“Is this your friend?” asked the tall, lanky professor, bald except for wispy tufts of grey hair above each ear. He peered sharply over the rims of his thick, wire glasses at the two young men. Ryan Tristan, the older of the two had blue eyes and straight blond hair, shaved neatly up his head to his crown, where much longer hair was moussed to stand upright adding an inch or so to his slight frame. The other lad was much younger and dark where his friend was light. His tall, lanky form was like a colt, all legs and sharp angles, knobby knees and ungainly movement. His dark, over-long, soft corkscrew curls flopped close to his sable eyes. He had a habit of blowing them up out of his eyes or using his hand to scoop them to the side.
Ryan Tristan nodded, pulling his friend forward. “This is Jeremy Garrett, Boy Genius. Jeremy, this is Dr. Petroski,” Ryan said, shooting a cheeky grin at Jeremy. Ryan never missed a chance to poke fun at Jeremy’s youth, and some of his teasing had sharp edges.
“I’m not really a boy genius, Sir, I just look young,” Jeremy said, offering his hand. He blew aside the floppy curls obscuring his eyes so he could see the Doctor through his curls.
“If you’re older than 16, I’ll eat my hat.” Dr. Petroski guffawed, peering at him, “I was like that once, young and going to college with the older kids…” He trailed off, caught for a moment by a memory, “Ryan said you went to MIT? Yes, that is impressive. Well, what miracle of science have you brought to show us today?”
Jeremy fished a vial with a black metal lid out of his pocket. It was full of a thick, foggy, amber-colored liquid. “We have been splicing genes and growing bacteria on silicon chips. I call them smart synmites – synthetic micro-organisms. They combine the best of life and robotics.” He took a plastic box out of his pocket and clicked a switch. After a moment, he touched the two wires to the vial’s metallic lid. All of the synmites flashed bright orange. He changed the voltage and touched the wires to the lid again, all of the synmites flashed lime green. “Glass is a poor conductor, so you can’t get a full effect from these charges. We can do all sorts of things in a lab. We started making standard synthetic biology, but we are moving a step further.”
Dr. Petroski’s eyebrows launched up his smooth forehead, “Those are nice, yes, very nice indeed. They are alive?”
“Partly, the bacteria are alive, but the silicon chips are like computer chips with very small layers of etchings in stacks for the electrons to travel on. Those give it the computing power; the more layers of etchings, the more power it has. Now, we are searching for ways for the bacteria to lay down their own etchings in stacks that will allow one electron to move at a time. That would make them really fast. Who knows, someday they might grow their own crystal lattice, already etched. Imagine, a living computer that grows its own circuits.”
“Most fascinating,” Dr. Petroski said, watching the colors change again with the change in voltage. “Follow me. It is our turn now.” He smiled and motioned the two friends forward.
He led them down a tunnel, into an elevator, and through another tunnel. They came to a room with stools in front of an instrument console. A full plate glass window separated the smaller control room from another, larger room with an impressive, pewter metallic and black device that looked like a short, glassed-over cannon about a foot in diameter and three feet deep. It was mounted on a movable structure with large rotating cylinders that could be used to position it. The instrument extended to the right and circled around the room. A long, connecting metal bench was attached, bearing a two-foot square, window-like sample case. The case was located 10 or so feet in front of the cannon. Inside the case was an inner glass vise, used to hold the test sample. It was mounted to the bottom of the window-like sample case, where there were several other cut pieces of metal littering the see-through square structure. A second light wave source was located to the left of the cannon. It was a large cylinder with a small opening at the end
“Is that it?” Jeremy asked rushing through the door Dr. Petroski held open.
“This is our pride and joy. It is a super laser, a soft X-ray FLASH laser that can knock subatomic particles out of atoms to change their structure and perhaps change the way they combine with one another. We know it can change the state of matter.” Dr. Petroski’s chest swelled as he touched the black metal casing of the short cannon, softly blowing imagined dust off the shiny, smooth dark glass that filled the cannon’s mouth.
“So far, we have made aluminum transparent to extreme ultraviolet radiation and we are trying to change the structure of an alkali metal, like lithium.” Ryan chimed in, rubbing a soft cloth over the already shiny glass of the complex machine. “Come and see,” he said walking to the metallic, window-like box that held the glass vise and several random samples. He placed the cloth beside one of the samples and used tongs to take a used sample out of the glass vise. Ryan moved to a closet on the other side of the room to choose a sliced sample of aluminum.
“Does it do anything to the metal in these other samples? What about the vice?” Jeremy asked, sliding his vial behind one of the samples and drawing the cloth over it.
“We think there might be some effects, but not like those we see in the tested sample. We leave these here as a second test to see if there is residual effect, but the beam is very tight and the laser is pointed sharply at the sample we are testing, still stray X-ray pulses can escape occasionally.” Ryan placed the test sample into the glass vise. “Watch this. You are going to freak.”
Ryan and Jeremy joined Dr. Petroski in the control room and put on their safety eyewear. A loud humming filled the air, the laser was gearing up. “Each of these soft X-ray bursts creates an energy pulse that could power a small city,” Dr. Petroski shouted, “We also shine an ultraviolet beam at the sample so we can determine when it becomes transparent.” A bright flash of light was followed by a pop and buzz. The solid beam of red light lit up the sample and reflected off Ryan’s white rag.
“The rag,” Ryan gasped, alerting Dr. Petroski to the forgotten rag. Jeremy held his breath too, but for a different reason.
“Not to worry, Ryan, if it catches fire, we will stop and put it out,” Dr. Petroski said waving his hand like he was swatting a fly. He watched his sample, his eyes narrowed and his mouth pursed as it began to fade in the ultraviolet light. “Look, its structure is changing. Jeremy, are you watching?”
“I can’t believe it is disappearing. It’s still there, right? It is only invisible to the short wavelengths of ultraviolet radiation, but not visible light?”
“Yes, it’s there, but it’s transparent under ultraviolet light and it will stay that way for a while. Turn the lights on Ryan, so your friend can see it’s still there.” As the last of the sample disappeared, Dr. Petroski turned off the laser.
Ryan turned on the lights and opened the door, but Dr. Petroski called him back. Jeremy flew into the room to look at the sample. When he reached it, his hand cupped the cloth and he pocketed the now hot vial, and then pulled the cloth back out.
Ryan moved up behind Jeremy, leaning down to peer at the sample. Startled, Jeremy spun, his elbow cracking Ryan’s nose.
“What the …!” Ryan moaned, blood spurting from his nose. Without thinking, Jeremy handed Ryan the cloth. Ryan said several unsavory things which were muffled by the cloth as he pointed his nose toward the ceiling and stemmed the blood. He sneered and waved off Jeremy’s apologies. “Clutz,” Ryan said, past the bloody rag.
Abashed, Jeremy thanked Dr. Petroski and Ryan for showing him the laser. He grinned good-naturedly as both men teased him about his clumsiness. The entire time, Jeremy kept his fingers around the vial, curiosity and excitement spurred him out the door to find a place to be alone with his synmites.
Several minutes later, he stopped at a burger joint and ordered. Finding a table out of direct sight of most of the customers, he snagged a few fries. What would he find when he took out the vial? How had his synmites changed? Lost in thought, he munched his fries and ate his hamburger. Would the synmites be dead? Would they still change colors? He had taken a huge risk to preform this experiment and he hoped if it failed that no one ever found out what he had done. He might be forgiven his lapse of ethics because of his age, but he did not want to tell his advisor why his synmites were all dead.
He shoved his finished meal to the side. His heart flew to his mouth and a pain filled his chest as he realized what he had risked to do this unauthorized experiment. If anyone found out, he could lose everything, all his dreams, his future, his career. He drew three deep, calming breaths and then closed his eyes. Nervous energy filled him. Crossing his fingers and holding his breath, he withdrew the vial.
He opened one eye. Then he opened both eyes into wide round circles. Tingles washed over him like a cold, panicky wave. His neck prickled and his breath caught. He looked at his hands. He looked in his pocket. He got out the black box and put the charged wires to the top of the metal lid. Nothing happened. The vial was empty. With slow, measured movements, he opened the lid. The contents were not transparent, they were gone. All of his synmites had escaped.
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