A Story A Day. Story 343 of 365: Best (Part XIII).

Monday came fast, and routine soon took over the madness of the weekend. Ismene was glad to be able to focus on something far more important than her love life, or whatever she was supposed to call the mess she was in. She might have been ready to leave it behind for some days, however, others weren't.  One of them was Eirian, who wouldn't stop bugging her about it, she was cool, but when she obsessed over something there was no way to stop her. The other was Leo, who sent her a message telling her that he had enjoyed their day together a lot, and asking when where they going to repeat it. Ismene replied that she had lots of fun too, but managed to dodge the question, she needed some time for herself, to think about what did she want and what did she need, and what she wanted to do. That morning she went for a run on her own before starting at the lab, and quickly dived into all the work she had to do. Dr. Goode appeared shortly after, telling her she had to talk to her.

-There's something Roger wants you to see. It's something we have been working on, and it's still at the initial stages, also,... The ethical implications are a but dodgy, and we need to set limits on what can be done with it and what can't.- Martha was anxious about it. - It's kind of Roger's personal project. 

-What is it? 

-Come, we are going to the basement. 

Ismene followed her to the lab, and from there into an elevator. They descended a couple of grounds, Ismene had never been there, as the animal facility was only one floor down. The elevator opened into a white corridor with a steel door at the end. It was a strange facility for a lab, not so much for a bank or some other kind of high security building. Whatever was down there was really secret, really dangerous, really harmful, or potentially really unethical if it fell in the wrong hands. Dr. Goode opened the door following some strict security measures. Behind it was a small lab, not unlike the ones upstairs. Unlike the one upstairs, there was no one working there at that moment. 

-Who works here?- she asked. 

-Roger. Me. Andrew, sometimes. Lilly. And you, now. 

-Me?

-Yes, as soon as you get the permission to work here. Of course, this is only a side project. I use it as an escape when I can't figure out something with the main project. I have had the best idea down here. 

-But, what do you work with in here? 

-Let me show you. 

Dr. Goode walked up to a shelf and took two plants that were on it. 

-Do you see these plants? They both are from the same species, but one has beautiful flowers, and the other has luscious leaves. The perfect one would have the flowers of one and the leaves of the other to get that combination we would need to cross them and pray that meiosis and chance give our new plants the best features, which will greatly depend on the Mendelian model of inheritance. However, we have found a way to skip this. Look.- she walked to the end of the room where there was a large machine with a screen, two doors and a thousand of different lights. She opened the door on the right and put both plants in. -With this machine we are going to select the characteristics we want from these both plants and we are going to get a new plan combining them, we will also get another with all the discarded ones, because the machine basically uses all the material it gets in. This takes some time, so we are going to turn it on and we will come back during the afternoon.

Martha turned on the machine, and selected some variables on the screen. Ismene stared at her speechless. She couldn't believe that technology was real. The older woman kept setting up the machine, used to people becoming too impressed to talk. When she was done, she turned around and faced the young post-doc. 

-Questions? 

-A thousand of them, basically. But the first is, how?

-Well that will take some time. We should go back to my office and I'll tell you everything. 

After a long conversation at Dr. Goode's office, Ismene had a wide picture of how that technology worked. It was time to know what would she have to do. 

-And what will be my involvement in it? 

-We want to move to doing the same with animals, it's a delicate subject, as you can imagine. Especially, ethically, but we want to try to do it anyway, call it an intellectual challenge. You will try to do it. Both Roger and me will take part in it, and Andrew and Lilly will be active on it too, but we think that you have the abilities to upgrade it. We will provide you with all the materials that you will need, also with the documents we produced while researching it. And there's the first model so you can inspect it. Questions? Comments? 

-Wow, just wow. 

-There's no need to say this is a secret project and no one outside this lab should know about it, right?