2081. In a sinister world where human survival hinges on biotechnology, an oblivious sixteen-year-old possesses the one code to undo it all. Can she survive the devious world designed to eliminate anything - anyone - out of the ordinary before it's...
"I think we need a break," Alisha's voice crackles through my headpiece, with my phone laying on the workbench behind me. Lit up.
"I was thinking the same." I push my eyeglasses up the bridge of my nose. My eyes on the code. I'm busy punching into a prototype CodeTech app I built and installed on my tablet. Now that the signals from the millions of nanites are pinging hot on the screen, I need to plug in instructions for the neural bridge schematic I spent a solid week designing. I'm hoping once the coding is in, the instructions relay to the nano-wire Flexi-chip on each individual nanite, and soon, I'll see — for the very first time — my vision coming to life. I feel like the mad scientist about to bring Frankenstein to life.
"Maybe we can do a Hunter Valley gateway, huh? What do you think? You, me, some wine? Fresh air?" I eye the ever-so-slightly swishing liquid under 10x magnification, reminding me of an amoeba. The AC blasting on high is creating an airflow that ripples the surface of what I hope will soon resemble the neural chip design on my app. A functioning neural chip. A potential bridge to replace damaged nerve cells and mend neural pathways at the location where the Central Nervous System has sustained damage.
"That's not what I mean, Billy." Alisha sounds distant, despite the earbud wedged in my ear. I know I'm barely listening to her when I should be.
I wipe the sweat beading my brows despite the chill in the air. Countless rats have lost their mobility and lives because I refuse to give up. So much so that they — the university — asked me to take some time off. With no more lectures and programming to distract, nor any mentorships under me, I am free to spend as much time as I need on my research, without impediments and questions, or demands that I give up. Not here in my lab in my house. I am the boss here.
"Okay then." I type the last of the codes into the tablet and slip the device on the bench next to the microscope. I swivel my chair to get comfortable behind the eyepiece of the microscope. The nanite load sits oblivious under the lens. I adjust the view to a 100x magnification lens and focus. "You choose where we want to go. I don't mind."
I lift my eyes from the viewfinder, enough to spy the tablet from the corner and hit publish on the codes. I return to observe the small drop of nanites on the slide. Maybe thousands, if not millions, of them, huddled up in a clump. The rippling surface is like a magnet and I am not paying attention to Alisha on the phone.
"You're not even listening to me," she sounds dejected. Her heavy sigh goes unregistered in my mind, though. I know I heard it, but I'm too captivated by the liquid under the lens, morphing.
Taking off my eyeglass, I lean back and rub my tired eyes before going back to the microscope. "I am listening, babe. I'm just—"
"In the middle of something. As always."
I sit up and pay attention for the first time tonight. Even when every fibre in my body screams at me to go back to the nanites. They are indeed moving, aren't they? And it has nothing to do with the airflow from the air-con?
"Look, I'm almost done today. Okay? In a minute, I'll be up and we can sit down and have a nice dinner together, and talk." I rush to turn the air-con off. I don't want to take the chance that air's causing the movement. The nanites themselves are following the code — aren't they?
Alisha doesn't reply to me.
"Babe? Come on. You know how much this means to me."
"It's almost midnight, Billy. It's always almost midnight." I hear her sniffle. "I called you for dinner hours ago." A scoff escapes her. "I called you! We live under the same roof and I called you."
"I'm sorry, I know I can be a jerk sometimes." I can tell she's on the brink of tears, but I am also on the brink of a breakthrough. The drama can wait, surely? "Look, I'm almost done for tonight, I swear. And I won't touch the thing again till you tell me to. Just please, I'm so close. Let me finish."
I watch the silent symphony under the lens again, and for a moment, the briefest moment, I lose my train of thought. The nanites, though I cannot see individual ones, are indeed moving, morphing into the near-copy of the chip I designed. "Finally," I mumble. Glee is too simple a word to describe this feeling.
"I think it's working, babe. I think I finally have an interface that allows me to program nanites. They are moving. They are actually moving. You gotta come down and see this!"
Silence on her side.
"Babe?"
Alisha doesn't respond.
I grab the phone from the workbench behind me. The call has ended. She hung up, and I didn't even notice. "Shit!"
With one last glance at the experiment, I take off my lab coat and leave my lair. There isn't much I can do tonight other than sit and watch the nanites build a neural chip. But I know if I don't go up there now, back to reality, and Alisha, I'm in bigger trouble.
I call for the lift, and the wait feels long.
By the time the lift opens up in our bedroom and I say, "See, I told you. I'm done for tonight," the room is empty. No Alisha, angry or otherwise, waiting for me on the bed, pretending she's asleep.
"Babe?"
My phone vibrates in my hand. The earbud erupts with an automated voice relay: You have a new message from Alisha-babe. Would you like me to read the message?
"Yes."
"Your dinner's in the fridge. You have a physiotherapy session scheduled at midday tomorrow. Hope you come out of your cave for that at least. Don't wait up. I don't know when I'm coming back. Take care, Billy."
No 'ILU' in usual Alisha-style. No heart-shaped emojis. Just silence.
"Fuck!" I let out a scream before trying her phone. Several calls, ignored. Cut. This is serious. She is serious. "Fuck!" I slouch in my chair and hurl the phone somewhere on the bed. Drained of my earlier high.
Alisha left me. Fuck.
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