Generations

by Francis Rosenfeld

  ***

  "So, what do you think?" Seth asked, keenly curious.

  "It's like a brain..., it is a brain, actually...well, it works like one, sort of..., very large...," Sarah hesitated, speaking as she developed her thoughts. "Do you see the movement of electrons in this area?" she pointed to a zone in the section of ocean floor that sister Roberta had modeled in the lab using real time images. An artificial remote controlled 'Sarah' complete with Sarah's hybrid purple/human cells mimicked the redhead's movements on the bottom of the ocean. Her right arm moved and a distinct area lit up.

  "I don't think this is an autonomous brain, I think it reflects yours. Sister Roberta, can you model Sarah's brain functions for us really quickly?" Sister Roberta diligently obliged. An almost identical pattern emerged, placed next the other one for side by side comparison.

  "This must be the primary motor cortex," Sarah said, fascinated.

  "Ok, so at least we know not to waste out time charting its patterns, apparently we already have them." Sarah remembered her unauthorized brain scan and frowned imperceptibly at sister Roberta. The latter ignored her, focused as she was on keeping the wavelengths free of interference. "Why is it reflecting your neurological activity?"

  "It must be resonance," Sarah said, unconvinced.

  "You mean they hum?" Seth asked. "They are still individual specimens, ant colony or not, it doesn't make any sense."

  "Now that you mentioned ants, they communicate through chemical signals. Do you think this might be the case here?"

  "Not easily accomplished in a viscous liquid, it would be too inefficient."

  "Long waves would encounter too much interference also, it must be something much faster, like light."

  "If it were light we'd see it, I should be glowing or something." Sister Roberta set aside an inside joke for later and chose philosophical silence.

  "X-rays?" asked Seth.

  "Ultraviolet light?" replied Sarah.

  "Sister," Seth turned around to Roberta. "What kind of wavelength would be the most efficient at carrying signal through this medium?" Sister Roberta hesitated, watching incredulously as the theoretical model zoomed quickly through the wavelengths between 10 and 0.0001 nm and stopped somewhere towards the low end of the range.

  "This isn't possible!" she gasped.

  "What isn't, sister?" Sarah asked. Sister Roberta restarted the modeling, running it a couple more times to confirm the findings.

  "In a typical organism this would engender too many DNA mutations to allow it to function, I guess this explains the incessant monitoring and cellular repair. Sarah, I don't know what this means but you are emitting gamma rays. A very low rem range, it seems like, and we're obviously unaffected, otherwise we'd have noticed it by now."

  "I'm going to trust that you have very good reasons to propose this theory, sister, and I'm not going to ask you if you are sure," Seth commented softly.

  "I don't think it is an intrinsic quality of their bio-chemical makeup either, otherwise they would interact with all of us," sister Roberta hesitated.

  "What is it then?" asked Seth.

  "Sentience," said Roberta simply.

  "Ok, so let's go back to our premise. How does it work?" continued the leader calmly, as if she asked what's for dinner. Sarah stared at her with a combination of admiration and astonishment.

  "This is categorically not normal, you'd think I would be able to take a second to adapt to the concept of being electro-magnetically charged," Sarah thought. "What would it take to disturb you, really?"

  "You're fine, aren't you? This happened a long time ago, anyway, if you didn't take a breather then you surely don't need one now," Seth conceded a comment, then continued aloud.

  "So, how does it work?"

  "Do you know those toys with pins that mold around a 3d object to replicate its shape? Something like that, maybe, only I can't figure out why," sister Roberta answered tentatively.

  "You think it's initiating communication or just reacting?" the leader asked. Sister Roberta shrugged, searching for an answer. Seth got up and looked at the little purple carpet patch whose undulating glow seemed completely random.

  "Sarah, do you want to try?" Seth asked. "They seem to like you."

  "Colonize me would be the more appropriate term," Sarah grumbled.

  "Just try, please?" Seth pleaded with unusual sweetness.

  "How?" the redhead asked.

  "Surprise me," the leader retorted.

  Sarah stared intently at the indigo field, without a word.

  "What are you doing?" Seth asked, curious.

  "I'm telling it to blink if it can understand me," answered Sarah very seriously.

  "Great, we're doing a séance! I expect to see my breath any moment now!"

  "Do you have another idea?" Sarah asked.

  "No, go ahead."

  All three of them stared at the little purple patch for a whole half hour, feeling more and more dim-witted as time passed, to the absolute delight of the school children who relished witnessing the grown-ups act so bizarre.

  At the end of this focused brainstorming session the leader got up and left without looking back, furious at herself for having wasted her time with such absurdities. The little purple carpet shimmered gently, unperturbed.

  "Maybe it doesn't understand your request. If it asked you to hum in a specific nm range would you be able to comply?" proposed sister Roberta.

  "If I ask it to hum in a specific nm range, would it be able to comply?" Sarah offered back.

  "Try 0.0013 nm," suggested sister Roberta.

  The shimmery field adjusted suddenly as soon as the thought of the wavelength of 0.0013nm formed on Sarah's cortex.

  "Do you think this was it or you?" sister Roberta asked.

  "I have absolutely no idea!" Sarah answered, more confused than ever.

  Chapter Four

  Of Code, Chemistry and Music

  Sarah stirred the oily liquid in the test tube. As she absentmindedly looked out through the louvered walls of her shop the liquid turned from bright pink to magenta and lavender, then cerulean blue and finally bright lime green, glowing diffusely as the sunlight passed through it.

  "What? Darn!" Sarah thought. "This is the third batch this afternoon!" All around her lay small and large vials of liquids and salts, spoons, glass stirrers, pipettes, and titration paper.

  "Looks like you need to adjust the pH of that solution," Seth suggested, amused. "What could possibly distract you to such a degree that you can't get the pH right for, what is that, shampoo?" she joked.

  "Skin cleanser, actually," Sarah continued. "Do you think they are sentient?"

  Seth frowned deeply, still annoyed with the neo-mesmerist sessions that made them look ridiculous in front of the children.

  "We managed to create some interesting stuff around here for quite a long time before Jimmy blessed us with this discovery and now nobody does anything anymore, we all stare at purple goo. Heck, you can't even make shampoo, how sad is that?"

  "Skin cleanser," Sarah clarified. "And it's immortal goo. Don't you want to know? There, I got it!" Sarah lifted the test tube with aqua blue-violet liquid in it. "5.6 pH, perfect!"

  "Of course I do, if nothing else to get this out of our heads so we can focus on our tasks. Just because it's immortal it doesn't mean it's self-aware. What if we're wasting all of our time watching ourselves in the mirror?" Seth shuffled, restless, then sat down on one of the built-in benches along the louvered wall. The breeze brought in fragrance from a nearby mock-orange and mixed it with the scent of lavender from the bunches Sarah had hung from the rafters to dry. The low afternoon suns wrapped everything in mellow light, as if to suggest to slow down and enjoy living.

  "You don't like not knowing, do you?" Sarah thought. Seth didn't answer, but the redhead felt her uneasiness with the subject.

  "How is the density catalyst coming?" the former changed the subject.

  "Fine, I gave Roberta the formula, she
is testing it right now. We have to figure out how to communicate with them, if it's possible, how could we not?" Sarah continued.

  "Yes, of course," Seth answered and left. The conversation annoyed her.

  Sarah placed one of her fingers under the tissue scanner and turned up the magnification to zoom in really close on one of the immortals; the lobster like creature stared back at her. It seemed impossible for the species to just exist, unaware, she could swear that one of the beady lobster eyes winked at her from the safe distance of its microscopic size.

  She spent a few hours not even noticing how time passed, trying to imagine what, if anything, was this life form's reasoning process, how they conjured up meaning, how they took in reality, did they had senses, and if so, how different they were from hers, would she be able to even understand them, or conversely would they be able to process what it meant to see, hear, feel? How does one communicate with something so fundamentally different from oneself? For all she knew the only thing they had in common was being alive. She watched the little creatures go about their business, processing boron and assisting in the catabolism of sugars. Their behavior was so similar to that of bacteria that the simple concept of their colonies being able to replicate her brain activity seemed surreal.

  ***

  "You want to teach them machine code?!!" Roberta blurted, shocked. "Do you know machine code?" she asked.

  "That's were you come in," Sarah elaborated, persuasively.

  Roberta paused to reflect and Sarah couldn't hide a little triumphant smile: the sister was hooked.

  "Don't look so pleased with yourself, I'm not sure we can do this, but I'll put something together," sister Roberta continued her train of thought. "Making them distinguish between two different wavelengths is the easy part, making them understand the patterns of zeros and ones are not random is also easy. Turning this gibberish into a language, that's impossible!"

  "Difficult, not impossible."

  "Right. Besides, we might be able to program them, but not talk to them. Now go away, I need to think!" sister Roberta sent Sarah off abruptly.

  ***

  "So we're basically trying to turn a cell culture into a CPU?" Seth asked.

  "Not exactly, we are trying to train a system that works like a neural network to form permanent pathways, like teaching a baby to talk," said Sarah.

  "Babies come with a built-in compiler, this colony does not."

  "How do you know?" asked Roberta.

  "Why don't you try and find out? Just because they can process the frequency sequence and spit out a result it doesn't mean they're answering."

  "You underestimate the wild card, they are not objects, they are alive. Life is intended to evolve."

  "Speaking of life, you may want to consider a non-binary code, they can make more than one connection at a time, like chemical bonds," offered Sarah.

  "How many?" sister Roberta asked.

  "I don't know for sure, they form closed loops like benzene, try four," the redhead answered tentatively.

  "So, we're going to sing to them?" Jimmy interjected. Sister Roberta sighed, resigned. There was absolutely no way to keep Jimmy out of her hair, no way at all. "I am considering a force field, Jimmy!", she thought. Jimmy looked at his shoes and whined in protest, but stood his ground.

  "I'll spend some time creating an audible range translator for the gamma radiation sequences, we might as well hear what we're playing to them, speaking of sharing experiences. That's going to be quite the symphonic piece, I tell you!"

  ***

  "Ok, my little microscopic friends," thought sister Roberta. "Two frequencies, four covalent bonds."

  "Hey, don't start yet, wait for me, I'll be right over!" exclaimed Sarah. "I want to hear what cyclohexane sounds like!" She ran to the lab as fast as she could and slowed down to a screeching halt in front of sister Roberta's musical machine almost knocking over little Jimmy who was there as always.

  "Here is the score!" said Roberta.

  "Wow, this is so cool!! Can I..."

  "No, Jimmy! I promise I'll let you play with it later," sister Roberta negotiated, hoping that would be enough to buy her a few minutes of uninterrupted work.

  "This little jingle is an executable, I trust you're not telling them to dissolve and digest us," Sarah joked, "What does it mean?" she asked.

  "qCf, NIY, AIY, qIq," Roberta said, "in harmony."

  "Why would you send a message that makes no sense?" Seth intervened through the neural interlink.

  "What difference does it make? We don't even know if they can notice the sequence is not random," answered Roberta, somewhat displeased.

  "If we happen to be able to make up a language we both understand are these the first words you'd like them to hear?" asked Sarah, gesturing vehemently to a very excited Jimmy who was on the verge of overturning a whole table full of equipment. The little boy managed to recover his balance at the last minute; the paraphernalia swayed for a second, then settled.

  "What would you have me say?" asked Roberta.

  "How about 'We love you?'" asked Sarah.

  "That is so trite!", Roberta shuddered with indignation.

  "I'm not declaring my undying affection to a bacterial culture!" exploded Seth through the interlink.

  "They are not bacteria! If you need an incentive please remember they are the reason we are still alive. On Earth we'd be potting clay by now," Sarah answered.

  "I'm only two hundred and twenty seven, medicine advances," the leader started to protest.

  "Not that fast," Sarah ended the conversation. "Ok, sister, send the gibberish, let's see where this is going!", she conceded.

  The sound/gamma ray machine executed the little jingle to the delight of Jimmy, who thought it was hilarious, and the cats, who ceased all activity and focused intently on the source of the sound. Solomon started purring and rubbed his head against the player, making little sounds in order to be acknowledged. The purple carpet glittered randomly for a second then varied its velvety surface like a field of wheat in the wind.

  "Do you think they noticed us?" whispered Sarah.

  "I don't know," Roberta said. "Should I try again?" Just when Roberta was getting ready to restart the sequence the little patch glimmered lavender and deep purple in a graceful rhythm.

  "They're responding in the visual range. What did they say?" Sarah jumped, with breathless anticipation.

  "qCf, NI and half a Y," said Roberta.

  "Garbage in, garbage out!" laughed Sarah.

  "They reflect, not respond." Roberta said, disappointed.

  ***

  "Jenna, return to your table, please. Lily, are you done with the centrifuge?" Sarah asked.

  "Yes, sister," said the latter.

  "Can you guess what molecule these atoms belong to?" Sarah asked the group. She input a couple of lines in the VR program, then waved her hands and picked five hydrogen and three carbon atoms out of thin air; she whirled them around gently as if swishing water in a tub to make them revolve and rotate around each other. The empty orbitals swiveled like magnets, attracted to the electrons available for sharing, then shifted around, unconvinced, lacking a stable charge-neutral configuration. One methane molecule started coagulating and Sarah poked it with her pointer to make it dissipate. "There are atoms missing, of course, but which ones?"

  "Are we allowed to use nitrogen?" asked Lily. Tommy grimaced behind her. "Teacher's pet!" he thought. "She always has to show off!"

  "I heard that, Tommy, that was not very nice!" Sarah quietly admonished him. "Do you want to give it a try?" she asked him aloud.

  "Oxygen?" he said.

  "Very good guesses, both of them, these are the building blocks of life, you can bet if there is an organic substance, especially the wonderful stuff we're all made of, these four atoms will probably be there. Let's add a nitrogen and an oxygen atom and see what happens." Sarah threw the atoms into the mix with bombastic gestures, she loved to watch the grins on the kids' faces
when she played magician. The atoms snapped into place immediately, like a magneto game, leaving an empty double bond yet to be filled.

  Jesse, a fair skinned boy with raven black hair, generated a little background entertainment by making three giant test tubes twirl around in pink tutus and accompany Sarah's movements with little approving nods. The children giggled. Encouraged, Jesse started a little trickle out of one of the tubes, which whimpered, embarrassed, and hid behind their teacher.

  "Jesse, when you're done disturbing the class can you complete the configuration?" asked Sarah unperturbed.

  Jesse threw another oxygen atom at the puzzle, very sure of himself.

  "Very good, what is it?" Sarah asked.

  "Dehydroalanine," he answered.

  "Hold that thought. What other possibilities can you think of?"

  "Two hydrogen atoms?" the little boy asked.