She caught another glimpse of his arousal. Of his interest in her. Of his shyness. His insecurity with women.
But those were peripheral. In the center she caught full on a view of his intellect, diamond sharp and clear, the restlessness of his mind, his ever churning set of questions, his lust for answers… and what he'd done. He and Rangan and Ilya.
She took a sharp breath as she understood. "You're like this all the time? You've done this permanently? To yourself?"
Of course. Last night. So, so dangerous.
Last night? Dangerous?
Kade spoke. "The potential is there. The Nexus core is permanently integrated. But it's not active all the time. Not broadcasting. And we're definitely not experiencing the rush of the first mapping that you're going through now."
Sam understood it as he spoke. She caught the sense of the linked thoughts behind his words. Semantic mapping. Sensory mapping. Emotive mapping. Calibration and assimilation. All the things they needed to enable mass Nexus connectivity.
Because they'd made it, Kade and Rangan and a few others. They'd taken Nexus 3 and they'd cracked some of its code. They'd learned to program Nexus cores, to tell them what to do. They'd added on layers of logic and functionality. They'd turned it into a platform for running software inside the brain. They'd brought this thing in her mind to fruition.
It took her breath away. She felt Kade's pride. She felt her own awe at his brilliance, at their accomplishment, at their audacity. She wanted him then. Wanted to swallow his mind up like the city inside her, experience all of him at once, know what he knew, feel what he felt, really understand what was happening inside her.
And she felt fear. A chill up the back of her spine. A strong sense of foreboding.
Sam brushed it off. She fought for words.
"Kade. Kade. Show me the party. Take me out there to meet everyone else."
Kade laughed. "You're just coming up. Want to practice this a little more with one person before you're out there with a hundred?"
In his thoughts she read amusement, caution.
"I'm ready," Sam replied. "I want more. I can handle it."
I want it all, she thought.
Kade chuckled. "Alright, let's do it. Party time."
He stood up, smiled, and backed a step away.
Sam took a deep breath, steadied herself, and rose to a seated position. So far so good. She could feel Kade watching, evaluating, taking mental notes on her responses, her equilibrium, her affect.
She looked up at him, met his eyes, and held out her hand. Kade took it to help her rise to her feet.
Their touch was electric, frank, revealing. She sought out his attraction to her, wanted it, found it buried beneath his scientific curiosity, his commitment to the experiment of which she was now a part, his cool observation of her. Sam blazed at Kade, showed him her hunger, her craving for more, her will to assimilate everything around her, starting with him.
He was at once amused and impressed. And his mind was awesome, full of knowledge and experience she craved.
Sam rose smoothly to her feet, Kade's hand still held but unneeded. She stood inches from him, face at his level in her tall boots.
"Show me," she asked him. He knew what she wanted.
He flushed crimson, let go of her hand, broke eye contact, laughed to hide a bashfulness that he could not possibly contain, and backed away again.
"You're something else," he said. "A natural for this. It's not as easy as you think, though. Internal mapping is one thing. That level of depth with another mind just isn't doable right now. Not enough bandwidth. Not a rich enough protocol."
Sam saw the truth of it in his mind, saw also that he was holding back from her. There was more. Disappointment. She'd be patient.
"OK." She smiled, despite herself. "Out into the party?"
Kade took her hand again, grinning, broadcasting excitement. "Sam, you're gonna love this."
And she saw that she would.
He led her out of the chill space and into the crew room, up to the heavy, shielded door that led to the main hangar.
"I'm going to let you feel a little at first, then more and more over time."
Kade opened the door. Music hit her. Electronic and tribal, rhythmic and trancedelic. The genre they called flux. Compelling enough to dance to, relaxed enough to not.
At the same time a different kind of humming filled Sam's head. The sound of many voices, muted, distant, but all speaking at once. More than sound. Information. Meaning. Emotion. Excitement. Giddiness. Apprehension. Awe. Impatience. Heartbreak. Desire. Contentment. All there. All at some remove from her. Nothing like the experience she'd had within herself. But these were other minds!
Kade led her through the doorway.
The hangar had been transformed. The lighting was saturated with slowly changing colors now, shifting through the spectrum. The corner they were in was rich blue shifting to indigo and violet. Across the hangar from her it was red turning orange. To the left it was yellow turning green.
Scattered across the hangar were people, scores of them. Enough to add life to what had been a large and empty space. They were dressed for a San Francisco party night: short skirts and tight pants; velvet and vinyl and faux leather; tattoos, piercings, and marginally legal biomorph body art that shifted and flowed as they moved. She felt them in her mind. Gay, straight, and bi; singles, couples, triads, more complex networks still.
This boy-scientist had brought her into the heart of the counterculture. And the counterculture was dosed with Nexus.
Above and around them, the smartfabric-covered walls undulated in time to the music now. Liquid silvers, reds, and blues flowed across the curving inner surface of the hangar, like ripples emanating from each tribal, elemental beat of the music Rangan was playing. It was transfixing, organic. She stared at it and knew that the track was "Buddha Fugue" by the group Apoptosis, the rhythms inspired by the sounds of Thai drumming meeting crashing surf as heard through the hashish-addled ears of band member Sven Utler, one hot summer night on the beaches of Koh Phangan.
It came to her in a flash. She simply knew it as if she'd always known it. As if she'd heard this track a dozen times, heard the story behind it from Sven or Rangan or Kade already.
Sam caught her breath. It was a great track, the kind her hips wanted to move to, but she didn't care. They just beamed that into my head! What she could do with that technology! What data archeology could be like! Education! Anything!
She turned to Kade, mouth agape, eyes full of wonder. He grinned at her. He knew her thoughts and she knew his: infectious enthusiasm, excitement at her excitement, pride in his accomplishments.
Like a boy showing off his toys, she thought, and he blushed and looked away and giggled.
Kade took her by the hand then and led her into the crowd. They passed a pair of people, standing facing each other, arms moving oddly, clumsily, giggling and laughing out loud at each other.