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starswelike · 4 years

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Hot beginning (The Heart - Marvel fanfiction)

This is the first chapter of the Marvel fanfiction titled The Heart

Pairing: Loki x OC

Warning: strong language

In this Story you can except:

massive character developement

an OC, who's secretly Not an OC

a hate to love relationship, and love át first sight

Loki becoming stronger

Lots of fun and sassy remarks

Warning again: I have to admit English is not my first language, but I try to learn it. I think writing is a good way to do it, because I love books and stories, and of course, fanfictions. 🙂

So I really hope if you give my story a chance, you won't regret it (and that I can write understandable 😅)

Well, enjoy the Story! ❤️

Chapter - Hot beginning

The armored troop-carrying SUV seemed to be moving at its greatest calm. Thanks to its serious equipment, the passengers could not feel it when the vehicle drove into a pothole, so starkly, keeping its speed, it broke towards their destination. The prestigious vehicle was perfectly suited for the transport of armed troops.

The nine people the monstrous SUV was carrying did not detect at all the wild pace dictated by their driver, middle-aged Dylan Johnson. The man was not a model of patience, it also appeared in his driving style: if he could not get around something on congested inner-city roads, he pushed it down with noble simplicity.

“Next time let's take a helicopter, it'll be faster." He had a slight annoyance between his teeth, though he could not deny that he enjoyed deep down that he was the greatest and that no one could stand in his way. Rather, the reason for his nervousness was that he was afraid of that, another unit was ahead of them. Dylan always wanted to be the first one who arrives to the crime scene, thanks to his competitive personality.

“Just take us there, Johnson. There will be plenty of other reasons for headaches." replied the small team's chief, Commander Miya Okamura, in a harsh tone. Her ominous words were noticed by all of them, knowing Okamura never exaggerated.

“Can you tell me what we're afraid of?”

Juan José Navarro, the team's sniper questioned in cold blood. His eyes and expression reflected his interest before his voice.

"Here's what we know," she began with the boss's usual firm voice. “There's been a report at 177/A Bleecker Street.

“Isn't that the title of that weird Strange?”

Aidan Cole, a handsome man in his 30s, could not wait for the boss to report everything undisturbed, as expected. He had comments all the time. What's more, he once again expressed his disinterest in magic.

"If you spit at Dr. Strange like that, you can scratch off the background of your phone, snitched," grumbled she, the team's med coach, Bria Hornback. “Scarlet Witch is not appropriate for you, who can't respect magic at all.”

“When did you check my phone, Hornback?” he asked with shock.

“I guess I found it out.”

“Wait. So you didn't know? Then how do you...?”

“Are you still asking? You always talk about her as the perfect woman.”

“Don't discuss who's looking at what now.” Okamura put an end to their light-hearted pecking. “Yes, that's where we're going. Wong came to us, Strange's most loyal man, claiming that particular events had taken place there in recent times, but before they could shed light on the secret, someone created a dimension gate that opened with a spell.”

“Can you make that a little clearer, boss?” Ella Willis was shocked. Her face showed the woman's lostness on the subject with undisgued sincerity, but she was not alone in doing so. Bria herself couldn't suddenly imagine what a dimension gate that would open all the time might look like.

"These wielding fuckers have created again," said Aidan, with mere despity. “Tell me, what's our job, boss?”

“Aidan, I'd like to know more about the situation.”

"So am I," said Bria, taking Ella's side. The weapons expert waved off the tea, which she wouldn't have left without a word. She felt the anger that was pouring in from her insides, but she exercised calm, for she knew it was not the best time to create a big-mouthed rival, even though in most cases she was happy to get involved.

“According to Wong, they don't know who caused the complication, which is why they need our help. Since the summoner's identity, and more importantly the spell itself, is not known, it is much more difficult for them to take them out," continued Miya, noting that the discussion had almost swerved in a different direction again. “What we know at the moment is that there's a dimensional gate that opens the way to several other dimensions at the same time. It's also feared to open up to a place where evil creatures sit on pins and needles waiting to be released to Earth.”

“That's tough. Then what do we do?" One of Bria's best companions, Takahashi Arashi, came out in the dismay of his eyes. He probably didn't get any smarter with the explanation; at least he probably didn't understand how the dimensional gate worked. Bria didn't fully understood it either, she didn't blame him, and she thought it was a sympathetic step to clarify what to do.

“According to what was discussed, Strange is trying to find the magic in the library, or a counter-spell to eliminate it. He noted that because he did not know how to eliminate it, at least traditional techniques do not work for the gate, it is feared to have been created by a force that is in the same way as Strange's power." Hearing the commander's remark, they all understood that the task would be more serious than expected, and Bria swallowed a great deal of concern, fearing that she would have to care for many of her comrades. “While the monks are protecting him, we, the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s units, are striving to catch the creatures pouring out of the gate, take them out and most of all, and not let them get away from the area. The lives of innocent civilians are at stake here.”

"That's why I hate all these magicians," shudded Aidan. “Their spells are like a bad experiment, only if it goes wrong, we could be in big shit.”

“Yes, because the gun is obviously completely harmless. Not to mention the nuclear bomb and its associates. And even these are old-fashioned compared to today's new weapons.”

Bria was unable to stop responding to the man's statement, which earned her inciforming gaze.

"The line-up is the usual," continued Okamura, once again noting the little digression. “Saunders is on his way, Ella's covering for him from above. Aidan and Takahashi will follow him with me. Alma, Hornback and Johnson stay in the back and cover Navarro until he can find the best shooting position.”

“I've been looking for some for you, Juan. Do you see them? “ the young technician in the passenger seat, Alma Mariano, turned back.

“Yes, I picked out what I thought.”

They all had digital display phones as work equipment. A fantasy image of the area to be secure has already appeared on it, beamed by S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites. The gate was located in the middle of the four-lane road, which was open in the north-east and southwest. But they weren't aware if anything had come through.

They all saw the small front terrace that Juan had chosen. Okamura nodded, approve of the decision.

“All right, Alma, you cover Navarro and Johnson's got Hornback.”

Bria was very feared for her associates during every operation. The boss always explained this by saying that they needed her, as a med schooler, to save lives, not to risk her own at the forefront. If she's lost, maybe there won't be anyone else to help. She appreciated the same, and it felt great to her that there was always someone to protect her even when she was in the danger zone, but she wasn't completely satisfied. Even though they told her that she deserved it as a med coach, she somehow felt like a clog and longed to fight better on the battlefield. Unfortunately, she only received basic combat training, and the main education for her was physiology, biology, chemistry, all that science. She gained useful knowledge, but at times she felt like a bird locked in a cage.

The bends were felt from slight inclinations. Bria and the people on the same side as her were leaning forward on a left turn, holding them only with their straps in place, when Dylan said:

“That stinking fucking sky! It's like it was in ‘12.”

If she could, Bria would have jumped up to see what might have been out there, but she knew what was late wouldn't go away, so she waited, despite the immense curiosity that consumed her insides. Their driver compared this one to the incident in which the Asgardian gods appeared on Earth, and Loki unleashed an army of alien beings called Chitauri on them. Would that have meant that bloodthirsty race had re-found? There was a chance, the dimension gate gave them every opportunity.

She took it upon herself with a big sigh, and decided that she would do everything she could to make sure that no such great devastation could occur again. That old case did enough damage to her and her life, and she was just one of them. To this day, countless people have thought of that day with anger, grief, sadness, and they all had their rightful reasons.

Takahashi put his hand on her shoulder and stroked it a little to help her relax a little. Perhaps he did it a little more gently than he should have, but Bria appreciated that and his smile. That man knew her too well, he noticed her tension. She couldn't have kept anything from him.

As soon as the vehicle stopped, they untied their seat belts and armed and prepared for the command.

“Johnson, what do you see?”

'Well, there's trouble' murmured the man, then exchanged a meaningful look with Alma sitting next to him. ‘Conventional weapons won't work here. Some creatures don't even have a solid body that pops up.”

It didn't prove a little reassuring to hear that. Although the arms industry also tried to keep up with magic and space technology, the most widespread weapon was still the one that threw up bullets. True, those who fired shots similar to those of the late Iron Man's energy beams began to gain ground. Fortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. circles did not prove to be a problem to obtain these types, yet Bria was less confident in grabbing her small pistol, which was handed to her after the gun cabinet was opened. She didn't have one, only that and her combat knife.

“Let's go, let's go” Okamura commanded, and Saunders opened the back doors at that moment.

It couldn't be put off any longer, so Bria swallowed all her tensions and went with her companions as discussed. Saunders cut forward with a huge gun, Ella pulled over his head with the help of a jet-pack. Just as Okamura and they discussed, everyone was grouped together to whom they were commanded. Bria waited for Johnson, and together they cleaned up the creatures that got close to them.

The view turned out to be astonishing. At first glance, they couldn't figure out the tangle. Despite the fact that Bria thought it might be time for her to finally be in the lead, Bria was grateful that she could stay a little behind to map the field. If she had been in the front, she would suddenly not have known what to do, but the others shooted at their opponents almost without thinking, reflex, habit.

The sparkly dimension gate was located right in the middle of the road, as the digital map showed. When she looked into it, Bria saw that the place changed from second to second. She saw worlds she never dreamed of. There were some strangers from where they came from. Flaming skeletons or icy giants, splashing swamp creatures or space creatures floating in ghost form. From the horrible to the more beautiful, there were all sorts of things, but thank goodness not all the areas where the gate opened proved dangerous.

With a big leap, a strange, blue-bodied creature, looking like a half-grown frog, landed near her. It was ugly, especially I’s huge canine teeth, which it clapped towards Bria. The woman was startled by the unexpected incident, but she was neither a beginner nor a clumsy one, so she quickly put her gun on him and destroyed the ugly creature with an energy beam.

Dr. Stephen Strange was not present. He must have been wildly looking for a counter-spell. His disciples and members of the order, on the other hand, have been very aides in capturing the terrible creatures. They were mostly pushed into other dimensions, and the monks were very smart. If a creature came from underwater, it was sent to the desert, which came from the cold, thrown next to lava. The cruel but useful procedure has brought its results, and for the time being they have managed to control the various species, none have ever attacked anyone. It was a real relief for Bria to see that the situation was under control. So she aimed her targets with much more confidence. Unfortunately, sometimes she found someone who had just been sent through a dimension gate from under her nose, but it was better to try twice than not once.

“That's going to be fine. Only the doc has to rush” said Dylan, and the medic nodded.

If everything had stayed that way, the situation would have been resolved over time, but no one said that more serious opponents would arrive. The gate made sure it opened in most of the places that exist. Some were given the moment it saw the gate that opened at their home, and some of them were unwittingly dragged in. And Bria was the first to see him.

It's been more than ten years since Bria was attacked in Manhattan. The losses she suffered that day proved to be heavy for her. Although she always thought she could never make amends, and she had to learn to live with the thought that what she lost that day would never get her back, she was overwhelmed with feelings of anger and vengeance when that day came up or whatever hinted at it. That's why she was so ready to act in the open-plan, but the moment she saw Loki unearthed from the gate, who could not be mistaken for anyone else, she was blinded by rage to the extent she had never before. At the same time, she felt a sudden desire to act. If she catches that cunning but dangerous god, they'll finally, maybe for once in her life, appreciate her and realize that she's dynamic, too.

Anger is not a good counselor. Bria, who always tried to act judiciously, even if it was difficult, proved unable to restrain herself this time. She wasn't thinking, she was just doing what she wanted to do in those moments.

“Loki!" She screamed, like a wild Amazon, and immediately threw herself toward him, not counting, not caring about the command, nor her team, nor the potential danger. She just wanted to get close to him before God knows what he would do. Bria's only advantage was that she was on her way before Loki could even figure out what had happened to him. She could tell he didn't intend to be here at all. His face was clear with surprise and anger.

Bria almost instinctively pushed aside those who got in her way, could have been her teammates, Strange's men or monsters. It's like Loki was in the crosshairs, and she waded through anything to get to him.

“Hornback, stop!” Okamura shouted at her, hearing it loudly over the radio, but not she heeded it. She wouldn't let anyone stop her.

Loki seemed to be surrounded by a faint blue light. Although Bria had never seen anything like it before, she didn't dilate, and she kicked off and caught the Asgardian before the light flash blinded her.

The next thing she knows, she's feeling them fall and she's burying Loki under herself. She didn't even notice it was hot, and everything looks so red. She wanted it too much. She sat on Loki's chest and held his hands down.

“I've got you!” she declared triumphantly. At that moment, their eyes met. She could see Loki’s confusion, and then his pupils dilated. Bria didn't know where to put this. She thought maybe the god of mischief had seen something that scared him, and her vanity was fading at the thought that it might be her.

Then she noticed the change of environment. She looked carefully around, not yielding to her grip, and discovered they were near a volcano, on a protruding rock, plenty of hot air. And Loki didn't look at all like he was having a good time. He was sweaty, his eyes fell in and his lip was dry.

A dimension gate opened, and they all caught their heads to see an overly muscular creature, resembling a minotaur of legends, fall straight into the hot magna. Their demonic cries, while burning, penetrated to the veal, Bria trembled for a moment, but she ruled.

"I didn't want to come here," murmured Loki under his nose, looking at Bria, as if he expected the answer to the big question of how they got here.

"They probably caught us with a dimension gate and sent us here."

"And why are you here, pretty eyes?"

Bria didn't show anything because of her equipment, just her eyes. They were just as blue as the sky on the most beautiful summer days. Loki looked at her with a peculiar smile, he seemed so confident, she wanted to shout at him, but now she finally ruled herself. She took the first step, caught him and got close to him. She quickly completed the final phase before Loki could escape, pulled a tiny circular object from one of her waistline bags and quickly pushed it to his neck.

"Auch" he hissed and Bria pressed the button in the middle of the device to activate itself. "What's this?"

"It blocks magic" she smiled, smiling slyly, and even good enough to lean close to the face of the God, looking even closer into his eyes, emphasized what she had to say. "You're my captive."

"Hm" sighed Loki and rolled his eyes. Somehow, the threats never work, and he's already reached out to rip the device out of his neck. Bria quickly pressed the button on the remote control for the device, and her prisoner shocked throughout his body and froze.

"If you do something I don't like, count on me to torture you."

"There's has to be a time when you're not watching" chuckled Loki. He was ready for the challenge, he wasn't daunted, even when Bria was sure he wouldn't get out of it. She leaned even closer to him. She herself behaved in a challenging way, feeling in the saddle.

"Test me."

They stared into each other's eyes for a long time. Loki didn't move either. It seemed serious, as if he had studied his situation, but Bria's attention was not abated. But she couldn't deny her excitement. For all the things he did that day, Loki could now be penalized and she was happy to be so close to him. She's heard the saying more than once, revenge isn't worth anything, but it's proved undeniable that it's sweet.

"What do you intend to do to me now?"

If they were already in the crater of a volcano, there must have been a reason to be lured. Bria could have rolled Loki down into magna, he probably wouldn't have survived, especially with a teaser blocking his strength around his neck. Her gaze suggested that she had thought for a moment about this possibility. Once and for all, ridding a villain of the world turned out to be truly graceful, but in the end she followed protocol by pushing his position indicator so that if they sought her out, they would find her.

"It's an enjoyable position, the way you sit on top of me, but maybe we should move."

He was sick of the heat, which is why the Asgardian was talking. Bria, on the other hand, wasn't touched by that. Seeing him suffer was a pleasure for her.

"Commander Okamura!" She told his transceiver, but the static chatter revealed that they wouldn't be receiving it. "The rocks are shielding the channel."

"Should I take you somewhere else?"

"Listen, the easiest thing for me would be to push you into the lava, so you better not pull the plug."

He smiled again. He’s never been scared of threats? Bria was a little amazed by this, but at the same time annoyed, but calmed herself with a quick sigh. She couldn't let Loki mislead her. She knew exactly how emotional manipulation could achieve his goals, which is to escape at the moment. If she’s already captured him, she really didn't want him to get out of hand.

She was hot, but not as hot as Loki. The Asgardian was tormented by the symptoms of heat, while Bria simply took the mask off her face and then the helmet off her head. She left her blond hair in a bun, and to torture his prisoner even more, she took out her canteen and pulled a big one out of it. Deliberately so that the fine water drips over her face, and then on her waterproof clothes, a few drops reach Loki. She looked at the man with a sarcastic smile, barely visibly licking her mouth, his eyes almost staring out, so he observed. This filled her with satisfaction, and she even made a small laugh.

"You're an evil woman, you know that?" Loki said softly. Although him tone might have been surprising, Bria ignored it.

"I'm just enjoying the moment."

"As do I."

"What?" she tipped his head to the side. "I can tell you're about to die of heat, and you can't even get the teaser out of your neck, because if you reach for it, I'm going to push the button. What is it that you can enjoy now?"

He smiled again. Despite the circumstances that were really causing him suffering, Loki was very easy to use to confuse Bria. She was terrified to realize that he had already begun manipulating her, as he had piqued her curiosity.

" Yes, even though you can see that I'm not a fan of heat, the energies that come out of you, the passion, the sexuality, the confidence, and how beautiful you are and how close you are to me..."

"Are you seriously complimenting me?!" Bria screamed, as did another being that they didn't pay attention to, but in the meantime it got here and fell into the lava. Loki smiled like rabies. The Asgardian was crazy, if he really thought it would take her off his feet. The woman was sure that Loki had not taken a word seriously, if only because of his great egotistical reputation, which, because of his divinity, looked down on people so despised that he would have condemned them directly to servitude. When someone felt this way about humanity, the compliment could not have been real, but in Loki's case, the issues should be treated with reservations.

"What's so surprising?" The man's half-smile would have been quite heartwarming with those sparkling eyes if it wasn't for Loki who Bria hated so much because of the old attack. "Don't they ever tell you how beautiful you are? Or are your fellow human beings so blind?"

"Don't think I'm going to fall for the honey-glazed words. You're a god, and I'm a human. You look down on us."

"But I recognize beauty."

"You're just trying to embarrass me so you can manipulate me."

"Yes, because I'm guessing you're trying to lock me up somewhere. I can see the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo pinned to your chest."

Bria almost screamed at Loki not to stare at her breasts, but she couldn't let anger take control of her. The Asgardian tried hard to get out, obviously by all means. She was starting to feel uncomfortable alone with Loki. She was really hoping the beacon sent the notification. Even if the radio waves were blocked, the position indicator sent a signal to every satellite in existence, which could then be decoded in S.H.I.E.L.D's central application.

"I am surprised by your sincerity," she replied, more calmly than she had first planned.

"At the same time if I can't escape, I'll try to enjoy every moment with you at least."

"I'm afraid I'm not enjoying anything with you."

"You sat on my chest quite easily. Maybe you could do it to my lap too."

"With these perverse innuendos, you're not going to get anything from me," chuckled Bria. "Even though I haven't had a relationship yet, I'm not embarrassed by the subject of sexuality. "

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know how many people make pig comments about me at work? I had to learn to handle these."

"I guess other people recognize the beauty you have," said Loki, raising his eyebrows with some anger, which gave Bria joy in the hope that these compliments would finally spare him. "But now that I've found out you're a virgin, you seem interestingly more attractive to me."

"Come on, don't make a stand. I know you despise me for being human, so I can't be attractive to you."

"Why is Hornback written on your dress? Is that your name?"

"Yes, I'm Bria Hornback," she nodded, it's okay for Loki to remember her name." What's wrong with it?"

"It's such an interesting coincidence, don't you think?" the Asgardian flashed that half-smile meant to be alluring again, and his eyes shone despite all his suffering. "Your name is Hornback, and I have a helmet with horns swerved back..."

"Don't explain to me that we have anything in common." Bria was still more restrained than she first wanted, while the sounds of death filled the space. "You're a monster!"

"What did I do to you to hate me so much? Or are you like this because of New York?"

Bria kept quiet. Her ears were hurt by the bitter cry of another creature. Death proved to be shocking, no matter how it came.

But she didn't stay quiet because she wanted to hear the cry so much. She just didn't want to answer the question.

"You don't know me, yet you judge me," continued the Asgardian. "Tell me, do you really think you guys are so flawless? I mean, judging isn't a very nice gesture."

"I didn't say we are, but you did enough damage to my life to make me hate you."

"Yes, it was a big mistake, and yes, I'm guilty. Since then, however, there have been a lot of events that have made me change, so..."

"Oh, don’t you dare make yourself look as a good guy." she snapped. "You're evil, the god of mischief, unreliable, and..."

"Don't be so stupid!"

Loki's voice thundered with anger for the first time, which frightened her. The word was stuck in her throat.

"Are you seriously going to put a little tip on everyone? Good and evil? White and black? You should know by now that there's no one in the universe who has only good or bad qualities. We all have our faults. Even you, Bria."

It turned out to be an odd feeling when Loki called her by her name. Despite the fact that he intended his monologue to be a reproach, it was as if the man found her worthy calling by her name. That said, after he liked her last name, maybe she shouldn't have been surprised.

"You're not treating me like an equal. You judge me without knowing me. You're being this erotic, and you're putting me through this heat. These are bad qualities."

"Merry Christmas! I hope you're pleased with your discovery."

"You're as cynical as I am," laughed Loki, but his throat was scratched. Maybe he was starting to dry out. "They say cynicism is a sign of intelligence."

"Do you have anything else to study on me?"

"Interestingly, the more I learn about you, the more I care about you."

'Wow, That’s good for me. " Bria sighed not a little joyously.

Suddenly she saw a bright flash of light in the sky. A helicopter appeared over the crater, and the beam of light settled on them after some searching. Bria's relieved to see this.

"This is Bria Hornback, med school of Commander Miya Okamura's unit," said she to her transceiver after setting up the general S.H.I.E.L.D. channel, holding one eye on Loki. "I have a captive I'm asking for urgent support for. I catched Loki!"

"All right, Agent Hornback." received the answer via radio. "We're taking Loki into custody immediately. We help you! Please don't move."

Bria smiled for the first time with a truly great exultation at the man who had been laid down. His face finally showed a slight sign of disappointment.

"So you succeeded," he said resonantly.

"If there's anyone you shouldn't look down on, it's me. "

"I'd add, for now. Because I can't guarantee I'll stay with you for a long time."

Bria looked deep in Loki’s eyes, and the feelings of victory were gone. It was perhaps the first sentence she believed without doubt and took as a warning. She did not want to tell the Asgardian that she was up to the challenge.

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xtruss · 4 years

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This Physicist is Trying to Make Sense of the Brain’s Tangled Networks

— By Kelly Servick, Staff Writer at Science | April 11, 2019 | Sciencemag.Org

Danielle Bassett with a representation of the brain's structural connections, created in her lab from MRI data.

At age 16, Danielle Bassett spent most of her day at the piano, trying to train her fingers and ignoring a throbbing pain in her forearms. She hoped to pursue a career in music and had been assigning herself relentless practice sessions. But the more she rehearsed Johannes Brahms's feverish Rhapsody in B Minor on her family's Steinway, the clearer it became that something was wrong. Finally, a surgeon confirmed it: Stress fractures would force her to give up the instrument for a year.

"What was left in my life was rather bleak," Bassett says. Her home-schooled upbringing in rural central Pennsylvania had instilled a love of math, science, and the arts. But by 17, discouraged by her parents from attending college and disheartened at her loss of skill while away from the keys, she expected that responsibilities as a housewife and mother would soon eclipse any hopes of a career. "I wasn't happy with that plan," she says.

Instead, Bassett catapulted herself into a life of research in a largely uncharted scientific field now known as network neuroscience. A Ph.D. physicist and a MacArthur fellow by age 32, she has pioneered the use of concepts from physics and math to describe the dynamic connections in the human brain. "She's now the doyenne of network science," says theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston of University College London. "She came from a formal physics background but was … confronted with some of the deepest questions in neuroscience."

Now 37, Bassett runs a lab at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) that tackles a whiplash-inducing variety of questions. A sampling from one morning's worth of meetings: Do our brains navigate words in written text the way they navigate physical space? Does the structure of college students' brains interact with the structure of their social networks to influence their ability to abstain from alcohol? Does the network of connections in the mouse brain predict how a disease-causing protein will spread?

Other projects focus on a theme that has captivated her since her childhood passion for books and the piano: learning and mastery. Bassett wants to find ways to optimize learning by using networks to represent both the brain and the material it learns.

"If you came to most thinking scientists, who try to be conservative and skeptical and cautious, and you spelled out to them what Dani's research program was going to be, they'd question anybody's sanity who was going to bite off that big of a chunk of science," says Steven Schiff, a neurosurgeon at Pennsylvania State University in State College and an admirer of Bassett's work.

But Bassett routinely disregards disciplinary boundaries and follows her curiosity with abandon. "What I think is beautiful about network science," she says, "is that you can use it to derive very simple intuitions about really complex systems that … just look like a big hairball."

That bid to simplify one of nature's gnarliest hairballs—our 86-billion-neuron organ of thought—into a set of mathematical equations has been hard for some neuroscientists to get behind. Network science is "a new way of looking at the brain," says Martha Shenton, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "This is an advance in science—I do believe that—but it remains to be seen how much information it's going to give us." And whether Bassett's toolbox of equations can make reliable predictions that inform treatments, such as targeted stimulation for brain disorders, is still unknown.

But neuroscience is hungry for theory, says cognitive neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara. "There's an uneasiness that I think is widespread that we're not quite capturing the framework … to understand how neurons generate behavior, mind, and all this," he says.

Bassett is part of a generation of physicists and mathematicians who are betting on new theories to capture the brain's higher-order organization. "They [have] the math to back them up … and that just brings tremendous power to the biological scene," Gazzaniga says. "The great advances in science come from trespassing," he adds, paraphrasing pioneering psychologist Wolfgang Köhler. "And Dani is a trespasser."

An Uncommon Education

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Bassett—a slight figure with short hair that persistently sneaks in front of her right eye—stands before her class with a large, gilded-edged volume of Claudius Ptolemy. The course teaches undergraduate and graduate students to represent the brain as a network—a set of "nodes" joined by pairwise connections, or "edges." Depending on the study, researchers might define nodes as individual neurons or larger brain regions. And they might draw edges between nodes that are physically connected by neural fibers or that tend to be active at the same time. The approach formalizes a basic premise of neuroscience: that our thoughts, sensations, and experiences emerge as the brain's connected components interact.

But first, Ptolemy. Bassett, in a characteristically composed and formal tone, reads aloud from the second century Greek astronomer's famous treatise, The Almagest: "It is proper to try and fit as far as possible the simpler hypothesis to the movements of the heavens; and if this does not succeed, then any hypothesis possible." He was addressing apparent contradictions in his geocentric explanation of planetary motion. His theory, we now know, was destined to fall apart. But his message was a good one, Bassett tells the class: Strive for the simplest hypothesis.

Bassett's penchant for quoting the ancients reflects her unusual education. Her mother, Holly Perry, who home-schooled her 11 children, says her goal was "to teach them how to teach themselves anything they wanted to learn." Bassett was a natural autodidact. "When she decided that something interested her, she kind of couldn't stop until she knew everything there was about it," Perry says.

Danielle Bassett at 12, wearing garb dictated by her family's religion.

Bassett's twin brother, Perry Zurn, a philosopher at American University in Washington, D.C., describes their home schooling as research. They would choose a topic and build a constellation of projects around it, with little regard for where those projects fell among traditional school subjects.

Perry's insistence that her children prioritize primary texts stuck with Bassett. Reading antiquated, alien-sounding prose jolts the mind into "a much bigger space," she says. The twins now describe their education as "really wonderful" and "really fantastic." But their parents' conservative Christianity shaped what they could aspire to. "Because we both grew up being understood as female … we were actively discouraged from going to college," says Zurn, who is transgender.

After Bassett's hiatus from the piano, her father allowed her to attend nursing school. "He had finally given me a little bit of room, and I figured I should take it," she says. (Her father, John Perry, contends that he never discouraged his children from college or careers, though he says he "felt that being a good wife and mother was a high calling.")

An isolated childhood made the move to traditional school jarring for Bassett. "It took a long time to feel like I could laugh at the right times when somebody told a joke," she says. And nursing school was a bad fit. Confrontations with sickness and dying left her drained.

After a year and a half, she definitively broke with her family's expectations. She dropped out of nursing school and applied to Penn State to study physics. "I just wanted to do something that is clean and formal," she says, "and also, just with books."

Thinking in Graphs

An hour into Bassett's Tuesday class, the students whip out their laptops and become subjects in one of her latest studies about learning. Their screens display a cloud of about 50 concepts she has selected from the course, such as prediction, network, behavior, and neurological disease. They draw lines to connect related words and phrases, stretching the lines to put distance between dissimilar concepts. Bassett will compare the structure of the maps at different points in the course, gauge the influence of class readings and lectures, and look for correlations between network structure and test scores.

The work seems miles away from Bassett's physics degree. But underlying that study—and nearly every other project in her lab—is a branch of math called graph theory. The approach, with roots in the 18th century, describes the structure of networks of discrete, interacting parts, be they friends linked on social media or grains in a sand pile.

Researchers first calculate the relationships between all nodes in a network: in the simplest case, either a zero (not connected) or a one (connected). Then, they ask questions about the features of the network: Is it a sparse web or a dense jungle of connections? Do certain nodes have an unusually large number of connections? Do nodes tend to organize themselves into tight-knit modules that mostly talk among themselves?

In the 1990s, a few researchers started to create such graphs to describe the layout of animal nervous systems. A graph for the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans could include all the connections among the 302 neurons that determine how the tiny worm wiggles through life. The brains of mammals were far too large and complex to map neuron by neuron, so researchers analyzed the connections between dozens of broad areas in the monkey and cat cortex according to the flow of tracer molecules along neurons.

"We worked in complete obscurity," neuroscientist Olaf Sporns says of the field that would become network neuroscience. Sporns, now at Indiana University in Bloomington, was among the first to use graph theory to analyze connections in the human brain. Few data sets were available, he says. But he and his collaborators hoped the approach could help explain how the brain's structure gives rise to thought and awareness.

By the mid-2000s, applications of graph theory were getting more ambitious. Neuropsychiatrist Edward Bullmore's group at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom used it to analyze human brain activity recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that can indicate which regions are active in unison.

"It was a very exciting period, when [we] began to … explore these previously unmeasured properties of human brain networks," Bullmore says. "It was around that time when Dani started in the lab." Bullmore was one of Bassett's four advisers in a Ph.D. program sponsored by Cambridge and the U.S. National Institutes of Health. She took off running with graph theory, Bullmore recalls, stretching its uses to new types of brain data.

In one study, Bassett analyzed MRI data from people with and without schizophrenia. The condition seems to arise from broadly disorganized brain activity, not a defect in any one region. Bassett and colleagues showed that graph theory offered a new way to describe that disorganization. Brains with schizophrenia showed more random patterns of connectivity than healthy ones, and their hubs—the most highly connected regions—were less likely to be in the frontal cortex, the area that exerts executive control over the brain. That finding aligned with some of the symptoms of schizophrenia: deficits in executive functions such as planning, decision-making, and regulating behavior. But it didn't explain them.

And some neuroscientists were unimpressed by early results from network science. Graphs of brain networks were "obviously a radical simplification of the nervous system," Bullmore says. "The main criticism has always been, ‘Isn't this too simple to be meaningful, given the complexity of the system we're trying to understand?’"

Bassett saw a different limitation to graph theory. "It's great for characterizing the structure of something," she says, "but not necessarily what the thing does." A graph is static, but an active brain flows between connectivity patterns. So, as Bassett moved to her postdoc at UC Santa Barbara, she added another type of analysis to her study of networks: dynamical systems theory, a way of modeling how network structure changes. "Dani has excelled at bringing time into the game," Sporns says.

In a key experiment, Bassett studied people as they learned to tap their fingers quickly in a specific order by reading sequences of notes on a staff. The sequences weren't exactly Brahms rhapsodies; each was just 12 notes long. But participants took time to master them. During three training sessions, they lay in an fMRI scanner and practiced their finger work.

Bassett's group captured changes over time in the sets of brain areas that preferentially conversed with each other while participants learned. The researchers created a mathematical measure of overall "flexibility"—how likely regions were to change their "module allegiance" and sync up with a different set of partners. A brain's flexibility during a practice session, the researchers found, predicted how much faster the person would be able to play the note sequences in the next session.

The research, published in 2011, hinted that measurable, predictable features of the brain's configuration can prime it for learning. That "started to get a lot of people's attention," Bassett says, including representatives of the MacArthur Fellows Program, who pointed to the work in selecting Bassett for the 2014 award. Bassett, who was just getting her lab at UPenn off the ground, found herself in the academic spotlight. Her parents, who had separated when she was 18, cheered her on.

Healthy Ambition

Bassett is now a hub in a lively network—a role that doesn't always suit her. On an endless circuit of invited talks, she seeks solitude in her hotel room. She shies away from group interactions, preferring one-on-one communication with trainees and collaborators.

But some of those pairwise connections have had far-reaching effects. In 2013, on a bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, she and mechanical engineer Fabio Pasqualetti, then a fellow postdoc, realized they shared an ambition. They wondered whether network science could go beyond describing the brain to offering ways to change it. Pasqualetti studies control theory, a branch of engineering that uses sensors and feedback to guide the behavior of a system, whether that's an electrical grid or a fighter jet. Was it possible, he and Bassett wondered, to apply principles of control theory to brain networks?

In their initial study, published in 2015, Bassett and Pasqualetti modeled brain structure with data from an MRI-based technique that traces the diffusion of water through the brain to identify regions connected by bundles of neuronal fibers. By feeding that information into an equation from control theory, they identified areas of the brain that, when active, might help it shift into various other states. "It was a big jump, honestly, to make the assumption that this thing could work," says Pasqualetti, now at UC Riverside.

"It's a very important contribution," computational neuroscientist Marco Zorzi of the University of Padua in Italy says of the paper. Scientists are already experimenting with zapping the brain to improve various conditions, including severe depression and disability after stroke. But the approach, which often relies on magnetic stimulation of the scalp, involves trial and error. Control theory could help researchers decide where in the brain to stimulate, and at which intensities, to reliably steer it into a healthier state.

Still, Zorzi says, "It's not ready yet." To develop stimulation protocols based on control theory, "we just need much more theoretical work," he says. That work should include studying how many points of stimulation are necessary to induce a desired brain state, he adds.

Bassett and her team are now refining their control theory approach and using it to predict the spreading patterns of activity in epileptic seizures. The results, they hope, will show how doctors could place seizure-stifling electrical implants more precisely or slice out less brain tissue during surgery.

Before any clinical trials, Bassett and colleagues will also have to defend the work against a familiar charge: that it oversimplifies the brain. Signals don't pass predictably along every connection between neurons. Some get amplified; others run into gating mechanisms that inhibit them, and equations from control theory don't fully capture those details. "That makes the control problem enormously difficult," says Schiff, a former epilepsy surgeon who studies control theory. "That's an enormous frontier that we're just starting to crack into."

In response, Bassett channels Ptolemy. "Physicists … start with relatively simple models, and then they expand those models as it becomes necessary," she says. "If there's more than a few parameters, it's very difficult to understand why something happens."

Degrees of Freedom

On the drive home from class, Bassett's 4-year-old son, Simeon, recounts his day care exploits from the back seat of the car and dictates the playlist.

When Bassett entered college, she swore she would never be a wife or mother. On campus, she found that the homemaker role her family had insisted on was, at times, discouraged. But she met Lee Bassett, a fellow physics student whom she married in 2006. Both now teach at UPenn, and the first of their two children was born in 2011.

That evening, after bedtime reading (The Berenstain Bears for Simeon and the children's fantasy novel Mossflower for Silas), Bassett pops open a can of cherry-flavored sour beer and brings out one of her own favorites: British philosopher Joseph Glanvill's 17th century volume The Vanity of Dogmatizing. In it, Glanvill marvels at humanity's ignorance of the natural world and condemns blind faith in both science and religion. Bassett has peppered its margins with notes.

Down the hall in the living room sits a Steinway grand piano, testimony to her continuing love of music. It's the only purchase Bassett has made so far with her $625,000 MacArthur award; for now, her lab is not hurting for funding. But the unspent money means freedom. If an idea sparks her imagination and funders won't get behind her, she plans to chase it anyway.

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