“And what—you became a super-genius?”
“No. It almost killed me.” She frowned deeply and looked troubled as she remembered. “Apparently, rat brains and human brains aren’t exactly alike,” she noted wryly. “Who would have guessed?”
“What happened exactly?”
Kira shifted in her chair and a pained expression crossed her face. “There were a multitude of negative effects. I won’t describe them all. Complete loss of hearing. Some ‘trippy’ hallucinogenic and bizarre sensory effects like those caused by LSD. A killer headache.” She paused. “But the worst part was that I found the rewiring had impacted parts of my autonomic nervous system. My heartbeat and breathing were no longer automatic.” She shook her head in horror. “Every single second for the three hours the transformation lasted—while dealing with LSD like hallucinations—I had to consciously instruct my heart to beat and my lungs to inhale, just as you would have to instruct your hand to clench, over and over.” She shuddered. “It was the longest, most terrifying three hours of my life—by far.”
Desh found himself totally absorbed. “And this result didn’t scare you off?”
“Almost,” she said earnestly. “Almost. But the rat work had shown me that it was an iterative process. The first seventy-eight rats died, so at least the research with them gave me enough direction that I avoided this fate—narrowly. But starting with rat seventy-nine, I was able to gradually refine the rewiring without further casualties, leading to number ninety-four.”
“So you thought you could replicate this result with yourself as the lab rat?”
“Exactly. The next few experiments I conducted inside a flotation tank. This way I didn’t have sensory input constantly bombarding my brain and tying up neuronal real estate. I could focus on what was happening in the creative centers of my brain.” She paused. “It took me another eighteen months to build to the current, stable level of intelligence, fifty to one hundred IQ points at a time. The more I improved my own intelligence the more obvious additional improvements became. At each new level, problems I had struggled with for weeks became solvable in minutes.”
Desh thought about her claim. Could she really have shown this magnitude of improvement? Maybe. The existence of autistic savants certainly made this a possibility. As she had pointed out, it was undeniable that these rare humans could effortlessly calculate square roots or memorize entire phone books. How long would it take him to match these same feats? The answer was easy—never.
Her story was far-fetched, but at the moment it all held together and explained her after-hours experiments at NeuroCure and why a sensory deprivation tank had been found in her condo.
“And your final IQ?”
“In the end, there was no way to measure it. The most challenging problems on a standard IQ test were instantly obvious. Any number generated on this scale would no longer have meaning.”
Desh considered. “So how do you administer this viral gene cocktail of yours?”
“Injections in the beginning. But I ultimately made advances and was able to imbed the solution inside hollowed-out gellcaps. This is basically the same as drinking the mix, except the gellcaps deliver precise doses and are more convenient. A gellcap hits the stomach, dissolves almost immediately, and releases the collection of genetically engineered viruses. They travel to the brain instantly and within a relatively short time they’ve inserted their payload genes into cellular chromosomes, which are rapidly expressed.”
Desh paused in thought. “Were you able to eliminate the negative effects?”
Kira sighed heavily. “For the most part,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“I lost my ability to feel emotions. I became purely analytical, achieving thought in its purest form, divorced from any bias or emotional baggage. I did the experiments in my condo,” she explained. “I locked myself in and was alone, so I can’t be certain there weren’t other personality changes that would have been noticeable to people who knew me.” She lowered her eyes. “But there was one effect of the rewiring that was particularly troubling to me,” she admitted.
Desh looked on expectantly.
“During the short time the effect lasted,” said Kira Miller, “my thoughts became more and more,” she paused as if searching for a word. She frowned and shook her head worriedly. “I guess the best word for it would have to be, sociopathic,” she finished disturbingly.
13
Desh’s eyes widened. Once again, Kira Miller had surprised him. She had made such an effort to convince him she wasn’t a sociopath, chipping away at his resolve with worrisome effectiveness, only to make a statement like this.