Reality Bytes Part Three--Dante's

"You still with me, Ms. Davis?"

Alicia blinked at Juan. She had been looking right through him. She had been thinking of HIM again. "What? Oh, I'm sorry, go on."

"Well, as I was saying, we've run into a bit of a snag with the DNA sequencing for the phage. It seems that one of the genes we're using is patented by Kefler-Henley Biotech."

Alicia chided herself for having let her thoughts wander. This was a critical matter. Her employer was only one of several companies attempting to develop a smart bacteriophage, but she was certain that her team was the closest to actually succeeding. The utilization of phages in medicine over the last twenty years had turned the tide against steadily more antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Her team was working to create a new type of phage, a virus infinitely more complex than anything nature had ever produced, a synthetic symbiotic organism. It would be introduced into a human host and coordinate with the body's own immune system, adapting itself to fight new strains of hostile bacteria. A breakthrough in smart phages could potentially mean the total elimination of bacterial infection in humans. "Can we introduce a simple transcription and still retain the functionality of the gene?"

"Already looked into it. This particular gene is pretty sensitive to change. My early efforts don't look promising. Remember, we wanted this bug to deactivate itself in the event of a random mutation. We may have to invent a whole new gene from scratch."

She sighed, then shook her head. "No. We'll make that a last resort. Too much change and we might have to resequence more and more of the genome to compensate. I'd like you to work on inserting some junk DNA into that sequence, see if you can coax a working model out of it that's original enough to pass patent inspection. Draft Kelly into this one if you have to. In the meantime, we'll continue with the trials of the current phage while we await your results. I want to have a submission ready for the patent office by the end of next month. Then maybe we can all breathe a little easier."

Juan adjusted his lab coat, then punched his fingers across the screen of his datapad a few times, making notes to himself. The man would take notes on literally anything, but it seemed to work well for him. Alicia could always count on him for very precise, careful work. It was the kind of trait that bioengineering demanded. He wandered towards a workstation, now rapidly entering data into the pad.

Alicia stared after him, her mind wandering. She remembered the tender, teasing feel of fingertips caressing her neck. "Damn it," she swore under her breath. It had been more than a week since her second jaunt with Adam on the net. She knew that the best thing for her was to forget all about him, but there was something about him that had so intrigued her. It was still difficult to believe that he was a dangerous hacker. She resolved to forget about him and make her best effort to bury herself in her work for the rest of the day. It wasn't difficult. The project was in its final stages, but there were dozens of tests still to be done, hundreds of analyses to make. When she finally closed up the lab for the night, her neck and shoulders ached from sitting hunched over a monitor.

The lights clicked on automatically when she opened the door to her apartment. The slow, thumping rhythm and ephemeral violin strains of Bach's Aria floated from her living room. "Good evening, Alicia," the house computer intoned in a warm male voice. She had given it the accent of a Victorian English gentleman. "Would you like me to prepare dinner?"

She paused in the entryway to hang up her coat. "No thanks, Gregory. I'm not hungry."

"I see. If I may point out, your vocal patterns indicate a high degree of stress. Would you like to make an appointment to see Dr. Klosser?"

She threw herself onto the living room sofa. "No need. I've just had a hard day at work. Any messages?"

"One video message and two text. The latter two are marked urgent. Would you like to see them?"

"Who are the text messages from?"

"The sender's name for both messages is Adam, no last name."

Alicia felt a rising flush of anger. It was not the first time he had tried to contact her, now twice in a single day and despite the filters she had put in place to screen him out. How was she supposed to forget about him if he wouldn't leave her alone? "Delete text messages," she snapped. Then, "Wait. Save messages to backup and delete from regular memory." Maybe those messages would prove useful as evidence in court once they captured the guy. So far, though, she had heard nothing from Tiffany on that end.

"Play video message," she said.

The wall in front of her switched on with a smiling image of Will Mathers, whom she hadn't seen in almost five years. They had met her first year of college and enjoyed a lengthy friendship. Will tended to act like the big brother she had never had, always sticking up for her to their friends and helping her with her dreaded Organic Chemistry homework. He even started to call her his sister. They had begun dating her junior year and that was when the brother act began to wear a little thin. Will had tended to treat her like a fragile porcelain doll, even in bed, to the point that neither one of them could get any satisfaction, from sex or from the rest of the relationship. Still, breaking up with him had been one of the most painful moments of her life.

"Hey, Ally, you'll never guess what. I finally found her--the woman I'm going to marry. I know you haven't seen me in a while, but I thought you might like to come to the wedding. It's going to be June 24th, three months from now. Call me back, sis."

Alicia stared at the last frozen image on the wall, suddenly more alone than she could ever remember feeling. God, she had really liked Will. She hadn't known how much she missed him. The tightness in her throat and burning in her eyes told her that she was very close to crying, but she refused to give in to the urge to let go.

She suddenly realized what she really wanted. She wanted very badly for Tiffany to be wrong about Adam. But that was just being childish. Her friend was only trying to protect her. Oh, but wanted to see him again so much.