“Maybe reality looks like superstition if you haven’t personally encountered it, Mr. Nichols.”

The conversation, Abby concluded, was revealing nothing useful—only Nichols’s steadfast faith in his own belief system. Abby turned toward him. “I’m a bit tired. I believe I’ll return to my room. May I have my dinner served there?”

“Of course. You want a bit of privacy this evening. Understandable. I’ll have my butler bring your dinner.” Nichols stood. “I enjoyed talking with you, Ms. Caldwell. Your perspectives are a fascinating journey into our cultural history.”

She gave a slight nod but did not smile and then moved toward the door. “I believe I can find my way back upstairs.”

I accessed Damien Cleary’s memory stream. His first recorded memories dated from November 2073, four months before NTI changed human experience by introducing the technology to the public.

I scanned the entire life experience of Damien Cleary for the previous fourteen years: his every thought, dream, and sensory input. The volume of information was staggering. But so was the speed with which my new brain processed data. The task took less than three hours.

I knew now why the memory stream system had been established with stringent safeguards. No one should have access to the full extent of someone’s life, as I possessed. Nothing in Cleary’s experience was hidden. I scanned his work life, his relationships, his financial dealings, his thought life, his sex life—those aspects of ourselves which, if made public, bring even the best person to shame. And Cleary wasn’t the best person.

Viewing Cleary’s memories, I experienced a certain prurient interest in his dark side, followed by a revulsion at taking such pleasure, and finally settled into a kind of wistful sorrow that such a technically brilliant man had, because of his own psychological makeup, spent so much of his time and energy on meaningless, unfulfilling pursuits. Like so many of us.

To one cause, however, Cleary was truly devoted: the advancement and spread of human intelligence.

I came upon his original conceptual discussions with Nichols and Ray Caldwell about the silicon brain. I scanned through the endless developmental process. I witnessed Cleary and Nichols’s arguments concerning worldwide marketing of the transplant procedure. Cleary always favored the most aggressive approach, regardless of moral or legal niceties. His goal: transform humanity as quickly as possible, no matter what was required.

“Humanity,” he said in Nichols’s VR office one day, “has wallowed in a Stone Age mentality long enough. We have the potential not only to solve the planet’s problems but to spread a nearly perfect civilization to all corners of the galaxy. Doing so at maximum speed, Nichols, is the highest moral consideration.”