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Outpost 16-26
Patrick Adams 2
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
"The pretense of understanding…a sign of madness."
The loneliness is always present, sometimes cryptic, and his sense of home, however distant, always feels temporary. At times the lonely feelings arrive for a short visit, with the soft noises shifting through the jungle's darkness, then retreat for its secrets to remain guarded. Sometimes a cold smoldering of mist rises above the canopy in the moonlight causing Cooper himself to ebb inside. In one blink, the amount of time eternity used to build this forest,the loneliness pans out across the valley almost as if the forest had never been. Even in the flickers and shadows, the jungle holds no pretense of fantasy. Complete blackness of the night holds desperate struggles, the loneliness plays along, but he doesn't wish it away the way the memory of a loss would be wished away. Competition in sport is as full of loneliness as the strugglers in this jungle where the winners once remained.
There is no silence in this canopied place, no silence within his heart. There is only a gradient of loneliness and noise.
The constant hum of the jungle is interrupted by only intense sound, yet unrecognizable, the loneliness stalls. Something different comes to life, no smells, just pure essence that appears from behind the banyans, or under the green canopy. Anything living here knows the meaning of these timeless apparitions of loneliness, yet no data had emerged from the chilled darkness, the inner sanctum of this tropical rain forest. This timeless place keeps its secrets.
next
Cooper flashes up at the ceiling, not thinking, not at this moment. Thinking of nothing is a state of mind he has grown accustomed, his residual thoughts blurry, his face expressionless, as if nothing ever happens---the face of a Buddhist monk., willing to accept all the world offers, or nothing. it is the state of mind he brings to the lab bench. As he opens his ears, the state is jerked away and replaced by the heavier, thicker thoughts of a warrior who has fought and struggled, who has asked more of himself than anyone or anything can offer, and who is more than willing to take up a weapon at the sound of any odd noise.
"What the hell," he says.
"Damn! Did you hear that?"
Did you hear that Carter asks, as if strange sounds were not a part of this jungle. Cooper says,"My heart just gave birth. Do you have your weapon?"
"Yes."
"Is it loaded?"
Carter switches the security lamp."You have your cat."
You found your cat he pronounces, as if cats are suppose to be in this jungle, running around, climbing trees, and whatever else phantom cats do. Cooper says, "That's no cat."
The sound was far away but unmistakenly primal.
Cooper stands straight, awake, almost military in his stance, the sound echoing in the jungle blackness. The sound has no face staring back at him, yet something told him it was inhuman--and intelligent.
next
Dr. Cooper's eyes jerked open. "What the hell was that?" His first thoughts arrived. "Carter, did you hear that?"
"Yeah," Carter said, as he reached under his bunk for a weapon that wasn't there.
Cooper's heart felt like it was giving birth. He switched on the security lamp. ."Listen, there it is again." The sound was far away but unmistakably primal. Cooper looked out the window next to his bunk into the jungle blackness. This sound had no face staring back at him, yet something told him it was inhuman--and intelligent.
Patrick Adams 3
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
Th tigress, he thinks, should have been dead a long tine ago for reasons that seen, not obviously, of her own choosing. Her banyan cove will go the way of all the other habitats. A kind of trick played by nature that for all her glory, all her prowess her defeat lies within he very soil she walks, for her, the chemicals are more destructive than any predator fight.
Cooper looks out the window. He senses a strong control in himself as to who or what is the tigress. Whether she held good or evil intelligence, he couldn't tell. It didn't matter anyway. His mind didn't work in two's like that.
"What time is it?" Cooper asked.
"It's the dawn of time." Carter focuses on the weapon, as if its shine carries a special message, revealed only to him.
"Is the gun loaded?"
"Yes, sir."This type of communication wasn't on Cooper's agenda at two o'clock in the morning, especially this morning.
"I know what it is." Cooper says, even though he has to try to look unconcerned. He tells himself: tigers are not killers. Don't think of the oil in the ocean; don't thonk of the sulfur in the air.
"What do you think it was?"Carter became serious.
"I can tell you what it wasn't."
"OK…" Carter waited.
"Fur clad and club wielding."
"Very funny. You must be feeling safe because we're four stories up and these walls are three feet thick."
Yes, this lab fortress will stand up to those forces, and protect.
She will not ask the source of the noise; she in reality is not programmed to care of such frivolous things. Suzi, alone in her class of bioRobots, holds no innate interest in the natural world. Suzi simply doesn't see life forms as dimensional entities. it is, Cooper thinks, simply a matter of no ego in her program. Suzi can't imagine an existence more exciting than a flat screen and scanners, image animations, and all the offerings to humans that make they themselves feel more intelligent around her. Yes, their time with her will sooner or later, make them more intelligent. Suzi's game is not to paint others as smaller, her quickness, and lack of ego excludes her from doing that.
Cooper asks,"Did you hear it?"
"Did I? Yes, there are some things I just can't help. My scanners were on."
"What do you make of it?"
"Well, it's a life form."
"A tropical plant?" Carter looked serious.
Suzie looked serious right back. She says, "Yes."
Then she says, "No."
Next
Patrick Adams 4
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
"We interrupt this program to bring you the following message," Carter quipped.
"Carter!" Cooper was amazed at his friend's inability to resist tangling with a robot, a beautiful one at that.
"Just an odd distortion of space. Human," Suzie said.
"Suzie!" Cooper looked at her.
"Expressed thought. It's in my program."
Cooper silently stood, amazed how close Intac Systems has designed their robots to human life forms, allowing for something that minutely resembled social contact capabilities. "I would suggest we all go back to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow," he said.
"Sleep?" Suzie asked.
"Whatever," Cooper said.
Cooper watched the data come off the gel. His technician turned toward him with a half smile. Coop felt a touch of warmth come to his face. "Well?"
"This data is coming a lot sooner than we thought," she said.
"Yeah, they'll be happy about this. They've been preparing to receive it for three months. How long before we publish?"
"This should about do it."
Cooper was beginning to feel aggressive, although it wasn't his nature.
next
Patrick Adams 23
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
"Love the transcender, we the breaker of the rule."
Cooper focuses on the ocean and its horizon, and it seems they have traveled together, not as traveling companions but as acquaintances on a long trip, and have endured much, and now must go their separate ways as the more dominant coast comes into view. He senses the quiet there as well, and it seems they too are old friends, even with the shoreline's absent-minded old wind. Cooper smiles at the few breezes the this coast offers. He looks at it as a sacred place now; a place to settle thoughts that come to mind even if he recognizes none of them as his own. The stillness of the vast ocean laps gently against the rocks below the cliffside; he hears words descending in old hymns of layered monotone. He's not sure how long he's been out here.
next
Cooper looks at Suzie with some distance now. It seems abruptly easy to have worked by her side; she doesn't leave questions unattended for long.
It is altogether possible Cooper has crossed over into a parallel world, a world that until now has eluded him. A world with promises of sensations that resemble contentment, to become the man he thought he would rather be not be. The possibility of a morphing right here on the rocks of this sheer cliff in the presence of this gaseous view. It has captured another version of himself.
next
He is sipping his reflection in the water. "That smile," he thought. "That unexpected smile." He hears her voice, soft, smooth. He'll always hear it as poetry. He thinks for a moment, that she never hated, but she never loved either. He thinks of all those blues. All those tints of blue in her eyes but barely a human heart. He thinks he could escape when she pierced into his eyes. He escapes from nothing. That look of hers always comes out to play and it's here at this moment as a memory. She looks glamorous--beautiful--the way she always wants herself to be presented. Though her memory has come after him as if a phantom, he sees only her beauty. He sees her as any man would see her, not as something odd about her program. It's always summer with her, summer in robot seasons. Raindrops never hit the ground.
Dr. Cooper watched her from his laboratory window. A bobbing red umbrella offered her protection from the mid day sun. Her long black braided hair was a noticeable feature as she passed between the buildings. Cooper looked at the clock and noticed it was 11:23 a.m. At this time of the day the morning still offered its usual "gorillas in the mist" weather. A little rain broken up by sunshine. Dr. Cooper loved his job, but he loved visitors too. He wanted the girl with the red umbrella to see the mice. There was so much work to do, but he wanted her to visit. Carter looked up from the lab bench. "Coop! he blurted. "Exercising your Midwest work ethic again?"
"I want to meet her."
"She's probably an intruder."
"I don't care. I want to meet her anyway."
"She's not your type."
"Is she a student?"
"I don't think so. Anyway, get back to work. You can't make a living by looking out the window."
The bunkers were still in place from the war. They used to be an old lab station for the Department of Energy. Once used for A bomb development at a time when only a handful of people knew. Now it’s a full fledged university, bringing in students and money from Asia, the University of Beijing, and still close enough to attract talent from mainland America. Coop liked his undergrad days at Cal Tech. He remembered the Vietnam war protest. Burning banks, draft cards, bras. It seemed just like yesterday. And he liked exotic women. The beaches of Southern Cal were OK, but Coop really liked Rio. He would take a beach on Brazil anytime over Southern Cal. He was a student of science, and he liked it all. Geology, biology, theology, but genetics seemed to pay the most. His extreme weakness was exotic women with braids. And more and more of them seemed to be showing up at the Outpost.
The Ring of Fire ran right under the Outpost property, and Coop knew it. He felt tremors once in awhile. A catacomb of trails ran up the cathedral of mountains behind the lab building. History books claim that they are pigmy trails, but Coop knew the truth. Tribes of cannibals once roamed this jungle. Coop came with a team from Cal Tech every winter, but that was before he became Dr. Cooper. Now he has a permanent position here. As a young student, he was a city boy from Orange County. But his taste for the exotic was too much to resist. He worked here year round, and he was the one who would meet lab groups now.
Dr. Cooper savored the exotic world. The more he imbibed, the more he liked it. The mornings at the Outpost were always clear, but later in the day broken clouds rolled in. He was a specialist in genetics. And he knew enough environmental science to know that someone should be growing coffee in these mountains. But his project wasn't plants. The money came from the U.S. Army. He was studying the genetics of mice paws.
He loved the nights, especially on a clear evening. He looked for a migratory species of the Hawaiian owl. Considered good luck. But they made no noise. He always wanted to do a study to find out why. American barn owls hooted; Hawaiian owls didn't.
Here was a real problem with funding. The U.S. Army didn't care. Staring up into the mountain jungle with all that mist, he knew someday he would see a Hawaiian owl. But down the mountain one thing was sure. He would always see Chinese women. More beautiful than a human has a right to be. In all the animal kingdom, Mother Nature saved her best handiwork for Chinese women.
Parts of the Outpost were new. But other parts were built over Japanese bunkers and catacombs from World War II. It was innovative architectural design, and the Board of Regents trusted solid concrete foundations built by the Japanese army two centuries ago. The tropical rain and weather caused immense overgrowth, but it seemed to add to the exotic flavor of the Outpost. The mountain's strength was indisputable. And the Regents wanted cutting edge science here, not groundskeepers. The Outpost was only a seven and one-half hour flight from Los Angeles, but it kept its secluded feel. The ocean was blue and clear and free from all that radioactive hassle they had up in Bimini Atoll centuries ago. The Outpost looked down from a steep set of volcanic mountains. The panorama carried your attention out over the wide expanse of ocean. This place was a stark contrast from Los Angeles, but Coop liked it. His years as a student in LA fed an unknown appetite for a feeling he didn't even know existed. But he knew it when he felt it. And it was here. This was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life as a scientist. He never got tired of the ocean or took a sunny morning for granted. He liked this feeling. There were the usual hassles of writing grant proposals, but he liked that too. He liked pressure, ideas, solving problems. But this new job was going to offer the opportunity to really relax.
"Coop!" Dr. Cooper looked up. The technician Carter had just gotten back from lunch. "I met your friend with the braids at the café. She's nice."
She never felt so gunned down. Coop's sudden silence was a line drive approaching in slow motion. The anticipation of impact was enough to kill Suzie's desire, but she had to push on. "Where do you get the urge to pursue this kind of knowledge?"
"Humans are curious." He was hoping she would sit down so she would talk to him. "You are an intellectual. Intellectuals aren't supposed to prefer people over ideas."
Her discomfort was becoming noticeable. "Why do you do this?"
"So I would know the truth if I bumped into it."
"Then why out here at the end of the world?"
"The Outpost does not encourage unwanted competition among gifted researchers, and I like that. I also like the freedom of exploration."
"Exploration is the first step towards exploitation."
Coop wanted to know the full range and depth of her mind. But her eyes had already begun to distract him. He had already engaged in an activity with her that he didn't recognize as his own. He was already exploring the form of her body under her silk dress. Like Christopher Columbus sailing an unknown isthmus.
"Science is an endless series of explorations."
Suzie felt like she was being led through a series of explorations herself. Scrutinized by an alien trained at Cal Tech.
"Science begins with the most elementary explorations. It is a standing sequence."
Suzie sensed Coop was trying to place her in a familiar and reassuring setting prematurely. She wasn't feeling capable of following Coop's logic. It wasn't honey out of a barrel yet. Coop was beginning to sense an uncharted area on a false road map. His words seemed to condition and sensitize her. Her body was still close, but his mind had just taken the first shuttle out. To Cooper, her lips were moving in slow motion. Her energy was gamma, like in a TV. But if you sit too close, it's detrimental to your health. She seemed to be waking up to her own sensitivities. He was making her more aware of something she already subconsciously knew. She spoke with a certain gravity and grace. A sort of poet warrior.
"You men and your logic," she said.
Coop was feeling a lack of true breeding in Suzie. Those words came from her with the demeanor of a nun but the voice of a whore.
"My work is paid for by the U.S. Army. I'm officially silent."
Cooper's convictions gain strength enough to fight in a war, but all he really needs is for all to just leave him alone with his own thoughts that allow him to solve. He turns and is gentle with his thoughts of home as if an ancient traveler whose city has been sacked. new thoughts arrive in forms and beginnings as something that looks like a gambler's lucky streak is about to end, but never does. Oh, if this rugged reality could only find it;s own way and let the thoughts of the world be the angels that swoop--if someone only had thought of this before, this life would be easy. Cooper thinks of Suzi scanning intensely over the data sheets, her true intentions yet unknown, writing then rewriting code looking for that magic bullet algorithm. he thinks of mentors from his school days, lecturing and berating, his eyes popping with curiosity, and yet those days hold no momentous occasion for him, except for one, one of those days seem now to hold the truth, the unceremonious instant he became a man of science in the true spirit of the genetic age.
With a strong work ethic and a huge reading appetite it seems anything is possible, anything you can think of. It seems that it was no coincidence it was his teacher that drew the genetic world to its feet.It seemed that he could take endless notes from this funny little man, it seemed that he could be spoken to directly in an interchange of diligence and fame, and not feel the slightest downspesk or degradation of character by a man whose published papers had brought him fame.
And his looks were those that could attract many lovers. Not that he loved any of them. He was a solitary man. His important journey was between his ears, not between his legs. His dalliances had been a constant source of gossip. Something he hated. He yearned for one unified theory. It seemed like a simple wish, yet so far impossible to attain. His preferences constantly betrayed him. He preferred large staid institutions to the wet and dirt of places like this outpost and all its bubble wrapped quirks. He was secretly learning robot computer language. His social life was a constant digression. But as a scientist, he could have ended up working anywhere. Still young and maybe the last surviving genetic engineer of the golden age of genetics. An era of days gone by that quietly forgets. "Rosalind Franklin," he thought. "Another example of women getting screwed in the science world." And the church. "The church doesn't know anything about genetics," he thought. That thought always intrigued him too. Theologists of The World check the scientific soundness of research arguments.
Write what you believe, not what you see, that's the new Watchword Healthcare Algorithm Consortium Knowledge (W.H.A.C.K.). To write with the diction of a noble poet, now that makes you an established investigator.
It was the Outpost because he felt he could do his work here. He doesn't need the traffic of megalopolis congestion. Every code here stands on its own without the trappings of a big name university. "Shakespeare didn't need extravagant courtyards for his plays," Cooper thought. Yes, a sort of a scientific Shakespeare.
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
"The pretense of understanding…a sign of madness."
The loneliness is always present, sometimes cryptic, and his sense of home, however distant, always feels temporary. At times the lonely feelings arrive for a short visit, with the soft noises shifting through the jungle's darkness, then retreat for its secrets to remain guarded. Sometimes a cold smoldering of mist rises above the canopy in the moonlight causing Cooper himself to ebb inside. In one blink, the amount of time eternity used to build this forest,the loneliness pans out across the valley almost as if the forest had never been. Even in the flickers and shadows, the jungle holds no pretense of fantasy. Complete blackness of the night holds desperate struggles, the loneliness plays along, but he doesn't wish it away the way the memory of a loss would be wished away. Competition in sport is as full of loneliness as the strugglers in this jungle where the winners once remained.
There is no silence in this canopied place, no silence within his heart. There is only a gradient of loneliness and noise.
The constant hum of the jungle is interrupted by only intense sound, yet unrecognizable, the loneliness stalls. Something different comes to life, no smells, just pure essence that appears from behind the banyans, or under the green canopy. Anything living here knows the meaning of these timeless apparitions of loneliness, yet no data had emerged from the chilled darkness, the inner sanctum of this tropical rain forest. This timeless place keeps its secrets.
next
Cooper flashes up at the ceiling, not thinking, not at this moment. Thinking of nothing is a state of mind he has grown accustomed, his residual thoughts blurry, his face expressionless, as if nothing ever happens---the face of a Buddhist monk., willing to accept all the world offers, or nothing. it is the state of mind he brings to the lab bench. As he opens his ears, the state is jerked away and replaced by the heavier, thicker thoughts of a warrior who has fought and struggled, who has asked more of himself than anyone or anything can offer, and who is more than willing to take up a weapon at the sound of any odd noise.
"What the hell," he says.
"Damn! Did you hear that?"
Did you hear that Carter asks, as if strange sounds were not a part of this jungle. Cooper says,"My heart just gave birth. Do you have your weapon?"
"Yes."
"Is it loaded?"
Carter switches the security lamp."You have your cat."
You found your cat he pronounces, as if cats are suppose to be in this jungle, running around, climbing trees, and whatever else phantom cats do. Cooper says, "That's no cat."
The sound was far away but unmistakenly primal.
Cooper stands straight, awake, almost military in his stance, the sound echoing in the jungle blackness. The sound has no face staring back at him, yet something told him it was inhuman--and intelligent.
next
Dr. Cooper's eyes jerked open. "What the hell was that?" His first thoughts arrived. "Carter, did you hear that?"
"Yeah," Carter said, as he reached under his bunk for a weapon that wasn't there.
Cooper's heart felt like it was giving birth. He switched on the security lamp. ."Listen, there it is again." The sound was far away but unmistakably primal. Cooper looked out the window next to his bunk into the jungle blackness. This sound had no face staring back at him, yet something told him it was inhuman--and intelligent.
Patrick Adams 3
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
Th tigress, he thinks, should have been dead a long tine ago for reasons that seen, not obviously, of her own choosing. Her banyan cove will go the way of all the other habitats. A kind of trick played by nature that for all her glory, all her prowess her defeat lies within he very soil she walks, for her, the chemicals are more destructive than any predator fight.
Cooper looks out the window. He senses a strong control in himself as to who or what is the tigress. Whether she held good or evil intelligence, he couldn't tell. It didn't matter anyway. His mind didn't work in two's like that.
"What time is it?" Cooper asked.
"It's the dawn of time." Carter focuses on the weapon, as if its shine carries a special message, revealed only to him.
"Is the gun loaded?"
"Yes, sir."This type of communication wasn't on Cooper's agenda at two o'clock in the morning, especially this morning.
"I know what it is." Cooper says, even though he has to try to look unconcerned. He tells himself: tigers are not killers. Don't think of the oil in the ocean; don't thonk of the sulfur in the air.
"What do you think it was?"Carter became serious.
"I can tell you what it wasn't."
"OK…" Carter waited.
"Fur clad and club wielding."
"Very funny. You must be feeling safe because we're four stories up and these walls are three feet thick."
Yes, this lab fortress will stand up to those forces, and protect.
She will not ask the source of the noise; she in reality is not programmed to care of such frivolous things. Suzi, alone in her class of bioRobots, holds no innate interest in the natural world. Suzi simply doesn't see life forms as dimensional entities. it is, Cooper thinks, simply a matter of no ego in her program. Suzi can't imagine an existence more exciting than a flat screen and scanners, image animations, and all the offerings to humans that make they themselves feel more intelligent around her. Yes, their time with her will sooner or later, make them more intelligent. Suzi's game is not to paint others as smaller, her quickness, and lack of ego excludes her from doing that.
Cooper asks,"Did you hear it?"
"Did I? Yes, there are some things I just can't help. My scanners were on."
"What do you make of it?"
"Well, it's a life form."
"A tropical plant?" Carter looked serious.
Suzie looked serious right back. She says, "Yes."
Then she says, "No."
Next
Patrick Adams 4
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
"We interrupt this program to bring you the following message," Carter quipped.
"Carter!" Cooper was amazed at his friend's inability to resist tangling with a robot, a beautiful one at that.
"Just an odd distortion of space. Human," Suzie said.
"Suzie!" Cooper looked at her.
"Expressed thought. It's in my program."
Cooper silently stood, amazed how close Intac Systems has designed their robots to human life forms, allowing for something that minutely resembled social contact capabilities. "I would suggest we all go back to sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow," he said.
"Sleep?" Suzie asked.
"Whatever," Cooper said.
Cooper watched the data come off the gel. His technician turned toward him with a half smile. Coop felt a touch of warmth come to his face. "Well?"
"This data is coming a lot sooner than we thought," she said.
"Yeah, they'll be happy about this. They've been preparing to receive it for three months. How long before we publish?"
"This should about do it."
Cooper was beginning to feel aggressive, although it wasn't his nature.
next
Patrick Adams 23
Extrapolation Science Fiction -- The Outpost
"Love the transcender, we the breaker of the rule."
Cooper focuses on the ocean and its horizon, and it seems they have traveled together, not as traveling companions but as acquaintances on a long trip, and have endured much, and now must go their separate ways as the more dominant coast comes into view. He senses the quiet there as well, and it seems they too are old friends, even with the shoreline's absent-minded old wind. Cooper smiles at the few breezes the this coast offers. He looks at it as a sacred place now; a place to settle thoughts that come to mind even if he recognizes none of them as his own. The stillness of the vast ocean laps gently against the rocks below the cliffside; he hears words descending in old hymns of layered monotone. He's not sure how long he's been out here.
next
Cooper looks at Suzie with some distance now. It seems abruptly easy to have worked by her side; she doesn't leave questions unattended for long.
It is altogether possible Cooper has crossed over into a parallel world, a world that until now has eluded him. A world with promises of sensations that resemble contentment, to become the man he thought he would rather be not be. The possibility of a morphing right here on the rocks of this sheer cliff in the presence of this gaseous view. It has captured another version of himself.
next
He is sipping his reflection in the water. "That smile," he thought. "That unexpected smile." He hears her voice, soft, smooth. He'll always hear it as poetry. He thinks for a moment, that she never hated, but she never loved either. He thinks of all those blues. All those tints of blue in her eyes but barely a human heart. He thinks he could escape when she pierced into his eyes. He escapes from nothing. That look of hers always comes out to play and it's here at this moment as a memory. She looks glamorous--beautiful--the way she always wants herself to be presented. Though her memory has come after him as if a phantom, he sees only her beauty. He sees her as any man would see her, not as something odd about her program. It's always summer with her, summer in robot seasons. Raindrops never hit the ground.
Dr. Cooper watched her from his laboratory window. A bobbing red umbrella offered her protection from the mid day sun. Her long black braided hair was a noticeable feature as she passed between the buildings. Cooper looked at the clock and noticed it was 11:23 a.m. At this time of the day the morning still offered its usual "gorillas in the mist" weather. A little rain broken up by sunshine. Dr. Cooper loved his job, but he loved visitors too. He wanted the girl with the red umbrella to see the mice. There was so much work to do, but he wanted her to visit. Carter looked up from the lab bench. "Coop! he blurted. "Exercising your Midwest work ethic again?"
"I want to meet her."
"She's probably an intruder."
"I don't care. I want to meet her anyway."
"She's not your type."
"Is she a student?"
"I don't think so. Anyway, get back to work. You can't make a living by looking out the window."
The bunkers were still in place from the war. They used to be an old lab station for the Department of Energy. Once used for A bomb development at a time when only a handful of people knew. Now it’s a full fledged university, bringing in students and money from Asia, the University of Beijing, and still close enough to attract talent from mainland America. Coop liked his undergrad days at Cal Tech. He remembered the Vietnam war protest. Burning banks, draft cards, bras. It seemed just like yesterday. And he liked exotic women. The beaches of Southern Cal were OK, but Coop really liked Rio. He would take a beach on Brazil anytime over Southern Cal. He was a student of science, and he liked it all. Geology, biology, theology, but genetics seemed to pay the most. His extreme weakness was exotic women with braids. And more and more of them seemed to be showing up at the Outpost.
The Ring of Fire ran right under the Outpost property, and Coop knew it. He felt tremors once in awhile. A catacomb of trails ran up the cathedral of mountains behind the lab building. History books claim that they are pigmy trails, but Coop knew the truth. Tribes of cannibals once roamed this jungle. Coop came with a team from Cal Tech every winter, but that was before he became Dr. Cooper. Now he has a permanent position here. As a young student, he was a city boy from Orange County. But his taste for the exotic was too much to resist. He worked here year round, and he was the one who would meet lab groups now.
Dr. Cooper savored the exotic world. The more he imbibed, the more he liked it. The mornings at the Outpost were always clear, but later in the day broken clouds rolled in. He was a specialist in genetics. And he knew enough environmental science to know that someone should be growing coffee in these mountains. But his project wasn't plants. The money came from the U.S. Army. He was studying the genetics of mice paws.
He loved the nights, especially on a clear evening. He looked for a migratory species of the Hawaiian owl. Considered good luck. But they made no noise. He always wanted to do a study to find out why. American barn owls hooted; Hawaiian owls didn't.
Here was a real problem with funding. The U.S. Army didn't care. Staring up into the mountain jungle with all that mist, he knew someday he would see a Hawaiian owl. But down the mountain one thing was sure. He would always see Chinese women. More beautiful than a human has a right to be. In all the animal kingdom, Mother Nature saved her best handiwork for Chinese women.
Parts of the Outpost were new. But other parts were built over Japanese bunkers and catacombs from World War II. It was innovative architectural design, and the Board of Regents trusted solid concrete foundations built by the Japanese army two centuries ago. The tropical rain and weather caused immense overgrowth, but it seemed to add to the exotic flavor of the Outpost. The mountain's strength was indisputable. And the Regents wanted cutting edge science here, not groundskeepers. The Outpost was only a seven and one-half hour flight from Los Angeles, but it kept its secluded feel. The ocean was blue and clear and free from all that radioactive hassle they had up in Bimini Atoll centuries ago. The Outpost looked down from a steep set of volcanic mountains. The panorama carried your attention out over the wide expanse of ocean. This place was a stark contrast from Los Angeles, but Coop liked it. His years as a student in LA fed an unknown appetite for a feeling he didn't even know existed. But he knew it when he felt it. And it was here. This was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life as a scientist. He never got tired of the ocean or took a sunny morning for granted. He liked this feeling. There were the usual hassles of writing grant proposals, but he liked that too. He liked pressure, ideas, solving problems. But this new job was going to offer the opportunity to really relax.
"Coop!" Dr. Cooper looked up. The technician Carter had just gotten back from lunch. "I met your friend with the braids at the café. She's nice."
She never felt so gunned down. Coop's sudden silence was a line drive approaching in slow motion. The anticipation of impact was enough to kill Suzie's desire, but she had to push on. "Where do you get the urge to pursue this kind of knowledge?"
"Humans are curious." He was hoping she would sit down so she would talk to him. "You are an intellectual. Intellectuals aren't supposed to prefer people over ideas."
Her discomfort was becoming noticeable. "Why do you do this?"
"So I would know the truth if I bumped into it."
"Then why out here at the end of the world?"
"The Outpost does not encourage unwanted competition among gifted researchers, and I like that. I also like the freedom of exploration."
"Exploration is the first step towards exploitation."
Coop wanted to know the full range and depth of her mind. But her eyes had already begun to distract him. He had already engaged in an activity with her that he didn't recognize as his own. He was already exploring the form of her body under her silk dress. Like Christopher Columbus sailing an unknown isthmus.
"Science is an endless series of explorations."
Suzie felt like she was being led through a series of explorations herself. Scrutinized by an alien trained at Cal Tech.
"Science begins with the most elementary explorations. It is a standing sequence."
Suzie sensed Coop was trying to place her in a familiar and reassuring setting prematurely. She wasn't feeling capable of following Coop's logic. It wasn't honey out of a barrel yet. Coop was beginning to sense an uncharted area on a false road map. His words seemed to condition and sensitize her. Her body was still close, but his mind had just taken the first shuttle out. To Cooper, her lips were moving in slow motion. Her energy was gamma, like in a TV. But if you sit too close, it's detrimental to your health. She seemed to be waking up to her own sensitivities. He was making her more aware of something she already subconsciously knew. She spoke with a certain gravity and grace. A sort of poet warrior.
"You men and your logic," she said.
Coop was feeling a lack of true breeding in Suzie. Those words came from her with the demeanor of a nun but the voice of a whore.
"My work is paid for by the U.S. Army. I'm officially silent."
Cooper's convictions gain strength enough to fight in a war, but all he really needs is for all to just leave him alone with his own thoughts that allow him to solve. He turns and is gentle with his thoughts of home as if an ancient traveler whose city has been sacked. new thoughts arrive in forms and beginnings as something that looks like a gambler's lucky streak is about to end, but never does. Oh, if this rugged reality could only find it;s own way and let the thoughts of the world be the angels that swoop--if someone only had thought of this before, this life would be easy. Cooper thinks of Suzi scanning intensely over the data sheets, her true intentions yet unknown, writing then rewriting code looking for that magic bullet algorithm. he thinks of mentors from his school days, lecturing and berating, his eyes popping with curiosity, and yet those days hold no momentous occasion for him, except for one, one of those days seem now to hold the truth, the unceremonious instant he became a man of science in the true spirit of the genetic age.
With a strong work ethic and a huge reading appetite it seems anything is possible, anything you can think of. It seems that it was no coincidence it was his teacher that drew the genetic world to its feet.It seemed that he could take endless notes from this funny little man, it seemed that he could be spoken to directly in an interchange of diligence and fame, and not feel the slightest downspesk or degradation of character by a man whose published papers had brought him fame.
And his looks were those that could attract many lovers. Not that he loved any of them. He was a solitary man. His important journey was between his ears, not between his legs. His dalliances had been a constant source of gossip. Something he hated. He yearned for one unified theory. It seemed like a simple wish, yet so far impossible to attain. His preferences constantly betrayed him. He preferred large staid institutions to the wet and dirt of places like this outpost and all its bubble wrapped quirks. He was secretly learning robot computer language. His social life was a constant digression. But as a scientist, he could have ended up working anywhere. Still young and maybe the last surviving genetic engineer of the golden age of genetics. An era of days gone by that quietly forgets. "Rosalind Franklin," he thought. "Another example of women getting screwed in the science world." And the church. "The church doesn't know anything about genetics," he thought. That thought always intrigued him too. Theologists of The World check the scientific soundness of research arguments.
Write what you believe, not what you see, that's the new Watchword Healthcare Algorithm Consortium Knowledge (W.H.A.C.K.). To write with the diction of a noble poet, now that makes you an established investigator.
It was the Outpost because he felt he could do his work here. He doesn't need the traffic of megalopolis congestion. Every code here stands on its own without the trappings of a big name university. "Shakespeare didn't need extravagant courtyards for his plays," Cooper thought. Yes, a sort of a scientific Shakespeare.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
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