Maria was always a distractible person... until she wasn't. Her attention would flutter around a scene, barraging her with details, flinging her attention this way and that. But then she'd find a problem to fixate on, and suddenly, that problem would become her whole world.

And as Fell and Singh argued, the pieces of the case began to click together in her mind, and her environment simply... vanished.

Hyperfocus:

Maria has one last trick up her sleeve: a state of absolute, unbreakable focus. In this state, she must piece together clue fragments to come to an epiphany.

The following recollections swirled through Maria's mind:

Fragment A: What the LEDs Mean

Uncle Johann gestured at a pile of incomprehensible blueprints on his desk. The phrase "LEDs show remaining uses, recharge impossible" caught Maria's eye, but its importance was lost on her.

Fragment B: The Voice on the Radio

"Could you leave a few things in the hall by Dr. Palmstroem's door?"

"But you aren't even supposed to be patrolling this wing tonight."

"It's for an experiment."

An experiment! In spite of her better judgment, Maria's curiosity was piqued. "Really?"

"I'll need a bottle of antifreeze and a paintbrush. For testing some chemical properties."

Fragment C: Maria Heard Two Gunshots

Maria took the east wing elevator back upstairs. Perhaps Uncle Johann would be awake by now, and could discuss what to do. But only moments after she reached the fourth floor, a gunshot rang out from her uncle's office.

Heedless of her own safety, Maria rushed to the door. "Stop!" she cried out. "Security! Drop your weapon!"

The only reply was the muffled noise of a struggle. She rattled the door furiously; bolted from the inside. Then a second gunshot pierced the air, and the tumult of fighting ceased.

Fragment D: The Open Window

She looked out the window: open, with a clear line of sight to the west wing. Nobody on the ground below, but it was hard to see in the dark.

Fragment E: The Footprints at the Crime Scene

What had been invisible before was now revealed: a set of irregular footprints. Someone had tracked antifreeze over the carpet. Following the track, it was as if this person had stepped hurriedly out of the puddle, made a few quick strides to the middle of the room, and then moved erratically, sometimes sideways, sometimes back.

"The struggle," said Maria. "That must have been the struggle!"

"They don't match your Uncle's feet.

Fragment F: One Gunshot Wound at Close Range

Uncle Johann was dead, and Maria knew it even before she knelt by his side and checked the pulse on his still-warm wrist, even before she turned him over to see a single bullet wound in his chest. Close range, a quiet part of her mind noted, remembering what she'd learned from Noelle. Contact shot, powder burns.

Fragment G: Serial Number Match Between Gun at Scene + Felicity's Gun

Singh repeated the disassembly process on the revolver Felicity was carrying. She read the serial number and copied it down, then stopped, and read it once more. This couldn't possibly be correct, could it?

Both guns were identical, all the way down to the serial number.

Fragment H: Gun at Scene Had Been Fired Three Times

The gun found on the scene had been fired recently, and three of its chambers held empty cartridge casings.

Fragment I: Traces of Powder?

Fine traces of powder were trapped in some of the cracks of the gun found at the scene

Fragment J: How Would I Even Get a Matching Gun?

"Wait, wait!" said Maria. "How would I even do that? Make a new stock out of matching metal? Melt off the original number and somehow stamp in a new one? How would I even get a matching gun?"

Fragment K: Complicated Fingerprinting?

“Jeffrey, do we have an analysis on the revolvers?”

“Sure,” said Jeffrey, pulling the twin guns from his case and laying them on the conference room table. “The fingerprinting results are complicated."

Fragment L: A Ballistic Match, But...?

"As for the ballistics… I fired a test shot from each weapon,” he said, weighing his words carefully. “The gun found on the scene was a perfect ballistic match for the bullet found in the victim’s body, and that’s consistent with the suspect’s guilt, but…”

Fragment M: Belt in the Safe

"Um, Vincent," she said, gulping. "Has this belt... ever actually been used?"

Vincent shook his head. "No. It hasn't. If it had, at least one of the lights would be out."

Fragment N: No Way Out?

Singh: "There was no way to leave that room until Maria Park broke the door open."

Somewhere in this maze of clues... there had to be a connection!

To use hyperfocus, you must combine clue fragments together. To link two fragments, comment in the format:

"Link Fragment A and Fragment C"

If successful, this will create one or more Hypotheses, which may be combined further!

NOT EVERY FRAGMENT IS NECESSARILY USEFUL.

Strategies:

* Link contradictory fragments. If two facts seem to contradict each other, a deeper truth may emerge when you link them.

* Link fragments that, taken together, hint at a hypothesis. (Example: If one fragment said "it rained from 3 - 5 PM" and another said "wet footprints on floor," you could link those: "someone was outside in the rain, then came in.")

* Link fragments that work together to establish some certainty. (Example: Two testimonies that support the same general idea.)