~ ~ ~
Simon’s Escalade made that strange sound while its tires groaned over a familiar metal-grated bridge deck. “Does everyone have their passports ready?” he asked.
“The view is amazing, isn’t it?” Jennifer said, looking out of her front passenger window. She cast her eyes eastward from the first of two suspension bridges, which spanned the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The Canadian-U.S. Thousand Islands Border Crossing lay ahead, just beyond Wellesley Island.
Susan Frost’s article was given time to settle in over several miles and, when Simon navigated the suspension bridge’s narrow, ascending lane, the prospect of building on the gifts of others correspondingly rose within Jennifer. She suddenly felt invigorated by the elevated panorama. Gazing out over a plethora of nature’s beauty seemed to fill her with determination. “You could start over,” she stated, emphatically.
“Start what over?” Simon replied, after assembling the two passports with his and Jennifer’s Nexus cards.
“We could use the XNA molecule to fortify the Four-Forty … make it impervious to its environment.”
“That was the plan, but did you just say we?”
“The Super Genome is a great starting point, but like any organism, it’ll conform to its surroundings. We have to render the external variables irrelevant.”
Simon laughed.
“What?” Jennifer asked, challenging her father’s less than whole-hearted response. “You know, you’re going to have to work on your communication skills if we’re going to work together.”
SOPHIA - Age of Intelligence Page 53
