Bathroom Monologue: Show me Your I.D., OR, I’ll need two forms of I.D. with that, OR, Get Over This Pun, John

Amin Tech was way ahead of the curve on genetic engineering, producing the first self-sustaining waves of biological nanomachines. These weren’t metal and they didn’t have silicon processors – they were too small for such clunky stuff. Instead, Olivia and Micah Amin lovingly spliced DNA and turned bacteria to good use. They spliced so much DNA that they had ligases named for them (even if nobody in the press knew what ligases were).

Olivia and Micah programmed behavior patterns to the bio-nanos, so that they swarmed and could deal with complex problems in the human body. One booster shot of the buggers could clear out a blocked heart valve in minutes.

Through careful mapping of bio-nano DNA, they could even stimulate the production of healthy proteins in the human body, so that any ligament or muscle could be repaired. Once the job was underway, the bio-nanos would break down and become part of the protein in the healthy new tissue.

But the final development was accidental.

Late one night, Micah thought she noticed strange wave patterns moving in a dish of bio-nanos. Sharing of the wave patterns seemed to correlate between unprogrammed changes in their behavior, specifically making them swarm. Since bio-nanos could only do their jobs if they followed the programs, this innovation was worrisome. Were they self-organizing? Were they talking to each other?

Micah worked to dawn developing a device to decode the mysterious waves. She was stunned over what she read. She paged Olivia, who grumpily drove over to the lab.

Olivia thought Micah was nuts, but mid-argument the two noticed another series of inexplicable wave patterns. Micah switched the device on in time to decode only the last wave, which formed one last sentence: “All that aside, I don’t believe in intelligent design.”