Capitol Reflections (8 page)
“In the nineteenth century, a monk named Gregor Mendel performed some extraordinary experiments with pea plants,” Jamie continued while Henry tried his best not to listen. “Long story short: a plant or animal inherits a gene from each parent for any given trait. If the two genes—alleles, to be specific—are different, then the dominant allele is fully expressed in the new organism’s appearance. The other remains recessive but may assert itself in future generations. It’s called Mendel’s Law of Segregation.”
Henry was curled up and sound asleep within minutes.
Jamie smiled and turned back to face his Apple. The machine had a regular typewriter keyboard embedded in an off-white plastic shell, with a monitor housed in the same plastic casing sitting on top of the flat surface behind the keyboard. Jamie ditched his Apple I, little more than a motherboard hooked up to a keyboard and television screen, as soon as the newer version went on the market because the Apple II had eight expansion slots. A kid who tinkered with electronics instead of playing catch with Dad back in Scranton, Jamie added a few special devices to the computer, one being a piece of hardware that Apple inventor Steve Wozniak had surely not envisioned for the average user. Jamie constructed an interface to connect a thumbprint recognition pad to one of the expansion slots. A regular password didn’t give Jamie enough peace of mind. His research would one day knock the sandals off Kucherlapati’s small feet. Folding protein chains were all well and good, but the real action was at the atomic and molecular levels. For security, therefore, Jamie used his jury-rigged thumbprint recognition system in addition to always locking the machine with a key that he kept on a chain around his neck.
Jamie glanced at a row of plants directly to the right of his desk. Casually, he picked a couple of leaves from the nearest stem, popped them in his mouth, and chewed. Henry hadn’t been far off the mark. Jamie liked to nibble a little salad fresh from his narrow gardens from time to time.
He continued to transfer data from his notebooks to the green computer screen. It was two in the morning when he shut down the box and locked it after saving new info to a floppy drive, another of Jamie’s innovative uses of the expansion ports. He would grab a few hours of sleep, go to a couple of rudimentary classes the next day, and then return to his real love—the research that Kucherlapati thought so frivolous.
11
Henry could no more stifle his curiosity than he could stop screwing coeds or inflicting punishment on the soccer field. He had to be in the loop, and it irked him that Jamie Robinson worked late into the night seven days a week, doodling cryptic pictures in his notebook or tapping computer keys and munching on leaves like a rabbit. The kid even wore a lab coat, like he was some kind of Jonas Salk cooking up a vaccine to save the world, and he was apparently unaware that Henry was not always asleep after slouching on his bed. What bothered Henry the most was that Jamie destroyed his notebooks after transferring their squiggles and chemical formulas to his computer. What kind of secrets did Jamie harbor in that box?
He didn’t know a lot about the Apple, but he was savvy enough to know that whatever Jamie was storing in its guts might be important. In Jamie’s absence, Henry tried several times to break into it. He’d attempted to unlock the computer with several small keys and had even pressed his thumb onto the recognition pad, thinking it was some kind of “open sesame” device. None of this worked.
The info on the machine might turn out to be crap, but if Jamie thought it was important enough to Fort Knox, then Henry needed to know about it. The most important thing he had learned from his father, besides how to make a perfect martini, was that information was more valuable than money, not that the latter should be neglected.
In fact, if used correctly, information could lead straight to the bank vault. But how could he break into the damned computer? Sadly, he couldn’t simply crack the thing open. Henry didn’t know much about computers, but he did know that it would be useless if he smashed it.
He’d have to use a subtler form of entry—ones named Carol and Heather, two sophomores from Ryder College down the road. They had come by the Cottage Club party last Saturday night and Henry, being his social self, naturally befriended them. He’d know what was stored on the computer soon enough.
At ten o’clock, Jamie Robinson was doing what he did every night: meticulously recording data about the successes and failures of various mutations he attempted. One had been particularly successful. The mutation was certainly interesting, but the plant was virtually the same.
Well, almost the same.
The mutation seemed to have rather unusual properties discovered through trial and error in Kucherlapati’s lab. Through selective breeding, Jamie was able to amplify the mutation, although the native gene sometimes asserted itself and caused the original version of the molecule to reappear.
Intriguing. Jamie bypassed the breeding process entirely and isolated the mutation on a DNA segment. Then he used one of Kucherlapati’s prize-winning techniques for inserting it into the natural DNA of the plants. Now the mutation replicated itself every time.
Jamie was convinced that his work had potential applications in the real world and was far too sensitive to show anyone, at least for the time being. Not even Kucherlapati. Like any good, budding scientist, Jamie would duplicate the results and then expand his testing. If the experiments continued to yield consistent results, there were people who would pay a great deal of money for Jamie’s discovery.
Kucherlapati could have his Nobel Prize. Jamie wanted to cash in and give his blue-collar parents a beautiful home as a retirement present.
Henry was his usual ebullient self as he squired Carol and Heather into his Oughty-one digs. Carol was a tall blonde with sparkling blue eyes; Heather was brunette, five-foot-five, with deep brown eyes and a tan worthy of a
Sports Illustrated
model. Both girls wore haltertops that barely contained their assets and displayed them to maximum advantage. In the fifteen minutes they had already spent talking with Henry, they had imparted only the information that Carol was majoring in physical education and Heather planned to go to hotel management school.
Sports Illustrated
model. Both girls wore haltertops that barely contained their assets and displayed them to maximum advantage. In the fifteen minutes they had already spent talking with Henry, they had imparted only the information that Carol was majoring in physical education and Heather planned to go to hotel management school.
When it came to women, Henry was a devotee of décolletage and had minimal appetite for intellect. The two girls wanted nothing more than an invitation to Cottage for House Party Weekend. Henry promised them that if they could pass the “Jamie test,” they were in.
“It’s time to take a night off, Mr. Robinson,” declared Henry in an insistent tone of voice as he entered their room. “If I see you screwing around with those plants for one more minute, I shall thrash you to within an inch of your life.” Henry feigned drawing an invisible rapier from his belt and lunged forward, left arm poised above his head for balance, right arm straight and perpendicular to his body, as if ready to skewer his roommate. Henry was also a member of the fencing team.
“Come, come,” he said. “Let our mirthful endeavors begin.”
Carol and Heather giggled … and then giggled again.
“Actually, Henry,” confessed Jamie with a forced smile, “I’m at the critical phase of seeing if I can crossbreed two kinds of pea pl—”
“Wonderful!” shouted Henry. “I’m glad you’re in the mood.”
Henry grabbed Jamie’s wrist and yanked him from his chair.
“But I can’t—”
“Yes, I know!” interrupted Henry. “You can’t say no! It’s party time! Girls?”
Heather reached into one of the bags she and Carol carried up to the room and produced two bottles of vodka and one of tequila.
“What’s your pleasure, sweetie?” she asked Jamie. “Or would you like me to mix them together with some fruit juice?” Heather began pouring some Hawaiian Punch over crushed ice in a tall glass, adding equal amounts of the two clear liquors. “Just think of me as your slave for the night, okay?”
“My slave?” said Jamie, swallowing nervously.
“You talk too much, Jamie,” Henry remarked good-naturedly.
“Shut up and drink.”
“Well, uh, I dunno. Maybe I could—”
Heather interrupted Jamie’s stuttering by bringing the tall, cold glass to his lips and placing a straw in his mouth.
“That’s pretty good,” Jamie admitted. “But I don’t taste any alcohol.”
“That’s the idea!” said Heather.
“I think we just found a party animal!” squealed Carol, drinking straight from the tequila bottle while handing the second fifth of vodka to Henry.
“Be careful, Heather,” cautioned Henry. “Beneath that lab coat beats the heart of a genuine Don Juan.”
Jamie blushed. He took a long pull on his drink. “I guess a little break wouldn’t hurt anything,” he said, eyeing Heather’s long, tanned legs.
Looking up into the girl’s face, his blush grew deeper.
“You can not only look, sugar—you can actually touch if you want to.” Heather pushed Jamie backward gently until he fell clumsily into his chair. She then proceeded to sit on his lap, stroking his hair and face, occasionally scratching his skin with long, manicured fingernails. Jamie felt things he barely imagined before.
Henry and Carol had meanwhile made a serious dent in the contents of the vodka and tequila bottles respectively and were comfortably entangled on the athlete’s bed, lips pressed together, legs locked. Henry hadn’t bothered to unfold his privacy screen.
Heather stood up, stepped over to Jamie’s bed, and curled her index finger coquettishly, coaxing the light-headed Jamie to her side. She refreshed Jamie’s drink, poured one for herself, and then slipped her arm around his waist, drawing him tightly against her body. Jamie was practically airborne. No woman had ever come on to him like this before.
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