Hope - Levy, Marc (web ebook reader .TXT) 📗

treated me to a five-star dinner, and taken me on vacation . . . then yes, after that, we’ll call it a joint success!”

“So, tell me, Fleming.” Luke smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What temperature should we set the plates to?”

Hope pretended to think for a moment, although the truth was that she had no idea. She reflected on the temperature that must have brought her fingers back to life. Her little tadpoles would probably need less. Too much heat would be the end of them. She pretended to count the degrees off on her fingers, miming her way through an imaginary subtraction.

“Thirty-eight degrees Celsius! No,” she corrected herself. “Wait. Thirty-seven-point-eight degrees.”

“You’ve just plucked a number out of thin air.” Josh smiled.

“That’s incredibly presumptuous of you. But you’ve caught me out, I have to say.”

“So let’s start at thirty-seven-point-five.”

Josh placed a sample of their “tadpoles” on a heated slide and set about trying to measure the temperature with a probe. His heart nearly stopped when it suddenly jumped to over 38°C before Luke could remove the organic chips, and he rushed over to connect the wires that were spilling out of the computer. The three of them held their breath. And waited.

As the clock struck six in the morning, Luke, Josh, and Hope raised their final glass of the night to their very first successful transfer. They had done it. They had transmitted information between organic processors and their electronic counterparts.

Luke waited to tell Flinch the good news two days later, not because they wanted to repeat the experiment to check it really did work—which they did anyway once they’d announced their results—but because prior to that, not one of the three was capable of stringing together a sentence.

It wasn’t that they had single-handedly brought invaluable insight into artificial intelligence, but the process had been an overarching success from start to finish. A tiny part, no matter how small, of the human-lived experience had been transferred onto a machine. And if they had managed that, on so small a scale, then one day the same process could be replicated on a much bigger level.

Flinch knew this to be true, and so it was that without prompting, he had Longview pay Josh’s and Luke’s tuition for the next two years.

In mid-July, Hope and Josh were forced to be separated for the first time. Hope was keeping her promise and set out to visit her father in San Francisco.

Josh, meanwhile, spent a large chunk of his monthly budget on a phone plan he used up eight days later, although Luke came to his rescue, offering to add minutes to the plan, provided his friend showed a little more restraint. It wasn’t the number of calls eating into Josh’s allowance. In the evenings, he and Hope spent hours talking about how their days had been and fell asleep with their phones resting on the pillows beside them, only hanging up when morning broke and they woke, wishing each other a good day. It happened nightly.

When Hope’s dad went to work at the hospital, she set out to explore San Francisco, falling in love with the city a little more with each new day. She loved wandering around the Castro District, strolling around the marina, foraging for forgotten hidden gems in the Union Street stores, and on clear days, dozing on the black sands at Marshall’s Beach.

Initially resigned, Hope had grown accustomed to Amelia’s presence. When the family came together to eat, Amelia filled the silences that had once studded her childhood meals. Amelia always had a good story to tell, epic tales of her travels, vignettes of clients whom she mimicked to perfection, or descriptions of her excruciating blunders. She was surprisingly funny, Hope realized, and that touched her, as did her sincere affection for Hope’s father. When Amelia announced she would be heading off to tour the state, Hope was almost sad to see her go, and then one day, she was gone. Hope and Sam helped her load up her car and stood there on the front steps, waving her off until she disappeared around the street corner.

Sam was the first to turn on his heel, calling Hope in as he neared the door.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to miss her. Or at least, not until I’ve had my coffee.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But coffee sounds good. Shall we grab one in town?”

“I don’t have time, Hope.” Sam pulled on his raincoat. “I have work to do.”

He snatched up his bag from the hallway and climbed into the station wagon. He rolled the window down and waved at his daughter.

Was it the old Ford, or the gesture that suddenly sparked long-buried memories?

Hope rushed to her father’s office, seizing the opportunity to ransack his drawers and cupboards as she searched.

Where could he have tidied away all her childhood stuff?

She could see him now, in the house in Cape May just as she was preparing to leave, heading up to the attic to store her treasures away in a cardboard box, as if wanting to show her that he, too, could turn the page on their old life. She had smiled softly, realizing it was the only way he knew to hide how he truly felt.

There was no attic, no garage, in this new house, and she had already searched the office, living room, and two bedrooms. She climbed up the stairs and moved toward the walk-in closet. Amelia’s things were strewn across most of the closets already. Pushing through her father’s coats and jackets, she stood on her tiptoes, silently cursing her shortness, and there behind a pile of sweaters, she found it. She muffled a squeal of joy: the box was there, tucked away under a mass of folded sheets. She recognized it immediately and carried it back downstairs to her room.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she lifted the lid and readied herself to start untangling the complicated web of memories that