NISSY

by JOHN PAUL CATER

  “But why?” he answered, reluctantly reaching unto the satchel for the check.

  “Because I want to replace it with a 10-million dollar check. Buy all the stock you can in GOD, Inc. for five then keep the other five for yourself and your family. I just wished I had listened to you in the first place. Damn that Bill Crane.”

  He wrote the check, traded it, then returned to the window and paced for minutes staring at the floor in deep thought. Abruptly, he stopped and raised his gaze to Jason.

  “You do realize, Dr. Godwin, that this information goes no further than this office. World order will most certainly collapse if word of your new technology leaks out. And, I must add, I once thought your lab might achieve enough good AI for us to compete with the major players like Google and IBM, but now seeing what you’ve done quite frankly scares the shit out of me, Jason. You’re in whole different universe from them. Therefore, I’m immediately requesting a government security clearance of Top Secret Ultra Black for Nissy, but omitting that future thing… what do you call it? God help is if our government learns of that.”

  “Future-vision, sir. Nissy was the first to use the term.”

  Now that Sherman was convinced, they moved to the lab’s anteroom, sat for hours discussing and planning for the new VN.1 mods to the Quaid Lab. As per the contract, ACs had to be added, a new power line connected, and an ESnet connection established for Nissy. And since Nissy had been placed in suspension, serendipitously providing warmth for the workers, Jason decided not to bring it back until all the upgrades were in place, including a new experimental DNA memory bank from Lipinski at Biodna, a place he soon needed to visit.

  At ten till four, Julie knocked briefly and then, with a click of the cipher lock, entered the anteroom. “Dr. Sherman you have a meeting with our lawyer about the Zendahl patent in ten minutes. I left some supporting information on your desk.”

  “Thank you, Julie,” he said, checking his watch. Then he stood, smiled, and offered his hand to Jason.

  “What a monumental day for Qubital you brought. Thank you and please keep me updated. I expect to have your mods completed soon as I take our staff into overdrive. I’ll call you when they’re done.”

  With that, he walked to the door, stopped, and embarrassed, glanced back. “Code? Sorry I forgot.”

  “11325, sir.”

  Chapter 15

  BIOTELEPORTER

  W ith Sherman gone, he again found himself alone, surrounded by warmth and a darkened control panel. And, although Nissy loomed high overhead through the large lab window, it was at rest right now. No frost, no thoughts, no worries, no conversation. Like a human in a state of suspended animation, it waited to be awakened at some unknown future time.

  He sighed restlessly, knowing there was nothing more he could do here until the VN.1 upgrade was completed.

  Lipinski, he suddenly remembered. The DNA memory inventor. He needed to contact him and start the ball rolling on Nissy’s new mind.

  With the phone to his ear, waiting for Jen to answer, he scribbled a note to himself as a reminder: ten zettabyte version.

  “Hello, Jace. What’s going on, hon?”

  “I’m here at our new lab,” he said, propping his feet up on the console.

  “He sold it? Took the ticket?”

  “Yep, he also gave us back 5-million dollars in change. Tax free.”

  “That’s wonderful for you. Congratulations!”

  “No, wonderful for us, Jen. Amy’s tuition is taken care of for years and I’m buying you a new car of your choice.”

  “Hey Jason, I’m in the middle of a demonstration of Dr. Lipinski’s bioteleporter. He wants to meet you. Care to join us?”

  “Of course. Be there in thirty minutes.”

  Arriving at NASA’s MOE campus, he avoided the MATS as recommended by Jen and walked, following the arrows to Dome 1. Entering on the ground floor, he marveled at the large cylindrical demonstration room, three-tiered bleachers lining its periphery, with rows of tables spread across its spacious circular floor.

  An assortment of scientists and civilians, many in symbolic white coats, the rest in street clothes and business suits, stood or wandered through the tables talking and commenting on the new technologies displayed before them. Technologies that would soon be launched to Mars.

  The first thing he thought as he stepped into the room was he had mistakenly stumbled into a science fair for adults. But then, he caught a glimpse of Jen near the center, her tall stature standing out inches above the crowd. He could see her standing with a man slightly taller in a white coat beside something resembling an open tanning bed with its telltale blue aura.

  Heading out toward her, it took him over a minute and about thirty ‘Excuse Me’s to near the blue glow.

  “Hey hon,” she yelled out, seeing him approach. “Over here.”

  Within seconds, he was there, greeted with a peck on the cheek and an extended hand from the tall middle aged man with graying pitch-black hair, standing with her, reminding him of Jeff Goldblum.

  “Dr. Lipinski, I presume,” Jason said, firmly grasping his hand. “Or do you prefer Blake?”

  “For you Jason, Blake will be fine. I find that when discussing business and technology our titles get in the way. We both know what we went through to get where we are. There’s no point in wearing it on our sleeves.”

  “How pragmatic of you, Blake. I like that in a fellow scientist.”

  He nodded, agreeing. “And I, you, sir. I hear from your wife you have an interest in my DNA memory technology and might have a use for it.”

  “I do. I’m developing a sentient machine and as it turns out, I’m gonna need bigger boat to get there.”

  Blake laughed. “So you’re calling it the Jaws of Life?”

  “No, actually I call it Nissy,” he replied, joining in the laughter, “my shortening of omniscient.”

  “Wow, I could use a machine like that for sequencing and assembling the DNA sequences in large genomes.”

  “Really? I really don’t yet understand the technology but I have a strange feeling I soon will.”

  “In a nutshell, Jason, for sequencing the three billion-base pairs of DNA in the human genome the computational time can run out to days or weeks, depending on the acceptable error rate.”

  “But why would you want to read a genome… especially on Mars?”

  “Well, simply put, there will be no decent medical facilities there for the first generation. And for them to make it to the second they will need the best medical care found here on earth. So instead of shipping the ill physically here, we collect a blood sample on Mars, sequence it there, and then transmit the read sequence back to the best medical facilities on this planet.”

  “But you still have to get the medicine or cure for their disease or ailment back to them. Do you send it out with the next supply ship?”

  “No, the bioteleporter is bidirectional. That’s the beauty of this technology.”

  He stepped to the large device and swept his hand over the intricate contents bathed in sanitizing UV.

  “Only an electronic code is sent back to Mars and then this beauty reconstructs the coded DNA sequences from an array of standard nucleotides shipped with the system. Even antidotes for unknown bacterial diseases or viruses can be reconstructed by it in hours or days, millions of miles from the medical facility that sent the code.”

  “Wow. I had no idea that such a capability existed,” Jason said, peering in at an array of tiny vials, sample bins and trays, and sample-handling robotic arms.

  Jen moved closer, also looking into the unit, and answered him. “Yes, it’s basically an extremely complex 3D printer that creates and assembles DNA strands together using life-giving chemicals as its ink. That’s why we’re shipping it to Mars.” She paused. “It can even sequence and assemble the DNA for a synthetic organ if a colonist needs a transplant, but there is no known computer on earth powerful enough to handle those DNA computations in a human lifetime.”<
br />
  “Here, hold my beer and watch,” Jason said laughing, thinking seriously that Nissy could do it.

  Blake raised his eyebrows. “You really think your computer could handle it?”

  “With your DNA memory bank, yes. It has only a petabyte now, all flash RAM, and it’s already doing unimaginable things. As it reaches omniscience, its goal, it should be able to program your bioteleporter to create any living organism, known or unknown, from memory without the aid of sequencing or assembling any DNA.”

  Blake stroked his graying beard, thinking. “Well, when do you need the DNA memory. And how many zettabytes?”

  “Now and as many as I can get.”

  “We’ll hook it up as a disk drive to service your petabyte of storage. Shouldn’t take too long, maybe a day or two. I have an operational 10-zettabyte unit running in the lab back at Biodna right now.”

  “Are you serious, Blake?” he asked, showing a huge grin. “That’s like my dream come true.”

  As they continued to talk, Jen noticed the center’s director Dr. Carter Jameson moving toward them.

  She interrupted, nudging Jason. “Hey guys, our director’s on the radar. Can you continue this later? He’s going to want to talk to Dr. Lipinski.”

  Blake chuckled. “That’s my wife, Mrs. Godwin. I’m just Blake to you.”

  “Bye, hon. See you at home. And thanks for the heads up on this show.”

  She kissed him and whispered, “You did good. Be home in two.”

  Blushing, not expecting a kiss, he turned to Blake and put out his hand. “Blake Lipinski, it was truly my honor to meet you and I hope the start of something big.”

  Blake returned the handshake watching Jameson approach. “You can count on it, Jason. I’ll be in touch. Take care.”

  After a short stop at a bookstore, he arrived home to find Amy lying in her bed crying with Amadeus snuggled at her feet.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked as he sat on the bed by her, waking and surprising Amadeus from a sound sleep. A soft guttural growl from the little puppy made him laugh and briefly even cheered her up but then she continued to cry.

  “Amadeus, quiet, that’s Daddy,” she said, then raised her head, wiped her eyes with a tissue and sniffled. “They kicked me out at the school. I was doing so well and now I’ve lost all my friends.”

  Confused, at a loss for words, he stroked her hair attempting to soothe her pain. He could feel it too.

  “That’s all right, honey bear, there are plenty of other good schools around. We’ll get you into one of them.”

  She rose on an elbow and addressed him with a brief frown. “No, Daddy, you don’t understand. They kicked me out of my class and put me in another one with all new kids… and they’re older than me.”

  Relieved, but still bewildered, he asked, “But why would they do that, Amy? Were you not getting along in that class?”

  “I guess I was getting along too good, they put me in a twelfth grade class. Jumped me two grades. And the kids there kidded me because I was so young… and short.”

  He laughed and hugged her. “Well, baby girl, I have a feeling that after a while, you’ll be kidding them back because they’re so old, dumb, and slow. You’re a ten-year-old high school senior now. College is next and you’ll be the youngest one there too, I’m sure. Better get used to it now, my little chickadee.”

  She giggled and petted Amadeus, crawling up the bed to be by her side. “I’m not a chickadee, Daddy. I’m a falcon getting ready to swoop down on my prey.” With that, she lifted her hands, swept them down, and snatched him up, his tiny eyes suddenly bulging at her grasp, then raised him to her face.

  Snuggling her nose into his fur, kissing him, she said, “No I won’t be the youngest or shortest one there because I’ll have Amadeus with me and he’ll always be younger and shorter than me.”

  “Oh, speaking of DNA,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Dad, we didn’t speak of DNA.”

  “Well, we did indirectly because your height is governed by your DNA.”

  “So?” she asked, tilting her head, trying to make sense of the new random topic.

  Stealthily, he reached into his overcoat, pulled out a thick book, and tossed it on the bed in front of her. “So here’s an early Christmas present for you.”

  “Dad, Christmas is still a month…Whoa! DNA Sequencing and Assembly for Prodigies!” she shrieked, eyes fixated on the book’s cover.

  “Like it, princess? It’s what you asked for,” he said, smiling, tilting his head to read the cover.

  “I love it, Daddy, but….” She grabbed his neck and hugged it tightly, then gazed wistfully back at the book.

  “But what, honey?”

  “I can’t read it right now. I have to finish my quantum entanglement book.”

  “Aw, too bad. Then I get to read it first. I was a once a prodigy, too, you know.” He grabbed the book, stood and flipped through the first few pages and then, walking with it out of her room, said, “Looks really interesting. Just what I need right now.”

  Not to be outdone, she reached up to the headboard shelf, grabbed her entanglement book, and started reading. But watching him leave out the corner of her eye, she had to have the last word. And she spoke it loud enough for him to hear. “Bully!”

  Jen arrived home an hour later worn out from standing on her feet all day, expecting to find dinner waiting. Instead, as she roamed through the quiet house seeking signs of life, she found them both fast asleep. Jason was in his living room chair with a book about quantum entanglement teetering on his stomach, ready to fall with his next breath. Amy, upstairs in her bed, had the DNA book beside her splayed open upside down with Amadeus sleepily peeping out from his newfound tent.

  She smiled, then quietly moved to the middle step of the stairway, ensuring both could hear her plainly, then yelled at the top of her lungs, “No sleeping in the library! Everyone up!”

  Some unintelligible garble echoed from the living room while Amy appeared at the top of the stairs rubbing her eyes and yawning.

  “I woke up thinking I was in a library then tried to find the return desk to turn in my book. That was not funny, Mommy. I almost fell out of bed and took Amadeus with me.”

  “You crazy woman,” Jason said, climbing the bottom few stairs, dazed and confused, staring up. “I could have killed myself trying to find the exit before I realized it was my own damned front door. That was just cruel, wasn’t it Amy?”

  She nodded from above. “But I think she expected dinner and I kinda don’t blame her, Daddy. I’m hungry too.”

  He dusted himself off freeing a gummy dog chew stick stuck to the seat of his pants and turned back toward the kitchen. Amadeus standing by Amy at the top saw it fall and took off down the stairs, passed Jen, then picked it up at a full run, and followed him into the kitchen, close on his heels.

  “How about charcoal-grilled steaks, I’m buying as soon the grill heats.”

  “Now that’s better, more what I expected, honey. Especially after I helped you today with Lipinski.”

  She descended the stairs and moved into the kitchen to join him. Amadeus, tail wagging, stood diligently watching him looking up from his feet.

  “I have some steaks and ears of corn in the fridge----, she said as she walked to the refrigerator behind him, “Whoa, Jason! You have another chew stick stuck back here. Must have sat on those chew sticks he buried in your chair. There, got it.” She laughed as the little pup ran up, jumped, and grabbed it from her hand. “Yep, you did. That’s why he flew down those stairs,” she said, amused, watching him run back toward the chair, two sticks now in his mouth. “Now go start the grill and I’ll get everything ready in here.”

  “Everything clear back there?” he asked, laughing, contorting to see his backside, heading out the back door.

  “Clear and very nice, too.”

  Even though dinner was late, he had made up for it with perfectly cooked steaks and grilled foil-wrapped ears of corn. And t
hey showed their appreciation afterwards as they lined up to kiss him on the cheek. It made his day.

  The lateness of the hour coupled with the busy day had them all at the mercy of their eyelids after dinner.

  Amy knew she had homework, quite a bit actually, so she retired early to her room to study for her first day of senior classes. She wasn’t too worried though, she already knew most of the material and was on top of integral calculus, besides half the day would be spent on a surprise field trip.

  “So what’s your tomorrow like, Jen?” he asked, sipping decaf in his now chew-stick-free chair. “Busy at work?”

  She leaned back on the sofa, put her hands behind her head, then sighed and stared at the ceiling.

  “About the same as today, but with three-hundred kids. They’re coming in from schools all over the area for a NASA show-and-tell day. Ten buses in all staggered through the day. I frankly expect it to be a circus but we have to do it; they’ll be the ones going to Mars someday. They need to know what’s in their future.”

  “Well, how noble of NASA. Wonder if Amy’s going?”

  Suddenly, little footsteps sounded from the top of the stairs. Poking her head down, she squealed, “Oh my God, that’s where we’re going on our surprise field trip. I can’t wait.”

  “Oh, I hope so Amy. It’s all really cool stuff. You’ll be amazed.”

  “I’m so excited. I can’t wait to tell my class where we’re going. I love that place. It’s so Mars.”

  Jen turned and looked up. “Uh, I wouldn’t do that if it’s supposed to be a surprise trip. Just play dumb and be shocked with everyone else. Now go to bed and try to get some sleep.”

  “Okay, good idea. Night, Mommy… night, Daddy.” She zipped her lips and retreated into her room for the night.

  Jen, smiling, shaking her head, looked back to Jason, now nodding off. “What about you, honey? Busy?”

  “What?”

  “Are you busy tomorrow?”