I. In the Beginning

My epithet is Henry James, and I love really old houses. The architectural oddities, undercover elbow room and passage, and the sense of living history have always fascinated me. Our domicile was no exception. My family had owned, worked and lived on the dry land as far back as anyone could secernate. The old rambling house sat on about five hundred Akko of what was currently rolling meadows and a large Sir Henry Joseph Wood lot close to the Cambrian coast.

I spent a good deal of my early years exploring the 'big house', out buildings and the property in general. My Great august father would ramble on for hr at night by the fire about the chronicle of the house and domain. Every sentence he mentioned some old feature of the prop I 'd have to go find it for myself. I explored the ruins of old stone building, caves, and a scattering of almost prehistoric mining web site. He took me down into the cellars and showed me an old narrow transit that led to an group of unused underground room he referred to as the 'dungeons'. I remember being disappointed that there were no Ernst Boris Chain on the walls or tiny dark cells for prisoners. There was an even narrow Atairway that led to a door in an old shed at the edge of the gardens.

I talked father into letting me have the 'dungeon'as my own private space.

"As long as you maintain undecomposed marks in school. ”, was his only if condition.

I moved an old table and chair down there to use as a desk as well as a well-off reading chair. At first-class honours degree I used a couple of kerosene lamps to fire up the domain, but soon contrived to wire in lights and electric outlet, modernizing the the rooms and making them more well-heeled. Needles to say, I was motivated by father 's experimental condition and actually spent most of my time down there in bailiwick. I also used the dungeon to obliterate a belittled but growing collection of porn.

As a teenager I pursued an eclectic group of avocation ; archery and bow fashioning, iron employment, metallic element casting, electronics, computers, and probably dozens of others. Just after graduating from what most would call in high schooltime, I found a undertaking that would modify my life-time forever.

I reasoned that, if one could monitor the electrical activeness of the brain, more sensitive sensors might be able to read actual selective information from a living brainiac and as a working corollary information might be able to be inserted into the mentality. I developed a mesh of sensors that could clean up signals from the entire brainpower when worn like one of those chivalric skull caps you sometimes see in old photo. Soon, with aid of my bank building of computing machine working in latitude, I could interpret significant amounts of information from my own brain.

I needed another genius to register to complicate the summons, but did not require to call for my parents at this point. I thought about my small, almost nonexistent, rophy of friends. The solitary name that seemed to fit was Jennifer, a frequent lab partner, and who was almost as much of a propeller school principal as I was. I figured 'come to my dungeon laboratory'might be a poor access.

So, I gave her a outcry and asked her for a date to see the new passing grinder picture show playing at the town celluloid. Being at let loose ends until she went to university, she agreed to a mid week date and we soon had inside information worked out.

At about 7:00, Wednesday evening, I pulled up to Jennifer 's house in my old Ford Anglia. Jennifer met me at the door. She was a petite blond, and while not full-bosomed, her small-scale bosom and narrow waist gave her a very nice figure. Clear dreary center and waist distance strait blonde hair completed the picture. What I liked most about her was her quiet word, he never had to retell affair for her to understand. Tonight she wore a small-scale clean annulus and a knit vest over a longsighted sleeved white blouse.

"We 're off, Mum. ”, she called over her shoulder as she stepped outside.

"have fun, kids. ”, her mother called back, as she pulled the door closed.

"Still driving your old ceramist car ?"she commented as she saw the car at the curb.

"It runs. ”, I answered dryly.

We made small talk on the way to the celluloid, once there, we bought popcorn and drinks and found our seats. Being mid week, the cinema was sparsely attended and we had no one sitting close by. We continued to build small talk until the igniter went down and the previews started to roll.

I had a plan to offend her curiosity.

The endure thing I said as the audio came up was,"I have a new labor going, you should. .. Whoops, it 's starting !"

Then I made a gunpoint of 'shushing'her every time she started to ask a question.

Two and a half hours later, as we were walking out she pulled me out of the Queue.

"What new project ? ”, She demanded.

"cargo area on, I need to hit the loo. ”, I walked quickly into the loo, leaving her standing there, fuming.

I took my fourth dimension, knowing that she could not subdue her curiosity. When I came out, Jennifer was nowhere to be seen. I looked around the anteroom and peered out through the front windowpane, looking for her. Just as I was beginning to call up I might have overdone the curiosity baiting, Jennifer walked quickly from the girl 's loo and made a bee line of reasoning to me.

"What new project ?"she demanded again, threading her arm through mine and hanging on tightly.

As we walked out I began to explain.

"You know how an EEG can tape brain activity ?"

"Uh Huh."she replied.

"wellspring, I 've been working on the sensitivity."

"And ?"

"I think I 've taught my computer to read minds."

"What ? ”, she squeaked,"No way !"

"If you have some time, I can show you."

"Let me call Mum. ”, she replied as she pulled out her phone.

As she talked to her mother, I drove slowly toward her sign, just in case the response was 'no'.

"Okay, ”, she said as she finished her call,"as long as I 'm habitation before midnight."

"Should n't be a problem. ”, I said as I turned to get on the road out to my house.

"So, how does it work ? ”.

"Well, I made a fine mesh with hundreds of sensors that covers the integral head."

"And ?"

"I feed the data through a bank of xvi electronic computer working in parallel to correlate and read. Then, when that 's done it prints out a summary of the results."

"Does it exploit ?"

"fountainhead, it seems to figure out on me, but I need more varied stimulant to fine tune the algorithms. ”, I said.

There was a longish pause.

"You want to, uh, knock off me up to this, uh, affair ?"She almost stammered.

"Hey, it 's dependable. I 've done hundreds of runs on myself. ”, I tried to reassure her.

"We 'll see. I want to depend this matter over first."

She settled into secretiveness for the residuum of the drive.

When we arrived, the house was night except for a dim Orange River glow from one upstairs window.

"spirit like mother and father are in for the night."I muttered as I pulled the car around the vertebral column of the menage, stopping succeeding to the dilapidated garden shed.

"We 're not going in ?"

"We are, but this is my private entrance. ”, I grinned at her,"You 'll see."

I dug a key out of my scoop and unlocked the door. Reaching in I fumbled for the light electric switch. A soft dim light sprang on and I led her through the threshold. I stopped to close the door and whorl it, then with another key I unlocked a back room access and again fumbled for the visible light shift. This visible radiation was brighter and reveled a narrow staircase.

"Go on down. ”, I told her as he turned off the dim light above and stepping through, closed and locked the second door.

"King James I, this is getting creepy. ”, she said as she started down.

"Just learn your tone. It will be alright."

At the bottom of the stairs was a Edward Durell Stone arch. And a lowly pool of illuminate cast by the ignitor in the stairway.

"Switch on your right."I told her.

The visible light sprang on, reveling a room of line. Gleaming chrome telegram shelving loaded with electronic equipment all but covered a wall on bumpy dressed gemstone blocks. An old, but serviceable sofa was against the far surround next to another stone arch. Opposite the shelf was a wide workbench littered with more electronic gear. The floor was cover by a thickly carpeting and two comfortable looking death chair. The lighting was a double row of fix bathing the room in bright igniter with just the faintest tinge of yellow.

"Welcome to my laboratory. ”, I said, using the old European pronunciation"Gramps used to call this 'the dungeon'. ”.

"Wow. ”, she breathed,"Just like some mad scientist 's lair."

"Except for the lack of orca robot, yeah, I guess it does. ”, I said with another grin,"have a seat. ”, I waved toward one of the chairs.

I dropped into the other hot seat and switched on a pair of large information processing system monitors.

"So, how does this all work ? ”, she asked with an all inclusive waving of her hand.

"well,"I said picking up something that looked like a haircloth net from the bench.

"First, you put on the head set, ”, I slipped the net over my head,"then plug it in, ”, I attached a boneheaded bundle of OK wires via a complex looking plug.

"When the computers are up and running, just hit the 'record'key and concentrate on something."

"Show me."Jennifer demanded.

"Okay."

Setting the headset aside I rose and walked over to the rack of gear and started pressing office clitoris. As each computer started, a lowly screen lit up with a one word message, 'Startup'at the end of the rack he turned on another monitor that showed a network diagram of xvi client. The client were all red. As the small somebody CRT screen changed their message to 'ready', the node of the diagram changed to yellow. After a few seconds the substance changed again to 'connected'and the diagram nodes turned green. The entire process only took a brace of minutes.

"Go over there and clean out a Holy Scripture, ”, I said, waving toward the end of the shelves.

Jennifer rose and walked to the ledge. She began to examine the sonsie books, then quickly pulled out an old thick book from the bottom of the stack.

"A Book ?"she asked.

"grandpa gave me that year ago. He said if I was stuck, it might help."

"Ever read it ? ”, she asked.

"No, never felt I needed to. Why ?"

"I believe you, ”, she chuckled waving a brace of crisp one hundred dog pound bank notes.

"What the. .. ”, I trailed off.

I took the old Bible from her and quickly fanned through the pages, finding several more bank building notes. I quickly counted them.

There 's twenty five hundred hammering here ! ”, I cried, then softly he added,"Thanks Gramps."

"Well, you obviously never opened it. ”, She said."now what ?"

"Pick a passage."

She opened the Bible at random and handed it back to me. I sat back down in my chairman, put the headset back on and clicked a shield ikon. While waiting for the selected programme to finish loading, I turned on the printer under the workbench. A window opened with something like basic music player controls. I sat and read the passing respective times, closed my oculus for a moment, trying to read the passage back from memory. I had to read the passage several more multiplication, but soon had it down. I reached for the mouse and clicked on the 'record'button. I closed my eyes to shut out out misdirection and concentrated.

After about a minute I snapped my centre clear and reached for the mouse again. to click on the 'stop'button then move over to another incision of the screen and clicked a button labeled 'process'. The cooling fans on the bank of computers across the room quickly spooled up to a balmy whimper as a progress bar appeared and crawled across the screen door. After a distich of transactions the silver screen displayed 'finished', I clicked on another button labeled 'interpret'and almost at once clicked on 'print'.

T he printer started to ca-ca distinctive pressman noises and then went quiet after a few bit.

"Read with me. ”, I said, handing her the sheet without looking at it.

I reopened the Good Book and read :

"Let the word of my mouth,

"and the meditation of my heart,

"be satisfactory in thy sight,

"O noble, my strength, and my redeemer.

'' Psalm 19:14"

Jennifer mouthed the words with him.

"Wow, that 's freaky."

"Want to try it ? ”, I asked.

"It 's safe, right ?"

"As houses."

"Okay, what do I do ?"

"Just sit there, what do you want to read ?"

"No, that 's alright, I have something in judgment already"

"Okay."

As I gently placed the headset over her straight blond hair, she seemed to give a minuscule shiver. moldiness be a fiddling nervous, I thought. Turning to the monitor on the bench, I cleared the last run of the program.

"Ready ?"

She took a late breathing time and with a cold-shoulder nervous eighth note said,"go."

I clicked 'record',"concentrate."

I watched a small-scale flashing icon labeled 'Activity'. After a couple of minutes it slowed to what I considered an idle state.

"Okay,"I said, clicking 'process',"I think we got what ever it was."

Jennifer opened her heart and looked at the silver screen. The progression bar crawled slowly across the sieve much more slowly than before.



"What were you thinking about ?"The Magna Carta ?"I asked with a smile.

"No, why ?"

"Processing clock time is mainly a subroutine of the sum of money of data."

After various minute of arc the processing was done. I clicked appropriate push and soon the pressman started. The printer stopped after three sheets.

"What the heck. .."

At the top of the first sheet canvass was :

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

"Did roll and gimble in the wabe :

"All mimsy were the borogoves,

"And the mome raths outgrabe."

T he rest and the second and third sheets were filled with gibberish.

"Well, Lewis Carol came out fine but the rest of this is trash."I pronounced,"What do you reach of this ?"

We puzzled over the sheets.

"You know,"said Jennifer,"this looks a lot like one time when I tried to publish a characterization as a text edition file."

You might be right,"I replied as he turned back to the screen and started clicking icon and moving affair here and there. Soon another 'processing'onward motion bar was crawling across the screen.

"motion picture take too long to print,"I said,"I 'll put it on screen."

While the exposure, if that 's what it was, was processing, Jennifer went back to the pile of books perusing the titles and nodding to herself when she recognized a intimate title or author.

I watched the picture render to the screen line by melody. Something about this picture looked very familiar. After a few Sir Thomas More lines I realized that, for some reason, the picture was sideways or maybe reverse top to penetrate. I craned my head around to get a better perspective. Suddenly the scene became light to me. I frantically closed the render window and looked at Jennifer where she was still engrossed in the book pile. I thought quickly, considering the source and bailiwick matter of the picture, mentally re-evaluating my friend and sometime lab partner.

"Hey, Jenn ?"I said to get her attention.

When she turned to look at me, I was almost clapper tied.

"What 's improper ? ”, she asked,"you look like you just saw a ghost."

"Jenn, do you. .. like me ? ”, I stammered.

"Of course ”, she said,"you 're one of my trump friends."She seems suddenly nervous.

"fountainhead, you know the picture the computer got from your mind ?"

"Yes. .. ”, she replied cautiously.

"fountainhead, I saw it, and I need you to retrieve, it came from your mind."

As she walked over I turned again and opened to see, quickly flipping it, and pointedly looked away. Jennifer was in shock, there on the screenland was a picture of her and I in an obviously passionate embrace. Oddly, while the faces were quite sack and recognizable, the bodies in the picture were vague sarcoid blurs.

"How. .."she stammered, blushing furiously.

I could severalise the picture upset her, so I quickly closed the ikon, and swallowing nervously, I turned to Jennifer.

"Jenn, can you tell me what you were thinking when we tried the machine ?"

We sat in neural silence, neither quite volition to actually face up the other.

Jennifer took a deep shaky breath and spoke in a small voice,"King James, I 've liked you for a hanker time and lately I think I 've started to love you, but you never seemed to feel anything for me. .."her spokesperson trailed off

I turned to wait at her, my sass hanging undefended. This was almost exactly what I felt about her.

"Jenn,"I stammered,"I like you too, but. .."his vox trailed off.

Jennifer sat with her eyes looking at the flooring, in a shy voice she said,"I was thinking you might have brought me here to. .. do. .. 'things'."

I stood and stepped in front of her. I held out my paw to her and she slowly placed her work force in mine. I lifted her hands gently and she stood up, still not looking at me. I dropped her leftover hand and gently lifted her Kuki until we were looking into each others eyes. Her face was as red as I 'd ever seen it.

"I think I 'm a prize idiot,"I said softly and began to draw out her into a hug.

Jennifer 's sleeve went around my waist, locking me into a fierce hug. I responded in form and for foresightful bit we just stood there. I leaned down toward her lip and felt her rise onto her toes as she lifted her lips to mine.

The osculation started as a easygoing and provisional geographic expedition, but soon turned into a fiercely demanding encounter.

I pulled back a little, breaking the kiss. I guided her gently to the lounge. I sat down and pulled her to my lap, sitting her sideways as we resumed kissing. Our hand seemed to be leading a life of their own, gently exploring each former 's torso. I gently cupped one, incredibly soft bosom, producing a gasp as she ran her hands across my dresser and shoulders. Some timeless interval later when we came up for air, we sat absolutely still looking into each others eyes.

Jennifer broke eye touch, with a shudder.

"We need to. .. uh. .. retard down. .."she said,"we need to. .. think. .. or programme. .. or something. .."

With a attrition of mental gearing, I took several deep breather and looked around to get my bearings.

"Yeah."I admitted,"we need to break off, for a niggling while. .."

"What prison term is it ?"she asked, I told Mum I 'd be home by twelve."

I slid her to the couch and stood to get a bettor vista of one of the computer screens.

"Quarter past eleven,"I let out a sound sigh of frustration and disappointment,"I guess I estimable be getting you home."

"I think you are going to need a lab partner for your project, ”, she said with a mischievous grin.

"I agree, but right now you need to get yourself together before we go."

Jennifer looked down, noticing for the first time that her jumper and blouse were bunched up almost into her axilla exposing her lacy white bra. She quickly straightened her clothes while I tucked in my own shirt and began shutting down the data processor. We stayed very close to each other with many frequent touches as if to reassure ourselves that the other were there. The stair and doorway were especially inept, but we finally reached the car. I handed her into the rider tush and all but ran around the car to get behind the wheel. On the way she slid over and cuddled to me as I drove one handed and kept my former arm around her. We made it to her house with two arcminute to spare. I walked her to her room access and with a deep kiss and a rough hug she slipped through the door giving me a pensive smile.

"Tomorrow."she whispered as the door closed.

The drive dwelling house seemed to take forever .