Immortality by Kevin Bohacz

reproduction, small amounts of the bug could fan out to process huge quantities of waste. Once the garbage was consumed, their food supply would be gone and the bacteria themselves would die off. CT was an elegant solution to the problems of waste disposal.
    Mark imagined someone with an eyedropper adding a small amount of CT to a pile of garbage. In a few days, the bacteria’s enzymes would reduce the trash to a harmless sludge usable as fertilizer. The little critters were voracious. They could easily take over the world if it was made of what they were designed to eat, and that was the key to their success as a product. Living plants and animals had defense systems that could easily destroy the garbage eaters. CT bacteria were the ultimate scavengers, able to eat only things that could not defend themselves.
    Mark knew that his bug wouldn’t solve the entire waste problem. No technology could break the cycle of trees – into candy wrappers – into trash. CT couldn’t stop man from converting the planet’s ecosystem into recycled waste. In darker moments, he wondered if his bug might even make the problem worse. If society could easily dispose of its trash, would it produce even more?
    He closed his eyes and thought about how CT spread out to consume all available food and then died their mass death. Such an efficient machine... His eyes opened. Was that part of the COBIC mystery? Had COBIC spread out over the world and consumed too much of its food supply, bringing self-extinction?
    A buzzer sounded. Someone was at the lab door. Mark saw Gracy in the video monitor and pressed a button that unlocked the door. His eyes were drawn back to the computer screen as another line segment was added to the exponential growth curve. Was he looking at a mathematical model of extinction?
    “Hi honey,” called out Gracy.
    Mark turned around in his chair. Gracy walked over and sat in his lap. She kissed him, then leaned back and looked into his eyes.
    “You were supposed to be home almost two hours ago,” she said. “We were going to have dinner with Mary and George just about now... Don’t worry. I canceled.”
    “Sorry, you know I’ve got a broken sense of time.”
    Mark stood up, removing her from his lap. He pulled a book from his shelf and then glanced at the computer screen again. The graph had changed some more. The pattern reminded him of something.
    “I tried calling you three times,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t answer. You’re too obsessive!”
    “My obsessing just got us out of a boring dinner with Mary and George.”
    “Yeah, but that’s no excuse.”
    Mark sat down in his chair again. He stared at the computer screen. He knew he’d seen a growth curve somewhere that reminded him of this one, but where? He opened the book.
    “What about food?” said Gracy.
    “I’m not hungry right now. You go on. I’ll catch up with you later.”
3 – Anchorage, Alaska: November
    The day was gusty and clear with a robin’s egg blue sky streaked with white. The seawater was a dark green. The freezing air was crisp with a chill that opened his mind. Harold Nakachia took a deep breath of the air into his lungs. He was high above the ground in the operator’s cab of a shipyard crane. He had the side window partially open. He craved fresh air almost as much as iced beer. Looking through the glass, he could see out across the waters of Cook Inlet. He could feel the vastness of the sea beyond. Winds were buffeted his cab. Fall was long past, and winter was blowing hard through Alaska.
    The nosepiece of his cab was a glass box. Harold sat in a bucket seat that had a control-stick built into each of the armrests. His footrests extended out over a glass floor. He looked down past his boots at a miniature army of longshoremen working cargo on and off the docks. The experience was like sitting suspended in midair over the edge of a cliff.
    An order from the dock foreman, Pete Fulmar buzzed inside Harold’s headphones.