Hyperthought by M. M. Buckner Read Free Book Online Page A

oily fingers on the hotel napkin and kicked the silver tray aside with my toes. If possible, I wanted to end this little affair on my own terms. “Sir Jin, my next trip starts in two days. I have to find Luc. This has been fun, but us common folk have to work.”
    Jin caught me in the crook of his elbow and pulled me to his chest “La Sauvage, the practical lady of business. Break your schedule for once. I’m not finished with you.”
    The truth is, I adored being with him. I knew this would be our only time. So I fought my battle with dignity for about two seconds, then threw my arms around his neck. Weak behavior, I knew it even then. But my gut still ached with that damned female urge to cling. I hugged him close and felt the sadness welling up. In the hotel’s synthetic view, the white domes of surface Godthaab seemed to stretch to infinity.
    Jin pointed past my shoulder toward the southwest “California,” he said. “I’m flying out tonight.”
    The words filled me with dread. How quickly I’d begun to hate Judith Merida. “Jin, you should never go back there.”
    He laughed at me. “Judith’s going to activate my latent senses. Humans have more than five. Oh, believe me, we do. We receive input at the quantum level. But in our overreliance on consciousness, we deny it or fail to understand it. Egotism, really. The fatal flaw of Homo sapiens. We trust conscious perception far too much.”
    Scientific mumbo jumbo wasn’t what I wanted. I’d taught myself to read by watching Net ads. All the science I knew came from the Nature Channel. But Jin kept talking. He’d switched to professor mode.
    “You see, the neurons, the cells in the brain, they generate tiny electrical fields that resonate with each other. And sometimes they oscillate in phase. Think of voices in a crowd all suddenly humming the same chord.” I could hear him choosing short easy words to fit my simple mind. Why did he even bother? I said nothing.
    “As we receive input, these electrical fields build up and wash around our brains like weather. Imagine cyclones and warm fronts. Invisible rainbows. Silent thunder.”
    He rocked nervously. His eagerness disturbed me. I stroked his silky eyebrows with my fingers.
    “Scientists fixate on consciousness, Jolie. They ignore our unconscious senses. Judith knows all about it. She and I, we’re going to play with the quantum states in my brain’s electrical weather. She has a way to modulate the quantum charge densities. To tune them, yes? Like a radio. If she’s right, I’ll be the first human to directly perceive sensations at the quantum level. I’ll wake up from the dream. Then I’ll understand what to do.”
    What a lot of rubbish! He should know better than to believe Judith Merida. But his speech had grown rapid and hectic. His enthusiasm reminded me uncomfortably of his manic episode the night before. I had to stay calm.
    “That sounds fine,” I said, “but why choose Merida for a partner? You told me yourself she lies through her teeth.”
    Jin lay back in the pillows with a smug expression. I noticed his face and chest were glistening with sweat. “The good doctor suits me. She wants to move fast, and she won’t be hampered by ethical prudence.”
    All at once, I pictured Merida bending over a surgery table, her mouth stretched wide, laughing in that earthy voice. I saw her probing Jin’s brain with her red-lacquered fingernails. “Mes dieux, but think what you’re risking! Oh Jin.”
    “Oh Jolie,” he mimicked my anxious whine. “Pretty wild one, you worry too much.”
    I knew he wouldn’t be serious now. He wouldn’t listen. “What’s next?” I asked.
    Reclining in the pillows, Jin clasped his hands behind his head and sighed. “Measurements. I fly back to the clinic tonight so we can start recording data. By now, the nanobots will have replicated throughout my cortex.”
    “Sacred Laws of Heaven!” I threw myself on his chest and squeezed him tight. I pictured