I glanced around the hearing room. It was packed. Media representatives rivaled spectators in number. Attention was riveted on Nichols. Lauren Caldwell was getting her wish: public attention on one of her key campaign issues.

“Humanity’s enduring blights—poverty, resource supply, ideological and religious conflict—all end. Shortages disappear. Economics are transformed; all people have access to virtually unlimited wealth to be enjoyed throughout limitless life spans…”

Not having to refer to electronic notes, Nichols maintained constant eye contact with the committee members, slowly scanning their faces as he spoke.

I monitored Cleary’s stream every few minutes. My only hope was to observe within it a planned action that would unmask his scheme. I would anonymously alert the authorities and hope they followed up. It was a long shot but the only one I had, short of murdering Cleary and Pape, which was problematic.

“All obstacles to human progress will soon be swept away. Human intelligence will catapult forward at a pace previously undreamed of…”

In between my times with Cleary, I scanned Nichols’s stream. It gradually confirmed what I had already suspected. Nichols wasn’t behind the murders of Abby’s village or of Ben and Abby. He hadn’t even intended to institutionalize Ray. Events had caught him by surprise, and he fully expected Ray to see things his way when Ray received his new brain. That proved false, and when Ray threatened to go public, Nichols panicked and had him committed. At that point he was trapped.

Nichols continued his testimony. “Our collective future is as limitless as the energy of the sun, of a billion suns. We will achieve this future, of that there is no doubt. The question is when. NTI has this year achieved the most significant technological breakthrough since the invention of the integrated circuit a hundred and thirty years ago…”

The memory stream I was unable to access—one I desperately needed to access—was Pape’s. Apparently, he still possessed his biological brain. Pape’s activities, not Cleary’s, would give me the best update on their progress.

“The issue facing this committee today is the shape of human society to come. Will the human community leap forward into unlimited intelligence, awareness, and potentialities, or will we remain wedded to the pace of progress afforded by our merely biological brains—a pace that consigns untold millions to lives of misery?