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The moonlight bathed the grass in a silvery sheen, a butterfly batted its wings against the evening breeze. High in the sky hung the moon, surrounded by a bespeckled indigo sky.
Fan moved through the tall grass, and made his way towards the lone tree. He balanced a bowl of home cooked ramen in one hand, and a cup of freshly steeped jasmine tea in the other.
Passing through the shadow of the new mansion named after MePad, Fan approached the tree. Underneath its shallow roots rested Test Tube’s new lab. She could have built it closer to the new hotel, but OJ didn’t want to deal with her chaos, and Test Tube didn’t want constant distractions—or as Lightbulb called them, ‘side quests.’
Fan slid down the enter chute, both containers of liquid splashing precariously.
The lab’s fluorescent lights were programmed to dim at eight-thirty, a suggestion from Tissues, of all people, to reduce eye strain. A sunlamp rested on Test Tube’s desk, which sat against the left wall.
Test Tube sat hunched over the desk, papers and journals spread about. Raising his gaze to the whiteboard on the far wall, Fan read its notes.
On the left, a faded list of the acronym V.I.S.T.A had been scrawled in red. Neat and tidy, if not a bit rushed.
The rest of the whiteboard, however, was a different story.
Haphazard notes and conclusions gleamed in shiny expo, smudged and washed-out:
Fan sighed and approached her. “Test Tube?” He whispered.
She muttered something, head resting in her hands and obscuring her expression.
“Test Tube?” He moved a sheet of paper, set the food down, and joked, “Are you going mad scientist on us? Is this a code 21?”
She suddenly said, “I don’t think we’re alive.”
He paused. “When was the last time you slept?”
“That’s irrelevant.” Her hands thumbed through the papers, and she uncovered a petri dish with something in it.
She held up the dish, “Look at this. I don’t think we’re alive.”
“That’s… Test Tube, do you know how incoherent you sound right now?”
“Sure, we have thoughts and feelings and complex relationships,” She continued, shoving the dish into Fan’s hands, “but that doesn’t mean anything! Artificial intelligence can simulate those things!”
“Test Tube, I feel pretty darn alive.” Fan stammered.
“Anyone can say that.” She hissed, “But science is irrefutable.”
“Okay? I’m pretty sure any scientist will look at us and say we’re alive.”
“No, not really.” She shot to her feet, snatching the cup of jasmine and running over to the whiteboard. “The dogma says that something can only be considered alive if it has all the characteristics of life.”
“Those being…?”
She pointed to the whiteboard doodle of a cell. “Cellular organization? Check. We have cells: I checked.”
“What a relief.” He said dryly.
Raising the teacup to her lips, Test Tube said, “Response to stimuli? I wouldn’t be drinking this right now if that weren’t true.”
She sidestepped to show off more of the whiteboard, and pointed to another note, “Metabolization? Check. Contrary to what OJ says, I do come up for dinner.” A sudden bout of coughs overtook her, and she coughed into her elbow, “When I remember, ahem.”
The quickly cooling bowl of ramen that sat forgotten on her desk said otherwise.
After recovering, Test Tube pointed to a diagram of double stranded molecules, “DNA? Oh sure, nevermind it’s almost identical to the light shimmers.”
Now, Fan had a limited grasp on the life sciences, but even he could piece together what that phrasing implied. After a few seconds, the conclusion slammed into him like a freight train.
“Wait—what?” Fan tripped over his words, “Are you saying I’m related to Egg—or uh, Baby Light Shimmer?”
“Hmmmm…” She paused, averting her eyes. “That’s not the main issue here! They do have all the characteristics of life. We don’t.”
“You can’t just breeze past—how do you even know that?”
“Characteristics of life, Fan!” She hissed through gritted teeth, “Viruses have DNA, we’re on the same level as viruses.”
“I still don’t see how this is the case.” He huffed. “How are we ‘unalive,’ exactly? If—if you’re saying what I think you are, wouldn’t us being related to light shimmers mean we are alive? How can we be related and not alive?”
The teacup trembled in her hand, whether it was from exhaustion or frustration, Fan didn’t know.
Test Tube downed the rest of the tea, slammed the teacup on the counter, and jabbed her finger at a doodle squeezed into the corner. It showed an X and Y enclosed in a circle, “This! This is where the issue is!” She shouted, pronouncing each word with so much anger that Fan thought the doodle must have personally insulted her, “Growth and reproduction! Do our cells divide and multiply? Inconclusive.”
She threw the petri dish a withering glare, and Fan gently placed it on the desk as she continued, “And reproduction…”
Silence fell upon the lab like a weighted heating blanket. Steam curled off the ramen bowl, slowly thinning the longer it was forgotten about. In the quiet, the rage and frustration in Test Tube’s clenched jaw and terse movements revealed themselves for what they were: fearful confusion and existential anxiety.
“Fan…” She said.
He took a step forward, completely unsure how Test Tube would act next. “Yessss…?”
“Fan.” She lunged forward and shook him by the shoulders, “Are we like viruses? I could not find any evidence of meiosis, we do not reproduce! Not sexually or asexually! We are in the same boat as viruses. Are we but objects, objects composed of questionable mixes of abiotic substances and cells, put together with MeLife code and running on light shimmer instructions?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You’re right.” She let him go, and his knees almost buckled. “I need to do more research.”
When she made to cross the lab to her genetic analyzer, Fan cut her off, “Oh no you don’t. Test Tube,” He pointed to the microwave clock embedded in the wall, “It’s two A.M. You need to go to bed.”
For the first time that night, his words actually reached her. She froze, gaze shifting from the genetic analyzer over his shoulder, to him. “Fan. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Don’t you want to—”
“Up bup bup—I don’t want to hear another word about life or—or viruses or DNA. You need to get to bed.”
And Fan needed to use a higher dose of sedative in the tea next time. He continued, “The research will be waiting for you tomorrow, come on, let’s go to bed.”
Still stupefied, Fan was able to drag Test Tube away from the lab, and towards the door that led downstairs to her sleeping quarters.