Chapter 39

It was almost ten when I next awoke. When my eyes could focus I noticed that Larry was not in his bed. Either he’d come in after me and got up before me, or he’d never come back at all. I forced myself out of bed and went to take a shower. After that, I went off to the chuck wagon and found a late breakfast.

Back in the dorm I found Larry changing his shirt.

“Should I ask?” I said.

“Well, it turned out the party options were kinda lame, but then I ran into Marina and she took me along to a party she was going to, then we went back to her place together. I wound up staying the night. I need a nap. Then I’ve gotta start studying.”

“I already had the nap, but that second part’s on my radar, too. I guess I’ll go to the library.”

We had only about another week before finals were upon us. I’d seen the looming deadline on a lot of the faces in the dining hall, worry and sudden desperation. I thought I was mostly caught up, but I’d need to review everything we’d covered in the semester.

I now had a new tool I could employ to prepare for exams, the one I’d named “Brain Sponge”, a sense of hyper-focus on a specific topic that would allow me to concentrate on the text and my lecture notes and to retain the ideas. I mapped out what subjects I’d need to review before the exams, and what amount of time I’d need to do it. I’d decided that two hour sessions were about optimum. Any more that that and I wound up with a headache and a backache from focusing on a book for so long in a fixed position.

Today I decided I’d start with Psychology, as that happened to be my first scheduled exam, so I grabbed my text and the notebook and headed off to the library.

It was a nice day, spring having made a late-ish appearance. As I walked there I thought about last night. There were a couple of new things I’d discovered that I thought were interesting.

First, I was encountering this “unconscious link” phenomenon more and more, enough so that I was convinced that it was a real thing, not just a coincidence. I was “feeling” what a person was thinking, in some general sense, before I’d ever stepped into their epicenter and looked around. I was getting an indication of their preferences, their likes and dislikes, their fears in a vague way, no specificity at all. When I did finally go into their epicenters, I usually found confirmation of what I’d previously inferred.

I wasn’t yet sure enough of it that I trusted it completely, but I was leaning in that direction. It was something I’d need to think about more.

Secondly, I’d found a new way to locate specific preferences or fears in a subject by feeling the emotion that they exhibited and looking around their epicenter storage for things that felt the same. I’d found with Frieda that I’d been able to “hold” certain memories that exuded the same emotion and see the details of what caused that emotion. This could be a very useful tool if I learned to utilize it properly.

This ability I had to connect with people in this new way felt very strange, because it used new senses beyond sight, hearing, and touch. Now it felt like I was comparing emotions as if they were one of the body’s senses. Quite an odd sensation.

But now I was at the library, so I put those ruminations aside and returned my focus to the task at hand, prepping for exams. I found a carrel with a door, set the “In Use” sign, and opened my books. I sent myself the “Brain Sponge” image along with a time limit of two hours, and felt the outside world start to fade away around me.

As before, it was a little disconcerting to feel myself come back to earth in what seemed like a strange place. I’d been so involved with the study that I’d forgotten where I was. But it came back to me after a few seconds.

I glanced at my watch. It was going on two o’clock. I looked down at the book. I was on the last chapter, not quite through it, but close enough. I did a quick spot check by turning to random places in the text, glancing at a section heading, and seeing if I could reproduce the essence of what was written there.

I could, with surprising accuracy. I smiled. How I wish I’d found this aspect of my talent back in high school. I’d gotten through by old-fashioned memorization and study, plus the ability to sense the answer the teacher was looking for. It had been good enough to give me the grades to get admitted here, but this new skill would have made it much easier.

I packed up and, feeling a little hungry, went back to the grub hub for lunch, which I ate while I finished the last chapter.

I went back to the dorm and traded in for a different textbook and lecture notebook, and headed back to the library for another cram session.

And that was my routine for the next few days. We still had our last week of classes, which were marked by students interrupting and asking if certain topics were or were not going to be on the exam. But outside of classes I managed to get through reviews for all my other courses. Still not entirely confident, I hooked up with other students who were using their own study methods and we quizzed each other. I found I had almost everything at my command.

In the middle of all that, I came back to my dorm and when I booted up my PC, I found the email icon blinking. An email from Karen! That got me smiling.