Sea of Greed

She scraped a portion of the mud onto a slide and put it under a microscope. Increasing the magnification, she finally saw what she was looking for. Tiny bubbles were forming in the watery clay. They appeared, popped and vanished, only to be replaced by new bubbles. Raising the magnification to full, she saw the cause of those bubbles.

“Biofilm,” she said.

“Is that a new movie?” Paul asked, still looking for a sensor to replace the melted one.

“Biofilm is a telltale sign of bacteria forming a colony,” she explained “It’s one of the things that makes some strains of bacteria hard to treat with antibiotics. The film is a kind of slime that acts as a barrier. It prevents the antibiotics from reaching the bacteria themselves.”

“Meaning… what?”

She looked up. “It means there’s a large amount of bacteria in the sediment near the pipeline. But not in any of the other locations we tested.”

Gamay was the biologist of the family, but Paul knew a thing or two. “Isn’t it supposed to be barren sediment down there? Too deep and dark for life to exist?”

“It should be,” she replied. “Maybe the heat from the pipelines or some leaking chemicals has become a food source. Or maybe the bacteria is feeding on the volatile gas.”

She went back to the microscope and raised the magnification. “They’re oddly shaped,” she said, studying individual members of the bacteria colony.

“How so?”

“Bacteria are usually oval-shaped blobs. These are more like red blood cells. They have a donut-like form.”

Paul was suddenly more interested in what she was studying than in his own work. “Maybe we should expose some of the bacteria to a sample of the gas. If their growth rate increases, we’ll know that’s what the little beasties are feeding on.”

“Great idea,” Gamay said.

She put a sample of the bacteria into a clean test tube, injected some water and sealed it. As she brought it over to Paul, there was a loud pop. The sound startled her and she dropped the vial, diving to catch it before it hit the ground.

Paul raced around the table and found her lying on the floor with the test tube in one hand and her safety glasses askew. She was staring at the vial. The glass had been blackened on the inside, exactly like the beaker Paul had almost destroyed in his earlier experiment.

He and Gamay came to the same conclusion at the same time.

“The bacteria aren’t feeding off the gas,” Paul said.

“No,” she agreed. “They’re generating it.”

23

POLARIS BALLROOM, CONSTELLATION HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTER, BERMUDA

KURT HAD BEEN to more trade shows and conferences than he cared to remember, but he’d never seen anything quite like the R3 Blackout Conference. It was less a trade show and more like an electronic version of Mardi Gras.

In large rooms, lit by black light, electronic music thumped away while glow-in-the-dark drinks were poured and passed around.

Men and women wore “active clothing” equipped with LEDs and fiber-optic lights that changed with their body temperature. The colors supposedly corresponded with their state of mind. Fear, aggression, arousal and contentedness were all represented by different hues.

And everyone in the hall wore clear glasses with little computer displays projected on the lenses.

“Feel like I’ve died and gone to electronic hell,” Kurt said.

“You should embrace this,” Joe replied. “Remember that whole ‘remain in character’ thing. Besides, when in Rome, and all that.”

“But if this is Rome,” Kurt said, “then the barbarians have already conquered.”

A woman in a neon-green rain slicker with lighted piping around the collar came up to them and scanned their ID badges. “Welcome to the Blackout,” she said. “Here are your complimentary sentience goggles.”

She handed them each a pair of not-so-stylish glasses with lenses tinted a pale pink color. Kurt put them on and was instantly presented with a wave of information. The words Amanda: Host appeared above the woman in the green outfit.

“Your name is Amanda?” Kurt asked.

“It is,” she said. “I’m a guest facilitator, sometimes called a host. If you tap the side of your glasses, you’ll get more information about me or anyone you’re speaking to.”

Kurt tapped a spot on the right arm of the glasses. Immediately, more information appeared about Amanda.

Sex: Female

Status: Single

Home: Palo Alto, California

Employer: Sentience Industries

Education: B.S. in Technology, M.S. in Network Science, Stanford University

Quote: “If you think you can keep up with me, go ahead and try…”

Standing next to Kurt, Joe was reading the same thing. He grinned. “That’s something I might be interested in attempting,” he said.

“Easy there, Numbers,” Kurt said. “We’re here on business.”

As Joe flirted, Kurt scanned the room and read the names of other people nearby.