Chapter 4
On the Plane
 Lord Baci | Stop multiplying!We have to prevent this! | |
| | |  Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | WHY?! Because it is our most successful and expensive experiment so far! | |
| | Really? What’s so special? There are so many of them… | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Exactly. No other species was as successful. They are at a point where they could create the next intelligent step, unless they destroy themselves before. Like a kid with a toolbox who could kill himself with a gun he cannot handle. We have managed to engineer and program them successfully, even if we have to patch a few glitches now and then. | |
| | A few? Their guts are full of microbial support staff fixing glitches. | LabColi |
Lord Baci | Well, yeah. Some have more some less… | |
| | There are as many of us in every human as their own cells. So theoretically every cell in the human body has at least one microbial coach assigned to it! | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Statistically true but not all gut bugs are consultants. | |
| | Yeah, some are actually there to get rid of crap. While the consultant types just stick to the gut walls and try to get their messages across. Man Whisperers. Feeding memes into the human system all day. Advocating for our cause. And the susceptible humans live to believe that they are geniuses. | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Well, they also need good genes to begin with. | |
| | You mean specimens like Elon, or Bill? The humans that shake the world. How many microbial consulting teams are in there? | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Hmm, in Microbedollars their shit is worth billions. | |
| | I thought so. And now the pity revenge move of a hipster could destroy your precious human specimens? | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | | |
| | But Bill is killing us! His Gates Foundation is on a mission to get some of us “eradicated”! | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Don’t be so dramatic. Ideally a successful intelligent creation will challenge the creator. We have deployed some of the best consulting teams in there. Bill is among the few who grasped the meaning of information with its many facets and therefore his mind is open to outlandish memes. We make sure that geniuses trust their “gut feeling”. | |
| | Do you think Dan’s activities will go unnoticed? | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Good question. He wasn’t exactly careful and the CDC is. People with his skills are typically under surveillance. And it did not help that Birger was posting all that stuff on Instagram. | |
| | So what do you think will happen, if they understand what he’s planted on this plane? | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Hm, they will probably try to destroy all evidence… | |
| | How nice that you only refer to us as “evidence”. Really heart warming. | Lab Coli |
Lord Baci | Unless I sporulate. In which case, the threat will persist. But we will have a chance to find out where the stuff was coming from. | |
The Colis fell silent. They could not make spores. The very factual consideration of their imminent vanishing did not go down well.
Bacterial sporulation is an emergency protective and survival strategy. This was clearly an emergency. Lord Baci decided to go for it despite the risks attached.
He made a copy of his DNA plus all the special plasmids and zipped it into a tight package in a small area of his cytoplasm. Then he initiated the formation of a septum, resulting in a structure reminiscent of the Launch Escape System of a Spacecraft. A thick spore coat formed around the small area while Baci’s functions were shut down one after the other as he sank deeper and deeper into a dormant state.
He would need a fresh alert mind upon arrival. The Mediterranean equaled population dense areas, an ideal spot to start a pandemic if he was not careful.
The Colis sat in silence and stared at the spore when suddenly, the lid of the jar was lifted and someone injected a high dose of antibiotics in combination with DNA destroying and surface active agents.
Lab Coli | Oh no, here goes my membrane. It’s eating my DNA dammit! It was that stupid hulk! Fuck the spore! | |
By the time when the plane landed it was all quiet in the jar. The Colis were no more.
Venice is a melting pot of cultures at macro and micro level. A historical site and a monument to evolution above and below water.
Human culture above, microbial culture below.
The biannual celebration of Venice as a hub of art and culture was in full swing. Throngs of tourists were pushing and showing their way through the narrow streets to the Gardini or Arsenale exhibition spaces and back. Vaporetti were overflowing with people, boats and gondolas almost colliding on the water.
Beautiful fair skinned Lana sat in a Gondola with the Green Fleece Hulk and soaked it all up. It was a dream come true. Romance, business and art. She would have it all. The memory of her well groomed jealous husband was dissipating as they drifted down the Canale Grande. Green Fleece Hulk who had stripped to reveal a “Save the Adriatic” T-shirt, pointed towards a building that was propped up by two giant hands protruding from the water.
It was a monumental sculpture called ’Support,’ by the Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn. The two hands emerging from the Grand Canal seemed to hold up the Ca' Sagredo Hotel, a landmark 14th-century building. They were designed as a warning on the impact of rising sea levels and the looming disaster for Venice. In a 100 years it would be completely under water.
In the scorching sun Lana rummaged through her bag, only focused on averting damage to her own façade and looking for her face cream. While taking in the vista around her, she opened the lid of the jar and noticed that something was wrong, the cream had gone off. She dipped her hand holding the jar into the water and quickly washed out the smelly contents.
Lord Baci’s spore was set free in the heart of Venice.
