Rachel Jackson was beautiful, kind, sweet, and gentle. She had a fragrance all her own. Jeremy thought he could smell it wafting toward him as she walked along the sidewalk that crossed the lawn toward him. He knew he sometimes caught her scent across the classroom and maybe he could even smell it in his sleep, like a dream one could never quite catch. It was a soft, subtle scent that was clean, but at the same time it titillated his senses. Her pulled back golden brown hair glowed in the sunlight as she walked from beneath the overhang close to the building across from him. Some times he thought of pulling that hair down from its ubiquitous band and burying his nose in it.
A white lab coat flapped against her jean clad legs as she strode with purpose to her next class. She was a senior and he was a junior, but he had heard she had been young when she came to MIT too, and although they were on the same synthetic bio team, he had never spoken to her about anything except synmites. What would it be like to take her out? Would she go with him?
Jeremy fingered the empty vial in his pocket. He had still not decided how to tell his professor or Rachel that the synmites were gone. What would she think of him then? Could he lie and say he lost the vial? It would be better to be irresponsible than for everyone to know the truth.
On the far side of the parking lot men shouted and hammered, and a large machine roared. Somewhere, a big truck sounded beep, beep, beep as it backed up to the construction site of a new building. As Rachel neared him, a car horn blared on Ames Street, drowning out his low pitched greeting and she walked right by him. He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. His gaze lifted past the flat, windowed face of the Ralph Landau building to the glassed face of the tall, square Green building. He watched the pigeons fly around the eaves for a moment and then after he was sure she had entered, he took a deep breath and followed her to class in the Koch Biology building.
When he arrived in the lab, Rachel was already working on one of the complex problems that Dr. Rutenschroder, their professor, had written on the white board. She made little noises as she worked - sounds of distress, her eraser flying as fast as her mechanical pencil lead. Jeremy moved closer and dropped his backpack below the stool next to her.
“I just can’t seem to make this work,” she smiled in his direction, her green eyes crinkling at the corners. Her eyes did not meet his.
Jeremy smiled back, relieved that she was not upset with him, just unaware he existed outside of class. “Bifurcation Analysis? Are we expected to know the answer?” He laughed, delighted that she nodded and laughed, too.
His gaze trailed to the problems they were given for a warm up. As he looked at the board, the numbers began to flow and shift in his mind. Awed, he watched them rearrange into perfect order. “There are random combinations in the order of 10 to the 6th power. Look!” he blurted, walking to the board and writing out what he saw in his head.
After a few moments, Rachel peered at him, her gaze narrowed, and said, “Really? Did you already do this problem?”
“No, I…I…” Jeremy stuttered, not sure how to answer.
“I’d heard you were smart. Can you do the next one?” Rachel’s gaze met his, her expression speculative.
She had looked at him! In a rush of euphoria, Jeremy worked the remaining problems in seconds, even flipping over the board and writing out the answers. For some reason, writing them down seemed so slow, though he wrote as fast as he could.
Rachel checked his math. “That looks right. You know, you seem different,” she said, peering at him again. “I don’t remember you doing this last week. What happened?”
Jeremy blanched, sweat popped out on his upper lip. “Nothing happened,” he stammered. “Nothing at all, except, well, the synmites I borrowed from the lab fell out of a hole in my pocket yesterday.”
Rachel’s eyes got huge, and then closed in pain. “You lost them?”
“I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find them.” Jeremy gulped, sweat now trickled down the side of his face and he brushed it away. “I’m sorry, Rachel.”
“Did you offer a reward? Can I help you look?”
“I didn’t offer a reward, but who would think twice about a vial of what looks like gunk? It is all thick and gooey, if someone did find it, they would probably throw it away,” Jeremy frowned, discouraging more discussion.
Professor Rutenschroder announced his arrival in a loud, booming voice. “You two are early again! Are you working my pet problems? I know they are difficult today, but I wanted to stretch your skills.”
“We’re finished,” Rachel said, smiling at Jeremy, “but we have a little problem, our snymites were lost.”
“Finished?” Dr. Rutenschroder strode from the door like an attack dog scenting an intruder. His sandy hair stuck out at angles, his rumpled suit with tie askew matched his brown, scraggly beard. For comfort, he wore tennis shoes. “Finished? Who worked these?” He motioned to the problems on the white board. Jeremy raised his hand. “No, you couldn’t have. That’s not possible. Why put this here?” He turned, his eyes lit with excitement. “Do you know what you have done? This problem has no answer and this one I always thought was incorrect the way it was solved by Dr. Bergstrom.”
Jeremy was touched Rachel included herself in his problem. She could have blamed him and done her own project. A small tinge of guilt pinched his conscience. Well, he did deserve that. He had lied to her, but not only had she accepted his lie, she had made it her own without knowing it.
“So professor, can we build more synmites?” Rachel asked softly.
“Humm, humm, what? This is amazing. Oh, yes, build some more,” Dr. Rutenschroder nodded still trying to work out the logic of the mathematics Jeremy had written.
Rachel and Jeremy got the supplies and started the long process needed to build more synmites. It would take hours today and many days afterward to rebuild them. “You’re wonderful,” Jeremy whispered as he leaned past her soft, golden brown hair, inhaling her scent. “Thank you.”
“We’ll start today’s lab after we finish this. To make it faster, we are going to use more of the standard building block proteins than we did last time.” Rachel whispered, trying not to disturb the class which was starting in the front portion of the large lab. Twenty stationary lab stations with sinks filled the room. They had black, stone table tops and high, black, open shelves. Lab instruments were placed in rows across the back of the table tops with some on the shelves. Electrical plugs were placed at intervals along the table top and at some stations machines hummed as students performed today’s lab.
“I thought we used standard biological parts for the microbes last time,” Jeremy said, using a long, narrow, glass pipette to measure out small portions of liquid into a plastic plate formed with holes that made deep wells.
“I added something,” Rachel murmured, shrugging.
“What did you add?” Jeremy’s voice rose and almost cracked. Several other students turned to look at them.
Rachel acted as if she had not heard until the students turned back to their labs. “I added some viral DNA which makes the bacteria capable of continuous self-replication. I hoped they would not only etch the silicone chips we added as substrate, but they would actually be able to take silicon atoms from the surrounding environment and use it to build and etch a molecular microchip of their own.”
“What DNA?” Jeremy gasped, trying hard to hide the cold lump of fear which filled his chest.
“Common cold and Chicken pox,” Rachel replied. “I checked the synmites often for mutations, but I think as long as their environment is stable, they will be OK.”
“What…What if their environment isn’t stable?”
“Well, those two portions of DNA were added just so they would reproduce and spread quickly.” Rachel whispered her tone defensive. “It should be OK.”
“Sure. No problem, Rachel. It was a good idea,” Jeremy smiled, wondering if his smile looked as false as it felt. “Where do you think the synmites would get the silicon if they could acquire and etch their own chips?”
“I didn’t think that far, I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. Did you get the silicone chips from storage?” Rachel asked, changing the subject. “We might as well get everything we need for the synmites before we have to start today’s lab.”
Jeremy entered the storage room. There was a triple beam balance for measuring mass in one corner. Bottles of chemicals and other science supplies filled the shelves. He took down the container of silicone microchips and waved off help from the Lab Teaching Assistant who checked the store room. The silicon chips had to be sorted under a microscope to eliminate flaws. That was his job. Although the lab to grow the synmites was tedious, its end product was exciting.
He measured out what he needed and paused, his hand still holding the open glass petri dish with the microscopic chips. His index finger hovered over the chips as he lifted to put the larger container with the microchips back on the shelf.
A sudden pinch on his finger brought a swift frown to his face. A drop of blood reddened the dust-like chips in the flat glass dish with low sides, called a petri dish. “What the..?” Jeremy turned his finger over. A tiny red dot of a pinprick was surrounded and filled with white silicon chip dust. As he watched his body seemed to draw in the dust and then the pinprick disappeared. Jeremy gasped, doubting what he had seen. That must have been a trick of the light.
How had he been cut? Hesitating unless a snag on the petri dish had cut him, he moved a finger around the glass petri dish. There were no sharp edges. It wasn’t the dish.
The drop of blood in the petri dish flattened and pulsed. It seemed to clump and then spread back out. The color went from blood red to pink and finally to a clear substance tinged with the palest shade of pink. Jeremy used a funnel to put the contents of the petri dish into a vial, which he shoved into his pocket. He put more silicon chips into another petri dish and went to join Rachel.
“Trade with me,” Jeremy said, his voice cracking.
Rachel looked questioningly at him as she prepared the DNA and the bacteria phages, tiny microbes that could splice it DNA.
“Last time I did the chips,” Jeremy said, his eyes rounder than usual. He worked to control his breathing.
“You can trust me, Jeremy, I didn’t mean to not tell you about the viral DNA,” Rachel whispered, color reddening her cheeks.
“It’s not that,” Jeremy forced a smile. “I just felt like trading. I didn’t mean anything by it. If you don’t want to, it’s ok.”
Rachel looked deep into his eyes, seeming to measure his intents and then, she nodded and let Jeremy have the broth.
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