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had cleared two shelves. Their contents were strewn across the floor in roughly defined categories: paper, files, cardboard, instruments, and specimen jars. The latter were of some interest, though the glass was too filthy to clearly see what they contained. That would take some time, which he could indulge during another shift, after the sorting and disposal detail was further underway.
    As Guy dragged the step-ladder to a new location, he tipped it to avoid a clutch of specimen jars he'd just placed at the foot of the shelves. The top step clipped a box of files on the third shelf down and sent it tumbling. Guy steadied the ladder, preventing it from falling, but it was too late. Everything to the right of the toppled box of files went with it. Guy winced as something bulky hit the tiles, and glass shattered, scattering into the settling papers and files.
    Something that looked like oversized escargot and black purses slid over the floor, pooling in formaldehyde that soaked into one stack of papers. Hopefully, the documents weren't too important.
    Grumbling to himself, he set the ladder aside and hunkered down to pick up the mess.
    A half hour later, he had the spill in order, save for the spilled specimen jar that had shattered and scattered a potpourri of shark embryos and skate egg cases in one corner, and an odd collection of gray, desiccated pieces of what appeared to be metal, rock, or some painted substance he simply couldn't identify. They were unusually lightweight, despite their appearance. Their edges were irregular, though they seemed to have been precision cut, not broken, into their odd variety of shapes.
    Guy gathered the gray blocks and shards into a single corner of the floor and began to toy with them. There were well over two dozen in all, .some as big as his fist, others small and smooth as marbles. Only their color was uniform, indicating their relation to one another.
    Holding them up to each other to compare their contours, he found two of them seemed to fit together. With a flex of his wrist, he snapped them into place as they seemed designed to do. To his surprise, the fit was snug. He sorted through the rest and found a third which fit into place, too.
    And a fourth ...
    A fifth ...
    By the tenth piece
    a large marble which slipped smoothly into a rounded socket
    Guy became uneasy as
    he began to recognize the pattern of the puzzle.
    He held one of the unassembled pieces in one hand, the partially assembled mass in the other, and felt a cold shiver ripple up his neck.
    The piece in his hand was a nose.
    He dropped it as if it were a spider that had just landed on his palm.
    He nervously gazed at the mass he held in his other hand, and let the wave of recognition wash over him: the odd, disarticulated object was a human head, somehow mummified, preserved, and jig-sawed into pieces.
    As his realization reeled into revulsion, he impulsively snapped his fingers open, dropping the object.
    It hit the floor. One of the assembled pieces broke free, but the impact was felt in another way.
    The rounded marble
    an eye
    opened in the dusty relic, suddenly warm with color.
    It was alive.
    Guy scrambled to his feet as if stung by a bee. He stood frozen at an odd angle, legs akimbo, arms outstretched, as if to flee or fight. As the minutes ticked by, though, and the object simply lay still, Guy began to relax.
    A head. A human head, preserved and jig-sawed into pieces.
    As revulsion gave way to reason, he decided it was safe to sit back down next to the object. Surely, it was some kind of teaching tool, designed to instruct anatomy students. Why else would a medical university have such an obscenity in storage?
    Perhaps it was a game, a puzzle. A three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. But the detail, the sculpting no, it
    seemed to be a genuine human head. No artist could craft such an object complete with bristling brows, whiskers, and hair stubble.
    Mesmerized, Guy returned to the puzzle. He fondled the strangely