“Someone with a brain transplant and the right adjustments could do it. I discovered this while I was developing the Grid interface for the silicon substrate. We can access the memory stream of anyone who has had a brain transplant.”

“Who else knows this?” Ben asked.

“I didn’t inform anyone. Didn’t even record it in my log. I didn’t want to make that power available to anyone.”

“But wouldn’t that be illegal?” Abby objected. She turned to me. “You said memory streams were the most highly secure information on the Grid.”

“It is definitely illegal,” Ben commented.

Ray nodded. “And highly dangerous. In the wrong hands…”

We all looked at one another.

“So if it’s illegal,” I asked, “how could that information help us? I can’t imagine it would be admissible in court.”

“We don’t need it for court,” Ben answered. “All we need is to alert the authorities to a specific threat and obtain some physical evidence to support it. That would be enough to generate an investigation. It may be our only shot.”

Everyone was quiet.

“Well,” I said, “what are we waiting for? Let’s have Ray proceed. Can you do that in your…room…without attracting attention?”

“I can’t do it in my room at all.”

“Why not?”

“Because we didn’t build the substrate with the necessary configuration. It would require a slight modification to the hardware, and I don’t have access to the instruments I’d need to make the adjustment.”

“So who else could access Cleary’s memory stream?” I asked.

Ray leaned forward. “It would have to be someone else who has a transplant.”

“Then that idea is another dead end.” Ben looked around the table. “Unless one of you has an artificial brain.” He laughed.

I looked at Abby.

“Creighton, no. You can’t go through with it.” Abby glared at me from beside the window in my hospital room. “It’s suicide. It’s spiritual suicide. Why would you want that?”

“Abby, I don’t even have a connection to God. If I do the transplant, I’m not losing anything. And I get my mind back. The bottom line is, someone has to do it.”

She threw up her arms. “I can’t believe you’re saying this. You’re losing the potential to be connected to God. After all the research you did, haven’t you thought about that?”

I had. I just didn’t want to admit it to Abby. I was hardly a Christian yet, but Ray’s words had only confirmed what I had discovered for myself, that the life offered in the Bible was much more appealing and made much more sense than the version of the faith that had so unceremoniously faded away this century. “I have thought about it,” I answered. “I’m just not ready to do anything about it yet.”