Chapter 21

When I woke again, it was after twelve, and I hadn’t heard Larry come in. Maybe I’d get to smirk at him for a change. I still wasn’t that hungry, so I sat at the computer and wrote a long email to Karen, telling her about the change in the weather and reminding her of what snow felt like. She’d probably forgotten out there in California. Probably wore tee-shirts every day of the week.

I talked about some of the insights I’d gotten in a few of the subjects I had. The insights were mostly due to my peeking into the instructor’s epicenters and appropriating small segments of their knowledge, but I didn’t mention that. Better that she think that I’m naturally smart.

I talked about a couple of the clubs I’d joined and what was discussed there and some of the questions they’d raised in my mind.

At the end I told her how much I’d been missing her recently and was looking forward to spending a little time with her over Christmas.

I’d spend all day writing her about my life, so I cut it short and sent it off. I could write more tomorrow. Somewhere deep in my head I was comparing her with Gail. I really liked Gail. She was smart and passionate about her calling, gorgeous, sexy, with a quirky sense of humor.

I really wanted to find that same connection I had with Karen, where we occasionally seemed to share a single mind and body. That connection was so profound, so special, that I wanted it with everyone I met. But the fact was that it was rare, and try as I might, I hadn’t found it with Gail. I thought we’d been close once or twice, but it never happened. Having experienced it, I didn’t think I could commit to someone if we didn’t share that.

What if Karen found someone else in California and decided to spend her life with him? Would I be sentenced to a relationship with someone that I would always know was incomplete in some important way?

I could feel myself spiraling downward, worrying myself into a funk, about all the things that might happen. I was saved from my self-pity by the door opening and Larry walking in looking bleary-eyed.

I couldn’t let this pass unremarked. “Well, young man, what have you got to say for yourself? You’d better have a good excuse coming in at this hour.”

“Leave me alone, Carter. I need to sleep.”

He really did look like shit. I hoped it was just a case of too much alcohol, and decided to leave him be. We’d talk later. I looked at my watch and realized I’d missed lunch, but they always had sandwiches at the grub hub. Another of Larry’s new names for the cafeteria, and his current favorite.

I felt better after a sandwich, pie and coffee, and took a detour to the library. I had my handwritten notes from reading the stuff I’d found on the Internet about psi. Most of it was crap, sensationalist articles about mediums who could talk to the dead, lots of pseudo-science about being able to communicate telepathically over enormous distances, bending teaspoons with the mind, and so on.

Scattered in among those there was the occasional snippet of real science looking to explain well-documented phenomena of apparent mind-reading and attempts to posit a physical basis for that ability. They all ended in dead-ends or with more questions than answers.

I thought about it for awhile. We’d had a hundred years or so of trained scientists trying to put a fence around this thing, to decide if there was any real part to it at all or if it was all theatrics and hokum meant to impress the gullible.

Still, amid all that, there was the occasional unexplained ability to do something that wasn’t possible by the average human -- read minds, tell the future, influence people or objects. Scientists, as they usually do, waved their hands and dismissed them as data errors if it didn’t fit their conclusion. I wasn’t so sure.

I thought that maybe the approach was wrong, that we were trying to examine the external manifestation of the phenomena, to try to reproduce it. Which, of course, is the standard tried-and-true scientific approach. No credible scientist would try to change that. But I wondered if, when presented evidence suggesting that an individual might sometimes exhibit an extraordinary ability, we might first take a closer look at the individual and try to figure out what made them different.

Did it run in their families, even if it might skip a generation? Were there environmental factors that may have influenced them? Oddities in the diet? Were there any indications of physical trauma in the past, particularly head injuries?

How might we examine the biological processes in the brain of such a person? Were there tests we could run? What would we be looking for?

The more I thought about this, the more questions I came up with. But I thought this might be a fruitful avenue to pursue. The problem is that I had no chemical or biological background, so I wouldn’t know what to look for and how to detect it.

I think I’d made this observation before, that all mental processes are ultimately chemical or biological at their most basic. Memory, reasoning, even twitching an eyelash. They all involved one kind of cell or another, and all operated chemically, biologically or electrically. If I could identify the part of the brain where these abilities lived, maybe I could ultimately figure out what made me different.

Well, I didn’t really need a background in chemistry or biology to read about this, though I’d probably miss some important connections, but at least it would give me a better understanding of what I needed to know more about. Maybe I could cozy up to some savant in biochemistry or cell biology and borrow the knowledge I needed.

In the meantime I finished looking at the references I’d collected on psi research. Fully ninety-five percent of it was bullshit in one way or another, as I’d expected, but better to rule this stuff out first and then pursue other clues. I began by looking through the yearly summaries of psychology research, searching out the ones that included a biological or anatomical component to see if I could identify a common area of the brain that appeared in those papers. It was tedious work.

Eventually I threw up my hands and told myself I’d done enough for one day. Progress would be slow, if there was any progress at all, and I had almost another four years here, so there was time. I packed up, put away the journals I’d been looking at, and headed off to dinner.

Dinner was pretty good. It was taco night at the food factory, so I got a couple of beef and cheese soft tacos and refried beans. I knew it wasn’t ‘real’ Mexican food, but it tasted just fine to me.

In the dorm, I found Larry looking semi-human again, and getting ready to go out. “Geez, Larry, after the way you looked this morning, I thought you might take a night off to recuperate.”

“It’s Saturday, Carter, party night. I can’t miss one. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Larry, I’m not your daddy and I’m not your caretaker, but I’m your roomie and a I’m bit concerned at the pace you keep. Are you up to date with all your assignments? Finals aren’t that far off.”