Authors: L.L. Fine
And he dug, and he built, and he bypassed. And commanded
thousands of busy ants to gather in one of the deep trenches in the dirt, until
the channel was filled temporarily. Somewhere in the real world, the computer
network of a large bank in Vancouver crashed, and a small spider, almost
invisible, crossed it quickly and merged into the big, complex, tunnel network,
which was in the water canal.
Tiny, very tiny, the spider was. Out of sight from prying
eyes, it was very active, weaving a delicate network of threads around the
complex opening.
A small beep.
But still not strange enough to disturb the dreamy,
concentrated, unconscious smile that hovered over Zomy's lips.
Rows and rows of numbers streamed across the new window in
the huge rectangular screen, and Zomy saw how his spider trapped an ant first,
then another, and another. It's night now in Canada, he knew, and most ants are
sleeping an honest sleep. Tomorrow would be the really successful hunting
operation, with more than fifteen thousand ants joining, without knowing, his
huge ant army.
Still not huge enough, of course. But it would come. He looked
away, and drove his consciousness to the beep of the first window, where the
battalion continued to throw its efforts at the blocked dirt canal, without a
real reason now. Zomy stopped them at the touch of a button, and another click
scattered them to their burrows. A look to the sky, to the environment - no, no
one spied on him. The action (beep) passed without detection, no real
resistance.
By the time a guard colony passed by, the first of hundreds
who would sweep the attacked place, nothing remained from his ant regiment.
Only a small spider, doing his work properly, remained hidden in the shadows of
the fortress territory.
A small beep.
What?!
The small beep, which was designed to sound strange and
disturbing, was suddenly a familiar face. It was no less than his racing gnat,
which was programmed to notify him immediately on such things. And his heart
skipped a beat, the result of an immediate, increased, activity in his
adrenaline gland.
Already? Already! It was too soon. Couldn’t be!
Within a blink of an eye his fingers turned into a swirled
flurry of clicks, when a line of programs was replaced by another, very long
and secret line. One after the other frames were separated from the giant
screen, giving a space to another, secret, hidden frame.
Wow.
There.
In Australia, Taiwan, India, England, Argentina, Pakistan,
Israel, more than half the US states, most parts of Germany, France, New
Zealand, Colombia, the Fiji Islands, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece and Turkey, millions
of little ants woke up, looked right and left, and began to pull from their
holes hidden treasures.
Zomy's screen broke into new life.
Lines started running, dropping down the screen, down and
down. Trim, green lines. Occasionally replaced parts are yellow, sick lines,
but the majority were green. Zomy snapped a few more times, and the lines
jumped ahead, a few miles below.
Things happened.
Zomy looked at the screen anxiously. More and more yellow
lines began to appear instead of the green. His frowns came regularly, some
worried, some curious. These were the last millions of lines of code, so that
he knew, and they turned yellow too fast. He leaned back in his chair, letting
the program fulfill its goal, second after second, day after day. Despite the
air conditioning, a tear of sweat formed on his forehead, trickling down.
Not every person looks at his own death, he thought. Not
every day.
Then the program stopped. One line, red, stopped the entire
process. He looked at it, again and again, read the text but did not understand
it. Frustration finally overcame him, and he pressed the intercom button.
"Lia, come in here."
An hour later, he lay on the stretcher in the clinic, while
Lia, wearing a doctor's coat, screened the computer printouts. Dozens of pages
were on the floor, in a neat stack designed for shredding.
"Hmm ..." Lia uttered suddenly, an unseen voice.
"What?"
"Hmm ..." she continued, smiling at him suddenly,
squinting.
"What?"
"Take off your shirt."
"What?" This time louder, puzzled.
"Take off your shirt, I want to see what nearly killed
you when you were 15."
"Nothing nearly killed me at 15," he muttered
angrily, but took off his shirt. Lia looked at him again, with a clearly
non-medical look. How thin he was. Thin but cute, light-skinned with matted
chest hair, cute as only innocent people can to be. Anyway, the doctor in her
was back in control, not interested in his chest.
She felt his belly, on the right, dropping down below.
"Take off your trousers," she ordered. And he
obeyed. "That's it," she said. And she stopped, slightly below the
underwear line.
Her long-fingered hand slid further down and down, down the
right-side of his belly. Down, down, feeling any flap of skin, each passing
hair. She went down more, sliding under, little by little, under his underwear.
Then stopped.
"Here it is."
"Here's what?" He got mad.
"You had an appendectomy when you were 15, that's
what."
"I did?"
There was nothing like this. He was sure there was nothing
like this! But then he remembered. Sometime in the closed room with Rabbi
Eligad, he remembered a terrible stomach ache, the kind which slashes you like
a sword from the inside. He remembered a whirlwind of faces, colors, he
remembered white lights, and then a long sleep...
It was so long ago…so much had passed since…and he
remembered lying in the room, dull pain in his right-side stomach, and the
angel giving him juice and butter cookies.
"I've never had a surgery, Lia," he murmured.
"But that's the scar there," and she guided his
finger to the small change in the skin texture, no more than an hair’s breadth
of an old scab, no more than an inch long. "And it was an excellent
surgery, you can hardly feel it. Who was your surgeon, can you remember? "
"No," he lied.
"Anyway, that's what almost killed you at 15. The
genosimulation was not wrong. If you hadn't had the surgery, you would’ve died
from infection, as the appendix would finally explode.”
"At the age of 15?"
"At 15," she confirmed. "That's what it was
before modern medicine. People died from nonsense. Appendix, for crying out
loud! But now what do we do? The simulation was stuck."
"Oh, nonsense. I'll just eliminate the disorder causer,
and it should run on."
“We'll see," she said.
Three hours later, the lines were running back in his room.
He slightly turned the computer screen, so that Lia could see. All lines were
green, she noticed, except here and there a yellow stain.
"Well," she said.
And Zomy pushed the button that sent millions of ants back
to their nests, where they continued to be busy in secret, under the eyes of
their rightful owners. Very quietly, secretly.
Green lines disappeared off the computer screen, returning
the screen to the usual frames. But Zomy didn’t feel like hunting down more
ants now. Anyway, all this would be redundant soon. After the completion of his
great plan, millions of new ants would be captured without any effort, using
the honey trap. His favorite method.
"Want to go to the cafeteria for a drink?"
And she looked at the clock.
"Yes, why not."
The simulation had four more months of real-time working,
until the next, harsh red line would appear.
*
Cruel Ruler: You know, I cannot believe it.
Mitochondria: That I had appendicitis at age 15?
Cruel Ruler: No, no. I mean all this thing, the genoshit,
the story of the computer software which is our genetic code. It's too
engineer-y to me. Where’s God in the story?
Cruel Ruler: Especially considering your background…you
didn’t ask these questions?
Mitochondria: God is in the story, believe me. Very much in
the story.
Mitochondria: Sure I asked. I'm the first to ask.
Mitochondria: God is very much in the story.
Cruel Ruler: Are you kidding me? It's all about software,
without any divine intervention. We are all robots. Programmed.
Mitochondria: First of all: where there is a program there
should be a programmer, right?
Cruel Ruler: Evolution, Darwin, you already know these
answers. So there are several billion commands in the genome, so what?
Mitochondria: You say that because you really don't know the
whole story.
Cruel Ruler: What you have said so far…there isn’t even an
element of choice, of will, in the genes. Everything that is coded there, this
is what happens. We are robots, with simplified software.
Mitochondria: No, no.
Mitochondria: This software is not simplified at all. It’s
so complicated that you have no idea. It's tricky even in my terms.
Mitochondria: The genome is a dynamic software. It changes
while operating. Your genome tomorrow will not resemble your genome today.
Cruel Ruler: ?
Mitochondria: Computer software is something permanent,
understand? What it says – that's how the computer works. The software itself
doesn’t change. But genome varies from day to day. Whole sections of it are
getting away from one place and moving into another. It is also very timely,
like clockwork.
Mitochondria: Like a few million watches, basically.
Cruel Ruler: I lost you again.
Mitochondria: Why does a fly's life lasts for two weeks and
a human's life more than a century?
Cruel Ruler: Because that's how it was determined?
Mitochondria: Because the DNA has a clock mechanism, that
determines what will happen to you at any moment, and when to die.
Cruel Ruler: Well, it just said. All written.
Mitochondria: So how does this relate to God, Lord of the
Universe?
Cruel Ruler: Don't you see my point? I'll explain one more
time.
Mitochondria: Explain.
Cruel Ruler: First of all: do you believe in God?
Cruel Ruler: Please note that I didn’t ask if you are
religious.
Mitochondria: I don’t have to believe in God. To my sorrow,
I know he exists.
Cruel Ruler: Why to your sorrow?
Mitochondria: Because the fact I know he exists frightens
me.
Mitochondria: Very much.
Cruel Ruler: Why?
*
"Welcome, welcome." Rabbi Eligad's eyes were
bright, and he drank some tea from the cup next to him.
Zomy looked around, as always during these visits. Nothing
changes here, he thought. Same room, same chairs, same carpet - maybe a little
more worn than the first time he had seen them before…how many years ago? Fourteen?
Maybe more. Everything is as it was. As if time had no effect on this place, on
this…man.
"Thank you, Rabbi," and he sat on the chair in
front of him, letting himself to get used to this place, which was his home
more than any other place. "Where ...?"
"She went on a mission," smiled Rabbi Eligad,
without having to hear the name.
"To foster more orphaned children?" he smiled
back.
"There are many orphaned children today, unfortunately.
More than ever before," Rabbi Eligad sighed gently. "But no, she did
not go in that direction this time. She has new missions, and this is
unfortunate, too"
"What?" Zomy frowned. He had never seen the
Kabbalist so thoughtful. "Anything I can help with?"
"Of course there is," came the faint smile.
"And you do it the best way possible. Tell me, son. Tell me about what
undermined your world so recently."
And he told him. At length.
More than two hours passed, two hours in which Zomy almost
never stopped talking. He told Rabbi Eligad about everything that had happened
since their last meeting, a few months before. He went deeper, especially into
the last genetic research he was helping with. Zomy was not a geneticist by
training; he knew very little about the structure of the genome before he was
brought to the project.
From time to time he stole a glance at the eyes of Rabbi
Eligad, surprised, almost angry, to discover again and again the same knowing,
tough, never patronizing smile.
"I'm not telling you anything new, ah," he said
finally. He’d just finished, at that moment, an especially long sentence, which
tried to explain, in simple words as possible, the roles of the DNA and the RNA
in the intracellular process.
Rabbi Eligad shrugged his shoulders.
"All is already written," he said.
"Where does it say?" Zomy was almost overwhelmed.
It was clear what the rabbi was talking about - the Bible,
of course. And Zomy, who knew almost all the scriptures by heart, did not like
it. First, no part of the Bible even mentioned the subject, he was certain.
The second reason was prosaic. Zomy came here not only to
ask how the rabbi was, or because the rabbi ordered him to come to him from
time to time. He came here to renew something to the rabbi. Give him something
meaningful, just as the rabbi, years earlier, had given him so much. And if the
rabbi knew all that - what was the point of visiting him? What can you give the
person who has everything? What can be renewed for those who already know
everything?
"No details, of course," interrupted Rabbi Eligad.
"But…both of those you told me about, the DNA and the RNA, are mentioned
explicitly, including their roles. You, too, are mentioned there."
Rabbi Eligad's eyes made Zomy, not for the first time, break
into a cold sweat. DNA, and RNA mentioned? And he himself…mentioned? Zomy knew
too much to assume that Rabbi Eligad was wrong, or worse.
"What does DNA do, son?"
"It's software. Source of knowledge, it's the one which
monitors all the processes in the cells."