SWNOVELS Chapter 17: Zeke Discovers what the soup wants
Chapter 17: Zeke Discovers what the soup wants
Zeke was at the console, being coached by Alberto. Zeke was about as useless as Erasmus at talking to the soup, but never got bored. Zeke dragged along a knapsack full of vegetables, baby food, offal, car parts, whatever he could find whenever he came for a session. One by one, Zeke fed the soup and logged the response. If the soup said anything ‘interesting’, Zeke would sign Erasmus.
Buck and Mel were jabbering away…
“The Soup ‘pays attention’ to what it experiences”
“What does that mean?”
“OK… understand: The soup is constantly experimenting. Each new cell has a unique taste receptor....”
“I thought the genes were fixed?”
“Not in this case. For immune cells, receptors are built from a library of parts. The sequence is more or less random. The number of possible combinations is in the millions. If a cell reacts, it divides, making more of the same.”
“Like evolution?”
“Yes! Exactly!”
Zeke had just hurled a flashlight into the pool… and the pool lit up wildly.
[Yes][Not]
Zeke Screeched, and leapt into the warehouse rafters.
The three stared in amazement: “Light?”
“Yes! That’s it! It can make its own food. I spliced Chlorophyll into the genes a long time back. I spliced in nearly anything you can think of: haemoglobin, insulin, serotonin, actin, myosin…”
Buck ventured, “What? Were you going to teach it to crawl as well? Like the Blob?”
Alberto said, that’s it, then! That’s what the scum on Jupiter wants: more light!”
“Well, Duh! It’s 500 million miles from the sun. Any moron would guess that.”
“So fucking what? We will talk to the scum with light beams”
“To what purpose?”
“Who Cares?! We’re gonna be rich”
They all smiled.