The door swung open as Detective Jo Martinez walked in. "We caught the mugger trying to check into an urgent care facility. Not the smartest person around, he had the briefcase on him. Should we charge him with a homicide?"

Henry shook his head. "Mr. Sayle wasn't killed by the mugger. He didn't have a single contusion, laceration, or abrasion on him other than on his knuckles. His heart was in perfect condition, he had dense bone mass, and robust muscles and joints."

"Okay, then why did he die?"

"The reason Mr. Sayle died was because of his brain. I'll show you... somewhere around here... ah, yes," Henry said, touching the brain of the deceased. "Look at the texture of the amyloid plaques."

Suddenly, the corpse sat up. Jo drew her weapon. "S-stop! I... I will shoot you!"

"It's alright, Jo. I just pressed on the wrong part of the brain. The man died recently, so his reflexes still work."

Jo glared at him. "Goddammit, Henry."

"Ugh, tell me about it. Lucas pranks me all the time doing that."

"Henry, what is it you're saying he died of?"

"It's as if he was suffering from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's all at the same time. Essentially what we have here is a 67-year-old man with the body of a 30-year-old and the brain of a 100-year-old."

"So you're saying he died of natural causes?"

"I'd say the opposite of natural. We had this concoction in his stomach." He held up a bottle of white, creamy goo. Jo pulled out her gun again. "Henry, if that's what I think it is, I swear to the all of the many gods I worship, I will..."

"It's not that, Jo. I believe it is, however, what killed him."

"Then... what is in that bottle of white, sticky, creamy, gooey..."

"Possibly one of those disgusting nutritional protein shakes?"

"Yeah, I guess it could also be that," Jo said.

Lucas walked in. "Mark Sayle, the son of the victim, is here to see you."

"I'll be right there." Henry and Jo left, leaving Lucas to examine the mystery substance. "Oh, I must have accidentally confused these," Lucas said to himself. "I made this one myself last night while looking at food pictures online!" Lucas looked around, took the mystery substance away, then put a bottle of similarly-colored liquid in its place.

Henry and Jo walked in to where Mark Sayle was waiting.

"Hello, Mark," said Henry. "I assume you're here to pick up your father's things?

"He's not my dad."

"Excuse me?" asked Jo confusedly.

Mark sighed. "It's him, it's just not the man who raised me. My dad rode the train home to my mom in New Jersey every night for 35 years and fell asleep on his recliner. He certainly didn't have a body like that, or do crossfit, or stay out partying with kids half his age. At least not before..."

"Before your mother passed?" Henry guessed.

"Of cancer, two years ago. After that he became a different person. He forgot about my mom, and he forgot about us."

"Will you give us permission to open your father's briefcase?" Jo asked.

"Sure."

They opened the briefcase to find a picture of a woman on the inside of the lid. "That's my mom," said Mark, his eyes watering.

"We all have different ways of dealing with loss. He never forgot her," Henry said in a way that made it almost seem like he also meant it self-referentially. He looked at it again, and noticed some papers. On one of the pages, there was a rather odd logo. "What's this?" Henry wondered. "The text around it reads, 'Youth, Vitality, Vigor.'" The symbol in the middle is an ourobouros, a snake eating its own tail. It suggests eternal renewal. I wonder if that has something to do with the condition of your father's body."

Jo lifted up the stack of papers, revealing about seven thousand dollars in cash. "Or maybe this does. Do you have any idea what this was for?"

Mark shook his head. "No. He definitely didn't get that kind of money from me."

"Do you know what he was doing in Chinatown?"

"No, I don't. He lived in New Jersey."

Henry and Jo's faces turned to masks of horror and despair. "It's western New Jersey, right? It's not the... the..." Jo whimpered. "Please tell me we don't have to go to... the Jersey Shore..."

"Well, if watching police procedural shows have served me well, I'd imagine you do have to go there. It is where he lived." Mark looked around, then whispered, "May the gods favor you both. No one has gone there and returned with their soul not devoured by the denizens of that foul place. Remember when I told you my dad wasn't the man who raised me? Well, that's why. The Orange Ones... they feasted on his soul, bit by bit, until he was simply a husk of a man. An empty shell, waiting to die. Watch yourselves."

Henry and Jo had decided to go to Chinatown to examine the crime scene. "So this is where Bill Sayle ended up, but it's not going to help us much," Jo told Henry. "The mugger decided the direction they were both running, so we have to figure out where he started."

"Over there." Henry pointed to some skid marks. "They're recent. Bill Sayle had a layer of soot on his left hand and a line of it on his left pant leg. He must have crossed the street and almost got hit by a car." He crossed the street, almost getting hit by a car himself.

He then pointed to a broken box on the sidewalk, containing noodles. I found noodle fragments and wood splinters in his shoes." He noticed a stain in the gutter, so naturally, he laid down facing the ground and started sniffing the area.

"Hey, everybody, check this out!" A crowd had gathered around Henry, taking pictures and videos of him.

"Everybody, this is official police business," Henry said. "Nothing to see here, I'm just doing my investigative duties as a medical examiner for the NYPD." He then started licking the ground.

"This is awesome! I'm putting this on Youtube," one person in the crowd said.

"What's Youtube?" a confused Henry asked, looking up.

"Hey, Henry, this is weird even for you. What are you doing?" Jo asked.

"That's a spill from a grape smoothie. There was a purple stain all over his shirt," Henry said, getting up and brushing himself off.

"Ah, yes. The old pickpocket routine. Spill, grab, and run."

"This is where Bill Sayle started. The corner is where his life ended."

"So where was he going with all that cash?"

Henry pondered this for a moment. "A 67-year-old man who hated downtown... he didn't fit in here." He spotted a woman getting out of a car. "And neither does she. A woman in high heels doesn't do much walking. She has someone drive her."

"I bet she knows what someone can get around here for seven thousand dollars," Jo said. "Let's see where she's headed.

The woman headed down an alley, and into an inconspicuous back door. Once she was inside, Henry and Jo followed. There was an engraving on the door. "An ourobouros," Jo said. "Okay, Henry. Get behind me."

It was a brightly-lit medical room. There was a lobby, some halls with offices, and a fish tank. It seemed like it was bigger on the inside than on the outside, like a pharmaceutical TARDIS.

"I wonder what they're selling here?" Jo asked.

A television in the room came on, and a televised message played. "Youth, vitality, vigor. Welcome to the Aeterna Company. I'm Doctor Osbourne Gardner. Let me ask you one simple question. Do you want to live... forever?"