Oona: A Flash Fiction Sci-Fi Short
The Soup Tank Oona It was the first run of our CGAT compiler program. CGAT: a nitrogenous-base operating system built on the very building blocks of DNA. Marty and I were nervous as hell to start it up, but there was no turning back. No second thoughts. No should we or shouldn’t we. It was too late for that. “Bring the mainframe online, Lola,” Marty said. “Starting the boot sequence.” Both our monitors flashed and hummed to life. CGAT was live, glowing, and waiting for commands. “She’s up, Marty. What do you want to test first?” “Let’s try something simple, but useful right from the start,” he said. “Like what?” “Skin. If we can create viable, rejection-free skin, we’ll have every burn ward in the country beating down our door.” “Skin. Okay. Skin it is.” The human genome had been mapped for decades, but no one had tried to program cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine directly. With the help of CAGEE, our AI assistant, we had discovered that specific light wavelengths, fired at fluct...
