My Book Experiment Chapter 6

Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

Land, hot, fight, safety.

Michael and Barbara were driving north on Interstate Highway 95.  At first they had no idea where they were going.  They knew they had to get away from the city, but they had no idea where to go.  A close friend and a colleague was dead under suspicious circumstances.  A successful experiment might have had something to do with it.  The scent of uncertainty was in the air.  Michael knew it was time to come clean.  Softly and confidently, not waiting for the questions, he started to tell her.

He was choosing his words carefully, and she was listening attentively.  Before he even started, he knew that he was driving with the single person whom he could trust.

He described his first experiment, in which Roger’s aged DNA was proven to be just as effective in synthesizing protein as his brand new DNA.  He told her about the anomaly he found with the junk DNA changing overtime, and how he really didn’t think much of it.  But her eyes widened when he was describing the later experiment.

The experiment was really simple, he told her.  Michael made an effort to use laymen’s terms.  He knew it was no easy task with Barbara.  She was extremely sensitive when she felt she was being patronized.  She did have scientific training, of course; after all they did meet in that lab.  But his training was way beyond.  He had to use scientific language to avoid the sensitivity, and at the same time use laymen’s terms so she could really get a grasp.

Michael went through the experiment.  He described how he took frozen sperm cells from good old Roger, and created a rabbit embryo in the lab.  He also took newer frozen sperm cells from that liquid nitrogen tank named Roger and created another embryo.  Lastly, he took sperm cells from the living organism named Roger, which didn’t seem to mind, and created yet another rabbit embryo.  Two weeks later, when the three embryos were a few thousand cells strong, Michael harvested some cells and compared the DNA.

Barbara paid full attention.  It was still dark outside, and she was driving over the speed limit.  He made a comment about it, and she slowed down.  Then she made that little motion with her index finger, which he correctly interpreted as please, go on.

Michael said that the results of the experiment showed clearly that there was a pattern.  The first embryo was used as the bench mark.  The second, made of younger DNA, had an addition to the junk DNA, right where the pattern ended in embryo number one.  The third embryo’s junk DNA had all that the first two had, and an addition.  The addition was right where the previous one ended.

Michael had repeated that experiment on numerous organisms, multiple times and multiple embryos.  The results were always the same.  There was a clear junk DNA progress over time.  It looked as if something was getting written on the organism’s DNA over the course of its life.

Barbara pulled over.  Michael, she knew, was brilliant.  But he was very naïve.  She concluded that he was conducting the experiments correctly, like the scientist he was.  She knew that he was meticulous, and made no mistakes.  She figured that he repeated the experiments many times over, documented them all, and looked time after time for errors, in the process and in the interpretation.  She knew that his statement was error free.  She knew that he made an extraordinary discovery.  She suspected that he had no idea what he just stepped on.  She thought that he was so innocent, that he really was finding it hard to figure that the connection was clear.  He made a discovery, his friend was murdered, and in her mind it became very simple: whoever killed Art was coming after Michael.

She didn’t know why exactly, she didn’t know who.  She did know, however, that the people who were after them were not the negotiating type.  She also knew that they were vulnerable.  Going back home at this time would have been too dangerous.  When she considered it further, she realized that they had to go home.  They had to retrieve their passports, some cash, and other things.  Otherwise, she knew, they would be cornered and caught.  She had no idea what was at stake at this point.  She hadn’t had a clue what they were after, and whether they would leave them alone if they get what they want.  There were many questions, few answers, and the morning was around the corner.

She spoke clearly and chose her words carefully.  Barbara told her husband that she was forgiving him for his behavior in the last few months.  She said that she would have expected that he would have shared his discoveries with her, but that was irrelevant now.  She pointed out to him that there’s a good chance that they were being sought by some very powerful people or organization which will most likely stop at nothing until they get what they want.  First order of business, she explained, is to get mother and the girls to safety.  Second order of business is to get cash, passports, and make a few phone calls to people she could trust.  When he frowned, she said that her godfather, a person who owed his life to her dead father, was a person she was ready to trust with her life.  He accepted.  For the first time in their marriage, he accepted the fact that the events required someone that he simply wasn’t.  He was grateful that Barbara was there with him.

Michael and Barbara went out a few more time before she understood that if she didn’t make some kind of move, the relationship would simply remain mental, and the physical part would never arrive.  She put together a plan.  One night, when they were walking back to her place, she said that she took the liberty to book a hotel room in Vermont for the weekend.  Michael was flabbergasted.  She thought he was going to choke.  After some time he pointed out to her that he had a lab watch shift over the weekend.  She told him that she took care of it.  One of the other Ph.D. students would replace him.  He was looking lost, and she assured him that they would have a good time.  She knew a small French Bistro in Montpelier where they could have dinner and listen to some live music.  They could sail in the lake, and they could take walks.  Michael accepted.

They left for Vermont on Friday afternoon.  The drive was spectacular.  It was that time of year when the leaves get dyed in all shades of red, orange, yellow and green, to form this amazing crazy artist mixture of colors.  It was autumn.  They checked in, and as they entered the colonial large room, Michael understood that there was only one bed.  Indeed, it was huge, but still, one bed.  Barbara turned to him, and started a conversation.  He was obviously tense, and as they both knew, tension doesn’t add a whole lot to a relationship about to move to the next phase.

She boiled water and made some tea.  He was obviously calming down.  Barbara excused herself and went to the bathroom.  When she emerged from the bathroom, Michael’s eyes went wide.  She was beautiful.  She was wearing a short negligee; and her long legs were showing through, the shape of her nice firm breasts showing through.  But she was wearing something else.  She was wearing something that was not made of fabric.  It was made in heaven.  She was wearing a new look.  She looked at him with a look that brought him back thousands of years.  He was experiencing the very fundamental feeling of a man about to know a woman in the biblical way.  The effect on his body was obvious, in an embarrassing way.  He excused himself and went to the bathroom.  The stream of hot water, and the impression of the woman he just saw, made him climax.  He was devastated.  He took his time in the shower, and when he was done, he came out wearing a bathrobe.  Barbara was sleeping on the bed.  She wasn’t covered.  Her robe was half open.  She was breathing slowly.  He took a few steps closer.  He could smell her scent.  The scent of cleanliness mixed with sexuality.  He was aroused in a minute.  He stepped back and tripped on her shoe.  The noise woke her up, and all she did was smile and open her hands to him.  He didn’t need a more explicit invitation.  The robe went in a second, and in another second he was in her hands.

They started exploring each other.  They were touching, feeling, learning.  They were kissing gently and hard.  He made her feel like a queen.  She made him feel like a man.  When he entered her, she gasped and looked him straight in the eyes.  He kept his eyes open while he was moving inside here.  It didn’t take long, but neither he nor she ever flinched.  When climax came, they were looking each other straight in the eyes.  The look that surrenders everything was shared between them from then on.  Later in their relationship, one could always know that something was wrong with the other by that look.  They realized what Barbara had already known: they were a couple, and they are going to make a long lasting commitment to each other.

Michael Moore eased himself out and rolled over.  His eyes were wet with tears.  He finally found something he never knew he was looking for.  He guessed correctly that it was love.

“Mike”, she said, “stop dreaming and give me your Blackberry”.  She turned the device around, shut it off, and took out the battery.  She did the same with her phone.  Curious, Michael asked her what she was doing, to which she answered “we must get off the grid for a while”.  “Do not put the battery back in until I tell you to do so”.  They both knew that he wouldn’t think of it.

Barbara started the engine and they kept going for a while, until they hit a motel on one of the side roads.  The kind that asks no questions when they see a couple of adults paying cash.  She asked for a room away from the elevator, and near the emergency exit.  It seemed that the attendant, apparently a university student working the night shift, couldn’t care less where this couple would be staying or what they came to do.  For as long as they pay in advance, they could stay in the basement.

When Barbara asked, the clerk pointed at a Denny’s just a few hundred yards down the road.  Neither of them was hungry, yet eating was clearly the right thing to do.