A question, simple, asked. And yet on reflection, it leaves dark clouds in the air.. why was it asked? What does it mean? Could this mean what I think it means? The face scoots away, it's eyes twinkling, whether out of delight, cunning calculation, or some unmeasurable other emotion, noone is sure.

The technology was complex, but its implementation, with the completed entities, was not. The sharing of two minds in one brain, modifications to the attentional systems, processing the memories to have a strong enough situational bias that they would remain seperate, for a time, and the trickiest of all, the actual overlay of one mind onto another, all were conquered, with much pain, by technology.. and now, it was not a rare occurance, for academics especially, to approach each other with offers to undergo the merging. Usually, one personality would be dominant, and only later would the other personality merge with it. For several years to come, the pairs would ask each other questions, providing information and companionship. It would be rare for the merged to date -- they would lack a certain need or desire that's fundamental, even though often the merged would not themselves be suitable for romantic partnership between their components. Many merged, after integration was long complete, after five to ten years, would find themselves missing having a partner in the mind, and would undergo another later merging. Merging never proved to be the path to immortality that some worried about -- for reasons semianalogous to matters of love, the old almost never merged with the young.

She sat up, head clear for the first time since before the nanite infusion. Familiar sensations, perhaps too familiar. His mind had simply faded like cotton candy in the mouth, leaving not a trace, no other self. This was not how it was supposed to happen, some instinctual initial struggle over the body, some chatting, sharing of memories.. not this feeling as if nothing had happened at all. She tried thinking of areas where she knew he had knowledge she did not, but the familiar memories and recollection came back, nothing new. Where was he? A feeling of vague disappointment filled her, as she got up to live the day as if nothing had happened, wondering what she was to say to the curious friends and relatives about her experience, wondering even more about what to say to his friends..

By now, I imagine you've all heard about the arrest of a big businessman in Russia. There are two possible spins on it... firstly, that the state is being tyrannical, and second, that all the anti-state positions is stirred up by pro-business forces that are perfectly happy with state corruption, so long as it's in their favour. We can't really know from the outside without poking around.. we might not even ever know from the inside...