Gene Mapper Page 3

  I heard a snarl of anger. Something white flew at me from out of the page. I automatically ducked. Luckily I wasn’t holding my espresso.

  It was 3D video. A red-faced old man was sitting up in a hospital bed. His breathing was ragged, and his arm was stained with blood where the IV tube had torn loose. It was hard to watch. The object that flew off the page at me must have been a pillow.

  “I told you, we fixed it!”

  “Oh, dear. You mean you fixed it on your computers. Isn’t that right? Why didn’t you think about the hundreds of millions of other PCs around the world?”

  The interviewer was off-screen, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Baiting her subject didn’t seem like the best way of getting useful information. Was this the famous Sascha?

  “Was the whole world my responsibility?”

  “So you don’t feel responsible after all. Such a shame.”

  “I told you, we upgraded time_t support from 32- to 64-bit almost immediately. Weren’t you listening? We had a 64-bit patch as soon as the processors came out. It was there for anyone who— What’s so funny, you piece of shit?”

  The old guy pulled the IV bag off the stand and fastballed it at the camera. The video reframed. Now I was looking at a TV studio, with the man in the hospital frozen on ranks of monitors along the walls. The World Reporting Network logo revolved slowly in the lower right corner. A woman in a short jacket and slacks was perched on a tall chair, legs crossed. I guessed she was in her early thirties.

  sascha leifens was subtitled across her chest. So this was the reporter my waitress liked so much.

  Sascha shrugged her shoulders and tossed her bobbed red hair as she stepped down. I knew she was an avatar when her hair returned to exactly the same position. Most casters use RealVu to at least give the impression that they’re communicating facts. Not Sascha.

  “There you have it. What do you think?” It was the voice from the interview. “The operating system he coded in a trance, while ignoring his responsibilities to society, has an astonishing flaw.”

  A large chart appeared above her head with a string of thirty or so ones and zeros along the top. Below the ones and zeros was a date readout: years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds.

  “These are time values for Unix. Look closely. He used a 32-bit integer to express these values to the second, even though he knew very well that Unix would have to be viable for at least decades. The way he coded it, the time value will reach its overflow point next year—at seven seconds past 3:14 a.m., January 19, 2038.”

  The time count on the chart rolled toward the overflow point. Now almost all the numbers were ones. Sascha made a pistol with her thumb and index finger and took aim at the chart.

  “Bang!”

  The last zero changed to a one, and all the ones rolled over to zeros. The time readout flipped to January 1, 1970, and the chart shattered into a million pieces.

  “I’d like to invite everyone out there to ask software engineers and corporations what will happen when our PCs can’t handle time signatures correctly. I did, and this is the answer I got.”

  Sascha lifted a corner of her shapely mouth and faked a male growl. “Well, miss, there won’t be enough 32-bit computers left in the world to matter.”

  She shrugged. “When I asked how many computers will be affected, they couldn’t answer. Why? Because they don’t know. But for some reason, they do know there won’t be any problems. That’s techies for you.”

  The sugar in my espresso couldn’t mask the bitter undertaste. Zucca’s coffee wasn’t very good. I felt like blaming Sascha. I couldn’t believe that a major information conduit like Times of the World would stoop to this kind of tabloid agitation.

  First, nearly all CPUs are 128-bit now. Maybe there are some 32-bit devices out there that can’t be patched, but the programmer Sascha spoke to was right: there couldn’t be enough devices like that to make a difference one way or the other.

  “Want to hear something even scarier? This flaw will affect programs that control forces powerful enough to threaten our very existence.” The studio monitors switched from the guy in the hospital to images of mushroom clouds over nuclear power plants, ICBMs popping out of silos, and fusion reactors melting down. Sascha frowned, shook her head, and turned both palms upward in a “Whatcha gonna do?” gesture.

  “If this was a problem the human species never faced before, we might cut those programmers some slack. But in the year 2000, during the Internet era, the man in the hospital and his friends created an identical problem. They never learn.”

  Video from the early oughts rolled past on the monitors. There was a red-faced kid with curly hair wearing a hoodie in a cubicle crowded with toys, then a guy with a bowl cut and old hippie-style clothes hunched over an old fliptop PC.

  “These men developed one Internet service after another that violated our rights, especially our right to privacy. Worse still, they ignored the lawful ownership of intellectual property with their ‘Open Source’ movement, which brought billions in economic losses.”

  As I half listened to Sascha’s anti-programmer tirade, I was thinking about something else.

  The genetic engineering that had led to distilled crops used programming techniques developed during the golden age of the Internet. We isolate every gene that expresses specific traits and use object-oriented programming methods to manipulate these strands of DNA as black boxes. When we get the output we’re looking for, we capture it in genetic algorithms. The number of algorithms is sufficiently large that no one engineer can master them all.

  My crop style sheets are based on methods originally developed to specify the look of websites. I don’t need to know everything about the genome itself. I just apply the extracted code for physical features to design the look of the plant.

  I wondered what these young programmers were thinking when they first connected computers on a global scale, opening one door after another to the unknown. When he designed his operating system, the aging developer Sascha interviewed knew very well that his 32-bit timestamp would be obsolete in a few decades. He knew the risk, but he had other issues to juggle. The conflicts with human rights, privacy, the economy, national security—each new idea opened another door, a door they couldn’t close. But opening doors was always more important than the possible consequences.

  “I’m sure you all remember what happened in 2017. The computer network known as the Internet collapsed because of built-in flaws, and the rest of us were locked out. This was a warning.”

  Sascha peered intently into the camera and clasped her hands. Her tirade was about to peak. With apologies to the cast member who put me onto this, I had to say, it was all pretty trite.

  “We must be vigilant about the relentless advance of science and technology. There’s no guarantee that programmers share the same dreams as the rest of us. What damage will their latest blunder bring? We’ll have our answer in six months. The apocalypse is coming.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mamoru. Now what is that, a printed magazine? How retro. What are you reading?”

  As I lifted the page to pause the video, Kurokawa was leaning over my shoulder, still dressed exactly as he had been this morning. It was four o’clock. He was right on time.

  “Some kind of journal called Times of the World. It’s pretty awful.”

  I opened the page again and put the “magazine” on the table. Sascha had already launched into her next piece.

  “Synthetic rice is close to certification for worldwide use. But how long will these artificial organisms remain under human control? Is the ‘distilled’ development process really safe? We bring you the frightening truth.”

  Now she was dumping on distilled crops.

  “What a bi—”

  I closed the magazine. I felt like the old guy in the hospital, but I caught myself. Maybe not appropriate for the café.


  “You mean, what a bitch? I agree.”

  Kurokawa smoothly finished my sentence for me. He signaled one of the cast members and ordered a cappuccino.

  * * *

  “I like this café.”

  The sun was lower. The shadows of buildings were falling across the avenue outside. Kurokawa blew on the foamed milk in his big mug of coffee. The steam rose and fogged his glasses. It was hot as hell. Kurokawa was probably in a nice air-conditioned room somewhere, but at least he could have ordered something cold for my sake.

  “The stages you pick for our meetings are always pleasant and peaceful. I liked the room this morning, but this café is very tranquil. Sorry, my glasses …”

  Kurokawa took his glasses off and wiped them with a handkerchief from his pocket. I thought the fogged lens effect was another Zucca touch, but apparently he was actually drinking something hot from a mug the same size as those used by the café.

  “Are you home right now?” I asked.

  “Home office.” Kurokawa put his glasses back on. Now I noticed that his hair, always as carefully arranged as a doll’s, was slightly out of place here and there.

  “Did you even get any sleep?”

  The contact from Mother Mekong couldn’t have come in later than ten last night. Kurokawa was conferencing with L&B at four-thirty a.m. Then he conferenced with me, and this meeting was scheduled through half past four. Which meant he hadn’t slept. No wonder he looked tired.

  “I’ll get some sleep after we’re done. I’ve got another meeting tomorrow morning at four. If I don’t sleep, I won’t be in any shape to talk.”

  He put his hand to the back of his neck and shook his head from side to side. A waitress with a tray of empty cups and glasses came over quickly, smiled as she took his mug, and walked away. He returned her bow casually.

  Zucca offers full service combined with total augmented reality, but people’s need for human contact is another reason it’s popular. I started coming here after work with friends from my polytechnic, but the chance to communicate with some pretty nice-looking people adds a bit of color to the drabness of everyday life.

  “Sorry to take your time, but before we get started I need you to get me up to speed for tomorrow. Enrico is going to be there, and if that weren’t enough, the VP is sitting in. We’re going to talk about the SR06 package you delivered.”

  “You mean Barnhard?”

  I had a sinking feeling. There was no way I could isolate the intruder’s DNA before tomorrow. Kurokawa would catch the heat instead of me, and he’d be hung out to dry, if not by the industry then at least by L&B.

  “Yes, the one and only. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Enrico, but it was Lintz who managed to grow Mother Mekong into a five-star project. It’s getting lots of attention from all over the world. He’s worried, of course.”

  “Do you need me to back you up?”

  “It’s all right, Mamoru. Get a good night’s sleep and keep working on your analysis. That’s the most important thing right now.” He sighed. “I’m sorry to say this, but Lintz is becoming a problem. He really ought to leave everything to Enrico. He knows the project in much better detail. Recently Lintz has been all over every little thing …”

  It was rare to see Kurokawa grope for words. His face darkened. He closed his eyes, knitted his eyebrows, and grasped his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. Suddenly he looked very young. His glasses and seemingly painted-on hair had always drawn most of my attention, but with his flawless skin and darting pupils, I realized he could easily pass for a teenager.

  “I’m sure Enrico’s livid, but Lintz has taken over the investigation. At least that’s what seems to be going on. A few people have seen him chewing Enrico out over the last few hours.”

  I’d heard about Barnhard’s political savvy. If he decided Enrico wasn’t making the cut, he’d not only make sure he was out, he would make sure no one in the industry remembered him after he left. Good thing I was a freelancer. We were usually insulated from corporate politics.

  “If Barnhard starts stirring things up, people on the front line will lose their motivation,” said Kurokawa. “I want to prevent that by making sure he isn’t worried about the technology. I hope you can help me.”

  “All right. What do you need to know?”

  “Let’s keep it short. If I can explain the principle behind color mapping, and why we weren’t able to do L&B’s logo in full color, I can get over tomorrow’s hump. That’s all. Go ahead.”

  “That’s all” was a lot. Where to begin? For a moment I was stumped. I had hardly understood the principles myself when I first encountered them as a polytechnic student.

  “Well, let’s see. As the leaves and blossoms of distilled crops grow, color expression genes trigger development of receptors for chemical messengers—plant hormones. When the messengers are dispersed from towers in the right concentrations, color expression genes are activated and promote cell division …”

  Kurokawa’s wide-eyed expression said I don’t understand. I didn’t get it either at first, and I had a lot more background at the time.

  “Let me draw you a picture. Sorry, could I have something to write with?”

  The waitress returned with a tray full of writing widgets. The tray was just a prop, another nice touch from Zucca to make you feel like a customer in a “real” café. There was a full selection, everything from quills to drawing pens. Everything links with your workspace drawing app—they’re all the same AR widget.

  I chose four highlighting pens in different colors. Kurokawa leaned forward and picked up—I couldn’t believe Zucca had something so primitive—a red lead pencil.

  “Draw anywhere you like. Use the tablecloth or a napkin,” said the waitress. “If you need ‘paper’ to take your work away with you, just let me know. Oh, one more thing”—she pointed to the space between me and Kurokawa—”If you write anything here, just remember you can’t print it out. Have fun!”

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”

  She hoisted the tray onto her shoulder, winked, and walked away. I was impressed with the natural way she handled the tray, which was of course empty.

  “Shall we begin? Let’s say our crop responds to only two chemical messengers, orange and green. When both messengers arrive in the right concentration, the leaves of the plant change color. With SR06, the style sheet would look like this.” I wrote a style sheet selector, .leaf(orange==green), in the air over the table. “Now let’s see how the color is expressed when the messengers arrive.”

  I drew two small crosses on the tablecloth about eight inches apart. One green, one orange.

  “These are the messenger towers. Mother Mekong has a few thousand, but two is enough for this example. The chemical messengers are dispersed from these towers.”

  I looked up to make sure he was with me and drew a circle centered on each cross, about two inches in diameter in matching colors.

  “Mamoru, what do they use for messengers?”

  “Mostly leaf alcohols. Other compounds are used too, but most of the time it’s something with the same chemical structure as a natural attractor.”

  “Is that to comply with the Full Organic protocol?”

  “I don’t know. But if they stay natural, they don’t have to worry about nature addicts tramping around the site.”

  “Do these messengers use—what are they called—optical isomers?”

  This was an old term. I wasn’t sure how Kurokawa came up with it. He was talking about chiral molecules—molecules that are mirror images of each other but nonsuperposable, like left and right human hands. Some very weird effects can happen when big molecules, like sugars or proteins, are switched with their optical isomers.

  “We usually just call them isomers. Where’d you get that anyway? Now that I think of it, L&B has a policy of not us
ing them with their distilled crops. The competition stopped using them too after the fifth generation.”

  “Thanks. Just wondering.”

  “Let’s keep going.”

  I put a fingertip to the orange circle. Handles popped up for resizing and dragging, mimicking my workspace environment. I pressed on the resizing handle and set the animation parameters. The circle started expanding.

  “The tower releases a pulse of the messenger in aerosol form. It spreads out over the field.” The little circle, oscillating gently as it expanded, did a good job of replicating the way the aerosol moved out from the tower.

  “Now, if we send pulses from both towers simultaneously—” I touched the orange circle to stop the animation, copied its attributes, pasted them onto the green circle, and restarted the animation. “The orange and green circles expand, and eventually they have to overlap, right?”

  Kurokawa watched intently. The red pencil he’d been toying with had migrated to a perch behind one ear. That was the first time I’d ever seen someone do that with an AR widget. Zucca …

  “That’s how you draw a straight line.”

  “Just a second, Mamoru. Where is the line drawn?”

  “Between the towers. Let’s slow down the animation and mark the intersections of the circles.”

  I adjusted the controller to slow down the animation. The two circles kept expanding and finally touched at the midpoint.

  “The messenger pulses join midway between the towers. The plants in this location receive both messengers at the same time. That activates the genes for color expression.”

  I stopped the animation and drew a red x where the circles touched. Kurokawa nodded. Now he had the pencil wedged between his nose and upper lip.

  I restarted the animation, and the circles began to overlap. “When the messengers are released simultaneously, color genes are activated in plants that are the same distance from both towers. As the crops change color, they draw a line right down the middle of the space.”

  I ran the animation four times, adding four more marks above and below the first mark where the edges of the overlapping circles touched. Now I had nine marks lined up vertically between the towers.