Wired

She winced at this; regret at having to restrain him etched in every line of her face. Her body language seemed totally genuine, and Desh realized she was as brilliant an actor as she was a biologist.

“The information you have on my childhood and schooling is correct,” she began softly. “Except my parents really did die in a tragic accident—I had nothing to do with it.”

“The report never said you did.”

“But you assumed it, didn’t you?”

Desh remained silent.

“Of course you did,” she said knowingly.

“Are we going to argue about what I assumed, or are you going to make your case?”

Kira sighed. “You’re right,” she said unhappily. She visibly gathered herself and then resumed. “I excelled in school and later found my calling in gene therapy. I was told by many in the field I had the kind of insight and intuition that comes around once in a generation. Over time, I came to believe it myself. In fact, I became convinced that I could truly change the world. Make a dramatic impact on medicine.” She paused. “But the key to making an impact is choosing the right problem to solve. I wanted to tackle the most challenging problem right from the start. At the risk of sounding immodest,” she added, “if you come to realize you’re Da Vinci, you owe it to the world to paint masterpieces rather than cartoons.”

“Let me guess,” said Desh. “You’re going to tell me the project you chose has nothing to do with bio- weapons.”

“Of course not,” she insisted, irritated. “I decided to solve the ultimate problem, one whose solution would make the solutions to all other problems, medical or otherwise, child’s play.” Her blue eyes twinkled, even in the dim light. “Any guesses?” she challenged.

She looked at him expectantly, obviously wanting him to arrive at the answer on his own. She waited patiently while he mulled it over.

“What?” he said uncertainly after almost a minute of silence. “Build a super-advanced computer?”

“Close,” she allowed. She waited again for him to connect the dots.

Desh’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. The only way to universally make problems easier to solve was to have better tools to solve them. But if enhancing computer capabilities wasn’t the answer, what was? His eyes widened as the answer became obvious. She was a molecular neurobiologist after all, not a computer scientist. “Enhancing intelligence,” he said finally. “Human intelligence.”

“Exactly,” she said, beaming, as if pleased with a star pupil. “Just imagine if you could have infinite intelligence. Unlimited creativity. Then you could easily solve any problem to which you turned your attention— instantly.” She paused. “Now of course there is no such thing as infinite intelligence. But any significant enhancements to intelligence and creativity would truly be the gift that keeps on giving. What better problem for me to solve?”

“Are you suggesting you actually solved it?” he asked skeptically.

“I did,” she confirmed wearily, not looking particularly triumphant or even happy about the supposed accomplishment.

“What, like a Flowers For Algernon kind of improvement?” he said, knowing that even she wouldn’t have the audacity to claim she had achieved increases in intelligence as great as those described in this story.

The corners of her mouth turned up in a slight smile. “No. My results were far more impressive than that,” she said matter-of-factly.

12

Desh was almost prepared to believe she had managed some kind of improvement in her own intelligence, but not this. “Impossible,” he insisted. “Even for you.”

“Not impossible. I have a deep knowledge of neurobiology and a genius level intuition with respect to gene therapy. Combine this with single-minded devotion and trial and error and it can be done.”

“So what are you trying to say, that I’m talking to someone with an IQ of 1000? More?”

She shook her head. “The effect is transient. I’m just regular me right now.”

“Very convenient,” said Desh. “Not that I have an IQ test with me anyway,” he conceded. He thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I’m not buying it. We’ve evolved to become the most intelligent creatures on the planet. I’m sure there’s a limit. If we haven’t reached it yet we have to be awfully close.”

“Are you kidding,” she responded ardently. “You can’t even begin to imagine the potential of the human brain. Without any optimization, it’s already faster and more powerful than the most advanced supercomputers ever built. But it’s theoretical capacity is staggering: thousands and thousands of times greater than a supercomputer.”

“The human brain isn’t faster than a supercomputer,” argued Desh. “Hell, it isn’t even as fast as a dollar calculator.”

“We’re not wired for math,” explained Kira, shaking her head. “We evolved, remember? All evolution cares about is survival and reproduction. The brain is optimized to keep us alive in a hostile world and induce its owner to have sex. Period. And when it comes to preoccupation with sex,” she noted, amused, “Male brains are especially optimized.” She continued to look amused as she added, “But don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to criticize men. I’m sure some of our male ancestors didn’t think about sex all the time,” she said. “But this trait died out. Do you know why?”

Desh remained silent.

“Because the horny guys had all the children,” she said, smiling.

In other circumstances Desh might have returned her smile, but he forced himself to remain expressionless and maintained his icy stare. He was a hostage to a psychopath, and he couldn’t afford to let her charm him.

“Anyway,” she continued with a sigh, clearly disappointed that her brief attempt at levity had had no effect. “My point is that we’re not wired for math. How does a square root help us kill a lion or stay alive? It doesn’t. What does help us is the ability to throw a spear accurately. Or to dodge a spear thrown by a rival clan,” she added. “And remember, unlike a computer, the brain is controlling our every movement, breath, heartbeat, and blink of an eye, and even our every emotion. And all the while it’s taking in massive amounts of sensory information—nonstop. Your retina alone has over one hundred million cells constantly relaying visual information to your brain; in ultra-high definition I might add. If a computer had to monitor and manage your every bodily function and download, process, and react to this never-ending barrage of information, it would melt.”

Desh was fascinated despite himself. Maybe she was the devil, he thought grimly. Here he was fighting for his life and inexplicably, against his will, he continued to respond to her both physically and intellectually.

“The roundworm C. elegans functions quite well with a nervous system containing just 302 neurons,” continued Kira. “Do you know how many neurons the human brain has?”

“More than 302,” said Desh wryly.

“One hundred billion,” said Kira emphatically. “One hundred billion! And on the order of one hundred trillion synaptic connections between them. Not to mention two million miles of axons. Electrical signals are constantly zipping along neuronal pathways like pinballs, creating thought and memory. The possible number of neuronal pathways that can be formed by the human brain are basically infinite. And a computer uses base two. A circuit can either be on or off; one or zero. But your brain is far more nuanced. The number of possible circuits your brain can use for calculation, or thought, or invention, puts the possible number available to computers to shame.”

“Okay,” said Desh, nodding toward her with his head since his hands were still cuffed to the headboard and unavailable for any gesturing. “Whatever else is true or false, you are an expert molecular neurobiologist, so I’ll concede the point. The brain has massive potential.” He paused and raised his eyebrows. “But how do you tap into this potential?”

“Good question,” she said. “If you’re me, you start by studying differences between the brain architecture of geniuses and those that are moderately mentally handicapped.”

“What does moderately mean?”

“IQ of forty to fifty-five. They’re able to learn up to about a second grade level. The dynamic range in human