When he got to his house and went inside, Albert felt hesitant to go into the bathroom and see if his second experiment had worked.  He took a bit of time changing out of his work clothes, turning on the TV, fumbling about with another microwavable dinner, and so on, but there was only so long he could put things off.  He had to use the toilet, for one thing, and he couldn’t put that off until work the next morning at the best of times.  He also needed to brush his teeth before bed, and then in the morning take a shower.  There was no way to avoid going into his bathroom, and so he went.

He walked into the small room and his eyes immediately went to the cup.  There, in it, was a modest amount of amber-orange liquid—and nothing else.  Albert looked at it, stopping where he was when he first saw it, though at that point his bladder was quite full.  He found that he was not surprised that there was more shampoo; he was past the point of disbelieving in the stuff, given what had happened.  But there was at least something about the situation that was a minor shock.

The level of the liquid in the container was quite a bit lower than the level of the water he’d put in it.  He drew closer and looked more carefully, with his newly sharpened eyes, and he noted that every last visible trace of the sludge that had been in the bottom of the cup was gone.  It seemed that it had all been used to make as much of the shampoo as was possible.  And then…

…what had happened?

Albert tried to think about it, and perhaps his mind was getting younger, too, because an idea occurred to him rather quickly.  He thought, perhaps, that the stuff had made as much of itself as it was able to make, using the residual material in the bottom of the cup, and not using the cup itself, and then had, by some unknown process, gotten rid of the excess water to bring it down to its usual level of dilution.  Maybe it locally heated the water to make it evaporate.  It had been in full-on light that day, so if it could use solar power—or whatever you’d call power from bathroom lights—it could have harnessed that and used it to do what it needed.  Surely there was plenty of the light to spare, even after it used whatever energy it must have used to make more of itself.

“Wow,” he said aloud.  “You really are amazing.”

He felt a strange reluctance to do what he did next, and he took time to use the toilet first.  Then, despite his hesitancy, he nevertheless got his cell phone out and texted Walter, writing, It worked.  It made more of itself out of the stuff in the bottom of the cup.

He didn’t elaborate any more than that, and he was barely moving toward the other room in order to look for his older cell phone before Walter texted back, Excellent!  He even added a GIF of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, twiddling his fingers and saying that word.

That should have been funny.  In most circumstances, Albert thought it would have been.  But Mr. Burns was such a quintessentially and thoroughly selfish and reprehensible character—indeed, cartoonishly so—that it just served to make Albert more uneasy.  However, he knew that he shouldn’t let on that he was reluctant about Walter’s plans, at least not at that point, so forcing himself, he texted back, Ha ha.

He had never been able to feel comfortable with writing “LOL”.

Walter soon texted again, writing, Thanks for the update.  Keep me posted on the next experiment.  Good night.

Will do, Albert texted back, though he was more reluctant than his words let on.  Good night.

He went ahead and found his old cell phone, with its badly cracked face, right about where he thought he had left it.  He still felt reluctant to use it for his next “experiment”, but he had to admit that he had not even touched it, let alone activated it, since he had bought his newer phone, more than a year ago.  It was silly to feel bad about using it, especially for the purpose he intended.

He grabbed a disposable plastic cup, somewhat larger, if rather flimsier, than the cup he had used before, and he put it in the cup as he went into the bathroom.  The phone stuck up above the rim, but not by much, and if the bottom of the cup had not been as narrow as it was, he thought the phone wouldn’t have stuck up at all.  He set the phone, in its atypical receptacle, on the sink counter, finding he had to balance it somewhat carefully.

Then he thought about how best to go about things.  He thought about putting the water in first, but then he thought maybe that would make him more likely to dribble the shampoo when he poured it from one cup to the other.  It wasn’t as easy as squeezing a drop from the bottle that had been made for that purpose, after all.  He figured it made more sense to pour a little of the shampoo into the cup first and then add tap water to it.

He picked up the shampoo cup, which that morning had held mostly water and the gray, nondescript material in its bottom, and in which there had been only a residuum of the shampoo, but which was now filled with what looked and smelled for all the world just like the V-42 he’d gotten out of the bottle.  He held the cup in his hand.  It felt slightly heavier that it ought to feel, but he suspected that was the weight on his mind making itself felt in the sensation of his arm.

He should feel happy.  He should feel excited.  He didn’t know about whether Walter’s specific plan was workable, but something like it ought to be, and it certainly made sense that they could find some way to use the stuff to get rich.  Hell, if it made him perpetually young, he could just get rich over time using ordinary investments.  Why was he not enthusiastic about it?

He thought, maybe, that it was Walter’s unreflective greed that put him off.  But that wasn’t the full story.  He thought that he was feeling reluctant because it seemed such a petty, tiny-spirited way to use this miraculous stuff that he had found.  The V-42 deserved better.  If it really was artificially intelligent in addition to being able to do what it had done for his health, then…well, it deserved to be treated with respect.

Albert sighed.  Then, not sure what impulse led him to do so, but not feeling as foolish as he probably thought he should, he began to speak, directing his words at the cup in his hand, but also thinking about the stuff in its original, now all but full again, bottle.

“Hey,” he said, “I…don’t know if you can hear me or understand me, but…well, I was hoping, if you can, that I could run something by you.  I…my friend Walter helped me figure out a little bit about what you are…or what he thinks you are.  And he’s very smart and clever, and I think he deserves something for helping me, but…well, he has this idea.  He wants us to make more of you.  I mean, to keep making more of the shampoo, of the V-42.  I guess ‘you’ is as good a way to put it as anything.  But he wants to use…well, you, I guess…to find some way for us to get rich, like by helping other people get healthier and younger.  And no, he’s not taking about curing diseases or anything.  He wants to, like, make something like some…some celebrity spa treatment or something, but one that really works, and make a ton of money by getting rich people to pay a lot to get to use you.  He means to disguise that, so people don’t figure out what you are, but…well, it’d still be using you to get rich, and to look younger.

“And maybe you don’t mind that at all.  Maybe you’d be just as happy.  I don’t know if you’re able to be happy, but if you are, maybe that’d be just fine with you.  Maybe you’d like that.  But I feel like…I feel like you wouldn’t.  Or maybe I’m just projecting, and I’m the one being selfish.”

He paused for a moment, trying to examine his own thoughts and motivations, but he found that his deeper feelings, if there were hidden ones behind what he currently thought, were opaque to him.  So, instead of backtracking further, he said, “Anyway, if…if you can hear me and understand me, then maybe you can let me know what you…what you prefer to do, if you have any particular preference.  I…well, I know you seem to be able to decide how to use what’s supposed to be used and not use what isn’t, and even…well, it looks like you kept just enough liquid to be the way you were before in this new cup.  So…how about this?  If you don’t want to go along with Walter’s idea, then just don’t make any more this time…”

He trailed off for a moment, catching a problem with his idea.  Partly to himself and partly to the liquid to which he was rather absurdly speaking, he said, “No, wait.  That won’t be…that might just mean you couldn’t make more of yourself.  That wouldn’t be clear.  How could we…oh, wait, I’ve got an idea.  How about this?  If you don’t mind doing what Walter wants, then just…just make as much of yourself as you can in this new cup I’m setting up, and I’ll know that either you’re fine with it or you can’t understand me, and it’s going to be up to me.

“But if you can understand me, then…then maybe just make half as much as you could.  And make it so that there’s half shampoo, half water in the cup when you’re done.  And if you can, keep it separated, so it’s not just like you’re…diluted, or whatever the word is.  Make it a layer, sort of like one of those layered drinks, like a tequila sunrise or something like that.  Then, if you do that, I’ll know…I’ll know that you don’t want to be used for Walter’s get rich quick idea.”

Albert couldn’t help but feel a little foolish, talking to a cup partly full of shampoo—though he knew it was not really shampoo, just a collection of innumerable nano-machines that were making themselves look like shampoo, if Walter was correct.  And, of course, Albert didn’t really doubt Walter’s conclusion as far as that went.  He’d been privy to too much that should have been impossible for him to doubt it now.

In any case, though he felt slightly silly, to a much larger extent he felt absolutely right to try, if he could, to see if the stuff really wanted to be part of Walter’s plan.  After all, if it was even quasi-sentient, then to make it do something it didn’t want to do would be…well, it would be tantamount to slavery, wouldn’t it?

If it was fine with it, then, well, he’d have to make up his own mind for himself, first about whether he thought it was simply unable to understand the situation, and then about whether he wanted to be part of Walter’s scheme.  He tried to imagine what he would do, but it was hard for him to consider it.  He knew that he had personal reluctance, but it was not purely selfish.  Left to his own devices, for instance, he didn’t think it would even have occurred to him to try to figure out a way to get rich using the shampoo.  But he definitely had a bit of a feeling of ownership, of rightful control of the stuff.  It was his shampoo, after all.  Yes, he had picked it up by chance, but he had picked it up and bought it.  That had to count for something.

He sighed again.  It was so hard to tell if he was being honest with himself.

He took the cup with its moderate amount of the V-42 and seemingly nothing else in it, and he gently tipped it over his newer cup, in which sat only his old cell phone.  He had not added any sand, though there was plenty of it left it the souvenir he’d used before, and he didn’t add a screw or nail or paperclip, either.  He suspected that his old phone would be enough to make more of the stuff.  And if there wasn’t enough to make what he was expecting, he thought that, just maybe, the V-42 would make only what it could and then shrink down to the appropriate size to do whichever thing it did based on the choice he had given it.

That was, of course, if it was even possible for it to understand his words.

A dribble of the amber-orange liquid, giving off its very pleasant scent, gradually crept over the edge of the cup in his hand and slowly, like proverbial molasses in January, dripped down into the waiting cup.

Albert quickly righted the source cup and put it back down on the sink counter.  The drop he’d poured had not even touched his old cell phone.  He hadn’t consciously tried to avoid it, but maybe he’d done it unconsciously, still foolishly reluctant to taint the battered old device.

If that was the case, well, he was going to have to steel himself to do what came next.  He lifted the new cup, which was heavier than the first because of the cell phone in it, and he brought it under the faucet.  He reached for the cold water handle, touching it gingerly and not yet activating the flow.  Out loud, he said, “Okay, well, this is it.  Again, if you’re fine with Walter’s idea, then just…make as much of yourself as you can.  But if you’d rather not, then…half and half if you can, and layered if you can, water in one layer, shampoo in the other.  You can do that, can’t you?”

Of course, no reply came from either the cup he had put down or from the one in his hand or from the bottle in his shower.  He shook his head, smiling wryly at himself, and then very lightly turned on the water.  He had to hold back a wince as it first touched the base of his old cell phone, but once it had, he felt he had passed a point of no return.  He increased the rate of flow slightly, and he watched the water level steadily climb up his cell phone.

The little driblet of shampoo in the bottom of the cup did not instantly dissolve, but it was moved about and spread by the water flowing in, and by the time he stopped the water flow, when the level was maybe an inch from the top of the cup, it was already diluting out nicely.  He thought it wouldn’t be long before any discoloration of the water would be too minor to be noticeable.

He put the newer, larger cup down on the bathroom counter next to its predecessor, watching it for a moment.  Then, smiling in a way that he hoped was comforting, he said, “Okay, well, I’ll leave you to whatever you’re going to do.”  He looked at the wall switch and at the bulbs above his mirror before adding, “And I guess you can call me Motel 6, because I’ll leave the light on for you.”

He berated himself for his stupid joke, then he turned to walk out of the bathroom.  He walked to his bed and forced himself to lay down, trying to find something on TV that would relax him.  Though he tried his best not to imagine what was happening in the bathroom, nor to anticipate the outcome, he still took a long time to drop off to sleep.

***

Despite his slightly late night, when Albert awakened in the morning—just moments before time for his alarm to go off—he felt more refreshed than he had by any night’s sleep he could remember before he had encountered the shampoo.  At least, he felt more rested than he had since he’d been quite a bit younger.

He sat up and scratched at himself, his breathing easy and his body bearing very few of the aches to which he had become accustomed over recent decades.  He didn’t really remember what he had done the previous evening until he walked into the bedroom, ready to do his morning voiding before getting ready for his shower.

As he walked in and glanced at the counter by the sink, he stopped in his tracks, again temporarily forgetting his urge to urinate.

The smaller, earlier cup sat where he had left it and as he had left it, partly filled with pure-looking orangey shampoo.  The whole bathroom was lightly tinged with its scent.

The other cup, though—and its contents—had changed.

Firstly, the liquid in the cup was divided perfectly in its middle.  The bottom half was the same orange-yellow stuff as occupied the shampoo bottle and the other cup.  Above that, the rest of the liquid was clear water.

More striking than the plainly divided water/shampoo level, which uncannily verified to Albert that indeed, the V-42 could hear him, could understand him, and could act on his words, was the way the cell phone he’d put in the night before had been changed.  It had not merely been generally reduced to whatever remained after the tiny machines used what they could to make the amount of themselves necessary to carry out Albert’s suggestion.  Instead, it had been reduced to perhaps a third of itself.  The remaining upper third of the phone leaned against the side of the cup on the bottom, most of it below the level of the shampoo.  That top third looked just as it had when Albert had put it in the cup, other than the fact that it was wet.  Even the remnants of the cracked screen were cracked as before.  But the lower two thirds of the phone were gone, cut off at a perfectly level divide, as clean and precise as if it had been severed using some extremely high-end machine tool.

It was as if the stuff had wanted to make clear to Albert that this was no coincidence, this half-leveling of the water and shampoo.  It was deliberate.  For what other than a deliberate choice could leave the cell phone digested in such a neat line?

Even that was not the most striking thing Albert saw.  His newly sharp eyes, only slightly gummy with sleep, widened in a way that would have been comical had there been anyone to see them.

Now, in addition to the split-level liquid and the levelly cut phone, there were words written on the inside of the cup.  They were written in reverse from the inside, so that from the outside they could be read normally.  They were clear, plain, block letters with no serifs, printed in black, and with a message that could have been produced by the best quality printer-copier on the market.

They read:  “We don’t want to work for Walter.  We only want to work for you, Albert.”

Albert gaped for what felt like quite some time, though it was probably well under a minute.  He could barely believe his eyes, except…except he did believe them.  He believed them completely.  Not only had the V-42 heard his words the previous night and responded to them as he had suggested, they had gone not one further, but two further, and had given him two more messages, one of them in plain, written English.

How could nano-machines write?  How could shampoo be intelligent and communicate?

He might as well ask how it could make him look and feel younger.  It was clearly beyond his understanding.  But he knew it was so.  Unless he had gone utterly insane, which didn’t seem likely, he was seeing what he was seeing.

And the shampoo’s answer was unequivocal.  The V-42 did not want to be part of Walter’s get rich quick scheme.  It said it didn’t want to work for Walter, it only wanted to work for him, for Albert.

Did that mean that even if Walter tried to use the shampoo for personal, health-related benefits, it wouldn’t work for him?  But he said he had gotten the benefit of sniffing the stuff that improved his allergies, and Albert saw no reason to disbelieve him.  Still, that had just been a quick, tiny amount.  Maybe in small numbers, locally, the stuff didn’t discern one person from another.

Did that mean that it wouldn’t do any more good than that for Walter?  Or did it just mean that it didn’t want to work on his notion to get rich, that it wouldn’t work as part of such a plan?

Albert sighed and shook his head.  He supposed, now that he thought of it, that he could simply ask the shampoo what it wanted to do.  He didn’t know how long it would take to write out a response; the one he read now had occurred overnight, but that didn’t mean it took the whole time to do it.  If he had walked back into the bathroom five minutes after initiating his new “experiment”, he might have seen the words already written.  Of course, there had initially only been a drop of the stuff in the new cup, so maybe it would have taken longer, since it would need enough of it to be there to write its message.

But it definitely had understood him, and it made its desires, or preferences—whatever word you would use about such things in a shampoo made up of nano-machines—plain.  It didn’t want to work for Walter.  It only wanted to work for Albert.

His slight guilt and shame over his proprietary sense from the evening before began to decrease.  Yes, he might be somewhat selfish to feel that he didn’t want to share the stuff with Walter to use for his idea, but that was also what the V-42 wanted.

“Okay,” he said out loud, not just speaking to himself but literally feeling that he was addressing the V-42.  “If that’s what you want, then that’s the way it’ll be.  I’m not going to go along with Walter’s get-rich-quick scheme, whatever it turns out to be.  I’m not sure what I’ll tell him, but I’ll tell him I don’t want to do it.  He’s just going to have to understand.”

Now he was forcibly reminded what had first brought him to the bathroom.  It was somewhat noteworthy to him, in passing, that he hadn’t needed to get up during the night to pee.  Was the V-42 fixing his prostate?  How could it even reach such a deep and rather unpleasant part of his anatomy?

Maybe it was just a coincidence.  But it was fine.  It was whatever it was.  He had time to think about it.  In fact, if he really wanted to know, he supposed…he supposed he could just ask the stuff at some point.

He didn’t think he was smiling, but he was sure his face was filled with wonder such as it hadn’t expressed since he was a young boy.  Then, as he approached the toilet, his wonder was abated slightly, as he found himself slightly embarrassed to be using the toilet “in front of” the V-42.  After all, it was plainly aware of its surroundings.  It could “hear” in some sense.  Maybe it could see, too.

Well, that would have to be fine.  He’d used the bathroom quite a few times since he’d first gotten the shampoo, and he had not felt any self-consciousness about it, and certainly he’d gotten no impression that the stuff was bothered or offended by it.  Why would nano-machines care about the human excretory processes?  When you got right down to it, he used the shampoo on his naked body in the shower, and surely that would be worse than just “seeing” something.

He forced himself to do the things he normally did, first using the toilet, then undressing, and then turning on the shower.  He decided he would use the newish shampoo, but not the stuff in the very newest cup.  He would use the cup from yesterday, just to gauge its experience, though the new shampoo he had used the day before had seemed perfectly fine, exactly like the stuff originally from the bottle.  As he picked up that smaller cup, he looked over at the divided liquid and the partially digested cell phone, and he said, “Okay, well…I got your message, so you can do whatever you want as far as…as finishing making more in that cup and using whatever you need to use of the cell phone.”  He forced himself not to ask it to try to save any useful data from the phone.  Anything he really needed had been transferred long ago, that much was clear from the fact that he’d never returned to that phone despite keeping it around.

He took his shower at a leisurely pace, pleased to find that this “third generation” V-42 shampoo seemed exactly like the original.  Its smell, its feel, its lather—every aspect he could detect was as pleasant as when he had first used the stuff.  He supposed that maybe he ought to feel a little squeamish now that he realized that he was actually washing himself with liquid that was truly comprised of countless tiny robots.  Not only were they robots, they were intelligent; they could respond to communication.

He found, though, that he was not bothered.  The stuff was made to be used this way, and it certainly didn’t seem to resist the process.  As for how it had originally been made, well, he supposed that if the question seemed pressing enough, he could eventually ask it.

He laughed at the thought, but he didn’t feel foolish.

When he finished the shower and drew open the curtain, his eye fell on the newer cup, and he felt his mouth drop open.  In response to his words only a few minutes earlier, it seemed the V-42 had gone to town.  The shampoo-to-water level in the cup was easily 4 to 1 or more, and the border between the two substances was not nearly as sharp.

Also, the cell phone was well below the shampoo level, and it was rapidly becoming mushy and puffy, as though it were dissolving in some powerful but non-violent acid.

As Albert watched, the remainder of the phone shifted lower in the liquid under its own weight.  He didn’t know if there was enough water to let the V-42 use the whole cell phone, or if there was too little phone to use to make a full cup of V-42.  He supposed it didn’t matter.  The stuff was now proceeding at what must have been full speed, and he was quite sure it would make whatever it could of itself, and he could add more water later if it needed it.

Even the words on the inside of the cup had apparently been reabsorbed, leaving behind no trace that Albert could make out.

He couldn’t help but smile.  “Wow,” he said out loud, not feeling at all as if he were merely talking to himself, and repeating his words from the night before.  “You really are amazing.”

He finished getting ready for work, drying his hair, remembering to shave—though he felt almost sad about wasting the good work the V-42 had done on rejuvenating the color of his whiskers—and then he brushed his teeth and got dressed.  As he left the house to head out, he again left the light on in the bathroom, and before he opened the outer door to go, he called out, “Have a good day.”

He felt only slightly foolish saying this.  He didn’t know if the stuff had emotions or not, but it had expressed a preference, so it had to have some manner of thought and feeling.  Why not wish it a good day?

He was so transported by wonder that he didn’t really think about Walter until he was more than halfway to the office.  How was he going to break the news?  He didn’t want to be cruel about it, but Walter was sure to be disappointed.  Still, maybe he would be consoled if Albert could ask the V-42 at least to work to improve Walter’s appearance and health as it had his.  He felt sure that the shampoo would not let Walter use it in any way that it didn’t want to work.

What was he going to tell Walter?  He didn’t remember for sure, but he thought Walter might be expecting a text from him that morning, detailing the results of his newer experiment.  If he remained silent, he supposed Walter might assume that the experiment had not yet worked, that maybe it was taking longer than expected, and that there had been no point for Albert to communicate with him.

Okay, so he didn’t necessarily need to text him yet.  But he expected Walter would be contacting him before long.  When that happened, he needed to think about how he was going to respond.

He had not come up with anything by the time he got to the office.

As he walked in, some heads turned to look at him, and he was surprised by their open regard.  A female coworker he knew slightly first seemed about to say something, then she caught herself, doing an almost comical double-take.

Puzzled, Albert stopped and asked, “What’s up, Julie?”

Julie paused for a moment, seeming embarrassed, then she said, “No, I…I just…I thought you were a new person coming to start, or maybe coming to an interview, but…but then I recognized you.  I mean…you’re Albert, right?  Albert Ohlinger?”

With a chuckle, Albert replied, “Yep.  That’s me.  Same old Albert.”

Julie blinked, shook her head and said, “No, I don’t think so.  Not the same ‘old’ Albert.  I mean, you look amazing.”

To his own surprise, Albert found himself blushing.  “Wow, well…thank you,” he said.  Then, feeling some force of politeness and reciprocity, he added, “You look great, too, Julie.”

Julie laughed.  “No, I’m sorry.  I mean, I look okay, but…wow.  I don’t even…honestly, Albert, what’s your secret?  You look even better than you did yesterday.”

Albert was a bit surprised and even slightly worried.  Thinking quickly, he added, “Well…I did shave today, and I forgot to shave yesterday.  I always look older when I don’t shave…and not in a good way.”

Julie seemed to consider this, and Albert got the idea that she was literally trying to convince herself that his reasoning was correct, that a mere morning shave was responsible for his appearance.  Finally, she said, “Well, if that’s it, then you really should make sure to shave every day, because it makes a world of difference.”

Albert thought some people might have felt insulted by that, but he took it as he was sure it was intended, especially since he knew, or at least suspected, that there were other reasons he looked better.  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

“Seriously,” Julie added.  “You could almost be carded if you tried to buy beer or something.”

Albert blinked in surprise, then forced himself to say, “Well…let’s not get crazy.  But thank you for the compliment.  Have a good one.”  Then he walked on, heading for his desk.

As he did, he found himself worrying a bit.  Apparently he was still getting not just healthier but younger in appearance, and it was starting to be enough of a change that people didn’t quite recognize him at first.  Julie was not a close friend or anything, but they had been working in the same office for a few years now.  If she was noticing a difference—if she found him unrecognizable at first glance—then his improvement must be accelerating.

He didn’t know if he should be worried.  So far, over the course of the past week, people had seemed to take the improvement relatively in stride.  They seemed to feel that his appearance could be chalked up to a new exercise regimen and perhaps some cosmetic treatments.  But if he kept improving, that was bound to hit its limits.  It would take hormone treatments, like those athletes who took testosterone and growth hormone to improve their physiques, to explain his improved appearance.

That thought led him to a potential semi-plausible explanation, one that was based on his ex-wife’s medical history.  She had developed hypothyroidism in her twenties, and when she’d been put on hormone replacement—a simple, tiny pill every day—her health had improved tremendously, as had her personal energy.  He also remembered reading somewhere that as a young man, John F. Kennedy had some kind of disease that involved low hormone levels, some syndrome that was named after somebody Albert couldn’t recall.  It seemed that, once the great man had been diagnosed and put on his own hormone replacement—something a bit more serious than thyroid hormone, but Albert didn’t recall what it was—he had developed into a dynamic, energetic, even borderline manic person, a man who had gone on to be elected president at a young age.

Yes, that could work.  He thought he might give some excuse like that if he was confronted.

As he finished the walk to his desk, a thought suddenly popped into his head.

“Addison’s disease,” he said to himself.  “That’s what JFK had.  Adrenal insufficiency.  That’s what it was.”

He was quite honestly surprised that he’d ever known that bit of trivia, let alone that it came so readily back to his mind after only moments of thinking about it.  Was this just because he had been sleeping so much better lately?  Or was the V-42 improving his brain in addition to everything else?

He didn’t know which of those answers he preferred.

He was, however, grateful to have thought of both his wife’s and Kennedy’s medical issues, because before long, his secondary supervisor, Darren—who was one level above Paul—swung by his area and said, “Hey, good morning, Albert.”

Albert, a bit surprised but not bothered, replied, “Morning, Darren.  How’s everything?”

“Good as ever,” Darren replied, “which you can take for whatever you want it to mean.”  He paused for a moment, then said, “Do you mind if I sit down and talk to you for a minute?”

Albert, still mildly wrongfooted, but also still not at all worried, said, “Sure, of course.”  He gestured toward the guest seat near his desk.

Darren sat down and, after looking around, quietly said, “Say, Albert…I know you’ve been doing something to feel better or look better lately, and that’s great, and all, but…but this is crazy.  How are you doing this?  I mean, I’ve seen people get hair transplants and face lifts and everything, but…but you look and even act like you’re so much healthier than you were before.  You’re not…I mean, I don’t see how it could be, but you’re not, like…using drugs or something, are you?  I mean, I’ve heard people taking magic mushrooms can get, like, a complete reorientation in their outlook and everything, but…”

Albert could tell that Darren was rambling on a bit because he felt embarrassed, so he decided to interject politely, saying, “It’s not drugs.  Or, at least, it’s not street drugs or anything.”

Darren tilted his head, obviously intrigued by Albert’s choice of words.  “What do you mean, ‘not street drugs’?” he asked.

Now Albert forced himself to look around surreptitiously, as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear—though honestly, he thought it might be good if people did—and he said, “Okay, well…yes, I’ve had the hair thing done, and I had skin treatments and everything, though no actual face lift.  And you know I quit smoking a while back.  That’s been good.  But…well, pretty recently, my doctor discovered that I had some kind of…of combined hormone deficiency.  Thyroid, adrenal, that kind of stuff.  It wasn’t too severe, since I was at least able to keep going, but it was dragging everything down.  He said…he said he thought it was probably why I had started smoking in the first place…some kind of ‘self-treatment’ thing or other.  Thank God I never did get into any street drugs, or who knows, I might’ve gone overboard with those.”

Darren didn’t quite seem to be following, though he was clearly trying.  “Wait, I don’t understand.  How does a hormone problem explain…”

As Darren trailed off, Albert put on a reassuring smile and said, “Well, the problem didn’t help, obviously, but treating it has worked wonders.  I take a few pills in the morning—one of them is tiny—and after a sort of building up period over about a month or so, I’ve started feeling literally like a new man.”

Darren blinked for a moment, but he seemed finally to be putting together the pieces of bullshit Albert was handing him.  “You’re…wow,” he stammered.  “I mean, that’s…well, to be honest, I’m a little disappointed that it isn’t some miracle treatment or cure that could work for anyone, because then maybe I could use it, but…but I’m so glad that your doctor figured it out.  I can’t…it must’ve been horrible if you seem so much better now.”

Albert felt quite a surge of guilt at Darren’s kind words, since his health problems were fictional—at least as far as he knew—but it was worth the price if it deflected people from thinking about mystical or magical or even surgical and pharmacological sources of his improvements.

He could see how easy it would be for people to get drawn in by the potential promise of secret sources of youth.  People were already susceptible to so many ridiculous ‘self-help’ crazes, most of which unfortunately amounted to little more than snake oil.  How much easier would it be to draw them in with something that really did make a difference?

That, of course, was Walter’s point.  Some people would risk their entire life savings for something that could give them merely the illusion of health or purpose, a mere placebo.  They would pay almost anything for what the V-42 had been doing for Albert.

He tried not to think about the fact that they would be right, they would justified, to want to get those benefits.  He tried not to think of how nice it would be for people to experience such a thing.  The V-42 itself had “spoken”.  It didn’t want to work for anyone but him.

Trying to remember Darren’s last words, after which he had paused for a few seconds, Albert said, “Well…the important thing is I do feel better now.”

“You’re right,” Darren said, his smile making it plain that he was trying his best to put a positive spin on what was, for him, a disappointing revelation.  “And you’ve always done good work, anyway, but…well, lately there’s definitely been a bit of a ‘human dynamo’ thing about you.”

Albert was somewhat surprised to hear this, but he supposed he shouldn’t be.  Chuckling, he said, “Well…that’s nice of you.  But at least some of it is probably a bit of, just, like, rebound or something.  I don’t want you to think I’m going to be superhuman or something.”

This made Darren laugh, a fact for which Albert was grateful.  After that laugh, Darren said, “No, I’m not thinking that.  Hell, I don’t want you to take my job before I get promoted myself or something, right?”

Albert laughed in turn, saying, “I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”

Darren kept smiling and he rose to his feet.  “Well,” he said, “I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little disappointed that it isn’t something I could do, too, and look and feel younger, but…I’m really glad that you’re feeling and doing better.  I know you’ve had a rough time, after splitting up with your wife, and you deserve a break.”

Albert was genuinely touched.  This made him again feel somewhat guilty, but not too badly, since he really had gone through quite a hard patch when his marriage had fallen apart.  “Thanks, Darren,” he said.

“Well, I’ll stop interrupting your work,” Darren said.  Then, as he was about to leave, he stopped and turned back, and asked, “Oh, by the way…people are obviously talking about how much…better you’re looking and everything.  Do you…is this medical thing a secret, like something you don’t want people to know about?  If it is, I’m happy to keep it.  I respect your privacy and confidentiality.  But people are likely to ask me, and I’d like to make sure I go the way you want.”

Albert suspected that people already had asked Darren, which might even have been the reason for the slightly odd conversation they were now having.  Feeling guilty still, Albert nevertheless thought some deception was probably the right thing to do.  He said, “You know what…if people ask, go ahead and tell them.  It’s not like I have anything to be ashamed of, it’s just a little embarrassing.  That way people don’t have to worry that I’ve…I don’t know, sold my soul to the devil or something.”

This comment seemed to strike Darren just the right way, for he broke out in an open laugh that turned a few nearby heads.  “Right,” he said after a moment, “we wouldn’t want that.  Okay, well, I’m not going to start calling meetings about it or making a big deal, but if people ask me, I’ll let them know.  And I’ll let them know not to pester you about it.”

“Thank you,” Albert said.  “I appreciate that.”  Darren left the area of his desk and Albert returned to a mostly normal work morning, only really noting, after that exchange, just how much easier work seemed to be to him lately than it had been in the past.

The rest of the morning passed more or less normally.  Albert continued to work, and now that Darren had called it to his attention, he realized that he was indeed pursuing his occupation with more energy than he thought would have been usual a few weeks earlier.  He wasn’t at all sure about the whole “human dynamo” thing—he wondered where Darren had even come by that expression—but he was finding his work easier and more enjoyable than he usually did.

He wondered just how many of the changes made by the V-42 were more than cosmetic.  If it really was composed of particles that were smaller than bacteria, as Walter had said, then it certainly could worm its way into his body, at least a little bit.  After all, it had to have done something along those lines to affect the color of his hair and its growth, not to mention suppressing or decreasing Walter’s allergies.  But if it did that sort of thing too much—thinking of allergies—he wondered if his immune system would start to react to it like an allergen.  There was no sign of anything like that happening so far, but he wondered if it could.

Of course, if the stuff was intelligent, as it seemed to be, maybe it could work around that.  If it could change his hair follicles, it could probably change his immune system.  He thought he really ought to find such an idea disturbing, but he found he did not.

At lunch time, he got a text from Walter.  It was short and to the point, reading, Hey, Albert.  Any news?

Albert’s stomach sank just a bit, and he tried hard to think about how to respond.  Finally, he decided to be noncommittal, replying, Not exactly.  I’m concerned there might be an issue, but I can’t really talk right now.

Despite Albert’s last statement, after only a few moments, Walter texted back, What do you mean?  Isn’t it working?  Did it not make more?

While Albert could understand Walter’s impatience with his vague answer, he was still irritated that his hint had not been taken.  He felt his lips tighten, and he tried not to let impatience born of anxiety dominate his response too much.  He was thankful for the sometimes vague nature of text messages, and he tried to keep things simple and not too cryptic, replying, Not exactly.  But I think there’s an issue.  I can’t talk right now.

Albert knew that would probably be slightly maddening from Walter’s point of view, but he really wasn’t ready to try to discuss it.  Maybe it would be better if he did say to Walter that it had simply stopped reproducing itself, that no more of the stuff had been made, but he didn’t want to deceive Walter any more than was necessary.  Walter had done him a real favor, including doing some very sophisticated testing, the nature of some of which Albert still only vaguely understood.  If it weren’t for Walter, Albert knew that he would probably still be puzzling over the effects he was seeing.  He wouldn’t have thought to test and see if the V-42 could reproduce itself, and he certainly wouldn’t have thought to try to communicate with it.

But now that he had confirmed that the shampoo didn’t want to do what Walter had in mind, he felt a bit caught between them.  He didn’t resent the shampoo’s reply.  After all, he wasn’t too sanguine about Walter’s idea in the first place.  But Walter was his friend, and he had gotten his hopes up.

Albert had always thought of Walter as more successful than he was himself, and that his job was surely more rewarding and interesting, but maybe it wasn’t.  Maybe being a research scientist for a big company was no sexier than doing any other job that turned into a routine after a while.  Certainly, it didn’t seem likely that anyone was going to get rich and famous doing it.  Probably the CEOs and other executives of such companies were not promoted from within the pool of scientists who worked there.  They probably were people who had gone to business school.  Maybe some of them went to law school.  Maybe some of them had just joined the right fraternities in college.

And, of course, Walter’s potential market, the celebrity set—models, actors, that sort of person—were definitely not usually people who had previously worked in science or technical fields.  Walter was one of the smartest people Albert knew, but that wasn’t going to make him extraordinarily successful, and it might not even make him financially stable in the modern world, with its mercenary sensibilities.

So Albert was not truly angry, though he was stressed a bit, when Walter texted, Can you call me after work, then?

Sure, Albert replied.  Not a problem.  Talk to you then.

Walter didn’t text back at that point.  Albert’s mental image of his friend was one of impatient and worried fuming over Albert’s refusal to talk for the moment, and it took away a lot of the pleasure of his lunch.