Collective Mind by Vasily Klyukin Read Free Book Online

and
tables. He opened the first one and froze, dumbfounded. His intuition or maybe
it was that special energy of his hadn’t let him down. He was looking at a
table of people who had been tested, but had not yet downloaded their
creativity. First names, surnames, IQs, creativity ratings and other data. Isaac
leaned closer to the monitor and quickly ran his eyes over the confidential
lines.
    “Holy
shit! Didn’t that crazy hobo say: ‘Destroy this heart of the devil’? He wasn’t
all that far from the truth, that Elvis.”
    The
memory card contained a whole heap of incomprehensible information, but the
most interesting things on it were the various ratings. This wasn’t the devil’s
heart, it was his database! Isaac’s fatigue instantly evaporated. His fingers
flew over the keyboard, he avidly devoured the content. “Lord, what do you want
me to do with his?” he thought to himself.

Chapter two
     
    Isaac’s
hands hovered motionless above the keys. Destroying something was easy, if you
knew for sure what actually was to be destroyed. Isaac had come into possession
of a database, but what was the right way to deal with this knowledge from out
of the blue?
    “What
if I search the table for names I know?” thought Isaac, in earnest excitement.
    Isaac
opened the file named Human Imagination Tone. First, he decided to try his own
name, typed it in and launched the search. “I’m not in the top hundred, but I
made the top thousand, marked with five little yellow stars; 996 that is,” he
grinned to himself. His next search was for “Jeremy Link”. There was a lot of
empty chatter available on the internet about the professor, but there was no
serious open information.
     The
search engine found Jeremy Link. Wow! The name was in a separate table with the
striking title “Top 50 geniuses” The genius top list, no less! And these were
people who have not donated their energy!
    Isaac
ran through the list eagerly. In the third place was a well-known Russian
mathematician, who worked at MIT. He cracked complicated theorems like nuts and
was famous for always refusing money prizes for his achievements. What had
jogged him into filling in a form to sell his creativity? Isaac found the
answer to that question in the “Remarks” section, where it said that the
mathematician needed to raise money for medical treatment for his child who had
a rare brain disease. Isaac gritted his teeth at this coincidence with his own
sister. Isaac’s fury with COMA overwhelmed him. It would never release him now.
    Vicky
was Isaac’s stepsister, but she was the nearest and dearest person he had. No
matter how hard Isaac tried, he couldn’t clearly recall the moment when he
first met Vicky. What did his mother tell him, what did he say to her? He
remembered being introduced to a frightened little girl in a blue dress. And
that it was a good day, because he was given a radio-controlled car. And a bit
later Vicky’s dad – his mum’s friend, as he was introduced at the time – bought
Isaac a really great bike. Then he started coming round more and more often,
together with Vicky. Playing with someone, even with a girl, was better than
playing on your own. On the weekends Vicky’s dad drove them to the amusement
park and bought them big ice creams, and there was no reason to be afraid of
someone like him. Isaac quickly got used to him and was glad when he came,
always with a present, even if only a little one. Isaac was delighted when he
and his mum moved into his apartment, where Isaac and Vicky had their own room.
    They
grew up like that together, went summer camps and the amusement parks together.
Then to school, to the parties at school, and then to the discotheques.
    Vicky
was probably the most important thing in his life. She was always really
considerate and cool. He could always talk about everything with Vicky. The
years went by and Isaac shared with her the stories of his love affairs, and
she complained about her boyfriends.