Lab 6 by Peter Lerangis

Author:Peter Lerangis [Lerangis, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4825-6
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2012-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

Do they know the risk they’re taking?

They’re his parents. Few risks are too big.

10

GONE.

It was gone.

The feeling had left him as suddenly as it had come.

The graphs were still jumping, but Sam was calm again.

Clear-eyed.

Mom was a mess. Wet-faced and haggard.

Dad didn’t look too terrific, either. He was wide-eyed and pale, as if he’d just seen a purple horn sprout from Sam’s forehead.

“I thought — you didn’t — ” Sam was giddy with relief. He flopped back onto his bed. “Whoa, that’s some machine.”

Normal.

My fingers — my eyes — my head — they feel totally normal.

Mom’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “Oh my god.”

Sam reached upward to remove the cap. “Can I?”

“It … works,” his dad murmured.

Sam took that for a yes. He pulled the cap from his head. “Thanks. What’s this thing called?”

“A transpatheter,” his mom said, her face slowly brightening.

Dad was carefully examining the screen. He was rocking from foot to foot, practically dancing. “The neurotransmitters functioned. The circuitry was flawless.”

“What does that mean?” Sam tried.

His mom ignored him. “Dendritic action?”

“Point five nanoseconds average,” his dad answered.

“Storage?”

“Four million megagigs with cache to spare!”

They fell into each other’s arms, giggling.

Giggling!

“What? Are we going to get rich now?” Sam asked.

They both turned to face him, as if just noticing he was in the room. Then, with big smiles, they pulled him into a three-way hug. “Richer than you can imagine,” his mom said.

Sam wrapped his arms around them and squeezed.

He was strong again, clearheaded. His parents were happy.

It felt good to be together. Really good.

But something wasn’t right. They were happy about the machine. They were happy about being rich.

He would have liked a little more concern for himself.

Don’t be greedy, Sam. Take what you can get.

They’ve been working on this forever. Give them some credit.

“So it’s some kind of medical thing?” Sam asked. “Like, stronger than aspirin without the side effects?”

Dad threw back his head, laughing. “More than that. Sam, you know what we’ve said all along about the human brain — ”

“It’s all switches,” Sam said, repeating the mantra he’d heard almost as often as Watch for traffic when you cross the street. “Like, little electrical circuits between the nerves.”

“Billions of them,” his mom explained. “Every moment — every tiny feeling you experience, every thought you have — is a certain sequence of those switches, turning on and off.”

“This machine,” his dad said, “in essence, has those switches — ”

“You mean, you’ve done it!” Sam asked. “You’ve created a real brain?”

“No,” Mrs. Hughes replied. “Not a brain. Just a transpatheter— a shell. All set up to recognize and receive the various circuits of the human brain.”

“It doesn’t have the capacity to experience the feelings itself,” Sam’s dad added. “It has to wait for a signal — then uploads and stores it.”

“So that headache I was having — ”

Sam’s mom was grinning. “It wasn’t a headache, Sam. It was more than that, wasn’t it?”

Much more.

Unbelievably more.

Even thinking about it hurt. “Like another person inside me …”

“A

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