Stories

The story of how Richard built a synthetic biology interface between the plant and the machine paled in comparison with the tale his friend concocted for him to supplant it, tale that involved a never before heard of second cousin of his from out of town, the latter's life-long dream to participate in a science competition for school age children that didn't exist, the challenge of a theoretical engine that ran on bio-fuel, ample library time for writing down the research papers, and the justification for building a gizmo whose function nobody could possibly understand. 

Nobody managed to figure out how the vine got into the steam pipes, and even less on how it changed itself to survive in such a hostile environment, but the botanists finally managed to figure out what kind of plant it was. It seemed to be a distant relative of the Carolina Jessamine vine, poor man's rope, as they called it, at least that's what it started out as, before it mutated twice and shed its biological shell to evolve into a partly inorganic hybrid. 
Despite all the hype around external intervention, alien, divine or otherwise, the scientific basis of what had happened to facilitate the evolution the plant into what it was now was quite self-explanatory, which made the cascading sequence of consequences even more difficult to accept, because, in people's minds, nothing this straightforward should have been allowed to radically change life as they knew it. 

“We should, theoretically, be able to recover most of the metal,” the expert explained, without any emotional involvement. “The plant will, of course, have to be destroyed in the process.”
“That's great news!” another person from the audience exclaimed. “So, what portions of the equipment you think might not be salvageable?”
“I'm afraid I wasn't very clear in explaining the situation. It will be possible to recover most of the metals, separately, of course. All the alloys will have to be recomposed. Some of the material will be lost in the melting process, it's unavoidable,” the expert continued, with a calm that put chills through the bones of the audience.
“You mean like, this much iron, this much tin, this much vanadium? In separate little piles?” a voice of despair resonated from the back.
“Precisely!” the expert pointed out cheerfully, happy to have explained himself clearly, and oblivious to the audience's indignation.
“What are we going to do with all the equipment decomposed neatly into piles of separate metals? We need the working equipment, exactly the way we have it!” a reasonable voice protested. “Had it,” he corrected himself. “Whatever!” he gave up.
“The equipment will have to be rebuilt, of course,” the expert pointed out the obvious.
“So, what you're telling me is that this stupid plant has formed one solid block with the pipe distribution system?” the burly guy in the front exploded.
“It's not a solid block, it did however interact with it at molecular level,” the expert corrected him.
“What difference does it make! Do you mean to tell us we can't rip out the stupid plant without destroying all of our machinery? You can't be serious!” his partner of conversation grew more and more irate.

One thing was sure: Richard was terrible at hiding the truth, and the last drop of it was pulled out of his tormented psyche despite his efforts; it came out in painful, somewhat inarticulate blobs as Jack attacked the matter from all sides, placing strategic questions at the critical points of the story, to eliminate the possibility of any important details being left out. After he squeezed the whole truth out of his friend, like one would get the last glob of toothpaste from an almost empty tube, he seemed content with the results, and pondered deep in thought for a while. He had that preoccupied look on his face, the one he got when he was planning something, which was exactly what Richard dreaded.

“I can't believe I'm saying this, but do I have a volunteer who would like to spend some time with a horticulturist and get an understanding of what makes this thing tick?” Groans and protests ensued.
“Please, it's important,” he cajoled. A volunteer stepped forward, with all the joy and enthusiasm of a human sacrifice. After this, the gathering finally scattered and everyone went home, after the customary polite inquiries about children and family events. Richard was relieved to finally see them gone, so that he could get out of his hiding place, which was cramped and uncomfortable. 
He found himself rooting for the willful plant, and hoping, in spite of logic, that the research took as long as possible, to allow it to thrive a little longer, the beautiful trespasser. He vowed to do a little bit of research on his own, to figure out if he could take a cutting, or a leaf, or something, and grow it somewhere else, there must be a good location somewhere along that abandoned route where he could plant it and care for it, away from prying eyes. 

“Dude! We triggered the silent alarm, the police are going to be here any moment. Drop everything and run!” he said, simultaneously opening the window and jumping out, as police sirens were blaring close by in the neighborhood. Richard grabbed his notepad and jumped quickly after him, making a promise to himself to strangle Jack later, if and when they reached safety again, and fumbled so much to get out of that window that he almost got noticed by an elderly lady who was making her way to the grocery store. 
The boys didn't stop to watch as the officers pointed to the open window and canvased the area for suspects, they never stopped running until they reached the woods, from where they walked as fast as they could back to school. 
Even the best laid plans succumb to the cruelty of fate. How unfortunate of Richard to have forgotten his packed lunch that day! His mother had prepared it for him, to make sure the boy didn't starve as he volunteered his effort for the benefit of his peers. 

The first thing he noticed was that the vine's unbelievable resilience was supported by two basic features: its tension steel strength and its purposeful redundancy. Every one of the twisted ropes it wove around and through the pipes was fed by a myriad of strands coming from different directions, none of which was essential to the stability of the system, but all of whom contributed to it. Much like the  circulatory system of an organism, it had minor pathways and major arteries, it didn't leave any spot uncovered and doubled down on itself at times, to create secondary system loops. 
If there was one thing that was different about the pipes, was that they looked shinier, as if brand new, and since this was evident throughout the system, it made Richard contemplate the possibility that the energy field, or whatever it was that held the plant around its supports, must have an inhibiting effect on corrosion, which was a blessing in the now warm and humid air, which would otherwise run havoc on metal components.
Richard took a deep breath, and the large hall smelled like the forest, with none of the usual pungency of burnished metal and mechanical lubricants. “How on earth do they keep this place running?” Richard asked himself, flabbergasted by the impossible interdependence.

There was a place inside this knot of metal limbs, a clearing almost, a hollow, from which he could see the entire manifold branching overhead, and when he sat there, on a little concrete base that for some reason had remained unoccupied, it made him feel as if the entire power distribution system was an extension of his person, and that as small and weak as he was, compared to this enormous metal monster, he was its heart, the soul in the machine, the essential component that allowed the whole system to work. Even though he knew the distribution manifold very well, and if he closed his eyes he could see its every detail, he liked to take a walk around and inspect it every time, and then, with the relief of having found everything exactly the way it was supposed to be, he sat there on his concrete base for a while, and dreamed. And, indignity of indignities, that's where he found the plant again, inside his precious, sneaking out between two pressure rated flanges and then back in via an isolation valve. 

The walls were made of smooth wood planks, with just a coat of clear stain to protect them, and between the wood finish on the walls and the exposed rafter ties the room felt warm and cozy, like a vacation cabin in the woods. On one of the walls, surrounded by ninja posters, gleamed a very ornate oval mirror, surrounded by a gilded frame, heavily carved. Richard had protested the addition, of course, but it seems there was no room for it anywhere else in the house, and his mother insisted that everybody had to have a way to check themselves before they got out in public, regardless of their gender. Then she went on a tangent about the dreadful state of his hair, commented on the length of his fingernails and sent him to change his shirt, so he decided that keeping that ridiculous mirror in his room was a small price to pay to avoid having this discussion on a regular basis.