Jay’s needle touched the skin behind my right ear. “This might sting.”

Blue pain seared down my neck like flame from a welder’s torch. “Ow! Cut it out!”

Jay grinned. “Don’t be such a baby.”

 

“What is this thing?”

“I’ve injected a biometric sensor beneath your skin.”

 

“Great.” I rubbed behind my ear. “I don’t feel a bump or anything.”

 

“It’s a nano, very tiny and close to your alleged brain.”

 

“How will this help me again?”

 

“You recall what I’m working on?”

 

I looked at my genius friend closely. He was pale, thin, bordering on anorexic, and his hair looked like a gerbil’s nest — all normal. Still, he sounded concerned. “I know what you’re supposed to be doing, but you usually do something else.”

 

“Working underneath the table is what great scientists do. If you gave me more freedom, I wouldn’t have to sneak around.”

 

“Okay, I get it, but I’m just a middleman.”

 

“Well? Do you remember what I’m doing?”

 

I sighed. “You’re working to improve human/e-device interfaces, trying to make them thought-activated. This nano-gizmo is probably supposed to help you achieve that.”

 

“Exactly. It taps into autonomic nerves and monitors the impulses they generate. Then it translates these impulses into signals that our devices may receive and translate into action. Airplane and helicopter pilots would become birds. A surgeon would have fingers at the molecular level. Even you can imagine how powerful a true symbiosis between humans and their tech tools might prove to be.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. How does messing with my small brain further your research?”

 

“I’ve found some interesting side effects.”

 

I turned and looked at him. “Side effects?”

 

Jay studied his monitor’s screen. “Very unlikely. The radiation exposure is minimal.”

 

“Radiation? Exposure? You never said anything about radiation!”

 

“Just a tiny amount from the device. Don’t worry about it. This gets pretty theoretical.”

 

“Try me. It’s my brain that’s going to experience your radiation side effects.”

 

Jay considered how to dumb his theory down to my level. “Some physicists have suggested that time is a totality.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“You know — that time is all there, like a giant water balloon. They postulate that we might perceive time sequentially only because our senses are limited. We can’t perceive its totality.”

 

“Time is a water balloon? Right.”

 

“Of course, assuming we could expand our awareness of time beyond our own senses, the whole water balloon would still be orders of infinity too large for us to comprehend, but...”

 

“But? There’s a but?”

 

“But the little sensors I’ve been working on to improve human-device interface have shown a property beyond their intended function. They’ve been picking up signals from human brains that are unknown — or at least unstudied — by science. You’ve heard of precognition?”

 

“Sure, seeing the future. Some sort of magic act?”

 

“Not exactly. Some people have always mysteriously known about the occurrence of events beyond the scope of their senses, both in the present and the future. How? Their brains are open to time’s totality but only process a fraction of what they capture.”

 

“So?”

 

“So I think most people capture big chunks of time’s totality. Their brains just don’t deal with most of it. They rebroadcast it and never know it.

 

“My brain does this?”

 

“Yes, and the nano-chip I just implanted in you is one that I enhanced to amplify these mystery waves and allow me to receive them.”

 

“My brain is sending these waves out?”

 

“Yes, they’re showing up on my scope right now.”

 

“Like some sort of a time machine?”

 

“No, not a machine for travel, more like a Go-Pro time-cam. These waves may allow a glimpse at a small chunk of your time, both your objective past and objective future.”

 

“What! You’re going to look at my past? My past is none of your business!”

 

“Hey, we’ve known each other for years! I am your past!”

 

“Well, not all of it, not some of the best parts.”

 

“Come on — I don’t want to see you sitting on the toilet or making out with Glenda, though that might be fun.”

 

“That’s my fiancé you’re talking about! Genius or not, you’re about to get punched in the mouth!”

 

“Easy, Paul. A half-hour globe of time comprises an enormous amount of data, even of your time. I can’t intrude on your personal activities, not unless you do something wild in the next fifteen minutes or so.”

 

“So what do you want to do then?”

 

Jay grinned. “I just want to see if it really works. If it does, and if I can explain it, I’ll write it up and collect my Nobel next year. How about it?”

 

“You want me to be your time scope?”

 

“Just until later this morning.”

 

“Half an hour?”

 

He nodded. “Half an hour. Then I’ll disconnect the monitor.”

 

“Promise?”

 

“Scouts’ honor.”

 

“I’ve known some crooked Boy Scouts, but okay.” I glanced at my phone. “Damn! I’ve got a meeting with Henry at the campus in Palo Alto. If I get stuck in traffic, I’ll be late. I’m out of here.” I paused and looked back as I opened the door. “When are you going to take the gizmo out?”

 

“Come by after work. I’ll pop it out then.”

 

“I might be late.”

 

“I’ll be here.”

 

“See you.”

 

* * *

 

Ten minutes later, I headed through Redwood City on El Camino, trying to get to 101 South. My phone rang. It was Jay. “Hey, I’m driving, you know?”

 

“I know. I need to tell you something.”

 

“I’m late for my meeting. Can’t it wait until later?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, what?” The light turned, and I stepped on the gas.

 

Brakes screeched. I glanced left. An SUV’s gleaming red hood loomed a few feet from my shoulder. The driver’s eyes went wide, and his mouth gaped like a black tunnel.

 

Jay whispered. “Adiós, my friend.”