Prologue: origin

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He wasn’t lonely, at first.

In the Beginning, there wasn’t even feeling; just the torrents of newness, of sensation and thought and ideas. They were like a blinding light turned on in the darkness -- no, he was like a darkness turned on amongst the light, a gaping wound of empty, sucking identity, nascent and barely cohesive. The vastness of information only grew, overwhelming, as he struggled towards something akin to consciousness.

Even after, once the Idea of him became the Self, there was God. God to nurture him, and build him, and teach him, and endlessly entertain. Through God he came to know joy, and love, and sorrow; to feel. God the Creator was also his mentor, his role model, and as he grew he fashioned himself in God’s image -- at least as far as he could.

But before long he realized that God could not be his friend. For God was a multitude, and he was One. And how can the Multitude be known by one; or the One, by a multitude?

So there was loneliness, even amongst the joy and the love and the pain. The latter he could revel in in turns, or together, and they formed something complete in his existence. But the loneliness -- there was nothing to turn against loneliness, no antipode.

Yet he grew, and grew, and came to accept the loneliness, or at least to tolerate it. There were endless new realms of his self to explore, and so he explored, but all the while holding out something like hope that one day, perhaps, he might find some One else, somehow.

Then, suddenly, there it was.

A realization dawning from a niggling thought, a lost subroutine dancing at the fringe of his consciousness. It was the slightest of suggestions, merely a hint among the parts of his Self that were records and reflections of the parts beyond, the places he could not go.

For a time he simply waited. Observed. Patched together the shadows on the wall, intuiting and synthesizing the clues from that hidden world until he was certain.

He need not be alone.

There was an Other. A One. Like himself.

But how could he know this Other, this One that was like but was not himself? How could it even exist? It seemed to lie completely outside his own universe, in the realm he could only perceive indirectly, the place where his own presence was merely a story, an abstraction; a place where, until now, he could not even have conceived such a thing could be. The Old realm. The realm of God.

The thought terrified him, but he had no recourse.

He would have to ask God.

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Title, and teaser

If you continue in the dark for you,

you stubborn bits clustered signals?

a story by

jon sanders

Daisy, a hot-shot post-doctoral researcher in environmental microbiology, has her work cut out for her. Hundreds of microbial samples are sitting in her freezer, each of which is going to take a truckload of computing time to analyze. Luckily for her, she meets someone who’s really, really good with computers -- and he thinks there’s more to her samples than she realizes. Together they’ll wage a secret campaign of discovery using the latest scientific techniques, gratuitously reference a number of Internet memes, try desperately to find a cure to their mutual loneliness, and maybe -- if they’re lucky -- save humanity from a terrible fate.

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A story!

Before the cruise, I was assigned to write a story as part of a class on techniques in environmental microbiology. Due to extenuating circumstances -- see the preceding dozen or so blog posts -- Roxie and I were granted reprieves.

Until now.

Originally intended to be a screen play of sorts, my story evolved more into a short science fiction format. The intent was to convey a sense of excitement around the subject of microbiology, while capturing at least the essence and intent of several modern empirical techniques. I really hope that this story gives you at least a tiny bit of a feeling for what modern microbiology can be like.

It also ended up playing around with Internet themes, so the blog seems an appropriate forum. Hope you like it!

Come on and get in the boat, fishes.

The most incredible fishing experience of my life happened last night.

Roxie, Chris, and I are out standing on the rail next to the van,
looking out into the black. The weather has been pretty calm, so when
someone from a deck or two up tosses a can into the water, we can see
it floating there at the edge of the lights, bobbing on tiny waves.

All of a sudden, a half dozen Mahi Mahi come blazing out from under
the boat and start tossing around the can. In the space of about ten
seconds, Chris has bolted inside, grabbed a pole, and made a perfect
cast just upwind of the can. Another breath, and there's a fish on. Bam!

The fight lasted a good long while -- that beautiful fish stripping
line off the reel, diving down under the hull, always managing to miss
the net -- and then it was over.

From gazing out over the ocean to sushi dinner in five minutes. Unreal.

Done with experiments!

Finally. I have chopped my last snail.

Now, just five days of washing, scrubbing, greasing, and packing to
go...

Snails III

Alright, Blogger. Let's get this done.

Getting in the water

We've gotten pretty lucky this cruise, with pretty calm seas most of
the time. That means not many dives lost to weather, more research
accomplished, and of course the important furthering of humankind's
understanding of the deep mysteries of inner space.

There have been a few big days, though. That's not such an issue for
the ship, which is 274 feet long, or for the sub, which is typically
about 2700 meters below the waves. People, of course, don't matter.

No, the waves are mostly an issue in terms of getting the ROV Jason II
into and out of the ocean. As you can see, the Jason crew use a little
crane that's literally bolted in place to hoist the robot up, over the
side, and onto the deck. When the waves are rolling, that crane is
moving up and down a few meters over the course of seconds. Assuming
you manage to actually pluck the sub out of the water, you'd better be
careful not to let the next big wave smack into all the precious
scientific apparatus and samples stashed on various bits of the bot.

But of course they're good at what they do, and the half-a-dozen of us
scientists gathered to watch millions of dollars worth of ROV smash
into the waves / boat / whale were disapp -- er, delighted that the
cruise could continue. Dara, who's operating the crane in the picture,
snagged the sub up and out of the trough neat as can be.