The Thought Pushers (Mind Dimensions Book 2) by Anna Zaires, Dima Zales Page B

my signature spin attack. The 3D of the screen begins to make the nausea come back, but I try to ignore it, determined to win.
    “By the way, did I tell you that Jerry Buchmacker is dead?” Bert says, blatantly trying to divert my attention. Bert knows how much I hate to lose. I once threw a controller at his head back in college.
    “What happened?” I say, knowing full well this is Bert’s conspiracy-theory time. Even though we’re playing, I have to indulge him to stay in his good graces. “And remind me who Jerry Buchmacker is, again.”
    “He was working on new artificial intelligence applications. Think self-driving cars, but in medicine.”
    “Oh yeah, I remember you talking about this guy when you consulted me about the company where he was the CTO. I told you it would be a good investment for Pierce’s portfolio,” I say, and start a new game, playing as the same character.
    “Right, that one, and now he’s dead. Another suicide. ” Bert tries to make air quotes on the last word with the Gameboy in his hands. “I learned of what happened when Mr. Pierce asked me to find out if Jerry’s death means we should liquidate the portfolio.”
    “Okay then, why is the guy really dead?” I say, mimicking his air quotes. I know full well where this is heading. I think I’ve heard this specific conspiracy theory before, and it’s not as crazy as some other stuff Bert comes up with.
    “It’s the secret Neo-Luddite group again,” he whispers, looking around as though they have ears in this hospital.
    As I learned some time ago, a Luddite, as defined by Bert, is someone who’s against any kind of progress. The Neo variety seem to be specifically against modern technological progress. From what I’ve gathered from my friend’s admittedly biased description of them, they are a bunch of crazy people who would have humanity go back to living in caves if they could. The Unabomber was a flavor of one of these people, according to Bert.
    This specific conspiracy theory states that there is a secret group that takes out talented scientists in critical fields, such as robotics, genetics, informatics, and nanotechnology. Their motive is to prevent the transformative changes these fields can bring.
    I don’t believe in this conspiracy, of course, but I do know there are people who fear progress and change. To them I say, “Go into the forest and try living for a day without sanitation, without your iPhone, without a gun to shoot wolves that want to eat you, and without antibiotics for the gangrene you might get from a simple cut. Then come back and tell me you still want to go back to the caveman days.”
    I certainly wouldn’t.
    “What makes you think this wasn’t suicide?” I ask, even though I know I’m just encouraging Bert’s craziness.
    “Well, it’s their MO,” he says, and inside the game, gives me a particularly nasty punch.
    “Right, of course,” I say sarcastically, blocking the next kick and countering with a sword thrust.
    Bert is clearly unhappy with my lack of faith in his theory, and the yellow creature on my screen throws my hero off the game platform as a manifestation of his grumpiness.
    We go back and forth like this, with me playing the devil’s advocate about the conspiracy and Bert kicking my ass in the game and stating more reasons for why the guy couldn’t have committed suicide. A lot of it sounds rather persuasive, actually. There was no mention of depression in any of the files Bert got his hands on. There were long-term plans for vacations and conferences. Finally, and a clincher for Bert, the guy had a gorgeous girlfriend and had just proposed to her.
    “What are you guys doing?” I hear Mira’s incredulous voice from my left. It comes just as I’m about to deliver my theory of how the guy possibly killed himself as a weird manifestation of cold feet. Marriage can be a scary thing—at least as far as I’m concerned.
    “Playing,” I say defensively to Mira. I feel