Dresner looked out over his audience again. The phone icon at the edge of the screen expanded and the address book went immediately from names starting with “A” to names starting with “S,” finally scrolling to “Stamen, Bob.” A moment later, the tinny sound of Blondie’s “Call Me” filled the room.

The increasingly nervous-looking man answered and his voice was transmitted through the PA system by Dresner’s Merge. “Hello?”

“Hi, Bob. How’re things?”

“Good.”

Janine leaned forward, squinting at Dresner as he chatted. “How is he controlling those icons and scrolling through the names? Is it tracking his eye movements?”

Smith had been wondering the same thing. “I don’t think so. You’d see the screen image moving around. He was looking straight at the crowd when that app opened.”

“Maybe this was all set up beforehand. Maybe the system’s just in some kind of demonstration mode.”

“I don’t know. Maybe…”

Dresner pulled out his Bluetooth headset and laid it on the lectern before walking back to center stage. “I’ve always hated those things. They hurt my ear. How about you, Bob?”

“Um…” Stamen said, missing a few beats as he wrestled with the same thing everyone else was—why was Dresner’s voice still being picked up by the PA and why could he still hear the phone call? “I don’t like them.”

“Exactly! Me neither. So I thought, What if I just had a tiny microphone built into a custom cap that clamps to one of my back teeth? And on top of that, what if I had a much smaller and more sophisticated version of my hearing implants route sound directly to my brain?”

There was complete silence in the auditorium for a few seconds before everyone started talking at once. The tone wasn’t necessarily excitement, though. More of an impressed skepticism apparently shared by the young woman sitting next to him.

“Okay, he’s definitely into cool nerd territory now, but if you find your Bluetooth so uncomfortable, there are a bunch of companies that will make you a custom earpiece. That’s gotta be cheaper and easier than getting a dentist to make something that fits on your tooth and getting studs screwed into your skull.”

“I dunno,” Smith responded. “I’ve worked with a lot of people who use Dresner’s hearing system and they all say it aches a little for a couple of days and then you forget the studs are even there until they need to be recharged. And he’s saying he made them even smaller.”

She scowled and leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her chest again. If there was any great truth, it was that her generation was virtually impossible to impress where technology was concerned. They always wanted more.

“Thanks, Bob. I’ll talk to you later,” Dresner said. The color drained from the phone icon and it tucked itself back into the side of the massive screen.

He started pacing again, the audience following his every move. “I’ve had terrible vision my entire life and I know I look ridiculous with these huge lenses but I’ve never been able to get comfortable with contacts.”