Ione (pronounced Eye-oh-nee) Fine had proposed to fly May to San Diego for three days of observation and testing. It sounded like a rigorous schedule, but he agreed. It seemed there might be answers in San Diego. May needed to know. Fine picked him up at the San Diego airport in late July. From the moment they shook hands in the terminal May knew he’d better be on his toes. Fine’s conversation danced like Ping-Pong balls in a lottery machine, ricocheting from descriptions of her vision lab to her love for dogs to the structure of the brain to a great Mexican restaurant she knew in the area. He worked to decipher her accent, an elegant British taffy flecked with girlishness and, when she delivered a quip, a bit of mischief. He could tell she was pretty. He could see it in how she moved. He could hear it in the way men spoke when she asked directions to the parking lot. Driving to her lab, Fine introduced herself. She was twenty-nine years old and was working at UCSD with a renowned vision researcher, Professor Donald MacLeod.
