Cole

Adam and Eve

When I arrived home I told dad I needed to talk to him about something that was extremely important to me. I could tell he looked puzzled but, but Jill looked fine. She already knew what it was about and was okay with it.

We sat down in the living room and I looked at him straight in the eyes so he would know this was real important.

"Dad, I want my girlfriend Amanda Westbrook to be part of the neurosynth team."

I could tell my request made him squirm a little. To be fair, he did not really know her and only saw her once or twice.

"I don't know, Cole, she's just a kid in high school. What role would she play on the team?", he asked.

I had not really thought of that. I just wanted her on the team so she would know the secret of the neurosynths and understand me so I could build my relationship with her. Otherwise, I did not know how I could have her as a girlfriend.

"I'm not sure. She's really artistic. Maybe she can work in marketing or something to help sell our business services?," I said hoping that would sound important enough.

"How old is she?", he asked.

"She's 14, but almost 15."

"That's very young, Cole"

"I know, but I'm only 15.", I said.

"Cole, that's not exactly true. Your body appears to be 15, but as Dr. Mos begins to appear you will become more like a mature adult. I think you're already showing signs of it. Plus you look mature. You are six foot 2" tall and very manly in build. This enables you to command respect. Amanda looks like a child. She is small, maybe only five feet tall...."

"She's five foot one"

"Yeah, but she looks like a very pretty child or adolescent, and not a mature adult. I don't think the rest of the team will understand what you are trying to do. Remember, Cole, our goal is to have you eventually lead this project. Right now, many of the team members think you are just an immature goofy kid, yourself. If the first decision you make for this project is to make a child a team member they probably would be very upset and not agree."

"Dad, this is really really important to me."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know how to continue with my relationship with her if my whole life is a secret."

"Cole, I understand it's important for you to have a dating life and experience what girls in school are like but this project is extremely secretive. Only a few people know and we almost got caught by the Department of Homeland Security when they got your fingerprints.  You know the World is not really ready for this neurosynth stuff yet. There are loads of ethical questions. Right now it isn't illegal as far as we know but that is only because nobody wrote a law to ban it because they don't know about it. What Mos wanted to do was create a lot of neurosynths secretly first, and then show the world they are a good thing. If you ask them for permission before you do it they won't give you the chance to make examples of neurosynths to show. We need to make more. A lot more. Does this make sense?"

"I suppose, but I still want you to ask."

"You see, Cole, if Amanda accidentally leaks out the information to her parents or is simply overheard by someone we can't recover the secret. It's not just her. It could be anyone. So far it has been okay, except for the close call with the Department of Homeland Security, but we really don't want to take chances. We are not picking on you. It's just that we are really worried about it."

I was silent. I could tell dad knew this wasn't good enough for me.

"All that being said, Cole, I will try to ask and persuade. I know it's important to you and you are important to us."