[ WP ] You have the double-edged power to increase your intelligence the longer you stay awake .

I woke up slowly, comfortably transitioning from dreams to reality. I felt more rested than I had in months, the papers below my cheek feeling like a soft pillow. I smiled happily, then closed my eyes and went back to sleep. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, my subconscious mind made a connection that jolted me awake. `` No!'' I cried, shooting up. One of the papers I had been sleeping on stuck to my cheek, and I tore it away, looking at my surroundings frantically. Mounds of paper covered every inch of my deck, every sheet covered with writing and formulas. Dead pens, empty of ink, jutted out of the piles here and there. Still more paper, blank, sat in neat, square stacks behind me. During previous binges when I ran out of paper, I had decided to write on the walls instead, which was a headache to copy down afterwards. 
 
 I picked up the paper I had been working on before the Sandman had lost his patience and hit me upside the head with a brick. It was a blueprint, a design for some brilliant invention. When I had written it, I had been at the peak of my intelligence, and I had also been awake for a week. Ideas had been sparking through my mind like fireworks, and they frequently got mixed up and blended together. This blueprint, for example, had apparently started out as the design for a new sort of engine, but halfway through I had gotten sidetracked by the thought of a new type of architecture. The resulting product was a plan for a house that looked like an engine. 
 
... Or maybe it was an engine the *size* of a house? 
 
 I'd put that in the'maybe' pile. 
 
 I pushed away from the desk and stood up, stretching my aching muscles. I rolled my wrists carefully; a week of near-constant writing had not been kind to them. I had used the pain as a way to stave off sleep. It was maybe not the brightest idea I'd ever had, but I had a paradoxical tendency to be an idiot when I was at my smartest. 
 
 I staggered out of the room and took my first shower in a week. I nearly fell asleep standing under the hot water, but caught myself before I could pass out and crack my skull open. I had a lot of catching up to do in regards to sleep, but it could wait a little while. After showering, I had breakfast, even though it was four in the afternoon. Bacon, toast, eggs. Quick and easy. 
 
 Once I finally felt human again, I returned to my office. `` Christ,'' I said sagely as I looked over the mound of work I had accomplished. One of my most productive binges ever. I could already visualize the stratas in the piles; towards the bottom would be the work from the first few days. That would be the most legible, the'simplest'. On top of that would be papers filled with increasingly complex ideas and plans, with occasional hiccups caused by my lack of sleep. Those would be from days three to four, the days when my blood was slowly replaced by coffee. 
 
 On top of that, the most complex, the most brilliant, but the hardest to understand. Some of the ideas would be only half-formed, discarded when a new idea hit me. Some of them, such as the engine-house, would be a mash-up of two or more ideas. Most of them were plain garbage, written in a shorthand that was I could only slightly comprehend. Had the binge gone on any longer, the products would have been totally worthless. 
 
 I picked the first leaf of paper off the top of the pile, and stared hard at the spidery writing that covered it. My memories were muddled, but I remembered being quite pleased with this one. Had I said something about telling Einstein to suck it? I would have to check the audio recordings. 
 
 I returned the paper, and leaned back in my chair. Now, the real work would begin. I would bring in my assistants - the same people who had made sure that I did n't starve to death during my binges - to sort through the piles, separating the chaff from the wheat. That would take a few months, and might result in some new patents or brilliant mathematical formulas. Those would be valuable, no doubt. 
 
 And maybe, I hoped as sleep pulled me back in, maybe I finally found the answer this time. Maybe I finally figured out why I can do what I do. Money, fame, power, I was n't concerned with any of that these days. I was wealthy from my inventions, famous from my discoveries, and powerful from those who used me as a consultant. 
 
 Now, I just wanted answers. 
 
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