"Correct," Professor David confirmed with approval in his tone, "and yet Starr Technologies has deployed quantum communication satellites that claim zero-latency global coverage—can anyone explain how they've solved this limitation?"
A hand went up—an enhanced student, Maria could tell from the confident way they spoke, someone who'd received gene therapy and now had doubled intelligence.
"They're using quantum teleportation protocols with pre-shared entangled states," the enhanced student explained with ease that made Maria feel inadequate despite her correct answer, "combined with error correction and classical confirmation channels, creating a hybrid system that achieves effective FTL communication through clever protocol design rather than violating physics."
"Excellent," Professor David said, and Maria felt a pang of jealousy because the enhanced student had understood the material at a deeper level than her baseline intelligence could reach.
