch henchmen. Fight a giant cybernetic squid. Sing karaoke. Those kinds of things."

"So, it's both social interaction and fight-or-flight reflexes. Very interesting.

If it was simply combat, then you could blame the more primitive brain structure, but I'm not aware of many opportunities for sharks to sing karaoke. There may be more going on here than I thought.

Well, speculation is moot at this point. Into the machine with you!"

Tosh climbed onto the patient table and testing commenced. The baseline scan of his default form simply showed a perfectly normal human brain in healthy condition. The scan of Bruce's brain revealed a roughly five percent shrinkage in the frontal lobe, specifically to areas believed to govern intelligence. It also showed minor structural alterations in the areas of the parietal and occipital lobes connected to sensory input. There was also a new, unidentified lobe made up of that missing five percent.

"Well, that's not normal. Any ideas what that extra gray matter might be doing there?"

"Say what now?"

Bruce reverted to Tosh and came over to look. "Huh... that's weird... maybe it's related to the electrical abilities?" he guessed.

"You think so? I'd expect that to be less controlled by the brain and more a nervous structure of some sort," Cam said, loading up Bruce's brain scan on a 3D modeler.

"Look at these weird connections here, here and here," he said, pointing to the links between the new lobe and the existing ones. "It's almost like a second frontal lobe. And it's unique to Bruce; it doesn't show up on the Tosh scans whatsoever."

"Bizarre... I have no idea where to begin to guess what it does. Though it's safe to say that's where the missing brainpower is going."

"I wonder if it's where the Tosh-consciousness is kept while Bruce is in control...no, no, that wouldn't make any sense, because you'd have to have a corresponding lobe while as just Tosh.

But you're right -- the smaller main frontal lobe would result in being worse at problem solving and things of that nature. So this...whatever it is...might be able to compensate. It's very bizarre, though. I wonder if we could stimulate it to find out what it does?"

"It's worth looking into at least. What would you suggest? Even were I to theoretically agree to anything invasive without a pressing medical reason, electrical stimulation is out," Tosh said.

Sho rubbed his chin in thought. "Maybe it's, like, an ability you don't know about yet?"

"It's as good a guess as any," Tosh answered.

"Or it's an aaaliiien," Sho teased, "You know, from the sharkforce dimension?"

Tosh snorted. "How long have you been sitting on that one?"

After a pause, Sho admitted, "Months."

"That should be "darkforce" dimension," Cam said, utterly missing the joke.


"If electrical stimulation is out, I suppose we could try direct manual stimulation."

"You want to cut him open and, what, poke his brain?" asked the non-scientist with concern.

"Yeah... I'm not nearly that curious," Tosh said. "And I think the medical staff's heads would explode."

"I was thinking about temporarily removing the brain and examining it in a controlled environment, though I suppose poking would work as well.

There are always alternatives. Perhaps some kind of miniaturized probe; with the proper controls, we may be able to get some fine-tuned data.

Or, I suppose, we could attempt to develop some sort of rudimentary computer model, though I'm less inclined to believe that would work. For one, we'd be asking it to simulate a function we know very little about. These simulations always bring significant error.

We could also try chemically inhibiting that particular lobe. Temporarily, of course. But we might be able to tell from it's absence what it does."

"You're not removing my brain, Cam. And that's not a you thing. I wouldn't trust the best neurosurgeon in the universe to try that one. Option two has the best risk-reward ratio, but four sounds viable too," Tosh answered.

Shogo looked at them both like they're nuts. "Dudes. Why not just use one of the telepaths?"

Cam shook his head. "Telepaths are great for giving you a theory of mind, but for actual brain structure? Useless. They can't tell a preganglionic fiber from a postganglionic nerve."

"You're the science guys," Sho shrugged. "Just don't give yourself brain damage Bro."

"Well I'm certainly not planning to Sho," Tosh answered.

"Why would I give him brain damage? What purpose would that serve," Cam asked, confused.

"Never said it'd be on purpose," Sho pointed out, "Accidents happen."

"Relax Sho, we'll be careful," Tosh assured.

"Yanno... I think we've had that exchange before, only the other way around," Sho chuckled.

"Well, people shouldn't have accidents. I highly recommend avoiding them."

"Human capacity for error is a problem for another day," Tosh chuckled, "Back to my mystery lobe. I suppose we should try the inhibitors first as those are easier to acquire than the probe equipment."

"Oh, don't worry about needing equipment. That's not hard at all. But if inhibitors are what you want, we can go down that route.

We'll see what we can whip up here to give you temporary brain damage."

After a moment of further thought, he said, "On second thought... let's go with the probe."

"Probably wise Bro," Sho nodded.

"Are you sure? I don't want to get halfway through construction and have you change your mind again," Cam groused.

"Definitely the probe. The chemical approach might have unpredictable side effects on my altered physiology," Tosh responded, "Well, okay, more unpredictable than necessary. We are messing with an unknown variable."

"Foreign objects also can have unpredictable side effects, but assuming the probe itself is relatively sterile, we shouldn't have too much of an issue," Cam nodded. "Don't worry about that."

Sho chuckled lightly. "You're gonna have to get used to Tosh worrying about stuff. It's kinda his thing."

"There's nothing wrong with considering consequences. Besides, I've gotten better," Tosh protested.

"I'll admit, Bruce is a good bad influence," Sho grinned.

"So... uhh... how long will you need before we can do this thing?" Tosh asked Cam.

"Tell you what, I'll page you. Some definite tinkering I need to do to make sure everything works properly. Safety first, right?"

Tosh nodded. "My brain and I would appreciate that."

"Wait... you don't mean an actual pager, right? I mean... you seem pretty literal-minded, so..." he asked in an awkward semi-ramble.

Cam looked at him blankly.

"Page is a verb meaning 'to summon'. I will call you. When the probe is ready. I will probably send someone to you, in this particular instance."

"Right. Sorry. My brain must still be frazzled from earlier. I'll be sure to keep myself available."