Carbonix Redundis

climate fiction

 Below on this page is Chapter 2 of the science fiction story "The Hierozyme Intervention", which concerns Marda's third day at school with Tyhry and then continues after school when Tyhry visits Marda's home. Marda is not a typical 12-year old; she is the host for a time-traveling zeptozoan from the future, Ylyndra, the hidden agent for Manny the bumpha. With hints from Ylyndra, Marda is certain that what Eddy Watson publishes as science fiction is more than just the product of Eddy's imagination. 

Marda has arranged to move to Eddy's "backyard" (actually five miles away) and Marda is trying to get to Eddy through Tyhry, Eddy's daughter. In Chapter 2, below, Marda finds several of Tyhry's hairs inside Tyhry's helmet. Marda reveals to Tyhry the depth of her obsession over Eddy Watson's science fiction stories. Marda invites Tyhry to "come over for dinner" and then they will be able to get started on their project for chemistry class.

The Hierozyme Intervention Chapter 2 - Team Work (read Chapter 1)

Marda in 2026. Still using the Brute.

 Marda was waiting impatiently for the school bus to arrive for her third day of school in Arizona. Her mother was sitting inside the cab of her Jeep Brute with the air-conditioner running. Marda was pacing in the steel bed and kept glancing down the highway, trying to spot the approaching bus. Rylla had offered to drive Marda to school, but Marda was trying to get to know her new classmates. Finally the bus appeared in the distance and Marda leaped out of the Jeep's bed and she crossed the road. She waved to her mother. The bus slowed and Marda climbed aboard. At the first seat that held only one student, Marda sat down and said, "Hi, I'm Marda. You are Kevin?"

Kevin nodded. "Yep. How'd you know?"

Marda was reluctant to reveal all of her sources of information, so she tried to ignore Kevin's question. Marda asked, "Do you know Tyhry?"

"Sure. She's in the next grade above me. How do you know my name?" 

 "Yesterday, I heard the driver call you Kevin." Marda pulled her backpack off of her shoulder and set it in her lap. "You ever hang out with Tyhry?"

"Are you kidding? She's out of my league."

"What does that mean?"

"She's like you."

Marda laughed. "Nobody is like me." Marda held out her hand. "Look, I'm new here. I want to be friends."

Kevin shook Marda's hand. "Where you from?"

Marda kept holding his hand and looking into his eyes. "I moved here from Perth." Kevin looked at her blankly. "That's in Australia."

"You don't sound like it."

"I was born in California. I suppose I don't really have any special accent. Which lunch period do you have today?"

"Second."

"Sit with Tyhry and me today."

"What about my friend Tim? I usually sit with him for lunch."

"Sure, both you and Tim. I'll introduce you to Tyhry." Marda watched his face. With her hand in contact with his and having spoken to Kevin for a few minutes, Marda was able to sense the outlines of his mind. "You like her."

"She's amazing. Too good for me."

"Don't say that. If you like someone you should tell them. They might become your friend."

"I know." He looked at their hands. It was hot on the bus and their hands were wet with sweat. "I'm a sucker for cute blonds. When I see Tyhry I can't think straight. She gives me shivers. I doubt if I'd be able to speak to her."

 "Nonsense. You can only talk to me because I inherited dark hair from my father?"

 "You are easy to talk to. My mom says some people have the gift of gab. You do."

"Gift or curse? I wonder. What's your favorite subject?" They talked all the way to school. When they got off the bus she reminded him, "Remember: lunch. Wear sunglasses so you are not tongue-tied by the bright shining of Tyhry's golden locks." Marda had spotted Tyhry's beautiful bright hair over by a shed behind the school. That's where Marda found Tyhry at work with the school's custodian repairing the big ride-on mower that that was used to mow the grass on the sports playing fields and the playground.

Tyhry introduced Marda to the custodian. "This is Marda. She's new."

The custodian held up a hand that was covered with grass and grease stains. "Meg." Then Meg told Tyhry, "Thanks. I can do the rest."

"Glad to help... I'm almost done." Tyhry kept re-assembling the mower. Tyhry told Marda, "Meg lets me park my bike in the shed."

Marda had already gone to the open door of the storage shed. Reaching into the shed, she picked up Tyhry's helmet. "Don't forget. You promised me a ride."

Tyhry was using a wrench to tighten a bold. "I told you. You need a helmet."

Marda was looking intently into the interior of Tyhry's helmet, letting the morning light illuminate its nooks and crannies. There were several of Tyhry's golden hairs stuck to the plastic cushions. "I ordered one online." Marda pulled a small plastic bag out of her pocket and placed the hairs in the bag. She hung the helmet on the handlebar of the bike and turned back towards Tyhry.

Tyhry handed the wrench to Meg. "That should do it." The first bell rang.

Tyhry and Marda ran to get to their homeroom before the second bell. They burst in just as the bell rang. The teacher asked Tyhry, "Late again?"

Tyhry held up her filthy hands. "I was helping Meg with a repair."

The teacher told Marda, "Just because golden girl Tyhry always gets away with anything, don't use her as your model."

Marda half sung, half said, "She is the very model of a major breach of discipline."

Image generated by Flow.

 The teacher was amused by Marda's singing and she laughed, but then the morning announcements came over the CC TV system from the office and Tyhry's flaunting of rules was forgotten.

Later, after lunch, in their chemistry class, it was announced that the students would be working in teams on a term paper. Marda was approached by the chemistry teacher. "Marda, I want you to work with Tyhry. She usually works alone."

Marda glanced at Tyhry. "That's fine."

All the students had paired off. Marda asked Tyhry, "Why work alone?"

"There's little point in me doing all the work and having a lab partner who does nothing. Its not fair to the other student... they don't learn anything."

"I see. Well, you won't have that problem with me. In fact, I've already decided on the topic of our project: the chemistry of microbial carbon sequestration."

Tyhry shook her head, "No. That's biochemistry."

Marda's hand shot up. She asked the teacher, "Can we do a biochemistry project?"

The teacher asked, "What do you have in mind?"

"Something related to global warming. Maybe ocean microbe carbon sequestration."

"That's fine, just keep it on the chemistry side. This isn't freshman biology. Your grade depends on showing me that you have learned some chemistry."

Battlefield Lipid.

Tyhry asked Marda, "Why this topic?"

 "It will be a breeze. Your father already did all the research."

"What are you talking about?"

"In his novel, Battlefield Lipid, Carbonix profundis." 

"You've read Battlefield Lipid ?" 

"I've read all of his novels."

Tyhry objected, "We have to do our own work, not copy passages out of dad's novel."

"Fine. We'll go to the next step. Eddy never explained how Carbonix profundis would sink so much carbon to the ocean floor without depleting the surface waters of needed nutrients like phosphorous. We'll solve that problem in our paper. We'll get started tonight. Come over to my place for dinner. I told my mom to expect you."

"Wait, what?"

"My mom visited your parents yesterday. My mom already invited your mom to visit us. And Zeta accepted. She might already be there... right now."

"Your mother visited Casanay?"

Marda nodded. "I think she has a crush on Anthony. Mom could not stop talking about him. He is single, right?"

The teacher happened to walk by just then. "You two are working?"

Marda explained, "Tyhry is coming to my place this evening to get started on our project. We'll be using my home Wildblue internet connection for our research."

The teacher was called across the room by another team of students. Tyhry said, "My mom and dad use Wildblue. Dad uses the internet for his research... he seldom goes to a library anymore."

"Why not?"

Tyhry shrugged. "He says he has no time. He's busy. A novel writing machine."

"But that's not the real reason?"

"I suppose he's a recluse, like me. I know what it is like to be busy. Sometimes it drives me crazy, knowing what I could be doing if I did not have to be in school." 

Marda laughed. "Busy with what? Repairing lawn mowers?"

Tyhry proclaimed, "I can fix any broken machine."

"I'll take that as a challenge." A look of mischief sparkled in Marda's big brown eyes. "You know, we could view Earth's environment as a broken machine. Too much carbon dioxide."

"You might as well just say too many humans."

Marda asked, "Is that your solution for global warming? Birth control?"

"Well, that seems simpler than shooting for a nuclear winter." Tyhry giggled.

 Marda grimaced. "You have a sick sense of humor."

Tim. Image generated by Flow.

"Well, explain why you have birth control on your mind. You were flirting with Tim during lunch..."

"I was making a new friend. You should try it for once in your life."

Tyhry provided her assessment of the two boys. "Kevin and Tim are both rather... dull."

Marda sighed at Tyhry's blunt characterization of the two boys. "Rather full of yourself, aren't you, Tyhry?"

"I have my own interests. They don't include The Mast Effect, or what ever Kevin was trying to tell me about at lunch."

 "Mass Effect."

"Mass? E=MC² mass? I thought he was saying 'mast'." Tyhry shrugged. "Anyhow, I'm not interested in computer games. I built my own computer with an Intel X58 motherboard with a six-core i7-980X processor feeding twin, GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards and terabyte storage." 

"Wow, so much storage... do you have a world-class porn collection?"

"It is for my hobby. I'm building a layered neural network that simulates visual cortex function. I'm combining feedforward cascades and weight sharing in my cortex simulation, but my strategy for sparse coding and lateral inhibition is failing to achieve the kind of edge detection I am hoping for. I want to give my bike a type of human-like vision and a self-driving capability."

"Bah. Human vision was never evolved for a task like that. Using the human brain as your model, you'll just end up with an automated banana picker."

Tyhry. Image generated by Flow. "Whitespace" song.

"You think that's all humans are? Sophisticated banana pickers?"

"Well, I was impressed by Tim's nose picking... so there is that, too." 

"That was disgusting. Please don't invite those two to eat with us again."

"Tyhry, you have to be diplomatic and you have to have friends." Marda could see the look of skepticism on Tyhry's face. She changed the subject, "Can you find my place after school?"

"I'll stop by home first, since its on the way. I know where you live. I ride out that way fairly frequently on my bike." Tyhry and Marda exchanged phone numbers, then Tyhry said, "I did not think construction was completed. How much land did you buy up?"

"We're living in a mobile home until construction of the house is finished. We got 2,500 acres." 

"That must back up pretty close to my backyard. We really are neighbors." Tyhry suggested, "The alternative is that you could come to my place." 

Marda shook her head. "All in due time. You need to meet my mom."

 "Why?"

Marda shrugged. "I think she wants to pick your brain about Anthony. He's lived at Casanay for fifteen years?"

"Something like that. Your mom might be in for disappointment. There's no evidence that Anthony likes women."

"It seems strange that he'd hole up inside Casanay for fifteen years."

"He's pretty artistic. Carves stone, wood... he paints. Sometimes we call Casanay the 'Anthony Museum'. I suspect some of his works of art are illegal... big carved chunks of petrified wood. I've asked where it came from and he just says 'I have my source'." 

"Interesting. Illegal art. This I have to see, particularly given what your father has written about Anthony."

“Dad has written Anthony into some of his science fiction stories. Anthony thinks it is hilarious.”

“Ya, that's exactly how I'd do it, too.”

“Do what?”

“If I was an alien spy, I'd try to laugh it off when Eddy tells the world I'm an alien spy.”

“So, you are some kind of UFO nut?”

“I've read your father's novels. He never made a single mention of UFOs.”

“Don't mince words. For his stories, Dad pretends that aliens frequently visit Casanay.”

“Don't mice words. Eddy describes himself as an alien. A tryp'At. That makes you an alien, too.” Marda asked, "What is Casanay?"

"That's what we call our home... 'Casanay'." Tyhry asked Marda, “If I'm an alien, why do I have to spend all day sitting in school?”

“Your mom is hoping that you will learn social skills.”

the tryp'At

“Like how to watch boys pick their noses without me puking up my lunch?”

“Exactly.”

Tyhry giggled. “Marda, if I'm tryp'At, I should be able to read your mind, but everything you say surprises the hell out of me.”

“Well, we have not really tried to link telepathically.” Marda took hold of Tyhry's hand. “I don't understand why physical contact is supposed to help with telepathy.”

“Dad's theory is that telepaths would have to learn the pattern of another mind in order to...” Tyhry found herself imagining that she could now guess what Marda was about to say.

Marda said, “For the tryp'At, telepathy only works between people who are in love.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

Marda had been watching the clock and she knew that the class period was almost over. She asked Tyhry, "Have you ever had any gene sequencing done?"

"Of course not. Have you?"

The bell rang, signalling the end of the class session. Marda let go of Tyhry's hand. Tyhry told Marda, "I'll call you when I depart from home." She added with a grin, "It should not take me long to get over to your place." 

__ 

 Returning from school, Tyhry pulled up in front of Casanay and then ran inside. She found Zeta in her office. Eddy was out back swimming. "I'm going to Marda's for dinner."

Zeta told Tyhry, "I was over there for... lunch... and helping Rylla with the landscaping."

Tyhry and Zeta. Image by Leonardo.

Tyhry began to turn, then sensed that her mother had more to say. "Marda lost her father three years ago. Suicide."

"Yikes."

"You don't have to say anything. According to Rylla, that is still a tender topic for Marda."

"Why did he kill himself?"

"I don't know the details. Apparently, he was named in a lawsuit against Simpera... hundreds of millions were paid out."

"Thanks for the warning."

"Sure. Anything you want to tell me?"

Tyhry had long imagined that her mother could read her mind. "I think I'm falling in love with Marda." Tyhry felt her heart thudding in her chest. She knew she was fallen, not just falling.

"Well, good for you." Zeta hugged Tyhry. "Does she like you?"

"I can't tell. She invited me over... that must mean something."

Zeta held her tongue. Tyhry asked, "What?"

"I can't tell you everything Rylla told me about Marda. You deserve to have the fun of finding out for yourself."

"What does that mean?"

 Zeta made a zipping motion with one hand across her lips.

Anthony and Tyhry. Image by Flow.

Tyhry went to the kitchen and told Anthony that she would not be home for dinner. Then she returned to her bike. She drove around the side of the house and off into the desert. Soon she activated the bike's anti-gravity flight system. She called Marda. "I'm on my way. You were right. My mom visited your mom today."

"Ya. She just told me. I'm going to take a quick shower before you arrive. The bus ride home was incredibly hot and sweaty."

"I'm sweaty, too. I don't mind. And you don't have time." Tyhry landed her bike and pulled onto the driveway. This was her first time seeing the modular home that had recently been hauled onto the site adjacent to the larger house that was still being finished. Half a dozen trucks of workmen were in the driveway along with Rylla's Jeep. Marda's temporary home was actually four large modules that had been delivered on flatbed trucks and then merged together to make a temporary home with over 3,000 square feet of floor space. 

Marda stepped outside and waved to Tyhry. Tyhry got off the bike and took off her helmet. Marda asked, "How did you get here so fast?"

Tyhry ignored that question from Marda and asked, "This is your temporary home? I was imagining a little trailer house."

"This will end up being a guest house once we move into the main house. Come in. Don't let my mom rattle you, no matter what weirdness she spouts. Sometimes she's not quite human in her blathering" 

Tyhry took one last look at the ugly mansion that was still under construction. Still unable to imagine why anyone would build such a monstrosity in the desert, Tyhry followed Marda inside and was immediately greeted by Rylla. "How interesting!" Rylla reached out with both hands and began playing with Tyhry's amazing nanite-enhanced hair.

Marda told her mother, "Mom, control yourself. Don't scare Tyhry off. I like her." 

Tyhry. Image by Leonardo.

Rylla seemed to only reluctantly pull her fingers out of Tyhry's incredibly soft hair, which Tyhry was putting on full display for Marda by enhancing its appearance with her carefully programmed hair nanites. "Tyhry is such an interesting mixture of her parents! Like mixing silver and bronze and getting gold."

Marda shook her head in dismay. Rylla seemed to be going off the deep end. Marda told Tyhry, "I'm sorry. My mom never learned how to behave."

Rylla told Marda, "I'm cooking your dinner. Don't be so rude unless you want to be eating gruel." Rylla seemed to suddenly realize that Marda was not fully dressed and was, in fact, only wearing panties. Rylla asked Marda, "What happened to your shirt?"

"I was just stepping into the shower when Tyhry arrived."

"Well, put something on. Tyhry will think we're barbarians."

"Why should I have to wear a shirt? It got so hot today! I'm burning up"

Tyhry giggled. "Just wait. It will get even hotter this summer. And don't bother with a shirt. I've been fantasizing about seeing more of you. Well, to be honest... all of you."

Rylla giggled and told Marda, "Well, Tyhry comes by it honestly."

Marda asked, "What does that mean?"

Rylla told Tyhry, "The Henrito hot tub was installed today."

Marda was standing under an air-conditioning vent and trying to cool herself. "We should have put in a cold tub."

Rylla and Zeta. Image by Leonardo.

Rylla giggled. "We only ran the heater a short time. The water in the tub got up to 75 today then Zeta and I simply had to try out the other features of the hot tub. We may have gotten carried away with the soap bubble generator, but otherwise my soak with Zeta was very nice. Why don't you two go try it out before dinner."

Later, when Tyhry and Marda arrived at the dinner table they were both wearing cute little silk robes, but had not bothered with the belts. Their regular clothes had been long since abandoned. Rylla watched Marda and Tyhry eat rather ravenously. Rylla said, "Zeta told me about her special connection to you."

Tyhry and Marda had shared a rather delightful kiss in the hot tub and Tyhry was now certain that she could sense Marda's thoughts when they were touching each other. Tyhry had been warned by Manny that such a thing was possible, if Tyhry ever ran into another telepath. "Not just mom. Your daughter too."

Rylla looked sharply at Marda. "Really?"

"I can't be sure. I feel something for Tyhry, but I would not call it telepathy." Marda lifted one of her hands and rubbed one of her erect nipples with her finger tips.

"You have to learn her mind pattern." Rylla said to Tyhry, "You don't seem surprised by any of this."

Tyhry shrugged and looked at Marda's pink nipples. Tyhry licked her lips and then said, "I have a special relationship with my mom. Sometimes I think she knows my thoughts." 

Manny and Nyrtia.

 Marda said, "It is just like in your father's stories. If he is tryp'At, he probably can read all of our thoughts."

Tyhry asked, "How did you come to be obsessed with my father's science fiction stories?" 

Marda shrugged. "It began three years ago when I started reading his novels. Then I found his website. You know how he invites fans to pretend to be aliens. I asked myself: what if it is not pretending? What if there really are aliens secretly living among the people of Earth?"

Tyhry chuckled. "If you want to get laughed at, try telling Eddy that you believe in space aliens."

Rylla asked Tyhry, "So, are you here to work on a chemistry project or to view my daughter's body?"

Marda made a minimal effort towards covering her little breasts with the fabric of her robe and explained, "Tyhry and I are a team for our term paper project. I want to do something related to global warming."

Rylla told Tyhry, "Marda is obsessed with carbon footprints. Guilt by association."

Tyhry paused her voracious eating. "Guilt?"

Rylla pointed to a photograph of a man that was on the wall. "My former husband was blamed for not preventing a terrible accidental methane release."

Tyhry shrugged. "If it was an accident, why harbor regrets and guilt?"

Marda told Tyhry, "The situation is absurdly frustrating. I'm sure that the technology exists to efficiently reduce atmospheric methane levels."

Tyhry shook her head. "Are you suggesting that such mitigation technology is being suppressed? That's nutty. Who would stand in the way of deploying such technology... if it existed."

"Oh, it exists... I have no doubt about that. I'll know it when I see it, but first you have to look."

"What? I have to look?" There had been a strange idea that Tyhry had seen in Marda's thoughts when they were kissing in the hot tub: that maybe Marda knew about Tyhry's ability to program zeptites. But Tyhry asked, "Look where?"

Marda set down her fork, reached out and placed a hand on Tyhry's arm. "I suspect you already know. Maybe you are like Eddy... prevented from talking about it... prevented from even thinking it is possible. I don't know... yet. That's why I'm here." She waved her other hand at their surroundings. "That's why you are here."

Tyhry was lost in Marda's big brown eyes. Finally she looked at Rylla and said, "I'm glad I'm here. You could teach Anthony a thing or two about cooking. I've fallen for your daughter, but..." Tyhry was now certain that Marda knew about zeptites. Tyhry wondered just how much Rylla knew about events inside Casanay. Trying to learn something useful about Rylla, Tyhry continued, "... I don't know what she's talking about. Do you?"

Rylla shrugged. "I try to stay out of my daughter's business. Similarly, I'll try to stay out of your emotions, but be warned. Marda learned from her father how to use people. I advise you to think twice before giving her your heart."

Marda told her mother, "Mom, don't be so dramatic. Tyhry and I like each other. Really, it is inevitable that we'd feel a mutual attraction, considering the other options available to us here in hicksville USA."

Rylla said, "Please watch your mouth, Marda. You know there actually is a Hicksville."

Marda at lunch. Image generated by Flow.

Marda giggled. "You know what I mean. Tyhry and I had to watch Tim Martin pick his nose in the cafeteria today during lunch."

Rylla rolled her eyes. "You're a primate. You pick your nose, too."

Tyhry said, "But I'm sure that Marda picks her nose with style and grace."

Marda threw up her hands. "Fine. Here in this Mecca of civilization, it was just random chance that brought Tyhry and I together, despite my nose picking. And now, if you will excuse us from the table, we have to start our chemistry project." She popped to her feet.

Rylla told Marda, "You are excused from the table, but not for calling your school mates 'hicks'. They might not be sophisticated world travelers, but you need to respect them as individuals and not paint them with a broad derogatory brush."

Marda whispered, "Yes, ma'am," And departed from the room. 

image source

Tyhry told Rylla, "Thank you for dinner." She pushed away from the table and followed Marda to her room. Marda was at her computer and searching the PubMed database. Tyhry went to Marda's personal bathroom. After emptying her bladder, Tyhry returned and found Marda reading an article titled "New insights into bacterial acquisition of phosphorus in the surface ocean", which had been published in 2009. Tyhry placed a hand on Marda's shoulder and Marda flipped over to another browser window that showed and article titled "Characterization of a major refractory component of marine dissolved organic matter". Tyhry said, "That was what dad proposed in his novel, Battlefield Lipid, converting carbon dioxide into organic molecules that could not be metabolized by Earthly microbes."

Marda turned her chair and pulled Tyhry close so that she was seated on her thighs. "Which is fine for the deep ocean deserts, but not for bio-diverse habitats like reefs. I'd like to ask Eddy his thoughts about photolysis of his imaginary glycolipoxan molecules."

Tyhry suggested, "You can visit us at Casanay any time you like. Eddy would love to meet one of his fans."

"Oh, he already knows me quite well. I've been the most frequent commenter at his blog for the past two years."

Once long ago Tyhry had investigated her father's website, but she had felt uncomfortable and jealous observing the casual intimacy with which Eddy interacted with his fans. Particularly his adoring female fans who seemingly had an endless capacity to discuss the fantasy alien sex scenes that Eddy included in his novels. Still, Tyhry occasionally heard Eddy and Zeta discussing his website. "You are 'Nyvad'?

Marda logged in as 'Nyvad'.

Marda opened a window showing Eddy's blog where she was logged in as Nyvad. "I like to use the screen name 'Nyvad' because of its similarity to Nyrtia."

Tyhry commented, "Not many of Eddy's fans volunteer to play the role of a pek in the online forum."

"I don't have anything against the idea of enforcing the Rules of Intervention. I take seriously the idea that technology-wielding apes could cause their own extinction, or short of that, turn Earth into a hellhole." 

Marda now had both of her hands on the soft skin of Tyhry's thighs. Suddenly, Tyhry could "see" a thought in Marda's mind that was made conspicuous by the fact that Marda was trying to hide it. Tyhry asked, "You took my hair?"

Marda giggled and abandoned all hope of hiding things from Tyhry. "I mailed a few strands of your hair off to a lab for DNA sequencing. I need to verify that you are like me: equipped with a rare Notch2NLC gene variant."

"You've had your genome sequenced?"

"Call it a birthday present. Mom floats on an ocean of cash." Marda stroked the soft skin of Tyhry's bottom and was impressed by the fact that all the hair on Tyhry's body seemed magically enhanced and very long, a tryp'At trait that Eddy never seemed to tire of describing in his novels. I'm sure you've had some expensive gifts. How much have you spent on your bike and your computer?"

"Not what it costs to sequence a genome."

Marda shrugged, "Look this is not a competition between us, but I'm starting to sense your thoughts."

Tyhry and Marda. Image by Leonardo.

Tyhry was being driven wild by Marda gentle touch. "With your hands down there, I can guess what you are thinking."

"When you are ready, tell me how deep you are into my mind. I'll find out eventually."

Tyhry got off of Marda and began putting on her clothes. Watching Tyhry dress, Marda commented, "I thought I was the padded bra champion."

Tyhry put on her heavily padded bra. "I need plenty of nipple protection when I ride my bike."

Marda looked out the window at the dark of night. "My mom can drive you home."

"I can get home in the dark." Marda followed Tyhry outside. 

Tyhry got on her bike and Marda kissed Tyhry on the lips. "Be careful."

"I am being careful. I'm not quite ready to tell you everything you want to hear, but I can tell you this. I've fallen in love with you."

Marda mused, "Then you can see my thoughts."

Tyhry drove off down the dark driveway, not bothering to activate the headlight of her bike. The hierion screen that surrounded the bike not only made it hard to be seen while flying but also automatically optimized light levels as seen by the bike's driver. A hundred feet down the driveway, Tyhry activated the bike's flight system and the autopilot flew her home, staying 50 feet above the familiar and well-mapped terrain surrounding Casanay. After reaching a top speed of 120 MPH, Tyhry coasted into the back patio of Casanay. Manny the bumpha was there, waiting for Tyhry in the hot tub. Tyhry took off her helmet and went to the side of the tub and told Manny, "I'm glad you are here. You should know... my cover has been blown."

Manny waved a hand, inviting Tyhry into the water. Tyhry began to undress. Manny assured Tyhry, "I've worked long and hard to get Marda here."

Tyhry climbed into the tub. "So, you told her how to find Casanay." 

Tyhry arrives home.

Manny giggled. "When your father depicts Windwood (the fictional analogue of Casanay) in his novels as being located on Cape Cod, it is never very convincing. I motivated Marda to figure out the truth. It was not that hard... for Marda."

"She's too clever for her own good." 

"True, but I designed you and Marda to be clever for my special purpose, not as a benefit for you."

Tyhry allowed her hair nanites to fully activate and her hair took on the same glistening form as Manny's extravagant nanite-enhanced hair, each strand seeming to twist and float above the water of the hot tub, never getting wet.

"So it is true? What Marda said about me having a special Notch gene variant?"

"Yes, that is crucial for your ability to control your zeptite endosymbiont and use it for telepathy."

"So, she can read my thoughts?"

"Not yet. Marda is still in the process of falling in love with you. She did not really know anything about you until just this week and she does not have the benefit of all your carefully curated Neanderthal gene combinations. You can experience love at first sight... Marda takes longer to emotionally bond. And you don't help yourself any by being an anti-social recluse. Marda is a social creature."

Tyhry had long ago been told by Manny that her mother, Zeta, was half Neanderthal. "Marda sent my hair follicles off to a lab for gene analysis. This could get quite exciting if the world learns there are Neanderthals living in Arizona."

Manny giggled merrily. "Don't fret. I'll personally send Marda the results of your genome sequencing and I'll make sure there are no leaks in that data exchange." 

Manny the bumpha.

"Marda is tryp'At?"

Manny shrugged. "Would you have me tell you things that you can find out for yourself?"

"What about dad? What will happen when Marda gets a look at my genes?"

"You don't have to worry about Eddy. For Marda, the DNA sequencing will just be a form of confirmation of what she's already been told."

"You've been telling her about my family?"

"Well, no. I delegated that task. Marda carries a time-traveling zeptozoan from the future inside her... my secret agent. Deciding how much to tell Marda is a delicate challenge. If Marda is told too much she will lose interest. She's driven by mystery." Manny dissolved into a cloud of zeptites that then slipped back into the Sedron Domain. 

Now alone, Tyhry let the water jets of the hot tub massage her for another five minutes while she thought about Marda touching her where nobody had ever touched her before. Tyhry tried to imagine the full implications of both she and Marda being tryp'At and able to share telepathic mind-linkage. After achieving a heart-pounding orgasm, Tyhry climbed out of the tub, took her bike to the garage and then went to her bedroom suite inside Casanay. She did not pick up from the stone patio her discarded clothing which was nanite generated and evaporated into its component parts that then automatically returned themselves to storage in Tyhry's basement workshop.

End Chapter 2

Related Listening: Call Me. Marda falls in love with Tyhry.

Next: Chapter 3 of "The Hierozyme Intervention".

Images by Leonardo and Flow. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers.

RNA the Musical

Tyhry and Marda in the Casanay RNA laboratory.

  Having completed the 48,000 word-long science fiction story "The RNA Seeds", I used Google's Flow Music to turn "The RNA Seeds" into a musical. That musical version of the story (titled "RNA the Musical") ended up including 26 songs, each about 3 minutes in duration.

 Google's Flow Music has a feature called "Spaces" which I used to make an alien voice synthesizer and a tool for displaying illustrated liner notes for each song in the "RNA the Musical" playlist. These were my first two experiments in vibe coding. The user interface for the liner notes display tool is shown below in Figure 1...

Figure 1. The liner notes Space for "RNA the Musical". Created by vibe coding.

Figure 3. Flow Music tabs.

 I ran into several problems while experimenting with Google's Flow Music. I've still never paid for any AI service, so everything described on this blog page pertains to the free version of Google's Flow Music. I started with Google's Flow Music by using an older version of the Firefox browser and I created an account with the user name "Tyhry". Quite quickly, I created a second account with user name "Eddy Watson" which I use with Google's Chrome browser. However, there seem to be bugs in Google's Flow Music (see below in Figure 2) that are so severe as to occasionally crash even my newer computer when running Chrome.

Figure 2. A Flow Music error message.

Eventually, I learned that there is a problem with Flow Music if Chrome browser is set to us my Mac's graphics chip for "extra" processing power. After I turned off that option in Chrome (Settings> System> toggle OFF  "Use graphics acceleration when available"), the Flow Music-induced crashes became less frequent.

Figure 4. User preferences.

The main set of tabs in the Flow Music user interface is shown to the right in Figure 3. The tab that is labeled "Tyhry FREE" opens up another set of tabs that are essentially user preferences and user-specific information such as "credits" (see Figure 4, to the left). A new Flow Music account starts with 500 credits. I get a deduction of credits when I use Flow Music's AI to generate songs, but each day I get some "daily free credits".

Clicking on the "Profile" tab that is shown in Figure 3, opens a profile page like the one shown below in Figure 5. Flow Music makes it fairly effortless to add images. You can either enter a text prompt and get an AI-generated image or you can upload images the are 5 MB and smaller. Shown in Figure 5, below, is a banner image for the "Tyhry" account that was made using Google's text-to-image Flow software. In many of my science fiction stories, I like to imagine that Tyhry is a human variant, a tryp'At.

Figure 5. Flow Music user profile page for user "Tyhry".

Figure 6. Account settings.

One of the Google Flow Music features is seen above in Figure 5. As long as you are using Google's Flow Music, at the bottom of your browser page is a song player.

Image for "Load Bearing".

In a user's account settings (see Figure 6, to the right), one of the options is to force "clean lyrics only". Apparently, when active, this preference setting ensures that all song lyrics Flow Music generates will be PG and not include "dirty" words. In my own songs, I have not explored how "dirty" Flow Music can get (but see "Kindred Dick"). When I searched for "dirty" I found "Low-Down Dirty". My search for "sexy" turned up "Sexy Temptress". The only song that Flow Music generated for me which seems at all "racy" is "Load Bearing". 

Some of the
lyrics for
"Load Bearing"

The song "Load Bearing" was generated spontaneously by Flow Music while it was making up "alien voices" for several of the characters in "The RNA Seeds" (see this session). "Load Bearing" is a song for Klaudy the robot, who is a character in "The RNA Seeds". During that vibe coding session, the Flow Music "Producer" AI had just worked on a voice for Systolina when it then suggested, "Klaudy the Manikoid robot might be an interesting contrast with those "industrial mechanical textures." I clicked on one of the AI-generated "suggested replies" which was "Refine Klaudy's voice". Google's Flow Music then generated the lyrics for the song "Load Bearing".

"Learn More"

Google's Flow Music has an annoying "system" of credits, points, levels and badges. Users begin in the "learning" level and can progress to a "debut" level after "earning" 1000 points. The tab/page titled "Customize Producer" (see below, Figure 7) can be reached by clicking on the tab in the main interface (Figure 3) that displays your current number of points.

Figure 7. The "Customize Producer"page/tab.

One of my Google Flow Music playlists (titled "Meta Music" is for songs about the "joys" of using Flow Music and other AI software. Google's Flow Music automatically remembers things about users. What the AI has learned about you can be viewed by clicking the "Memories" tab that is on the "Customize Producer" page (Figure 7). One of the things that Flow Music has learned about me is: "user often creates songs satirizing their experience with Producer and the platform's limitations"

Flow Music Blurb.
Click image to enlarge.

There is a blog for Flow Music which seems to have only one entry from March 2025. I suppose Google has a rule that all of its "apps" need to have a blog, so ✅.

Figure 8. Flow Music on Discord.

I believe that this is the main page for Flow Music documentation, which quickly links users to a discord server. Back when Goggle's Whisk was still in existence, I explored the discord for Whisk and found it to be pretty useless, so I did not rush to investigate the Flow Music discord server space. The "good folks" at Google Labs seem to enjoy spewing jargon on their Discord server space. 

Figure 9. Google Labs on Discord.

I find the entire Discord interface to be confusing and irritating to navigate (see Figure 9 for an example). 

pay for x-tra features

Of course, they have some kind of freemium system with for-pay services and advertising that supports the whole Discord operation, but I use an ad blocker on my browser, so who knows what I'm missing?

I'm certainly not missing the annoying Discord popup windows that are integral to the Discord software and can't be blocked by an ad blocker (example in Figure 10, below). 

Judging from what I see on the Google Flow Music discord server,  Flow Music has gone through several iterations since 2022 including an existence as "Riffusion" before being acquired by Google in early 2026.

Figure 10. An X-box ad on Discord.

Duet format

The first thing I found on the Flow Music discord server was a tutorial from a user who is struggling to get Flow Music to do what they want it to do. I suspect that the people at Google do not even know how Flow Music works. They bought the Producer AI from someone else and they can't even explain to users how to use it.

The second thing I found on the Flow Music discord server was the recommendation to use "Da Vinci Resolve" rather than Flow Music. Based on what I see in the 179 MB instruction manual for Da Vinci Resolve, it is similar to iMovie and allows you to put together music and video tracks.

The third thing I found on the Flow Music discord server was discussion of long-term users of Riffusion trying to adapt to the changes that have been made to the software by Google. 

I then searched the Flow Music discord server space for "duet" and found a set of instructions from what looks like some random user (see the image to the right). I tried asking Producer about those instructions and it agreed they seem reasonable. I really dislike software for which users are forced to guess how to use it.

Other Problems. The chat sessions with Producer have a length limit. When I was building a Space (see the song "Flow Music Spaces"), I ran into the length limit and that inspired another song ("Vibecode 22").

Flow Music struggles to pronounce many English words correctly.

 Flow Music seemingly randomly repeats some song lyrics lines and drops other lines.

 As for all generative AI systems, users have to experiment and find out what the limitations of Flow Music are and try to work around those limitations. Here are instructions created by Claude:

Figure 11. Helpful instructions by Claude. Click to enlarge.

 To make "RNA the Musical", I provided song ideas and song titles to Claude. Claude then generated lyrics for each song along with music production instructions. Those lyrics and music production instructions were then provided to Flow Music which generated the music for each song.  

If you click on the "Flow Music" button in the upper left corner of the Flow Music interface (see Figure 3) it opens up a "welcome" page that looks like this:

Figure 11. Flow Music welcome page. Google's User Interface Philosophy: "Love That Whitespace."

 

Figure 12. Flow Music "Song" tab.

I don't like the Flow Music welcome page; it makes my computer over-heat. The default for the song list is "featured", but you can switch to a couple of other views if you want to browse what songs have been created recently by users. I have no idea what qualifies songs to be "featured".

The Flow Music "Song" tab is shown in Figure 12. This shows all of the songs that a user has generated. Songs can be "published", which makes them visible to other users. You can also "follow" other users, but I don't really understand all the benefits that accrue from following someone on Flow Music.

Figure 13. Following.

"When a user you follow shares a track publicly, you gain the ability to use the Remix function. You can extend their audio sections, swap musical parts, or tweak their baseline tracks with your own AI instructions." 

"By keeping tabs on specific profiles, you can follow the 'flow' of their creative sessions, find out what parameters they use to guide their AI studio 'Producer', and borrow structural elements like specific instrument configurations or custom drum machine patterns." 

Figure 14. A "typical" user.

User's like "imnotningning" (see Figure 14) are pretty common on Flow Music, people who show up, make a song or two, then never return.   

User grufel is a much more active Flow Music user. As far as I can tell, only a person's published songs are visible to other users. It would be cool if following another user gave access to their unpublished songs, also.

For example, right now I have generated 161 songs, but I've only published 55 of those. Often when a prompt is given to Flow Music, two versions of the same song are generated. Sometimes three versions are generated and the user is asked to provide feedback for which one is not as good.

Users can write a 250 character-long self-description for their user page.

 Playlists can be given 500 character descriptions, but Flow Music does not show that entire description, instead leaving a bunch of blank space on the playlist banner. 

Figure 15. More active user.

As shown in Figure 15, Flow Music users can select songs as "favorites' 👍. For example, I added the song "mother" to my favorites. I have a playlist for my favorites.

I want to mention one other tab in the main Flow Music set of tabs (see Figure 3), the "turntable" tab. Clicking on the turntable button opens up a window like the one shown in Figure 16, below.

 

Figure 16. Turntable "feature". The bait: "Earns you credits".

Figure 17. No lyrics.

 Be warned: some of the sound samples on the "turntable" are little more than noise. I feel like there should be a warning about hearing damage for those who participate in this Flow Music activity. Maybe this is one of the ways Flow Music tries to get rid of users like me who don't pay. For some of the paired song versions, I'd like to be able to vote "none of the above" rather than say which one is better.

As shown in Figure 17, some of the songs have no lyrics. Also be warned that initially the "turntable" counts you down towards 10 pairs of songs listened to. If you can survive those ten pairs, then it switches to counting you down to 20 pairs, which feels like a classic bait and switch trick. I think I got 20 credits for listening to 20 songs (10 pairs). Life is too short for that kind of nonsense. I made a song about this kind of software interface, see: "Give Me Credit(s)".

Figure 18. Click on the image for lyrics.

A nice feature of Google's Flow Music that is easy to miss is that there is a song player that activates if you click on the image that is on the page for a song (see Figure 18). This song player zooms in on the image for the song and then super-imposes the lyrics, scrolling through them as the song plays. An example is shown below in Figure 19.

Figure 19. The scrolling player for the song titled "Time Stream (1482)".

 

Figure 20. Seven Flow Music playlists on June 23rd.

Flow Music 1000 points. Click image to enlarge.

 June 23 update: Today I reached the first "milestone" in Flow Music's pointage system: 1000 points. To get to the "gold" level 10 playlists are required; currently I have 7 playlists. By my count, I have marked 44 songs as favortites.

My favorite song so far: Tyhry Time. 

Related: what is MusicFX?  

Related Music: For more Sci Fi music see this playlist and this one, too.

Next: Sci Fi baseball.

Images by Flow. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers.