"Hey, I ain't a flower! I'll be just fine." He looked Hershel up and down, but apparently the evidence of Hershel's terrible abuse at the hands of his fellow test subjects was well-concealed.

He turned back to Snake. "You mean clues?" His voice was different. It wasn't that it was cold when talking to the others; Heiji had always had a rather warm, expressive voice, and Hershel was one of his closest friends. But when he talked to Snake, there was a subtle difference. In addition to the bit of extra warmth, the changes in his pitch were slightly different -- a little more pronounced, occasionally dropping a note or two lower than when he was talking to someone else.

"I didn't find anything useful. But I did leave a message on the chalkboard to let people know where I was headed. Thought I'd hang out in that room past the inner-outer puzzle once I was done with the rest. I've seen the Calhoun shrine, the aquarium, that boulder room, the coffins, the room where you gotta stick your hand in that hole in the wall..."