The Inheritance Scene 55

“Pretty astronomical?”

“Exactly. So the old transhumanist pipe dream of uploading a brain to a computer… It actually worked.”

“OK, so your brain is in this computer?” Maggie tapped the laptop.

“Don’t be silly,” Charlotte replied and laughed. “There’s a mainframe in the other room down here. The laptop is just to make it easier to talk to you.”

Maggie backed out of the room. “This is Nobel-prize level stuff,” she said. “Why hide it?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Several reasons. First: I’m just an old crackpot. Second: It’s impossible to measure this thing. Every instrument I’ve tried insists that it’s not there. And third: Would you trust the governments of the world with this?” She raised her eyebrows.

“I see your point,” Maggie admitted. “So, what’s this all about?”