Chapter 9

Chapter 8 & 9 Musings

/ emhardenburger / Leave a comment

Before I write these author responses to my posted chapters of Capacitance, I always go back and re-read the chapter for a refresh (it’s hard to remember what I wrote nearly two books ago!). When I went back and started reading Chapter 8, I didn’t get through the whole thing because there is a point that I really wanted to make in response to my saying that some people aren’t perceiving Mara as a likable character. In Chapter 8, we see Runey making an effort towards Mara (despite his own mental distress). Although she is standoffish towards him, he still sticks up for her with the other group members, then even in his own mind he finds her strengths behind her weaknesses. While Mara may not be the most likeable person in these first few chapters, Runey’s perceptiveness allows the reader to perhaps view her differently than their first impression. Not only does it shed light on the potential for connection (another “Capacitance” term reference!) between the two, but it also demonstrates how perceptive Runey is–Runey’s inner monologue helps build strengths for both characters.

Chapter 8 is all about people’s imperfections. Runey explores Mara’s flaws and finds the strength behind them, and then he betrays a weakness of his own. How can we blame Runey for taking Juleia into his room when he finds her in his dorm hall? Runey’s response lends a human element to his mission to get to Mara–to be human is to err, and Runey becomes more complex as he is not completely perfect. The imperfections continue in Runey and Juleia’s exchange in bed. Here we see why their relationship might not have been perfect even were it allowed to continue. Juleia harbors jealousy–a fact that is not new to their relations as Runey is well versed in dealing with it. Through this exchange the reader is invited to go back in time and imagine how Runey and Juleia were before the story began, and hopefully they begin to wonder if Juleia was truly good for Runey in the first place. The questions brought up by Chapter 8 are many that we as humans are familiar with, and as always, it is great to lend more humanity to one’s fictional characters.

Chapter 9 is a nice parallel to Chapter 8 as we see Mara thinking about Runey now instead of vice versa. It is easy to see the correlation and differences. Runey and Mara are both fascinated with the others’ physical appearance and physical imagery is what dominates their thought processes at this time. However, whereas Runey is having to train his mind to focus on Mara, Mara’s mind is wandering to thoughts of Runey of its own free will–much to her consternation. The differences continue as we compare Runey and Juleia–clearly two people who crave a relationship in their life–to Mara’s feelings on the matter. When she meets Langdon in the elevator, the scene drives home for the reader even more that Mara is not interested in dating and sees the whole business as trivial. Possibly the reader is anticipating that, given Mara’s viewpoint on love, Runey will have a hard time achieving his mission.

Now I am going to switch gears entirely for one final train of thought–Mara in her lab. People have asked me how I make the lab scene sound so convincing and wonder if I have taken science classes or spent time in a lab myself. While I am very flattered that my prose comes off so convincingly, I must say that my best preparation for writing these scenes was from watching a lot of movies, reading a lot of books, and perhaps a Biochemistry 110 class during my college years (although the associated lab was much below Mara’s standards!). Imagination came into play as well. Writing science fiction, a writer has a certain amount of license. While I didn’t want my story to be too “tech-y” or futuristic, I did want it to contain some speculative elements. Thus we have slide drives, DNA sequencing programs, etc. Perhaps why this sounds so “convincing” is because the technology is not too outlandish, and I try not to lose readers by launching into an epic exposition bit where I explain the history, implementation, and meaning of all devices used. Last note: I nearly passed out writing the sequence where Mara draws her own blood. LOL. But seriously, I do not do well around needles/blood/hospitals in general. A fact which kept me out of the fascinating field of medicine, but allowed me to pursue writing instead. 🙂 Book review coming tomorrow, stay tuned!

Capacitance: Chapter 9

/ emhardenburger / 1 Comment

Back to back Capacitance  chapter posts? Lucky, lucky followers! 🙂 I just hit 200 likes on my Facebook page over the weekend!! Thanks for all the support, I truly appreciate it! As always, if there are any comments or suggestions you have regarding Capacitance, I would love to hear them! Enjoy your Monday, and enjoy Chapter 9!

Chapter 9

As one who was not a frequent drinker, Mara was feeling the effects of the previous nights’ wine in the form of acute pain in her stomach and head the next morning. On top of that, she felt even more pessimistic about her lab discoveries; Travers’ words came floating back to her like some kind of horrid nightmare, “In this kind of hostile takeover mutation, we are talking death within days or maybe a week…” and “it could be possible for cells to mutate on so many levels that the Meditrinum would be unable to catch up with the repairs…” Mara knew her mind was mincing what Travers had said into a tabloid-hysteria, worst case scenario summation, but she couldn’t shake the impending sense of danger, and the enormous sense of pressure she felt to find and solve the problem immediately. A small voice in the back of her mind coyly whispered that maybe she would go to investigate the mutation and find that it was nothing serious, and all this panic was for nothing. Mara knew she couldn’t take that voice seriously, but she let it play in her mind, providing some sort of floodgate to the rising panic.

As if he was able to read her mind, Mara suddenly received a message from Travers, ”Hope you’re doing ok today, and I’m not just talking about the after effects of the wine! Remember, Mara, you can always come to me about anything. I’m here for you. –P.T.” Immediately after receiving that message, another one from Travers—an afterthought—dinged into her inbox,
“Oh, and, Mara, don’t forget what I said about Runey. –P.T.”

Mara sighed; the last thing she needed to think about in the wake of this crisis was unprofessional, arrogant Runey with his interesting combination of olive gold skin and red hair, deep blue eyes, and that infuriatingly distracting half smile—cursing, Mara shook her head in frustration. Without even meaning or wanting to, she had been distracted by Runey; Travers did not understand that this was a very bad thing. She had no time for distractions, especially now. Whatever Runey’s elusive allure was—which she still couldn’t wrap her mind around just what it was—she needed to avoid it at all costs. This was one piece of advice from Travers she simply couldn’t follow at the moment.

She pulled on the jade green silk robe once again as she padded across the deep, snowy shag of her bedroom rug and through to the cool, gleaming hardwood of the kitchen. She depressed two slices of bread into the toaster, and poured herself a glass of orange juice from the well-stocked stainless steel refrigerator. Once the toast popped up, she buttered it liberally to soothe her aching stomach. After allowing herself a leisurely amount of time for breakfast, considering the circumstances, she went to her bathroom to prepare for the day; she quickly emerged, imperceptibly less put together than the day before as she was on a time budget but still well dressed in an ensemble of rich burgundy and taupe. She neatly packed her lab files into a matching chocolate brown leather tote and headed towards her door. She had just twisted the knob when she faintly heard the loud ping of her phone back in the depths of her apartment. Mara walked back in scanning the shining black kitchen countertops, checked the white marble surfaces in her bathroom, and was becoming very frustrated when she finally found the phone submerged in the dove gray silk of her sheets. She tapped to open the messages and was very annoyed to read one from Runey, “Hey, Mara. I know we didn’t get much of a chance to talk yesterday. How about we meet up this evening? –R.”

She absolutely refused to message him back; she quite frankly did not have time to socialize with the distraction. Mara realized she had not responded to Travers either in her foggy, slightly hung over waking moments. Exasperated with herself and with Runey, on top of being anxious to get to her lab, she decided to put a moratorium on communication for the day. Tossing her phone back into the pile of twisted, shining sheets she thought wryly, Take the day off, buddy; wish I could too. Feeling slightly more liberated and focused without her phone, she strode purposefully out of her apartment to the elevator terminal. Her sense of focus was quickly shattered as Langdon entered the elevator terminal at the same time as Mara; there was no way to avoid him, and Mara cringed inwardly as he pressed the down button with a flourish and flashed his brilliantly perfect smile at her.

“Morning, Mara,” he said, awkwardly attempting to touch her arm at the same time as Mara instinctively moved away, “How was yesterday? As bad as you thought it would be?” he smirked, feigning a casual stretch in attempts to pass off his attempted pass at Mara.

Mara smirked back at him—he looked ridiculous trying to play it casual, “As a matter of fact, it was worse,” she said truthfully.

“Worse? Come on Mar,” Langdon said, having recovered his composure, “Yeah I know it is like we talked about, and they’ve tied up a lot of our time with this group thing; but it’s not all bad. I actually think it is going to be helpful in my future career to make connections. Plus, my group and I already started talking about our project ideas—we are going to strongly incorporate biochem, so in a way it is like I will have two projects to present upon graduation. Sure, I will have to buckle down and work some late nights to get my individual project done, but I think this group thing will put me way ahead of the game,” he continued as they stepped into open elevator.

“Congratulations,” Mara said shortly, pressing the ground floor button impatiently and then staring resolutely at the closed doors.

“That’s not the only good thing. There’s this girl from Design in my group—strawberry blonde hair down to here,” Langdon said slyly, touching Mara in the small of the back, “She has tattoos of a school of koi fish on her shoulder blade and down her back. I wonder how far down they go?” Langdon continued, assessing Mara coolly.

“Langdon, what is it about elevators that makes you lose every ounce of professionalism?” Mara asked, rolling her eyes.

“Jealous, are you? Well I have to get it somewhere, since I can’t have what I really want,” Langdon said jokingly, but Mara could sense the icy edge in his voice. At that moment she realized Langdon was actually serious about his feelings towards her—it was a strange sensation. She had always assumed that everyone saw love and relationships as she did, just a triviality and a distraction, not to be a serious consideration in one’s choices through life. Maybe I do need to open my mind to other perspectives, she thought. However, she wouldn’t be opening herself to Langdon’s perspective anytime soon. Even if she was interested, she was sure she would still find his approaches a little uncouth. The elevator softly settled on the ground floor and the doors slid open. Langdon was obviously unnerved by Mara’s prolonged silence as he said, “I’m just joking around, Mara. Why don’t we go get some coffee before labbing down?”

Mara was sorely tempted by coffee—she had forgotten to fill a thermos before she left her apartment, and she knew a hit of caffeine would chase away her last traces of the wine hangover. However, the thought of sitting down with Langdon—tedious in itself—and wasting precious lab time was not palatable, so she made a compromise, “How about we just grab some from the café on the way out of SciSky and take it to go? I really have a lot to do today and I need to get to it.”

Langdon visibly brightened that he got anything but a flat denial, “Sure! My treat!” The two walked across the atrium of SciSky; early morning light splashed across the various shops, salons and gyms and the calming splash of trickling water on the abstract glass and stone water feature filled the air. The busiest portion of the atrium was the coffee shop where the most ambitious Science students were already grabbing their coffees before starting their day. Langdon ordered for both Mara and himself (Mara shuddered internally when he knew her standard latte order without having to ask), and soon the two were out the wide glass doors and on their way to the labs. It didn’t take long to reach The Portal from SciSky, and Mara was glad of the short walk, and the fact that Langdon took a different elevator to get to his lab—she was growing tired of his double-edged small talk. After thanking Langdon for the coffee, Mara was glad to sip it in solitude as the elevator sunk slowly to her lab level.

Mara once again walked down the familiar hallway, punched in the familiar code and swiped her palm. She flicked on the lights in the lab and powered up the computers. By the lab’s entrance, there was a double-sided hatch in the wall where laboratory dispensary materials were placed when they were delivered; the techs from LabLink would prepare the materials, and send them with a courier to the various labs that had requested them. When Mara ordered the materials she had to assign a PIN code to her order and then program her drop box with that code. When the courier brought the sample, he keyed in the PIN code on a small keypad in the hall which opened the exterior door to receive the sample. The hatch was also climate controlled so the operator could set the interior temperature to sample specifications if necessary. Now Mara went and keyed in the code she had assigned to her LabLink dispensary order of Meditrinum blood samples; the metal door of the hatch slid open and cool air pooled out slowly onto Mara’s face as she reached inside and removed the plastic rack containing ten vials of deep red blood samples.

She reset the hatch to shut off the refrigeration and wipe the code, and then took her fresh samples to her main refrigeration unit. Now she had to prepare the samples to go through the sequencing program. Walking to the far wall of her lab, Mara threw on her long white lab jacket, opened a stainless steel cabinet and removed a box labeled “Blank Slide Drives” which she brought over to the main lab work station. The main lab work station was a counter height table on which sat a microscope and several racks of instruments. Mara sat the box of blank slide drives down next the microscope, and went to get the blood samples. The task at hand was to draw a sample of each blood type and insert it carefully into the slide drive. Slide drives were small, fragile devices made of glass and metal which contained a tiny computer chip; when this was inserted into the computer portal, data on the current state of the specimen could be seen and many different tests could be run on the sample. First, Mara inspected each slide drive carefully under her microscope, checking for cracks or defects—these were rare in slide drives used at the University, as the equipment here was of the highest quality, but it was important to check all the same as a crack could lead not only to the waste of a sample, but would also cause computer malfunction if inserted into the device.

The next step was to insert the sample into the slide drive. Mara used a syringe with an ultra-fine needle to remove a sample from one of the test vials of Meditrinum blood, and then, looking through her microscope, stuck the point of the needle into a minutely marked spot on the slide drive. This special entry point could only be punctured once, as it would self-seal infallibly after one initial puncture; slide drives had to be soldered shut in their earlier days, but the self-seal invention did away with that—Mara supposed she had the people in the school of Technology to thank for that. All in all, the process of preparing the slide drives was quite simple if one had a steady hand and sharp eyes; Mara had both of these skills, so quite rapidly she had slide drives from all ten blood samples. But she was not finished yet.

She didn’t know when she had decided to do it—she didn’t even know she had fully planned it until that moment—but suddenly she knew. She had to test a sample of her own blood. It’s not a huge matter, really, she thought, just another slide drive in the mix. But her feet seemed to drag as she made her way to the cabinet where she kept the sterilized biohazard equipment. I have to know. I just have to. This isn’t sinking in as real enough to you, Mara; you’re walking around in a daze, not treating this with as much a sense of urgency as you should. Once you see your DNA sequencing projection has a mutation, then it will be real. She grabbed a syringe out of the box of sharps and tore off its hygienic seal as she sat back down on the stool in front of her microscope. She found the vein and slid the needle in with a detached manner—needles had never bothered her, and if they ever had she was sure the fear would have ceased after a monthly injection since the age of four. The syringe filled slowly with her own Meditrinum blood sample; Mara waited until she had the same amount as the other vials, then smoothly pulled the needle out of the vein.

She deposited her sample into an empty vial, labeled it with an “M,” and tossed the used syringe in the biohazard waste can. Using a clean fine tipped needle, she drew some of her own blood and inserted it into an eleventh slide drive. She placed the slides into a special rack which she then inserted into a titration device. Five minutes of titration and the samples were ready to be processed into the DNA sequencing program. She brought the rack of slide drives over to the computer, opened the slide drive program and set up a report containing current blood data, current DNA sequencing, and projected DNA sequencing over a span of five years. Then she inserted the first slide drive containing one of the random samples from LabLink. The sample with her blood was purposely placed at the end of the queue. The computer could only process one report at a time, so it would take all day to collect all the results. She would have to be on hand to switch out the slide drives as the tests concluded; each test could take upwards of two hours, but Mara had never been one to be daunted by the prospect of a long lab stint. As the tests on the first slide drive began, Mara spun her chair over to the far left computer which was used for databases and research resources—she would spend her day combing the vast academic research files for all the available knowledge on genetic mutations and how to combat them, free of her phone, shut off from Runey and Travers and all other distractions.