Chapter 24: The Professor
Much of the neurological research over the last 100 years focused on the estimated 100 trillion synaptic connections in the human brain. The perfection of laser-scanning light microscopy enabled scientists to collect and study high resolution holos of the wiring of the human brain. This led naturally to the study of hemispherical connections through the corpus callosum. This part of the brain has long been known to connect the left and right hemispheres. A long-held theory of lateralization of brain function states that the left hemisphere controls the logical and analytical processes while the right hemisphere controls the intuitive and subjective processes. Musicians and mathematicians seem to have heavier and more dense neural pathways in this area of the brain. When both sides of the brain are able to communicate large amounts of data quickly through the corpus callosum, the intuitive is married to the logical. This information resulted in the exploration of some very interesting human abilities.
Jayne tried to put all thoughts of Greenway out of her mind. She headed out of the gym with her friends, detouring back to her quarters to drop off her new grav suit. She knew she could not leave it in her equipment locker and she would be staying at the dorm until her training was completed. She keyed her VID to her quarters and stepped on a PUT pad just outside the gym. She stepped to her door and waited for it to open. Nothing happened. Then she remembered she had disabled Lucky’s AI functions. She would have to use her VID coding to enter her quarters and enable those functions before she could talk to him. As she dug in her knapsack for her VID, she heard some footsteps behind her. It was surprising because there didn’t seem to be any other occupied quarters in this hallway.
She turned just as Professor Greenway spoke.
“I’m glad I caught you. I really need to talk to you.”
Jayne, slightly startled, turned to face him. “Professor Greenway? I saw you after the game.”
“Yes. I thought I might catch you before the vultures swooped in, but I was too late so I came here,” he said calmly. “You know those scouts were raving about you even before you stepped on the pitch. After that display of falling, they were ecstatic. My advice is not to sign anything.”
“What can I do for you?” she asked in a formal tone.
He glanced furtively about, turned to her and whispered, “Invite me in.”
“The AI won’t allow anyone to enter my quarters, even if I invite them. I am only 13 years old. I am a minor. We will have to talk here,” she said with assurance.
“I have clearance. Besides, your AI is disabled as I understand,” he replied, with a raise of his eyebrows.
“How did you know that?” Jayne asked, as anger swelled in her chest.
“Like I said, I have clearance. Now open the door and invite me in because if you don’t I will open the door and invite you in. Which will it be?” he queried calmly.
Jayne did not answer. She turned and directed her VID at the door. It slid open and they both walked inside. Jayne tossed her knapsack on the bed, turned and looked at the professor.
“Aren’t you going to invite me to sit?” Greenway asked.
“You seem to be in charge. Do whatever you want,” spat Jayne in defiance.
“Calm down, Miss Wu. My intention was not to anger you or push you around. I only want to talk to you privately and give you some important information,” he responded quietly, as he sat at the table.
“What information?” Jayne asked. Her anger had not diffused.
“A lot of things. I am here to tell you what is going on and answer all your questions regarding the Sentinels and the—what do you call them?” he paused and flipped open his VID, tapped it and continued, “Oh yes, the watchers—also known as the Forevers—the scan, and the tests, and anything else that might interest you.” He paused and waited.
Jayne stared at him and finally spoke. “Who are you and how do you know everything about what has happened to me?”
Professor Greenway chuckled. “Trust you to ask the one thing I cannot tell you. Who I am is not important, but believe me when I tell you that I am a very valuable source of information. Valuable and accurate. Perhaps I will just start. We don’t have much time. They tend to keep tabs on me from time to time. I don’t want this to be one of those times.” He paused and breathed out a sigh. “Let’s start where it started: the nursery. That is where you started. Your parents never knew each other. They were chosen by a now defunct system of genetic matching. It was one of those genetic selection algorithms that, when it was good, it was very, very good, but when it was bad, it was horrible.” He laughed again.
“What’s so funny?” Jayne asked.
“Just made me think of an old rhyme. Never mind. The algorithm fell into disuse after a series of particularly bad outcomes. I think you were one of the very, very good matches. You are healthy, you are smart and you are…” the doctor paused, “yes, you are lucky, exceptionally lucky.”
“When are you going to tell me something I don’t already know?” Jayne asked.
“Right now, I hope,” he continued. “All those people that have expressed interest in you, they think you have something else. Something they are very interested in having for themselves. I am not sure, but I think they wish to study you so they may recreate it whenever and for whomever they wish. They don’t think you are lucky, they think you are a precog.”
“A what?” queried Jayne.
“A precog is a person with precognition. You see a few seconds or minutes or even hours into the future. You see an event before it happens and, as a result, appear to be lucky,” he answered.
“Don’t be silly. I’m just lucky,” stated Jayne flatly. “If I have this precog stuff, how do you explain that card game? When I first got here, I was sent to be tested at this place where they shot bean bags at me.”
“It is called the Psi Center. It is where they study Extra Sensory Perception and Psycho Kinesis, among other things,” he answered.
“Yeah. Before the bean bags, there was this card game. I did nothing but sit while this guy gave me a card and gave himself a card. If my card was higher than his card, then I won and he dealt another set of cards. He said I was going to play ’til I lost. He lied. I never lost and, as you can see, we are no longer playing. That is just luck. Knowing the future had nothing to do with winning or losing. I would have to be able to control the future in order to be able to control winning at that game if it was not luck. I cannot control the future. I am just lucky. That is all. Lucky!” she said defiantly.
“I am sorry, Jayne, but I think you are much, much more than you realize. I think you are more than any of those chasing you realize. I think you are lucky, yes. I also think you have a large measure of precognition. AND, I think you can influence the actions of things and possibly people before they act. That makes you very valuable and very dangerous. How would you explain the last bean bag that hit the reinforced toe of your boot? How did you know that it would hit that exact place at that exact time?” he asked with finality.
“I stuck my toe out and the bean bag hit my boot. Luck strikes again,” she stated.
“No! You stuck your boot out and then you somehow told the bean bag where to strike. Why do I think this, you are asking yourself? Remember that connectome scan I gave you? Well, that is why I believe this. I don’t usually observe scans but I was observing your scan remotely. I did not want to draw any attention to you. Average scans last two hours. I watched yours for six hours. I had to stop the scan because it was not going to end. There could be no end to that scan. A part of your brain called the corpus callosum is hyperactive, to say the least. It is the part of your brain that connects the two hemispheres. It links the logical with the intuitive. The intuitive right hemisphere never stops sending data to be analyzed by the left hemisphere and that hemisphere sends it back again and so on. Consciousness does not seem to have much to do with the process. Even when you are asleep, that brain of yours is clicking along, doing whatever it does
.” The doctor sighed and raised his eyebrows.
“I guess I cannot stop you from thinking whatever you want to think about my luck, even if it is drivel. So tell me about the Sentinels. Are they truly working for the good of mankind?” she asked.
“Pretty much. I sometimes do work for them. They think you have some ability but their main objective is to protect you from corrupt political and scientific groups. The Forevers are their main concern. The Forevers are so named because the Sentinels think they are murdering omies and stealing body parts to increase their own life spans. Omie hearts and lungs from high gravity biomes are much in demand on the black market. They have already developed a supplementary chamber that aids in pulling blood from the extremities and lungs with ultra high efficiency lobes. Transplant those heart and lung combinations into people living in normal gravity and they just don’t get tired,” he lectured.
“What do the Sentinels want with me?” Jayne asked.
“They really didn’t want anything from you until their surveillance network picked up some odd scans with nanobot transmission signatures. They figured it was the Forevers. If the Forevers wanted you, they wanted to know why. That is all. As I understand, they did fix that little problem with the nausea every time you were scanned. That kid, Joe Kane, you know, the one that shoved you into the fake line-vac, was simply following orders. I really don’t think he meant to hurt you. He has been transferred to another HUB until they have you sorted out. They didn’t want to be exposed if you two accidentally met again and started talking,” he said.
“I wondered what happened to him. I changed studies from general ElecMech to biome specific ElecMech. I just figured he was doing other things. We really didn’t get along anyway,” Jayne said. “So what is with all the testing? Who sent me to the Neuroscience Center?”
The doctor smiled. “You can blame me for that. I wanted some confirmation for my theories of your abilities. I have an ‘in’, so to speak, with HUB Central. They send me alerts when someone does something way out of variance with the norms.”
“Pardon?” said Jayne, with a puzzled look on her face.
“They simply send me notification of rare happenings,” he explained.
“Like what?” asked Jayne again.
“Like a thirteen-year-old girl from the nursery writing the TechElecMech Aptitude Indicator. That was rare enough to get them to alert me but this girl not only aced the knowledge section of the exam, she attempted and completed the open problem section,” he stated flatly.
“I thought I was supposed to do all the problems,” Jayne said.
“You were. You weren’t expected to answer them in such a way that made a BQCAC—Baby Quantum Cray Assessment Computer—send out notices of potential changes to some biome design specs based on your answers,” he responded with raised eyebrows. “The only reason you are not confined to some high level science center, being used and probed, is because I made sure your identity was kept a secret. Somehow, the Forevers—not what they call themselves by the way—caught wind of some kid with special skills. They did not know who it was so they sent out a half dozen of those silver stars to potential candidates. You got one and I know of a couple of others.”
“I saw a kid with a silver star bracelet. He went to the Neuroscience Center on the same flier that I travelled. He was there during the stupid testing they did. Ranovich 91. He was also the kid that played the bean bag shoot with me. He got hit rather hard in the…. Anyway, I’m sure that it hurt. I think they were doing something nasty to him at the Neuroscience Center ‘cause he was yelling that he was in pain and wanted them to stop something or other. Do you know what happened to him?” Jayne asked. “I haven’t seen him since that day.”
“He is recovering. I am surprised you do not know what happened to him,” the doctor said pensively.
“I was practically chained to the chair with wires running everywhere. How could I know what happened to him?” Jayne responded, her ire rising in her throat.
“Well, you were… never mind. It really does not matter now,” said the doctor, changing the subject. “What else do you want to know?”
“One last thing just occurred to me. For all I know, you are the cause of all my problems and not the great savior you claim to be. Who do you work for?” Jayne asked.
“Good question. I am surprised you just thought of it. I started out as a scientific researcher at one of the old universities. But now I work freelance and for myself. I have a lot of influential contacts. I use those contacts to maintain a balance,” he said. “Sometimes I…” he paused and reflected, “look after people who need looking after—like yourself.”
“This is silly. I am just a little bit smart and a little bit lucky. I would like to be left alone to complete my studies and work in the biomes,” moaned Jayne.
“I have been trying to ensure exactly that. The first day we met I had no idea you were you. The Sentinels asked me to test you, so I did. It was only later that I connected the two. The girl who could update the spec manual for the biomes was the same girl who had the craziest connectome scan I have ever seen. She was also the girl who sent the Psi Center into a tizzy. After that day of testing at the Neuroscience Center, I buried your test results. No one but me could ever see them. Even the doctor, and the medical aide who administered the tests voluntarily submitted to a short-term memory wipe. I sent the Sentinels a bogus report. All has calmed down. I would like to keep it that way,” he said with a sigh. “As for the Forevers, I am still trying to determine exactly who they are and what master they serve. It was me who sent you the Sergio Partelli grav suit. It is a special issue with some interesting enhancements that I included in the programming. Please wear it whenever you can. It will keep you safe.”
“I would look stupid wearing a grav suit all the time. I tried some of the alteration features but, in the end, it still looks like a GravBall uniform,” complained Jayne.
“No problem. Try the command: ‘Suit override – Wu – thirteen exponent thirteen.’ That will open up the suit’s extended functions, which are many. Once in this system, the ‘suggest’ command will allow the suit to look after your safety,” he finished, as his VID beeped. He glanced at it and turned to leave. “One more thing before I go—please do not apply to compete in the Gyvers. It will only draw unnecessary attention and, believe me, you do not want any more attention.”
With that, he turned and left Jayne alone in her quarters. She flopped onto her bed and screamed a muffled scream into her pillow.