“Listen, Ari. Imagine . . . Imagine you are a square, a two-dimensional square, and you see a sphere. But because you’re a square you can’t see that it’s a sphere, you just see a circle. That’s how you have to interpret it, because that’s the only perspective you have. The brain is kind of like that. All we have is this one way to view things, as objective relations, and so right now all we see is this gray lump, this cauliflower mass. We think that’s what the brain is because we’re seeing it the only way we know how. But one day we’re going to be able to see the sphere. We’ll be able to see your mind for what it really is. And everything will be different.”

Ari, his little face condensed in nervousness, nods his head at Kierk, backing away.

“Remember that, Ari. Remember that!” Kierk calls after him, causing Ari to turn back slightly as if he was going to address Kierk but then he changes his mind and shuffles quickly into the milling group, the rounded hunch of his backpack soon lost amid all the others.

Mike is looking at Kierk with a sneer on his face. He throws up his hands.

“What the hell, Kierk.”

“Oh, you think I’m wrong, Mike? I bet I could squash whatever petty worldview you have with one hand tied behind my back. Want to talk population coding and macro causation? Chaos theory and computational irreducibility? Copenhagen vs. many-world? Supervenience and negentropy?”

“Kierk, you were basically yelling at that kid. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I wasn’t yelling, I was correcting you. You, who somehow solved the mind-body problem and didn’t bother telling anyone.”

“We’re not here to confuse them.”

“No, we’re here to protect them from morons who—”

“Kierk.” Carmen, who’s come up behind him, puts a hand on his arm because the two are now within a foot of each other.

“Come here, help me with this, we need to break down our table.” Kierk laughs suddenly and explosively, claps Mike on the arm so fast and hard that Mike flinches, then the humor vanishes from Kierk’s face. He and Carmen walk away as the remaining children trickle out the door, leaving a mess of a room with people dismantling their stations.

“It’s not worth it, Kierk, it’s not,” Carmen says.

He stops, grabbing her arm. Turning her to him and looking her deep in the eye he says—“It’s not?”