The God Wave by Patrick Hemstreet

Chuck sensed this was an ongoing debate between Matt and his engineer—in a series of ongoing debates Matt had with pretty much every person he ever encountered.
    And he couldn’t help feel that he wasn’t sure whether he was looking forward to Sara’s session or dreading it now.
    CHUCK SEATED SARA WHERE SHE could see the large, flat-screen display of the computer but not reach the mouse, keyboard, or track pad. The kinetic interface was wired to the USB port of the machine, and Sara’s familiar software was running.
    â€œWhat do I do?” she asked. Her excitement was not evident in her voice. Chuck could only see it in glimmers in her eyes.
    â€œSomething drop-dead easy,” said Matt. “Something you do almost without thinking about it. Only this time think. What would you normally do when you first sit down at the keyboard?”
    â€œI’d open a project file or create a new one.”
    â€œOkay, so try that. Think about what moves you make to create a new file.”
    Grasping the arms of her chair, Sara gazed intently at the machine. There was a long moment of silence in which absolutely nothing happened.
    â€œWhat are you trying to do?” Chuck asked.
    â€œMove the mouse. I’m imagining my hand moving the mouse to the ‘file’ menu.”
    â€œI don’t think that’s gonna work,” said Dice. “That would require physically touching the mouse. It’s the sensors in the mouse themselves that need to be affected.”
    Sara glanced over at him where he sat on the edge of a worktable. “But I don’t understand the mechanics of that.”
    Chuck chewed the cap of his pen. “Try a different input. The track pad or keyboard maybe.”
    Sara nodded, took a deep breath, and shifted her gaze back to the computer. Her eyes narrowed, her lips compressed, and a fine dew broke out on her upper lip. On the computer screen, the mouse pointer shifted in a wobbly upward crawl.
    The room erupted in cheers and laughter.
    â€œI told you,” Matt said.
    You’d think we ended world hunger, Chuck thought. But he waslaughing, too, with the sheer adrenaline rush of seeing even such meager success. Because he could see a future where they might just do something equal to that.
    It was Dice who brought them back to the present. “What did you do?” he asked. “How did you make that work?”
    â€œI imagined I was touching the track pad. Or that I was drawing a line across the contacts. That I understand. Let me see what else I can do.”
    What she could do, she discovered, was move the pointer up to the menu bar by mentally scraping the same spot on the track pad over and over. Doing that, it took her several minutes to get the pointer to the “file” menu, but she did it.
    But once there, she hit a roadblock.
    â€œI’m not sure how to click.” Her voice was edgy with impatience.
    â€œHow would you do it normally?” Chuck asked.
    â€œI’d tap.” She demonstrated on the arm of her chair. “But I’m not sure . . .” She peered at the track pad again, tapping several times on the chair arm.
    Nothing happened.
    Chuck was about to suggest she take a break when she growled in frustration, grasped the arms of the chair, and blinked.
    The “file” menu flew open.
    After a moment in which everyone in the room took a deep breath, Sara snaked the pointer down to the “new” command, gritted her teeth, gripped the chair arms, and blinked again. A new file opened.
    There was much celebration.
    However, it was the last celebrating they did that day. While Sara could shakily use the track pad to move the pointer, open menus, and click buttons—though she could even type using a mental map of where the letters were on the keyboard—shecould not use the higher functions of the software. Nor could she draw a damned thing freehand and place it in the workspace.
    â€œThe