The Bar Code Rebellion Read Online Free Page A

Technology, Caltech! I was all set to go to Harvard when I got this great opportunity to study with a professor named Dr. Gold, who studiedwith Richard Feynman when he taught at Caltech. (Gold was a sixteen-year-old budding genius at the time.) Feynman was a Nobel Prize winner in physics and he was talking about nanotechnology — the extreme miniaturization of machinery — as far back as 1959!
Gold has also worked with Ian Wilmut, who headed the team that cloned Dolly the sheep last century. He also worked in the same lab with James Thomson, who practically invented stem cell research, and with Patrick Brown, who invented the first DNA microarray, one of the most powerful tools in genetic research.
Caltech is the center for robotic research in the country right now, and Gold is doing amazing work on disassembling viruses using nanotechnology. In other words, he’s using molecular-size robots to get into the bloodstream and literally take a virus apart. This work started at the beginning of the century, but Gold has built a better nanobot. Not only could it wipe out all viral diseases in the next five years, it has the potential to increase the human life-span to about 170, 50 years longer than our current average of 120.
Anyway! Don’t get me started, as they used to say. I’m working day and night on the research and loving every second of it. I feel that I sold out by getting the bar code tattoo, but this door would have been closed to me if I hadn’t, and there’s potential here to do so much good. It’s funny — I was determined to study genetics, but this work with nanotechnology is so fascinating and includes genetic medicine. I just can’t decide where to specialize.

I hope you are well and that you find aliens soon. To quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet , “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” In other words, who knows? Anything’s possible. I love you for trying.
     
Stay hopeful and brave,
     
Allyson
     
     

 
    “I miss Allyson, too,” Kayla said, handing the letter back to August.
    She, Mfumbe, and August continued to wait for David Young to come out with Loudon Waters. She felt nervous despite the fact that she’d had a vision of the event. In it, she’d seen David Young smiling as he walked out behind an angry-looking, defeated President about to announce his resignation.
    In the next second, they appeared, like a rerun of a movie she’d already seen. People around her grew hoarse with cheering. Others beamed joyfully as emotional tears streamed down their faces. All around her, protesters hugged friends as well as strangers. Mfumbe and August slapped their palms together in the air. Mfumbe turned and hugged Kayla. This was the moment they’d dreamed of!
    Kayla was cheering along with the others when she became aware of a low whine. She swatted the air, thinking it was a mosquito. Mfumbe’s face became puzzled and he checked around, then up. His expression changed from confusion to alarm as he pointed skyward.
    In V formation, a squad of sleek white jets, identical to the robot jet that had fired on them earlier, flew over the White House and toward the crowd.
    They were coming lower.
    Too low.
    An anxious murmur swept through the crowd.
    A man broke loose from the protesters and dashed across the street. As others witnessed his panic, they began to run.
    Kayla was aware of a rushing telepathic buzz of frantic communication filling her mind. What’s that?They’regoingtoattack.No.It’sjustsurveillance. No,it’snot.They’retoolow!They’reattackingus!
    The jets broke formation, flying off in different directions. “Let’s get out of here!” August yelled, running. Mfumbe grabbed Kayla’s hand, holding tight, and they began to run in the same direction as August.
    Somewhere, something exploded, the boom reverberating. Kayla felt the vibration in her bones. She and Mfumbe moved closer together, stunned, as all around them people began