I know what’s infecting Cap. It’s a bacteria developed by some sort of terrorist organization. I don’t know the name of this organization, or what their goal is. They could be Al-Qaeda or an offshoot. They could be U.S. radicals. But what I do know is that the germ is real.

Lou could only stare at the screen.

“Please explain, Humphrey.”

“From beginning?”

“The temperature’s a little below my comfort zone, but I’ll tell you if I want you to cut corners.”

Two out of every one thousand births end up to a greater or lesser extent like me. The numbers haven’t changed in forty years or more, even with advances in obstetric care. It used to be that poor obstetric care was considered the leading cause of cerebral palsy, but epidemiological studies have largely refuted that assertion. Some studies have suggested maternal bacterial infection as a causal factor. This interested me. Was it bad luck, bad genetics, or some environmental factor? I wanted to know the history of me. How I’d come to inhabit this crippled body. As I explored this question I fell in love with microbiology as a scientific discipline.

“You’re doing great, Humphrey. Go on.”

My parents were embarrassed by me. They pretty much left me to my own devices so long as I stayed in my room with my computer, or went to special classes at special schools. Their expectations of me were zero or less than zero.

“They couldn’t have missed by much more,” Lou said, aching for the man’s early years.

It probably comes as no surprise that growing up I lacked confidence. I knew what my brain was capable of doing, but my body always held me back.

To maintain his composure, Lou looked away from the screen briefly and glanced around at the cartons. There were towers of boxes, some stacked like matryoshka dolls, the largest on the bottom perhaps containing pipettes and glassware, the next size labeled shakers, and at the top, a vacuum pump.

“The Internet rescued you,” Lou said finally.

It was wonderful. There were forums and blogs and bulletin boards where researchers exchanged all sorts of information. In that virtual world, without my body to hold me back, I could keep up with the most advanced minds out there. When I was sixteen, I was answering questions some top research scientists and mathematicians didn’t even know to ask. My reputation spread online and I became a bit of a celebrity within this very small cluster of intellects. That’s how I came to the attention of Dr. Nazar Farooq from Stanford. Very brilliant.

Lou checked the time. An hour and a half had passed.

“I’m going to nudge you ahead a little,” he said. “Connect the dots to Cap, and then we need to go back upstairs.”