CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Trifecta
The next days flew past in a blur. I hardly slept. My quest to crack domestication consumed every waking minute. I studied the neurological pathways that Evelyn had coded into DragonDraft3D. Hell, I even started reading cat blogs, in case that might turn up something useful. For this brief period, I was practically a model employee. Putting the company’s needs first.
Ironically, my poor old jalopy provided a flash of inspiration. I’d blown half of my first paycheck on a repair bill that involved the mechanic literally jamming a screwdriver down the front grille to help hold the radiator in place. I didn’t dare use the A/C for fear of overheating the engine. A car without A/C in Phoenix is pretty much a self-made torture device, but at least I was able to get around.
About a week after the outrageously-priced repairs, the jalopy started making a new sound. It registered somewhere between squealing tires and the screech of a rodent just caught by a bird of prey. The car still drove, but it unnerved me. ++What if it broke down on me? I’d be stranded halfway between home and work. Worse, I’d be relegated to the wilderness of public transportation again.
I’d grown too accustomed to the jalopy’s convenience, balls-hot as it might be. I couldn’t go back.
It reminded me of a story I’d read about cat domestication. Unlike dogs, which were simply captured as puppies and raised to be tame by human handlers, cats sort of domesticated themselves. It happened in ancient Egypt, at around the time that modern humans developed agriculture. Once they were able to grow enough grain to last for more than a few days, ancient Egyptians started storing it in granaries. Which inevitably drew rodents. Whose abundance drew the wild cats. Which got to stay because they killed the rodents.
Genetic comparisons of domesticated cat breeds to their wild cousins revealed a surprising phenomenon: some of the most significant differences were in pathways involved in fear. In other words, the cats stuck around because they were afraid of having to go back and live in the wild. Their fear overcame the instinct for independence.
Fear might be the answer we needed.
I hardly noticed when the jalopy carried me to work without incident. I don’t remember passing Virginia at the front desk or taking the elevator up to the seventh floor. All I remember is planting myself at my workstation and starting a new modification to Design 48. I didn’t use my carefully-tweaked prototype with all the adjustments—that model was approaching the fifty-point plateau like the rest of the competing models. If I was right about this, I’d break through. But I didn’t want the others to know I had.
Evelyn stopped by to see how I was doing. “Fear response, Noah?”
“Yep.” I didn’t look up. I couldn’t look up. I had to keep going, or I’d lose track of things in these complex genetic pathways.
Evelyn stood there long enough that I could sense her concern. I took a breath and looked back at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I think you made a mistake.”
“Where?”
“You’ve put in an imprinting locus, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” That was a keen insight. Man, she really knows her stuff.
“But you haven’t linked the fear response to sensory neurons. They won’t be afraid of their human handlers.”
“They’re not supposed to fear us.”
Her brow furrowed. “You lost me.”
“They’re supposed to fear life without us. Without food and warmth and shelter.”
“Hmm . . .” Her eyes lost focus for a minute. “Combine that with the behavior and reward response, and the survival instinct . . .”
“There’s your trifecta,” I said.
“Domestication by evolutionary instinct.”
“Seems weird, doesn’t it?” I asked. Weird and just plain wrong, to make dragons so dependent on us. But if it took a self-domesticated dragon to keep this company viable, I’d give them one.
“No one else has tried this. I’ll be interested to see how it does.”
I waited until she’d left before running it through the simulator. Design 48 had scored 93.78 originally, and now the only thing I’d changed was the domestication trifecta. Which, by the way, didn’t involve any of the other genes I’d tweaked over the past week, so any gains here should add to what I’d already done there. Of course, I was still in last place, probably twelve points behind the crowd just above 50.
Parker: 81.62.
Jesus. I’d shaved off more than twelve points. That, added to my other prototype, would probably be enough to get below the fifty-point plateau.
But not by much. If I’d had more time to tinker with the behavioral traits, I might have gotten close to the others. Then this would give me a clean victory. But I was behind, and nearly out of time. Still, I could technically win Evelyn’s contest.
Of course, if I did, everyone else in the design team would hate my guts.
Not that I’d blame them, but it’s just too damn convenient when your own simulator code seems to block out competitors and let you win at the eleventh hour. They’d probably throw a fit to Evelyn. Hell, I would in their shoes. I wanted to win so badly. To prove myself. Oddly enough, that reminded me of something Evelyn had asked me to do when the competition started. It wasn’t to prove my genetic engineering abilities. It was to prove that I could be part of the team.
A reminder flashed on my screen. Fifteen minutes until Evelyn’s deadline. That wasn’t much time. I exported my trifecta into a “patch”—a set of changes that anyone else could bring into their DragonDraft3D models. The only question was where to send it. My first thought was Korrapati. She’d put a ton of work into this, and I liked her. But then again, if what she’d said was true, whoever lost this might get fired. The company would never let Korrapati go, and even if they did, she’d find another job in about two seconds. I was more worried about Wong because of his visa situation. He was good, but if some higher-up decided it was simpler to lay off a non-citizen, he’d be screwed. And I hated the thought that he might go back to Shenzen.
Wong: 50.11
Wong: 50.12
I chuckled. If I wanted a sign, there it was. So I sent my patch to Wong with a brief note: Try this.
In essence, that meant I was throwing in the towel myself. I forced myself away from my desk and tried to eavesdrop on my neighbor over the white noise. I heard the incoming message beep, then Wong’s fingers playing across the keys. He drew a sharp breath. Silence ruled for five seconds. Then he rolled out in his chair and met my eyes with as stony an expression as I’d ever seen on him. All the chipper facade had disappeared.
He doesn’t know if he can trust me. We had only a few minutes to go, after all. But I gave him a nod, hoping he’d at least try it. He stared at me another moment, then rolled back in.
His fingers danced on the keyboard. I glanced at the clock. A minute to go.
Ding. Incoming message. I held my breath and pulled it up.
Wong: 37.93.
“Yes!” I pumped a fist, while the lab erupted into cheers and curses and laughter.
“My God, Wong!” Korrapati said.
“What did you do?” O’Connell shouted.
Wong rolled out of his workstation with a big smile on his face and shrugged, like it was no big deal.
I grinned so wide my cheeks hurt. Part of me still couldn’t believe it had worked. “Congratulations, man.” I reached across the divider and shook his hand.
Evelyn click-clacked into the lab. “Well, it looks like we have a winner! What was your secret, Wong?”
Wong looked at me. I could tell he was about to share the credit, but I put a finger across my lips. This is your moment, buddy.
“No secret. Only hard work,” he said.
“And a lot of runs in the simulator,” I said. “Twice as many as anyone else. You earned it, Wong.”
Evelyn looked happy enough to dance. Her face glowed. “I appreciate your hard work, everyone. Save your designs. We’ll try Wong’s next, but we may need a backup.”
Inwardly, I groaned. The best parts of my design were already part of Wong’s. Let’s hope I’m not the backup.
“Noah, do you have a minute?” Evelyn asked.
“Sure.” I followed her to her office, my heart already sinking. Even my best-scoring models put me in a distant last place in the competition. Maybe she expected better. But hell, they couldn’t have scored the competition without my simulator code. I clung to that sliver of reassurance while Evelyn brought me in and shut her door. Then I kept my mouth shut and let her steer the conversation.
“Did you enjoy the competition?” she asked.
I laughed and shook my head. “You know what? I did. It really helped me learn DragonDraft3D.”
She nodded. “I think everyone on the team doubled their experience using my poor little application.”
“It’s really nice. I like the interface.”
She waved off my compliment, though her eyes twinkled. “So, what do you think of Wong?”
“He’s good. The score was a crusher.”
“Funny how he made such a significant gain, in such a short time.”
“Maybe he was snowballing us.” I said.
“Maybe. But there was only one other designer who made such an improvement in one shot.” She tapped her fingertip on the desk. “Something tells me that if I looked at his prototype, I might find your trifecta.”
Uh-oh. I looked down at my shoes.
“Ha! I knew it,” she said.
“Is collaboration against the rules?”
“Not at all. Frogman and O’Connell worked together on a few of their models. But I’m surprised you gave it to him.”
I shrugged. “He had a good design already. I just helped with the final push. Besides, you were right.”
“About what?”
“You said I’d like him, and I do. I don’t want him to go back to China.”
“You deserve some of the credit.”
I shook my head. “All that matters is the prototype works.”
“We’ll know soon enough. I’m authorizing six eggs.”
“Six?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Do you believe in the design, or not?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“Management’s not going to let us hit the print button forever, Noah. We should use it while we can.”
My stomach danced with butterflies, half nerves and half excitement. “Whatever you say, boss.”
She put in the authorization—it took director-level clearance to print that many eggs from the same prototype—and we went to Wong’s workstation to watch them roll out of the God Machine. They were about the same size as Design 48’s egg, but slightly rounder. I’ll never forget the color: chestnut brown, with faint swirls of mahogany. I wanted to touch one, to put my hand on the still-warm shell and try to sense the promise within. But Evelyn’s override automatically summoned the entire hatchery staff. They invaded the design lab with a convoy of egg carts and formed a white-jumpsuited human chain to move the eggs out. I couldn’t have gotten near one if I tried.
I wandered over to Wong, who sat in his chair with a dazed expression on his face. “Six eggs, huh? That seems like a lot.”
“Crazy.”
“So what did you name your model? Design 49?”
“Not design anything. I go with PetWong.”
I laughed. “That’s perfect.”
“If it works.” He shrugged. “I figure Wong means hard worker, at least.”
“It’ll work,” I reassured him. “It has to.” Otherwise, all my carefully laid plans might have been for nothing.