Chapters 2009

The Project 37 lab had the most perfect sphere in the world, unequalled in precision by any other sphere ever constructed, except the one that stood beside it. They were immaculate and incredibly similar, leaving the fact that they did exactly the opposite job.
They were marked init and fin.

"Sockets activated", declared Ruvan resisting his temptation to say "Vexatious Vixens" and raised his thumb to Sharon still one eye on Kensington. With efficient movements, Sharon took out the glass beaker marked Nanoarchium Equitans from the refrigerator.It was the smallest living thing which could withstand the temperatures of the teleportation.

After adding some routine chemicals to a drop of the liquid from the beaker, Sharon handed over the slide having the droplet to Edlie, who in the absense of Mine, performed his task of placing the droplet inside init. The magnetic levitation inside, never let the entered droplet ever touch the inside walls of the sphere.

Suddenly, when Kid asserted "FIRE!", trying hard to appear curious, everything happened together.A twenty eight thousand computers, suddenly stopped working, without the users realizing what they did wrong. The big screen flashing numbers , which were the calculated variables of the bacterium, suddenly went bright and then absolute black. Then as fast as it died, it woke up to yell FIRE! back at Kid.

Dr. Kensington knew that the experiment had caused the fire. He had killed the hen which laid golden eggs.

Just 4 months ago, Dr. Kensington, a researcher from the Department of Defense had joined in the team. Mine was never keen to accept more people in . Kid wanted to have him because with him came in a dowry of millions of dollars, which was good for the company.

Government suggested that his inclusion as a 'team member', which everybody always read as 'an auditor', would 'speed up the experiment'. Speeding up the experiment is exactly what Mine and his team had already achieved, as demonstrated by their landmark experiment a week ago, and exactly what they had to work now to hide.

"Can't he be told that Dr. Debye just had a severe paralytic attack? ", suggested the young Indian tyro, who had been silent till now.Kid did not even so much as look at Rishi.

'...why is he asking for the bacteria today?... metal dots was a big leap after electrons!...does he suspect us?...' Suddenly, as if somebody had woken him up out of deep sleep, Kid jolted towards the center of the imaginary triangle formed by the three standing members of the team. Turning to Rishi, he ordered " Take Mine to your place. Be there till I call."

"So are we going to give a demo to Kensington today? " queried Sharon, in a tone that a receptionist uses when his boss asks her to work late, especially when she has had enough for a day.

Kid said, with a hint of a smile on his face."Edlie, put all the Uranium, except a little more than required for the demo, in a safe place. You know what can happen if all of that blows up today."

The rest of the ensemble watched on as Edlie seemingly communicated with Mine, giving them a thumbs up that all was fine. But it was not time for jubilation yet. Mine needed to be tested for any long term side-effects, any internal physical or mental instability. Dependable techniques for Mass Transformation was proving even more elusive than anyone had imagined.

"Are you still yourself? 53 years old, crazy lunatic, Mine Debye ?" shouted Kid over the intercom.

"You can't help the drama, can you? Yes I am myself. In senses. And you wish I was that old, my white mane is still more classy than yours." came a weak reply from the other side.

"Well, technically you died that time. Your whole body matter effectively vaporised and put back again. So even you can't properly say you're the same person." Kid smirked.

"That's a little too blunt don't you think? And well, even you sleep at times. Who's to say the person waking up is the same as the one who slept. What exactly is identity?"

Kid let a wave of satisfaction and relief sweep through him. His friend seemed normal on the surface at least.

It was Edlie, the only other woman in the team, who first noticed Mine's fingers move. She had seen them flex a while ago, but had rejected the idea , as wishful thinking. But this time it surely was for real. The first, second and third fingers rose and fall, one by one, forming a lively wave.

Edlie did not belong here, at least not because of her immaculate and slender appearance, the companies she kept and most of all because the way she hated science as a philosophy. The thing that kept her here was her addiction for numbers and her inability to refrain from the euphoric pleasure of thinking outside the box, especially in the domain of cutting edge technology. If she wouldn't be here, she would surely be an air hostress.

It was she , who had once talked about a ternary system rather than a binary system which would be the common language between humans and robots in the future. And just for fun had even developed a system and tried to teach it to everyone around. Only Mine was interested . It did not include fingers then.

"He wants us to know that he is ok", she said.

By the time she had finished saying it, she had also figured out that even if Mine could not hear right now, he would be surely able to sense a touch on the fingers. And as she paced towards the chassis, eyes fixated on the fingers, her mind was translating "hi Mine" into FING3RS.