Remember (17 page)

"How are you doing?"

"Not much has changed
overnight
." She sticks her pad inside her jacket and starts gathering up her hair.

"I just want to thank you again, for helping me." I focus on her face, looking for a reaction before she says anything.

Claire lets her hair fall back while she searches her pockets for something to tie it with. "Well?"

"I've come up with something."
Dr. Mekova’s mystery rubs off on me.

"Good for you." She gathers up a bunch of ribbon pulled out of a pocket and tucks it inside two curled fingers.

"I just can't believe what you went through. You look like a regular person."

She gathers up a long column from the back of her head and starts wrapping it with ribbon while leaving an equal space. During that, she replies. "I still am. I just have drive. Most people have that, just from different sources." two sheets of hair hang down near her face and ears. She lifts these sheets up alongside her head where they just stay with no support.

"I see what you mean," I say as we enter the elevator.

"Are you ready for your tech consult?" Her hands hide in her pockets while the railing barely supports the small of her back.

A quick reference shows me what I already know
. "Almost there. I have to look up a couple more details."

"I hear you're going to a conference."

I look fully at her instead of her reflection on the mirrored walls. "That's right, with Gary."

"Good luck with that." She stands up straight when the elevator crawls to a stop.

I follow her out. "I'll need it. Gary wants me to help him present."

She stops and spins around so I stop short before her. "See you around."

"Later."

We go our separate ways at the end of the entrance hallway. I have a study topic and just need to pick the testing variables — light frequencies, tech, food, social ranking, shelter, family history, economic classes, and security. That should do it.

Thurs 6/8/17 8:12 a.m.

"R
eady to get started?" Claire asks. She sits on one side of the sofa and looks to me in a chair near the window. The sharp angular furniture surrounds both of us in the tech office waiting area.

"You bet." The pad with my study notes is on my lap.

"This is your first tech consult, right?"

"Yes."

"To advise you on tech options, can you tell me about your study?" She sits up (escaping the reaches of the overstuffed back by a foot) with her feet flat on the ground.

I slide my hands back along the out curved arms and push myself back to approximate her stiff spine. "Okay. It is testing what components of happiness help learning."

A bemused expression dominates her face. "How are you going to make the subjects happy?"

"Making the neurons more excitable."

She smiles with mirth but refuses to laugh for/at me. "Are you going to select neurons or target all of them?"

"I’m thinking to choose the cells." I reach across for my steaming coffee cup now closer to Claire than me. She absconded from anything for herself.

She nods a few times straight faced and resettles her hands on her lap. "I’m not sure how to do that."

The thoughts of why she doesn’t know lapse judgment by me.
"I've seen the use of an insulating addition around a small part of the neuron."

"I can do that. Just send me the specs." She watches me study my pad.

"Sure. Light control is next."

The edges of her lips tweak up a degree. "That’s easy. You can just adjust the tech. You know, the room controls."

"Yes." “
Room controls triggers my tech to display the info and save it.

"Is that it?" She eases into the seat.

A breath of relief accompanies me relaxing too. I know I should sit up straight but need practice.
"I also need to make a survey."

"That is easy. Just create the survey. I'll have to distribute it. What are you including in your survey? Just curious." She leans sideways onto the handle, getting closer after the concluding the consult.

"It is about how secure they feel in different parts of their lives."
The survey looks standard and maybe generic.

"That seems
okay
."

So-so words like okay and good mean a lot of things. Figuring it out gives me test blankness. Do I know her well enough to understand it? This okay means questionable, I think.
"Just one more thing. How do I recruit people to take part in the study?"

"That is somewhat easy. You just find a place on our site and insert your notice. After that the notice will be posted on the other study recruiting sites."

Another slurping sip.
"I’m thinking about creating a short lesson to teach the subjects. How should I do that?"

"That is facile once you have created the material. Organizing the info into an interesting format is easy. Just create the presentation and choose a good delivery method."

"I’ll try a few options and see how it goes."

She un-curves her back. "Anything else?"

"Everything sounds good. I think this is going to be a good one."

She eyes me in all truth. Her fingers interlock. "I wouldn't be too sure."

"How come?"

She taps the back of her left hand with an index finger. "I think you are not tracking all the required info."

"What do you think I should add to make it better?"

"Internal factors."

The surprise enters with my wide eyes.
"Like what?"

"Do they actively try to be happy?"

I scowl with one side of my mouth. "That isn't an enormous part."

"Are you sure?"

"I have social status, food, shelter, security, and financials isn’t that everything?" I put the half empty cup on the center table.

"Take shelter as an example. How people perceive their home has a big impact. If they constantly look for issues, the problems seem bigger."

I start agreeing with a nod.
"You mean looking at the brighter side of anything makes it look better."

"It goes beyond that. As people, we can make the choice to be happy."

"I don't think that is even remotely true."
I look through my research material about the survey (scan really.)

"What are the disparities between the two of us, regarding economic status?"

This turns my attention back to her. "I don't see a big difference."

"That is correct. That dictates we will have similar happiness levels. Do you think that is true?"

The total rational argument relies on confident answers, barks of yes or no.
"I'm not completely sure."

"I’m going to let you think about it."

Won!
"All set, then."

That took some time. We always get into arguments. She must not like me much. I just can't let her get away with wrong info.

My desk helps me write up the study, send it, and make an ad. If they think they are happy, is up for thought. I start typing. The title is 'Happiness and co-relation with neuroplasticity.' That seems good.

'It is well known that positive reinforcement helps with learning
i.e.
neuroplasticity.'
This type of reinforcement causes the neural pathway to stay connected longer and helps the pathway to remain intact through more learning and adaptive changes.
'Learning is two parts obtaining and retaining information. The focus of this study is primarily retention. Does happiness help with learning or just positive reinforcement? How can…'

Thurs 6/8/17 12:23 Noon

W
e sit around one end of the long conference table for a now daily ritual of eating together. Today we coincided unlike the typical carousel.

"How is your day going, Conor?" Gary asks. He munches on the end of a breaded fishstick, allowing the crumbs to scatter over the chips (that formerly British invention.) "Good. The consult went great." The steaming vapors of vegetarian rice and beans float up ahead of me.

"I'm just writing the results." Gary just eats with a mess. The small indentation for ketchup ends up as a chip maceration.

"You did well, I might add." Claire forks the next layer of her caprese salad, a centimeter wide slice of mozzarella.

"Thanks for the feedback." My dourness expresses my inability to find anything good (that won’t regurgitate like meat) from the familiar stuff (anything American that I can pronounce) on the menu.

"Dr. Mekova-huh- Irena we hear you're starting your own study," Gary says uncomfortably. Gary’s trip ups around Mekova get better every day.

"That is correct. I’m starting a side project," Dr. Mekova informs. She found that eating with her hands saves time last week. From then on, she can’t be found around this table without her right hand in something.

"I'm intrigued. What more can you tell us?" Claire moves on to the next saucer sized plate in her assembly line of three, carbonara pasta.

"It's about controlled evolution. Is there a reason that evolution takes the millions of years it does?" Mekova has a small portion of yeasty flatbread next to a curiously odd orange cauliflower and green pea chutney.

"That sounds consuming. I just don’t get how that changes much of anything."

“The application amounts to terraforming. The ideal solution after modifying a new non-terrestrial world for human habitation rests with establishing natives evolved for the environment. Maybe some use on Earth also.” Mekova rams the rest of her food into her mouth, taking to strategic chewing.

The faces of Gary and Claire react as if Mekova revealed she had cancer. The contention still exists after the Neo-genetics era. Claire nears tears, angry tears. Gary can’t look away from Mekova and freezes in every other way. I feel quite pleased with controlled evolution. Mekova's eyes sparkle while she stalls with deliberate chewing. I think Mekova is almost enjoying the reactions of anger and fear.

Claire stares, wishing the tears away. She returns to her bacon free carbonara and tries to forget the study.

Mekova clears her throat before back peddling. “Guys, I'm sorry about saying that. That isn’t at all my intention, it never was. This isn’t my doing.” She still expresses nothing close to regret.

I don’t want to believe that Mekova enjoys this.
“Irena why don’t you explain what you mean by that?”

Gary switches to staring at me.

“The goal of the study is non-terrestrial. Some hints indicated it wasn’t the only use. I was just about to explain that.”

We all knew this was just an excuse, but sometimes it’s better to let go. Claire continues eating, distracted by the epicurean buffet right at her palette. Gary swallows a few times. He sits there and stares at Mekova’s soiled hand.

My tech runs through a brief history of Antarctica, the attempts at niching animals into the uninhabited void at the continent’s heart. The years following lead to untold ecological turmoil like slaughter of native animals, genetic inbreeding, devastated biomes, and human outcompetion. The human response matched our previous history of Earth destruction. We sealed of the continent, evacuated the people, plasma and metal shielded it, and razed everything. The landscape vaporized along with the water into a gaseous mixture that resettled evenly across the entire area. The barricades receded with a big scar across the globe now fi
lled with water. That moment changed everything for us humans. We have the power to destroy and create. The rest is up to us.

We sit quiet for a while. Each of us drifts away at some point. I’m the last to get back to work. The history of some two centuries rattles around in my head. The reality seems minor. There must be something more. The tech flashes back with the same article. I eventually agree to read it. The new chloroplast-mitochondria creatures stirred up some long forgotten super bacteria that decimated the population down to 500 million. The bacteriophage cure took decades to develop and destroy that pathogen.

I get back to my desk and work. The new information explains a lot, but the reality haunts me.

'Each group is tested again after a month. The final scores compared to the initial scores show the best method for instruction.' That looks good. I get a message.

Gary:

Are you excited about the conference?

Conor:

Yes, this'll be the first time I've been to Prairie View.

Gary:

It's not that different.

Conor:

Good to know.

Gary:

Have you found out what to get for Dr. Mekova? It's almost time for the promotion consideration.

Conor:

Just give me a sec.

An hour passed after those inflammatory words. Dr. Mekova doesn't disclose much. She wants to make sure all our questions are answered, not sure why yet. She likes work and science. She tried to become a sponsoring doctor, and then went back to research. I can tell Gary about liking science. He knows as much as I know.

Conor:

I don't know how much I can tell you. You know just about as much as I do.

Gary:

Tell me what you do know.

Conor:

She wants to have more interaction with patients. It didn't work out for some reason.

Gary:

Anything else?

Conor:

She wants to make sure people she works with don't have any lingering questions.

Gary:

Thank you so much, you've been a big help.

My business with Gary is finished. Anyway, I transfer the study to a pad and head into Dr. Mekova's office.

"Here's my study." I move next to her desk and deposit it there.

Mekova fingers her question mark pendant, turns to me and takes the pad. "Thanks, I'll look at it later. Consider yourself approved."

"I'll get back to work." I turn around and reach for the door.

Mekova stops me with words. "I just have one question. What do you think about my study?"