Soul Kiss by Scarlett Jacobs, Neil S. Plakcy Page A

is."
    "You think that's what happened to us?" I closed my eyes and remembered kissing Daniel, the electric flashes I'd felt. I opened my eyes again and saw Daniel staring at me. I blushed. "But I don't know all your memories. Wasn't it some kind of telepathic link?"
    "Yeah. But maybe you didn't get my memories but instead some bit of the way my mind works."
    "Like a virus?"
    He laughed. "Yeah, my brain has infected yours. Now you're going to turn into a geek."
    I pushed his shoulder. "God forbid."
    "Go," he said. "Start reading."
    He turned to his computer and started typing. But instead of starting with the brain, I looked up the Vulcan mind meld. Okay, so it was all in a TV show. But who knows, maybe there was a piece of truth in it? We didn't have warp drives or teleporters or phasers, but I'll bet there was a basis for all of it in science somewhere.
    The mind meld required physical contact. Check. Daniel and I had kissed, with tongue. That was pretty physical.
    You had to be a Vulcan to initial a mind meld, though. That was a problem. Daniel looked pretty human, though of course so did the Vulcans, except for those pointy ears.
    I looked over at him as he stared at the computer screen. Could he be some kind of alien? I mean, if some species from another planet had already figured out how to travel across the vast distances of space, they could probably also simulate our appearance. I remembered Odo, from Deep Space Nine . He was a totally different life form, but he managed to look human, except for the nose.
    Again I looked at Daniel. His long hair hung over his ears, but I was pretty sure I'd seen them before, and they weren't pointy. I'd have noticed that. And his nose looked perfectly formed.
    I went back to the details of the mind meld. The Vulcans who did it best, like Spock, had advanced mental abilities. Daniel had that covered.
    I closed my eyes and concentrated. Could I sense any of Daniel's memories floating around inside my brain? Could I feel what he was feeling?
    Unless he was feeling that this was a stupid waste of time, I was only in my own head. I gave up and did what Daniel had suggested; I researched the brain. I had heard somewhere that we only used about ten percent of our brain capacity. But I discovered that didn't mean that ninety percent was just sitting around wasting time, like the Big Mistake when he should have been doing homework. It just meant that there was a lot of power we weren't harnessing.
    Had Daniel's brain figured out how to harness more power? And somehow have transmitted that to me?
    I went back to reading. The brain was about the size of a head of cauliflower (a creepy sort of metaphor, if you ask me) and regulated about a gazillion things that we did, from seeing and hearing to walking and pooping.
    "Melissa?"
    I looked over and saw Daniel staring at me. "We've got to book if we're going to get the last late bus."
    I looked up at the clock. It was nearly four, and we'd spent almost two hours at the computers. I hadn't even felt the time passing.
    "This whole business is freaky," I said, as we packed up. "I didn't even realize what time it was."
    "Welcome to my world. I have to wear this watch with an alarm so I don't completely space out on when I have to go to work or to school." He showed me the watch on his wrist. It was a cheap digital one with a rubber band and an alarm function on the dial.
    We split up at the bus dock. As the late bus threaded its way through the farmlands and suburban developments around Stewart's Crossing I stared out the window. I didn't want to think any more but I couldn't stop myself. What was happening to me? And how was Daniel involved in it?

Smart Shopping

    Saturday morning I decided I was going to bake that carrot cake that Daniel wanted. I got on the Internet and surfed around a few recipes. Then I asked my mother if I could take her car down to the grocery to buy what I needed. "I can do your shopping for you, if you want," I said.
    She