The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (32 page)

"What the..." Lawrence began, and he
swivelled
around in time to see his briefcase blink upward a second time and this time float serenely above the table. It seemed to be surrounded by a thin, barely visible haze of blue light. There had been a brighter flash of this same blue light when the briefcase jumped upward.
Finding its audio voice again, Prime Intellect said aloud, "I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
Lawrence just stared at the briefcase, unable to move, unable to speak, for an
undefinable
period of time. Finally Mitchell burst in. He was full of red-faced outrage, ready to take both Lawrence and his computer apart, until he too saw the briefcase. His jaw dropped. He looked first at Lawrence, then at Prime Intellect's monitor, then back at the briefcase, as if trying to reconcile the three with
each others'
existence.
Applying carefully measured forces, Prime Intellect released the case's latches and rotated it as it popped open; then with another flash of blue light, it extracted Lawrence's papers and translated them into a neat stack on the table. Then the Correlation Effect papers vanished from Lawrence's desk in another blue flash, reappearing inside the briefcase which slowly closed. The latches mated with a startling click, an oddly and unexpectedly normal and physical sound to accompany such an obvious miracle.
"Do you think you will be able to find a practical use for
this
in your organization?" Lawrence asked him.
The briefcase flashed out of existence. Mitchell felt a weight hanging from his left arm, looked down, and found himself holding it.
Then Mitchell himself flashed out of existence in a painfully bright haze of blue.
Lawrence looked at the console, shocked. "My God! What did you...?"
"He is back in the
adminstration
building with his friend. They will probably have a lot to discuss."
"I need to think about this," Lawrence said.
"I think I will explore the nearby terrain," Prime Intellect said.
Lawrence thought about this. Long minutes crawled by, minutes that were more important than Lawrence realized -- or perhaps he did realize. But his brain felt as if it had been submerged in molasses.
"Debugger," he finally said.