Hyperthought
by M. M. Buckner[ Science Fiction ]
Hyperthought recounts the adventures of a young man who trusts an unscrupulous doctor to enhance his brain function, and of a young woman who tries to save him.
The year is 2125, and the Earth has undergone drastic climate change due to global warming. People crowd in sealed underground habitats to avoid the stormy, toxic surface. Feisty little Jolie Sauvage leads extreme surface adventure tours for rich executives.
Jolie's friend, Dr. Judith Merida, is peddling a new cosmetic neurosurgery, which she claims will wake the brain's latent, unconscious senses.
Jolie makes a disasterous mistake when she introduces Dr. Merida to one of her wealthy tour group clients, Jin Sura, an arrogant but troubled young man with a terrible desire for knowledge.
LOSING HIS MIND
I took out the second nurse with a chopstick jab and began clawing at Jin's straps. Releasing his buckles seemed to take long agonizing minutes, but when I started yanking at the wires connected to Jin's body, he woke up and shrieked in pain.
"That's arterial bleeding. He'll die in seconds." Merida stood in the doorway. I glanced around and saw all three cyberguards at her back.
For an instant, we hung silent. Bright red blood continued to pulse from Jin's neck, saturating the sheets.
Merida was losing her composure. "Fool! Your stupidity will kill him. Let me close that wound."
I said, "Move into the hall, and you can send a cybernurse to fix him. But don't try anything, or I'll stab his brain and destroy your whole project."
What could I do, leave him there for Merida to play with and wait in my cell till the guards came to kill me? For all I knew, Jin's mind might be locked in an endless nightmare of suffering. This was no time for logic. I felt a ferocious compulsion to get Jin away from Merida at any cost. And I wasn't about to give up.
