In many ways, communications networks are like road systems: their purpose is to move traffic quickly from one place to another with minimum congesti… - James P. Hogan

I am confident that the things that have been described for centuries as mystical insight are results of abnormal Multiverse sensitivity — either acquired accidentally or developed through training. There is that much in common. The difference is in the direction that consciousness looks in — the part of the Multiverse from which information enters awareness. In the traditional meditative state, the mind expands into the present. Its experience is of knowing — direct perception of a timeless reality that transcends the limited world of the senses. The QUADAR, by contrast, tunes to the future. It delivers an experience of feelings and premonitions. One reveals what is; the other, what could be. Actuality versus potential.

"I can tap George at the deli. He owes me — "

Linc waved the rest aside with a shake of his head and peeled a fifty off a roll he produced from his belt.

"Say, are you sure? . . ."
But his father was already reaching for it. "I'll have it back for you by — "

"It doesn't matter. Keep it," Linc said curtly.

And he left before the taste in his mouth could get any worse.

Bad luck could happen to anybody, and anyone might be in need of a helping hand one day. But to have no pride. That was something else..

It turns out that information leaks between universes at the quantum level. We think it accounts for all kinds of phenomena, from what drives evolution to strange insights and mystical experiences through the ages. The machine was built as an attempt to investigate and amplify them.