The chaotic buzz of dozens of conversations filled the cafeteria. Sean and Mei-Ling had a table to themselves.

"Sooo," drawled Mei-Ling, eyeing a trio of girls giggling and chatting with Judith Fuller some distance away, "let me get this straight. You enrolled in Biology GB, just so you could get chummy with the Fuller girl. Why, you got a crush on her or something?"

"What," Sean chortled almost choking on his lunch, "No. I admit she's hot, but I just want to wrangle an invitation to her birthday party in two weeks, that's all. Besides she's way out of my league."

"You are serious," Mei-Ling stared at him, "But why? You don't even like her family. Is this some misbegotten scheme to prank Jason? Not cool, dude. The Fuller family has a lot of clout in Portsmouth. You'll only bring down a ton of trouble on yourself."

"No, it's nothing to do with him," Sean sighed, he wasn't going to outright lie to Mei-Ling but he could just keep her in the dark on this, "Look, it's a longshot that may never pan out. I'll tell you if and when it goes anywhere."

"What makes you think she'd invite you anyway?" Mei-Ling demanded, "The last time I checked there's no love lost between her brother and you. What little she's heard of you can't be good."

"She might, once she likes me," Sean answered, "or thinks she does. I'm going to ask her to lend me some expensive toy only she has."

"You are making even less sense than usual, dude," Mei-Ling frowned, "How does owing her a favor help you?"

"Benjamin Franklin Effect," smiled Sean, "It was in the psychology book you added to my research tree. Apparently if you can get an opponent to do a favor for you, then the opponent rationalizes it by convincing themself that they actually like you. To avoid cognitive dissonance. Why else would they do you a favor, you see."

"This isn't like you," Mei-Ling looked him in the eye for a long moment and then turned away, "If you're not telling me why you are doing this, its because you know I won't approve. And that scares me. This is something the Phreak Club put you up to, isn't it? I knew those dumbasses were bad news."

"They didn't put me up to anything," Sean protested unconvincingly, "they're consultants, that's all."

"Just don't do anything stupid, OK?" Mei-Ling got up, slinging her backpack across her shoulder and getting up, leaving Sean to finish his lunch alone.

#

"You need to borrow what from me?" asked Judith startled.

"A portable thermo cycler," Sean repeated, leaning across the aisle, "DNA amplifier. I understand you have one at home?"

"Who told you that?" demanded Judith, eyes narrowing in suspicion, once again contrasting her default cheeriness, "And what do you want it for? You are not trying to be a bio-hacker are you?"

"Biohacker?," Sean looked startled, "Perish the thought. I just want to try out some ideas I have for a computing project. It just came up in conversation with one of your friends that you have a portable unit."

Diligent research in the form of repeated questions to Randall's sister had revealed Judith's passion and the resources with which Judith's father backed his children's hobbies. The mini-thermocycler must have cost a few grand at the very least, which was chump change for the Fullers.

"Computing project?" Judith was looking confused.

"DNA computing," clarified Sean, "is orders of magnitude slower than electronics, but is so massively parallel that it leaves traditional computers in the dust for certain kinds of optimization problems. Like Darwinian evolution, for example." Or the stock markets.

"That's... brilliant," Judith muttered startled.

"Its not like I came up with it," shrugged Sean, "Adleman did in the nineties. He solved an NP-complete problem using a DNA computer. There's even a Perl compiler for it now. Its just bloody hard to interpret the results."

"I... I'll lend it to you," nodded Judith slowly, "if you keep me appraised of what you find."

"Deal," grinned Sean, "Awesome, thanks. Nice to see someone with the same passion."

"I know, right?" Judith exclaimed, her eyes lighting up, "it's so hard to find someone who loves experimenting with molecular biology. I plan to start my own biotech firm someday. Make an impact in eradicating the worst diseases that plague us." And getting even richer, Sean didn't say.

"I have no doubt," Sean replied softly, "that you'll have a tremendous impact on the world."

He was rewarded with a brilliant smile from Judith.

#

A few days later Sean carefully lugged a heavy box onto the school bus that was headed home. Judith had made good on her word.

"What the heck is that, bud?" whistled Greg, "the school safe?"

"In that case," grinned Randall, "I'm quite willing to relieve you of your burden."

"Nothing so mundane, my friends," Sean retorted, drumming his fingers on the faux leather case, "This is a key to much greater things."

#

It was a week and a half after Judith had lent Sean her DNA amplifier unit, that she stopped him in the hallway as they filed out of Biology GB.

"Hey... Sean," Judith ventured, hesitating, "I'm having a birthday party this weekend at my house. With a few friends. Would you like to come? There's even a tour of my dad's factory if you're interested."

"I'd love to," Sean turned to smile at her, "thanks."

END OF CHAPTER