Chapter 6

Time: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 7:40 AM Eastern Standard Time

I was riding in the school bus, sitting by myself, feeling a bit tired. I didn't get much sleep the previous night, thinking about Melanie. I had a paper clip in my hand, and I began idly playing with it, stretching it out into a straight wire...

I did a spot check on my sense-sphere, 1.196 meters. I've gotten very good at self- testing; I don't need a ruler anymore. Then I went back to trying to push the paper clip down into my finger, and then up. Could I feel the difference? Maybe... Well, maybe not...

I tried combining my two abilities, my ability to zoom in for detail and my ability to PUSH... Things felt weird for a while, weird... then really weird... and then...

I could see it! No, not see it, feel it, sense it. The paper clip wasn't just simple metal. It was made of a very rigid frame holding a light but very stiff fluid. I suddenly realized that that stiff fluid-like substance must be the free electron population in the metal. I couldn't focus on individual electrons, not even close, probably by twenty orders of magnitude, but I could feel the population. My sense for detail was now allowing me to feel the electron population as a distinct fluid, very light, much lighter than the atomic frame...

Could I PUSH it? Just the fluid? I tried. It was totally impossible. It suddenly occurred to me the fluid had nowhere to go. I bent the straight wire into a circle and tried again. It worked! As I stared at the wire I could feel the effort, sense the electron fluid spinning round and round. Fascinating...

"Eric my man! You on drugs or something?"

I looked up. "Oh, hi Bob! No, just wool gathering. Ready for the math test today?" I spent the remainder of the trip chatting with a friend.

I had a free period that morning. Our history teacher was out sick and the sub hadn't shown up either. The class was asked to go study in the library. I ran ahead and managed to get one of the computer spots. Something dad had said last night about Harvard not fitting the pattern was bugging me. I wanted to look something up. I spent part of my time looking up contact information for Harvard's Registrar Office, and another chuck of time thinking about pushing electrons in wires. About fifteen minutes before the period ended, I slipped out of the library and headed over to the deserted physics lab.

I was in luck. The door was unlocked. There was a nice multi-meter on a lab bench there, locked down so nobody could walk off with it but still usable. I grabbed a 4.7 k- ohm resister and a short piece of medium-gauge copper wire. I connected the wire to both ends of the resister, and then clipped the multi-meter probes to both connection points. I turned the meter to read DC voltage. It showed 0.000 volts. Well, that made sense...

I looked at the clock, 11:20 AM. I probed my sense-sphere. 1.2 meters exactly, as far as I could tell. And then I locked the electrons in the copper wire and I PUSHED, as hard as I could. I could sense them flowing. I glanced over at the multi-meter. It was registering 1.004 volts. I smiled and let go of the electron-fluid and the meter dropped to zero. I put everything back and went to my next class.

I did a short calculation. Power equals voltage squared divided by resistance, so my current maximum power output was 2.15 mW. So... I must have been barely able to do my acceleration experiment last night...

Rather than eat lunch I went outside the school building and got out my cell phone. It was time to verify something. I called up the Harvard Bursar Office.

At first they didn't want to talk with me, even after I gave them Melanie's student ID and social security number. But then I said I wanted to pay for Melanie's tuition deposit, and the guy went to get his supervisor.

"Who is this?" a woman's voice asked a short time later.

I decided to play it straight. I introduced myself as a close friend of Melanie who wanted to cover any payment issues there might be with Melanie's enrollment. We talked for a minute, and then the woman decided to level with me.

"We've sent so many notices! The deposit was required to be here by the end of January. There's a one-month grace period, but it's a strict cut-off after that. Melanie's enrollment is about to be terminated."

I blinked. "She'll lose her option for early decision?"

"No. Regular enrollment is a completely different rotation. She's about to lose her chance to come to Harvard period."

"Oh my gosh," I said without thinking. "Can I wire you the money?"

"Yes. It absolutely has to be here by tomorrow though, $11,984."

I let out an explosive gasp. I was still thinking in terms of an application deposit. "Uh, could you break that down for me?"

"Sure. The charges for the first year will be..." and then she read me a list of numbers. "$24,707 tuition, $4,461 Room, $3,945 Board, $1,082 Health Services, and $1,755 misc. fees. The first third was due in January, then two payments of $11,983 each are due the end of May and mid September. You want a breakout of the fees?"