by L. L. Fine
It was not easy to get him out of that little room. For a moment he woke up and tried to protest, grabbing at the table, muttering something to the physicians who dragged him out. But then he erupted with reddish puke, lost consciousness again and was rushed to the clinic.
During the next twelve hours relaxing medicines were injected to him, slowly, to keep him asleep. Apparently it worked: his body did not move.
Still, Lia knew it was not restful sleep. The EEG showed how alert Zomy’s brain waves were. Beyond simple alertness, actually. Typical waves of a very upset man, on the verge of panic. And under his closed lids raged a storm of eyeballs, darting from side to side.
Occasionally his lips formed words, but even his shallow breathing blew them away. His regular mask was set aside, and he now had a transparent plastic oxygen tube leading to his nostrils.
Lia saw it as a significant improvement. And thought, this time as a doctor, the diagnosis was wrong. Any improvement, if any, touched only his appearance. Not his physical state, certainly not his mental state.
She left the hospital and went back to her office. Sat on her treatment bed, looked at the posters on the wall (structure of the heart, tissues, and respiratory system), trying to organize her thoughts. Laying on her back, trying to relax. Called the attending physician, the head of the team, asking him to keep her informed on Zomy’s condition.
"Yes, it’s unfortunate... overwork... as someone who works with him, I feel I have to be near him when he wakes up. Then you’ll let me know? Thank you."
Finally, somebody decided Zomy had slept enough, and the soothing intravenous drip was discontinued. An hour later, Zomy squinted through two blurry eyes, and tried to get up right away. His world spun and stopped in fear.
"Relax. Slowly."
Caressing the soft words in his mind, he returned with relief to a reclining position. His eyes blinked twice, and the focus returned to them gradually. Zomy felt slower, hovering, as if under the influence of drugs. Well, he was, of course, properly under the influence of drugs.
But wait, that voice was familiar. And hey, he even loved the voice! Where was it coming from ..?
Zomy looked a bit around the bed, seeking the voice. Lia’s familiar face slowly came into the center of his vision. He smiled at her, and she responded with a smile of her own.
"How did this happen?" he muttered, finally.
Lia shrugged. "You worked too long, probably."
"Ahhh ... yes."
He closed his eyes, remembering what happened. And suddenly opened them again quickly. New sparks flickered in his eyes for a moment, as if remembering something from the item which previously eluded him. He lay back again.
"I have to go back to the computer," he said. "I’m on to something."
"You're too weak. Wait a little bit."
"No, no. I have to! You don’t understand ..."
"Not yet," said Lia, and restarted the dropper. Small drops of barbiturate, carefully regulated, entered into and swirled around Zomy's bloodstream. The effect was almost immediate. Voices dimmed, Lia's face faded out of focus. His head sank on the pillow again.
After several minutes, he went back to sleep.
This time he was a little calmer.
06/28/01 Email
Unusually, this time I’m not sending you something that I write myself, but something that was sent to me. Lia sent me, to be exact. I changed some numbers and names, and I deleted some - you'll see. It isn’t essential to your understanding of things, it's just essential to check if you really know anything about the story or not. In your favor, in short.
She sent me this internal email while I was at the clinic. See what you can do with it. Zomy.
Hey,
I’m going home knowing you’ll wake up while I'm gone, and you’ll run the computer.
Was I right?
Briefly: I tried to check the format # * # (@! _% * @ _ Set your computer on two exec. It’d take another week for the micro-chemistry to come up with final answers, but from the superficial results you gave me I think you were right. A cut exists between the chains) # &% @ @ () and & #) #% (@ #).
If you look at the logarithmic, as specified, the effect is very reminiscent of what we thought.
Between you and me, of course.
We'll talk when you get back
07/06/01 MSN chat
Stopwatch: I'm back
Looking for a challenge: I'm happy to see you. Who are you, sir?
Stopwatch: The Man and The Secret.
Looking for a challenge: You need to be more specific.
Stopwatch: Why?
Looking for a challenge: There are a lot of people and a lot of secrets.
Stopwatch: You son of a bi…
Looking for a challenge: Not clear enough. Who is it???
Stopwatch: Ah c’mon, don’t you recognize an old friend?
Looking for a challenge: It's starting to annoy me. Identify yourself or....
Stopwatch: Zomy.
Looking for a challenge: I was very worried.
Looking for a challenge: All right?
Stopwatch: Yes and no.
Looking for a challenge: You’re alive - so yes.
Looking for a challenge: But I understand all is not well.
Stopwatch: It wasn’t clear to you in my emails?
Looking for a challenge: To tell the truth, I don’t think I got the last one. It bothers me that I can’t communicate with you. Is there some way I can send you messages? Sometimes I feel I have to write to you, and I don’t know how.
Stopwatch: I’ll try to organize something. What wasn’t clear?
Looking for a challenge: The mail that you received from Lia. What effect? What kind of effect? What logarithms? Remember, I don’t really understand anything.
Stopwatch: Ah, well…
Stopwatch: It's not that hard if you were trying to think.
Looking for a challenge: Thanks a bunch, friend.
Stopwatch: This is no time to fret. You know why I turned to you from the beginning, right?
Looking for a challenge: Well, and -?
Stopwatch: You tell me.
Looking for a challenge: So I'll publish your story.
Stopwatch: What is my story?
Looking for a challenge: All this genetic thing.
Stopwatch: What section of this genetic thing?
Looking for a challenge: Look, I don’t like being treated like a moron. I hate this.
Stopwatch: So sorry for your lack of wellbeing. What's genetic about it?
Looking for a challenge: Death, aging.
Stopwatch: Exactly. We discovered the mechanism of death in the DNA. This timer of people and butterflies and trees – how much time they get.
Looking for a challenge: So, what’s new now? I still don’t understand.
Stopwatch: What do you know about trilobites?
Looking for a challenge: ??
*
"I suggested it, then I tried to refute it in any way possible."
Lia's voice was very tired, very flat. Her eyes were tired, and her body, which usually was upright, was slightly bent. He wondered how many hours she had been gone but decided to give up the question.
He, himself, was more cheerful. Still needed rest, but was no longer bedridden. Lia had told him all kinds of nonsense, and gossip about what was happening at the Institute, and news about what was happening in the outside world, and all sorts of interesting things. And now she had got to the point.
"Did you disprove it?" he asked her slowly.
"Not yet. I checked everything I could, but obviously our database is very limited."
"Yes, it is."
They were in Lia's office. It was decorated, Zomy noticed, like a doctor's consulting room. Why? Zomy did not quite understand. Lia's job was light years away from any medical practitioner in the world.
Maybe it was this way so she could feel normal, he suspected suddenly. She needed to keep it normal to remain sane, far from the laboratory
where things were mysterious. Or maybe it was just her sense of humor? It was impossible to ignore her cynicism in putting up a standard health warning poster that explained how the influenza virus works. Even the examination table, complete with a giant roll of paper designed to be used as a disposable sheet, could be considered a wry joke at the expense of the Institute. Even the stethoscope hanging on the inside of the door, was an ironic smile, invisible.
"We have quite a bit of experience with dogs, lots of mice, many invertebrates ... but it's not the same. ... the sequence that you discovered doesn’t exist in the same way in every genome."
"Probably not. I found it almost by accident, you know."
"Happenstance, in your case, has very strange laws," she let out dryly.
"I am who I am," he shrugged.
"You are who you are," she confirmed with a nod. "Anyway, I found this almost exact sequence in chimpanzees. I think I found something similar in dogs - but there are quite a few differences. Mice didn’t show up anything, but there was something strange in the clones."
"Wait, what chimpanzees? Can we zoom?" He leaned toward her with shining eyes. The chimpanzee genome was almost similar to that of humans. 99% similarity, sort of.
"No. There’s no noticeable chain approach. But I tested only as far as four generations back, manually".
"What, didn't you run it on the computer?"
"That's why I need you. It's not simple, you know."
"I'll fix it real quick.” He muttered on, “…a way…run the program ...tried other people?"
She did not answer immediately. Her eyes had rested upon and were examining a shoelace. She tried to concentrate on the interesting way the shoelace from one of the two parts of the shoe (Zomy’s, by the way) wound into a complete entity. It was fascinating, actually.
"Lia?"
Her shoulders rose and fell with every breath, and Zomy was waiting for her answer. Intently.
"Lia?"
"Yes, yes! You. I ran your simulation."
Zomy raised an eyebrow. His DNA did not ever have to be involved, he knew. That is, Lia ran all the tests without …
"Let me guess. Zomy 19 not divisible."
"Actually it's Zomy 17, that's not divisible," she whispered.
"Wow."
"Yes."
Zomy slowly rose from his chair, trying to stabilize his view of the world. He began to scratch the short stubble, accumulated beneath the mask, thinking. Computer.
"I want to run a new DNA," he said finally.
*
Stopwatch: Trilobites, you know about them?
Looking for a challenge: Something to do with cells? Friends of the mitochondria?
Stopwatch: No, no. Trilobites were animals that lived 300 million years or so ago.
Looking for a challenge: Oh, I wasn’t born then.
Stopwatch: Absence is no excuse for ignorance.
Looking for a challenge: What???
Looking for a challenge: The way you speak - like someone out of a book.
Stopwatch: I had a commander that spoke like this.
Looking for a challenge: A chatty trilobite, eh?
Stopwatch: :-)))
Stopwatch: Kind of.
Looking for a challenge: Well, then?
Stopwatch: Trilobites lived quietly for millions of years, filling every hole in the Cambrian earth. And one day they just disappeared.
Looking for a challenge: You don’t mean dinosaurs?
Stopwatch: Dinosaurs came much later. The biggest trilobite was only something like half a meter long.
Stopwatch: Oh... you're fast.
Stopwatch: Yes, this site’s good.
Stopwatch: Google fan. Love it.
Looking for a challenge: Stop following me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looking for a challenge: You’re intolerable!
Stopwatch: I'll wait while you read.
Looking for a challenge: Well, I see your point. Big cockroaches…
Stopwatch: There were also very small ones. No matter, the thing is that one day - all gone…
Looking for a challenge: MASS EXTINCTION.
Stopwatch: Yes.
Looking for a challenge: Says here it was a meteor.
Stopwatch: That’s just one theory – there are others.
Stopwatch: There were several mass extinctions just like it.
Stopwatch: As with dinosaurs, there are some clear links to geological events.
Looking for a challenge: Seems there’s a geological connection to the trilobites as well. They found some meteorite metal…?
Stopwatch: And other stuff. It’s just that trilobites lived basically in the sea, where the side effects are far less.
Looking for a challenge: So what are you saying, exactly?
*
There was something mesmerizing in his movement.
Small movements, gentle, calculated. She loved seeing him play the computer keyboard. His hands were very agile, the key taps almost imperceptible. Minimal - nothing hard, just a soft touch. Loving, almost.
She also liked to watch him eat with a knife and fork, the same exact movements. More convoluted, however, with chopsticks. That's what he was, she realized: a knife and fork man, a cholent and gefilte fish man. Not Chinese food. Jewish, thin, precise. With small movements, thin and calculated.
Just like movements he made in those moments, using a tiny screwdriver, while leaning over her examining table. Digging, cutting movements at the gold pendant that had always been - until now - around his neck.
Just moments before, he had torn it from his neck with unexpected aggression. Lia clutched the necklace to herself, held in her hand. The chain was perfectly continuous without any hint of a hook closure.
"I had it welded around my neck," Zomy said, "when I was very young."
Lia did not respond.
"You got a screwdriver or eyeglasses?"
She had.
Zomy focused on the pendant for almost fifteen minutes, until the sound of breaking metal clinked in the room, and he opened the locket in his hand.
"Here," he said unhappily.
"Whose hair?"
"My father's. Taken a few days before he died."
Lia raised her eyebrow. Not out of a lack of understanding - she understood well enough why Zomy produced this old piece of DNA. She raised an eyebrow in great appreciation. Keeping such a souvenir of his father, so close to his heart, it was a Zomy she never knew. And was very happy to meet.
"Run it, okay?" He suddenly looked very tired and impatient. Emptied.
"It’ll take a few hours," she replied.
Several hours.
Amazing how the running process had been reduced, within just a few months. The very first human genosimulation, Lia well remembered, took weeks. But things got better and better every run. Weeks were tightened to days, days shortened to hours. Magic.
She did not ask Zomy how it happened, but it was clear he was in charge of magic. Pure mathematical magic. Not something real. Just a simple trick, performed by billions of calculations per second. Shortened ranges made the wonderful possible. Human. That's what we have computer wizards for, she thought.
But she was not a negligible factor in the process.
Lia had a gift for a brilliant analysis and extraordinary intuition, that made her a first-class genetic analyst. This combination was critical for the study.
After all, in the complex multibillion-stage DNA chain, not every stage was important to solve any problem. And once she knew how to identify the factors that may influence some process (and more importantly, sift out the factors that would not influence that process) the calculation process was greatly curtailed. Intuition, her lab colleagues said. Feminine intuition. They said it, and she did not deny it. Each brings his or her own magic, she thought.
Oh well. She still had a few hours until the computer performed the critical meiosis, and they had a lot of work ahead. She kissed Zomy on the forehead, went to her lab, and let him fall as
leep on the sofa.
*
Stopwatch: An environmental event couldn't do it.
Looking for a challenge: So what did it? Green hunters from Mars?
Stopwatch: You're not taking me seriously enough.
Stopwatch: You're not taking this seriously at all.
Looking for a challenge: I am, I am!
Stopwatch: So stop with the jokes and listen for a sec.
Looking for a challenge: Well?
Stopwatch: After yesterday, I now have a completely different hypothesis.
Looking for a challenge: Ah, yellow hunters?
Stopwatch: Asshole!
Stopwatch: My new hypothesis is simply that their time had come.
Looking for a challenge: Explain.
Stopwatch: Fossils from that period indicate unbelievable numbers of trilobites. As if there was nothing else around.
Stopwatch: Crazy numbers.
Stopwatch: Billions. The earth was driven by trilobites.
Looking for a challenge: Successful life forms evolve. What's strange about that?
Stopwatch: Too successful. It seems they didn’t just die at all.
Looking for a challenge: ???
Stopwatch: Look, you know we’re investigating the mechanism of death.
Looking for a challenge: The second time today you’ve reminded me. Yeah, so?
Stopwatch: What would happen if some life forms developed without this mechanism?
Looking for a challenge: Ah. Continue.
Stopwatch: So they become the unchallenged rulers of the world!
Stopwatch: The nation…
Looking for a challenge: And you reckon that's what had happened to them?
Stopwatch: This is a new thought that came to me, and I told Lia. She doesn't totally agree with me, but it fits in perfectly.
Looking for a challenge: So wait, it isn't clear. Why did their time run out? What’s it got to do with them not developing the mechanism of death?
*
"I warn you, it won’t be pleasant."
Lia looked worn out. Red eyes, eyebrows furrowed over hunched shoulders, and clenched hands clutching a number of documents with excessive force.
Zomy, on the other hand, was fresher. Still unwashed, unshaven, again hidden behind a mask. A few hours’ sleep, is that what distinguishes a wreck from a functioning man? Zomy noted that as a subject for research, and reached for the papers.
