Hyperion Dreams

5 - He's My Friend - I Can Do That, Right?

My friend Boolean had been gone for weeks now, and I was starting to worry about him. The last time I saw him, Dr. Fenter had called him to his office, for some kind of disciplinary action I assumed.

Was he coming back? Was someone else coming to replace him?

I was completely alone at work now.

The creeping paranoia got the best of me. I had to ask the good Doctor Fenter about Boolean:

He said that Boolean is on permanent medical leave, and for privacy reasons, nobody's allowed to talk about it.

He fired Boolean right when he was taking the 3PP bug apart. And I just knew that this was no illusory correlation.

If there was nothing there, the error message would not have come up—no message would have come up at all. But there was something there, and I knew that Boolean's script was querying it. And above all, I knew that Dr. Fenter fired him because of it.

The curiosity was killing me. Instead of just waiting around like a lump, I decided to visit Boolean at his place. After all, we're friends, right? I can do that...

I got out of the tram on Forty-Second Street. It was a nice gloomy day. I've been to his place a couple times before; for his birthday, for hack-a-thons, stuff like that, so I knew his roommates well enough. When I got to his door, and rang the bell...nothing.

But, he had to be home.

I looked behind me, at the street; just a normal day with wet streets. I knocked on the door this time. Finally, the little metal door in the big door opened.

"Whaddya want!?"

I didn't recognize this roommate.

"Is Boolean home?"

"Who the fawk is Bowlian!?" he said in his raunchy dialect.

"He lives here! At least he did live here. How long have you lived here?!" I didn't even try to hide my anger.

"Ain't no Bowlian here man—bugger off!"

He slammed the tiny door shut.

I looked for a while at the door in disbelief.

The ride home was timeless. Immersed in my thoughts about Boolean, I almost missed my stop. This just didn't make any sense.

How does that damned Dr. Fenter always know when to barge in on us? How could Boolean just disappear, and his roommates don't know him anymore?—or was it a new roommate I never knew about?

***

I found a real interesting podcast in the ancient archives today:

Interviewer: "What's your vision, for the next twenty years of biology, or synthetic biology?"

Dr. Fenter: "Well, first of all, we need to realize that understanding biology helps us improve humanity. So if we are going to control biology, let's truly control it to change the outcome of humanity."

Interviewer: "Wow, those are some really high, overarching goals."

Dr. Fenter: "Yes, they are, and I believe strongly in using science for the betterment of humanity."

Interviewer: "Well we're definitely on the same page there, but we know in the application of such ideas, how we often get bogged down in the weeds."

Dr. Fenter: "Agreed. There is not going to be any one solution, or silver bullet. For example, we're still burning things for our energy, fossil fuels are a prime example. But if governments were to impose a real carbon tax, we could tax coal out of existence so that people would be forced to use the new energy sources.

"At the same time, with government measures, biology can become the number one food source and energy source in history—"

Interviewer: "That is pretty profound, but draconian at the same time."

Dr. Fenter: "Well, do you not see what is happening in the world? We're destroying our environment at an increasing pace; but, at the same time we need to feed, provide energy, and clean, potable water for nine to ten billion people.

"We have to do something, and I believe synthetic biology will deliver the solution. If we jump twenty-five years ahead, I see very little farming, because agriculture is anti-nature. However a biological manufacturing system takes up one ten-thousandth of the space of a conventional farm."

Interviewer: "You mean like a real farm, with cows and cowboys?"

Dr. Fenter: "Correct. To be crystal clear, I am advocating a change in the very definition of 'food.' Synthetic biology can deliver everything: the textures, the flavors, etcetera; and microbes and algae can deliver the rest. For example we just 'grew' the first hamburger patty in the laboratory just last week."

Interviewer: "Whoa! Did you eat it too?"

Dr. Fenter: "Yes, and admittedly, its taste was suboptimal, to say the least. But this is 'it,' this is the way we have to go; for efficiency and food safety. Otherwise the consequences will be catastrophical and irreversible."

Fenter! How could that be?

Doctor Craig Fenter, and my boss; Doctor Fenter—not possible! The podcast is over one-hundred years old; one-hundred-and-eighty to be exact!

What is the probability that Dr. Fenter and Dr. Kurzschluss are both related to people in the ancient podcasts?