Solid State Rhyme: A Novelette (Mandate) by J.S. Harbour

kitchen to scrounge up some much-needed food after skipping two meals.
    *
    Returning an hour later, Daniel checked on his work. It had now been twelve hours since starting Nile, and Memphis had been quad crunching for nearly as long. Daniel was excited about the fluctuations and patterns of the quad pool as he observed the status display. Pharaoh's production at the top of the quad pyramid was much lower than the output of Memphis, which was proportionally lower than Nile. Furthermore, Pharaoh divided the population in half every time two micros were mated to produce offspring.
    The numbers fluctuated, but if Nile was producing six billion quads per hour, and Memphis utilized 99.9 percent of those to produce sixty million micros per hour, then—assuming zero error rate—the pool should have grown enormously during the past hour. But it had not grown. In fact, the population seems to have reached a steady state. Pharaoh was reducing the population on a massive scale, then, cutting the population in half every generation, while an influx of random new data kept entering the system.
    That was a problem!
    He paused the Nile and Memphis programs to cut off the influx of new genetic material, realizing he should have done so right after starting up Pharaoh. But, that was okay, the program would just have to run longer to make up for the chaos. He slowed Pharaoh and the simulation back down to real-time and opened up a window into the simulation.
    So this was the result of millions of generations had transpired?
    How many micros there were in each generation—a thousand, a million? Daniel couldn't even guess. Even as few as a dozen in each generation would have worked. After all, he only needed one for the competition.
    “Daniel!” his mom called. “Did you stay up all night again?”
    Daniel undocked his padd, stuffed it into his backpack. When the time came for the competition on Monday, how would he distinguish the newer ones from the older ones in order to submit the latest, most capable creature? Funny word, that—hardly seemed appropriate any more. He only hoped Mr. Robathan wouldn't notice.
    Time to hit the mall, his usual hangout. He might even download a few new books. It had been a while since he had bought a new one; lately, he had been re-reading old favorites. Change was often hard. He was sure there were great stories yet to be found if only he could give up his current favorites long enough to give some new author a try. He gave his room a quick scan, then pulled the door shut as he headed for the front door.
    “Bye, Mom. I’m headed for the mall!”
    None of his friends were there, but that was okay as he wanted to catch up on some reading, give his mind a break from the weekend-long coding marathon.

Chapter 7
    “How was the test, Daniel?” Emma asked, as she passed him in the hall after first period. It was Monday morning, and he had just finished a rather easy history test.
    “Not bad, I guess.”
    “Hey, Daniel, you feeling okay?”
    He perked up at the question, forcing his eyes to focus on her. “I'm a little tired, that's all.”
    “How did you do?” he asked. Daniel took notice of Emma for the first time that morning. She was wearing jeans for a change, and her hair was bundled in a ponytail. She was smiling at him. “I hate history. I never can remember all those names. It all seems so pointless.”
    Daniel realized he was staring at her and looked away, startled. She was so beautiful! And she was not self-absorbed like most girls. ( Was that a bad assumption? ). And, the best part was, she was interested in him . Daniel's mind wandered off again.
    “See you next period?” she said, then turned and walked away.
    Daniel nodded. “See ya.”
    The bell rang, and Daniel realized he'd been standing there for over a minute, in the same spot she'd left him. “I think I'm in love.”
    He stared, unfocused, straight ahead, as he headed down the middle of the hall to his second-hour class. He had