“Ji.
This does not look like a bio lab.”
Ji swept
his arms wide to encompass the microscope that filled the room. “Maggie,
you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty impressive. Imagine what you could do with
this.”
Maggie
shrugged. “To see genes, I need something a bit smaller. That monstrosity
will just give me atoms.”
Ji pointed
at a bank of screens in front of the tube-shaped structure. “It’s not an electron microscope. Something much better. We can actually see
superstrings with it!”
She looked
about, not quite hearing him. “You don’t even have any centrifuges in here.” She put her hands on her hips and turned to him. “What’s going on? I thought you needed my
help splicing genes!”
Ji grinned.
“The genes of the universe, Maggie. I want you to splice the very
substance of reality!”
Maggie gaped.
“I’m a molecular biologist, not a
physicist. I’m not so sure about playing with reality.” She walked around
the machine. A large spherical ball was where a slide might be on a normal
microscope, with a LED panel on the outside. “Faraday cage?”
“Something
similar. Paradoxically holding two isolated superstrings in a vacuum.” Ji
pointed at one of the screens in front of it. “The first one has an
interesting vibration at this range. Multiple colours cascading from top to
bottom. It looks almost like a chromosome. I guess our bodies express the
fundamental shapes of the universe.”
“Fibonacci
spirals, golden ratios in everything. Sounds legit.” Then she looked
shrewdly at him, still not willing to get closer. “There’s nothing in the
journals about this research. Is this military?”
Ji
shrugged. “No idea. Contracted out to us. I don’t deal with the funding. I
just get paid. My latest project is to find someone who can join them
together.”
“Wait.
What?”
He pointed at
the screen again and she came over to have a closer look. The screen was
divided into two. On the left side flickered the superstring, with four legs
splayed out like a deformed insect. The right side of the screen was black. “Strings
are influenced by our thoughts and observations,” said Ji. “You only
need to direct your thoughts at it to influence it. My problem is I can’t
influence it enough to connect with the other one. Maybe you could try…”
“Ji. You do know what gene splicing
is, yes? It’s all biological. We use enzymes to snip
out pieces of DNA inside genes, then mix the broken DNA with snipped DNA from
other genes, then put the useful recombinant DNA into bacteria that will
replicate it. There are other processes involved, but it’s completely unlike the fundamental building blocks of the universe. For
a start, I’m pretty sure superstrings don’t have DNA.”
“Well, at this level, superstrings
are everything. They are DNA and genes and chromosomes, if you like. Just take
a bit from that superstring and add it to this one, and the energy field will
replicate it. Think of it like your gene-splicing experiments but with
everything purely energy. The universe will take care of the rest on the other
dimensions.”
Maggie pointed
at the dark side of the screen. “Well, I need to see the other one to know
if this is possible.”
“I’m
afraid our equipment is not compatible.”
Maggie
stared at Ji for a moment, uncomprehending. “Is it faulty?”
Ji grinned.
“This is the exciting part. The other string is not from our reality. It
was taken from a wormhole we opened inside a micro-black hole in the Collider.”
“But,
if it is not compatible with the instruments, then it can’t be compatible with
our universe. What the hell have they asked you to do?”
“Look.
If we splice it with a piece of our universe, we’d be able to find out what
it’s like! What it can do!”
Maggie
looked incredulously at him. “No. I flat out refuse. I don’t care if your
project loses funding. I’m not merging the underlying foundations of two
universes just for your research.”
“Come
on. A simple thought, and it’s done. If you won’t do it, there are plenty of
other gene doctors out there that could. Why not be the first?”
“No.”
Maggie folded her arms.
Ji looked
sadly down at the floor. “Well, look. Alright. I understand. But, just for
me. How would you do it, if you wanted to? Like, what would your procedure be?
Obviously, I can’t do it myself.”
Maggie sighed.
“I don’t know the shape of the other one to know how for sure, but I’d imagine moving one on top of the other, and then allowing the
vibration of ours to influence the vibration of the other one. As they
synchronized I’d be able to see what the other one looked like, then work out
how I could join them together. If the other universe’s superstrings had eight
extensions, for example, I could take one and add it to this one and see what
happens. I mean, it’s really…what is it?”
Ji was
staring at the screen as the right side began flickering. “It worked.
You’re a genius.”
Maggie’s hand flew to her mouth. “No, no, no. You tricked me!”
Ji was
ignoring her. “Look, look. The other string has six legs. And it’s slightly
larger. Wait, what’s it doing?”
Maggie
pushed him away and looked at the strings. One was on top of the other and
seemed to be vibrating faster. “Oh no!” She quickly reached for her mobile phone.
“What? What are you doing?”
“Calling
my mum to say goodbye.”
“What?
Why?” Ji’s face paled as he realized she was
serious.
“They’re not merging. They’re mating,” cried Maggie.
But it was
far too late.
There was a momentary flash as the combined strings quickly replicated, and a new universe exploded from the laboratory at a billion times the speed of light.
###
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