NISSY

by JOHN PAUL CATER

  “Oh, sorry. I was planning to visit Blake’s lab at Biodna, but since it seems he’ll be tied up at NASA all day, I think I’ll try to wade through Amy’s new book… the one she asked for about DNA sequencing. Then if I have time I’ll visit my lab at Qubital to monitor Nissy’s makeover.”

  Eyebrows arched, surprised, she responded, “You found that book she wanted? Where?”

  “One of Amazon’s new retail bookstores in La Jolla. They print and bind your book while you wait. Every book on their site is in stock there.”

  “Wow! Seems like printing technology’s leaving me behind even though I constantly deal with machines that can print life. Twisted, huh? Nothing surprises me anymore.”

  He yawned and stretched his arms.

  “So, honey, I’m worn out. Think I’ll head up to bed. Interested?”

  “Me too, Jace. Right behind you.”

  As he walked past Amy’s room, he glanced in and saw her in bed reading a book. He smiled, not realizing it was her new DNA sequencing book he had earlier bullied from her.

  Chapter 16

  FUSION

  J en arose early, anticipating a busy day at the Mars on Earth complex. Not a well-known moniker, it’s acronym, MOE, saved time in NASA discussions of its plans and activities, much easier to say and write than the Buzz Aldrin Space Center for Mars Colonization. It also served well for inside jokes of its flubs, often referencing Larry and Curly in the same breath.

  Today was her second MOE-SAT of the year. Unlike yesterday, this one was reserved for school kids. And dreading the day, she knew many of them would use the show-and-tell day as a chance to cut up, show off, and poke fun at the science they didn’t understand and probably never would.

  So, although she loved the intent of the SAT field day for kids, she hated it when brought to fruition, simply because so few were really interested.

  “Amy, time to rise and shine,” she said, passing her room on the way to the kitchen for coffee. “Your bus will be here in thirty minutes.”

  Jason trailed down the stairs behind her, filled his mug, stirred in some sugar, and took it into the living room while Jen started breakfast.

  Seconds later, his voice bellowed out.

  “Amy? Where’s my damn book? I left it by my chair and now it’s gone replaced by your quantum book. I already know that stuff.”

  “It’s my book, Daddy, not yours,” she yelled from upstairs. “If you want one, get your own.”

  Silence.

  Then more silence.

  “Well, sweetie pie, would you mind if I borrowed it while you’re at school today? I promise not to dog-ear it. And how did this other book get here?”

  “Of course not, Daddy. I was just kidding. I swapped them out in your lap when you fell asleep first. You just thought you left my DNA book there.”

  “First Nissy, now you,” he said, laughing. “My life’s hard enough without all your pranks.”

  “It wasn’t a prank. I got bored with the quantum stuff and wanted to learn something new about DNA. And when am I going to meet Nissy, anyway?”

  “Women!” he mumbled, talking to himself. “I hate it when they start a sentence with ‘and’. It usually means trouble.”

  “What’d you say, honey?” Jen asked from the kitchen, scrambling eggs.

  “Nothing, dear. Did I just say that out loud?”

  “Possibly. And another thing, Jace, you need to get up off your butt and come in here and help me set the table. Amy! Are you coming down? And, Amy, you’re running late.”

  Thirty seconds later, she rushed down the stairs into kitchen with her DNA book in hand and sat speed-reading while picking at her eggs.

  Staring curiously in her direction, sipping coffee, Jason asked, “Why the hurry reading it, Amy? It’ll be here when you get home, I promise.”

  “Because Mommy told me I’ll be seeing one of these DNA sequencers in real life today. I just wanted to know what I’ll be looking at and how it works so I won’t ask stupid questions.”

  “Oh. Good reason. I’d probably do that too.”

  She managed to get six chapters into the book, scanning and skipping pages, and finish her plate of toast and eggs in huge chipmunk bites, before the bus honked.

  “Here it is, yours for the day,” she said placing it near his coffee. “Gotta go now.”

  “Bye, sweetheart. Zip your lips about MOE,” Jen said, waving from the porch. “See you soon.”

  Always a hoot at the Godwin household, they were beginning to sound like a real family and Jason was pleased. He had finally become adept at balancing family life with work and so had Jen.

  But the lug nuts on the bus wheels were slowly loosening and none of them knew.

  Ten minutes later, Jen flew out the door, throwing him a kiss. “I’ll be home late. Love you, bye.”

  So rarely had he found himself home alone without a defined schedule or goal for the day he decided to enjoy it, spending the morning reading in his easy chair, then after a quick sandwich, running down to Qubital for an update on Nissy’s lab modifications.

  After a couple hours and more coffee, his eyelids still heavy, he dropped the book by his chair, stood and stretched. Looking down at Amadeus staring back, he said, “I might as well be reading about brain surgery, little guy, and then walk into an OR and try to perform it… blindfolded.”

  Amadeus turned his head as if trying to understand, then grabbed a nearby toy, squeaked it, and laid it at his feet and growled, head down, eyes up, daring him to touch it.

  The complexity of the information in the sequencing book had bounced off Jason’s brain; it was all about chemistry and biology, sciences he had avoided in school, never thinking he would need them. But now grasping DNA sequencing techniques was paramount to achieving his goals.

  He needed to understand it, master it in order to add it to Nissy’s hardware and continue toward his goal. However, that would not come today. He had more pressing things on his mind.

  After downing a grilled cheese and slipping into jeans and a sweatshirt, he was off to work.

  He really enjoyed the new route he had discovered since Almond Road was still under repair, and even though it was a little longer, it somehow felt safer to him. It also gave him more time to think.

  Today his mind pondered on reviving Nissy and how it would react once awakened. He had first planned to install Biodna’s colossal DNA memory bank without its prior knowledge, but feared the drastic move might cause a psychotic reaction. And if that were to happen, he would be forced to remove it, effectively giving it a lobotomy.

  He shuddered at the thought of first time trials as they often offered no do-overs, but then he realized he might be over-thinking things. Turning up the Polestar’s stereo, he cruised on down the road into Qubital’s parking lot.

  Arriving shortly after 1 p.m. he searched the lot for a vacant space and soon spied a conspicuously empty area to the right of the front door.

  That wasn’t there yesterday, he thought. As he idled the car closer, he saw five spaces off to the right marked “Reserved for GOD, Inc. Employees” and a separate one by the front door, next to Noah Sherman’s red Porsche, painted with J. GODWIN in large letters.

  Beaming, but intrigued by the small crowd gathered out front, all shading their eyes, looking up, he pulled into his spot wondering who would park in the others and why everyone was looking up.

  As he stepped from the car, his eyes caught on some overhead motion, his ears on distant diesel roars and shouting.

  Staring up, shielding his eyes from the noonday sun, he watched a tall orange crane lower equipment on pallets to the roof as another crane, far behind it, pulled long thick cables from a distant pole. Rooftop workers in shiny hard hats yelled and motioned orders with hand signals to the operators.

  Overnight, Qubital had become a major construction site.

  Amazed that his boss had reacted so quickly, he strode through the lobby, seeing it in a new optimistic light then headed directly to
Sherman’s office.

  “Come,” said Sherman to his knock.

  “Afternoon, Noah. I’m very impressed with all the activity around here.”

  “You should be, Jason,” he said, scanning a schedule on his desk. “Many here have worked through the night bringing your dreams into reality.”

  “Well, I thank you, sir. When will the mods be complete?”

  “Make hay while the sun shines, they say. I expect them to finish by sunset, about four hours from now. You can have your lab back then.”

  He moved from the doorway.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  Sherman waved his hand over the guest chairs. “Not at all. Please. I do have a meeting with my bank in an hour to collateralize a loan with the ticket. Looks like the payout will take a while and as you can see, I need it now. Just a formality.”

  “I’ll only be a minute, sir,” he said, sitting on the edge of the chair. “About the government clearance, have you heard back?”

  “Um, yes, I have. While they were very interested in your technology, without full disclosure it’s just another run-of-the-mill supercomputer to them.”

  Jason nodded and smiled.

  “They see no reason to shield it from prying eyes. The classification was declined. However, I am personally earmarking it Company-Top-Secret so we can control who has knowledge of its future-view and access to its capabilities.”

  With a relieved sigh, he said, “Good. Without government oversight and peer review we can now proceed at the speed of thought, so to speak, to create a living machine with infinite knowledge. Why? Because we can.”

  Suddenly, keyed by a thought, Sherman shuffled through some folders on his desk and pulled out an inch-thick stack of papers rubber-banded together.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Earlier today, I was on the way to your office to deliver these but the bank’s phone call about today’s meeting drew me back.”

  “Sorry, I should have been here.”

  “No, no. It’s all right. They were left as I opened this morning by a tall guy name Blake… Blake Penske, I believe. Reminded me of that Goldblum actor guy. Said he was on the way to NASA and you’d know what these are.”

  Jason sat up, took them, and thumbed through several pages. “Yes! It’s them. The interface plans.”

  Puzzled, staring at the papers in Jason’s hands, Sherman said, “I hate to be nosey, Jason, but interface plans for what?”

  Checking his watch, worried about delaying Sherman’s upcoming bank meeting, he said, “For Nissy’s mass storage expansion. That “tall guy” was Dr. Blake Lipinski, a life scientist on par with Watson and Crick when it comes to things DNA. He’s developed a non-volatile memory system that uses digitally encoded and sequenced DNA strands. Stores ten zettabytes of data in a cubic millimeter of DNA. Oh, and get this. It weighs only a few grams and has a storage lifetime of a several hundred years.”

  “Wow!” he said, watching Jason stand to leave. “And how much is that in English, please? I lose track if it’s over a terabyte.”

  “The best way to explain it, sir, is to use that computer on your desk. It has a terabyte of memory, one trillion bytes, right?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “Well, the tiny speck of coded and sequenced DNA nucleotides in his memory system, barely larger that a grain of sand has more storage than ten billion of your computers linked together. This is going to be so much fun.”

  He gasped. “Damn! I guess so. How fast can you install it?”

  “As fast as you can loan me a few technicians to help assemble the interface.”

  “Let me see those plans, please,” he said, reaching out.

  He rapidly paged through the stack, humming and okaying as he went. Then he looked up.

  “Be here by eight a.m. tomorrow and with your brains and our technicians’ expertise we’ll have it operating by noon. Your complete lab should be up and running by then, too.”

  “I thank you, sir. And as I said before, you will not be disappointed,” he said, bowing his head then heading toward the door.

  “I know. I know. And I said, ‘Just wished I had listened to you earlier.’ See you tomorrow. Eight a.m. sharp.”

  * * *

  As he left for home feeling on top of the world, Amy’s bus had just landed in another world: MOE’s Dome 1 parking area. Most of its passengers immediately knew where they were, clued in by the alien landscape around them, but a few, glued to their smart phones, couldn’t have cared less. They were excited just to be out of the classroom.

  Amy had restrained herself from breaking her vow of silence but once they arrived, she opened up. Sounding like a tour guide as they walked, following Dome 1 arrows, she discussed little-known details of the Center her mom had shown her.

  Of course, she prefaced her narration with her plans to become an astronaut someday and walk this same path on Mars (and most of her group, some towering feet above her, agreed that she would).

  Even Ms. Turner, the chaperoning teacher, quickly realized that where she had failed to keep order in the group, Amy was mesmerizing them with her visions of the future on Mars. Smart phones had been tucked away in pockets and their owners, now engrossed in her tour, had started asking questions. She had magically tweaked their imagination and they were learning.

  Continuing on, they bypassed the MATS, which she said was too small to carry their group, and stopped in awe as she pointed out her mom’s office some distance away in Dome 3-C. Soon they entered Dome 1.

  Inside, Ms. Turner huddled them together in the foyer with instructions to “spread out, have fun and most importantly learn something, then return to this spot in two hours.”

  As she said, “Go,” she expected them to quickly disperse into the exhibits like a morning fog rolling ashore, but they didn’t. They turned their eyes to Amy and waited for her first move.

  The large demo room, now thinning out with the lateness of the day, had only fifty or sixty students roaming the displays, providing a clear view across the room.

  Amy peered in the direction her mom had given her, two o’clock, five tables deep, and saw her standing by an exhibit that appeared to be a terrarium filled with plant life.

  Strange, she thought, walking toward her mom, her class trailing behind single-file, I hadn’t thought of printing plant life with DNA. Couldn’t they just use seeds?

  As Amy led her class through the tables winding toward the exhibit, Jen glanced up and raised her eyebrows at the big approaching group. Then she saw Amy in the lead and laughed.

  “Hey, baby girl. You brought a crowd, I see.”

  She turned, looked back, and then put her hands over her mouth and giggled, not realizing they were even there.

  “This is my mom, Jennifer Godwin, guys. She selected all these things around us to go to Mars.”

  As they smiled and greeted her, Amy joined a few of her classmates staring into the flora-filled tank covered with instrumentation.

  “Is that the DNA sequencer? The bioteleporter?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

  “Oh, no Amy. This is an oxygen replenishment experiment called ORE. Its purpose is to find the best varieties of plants for supplementing the oxygen in the domes on Mars. The DNA sequencing bioteleporter is over there by Dr. Lipinski, the tall guy with the beard. Go visit him; he’s expecting you.”

  “Hi, I’m Amy Whi---, er, Godwin. I’ve heard so much about you and your device. I’ve even touched the DNA library you printed for Mom. Well, not actually the library, but the tiny bell jar it’s in. Is this what you made it with?”

  “Why yes, Amy, it is, but an earthbased version.”

  Reaching out, leaning over, he shook her diminutive hand.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you. Are you as smart as your dad is? That’s what I hear from your mom. ”

  “Actually smarter when it comes to sequencing and assembling DNA. He keeps stealing my go-to book on it, but I don’t mind; he needs it more than me.”

  Guffawing, h
e looked over at Jen nervously eyeing them after his echoing laugh, gave her thumbs up, and returned his attention to Amy.

  “So you know what this does, huh?”

  “Yes, up to Chapter Six I do. Once I steal my book back from my dad, I’ll know more….”

  She paused for a moment thinking, eyes closed tightly, hands to her temples.

  “Oh, from Chapter Three, I’ve already created a fasta file with my name in it. It’s something like ‘tag a cat.’ No, no, now I remember, it’s exactly TAGCAACAT using the base nucleotides CGAT.”

  “You mean you already know how to piece those nucleotides together to spell Amy in a DNA strand? Astonishing!”

  “Well, not so astonishing when you realize I used a look-up table.”

  “The same as we all do, Amy. That’s a man-made translation table. You’ll get gibberish in and out if you don’t use it for your fasta file.”

  Shocked by her advanced knowledge, he looked back at Jen, still occasionally glancing their way, caught her attention, and then pointed a finger to Amy. Slowly and emphatically, with saucer eyes, he mouthed his opinion of her, “WOW!”

  The few students that had followed her to the bioteleporter (most had stayed behind with the plants) began to whisper behind her back.

  “She’s an alien from Mars. No kid is that smart, especially a girl,” said Billy Jones, a heavyset… no chubby, sixteen-year-old boy.

  Neil Parkins, another sixteen-year-old standing by him scoffed. “She’s making it all up. How do we know she’s right.”

  “Because the old man’s agreeing with her, dummy. You try it and see how far you get.”

  “Boys, stop,” Lipinski said, sternly, “I can hear you and don’t particularly like what I’m hearing. Now go back with the plants where you belong.”

  As they retreated to their group, embarrassed, tails between their legs, Amy smiled.

  Moments later as Amy excused herself to rejoin her group, Lipinski’s cell phone chirped.

  “Excuse me a minute, Amy.”

  “Hello,” he said.

  After the caller identified himself, he cupped his hand over the microphone and said to her, aside, “It’s your dad.”