Beta-205-LIT

Things are going to get better.

Things are going to get better,

Things are going to get better.

Ooooooooooh-ooooh, oh ooh-ooh.

The melody stirs around my head as I kneel in the dirt of Site-205, digging at the soil where happy little microbes live. That was the lullaby of my childhood. With sheer mental force, I willed this happy chant to outlast all that we left behind as we grew older.

My parents used to sing it nonchalantly while clearing the table for dinner, shuffling discarded fast food flyers into a reserved pile of just-in-case. It's funny to think of how we held onto so much, but used so little.

Sunny days like today makes me think of those happy childhood memories. It's like the light of the day penetrates the darkness, shining light on distant memories. About to dwell for a moment too long on what darkness may be out there, I'm saved by a voice on the radio. It blares from the speaker:

"It's a great to day to be alive in year twenty-five!"

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's clear something up. It's not actually the year 25 on the grand scale of humanity. We aren't in biblical times, and there was also no hard reset. It's the year 2050 and there has been no apocalypse, yet. 25 years ago, people started a plan so that nothing apocalyptical ever will happen. That was how the world finally came to decide that what was broken must be fixed.

The first phase of this plan would be fully accomplished 25 years from the year 2025. That would take us to the here and now, and here I am: 25 years old in the year 2050. In the details of this master plan, we are Generation Phase-1 and we come into full effect as of year 25. It feels special to have the numbers line up so nicely, and also feels nice to be number one.

"It takes 7 generations to reach heaven." I converse back to the voice on the radio. With my hands 2 feet deep into the soil, I dig through the earth as I ponder this phrase. The 7 generations to heaven has become a common sentiment, a rally cried by everyone. It's kind of a guideline, an intentional process, that's helping us return everything to a harmonious balance over a long stretch of time. Back then before I was born, they didn't have so clear of a path to align with. It's no wonder they came up with chants so bleakly optimistic when they had nothing else to grasp onto.

I turn my attention back to the work at hand. "Constitute each layer of the soil to get a representative sample..."

Instructions echo through my brain as I fill the vial with dirt, driving my efforts to get this right. It seems so small of a detail, like nobody would know if I messed it up. Still, this small task is beholden to an outcome that's one-ton in weight. Such an outcome would be to keep the master plan on track for the next 6 generations, though I'm not sure how much that many people really would weigh altogether. But it sure feels like one-ton on me, right now. I just have to keep remembering that I'm not alone.

My thoughts begin to churn and I feel anxiety bubbling up. I try to swallow it down and focus on bringing the capped glass vial filled with soil to a height level with my eyes.

"You better be good!" Scowling, I scold all the little microbes that are too small to have ears.

Satisfied by imposing my control for just a moment longer, I ease off the firm mental grasp and start to walk the path back. These little bugs don't need my encouragement, that's what I love about nature. If you let it be, it will flourish on its own and evolve to survive. It's as if they have their own innate optimism that drives them, vibrating in harmony; things are going to get better, things are going to get better....

As for my kind, the least we can do is encourage each other, right? The Alpha generation worked hard to drown out all the noise and negativity so that the Betas could walk a path much less disturbed with distractions. In 10 years the Gamma generation will come of age, and will bear equal burden of Master Plan Phase-1.

Beta means so many things in the year 2050. First of all it's the coefficient of change. But it's also the birth of many nicknames: Beta-Biochemists, "Beta now then later", Baby Beta's, Beta this, Beta that. Busy worker bees we all are, buzzing around from one task to another. It seems like we are responsible for everything. No space is left for ifs, ands, or buts.

At the end of the soil yard I pause to stretch my stiff shoulders, glancing once more at my little tube full of mud, and turn toward the lab entrance.

I wonder if previous generations were always so dependent on others? Maybe that's why...

I stop abruptly to change the tune of my thoughts. Looking around, I'm no longer surrounded by the hum of nature - but of electricity humming through man-made walls. How lucky am I to not have to construct buildings that rival mountains? How lucky am I to be in a time where we respect human rights? How lucky am I to not have the distractions of a misled society, the constant bombarding of buy this, buy that, all while just trying to survive. Not that I can really remember what it was like, I was too young then to notice much. Any notion of such times simply make up the endings of sentences often uttered by our parents and grandparents:

"When I was your age, we had to go to 5 different grocery stores to afford all we needed to make dinner. All the while, the neighbors were throwing out fresh food they bought in bulk!" Oh the horror!

And, also..

"When I was your age, you couldn't just make your own clothing with personal clothing printers. You had to sew it, but you were too busy working. And all the clothes you bought either ate up your whole paycheck, or were so cheap they'd only last one wear!" How out of touch!

And the one that seems so unreal it almost feels like it's fake...

"When I was your age, everything that we tried to recycle just ended up in the ocean. We wasted our time, sorting piles of crap into different kinds of crap - all just so they could end up in the same mountain of garbage polluting every damn thing. It was hopeless!"

Well - I probably would have more trouble buying into that last one if not for the research project I was tasked with. I felt like I held a magical little charm in my gloved hand, coveting a secret sparkle. The gleam of hundreds and thousands of little microbes hungry for our pain. In this post-industrial era, they had evolutionary advantages of keen interest to humans. Just a few tweaks to their genetics, and many problems that challenge society should be solved.

All you have to do, is just insert this tiny tube into this here machine - which reads the DNA of all the little microbes in the tube to make a copy of the genetic code. Then, you open up that DNA code file on the computer, and paste in an enzyme code. This is where it gets interesting. You have thousands of enzymes to choose from - and they will all digest different things, converting anything into anything, theoretically. It's magnificent! You just need these happy little bugs to get a wee bit genetically modified, let them reproduce for a few hours, and voilà - you have the micro-baby Beta generation ready to serve the cause. Meet my children - ravenous little goblins that will munch up the garbage of your choosing.

My parents love to act like they know what's going on here. I can't help but role my eyes when they say, "Oh! I had a colleague that determined the enzymatic reaction occurring in bacteria that's able to digest oil spills in the ocean!" Big whoop. I can have that enzyme locked and loaded in seconds, in addition to countless others. And guess what also? They are turbocharged little guys. With the right mix of healthy bacteria, you can see the muck of yesterday eaten up right before your eyes, in real time.

Which, is the very next step in this operation. In a fresh vial labeled "β-LIT-205", I carry my juiced up infants to printer number #3. From the printer's enclosed display, one can see it's fully stocked with humanity's greatest foe: plastic. Even worse, it's polyvinyl chloride, which is the hardest kind of plastic to recycle. Formed in the shape of bottles toppling one another, it looks like a clear, mountainous, bulbous, art sculpture. The mountain towers over me. Where the heck do they get all these!? Plastic just isn't really something we use anymore, even hospitals found other ways to package sterilized tools.

I punch coordinates and parameters into the printer, preparing for launch. Sample β-LIT-205 sits nestled in the autosampler tray, housing tiny little mountaineers about to be shuttled with the click of a button.

This is the moment, things are gonna get better...

I play the little chime in my head as I can't help but send one little prayer of encouragement off to the muted microbes. I hope they hear me.

The machine operates robotically in the enclosure, quickly drinking up the sample. The robot arm extends to "Site A" of the bottle mountain. It's very important to inoculate right at the top, and not to let it touch anywhere else. The robot arm delivers through a long needle with pinpoint precision, and doesn't move away from the spot after it's done its job. So far, success.

Momentarily, we must wait. I count down the seconds, eager to distract my mind with something in the meantime, but finding nothing.

Then softly before my eyes - it was as if a firefly was flashing a beacon on top of the highest bottle. It flickered like a campfire spark burning away at your jeans; lingering until suddenly, fibers of glowing light began to weave away at the bottles into one single thread. As the string ate away tirelessly, puffs of dark dust trailed behind, scattering below onto the floor of the enclosed display. The glowing string laced the top over and over, flattening the mound with a golden swirl like icing on a cupcake the size of a grizzly bear. The silence and awe of the moment is disrupted by the vvvrrrrmm of the robot arm, as its motor works to spin the needle, slowly spooling the string of light.

I gleefully allow a celebratory cheer to escape, coming out in jittery, high-pitched murmurs. My Beta bugs finally succeeded, among the many trials of success and failure well known by my colleagues in this very lab.

I look outside briefly and notice the dark sky has fallen. I wonder how the day of the person that I heard on the radio is proceeding, and if they still think it's a good day to be alive.

At the printer, I open the compartment where the gold thread of light has compiled into a package of thin rope. Large in volume but light in my hands, I twine it around my wrists. I can't help but continue to think of that little chime my parents would chant as they nonchalantly performed their tasks -

Things are going to get better,

Things are going to get better.

The rope of light hung around my shoulder, I stepped out into the blackened, dismal landscape. Among hundreds of soil plots, I walk to Site-205 where I first dug out the sample. In the dark, 4 wooden stakes can be seen sticking upward from the ground, marking the 10 by 10 foot square lot of Site-205. I trail the rope from post to post, lighting up a small shape amongst a sea of darkness.

The suspended rope casts a golden-brown eminence throughout the dirt below. Light and shadow contrasts to reveal the ridged, pitted surface of soil mounds, like tiny brown mountains. The material made by β-LIT-205 towers over its predecessor, as if to foretell a fragment of the brightness that will come from it.

Even on the darkest of days, there is always something to light the way.