DNA Null

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A television series produced by Marda.

Below on this blog page is Chapter 5 of the science fiction story "War of Words". After Julian's first visit to Arizona, he is unable to detect any DNA in the hairs he collected from Ambrose. In a quick assessment performed in Julian's own lab, Fredy's DNA seems normal and so Julian sends it off for a complete genome analysis which reveals the presence of some unusual gene variants. During a second visit to the offices of Second Contact magazine in Flagstaff, Julian manages to collect additional cell samples from both Marda and Cyrano.

The second scene of Chapter 5 jumps ahead six months to a point in time after Tess has moved to New York and Rylla is returning from her vacation in Australia. Fredy has convinced Julian to move his genetics research lab to NAU and he is now living with Fredy. Ambrose learns that Julian has tried and failed to detect DNA in samples from both Cyrano and Ambrose. Ambrose asks the Quyll to reveal themselves to Julian, but that does not happen, although the Quyll do tell Fredy about their 'nuclear option' which would convert Julian into an immortal femtobot replicoid.

War of Words - Chapter 5 - Club Replicoid (Chapt. 1)(Chapt. 2)(Chapt. 3)(Chapt. 4)

During his second visit to the offices of Second Contact magazine, Julian was on a covert mission. Along for this trip to northern Arizona was Tess, who, for her own reason, shared Julian's fascination with Ambrose Quillion.

Julian and Tess stayed the week at Fredy's luxurious mansion, perched on a hill at the edge of Flagstaff. Tess spent her days with Rose while Julian worked at the now-bustling offices of Second Contact magazine. Julian got to watch Marda direct her newly assembled digital video shooting crew while they trained to use the ultra-modern cameras and digital video editing equipment that Marda had equipped them with.

Watching the crew at work, they seemed amazingly well-coordinated. After the shoot, Julian commented to Marda, "I think you can really make this happen."

"Thank's for your vote of confidence. This is a big step up for me, being the one in charge. To make my life easier, I've called in favors from old friends." She waved a hand towards her team members.

Julian got to see an early copy of his first story in print, which would run in the next Second Contact magazine issue to be released. It was one of the first two stories submitted for Fredy's new writers contest. Julian was amazed when Marda showed him fifteen minutes of digital video that had been crafted for a one hour episode of the science fiction anthology television series that was in the planning stages. She told him, "These are all the alien and Tyr scenes, just as you wrote them from your imagination. The remaining three quarters of the video for this episode will be shot by my field crew. They are flying to Europe this evening. I'm struggling to decide if your episode should come first, before the first of the Quillion episodes."

Julian apologized for setting most of his story in southeast France at a remote mansion called 'Litheblanc'. "You could have shifted the location to central Arizona and saved a lot of time and money. In fact, you could have just shot the interior video all at Fredy's house."

Cyrano was hovering nearby, wanting to speak to Marda. Marda told Julia, "Don't be absurd. An American audience wants to see an exotic foreign location. Don't worry yourself about costs." Marda conferred briefly with Cyrano then took Julian to Fredy's office.

Fredy looked up from her laptop screen and asked, "Julian, can I drag you away from Marda? Rose wants us to meet her and Tess for dinner at Altiplanus."

Julian had already managed to collect a few of Marda's hairs. He was working on the theory that there must be others at Second Contact who were like Rose, with murky backgrounds and cells that contained no detectable DNA. "Sounds good."

On their way out, Julian got one last glimpse of Cyrano. He waved to her and then patted his pocket where he had some of her hairs in plastic bag. While waiting for the elevator to drop ten floors, he told Fredy, "Marda seems to get things done."

"She enjoys her work and she spends sixteen hours a day at it. Her husband is trying to get established as a new professor. He spends long days on campus."

"I hope she does not burn out."

"She'll eventually get into a more balanced and relaxed pattern. She and Lyle work hard and play hard. Remember, Saturday we are going snow camping with them."

When they had gotten into Fredy's car and were on their way to the restaurant, Fredy added, "Tess told me she does not want to go snow camping."

"She hates cold and snow and is afraid of injuring herself. She has been hired to dance in a show in New York City and does not want to twist an ankle while on cross-country skis and wearing a heavy pack on her back."

Fredy noted, "She seems to enjoy spending time with Rose."

"They've been having nightly phone-sex sessions for the past several weeks, which I get to join if I get home early enough from work. I'm sure Tess would be happy to stay in town with Rose all weekend."

Julian nodded. "You don't seem jealous of Rose spending so much time with Tess."

"I love Rose, but in a kind of clinical way." Fredy thought about the highs and los of making love to Rose. "I've tried to help teach her how to behave and not scare people away. Tess seems to appreciate Rose and I take that as a success for Rose's rehabilitation."

"You talk about Rose almost as if she's recovering from a stroke."

"That might be a sensible way for us to think about the situation, although she seems perfectly healthy. And I do mean perfect. I love the way she deploys her tongue for oral sexplay."

"Yes, she seems technically proficient for that, but there is something odd about her. What do you know about her background? Are her parents still alive?"

Fredy glanced at Julian from the corner of her eyes. She was trying to find parking. "Rose does not reveal much about her past. Apparently she's from Australia, but has long lived here in the States." Julian had a plan for getting a mucosa swab from Rose, but she seemed intent on spending all of her time with Tess.

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After dinner and a movie, Julian, Fredy, Tess and Rose returned to Fredy's house. Tess suggested a soak in the hot tub and she and Fredy quickly went out to the tub on the back patio. Julian went with Rose to the kitchen where, already naked in preparation for the hot tub session, she made hot chocolate. Seeing Rose naked quickly stimulated Julian to a hard hot erection. Waiting for the water to boil in a kettle, Rose placed a hand on his stiff penis. Rose asked, "Do you want something."

"Yes, I do. I want a sample of your cells."

Rose laughed and stroked his erection, "You first."

"I've tested your hair. No DNA."

Rose bent and kissed the tip of Julian's penis. "You are a bad boy. Why did you do that?"

"There is something weird about Ambrose Qillion. I intend to figure out who you are and where you come from."

"Where is your kit?"

Julian opened the cabinet and took down from the top shelf the sampling kit he had stashed there. "You might be some king of mutant with modifications to your DNA that confound sequencing machines. I want to culture some of your cells." Rose spread her legs and pointed to her crotch. "I've been hoping to get you inside me."

Julian quickly took swabs from both her oral cavity and inside her vagina. She commented, "Those are not cotton swabs."

"No, they are made of a special abrasive material designed the pull of living cells from a mucosal epithelium. He quickly processed the two cell samples and placed them in the freezer. Then they carried the hot chocolate out to the hot tub.

Scene 2.

Five month's later.

Julian had taken a new position in the genetics department at NAU and was now living with Fredy. He was driving Fredy's SUV and taking her to work on a Monday morning and puzzling over the genome sequences he had obtained for both Marda and Fredy. Even more puzzling was the fact that he had failed to obtain either living cells or DNA molecules from the bodies of Rose and Cyrano.

Fredy reached over and placed a hand on his leg. "Penny for your thoughts."

"I'd pay a lot more if you would tell me who Rose really is."

"Still trying to solve that mystery?"

"I'm giving up. She does not seem real."

"Oh, she's real enough. You just need to expand your concept of what is possible. Anyhow, Rose is working on this from her end. Be patient."

"Be patient? What does that mean?"

"Rose is trying to get permission to finally explain things to you."

"Permission from who?"

"That is hard to say."

Julian puzzled over Fredy's choice of words. He liked to think that with each passing day, they were growing closer and had less need to keep secrets. "You know, but you can't tell me."

"Yes. Exactly."

"This is incredibly frustrating."

"Tell me about it. I've been dying to tell you my secrets since I fell in love with you."

"That's fine, my love. Just tell me."

"It is not that easy." They had pulled into the parking lot. Fredy asked, "Would you give up being biological if you could live forever as an artificial life-form?"

Julian pulled the SUV to a halt in front of the office building. "I moved to Arizona because we are planning to have children."

"I have to go. Think about it." Fredy jumped out of the SUV. He sat there confused until there was a honk behind him. He drove mindlessly to the NAU campus while trying to make sense of what Fredy had said. He wondered if it was a joke, from one science fiction fan to another. Slowly he relaxed his mental constraints. He'd hypothesized that there was something in the biology of both Rose and Cyrano that interfered with the chemistry used by DNA sequencing machines. But what if they were not biological at all?

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Later that morning, Rylla walked into Fredy's office, having returned from her vacation in Australia. Within minutes, Marda and Ambrose were also seated in Fredy's office. Rylla spilled her big news. "Guess who I met in Australia?"

Marda suggested, "Crocadile Dundee."

Rylla shook her head. "The biological Ambrose Quillion has a nice place, hidden in the Outback, far of the beaten path."

The Ambrose robot nodded. "The Quyll told me that Ambrose is still alive, but I was unable to track her down."

"The Quyll led me right to her. And I learned that she is not alone. I met my parents."

Fredy asked, "Your dead parents?"

"Exactly." Rylla explained, "Actually, they are femptobot replicoid copies of my parents. When my parents died, they were copied over as immortal artificial life-forms."

Ambrose admitted, "I'm aware that the Quyll have the ability to copy humans into replicoids, replacing biological cells and molecules with femtobot components that mimic the human form. This might be a solution to the Oakes problem."

Rylla asked Fredy, "You are having a problem with Julian? I thought you two were ga ga for each other."

"Julian is wonderful. However, there is a problem. He's not stupid." Fredy told Rose, "He figured out that you and Cyrano are not biological."

"I know." Rose explained, "I've been advising him to keep looking for the answer to this little puzzle."

"I don't think I can just keep blowing him off."

Rose commented, "Ya, he does not find blow jobs very satisfying. He's more of a meat and vaginal sex kind of guy."

"Rose, get your mind out of my bed. I assure you, he enjoys oral sex if you do it right. But forget about that. We have to think seriously about the nuclear option."

Rylla chuckled nervously. "What are you talking about?"

Rose explained to Rylla, "The Quyll told me that Julian lacks the special genes that are needed for Quyll femtobots to efficiently control the human speech centers. Most important is a special Quyll-designed variant of the NOTCH2NLC gene. Julian does not have it, so the Quyll are reluctant to allow Julian to become aware of the existence of the Quyll."

Fredy added, "So Julian is left knowing that there is a whole lot of impossible weirdness here at Second Contact, but I can't explain to him what is going on. The situation is hopelessly unstable."

Rylla asked, "What are you going to do? Send Julian back to the East Coast?"

Rose explained to Rylla, "The Quyll have offered to convert Julian into a femtobot replicoid copy of his biological self. If he takes on the form of an artificial life-form composed of femtobots then the Quyll will be able to prevent him from divulging to the public any Quyll secrets. Julian will finally be allowed to know what I know about the Quyll and their plans for Earth."

Rylla nodded. "So that's it." She told Fredy, "That's the solution to your problem."

"Except it is no good! Julian and I are trying to get pregnant. I want to have children with him."

"I see." Rylla rubbed her bulging abdomen. "And if he becomes an artificial life-form, then he can't impregnate you."

Rose said, "No, that's not true. Technically."

Marda suggested, "Just save some of his cells."

Rose stood up and briefly paced back and forth across the width of Fredy's office several times. "I just checked with the Quyll. This can work. They are comfortable dealing with human stem cells. An artificial supply of Julian's germ cells can be made in the lab. Fredy, you could be impregnated and carry his child to term twenty years after he's converted into a replicoid. His cells can be kept in a biobank."

Fredy still occasionally had a sexual romp with Rose who seemed to keep getting better as a lover with practice and experience. Fredy asked Rose, "I think you have a good understanding of the female body, but I wonder..."

Marda asked, "Would an artificial Julian still be able to please you in bed?"

"Exactly." Fredy added, "I particularly enjoy what he does to me when my back is on the dinner table and my legs are draped over his broad shoulders."

Marda noted, "That gives me an idea for our next video."

Rose gestured towards Rylla, "Here is the expert on replicoid copies of humans."

Rylla giggled and told what she had seen in Australia. "My parents have not aged. They still look like they did when they died and move has no complaints about my father's sexual performance... femtobot replicoids of humans seem to be perfectly functional in all ways."

Fredy nodded slowly. "Then there is only one more question. Should I also become a replicoid?"

Marda warned, "You can't do this without Julian knowing what he is getting into and agreeing."

"I tried to tell him this morning, but I'm still blocked form talking to him about the Quyll and Quyll technology."

Marda got to her feet. "Well, good luck with that. I've got a meeting with my team." Marda exited from Fredy's office.

Rose suggested, "Maybe we could arrange for you to talk about this while Julian listens."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Invite Rylla and her husband to dinner tonight. A celebration of their return from vacation." Rose nodded with certainty. "Yes. Cyrano will do the rest."

Rylla turned to Rose and told her, "I don't understand your plan."

"That's the idea. All you have to do is wait until your husband and Julian are talking about sports. Then you talk to Fredy about the 'nuclear option'. You two just have to give enough details for Julian to figure out what you are talking about.

Feddy giggled and said, "It is worth a try, but I don't think it is that easy to get around the constraints that the Quyll impose on us."

"Don't think too much. Cyrano will take care of all the details."

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Dinner was at a noisy sports bar with dozens of blaring television sets on the walls. As Rose had predicted, Julian and Rylla's husband, Tom, were watching a baseball game between Arizona and Boston and ignoring Rylla and Fredy. Rylla said, "Tom is still puzzled by how my parents hid in the Outback for twenty years."

Fredy was puzzled over the matter of how loudly she should speak. If she thought Julian could hear her, she could not say the word 'Quyll'. Just then a waitress, or what seemed to be a waitress, came to the table and picked up used dishes. Fredy thought she recognized her as being one of the femtobot robots from Marda's team, but she could not be sure. She'd never paid much attention to those robots who existed only to create the illusion that Second Contact was using conventional television production methods. Fredy told Rylla, "How disorienting is it to suddenly have your parents back again?"

Rylla replied, "They have no intention of interacting with me, but it is comforting to know that they are still around and happy. Apparently they do odd jobs for the Quyll, traveling all around the world as needed."

The 'waitress' was back and taking desert orders from Tom and Julian. The presumed waitress had a large fraction of her two big beautiful breasts hanging out of her low-cut top. She had the complete attention of Tom and Julian. Fredy told Rylla, "I just need to get Julian to agree to become a femtobot replicoid and all our problems will be over."

Rylla added, "You could both live together forever as artificial life-forms."

The waitress went away and Tom and Julian returned their eyes to the baseball game. The big-breasted waitress was not seen again. Fredy assumed that Cyrano had arranged for the distraction.

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Later that night when Fredy and Julian took a soak in the hot tub, Julian started playing with Fredy's cute breasts and was thinking about that waitress. Suddenly, he asked Fredy, "What were you asking Rylla about Australia?"

"We talked about her parents and Rylla's childhood growing up in Australia."

Julian kissed both of Fredy's stiff nipples. "There was something else you said. Were you asking her about babies and reproduction?"

"I said 'replicoids', not reproduction."

"Right!" Julian got his eyes off of her curves and looked into Fredy's eyes. "Femtoscale replicoids."

"Femtobot."

"Femtobot?"

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Fredy tried to tell Julian about Quyll femtobots, but she could not speak the word 'Quyll'. After a long struggle to speak which she tried to hide by kissing Julian on the mouth, she said, "Killer femtobots. It is a plot element in the latest story by Ambrose."

"Oh. I hope Rose is not going to start writing horror and stories about raging aliens invading Earth."

Fredy giggled. "This might be the first Ambrose Quillion story that Second Contact magazine has to reject."

Julian suggested, "Maybe this marks the decline of the Ambrose Quillion Phenomenon."

"Maybe. I've now got seven other writers of your caliber feeding their stories to Marda. Soon we won't need to worry if Rose implodes."

"She never has seemed very stable. And her madness might be infecting you. What were you trying to tell me this morning about not being biological?

"It is another wild idea that Rose came up with. Don't ask me to explain it. You are going to have to figure it out yourself."

"If you say so."

"I do. It will come to you when you are relaxed. Like one of your recurring dreams about Asimov's sexy robot, Dors."

"Speaking of sex appeal, did you see that waitress tonight?"

"That was no waitress. She was just there to distract you and catch your attention."

"You now, her giant breasts did not look real."

"They were real, but not biological."

"Silicon?"

"Something like that. Maybe they were made of femtobots."

"Is that in the new story by Rose? Giant artificial breasts?"

"I'm tired of talking about your waitress' breasts and Rose and her kink for giving you oral sex. I want your attention on me."

"I'm over heating. Let's get in bed... I'm more than ready to get on you... unless you want to start on top."

"I'm trying to train you... it is always ladies before gentlemen."

End Chapter 5.

Next: Chapter 6 of "War of Words".

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