The Rings in the Heart

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: BONES does not belong to me. They would all have a hell of a long commute if they did!

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The Squint Squad were gathered within the blue glow thrown off the giant screens in Angela's office, ready for the show and tell session. Dr. Saroyan was conveying how impressed she was at the thoroughness of the preliinary external examination of the remains, and the range of non-invasive tests that had been conducted by the Pittsylvania M.E.

Dr. Hodgins, triggered by the word 'alien' earlier on, was now in full conspiracy theory mode; he had asserted that the local officials had been coerced into doing exhaustive tests on the 'alleged alien mummy' by the 'Men in Black', who had arrived stealthily in their black helicopters, in the dead of night. As per his usual articulate self, Hodgins made his case sound almost plausible. Almost.

Dr. Brennan, Goddess of the Realm of Hard Evidence, put a stop to this diatribe by delivering her standard lecture on the place of conjecture in the lab; which in her opinion, should be dumped in a black plastic bag and placed in one of the gigantic Jeffersonian rubbish skips. Okay, those weren't her exact words, more of a layman's translation of her sentiment. Hodgins harrumphed and started to pout a little until Angela gave him the look that he privately refered to as the 'hairy eyeball', it featured a beady stare surrounded by scrunched up eyelashes. It meant that he was heading into danger territory, so Hodgins wisely decided to 'man up' a little and deal with it. There would be other opportunities to do some conspiracy dumpster diving on his own time.

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A disembodied voice broke up the discussion.

"So, did you find out what got Hacker all fired up over this case, Bones?" It was Booth, whose image flickered to life on the screen via web link from the Hoover building.

"Ah! Now that Booth is here, we can start" Brennan announced unnecessarily, as scattered greetings of 'Hi Booth' emerged from those gathered. "Angela has commenced a detailed 3D reconstruction of the CT scan images, but these won't be ready for us to formally review until tomorrow via our scheduled teleconference at the crime scene. I should be able to substantiate some of the preliminary findings with the remains present. I can ascertain that the victim is male, early 40's, very tall stature at 206 centimeters…"

"What's that in American?" asked Booth.

"Approximately six feet, nine inches" she replied, instantly applying the conversion factor. "There are a number of skeletal anomalies that are clearly visible; narrow palate, thoracic scoliosis, lumbar spine abnormalities. The abnormal limb length ratio, plus the length of the metacarpals, phalanges and curvature of the 5th fingers are highly suggestive of an individual with Marfan's syndrome."

"So, not a Jaffa warrior then" cracked Hodgins, "Hacker will be disappointed."

"Hodgins, did you just 'Stargate' us?" asked Booth, shaking his head in disdain.

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Brennan ignored the byplay, took a step closer to the screen tilting her head in concentration, searching for additional information. "The images do not show any evidence of injuries commonly attributed to an individual involved in warfare…significant past injuries are evident in the knees and ankles, these are likely to be related to sports rather than other forms of trauma. There is no clear cause of death from the information that has been provided to us so far."

Cam stepped forward and looked at the CT scan images from the thoracic cavity. "Dr. Brennan? I think that these images of the solid organs within the chest cavity are the ones which caused the initial panic."

"In issues pertaining to flesh, I defer to your expertise Dr. Saroyan" said Brennan, magnanimously giving up the floor to her colleague.

Cam rolled her eyes and gave a courtly nod of acknowledgement to Brennan. "The images of the organs within the chest are distorted by artifact, this commonly occurs when CT scanning machines encounter metallic objects. A lot of the artifact in these images is caused by the amalgam from the victims' dental work. Angela, could you bring up the image slices from the upper and mid thoracic area, focusing on the heart please? Booth, you should be able to see this in the new window on your screen."

Angela worked her technological magic with the small electronic tablet in her hand. An image built up, slice by slice on the screen. Using her artistic license, the heart muscle was shaded a fleshy pink and the rings became more pronounced, becoming shiny and metallic – it was very Hollywood. The distortion from the images radiated out like sunbeams from the two circular points of origin within the heart.

"Wow!" remarked Booth from his remote location. "Are those metal rings in the heart?"

"Almost right" replied Cam. She pointed at the circular objects on the screen. "These are surgically implanted mechanical heart valves, one atrial and one mitral valve, they look old-school, certainly not the newest generation introduced in the late '70's. So the victim probably had heart surgery as a teenager. There are also residual epicardial pacing wires in the chest cavity, suggesting that the victim had a pacemaker implanted at some point during his life. This would provide further evidence to support that the victim had Marfan's Syndrome as Dr. Brennan suggested."

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Brennan had approached the desk where the webcam was mounted to make some notes relating to her findings on the hard copy file and tapped some comments into the electronic log as Cam was sharing her opinions.

Once Cam had finished her deliberations, Brennan looked down the barrel of the web-cam and spoke to Booth. She leaned in toward the camera, displaying a considerable view down her blouse to her audience of one at the Hoover building.

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"I hope that Andrew isn't too disappointed about his alien theory being debunked, Booth. Marfan's syndrome is a relatively common genetic disorder" she informed him, with a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Abraham Lincoln is believed to have had the condition."

"A'hem…Hacker will survive, Bones. Honest Abe, huh? Wow!" Booth exclaimed a little too enthusiastically. Angela gave a snide chuckle; she had a patent pending on the Jeffersonian cleavage-cam.

"In that case, you should make your way over to the Jeffersonian so that we can commence our journey to the crime scene" said Brennan, taking her hair out of her ponytail and shaking it loose. Booth was now looking decidedly uncomfortable.

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Cam cleared her throat to get the attention of the room. "I would just like to make a general announcement while I have the team in the room. The use of Jeffersonian bandwidth for video booty calls is not permitted. Thank you." Cam left the room shaking her head and muttering to herself. Hodgins ducked his head to hide a smirk and followed her out into the main lab.

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"I will see you when you get here Booth. Don't be late." Her farewell delivered after dropping her voice half an octave. She turned to head off to her own office. Angela was glad that Cam hadn't witnessed that last exchange.

"Yeah, uh... Twenty minutes Bones. Make sure you're ready to roll. Couple of things to wrap up here…" replied Booth. His image turned to static.

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Angela rushed over to the web console, wearing a wide smile, and selected a shortcut key that she had on her handheld controller, placing a booty call to the bug and slime guy, who should have reached his station by now.

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A/N: Apologies for the high ratio of science to fluff in this chapter, it's a plot progression thing which required squinty research to get it right (I feel like I am at work…). If it was pitched too technically, please feel free to review to say 'I don't know what that means...'

I promise more fluff next chapter, which should be infinitely less challenging to write – after all, how squinty can a road trip be? (Um...that is intended as rhetoric).