"After all, I am your birthday present." I don't know. Can we just talk for a while?" Sure. We can talk as long as you want. Or until three or so. The... I'm just going to fade out." I said."What do you want to talk about?" Well, I was wondering how you knew how to do that to me. You know, that thing you did in the living room when you were giving me the massage? How did you know that was going to get me off so quick?" Actually, I didn't. I was just doing what felt right at the time. You went off. The problem was that I couldn’t determine for sure that there were meaningful patterns in the micro-magnetic impulses, and if there were I sure didn’t know how to convert them into a meaningful output. My data were promising insofar as test subjects thinking different kinds of thoughts produced radically different magnetic fields, but I couldn’t even begin to guess how I could ever relate them back to what underlying meaning they might have. With billions of neurons and neural connections in. I’m pretty sure that your reaction is quite different from that most teenagers would have. You are good with this. Right?”“We are,” Liya said. “We derive benefits from it, so you shouldn’t consider us any sort of martyrs.”“What are those benefits?”“Carol is happier than we’ve ever seen her, and Gracey and I get to live with all of our sisters and two of our subsidiary moms whenever we’re here. Since we both like and love both moms and all of our sisters, there’s no downside to this for. And she loved him. Todd loved her. And I loved her.My head swivelled back to stare at the opposing noseguard, and as I called out the count, I remembered...June 1972...three months earlierThe phone call caught my by surprise. It was the first week of summer vacation, and I was planning on sleeping in. My summer job wasn't scheduled to start for another week, and Todd was away at summer camp, working as a counselor. My own girlfriend and I had broken up about a month ago, so it couldn't be.