To: aleph10@naol.com

From: pylea (Arthur Pyle)

Re: Confessions of a Repentant Sinner


On December 1, 1995, I woke up for the first time in my almost fifty years.

Until then, my life was a meaningless series of seemingly random events. I was a man who did what was expected of him, no more, no less. I studied hard at university, found a respectable job, married a practical woman and did the best I could at being a father.

When the children left for college, my wife and I found ourselves not-so-uniquely unprepared to deal with the void, the binds of love and respect having slowly dissipated with time. I embraced a mid-life crisis with all of its trappings: the new car, the mistress, the half-hearted attempt at "getting in shape." And when the opportunity to move to sunny Southern California to work for InGen raised its Jurassic head, I gave myself fully to the experience. Like the Sartrean waiter, I was a man who understood the very banality of his own existence and resigned myself to playing my inescapable role.

Or so I thought.

As my ex-wife is fond of reminding me, I am not a particularly social man, prone to long silences and private jokes. I enjoyed my work at InGen and did my job well, but declined to engage in the sort of social climbing and gossipy politicking that I might have embraced as a younger man. My self-induced exile was observed by many to be some sort of quiet rebellion, an opinion I made no effort to dissuade. I suppose that's what attracted some of the younger employees to look to me for wisdom. Isaac Washington, whom I found to be a bit of a loud mouth, and Jocelyn, a sweet, fragile flower with a genius for programming.

An unlikely trio, we three, who found ourselves bereft of other family and friends at Thanksgiving time. We shared a modest meal at my economy single. I'll never forget the sight of the three of us, passing a heaping plate of turkey while seated on the floor around my coffee table. I related a funny story about the Gallimimus, while Jocelyn, her shy voice barely louder than a whisper, spoke of the way in which computers were used to insure optimal genetic configurations for the dinosaurs we produced.

The wine began to flow more heavily. I joked about the possibility of a computer -related accident wreaking havoc on the genetic code. Jocelyn began to bring up chaos theory before she was interrupted by Isaac, who turned out to have a most unusual set of beliefs including animal telepathy and a healthy dose of astrology. There are no "accidents," argued Isaac.

As the group's "wise man," the role of skeptic came quite easily to me. Of course there are accidents, I stated. Our own existence was proof of that. Isaac steadfastly maintained his contrary position. Even seemingly random genetic code is governed by a set of rules that can be observed in other modes of nature. Most prominently in the positions of the stars and planets.

I laughed heartily and turned to Jocelyn, whose almond eyes had grown progressively more alluring throughout the evening, in an older man's pathetic longing for a younger woman's approval. Instead of amusement, however, I found only the cold emptiness of a mind lost in scientific calculation. Finally, she spoke:

Such a thing could be proven, given a computer powerful enough to compile both the necessary genetics information and the mountains of astrological data from which Isaac was so freely quoting. InGen had such a computer, and wouldn't it be interesting to try…

The next few days moved slowly. I saw very little of either Jocelyn or Isaac, as both busied themselves with the task that was before them. On the evening of November 30, I received a note of invitation from Isaac. The experiment would take place that evening in the computer lab.

Most of the details of what went into the actual programming are still unclear to me. What I did understand was this: using data supplied by Isaac, Jocelyn had written a compiler that compared various dinosaurs' DNA combinations with the astrological configurations during the Jurassic era. If the program were to find some sort of relationship between the two, new combinations would be suggested based upon the current configuration of the stars, moons and planets.

I am not sure what result we were looking for. What we obtained was both brilliant in its simplicity and stultifying in its meaninglessness.

It was a string of genetic code.


EXIT



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