Chapter One
“I’ll tell you exactly who bombed my lab!” Dr Jonas Smith yelled over blaring sirens and noisy fire alarms.
He watched the bored officer taking notes.
Between clouds of smoke from the basement windows, Jonas saw inside his lab.
All his aquariums were smashed. The data was replicated safely, but his invertebrate organisms were lost. No way yet to scan microscopic planaria into a computer yet.
“I’m being targeted. The university loved me three years ago when my team discovered a new therapy for dementia, and they could put their name on MY WORK, but now, now, they’re not lifting a finger to keep me or my team safe.”
The police officer watched firefighters carrying out ruined equipment. Nobody took this seriously.
“Why are they targeting you, doctor?”
“Have you followed the news? This is like the third time. It’s the religious nuts. Those crackpot preachers. They got their idiot followers thinking I’m stealing people’s souls and putting them into computer hard drives.”
Then the policeman looked up. “You’re that guy?” The policeman half-closed his eyes, showing pure contempt.
Jonas got angry. He was on the edge of solving the puzzle but these vandals had ruined his work.
“Christ, you’re one of them. I’m not switching brains between cats and dogs. I’m giving us a chance to share our encoded memories. I had fruit flies in there… ” at this point Jonas yelled in anger, realizing the degree of lost work — “they each had the memories of their ancestors going back generations.”
It was late, Jonas realized. He’d come back tomorrow and figure out how to restart.
Author G. M. Jones 