Veronika looked at Lycan, back at the network. “As in, taking what someone is feeling and letting someone else feel it?”
“The exact chemical signature.” He pointed at a young woman with wild hair whose eyes were closed. “She’s recalling some event that made her feel sad, or scared, or happy, and the actual feelings are interpreted as electronic impulses, transferred to another test participant and converted back into neural impulses.”
Veronika peered at the woman behind the glass, trying to fathom the idea of feeling exactly what she was feeling. Or vice versa.
“This is the future,” Lycan said. “Connecting people to each other directly. At this point we can’t improve any further on the speed of information transfer, but there’s lots of room to improve the quality of the information we transfer.”
Veronika studied the shiny silver neurons disappearing into the wall. “Do you have to be connected to the neural network for it to work?”
“No, we can do it wirelessly. It’s just simpler this way.”
The actual chemical signature of the emotions. Which meant that a piece of the person would be transferred to someone else. “Perfect empathy.”
Lycan nodded eagerly. “Exactly. You see the implications without me needing to spoon-feed you. I thought you would.”
Lycan seemed the most unlikely person to be working on a project like this. He was not adept at reading other people, and his own emotions seemed rather repressed. Of course, Veronika was a dating coach. Maybe some people were drawn to understand their own greatest weakness.
“Who’s ‘we’?” she asked. “Are you working with a team?”
“No, ‘we’ is me, and my assistant. Emily. She’s a graduate student. Plus some undergraduate volunteers.”
Veronika put her hands on her hips, took another look at the network, seeing it in an entirely different light. “This is entirely your work?”
Lycan looked at the people working behind the glass, his expression that of a proud father looking through the glass at his newborn son. “More or less.”
She shook her head slowly. “Now I understand why they footed the bill to have you revived. You’re fucking brilliant. I mean, one in ten million. Aren’t you?” When Lycan didn’t answer, she looked up at him, asked, “What is your IQ?”
Lycan look both embarrassed and pleased by her attention. “It’s high.”
Veronika thought back to her first meeting with Lycan, watching him climb over the railing of Lemieux Bridge, her spastic attempt to talk him out of it. She’d been watching one of the great modern minds. He could win a Nobel Prize.
“You know, when you said we were going to see your work, I have to admit, I wasn’t thrilled. I figured it would be dull. I was wrong.” She suddenly saw Lycan in an entirely new light as well. His awkwardness wasn’t run-of-the-mill awkwardness, it was the eccentricity of genius.
“Tell me more,” she said. “I want to understand how this works.”
39
Rob
Rob woke from a dream, crying. For a moment he couldn’t remember the dream, only that he’d been holding something, and had felt elated. Then whatever he’d been holding had vanished. He wanted to remember what he’d been holding, wanted to relive that elation.
Then he remembered. He’d been holding Winter. In the dream she’d been alive. They were lying on a couch, their fingers intertwined, and he could smell her hair, feel her chest rising and falling. In the dream Winter had inhaled deeply, relishing it. She said it felt wonderful to breathe, that she would never take another breath for granted as long as she lived.
Rob pressed his face into his pillow, overwhelmed by the emotions coursing through him. He had to see Winter again. Now. Today. He reached for his handheld, checked his account balance.
His guardian angel hadn’t visited. He set the handheld down. If he had to raise the money on his own, it would be months before he could see her again. Unless Red came through.
40
Veronika
“I’m not hearing this,” Peytr said, his sailboat, tethered to the dock, bobbing behind him, the sun setting orange on the water.
Veronika struggled to come up with a reply. She studied Peytr, his virtual face perfect, his eyes in deep shadow. Sighing, she stood, pulled her sensory gloves off.
“End session.”
Peytr disappeared, along with the sailboat, the sea, the sunset. She just couldn’t get into it; it felt so fake. So pointless. Maybe she was finally outgrowing interactives. It made her a little wistful to think she might be leaving them behind, the way it had made her wistful when she realized she was too old for Teddy Boynkin when she turned twelve, and packed him up in a box and pushed him through the storage chute.
Lorelei pinged her; Veronika dropped the block she’d placed, and Lorelei materialized on screen.
“Tell me you’re free, like right now?” Lorelei said.
Veronika wanted to tell her there was a protocol for making appointments, that Lorelei was free to pull up her schedule and set up a session, but sparring with Lorelei was too exhausting. “If you’re willing to pay my special no-advance-notice-whatsoever rate, I’m free, like right now.”
Lorelei shook her head briskly. “Whatever. I really need you. I’m taking Nathan to visit my dying-again grandfather. I hate my dying-again grandfather, but it’s compelling stuff. ‘Do not go gently into that good night,’ and all that.”
“Mm-hm. Got it,” Veronika said. “So it’s not a face-to-face per se?” She wanted to ask Lorelei why she wasn’t using her regular coach, but thought she knew: it was dawning on Lorelei that Veronika was better than her regular coach. Or, maybe her coach had suggested it, recognizing that Veronika was good at keeping eyes on Lorelei. Come to think of it, maybe Lorelei invited Nathan along just so she could legitimately ask Veronika to coach her. Things were getting wonderfully complex; Veronika loved it, loved the challenge.
“Not per se, no. Talk to you in half an hour?” Lorelei’s screen was gone before Veronika could reply.
While ordering a pastrami sandwich so she wouldn’t starve during the session, she had an attack of guilt. She closed her eyes, took a deep, sighing breath. “What am I doing?” Lorelei was using her, and she was using Lorelei. Eventually Nathan was going to find out Veronika was coaching Lorelei, and Veronika hoped Nathan might look at her in a different light when he found out. Plus, it was just so addicting to be pulling the strings.
Lorelei pinged her, and Veronika opened a cloaked screen onto Kilo Van Kampen’s deathbed. Not that it was a bed; it was more a tank of goo.
Sunali was sitting beside the tank. Lorelei and Nathan hung back at a respectful distance. Nathan seemed incredibly uncomfortable, his expression a wide-eyed “What the hell am I doing here?” that seemed apropos, given that he was witnessing the intimate death of someone he’d never met. If she wasn’t hiding, Veronika could have explained to Nathan what he was doing there. Lorelei’s audience was blocked from opening screens in the revival center, and taping was prohibited as well, so once outside, Lorelei had to have someone to talk to about whatever drama transpired inside.
He’s died three times in the past month, Lorelei subvocalized to her, snapping her out of her reverie. Evidently he’s going for some kind of record.
Sunali glanced back at Lorelei and Nathan. She stood, told Kilo she’d be right back, and joined them by the door.