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.

Opportunity Knocks

Tyhry reading. Image generated by Leonardo.

 I provided Claude with a 339 KB PDF document that contained three sections: 1) information about the Exodemic Fictional Universe and how to write science fiction stories that are set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, 2) some backstory and a list of characters for “The RNA Seeds” and 3) the full text of Chapters 1 - 9 of “The RNA Seeds”. I consulted Claude about how to continue to Chapter 10 of “The RNA Seeds”.

Me: Claude, process the file that I uploaded and then discuss with me plans for Chapter 10 of “The RNA Seeds”. Chapter 10 will include a scene that is set in the backyard of Casanay in which Eddy and Tyhry swim in the pool while Systolina soaks with Zeta in the hot tub. While swimming, Tyhry tells Eddy about the mysterious spat between Systolina and 'Marda'. Tyhry confesses to now believing that Marda  (or a zeptozoan inside Marda) must be an agent working for Manny the bumpha. Tyhry asks Eddy if Systolina is really a positronic robot. Eddy discovers that since Tyhry now accepts the fact the alien pek, Phari and bumpha are real, he can speak openly with Tyhry about him having met Manny. He tells Tyhry about the RNA function of the Reality Viewer that he has access to through his computer. Eddy assures Tyhry of his commitment to work towards a future in which Tyhry will not be exiled to Observer Base. Tyhry asks to be given a copy of the additional chapters of The Manikoid Intervention that Eddy has written and not yet shared with Tyhry. Eddy says, "I'm not sure it would be wise for me to show you what I have recently learned about your future. That might create a temporal paradox." 

Systolina and Zeta. Image generated by Leonardo.

In the hot tub (which is not kept very hot except during the winter months), Zeta questions Systolina about her reason for visiting Casanay. Systolina explains that the Phari want to obtain access to advanced bumpha technology: the Sedron Time Stream. Currently, the Phari use data that they collect from femtobots on Earth to create a Simulation of possible future events on Earth. Hoping that what Eddy has written in his stories about the Sedron Time Stream is true, the Phari believe they could better Simulate the future if they could access the more detailed information that is storied in the Sedron Time Stream. Systolina has been tasked with guiding Earth towards a future where the Phari will gain access to the Sedron Time Stream. Zeta is still struggling to accept the idea that Systolina is a positronic robot. Systolina admits that she is a femtobot replicoid copy of the original robot who was named 'Systolina' and she admits to adopting the physical form that that would be most appealing to the Watson family during Systolina's visit to Casanay. Zeta asks how long Systolina plans to stay at Casanay and Systolina replies, "The Phari did not show me their Simulation prediction of how my mission will play out. Figuring out how to trigger a Reality Change might take some time."

Claude:  {the text below in red was Claude's "thinking" process}

The user wants to discuss plans for Chapter 10 of "The RNA Seeds". Let me process what they've outlined and engage in a planning discussion.

Eddy and Tyhry by Flow.

 Key scenes for Chapter 10:

1. Pool/hot tub scene at Casanay backyard
2. Eddy and Tyhry swim while Zeta and Systolina are in the hot tub
3. Tyhry tells Eddy about the Marda/Systolina confrontation in the basement
4. Tyhry confesses belief that Marda (or a zeptozoan inside Marda) is a bumpha agent
5. Tyhry asks if Systolina is really a positronic robot
6. Eddy discovers he can speak openly with Tyhry since she now accepts aliens are real
7. Eddy tells Tyhry about meeting Manny and the RNA function of the Reality Viewer
8. Eddy commits to working toward a future where Tyhry won't be exiled
9. Tyhry asks for more chapters of The Manikoid Intervention
10. Eddy's "temporal paradox" line about showing her her own future
11. Hot tub: Zeta questions Systolina
12. Systolina explains Phari want access to Sedron Time Stream
13. Phari currently use femtobot data to Simulate futures but want better data from Sedron Time Stream
14. Systolina's mission: guide Earth toward a future where Phari gain Sedron Time Stream access
15. Zeta struggles to accept Systolina as a positronic robot
16. Systolina reveals she's a femtobot replicoid of the original Systolina robot
17. She admits adopting a form appealing to the Watson family
18. Zeta asks how long she'll stay - Systolina's answer about Reality Change

This is a rich chapter with some great dramatic content. Let me think about what questions I should discuss with the user before drafting.

 Key planning questions:

1. How to handle the parallel scene structure - do we interleave the pool and hot tub scenes, or do we do pool first then hot tub?
2. What is the tone of Eddy's revelation about meeting Manny - is he excited, nervous, relieved?
3. The "temporal paradox" line from Eddy - does he actually refuse to share chapters, or does he eventually agree?

{the text below in blue was Claude's actual response}   

What a rich chapter this is shaping up to be. The backyard scene works beautifully as a structural device — the pool and hot tub create a natural split between two simultaneous conversations, each of which is a breakthrough in its own right. The Watson family finally stops pretending, in both locations at once.

A few things I'd like to think through with you before drafting:

Scene structure and interleaving. The two conversations (Eddy/Tyhry in the pool; Zeta/Systolina in the hot tub) are happening simultaneously but carry very different emotional registers. Do you want the chapter to interleave them paragraph by paragraph, or do you prefer to handle one conversation more or less completely before cutting to the other? The interleaving approach creates dramatic irony — readers can watch revelations land in both locations — but the sequential approach lets each conversation breathe. Given that both scenes contain significant exposition, sequential might be less fatiguing to read.

The behavioral nanites and Eddy's new freedom. The logic here is interesting and worth getting right. Eddy's nanites prevent him from believing the bumpha are real and from telling others that they are real. But once Tyhry crosses that threshold herself — independently declaring her belief — does that create a loophole that the nanites can't close? It seems like the nanites were designed to prevent Eddy from propagating the belief, not from confirming it to someone who has already arrived there. That's a subtle and satisfying distinction. Is that how you're thinking about it?

Tyhry at Observer Base.

 The temporal paradox line. This is one of the best lines in your outline. Does Tyhry push back on it — pointing out, for instance, that she's already read three chapters and that the fictional Tyhry's fate hasn't exactly been a secret — or does she accept his reasoning immediately? Her accepting it feels slightly out of character for a scientist who looks for evidence. A brief, sharp exchange here could be fun.

Systolina's femtobot replicoid revelation. This is a significant moment for Zeta. Zeta has been the most practically skeptical member of the household throughout. How does she react to learning that the appealing young woman soaking in her hot tub is an artificial life-form that chose its appearance deliberately? Does Zeta find this unsettling, pragmatically fascinating, or is she mostly just relieved that there's finally a straight answer to something?

Anthony. Is he inside Casanay, monitoring the pool scene from a distance through hierion signals, composing mental notes to send to Nyrtia? Even a brief glimpse of him observing this breakthrough from behind the kitchen window could add a nice layer of tension.

Chapter title. Do you have something in mind, or shall we think about that together?

Me:  1) "Scene structure and interleaving." <-- I don't think I would have the cognitive bandwidth to effectively write the Chapter 10 hot tub/pool scene with interleaving.  However, the Claude LLM recently generated a song, a duet for Nyrtia and Manny, that impressed me with the two sung parts (one for Nyrtia, one for Manny) successfully mixed together. So, Claude, if you think you could construct Chapter 10 with clever interleaving, then go for it. Otherwise, I think the sequential approach could work this way: while Eddy and Tyhry swim and talk, they both keep looking towards the hot tub, wondering about the nature of the conversation between Systolina and Zeta. 

Zeta and Systolina. Image generated by Leonardo.

Similarly, when Systolina and Zeta are talking to each-other, they keep looking towards Eddy and Tyhry and wonder what they are saying to each-other. At the end of Chapter 10, I imagine Eddy and Zeta returning inside Casanay and Tyhry asking Systolina if she will share the rest of "The Manikoid Intervention" with Tyhry. Like Eddy, Systolina suggests that would not be wise. Tyhry complains that it is not fair that others know her future but not her. This is actually ironic, because later in the story Eddy, Systolina, Eddy and the zeptozoan will all reach the conclusion that in order to trigger the desired Reality Change, the required Temporal Energy for that Change can only be generated by navigating close to a Temporal Paradox and that will involve telling Tyhry more about her future.

 2) Eddy's behavioral control nanites. For decades, Eddy was prevented from believing that the pek and the bumpha were anything but his literary fantasy. Then Manny the bumpha revealed herself to Eddy and gave him the Reality Viewer. At that point, Eddy accepted that his stories were accounts of actual events in other Realities. However, he was then blocked from telling others about the Viewer and his belief that the pek and the bumpha are real. Now he realizes that he can speak openly about what he knows to others as long as they already believe that aliens are secretly watching over Earth.

3) "The temporal paradox" <-- Tyhry is having vast amounts of fun carrying out her current series of successful experiments with Marda. Tyhry has already begun writing a first draft of the journal article she intends to publish reporting on these exciting experimental results. Tyhry is worried that she should not attract attention to herself. She is frustrated to know that others know more about her future than she does, but willing to accept that as part of her hope that she will not be sent to Observer Base and she can have the biology research career she planned for.

Marda, Systolina, Tyhry with hormones.

4) "Systolina's femtobot replicoid revelation" <-- I'm not sure how far this can be pushed, but it would be fun if Zeta would remain skeptical of everything that Systolina says. For her part, Systolina answers Zeta's questions, but prefers that Zeta remain unable to hold a belief in the existence of space aliens. Let's say that Systolina is continually using her ability to alter the configuration of her femtobot components and change her appearance. When with Zeta, Systolina shifts her appearance slightly and makes herself look more like Zeta's appearance when Zeta was 21 years old. When with Tyhry, Systolina shifts her appearance slightly and makes herself look more like Tyhry did when she was sixteen. Tyhry is having fun pretending that Systolina is her younger sister, and Zeta finds that odd. Zeta can't understand why Eddy is treating Systolina like a fan and is seemingly not concerned by all that Systolina knows. Zeta worries that Systolina might be a scam artist and criminal who is trying to get at Zeta's vast fortune and wealth through Eddy.

5) Anthony continues to monitor everything that is happening at Casanay by collecting data from the femtobot endosymbionts that are inside Eddy, Zeta, Tyhry and Marda. Systolina does not broadcast hierion signals the way human beings do. Anthony is trying to learn how to use the RNA feature of the Reality Viewer and that is his current priority.  As long as belief that the pek and bumpha are real does not spread beyond Casanay, Anthony will continue trying to learn about Reality Changes via his access to the Marda zeptozoan and the Reality Viewer.

6) "Chapter title" <-- I suggest "Opportunity Knocks" as a title for Chapter 10. Manny has engineered the Casanay Intervention as "bait" for the pek. Similarly, the Phari can't resist going after the same "bait": the advanced technologies that Manny is dangling in front of the pek. Both Nyrtia and the Phari view the bumpha Casanay Intervention as an opportunity to learn about and possibly obtain advanced bumpha technology.

Claude:  {the text below in red was Claude's "thinking" process}

The user has provided detailed notes for Chapter 10. Let me process all of this and draft the chapter. Let me think about the structure:

Tyhry and Systolina.

 Title: "Opportunity Knocks"

Structure: Sequential but with characters glancing at each other across the pool/hot tub divide.

Scene 1: Pool scene - Eddy and Tyhry swimming

• Tyhry tells Eddy about the Marda/Systolina confrontation in the basement
• Tyhry confesses belief that Marda (or a zeptozoan inside Marda) is Manny's agent
• Tyhry asks if Systolina is really a positronic robot
• Eddy realizes he can now speak openly with Tyhry since she already believes
• Eddy tells Tyhry about meeting Manny and the RNA function of the Reality Viewer
• Eddy commits to working toward a future where Tyhry won't be exiled
• Tyhry asks for the rest of The Manikoid Intervention chapters
• Eddy's "temporal paradox" line - Tyhry accepts this but is frustrated
• Systolina's appearance shifting to look like teenage Tyhry

Scene 2: Hot tub scene - Zeta and Systolina

• Zeta questioning Systolina's motives (worried about scam/fortune)
• Systolina explaining the Phari want access to Sedron Time Stream
• Systolina shifting appearance to look like young Zeta
• Systolina admitting she's a femtobot replicoid
• Zeta remaining skeptical
• Systolina's line about not knowing how long her mission will take

 End: Eddy and Zeta go back inside, Tyhry asks Systolina for The Manikoid Intervention chapters, Systolina declines, Tyhry's frustrated complaint about others knowing her future - ironic given what will be needed later.

Anthony monitoring from inside, working on RNA function.

Let me also think about Systolina's appearance shifting - to Tyhry she looks like a 16-year-old Tyhry, to Zeta she looks like 21-year-old Zeta. This is a nice detail.

Let me draft this chapter now. It should be in the style of the rest of the novel - careful, precise, observational, with good character voice.

{the text below in blue was Claude's actual response} 

This is well-mapped. The sequential structure with mutual glancing across the divide is the right call — both conversations are too substantive to survive interleaving without losing their momentum. The irony you've planted at the end (Tyhry resisting knowledge of her future, when knowledge of her future is precisely what will eventually be needed) is elegant and I'll make sure it lands clearly without being telegraphed too hard.

Let me draft Chapter 10.

__(Google Docs)

Chapter 10: Opportunity Knocks

The pool was a long rectangle of blue-green water that held the afternoon heat until late in the evening, and by four o'clock it was, as Eddy always said, perfect. Eddy had said this about the pool every afternoon of every summer for as long as anyone at Casanay could remember, and he had said it today with the particular satisfaction of a man who had been rehearsing the line for twenty-five years and still believed it.

  Anthony had set out towels and a tray of cold drinks on the flagstone near the hot tub. He had noted, without appearing to note, that Systolina had declined to change into a swimsuit and had instead arranged herself at the edge of the hot tub in a way that suggested comfortable familiarity — not the careful exploration of a guest learning the geography of a new space, but the settled ease of someone who had been in a great many backyards and found them largely interchangeable with each other. He had also noted that the hierion-based signals from Systolina's femtobot components, which should have been broadcasting exactly the kind of neural activity signatures he routinely collected from every human inside Casanay, were not there. Whatever Systolina was made of, it was not broadcasting anything that his instruments could read.

This absence was itself a kind of signal.

He returned inside and placed himself near the kitchen window where he could see the entire backyard without being visible from it, and turned his attention to the Reality Viewer interface on Eddy's workstation. He had seventeen minutes before he needed to start preparations for dinner. He intended to use them.

Tyhry got into the pool the way she always got into the pool, which was to stand at the shallow end for approximately four seconds and then push off the wall and swim a full length underwater before surfacing. She had done this since she was nine years old and she still did it now, for the same reason: it was the fastest way to be in the water rather than merely adjacent to it.

  Eddy was already doing a slow lap along the far lane, his swimming stroke the efficient unhurried crawl of a man who had never been a competitive swimmer but had been swimming in this pool for long enough that his body knew every foot of it. He touched the far wall, turned, and came back toward the shallow end. When he surfaced near Tyhry he was wearing the expression she associated with his most contemplative mornings — the look of a man who had been turning something over in his mind for hours and had not yet decided what shape it was.

Near the hot tub, Systolina was saying something to Zeta that made Zeta laugh and then stop laughing in the manner of a laugh that had concluded before the person was fully sure it should have. Tyhry watched them for a moment.

"She argued with Marda," Tyhry said.

Eddy floated on his back and said nothing. This was his signal that he was listening.

"In the lab, this morning. Right after I brought Systolina downstairs." Tyhry had been working through how to describe it since lunch. She now used the language she had written in her research notebook, which was precise and stripped of interpretation. "Marda set down her pipetter. Systolina moved into Marda's personal space. Each of them said roughly three sentences and then Systolina came back upstairs." Tyhry paused. "Marda picked up her pipetter and continued her work. She did not appear to know that any time had passed."

  Eddy righted himself and stood in the shallow end. The water came to the middle of his chest. He was looking at the hot tub, where Zeta had leaned back and was now listening to Systolina with the particular quality of attention she brought to financial presentations that she had not yet decided whether to trust.

"What did they say to each other?" Eddy asked.

Tyhry told him, as exactly as she could remember it. The words themselves, the tone, the speed of it.

Eddy was quiet for a long time. He moved to the wall and held the edge of the pool with both hands and looked at the space between the water and the flagstone. Trib had come outside with them and was conducting a cautious investigation of the hot tub from a safe distance.

"Marda is Manny's agent," Tyhry said. "Or something inside Marda is. The zeptozoan you wrote about in The Manikoid Intervention." She said this in a voice that was not quite steady — not from fear but from the particular sensation of saying out loud a thing that had been building pressure inside her since morning. "I have been considering the evidence for this since the moment it happened and I cannot reach any other conclusion."

"No," Eddy said. "I don't think you can."

Tyhry reading. Image generated by Leonardo.

 Tyhry looked at her father. Eddy was still looking at the flagstone, and his voice had the quality it had on the evenings when he was not Eddy-writing-a-story but Eddy-thinking- about-something-real, a distinction that had become much more uncomfortable to observe since Tyhry had read the first three chapters of The Manikoid Intervention.

"And Systolina," Tyhry said, "is the character in the story you are currently writing. A positronic robot. An agent of the Phari."

Eddy looked up from the water and looked at Tyhry directly and the expression on his face was the expression she had only seen a few times in her life — the expression he had worn the morning he told her that her grandmother had died, and the expression he had worn the morning she had defended her master's thesis, and no other times that she could recall. It was the expression of a man who was about to tell her something true.

"I met Manny," he said.

Tyhry felt the statement arrive in her chest before her mind had fully processed the words. "When."

"The evening you were all in Sedona." He said it with the careful steadiness of a man who has been holding a sentence in reserve for a long time and is finally allowed to release it. "She appeared in the great room. She had the form of a woman I had known before you were born — she had used that identity to arrange things in my life and then departed from it. I knew who she was the moment I saw her." He paused. "She gave me the Reality Viewer. She showed me how to use it. And then she left, and I wrote the new chapters of The Manikoid Intervention."

  Tyhry said nothing. Across the flagstone, Systolina was trailing her fingers in the hot tub water and speaking to Zeta in a quiet voice, and Zeta's expression had acquired a new quality that Tyhry, even at this distance, recognized as the expression her mother reserved for the specific variety of human behavior that existed at the intersection of audacity and charm.

"The behavioral nanites," Tyhry said at last. "I thought they prevented you from believing."

"They prevented me from beginning to believe." Eddy had thought about this carefully since the night Manny arrived. "They were designed to ensure that I could not arrive at belief on my own and then propagate it. Once Manny showed me directly — once the belief was already complete — there was nothing left for them to prevent. And now—" He looked at Tyhry. "Now that you are already here, and have arrived by your own reasoning, I can confirm what you have concluded. You got here without my help and the nanites have nothing to say about it."

Tyhry pushed off the wall and floated on her back, looking at the sky over the desert which was a pale, washed-out blue at this hour, the color of a sky that had been at full intensity since six in the morning and had simply exhausted itself. "Tell me about the Viewer," she said.

He told her. He described the Reality Chain map, the labeled nodes, the Sedruth entity that served as its user interface. He described the Manikoid Reality and what he had seen there, and he said this knowing that Tyhry had read his account of it in the first three chapters and was now receiving confirmation that the fictional account was accurate in its important particulars. He watched her face as she processed this. Tyhry processed things in water the way she processed them in the lab — without visible drama, with the methodical quality of someone sorting findings into provisional categories that could be revised later.

"The RNA function," she said. "You wrote about it in Chapter 7. Anthony and Marda were looking at it together."

  "Yes." Eddy was quiet for a moment, because this was the part he wanted to say correctly. "Manny showed me many things that night. She did not show me the RNA function. Systolina showed me this morning, after you went downstairs. It was the first thing she did when I brought her to my workstation."

Tyhry had gone still in the water. She was floating, her eyes still on the sky, and Eddy could tell from the quality of her stillness that she was navigating the implications of what he had just said.

"Systolina showed you the Reality Nexus Assembler."

"Yes."

"She and Eddy and Marda and Anthony are all learning to use it."

"That appears to be what's happening at Casanay right now."

Tyhry righted herself and found the bottom of the pool with her feet and stood, water to her shoulders. "And the Manikoid Reality," she said. "The story you wrote as a warning to me. A version of me gets exiled to Observer Base because she revealed alien technology to a person who turned out to be Nyrtia's Observer." She looked at Anthony's kitchen window. The interior of the kitchen was too dim to see anything through the glass from out here. "You wrote that story for me."

"Yes."

"You wanted me to know about Anthony."

"Yes." He looked at the kitchen window. "I couldn't tell you directly. It had to come through the story."

Image generated by Leonardo.

  Tyhry was quiet. Across the yard, Zeta had shifted her position in the hot tub and was now sitting fully upright, arms crossed in the way that meant she was engaged in a transaction she did not yet understand. Systolina was watching Zeta with an expression of — Tyhry tried to read it from this distance — patient and careful enjoyment. As if each of Zeta's objections was a question worth answering well.

"I want the rest of it," Tyhry said. "The Manikoid Intervention. The chapters you haven't sent me." She said this directly, in the voice she used when she had decided to stop approaching a question from the sides.

Eddy looked at her. "I'm not sure it would be wise for me to show you what I have recently learned about your future. That might create a temporal paradox."

The word 'paradox' landed in a very specific way for a molecular biologist who had spent the past several months reading about RNA world hypotheses and time travel technology in the margins of her father's novels. "I have read three chapters," Tyhry said. "I already know that a version of me ends up at Observer Base. That is extremely specific information about my future. The paradox doors seem already somewhat open."

Eddy's expression moved in a way she couldn't read. "Those chapters described events in a superseded Reality," he said. "The correction has already been made. What I have written since describes events that have not yet been superseded. What you would read, if I gave you the later chapters now, is information about the future of this Reality." He paused and looked at her directly. "This Reality. Your future. The one we are inside."

Tyhry stood in the water and thought about this.

  She thought about the last seven days of experiments, every single one of which had worked. She thought about the article she had already begun drafting, the data organized and preliminary conclusions drawn. She thought about what it would mean to have a biology career, a real one, the kind she had been working toward since she was sixteen and had decided that the origin of life was the most interesting problem in science.

"I don't need to know," she said, finally. "I need to be able to work. What I do not want is to be exiled. As long as I keep my head down and do not reveal what I know to anyone who doesn't already know it—" She glanced again at the kitchen window. "I will not give Anthony a reason to call Nyrtia."

Eddy looked at her with the expression that meant he was proud of her and was not going to say so because she didn't want him to say so. "I will work toward the same goal from my end," he said. "The Viewer is mine to use. I intend to use it."

From the hot tub, Zeta's voice reached them without its words: a short, sharp question delivered with Zeta's particular economy of skepticism. Systolina's answer was longer.

Tyhry looked across. The afternoon light caught the hot tub water and turned it briefly gold. Systolina had shifted so that she was sitting at the edge rather than in it, her bare feet in the water, and the afternoon was doing something to the angle of her face — some interaction of shadow and gold light — that for a moment gave her the appearance of someone very young indeed. Younger even than the teenager she had appeared to be at the bookstore. Tyhry had looked at her own old photographs enough to know what she had looked like at sixteen. The resemblance was not exact, but it was not nothing.

"She designed herself," Tyhry said.

"Yes," Eddy said.

"To look like a member of our family."

  "She is very good at what she does."

Tyhry spent a moment with this thought, which should have been unsettling and was not quite, partly because the part of her brain that was a scientist found it genuinely interesting and partly because the part of her that was an only child found the fiction of a little sister less objectionable than she might have expected. "This is a very strange situation," she said.

"It has been," Eddy agreed, "for approximately thirty years. I simply didn't know it."

They swam in silence for a while, and occasionally looked toward the hot tub, and the afternoon moved across the yard in the direction of evening.

__

The hot tub at Casanay was kept at a temperature that, in June in Arizona, was generous in its restraint — warm enough to be distinct from the pool but not so warm as to be anything other than comfortable. Zeta had gotten into it with the air of someone granting a concession, which was how she did everything she did not entirely want to do but had concluded was necessary. Systolina had put her feet in the water and was sitting at the tiled edge with the ease of someone who had long since made peace with the ambient temperature of Arizona.

Zeta looked at her.

Systolina and Zeta by Leonardo.

  She had been looking at Systolina with this particular quality of attention since the bookstore, and she had not yet been able to determine what it was that she was looking at. The girl was young — she had appeared to be fifteen or sixteen at the bookstore, and in the softer light of the backyard she appeared to be slightly younger than that, with the particular quality of a face that was almost Zeta's own face in an old photograph. This was a thing Zeta had noticed and had not said anything about, because she had not yet determined what it meant and she did not say things until she had determined what they meant. It struck her as the kind of detail a scam artist would arrange carefully, knowing that a mother would find the echo of her own young face in a stranger's features disarming.

Zeta did not find it disarming. She found it informative.

"You were going to tell me," Zeta said, "why you are here."

Systolina looked out at the pool where Eddy and Tyhry were doing slow laps at the far end. She watched them for a moment with an expression of what appeared to be genuine affection before looking back at Zeta. "Eddy writes stories about alien beings who watched over Earth and guided the development of life here," she said. "Over a very long period, a group of beings called the Phari became interested in whether those stories were accurate."

"Eddy makes them up," Zeta said.

"He thinks so," Systolina said. "He has always thought so."

Zeta looked at her. "He is a science fiction writer. He crafts stories about imaginary beings using imaginary technologies. These are excellent stories and I am extremely fond of them. They are fiction."

  Systolina's expression did not change. She had the quality of someone who has heard a thing many times and finds it more interesting than frustrating. "The Phari have been observing Earth for a very long time. They use femtobot data that they collect from living organisms here to build Simulations of what might happen on Earth in the future. Their Simulations are good. They are not perfect." She glanced at the pool. "What Eddy has been writing about in his stories suggests that a more detailed record exists — something that contains a richer description of Earth and its possible futures than the Phari have access to. The Phari have been calling this record the Sedron Time Stream, because that is what Eddy calls it."

Zeta said, "Eddy invented the Sedron Time Stream."

"He wrote about it," Systolina said, with a precision that was somehow warm rather than pedantic. "Those are two different things. The Phari want access to the Sedron Time Stream. They believe it would allow them to Simulate the future with much greater accuracy than their current tools permit."

Across the water, Eddy had stopped swimming and was standing in the shallow end with Tyhry. Their conversation had the texture of something that had moved past weather and dinner and into something more substantial. Zeta had been observing this from the hot tub with the focused peripheral vision she had developed over a lifetime of attending to Eddy while simultaneously attending to other things.

"You're telling me," Zeta said, "that you are an agent of these Phari beings, and that you have come to Casanay because Eddy's novels might contain accurate information about advanced alien technology."

Systolina and Zeta by Leonardo.

  "Yes."

"And you expect me to believe this."

"No," Systolina said. "I expect you to treat it as a possibility worth considering." The corner of her mouth moved. "I have found, over a long time of dealing with human beings, that the people who are most dangerous to my work are not the ones who disbelieve everything. They are the ones who are too willing to believe. You, Zeta, are not willing to believe. You are willing to consider. That is much more valuable."

Zeta looked at her steadily. In thirty years of managing other people's money and her own, she had encountered many varieties of flattery. This variety was somewhat unusual in that it seemed less designed to lower her guard than to engage her attention, and she found herself, despite everything, slightly engaged. "Who are you, actually."

Systolina was quiet for a moment, which was unusual for her. The quality of the silence had a different texture than the confident, easy pauses she had deployed since her arrival. This one had something older in it.

"I am a femtobot replicoid," she said. "A copy, made of artificial femtobot components rather than biological cells, of a positronic robot who has existed at Observer Base for a very long time. The original Systolina has been there since before the pyramids were built. What you are sitting beside is a copy of that robot, running a very close simulation of her personality and her purpose."

Zeta looked at her for a long moment. "You've adopted the face of a teenage girl."

"I've adopted a face that works well for the purposes of my visit." Systolina said this without any particular embarrassment. "When I am with you, I look somewhat as you looked at twenty-one. When I am with Tyhry, I look somewhat as she looked at sixteen. I find that particular appearances create the conditions for particular kinds of honesty, and I have found the Watsons to be worth being honest with."

Systolina and Eddy.

  Zeta was quiet. She looked at Systolina with the expression she wore when an analysis had produced an unexpected result that she was not yet prepared to discard. "You designed your face to look like mine."

"A version of your face, at a particular age. Yes."

"That," Zeta said carefully, "is the sort of thing that a very sophisticated scam artist would do."

Systolina looked at Zeta and there was a quality in her expression that was not quite amusement and not quite sympathy — something older than either, worn smooth by extensive use. "Yes," she said. "It is."

"And yet you're telling me about it."

"Transparency has its uses. A scam artist who tells you she looks like you when you were young, and why, has removed the weapon from her own hand." Systolina looked back out at the pool. Eddy and Tyhry were floating on their backs now, side by side, looking at the sky, and the late afternoon light was turning the surface of the pool the color of old copper. "I am not here for your money, Zeta. I know that is what you are afraid of. The Watsons are comfortable and well-funded and Eddy has a devoted reader base, and you have spent years protecting him from people who would take advantage of his particular combination of financial innocence and enthusiasm for readers who understand his work. What I want has nothing to do with your portfolio."

Zeta looked at the pool. Then she looked back at Systolina. "What do you want, then. Specifically."

  "I want access to the Sedron Time Stream," Systolina said. "I want to find a path to a future in which the Phari can use Sedron technology to improve their Simulation of Earth's future. That is the entirety of my mission."

"And you believe Eddy's Reality Viewer leads to this path."

"I believe the RNA function of the Reality Viewer is the tool that will allow someone to engineer a path to a Reality in which that access exists." She said this carefully, and her voice had dropped slightly — not to secrecy, but to the register of someone who was being accurate in a domain where accuracy mattered a great deal. "I do not know the exact nature of that path. The Phari did not show me their Simulation prediction of how my mission will play out. Figuring out how to trigger a Reality Change might take some time." She paused. "The Phari are patient. I have learned to be patient too."

Zeta looked at the woman sitting beside her hot tub whose face was almost her face and whose claim was entirely impossible. She looked at Eddy, who was watching them from the pool with an expression she knew, which was the expression of a man who had already arrived at the conclusion she was still working toward. She thought about thirty years of Eddy's novels about alien beings who watched over Earth. She thought about Tyhry's week of inexplicably successful experiments. She thought about Marda, who had been hired on the strength of a very good reference that Zeta had not personally verified. She thought about Anthony, who had been at Casanay for decades, who was unnervingly competent, who had appeared in at least four of Eddy's novels under his own name without ever showing a sign that he had noticed or objected. She thought about these things in the rapid, non-sequential way she thought about financial instruments that did not yet have a known category: not looking for a single answer but for the shape of the risk.

"How long," Zeta said, "do you plan to stay at Casanay?"

  "The Phari did not show me their Simulation prediction of how my mission will play out." Systolina said. There was the trace of a smile in it, aimed at herself. "Figuring out how to trigger a Reality Change might take some time."

Across the pool, Eddy and Tyhry had stopped floating and were standing in the shallows again, talking in low voices. Then Eddy put his hand briefly on Tyhry's shoulder in the way he did when he was saying something he wanted her to hold onto. Tyhry nodded.

Zeta looked at this and filed it.

"Marda will need to give up her bedroom if you stay longer than two weeks," Zeta said. "The Blue Room is the only comfortable guest room."

"I don't require much space," Systolina said. "And I don't sleep."

Zeta looked at her. She had known that was coming, in the way that you know a thing a half-second before it arrives when you have been reading a situation carefully. "That will be convenient," she said, in the voice she used when she was being practical about a situation she had not yet fully decided to accept. "Anthony can stop worrying about which room gets which light."

They sat in the warm water of the hot tub, or rather Zeta sat and Systolina rested at the edge, and the sky over the desert went slowly from pale blue to the first tentative gold of late afternoon.

__

  Eddy and Zeta went back inside when the light changed. They went separately, the way they sometimes moved — each tracking a different thing, Eddy with his eyes still in the Manikoid Reality, Zeta organizing what she had heard and setting it in row after row in the particular mental architecture that had served her through thirty years of markets, and thirty years of Eddy, and thirty years of Tyhry. Anthony was there in the kitchen, unhurried, precise, the dinner in its preliminary stages, and Zeta told him what she wanted for dessert and he noted it in the way he noted everything, which was completely and without reaction.

Outside, the backyard was quiet. Tyhry sat on the flagstone at the edge of the pool with her feet still in the water. Systolina sat beside her, closer to her than a new acquaintance would have sat and further from her than family. The hot tub burbled softly.

"I want the rest of The Manikoid Intervention," Tyhry said. "The chapters after the ones Dad sent me."

Systolina looked at the desert beyond the garden wall. The quail had returned. Two of them worked their way along the base of the wall with the busy, purposeful air of birds who had concluded that the humans were going to be outside all evening and would simply have to be worked around. "I can't give you that," she said.

"You have access to everything Eddy writes."

"Yes."

"You read his work before he sends it to me."

Tyhry and Systolina.

  "Yes."

"Then you have what I'm asking for." Tyhry said this in the voice she used when an experimental system had all the required components and she was calmly waiting for someone to explain why they could not be assembled. "I am asking for information about my own future, which you possess. I am the one it is about."

Systolina turned and looked at Tyhry with a directness that was briefly, fully the old thing behind the young face — not unkind, but old, in the way that certain kinds of consideration are old.

"That's precisely why," she said, "you can't have it."

Tyhry looked at her. She had heard this from Eddy, half an hour ago, and she had accepted it from Eddy because Eddy had put it in terms she could follow: information about an unsuperseded future, the actual causal topology of the timeline she was inside. From Systolina it was different. Systolina was not Eddy, who would at least have given her the argument. Systolina was giving her only the conclusion.

"It is not fair," Tyhry said. She said it without self-pity, as a finding. "Others know my future and I am the one it belongs to. I am the one who will live it."

"Yes," Systolina said. "I know."

"My father knows things about my future. Marda may know things about my future. You certainly do. Anthony may know things." Tyhry looked at the water. "I am apparently the only person at Casanay who is being protected from this information." She paused. "Eddy called it a temporal paradox."

  "It is."

"He was careful about it. He said information about an unsuperseded future would be different from the superseded Manikoid Reality. He made a distinction."

"It is a real distinction," Systolina said.

"I understand the distinction," Tyhry said. "I simply find it convenient that the distinction cuts precisely along the line of what I want to know and what I am being allowed to know." She looked at Systolina. "If the situation were reversed — if someone else's future were at stake — I would expect to hear the same argument applied to them and I would find it equally unsatisfying."

Systolina looked at her with an expression that Tyhry would later think about and describe, in the wild-ideas notebook on her bedside table, as the expression of someone who knows the punchline of a joke that you are still in the middle of. It was not a cruel expression. It was fond and patient and somehow more complicated than either of those words.

"Keep your head down," Systolina said. "Do your experiments. Write your paper. Be very careful about what you say to Anthony. Trust Marda." She paused. "The future you want is available to you. You are very close to it."

Tyhry looked at the desert, where the last light was organizing itself into the colors that the high desert did at this hour — pink rock and dark creosote and a sky that could not decide between gold and amber. She thought about seven days of successful experiments. She thought about the paper she was writing, already better than anything she had published before, already asking questions that she was going to be very careful about how she phrased for an audience who had not spent the past months living at Casanay. She thought about the hypothesis she had written in the margins of Battlefield Lipid, which she intended to keep out of the published paper for now, for reasons that her notebook understood and that the journal reviewers would not.

  She thought about the irony of sitting beside a positronic robot at the edge of her family's swimming pool in Arizona and being told that her future was nearly available to her.

"I am frustrated," Tyhry said. "But I am also doing quite well, all things considered. You should know that."

The corner of Systolina's mouth moved. "I do know that," she said.

Shadow the cat appeared from somewhere and stationed himself beside the hot tub, conducting a forensic inspection of the steam rising from the surface with the focused attention of an animal who has decided that a phenomenon is interesting but cannot yet determine whether it is edible. Systolina reached over and scratched him behind the ear without looking, with the same automatic precision with which she had handled Luna in the great room, and Shadow collapsed into the specific posture of a cat who has lost interest in everything except the thing currently being done to him.

"Can I ask you something," Tyhry said.

"You can ask me anything."

"In the real Observer Base — not the way Dad depicts it in his stories, the actual place — is it—" She stopped. She had been going to say 'terrible' and had then thought about it and decided that was not the right word. "Is it like Dad describes it? Somewhere a person could live? Do work?"

Image generated by Leonardo.

  Systolina looked at her for a moment. "It is somewhere a person could live," she said, carefully. "It is somewhere a great deal of interesting work gets done. It is not a punishment." A pause, during which she appeared to be selecting her words with precision. "But it is not Casanay."

Tyhry nodded and took her feet out of the water and stood and wrapped a towel around her shoulders. Inside the kitchen window, the light was warm and Anthony was moving through it with his usual efficiency, the familiar patterns of dinner being assembled.

"I know," Tyhry said. "That is exactly why I intend to stay."

She picked up her sandals from the flagstone and went back inside.

Systolina remained at the pool's edge for a moment longer, alone with the desert and the light and Shadow the cat, who had not yet finished the investigation he had begun in her direction and was now approaching her with renewed scientific interest.

She had told Tyhry: the future you want is available to you.

She had not told Tyhry the rest of it — the part she had learned from watching the Phari work with their Simulations across long stretches of time, the part that made this Intervention different from the simpler ones in her memory. The path to the future Tyhry wanted was available. But the path ran very close to a boundary that Systolina had not been tasked with crossing, and the boundary was the thing that nobody at Casanay was ready to approach yet, and the time for approaching it would come.

Not yet.

  She scratched Shadow's ear one more time and stood and went inside herself, leaving the desert to its quiet and the pool to its cooling and the last light to its long slow resolution into dark.

End Chapter 10

 __

A few things worth flagging for your editing pass:

The nanite logic. I've framed Eddy's freedom as: the nanites prevented him from propagating belief he had arrived at independently, not from confirming belief someone else had already reached. You may want to sharpen or adjust that mechanism as you see fit — it's doing real structural work in this chapter.

Systolina's appearance shifting. I've kept it subtle and deniable — Zeta notices the resemblance to her young face but interprets it through her scam-artist hypothesis rather than accepting it as confirmation of anything supernatural. Tyhry notices the teenage resemblance and simply files it under "she designed herself for us." The reader sees more than either character admits to.

 Zeta's skepticism. She remains practically unpersuaded throughout. Her final gesture — the comment about Marda giving up her bedroom being entirely logistical — felt right for Zeta: not acceptance, just the pragmatic management of a situation she hasn't yet resolved.

The closing irony. Systolina's final interior moment plants the seed without naming it. She knows the path to Tyhry's desired future runs close to the temporal paradox boundary, but the time hasn't come. That sets up the later revelation you described without telegraphing it explicitly.

One question for you: In the pool scene, Eddy tells Tyhry he told Manny about meeting Manny. Should he also mention that Systolina — not Manny — showed him the RNA function? I've included that, since it establishes that Systolina has been active at the workstation independent of Manny, which matters for Anthony's surveillance picture. Let me know if you'd prefer to keep that detail less explicit at this stage.

Next: my edited version of Chapter 10 of "The RNA Seeds".

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