Hope, Levy, Marc [good summer reads TXT] 📗

looking at each other, like I saw in the restaurant earlier today. I want to feel inspired by a couple kissing . . .”

“Kissing how?” Hope interrupted.

“Like this.” Josh kissed her. “I want to be moved when I see old couples, like the one on that bench over there, people who still feel good about life. I want to have that feeling you get when a dog looks up at you like you mean everything in the world to him. Did I ever tell you about this old dog I had when I was a kid?”

“No, but don’t stop,” Hope urged him.

“I want to be heart-struck by the kind of secret glance you exchange in the middle of a crowd, the kind we exchange in class. I want to be swept up in a laughing fit, like the ones you get, Hope, when you’re definitely not supposed to laugh. I even want to be scared, scared of being abandoned, because I’m still scared you’ll get bored and leave me.” He paused. “I think you recognize the people who love the way you love. You recognize when a person sees the world with the same innocence you do. People who have hope and self-doubt, but who never doubt the people they love. It’s a privilege to know you, Hope.”

Hope leaned in to Josh and whispered in his ear, telling him how badly she wanted him, and how she didn’t know if she could wait.

He didn’t need the encouragement, and he didn’t need to check his wallet. He whistled for a cab.

The next day, they found Luke in a somber mood. He barely spoke a word to either of them, and Hope drew on every last drop of humor she had in her to win him around to the idea of grabbing a beer later that afternoon. Finally, Luke told them what had happened. He had the results of the Center experiments. And they were inconclusive. Something wasn’t working, and he had no idea what that was.

Hope suggested they spend the evening there, so they could take a look over the protocol together, and Luke agreed. Josh would finally be forced to spend time on their research.

The next few days rushed by in a whirl, with the three friends working hard and splitting their time between classes, review for exams, and evenings at the Center, starting over with their experiment again each time they failed.

They slept in shifts, snatching a few hours of sleep here and there, resting their heads on the corner of a table or on the lab floor when the nights looked set to be long ones.

As exam season loomed, Hope’s face had grown thinner, and the circles under her eyes darker. Josh had given up smoking pot and Luke alcohol, yet still they were exhausted, spending their only free Sunday sleeping, and then sleeping some more.

To keep them going through their exam week, they slurped down energy drinks spiked with Hope’s special chemical magic dust. They passed their exams with flying colors and three bouts of palpitations, one of which saw them rushing to the ER, where they spent a night waiting for their heart rates to settle and a doctor to give them a stern talking-to.

Passing their exams meant they would be going ahead for their next year of college. But Luke and Josh still weren’t sure whether they’d have the money to continue. If they wanted to pursue their education, they needed to keep up the experiments at the Center and reassure Flinch, who was beginning to have serious doubts about their project.

Hope didn’t have the same money troubles, yet she understood what was at stake for her friends, and the three of them threw heart and soul into their research.

They had successfully completed two steps: the neurons were continuing to link up on the silicone plates, and the processors they formed were responding well to the simple programs Josh designed. They had succeeded in flicking a switch, making a little robot move, and even making it carry around a sugar cube it picked up using articulated tongs Luke had managed to assemble. It wasn’t artificial intelligence yet, exactly—but as Josh was constantly reminding them, they had accomplished a lot, with nothing more than neurons sourced from a rat’s brain. The jackpot would be getting the components to interact with a computer.

One night, the air-conditioning unit was turned up so high, Hope rubbed her hands together over an IT server’s ventilation fan. As her fingers gradually regained a little color, she whirled around to face Josh, who was concentrating hard on getting his precious components to connect with their electronic counterparts.

“They’re frozen!” Hope shouted. “Our tadpoles! The cold air has paralyzed them!”

Hope called the components tadpoles, and she had even named some of them.

“When they link up, they consume heat and lose energy. We need to be raising their temperature to over thirty-seven-point-two degrees Celsius.”

“The entire industry is aiming to cool down its components, and you want to do the exact opposite?” Luke asked.

“But ours are alive,” Hope replied, although she wasn’t entirely convinced that her idea made sense. But if Fleming had discovered penicillin after forgetting samples in his laboratory when he went on vacation, then entire nights spent freezing her ass off in a chilly laboratory were just as valid a source of inspiration.

Josh and Luke exchanged doubtful glances, and Hope realized she had planted the seed.

“I mean, why not?” Josh shrugged.

“Because we could end up killing them?” Luke snorted. “That’s why not.”

“So let’s start over with steps one and two,” said Hope.

“And waste two or three weeks’ time? There’s no way Flinch would agree.”

Despair gripped Josh by the throat.

“We have to at least try.”

“Hang on.” Hope raised a hand. “Do we all agree that if we fail, we fail together?”

“And if we succeed, we succeed together?” Luke and Josh asked in unison.

“I hadn’t thought of that, but once the two of you have showered me in praise,