TRUDY: “It was those shock treatments gave me new electrical circuitry. I started having these time-space continuum shifts. – like my central nervous system had a patio addition out back… It’s like my brain is channel-surfing through humanity. My umbrella hat works like a satellite dish, or more precisely, a DSL provider of sorts. I pick up video-streaming signals that seem to transmit snatches of people’s lives.

That’s how I met my space chums. I was watching a scene from somebody’s life. I suddenly sensed others were there watching with me. Like now… I’m downloading this scrawny punk kid on stage somewhere. Got hair the color of Fruit Loops, she’s decked out in chains, her T-shirt says “Leave me alone.”

My brain is so far beyond broadband, I’m surprised Cisco hasn’t tried to buy me up. How can I describe it? Picture my brain as a set-top box, or, better yet, don’t picture anything and you get a clearer idea of what I can do. And I don’t need cable or fiber optics either. But let’s not get bogged down in molecular tech, shall we? Content-wise, of course, I must take what comes and sometimes it is not to my taste.”