Divine Artifact in a Scientific World-Chapter 77: Dinner and a wager (1)

"Jack! There you are. Right on time," said Professor Berkheimer as Jack approached the door of the restaurant. It was some kind of Eastern Fusion style restaurant named Chop Stewy.

"Professor Berkheimer, thanks again for inviting me."

"Please call me Mark, at least outside of class. Let’s head inside. Hopefully, none of the dead wood will complain too loudly about inviting you."

He wondered what Mark meant by "dead wood."

They entered, and Jack saw that all the tables had been rearranged to make two long tables. Mark lead Jack between the two tables, then stopped and turned to face the head of the table on the right.

Seated at the head was a dusky skinned woman of middle years, with wavy black hair, and an angular face.

She was a little on the heavy side, but not what Jack would consider fat, and her features were plain, but not ugly. However, despite her plain looks, she had a presence about her; she sat with her back straight, head held high, and her gaze was sharp.

His gut told him this was Doctor Satyarthi.

Most of the people seated at the two tables were men of various ages.

Scattered amongst the men were a few women, all of average appearance except one.

The woman seated directly to the left of Doctor Satyarthi was stunningly beautiful. Shoulder-length blond hair, pale white skin, startlingly blue eyes, and a face like a Norse goddess.

The man sitting next to her was handsome enough that Jack’s first impression was that she was his wife or girlfriend.

"Anjali, this is the young man I told you about, the one that identified the origin of your video the moment it started playing."

In a melodious and surprisingly deep voice, the woman at the head of the table gave Jack a piercing look and asked, "What was it about the video that let you identify it?"

She was testing him. He didn’t mind.

"The video showed the 5’TTTY-3 sequence from CRISPR interacting with thymine in the DNA. It looked similar to the diagram in your paper on CRISPR reliability issues."

It was a known problem that sometimes CRISPR would apply an edit to the wrong part of a genome. There were ways to mitigate the issue, but the problem limited CRISPR’s utility and meant it was not approved for direct human treatment.

Anjali asked him a few more questions, seeming more and more surprised with each answer he gave.

After the fifth question, she looked at the man sitting to her right, and said, "Robert, would you be a dear and relinquish your chair to young Jack here? I’d like to continue this conversation without getting a crick in my neck."

The man got up from his chair and, without even looking at Jack, stomped off toward the other end of the table. A few of the other people seated near the head of the table muttered in surprise.

"Please, Jack. Have a set, Join us."

As Jack sat, he noticed the Norse goddess giving him an appraising look and the man next to her frowned slightly.

After Jack sat, Anjali briefly rubbed her neck, then said, "Ah, that’s better. Now, tell me, young Jack, what do you think of my proposed solution to CRISPR reliability?"

"Which one?" he asked. "The one in your 2023 paper, or the one in your 2024 paper?"

"The latter, I’ve already proven that the former won’t work, that result will be published shortly."

"You’ll find that the latter solution doesn’t work either," he said without hesitation.

Unlike her, he could actually watch as the atoms danced during the CRISPR reaction and while he didn’t know the solution, he was certain that her proposal would not work. He even thought he knew how to explain why her solution would not work without revealing his unwarranted knowledge.

"Preposterous!" The man sitting next to the Norse goddess sounded indignant.

"I’ll admit you are surprisingly well read for someone your age, but it is simply preposterous for you to make such a bold claim. You, a wet behind the ears freshman, cannot possibly know what you are talking about. I’ll not stand by while you insult Doctor Satyarthi’s hard work and brilliant ideas."

Is this her lap dog? He’d seen these kinds of encounters in the occasional web novel he’d read, but he always thought such encounters were just there for the enjoyment of the readers.

He never expected to actually hear someone sounding so arrogantly indignant in real life. It was so surprising and reminiscent of those web novel scenes that he was half expecting the man to say something like, "My lady, please allow me to dispose of this trash," or something equally ridiculous.

Instead, Anjali said, "Now, now, Greg, no need to be defensive. I want to hear the boy’s reasoning."

Then she turned to him and asked, "Can you explain why you think my," she glanced at Greg, "brilliant idea won’t work?"

"Sure..." he explained why her idea would fail, but was careful to avoid revealing that he could actually watch atomic reactions.

As he spoke, Greg made increasingly loud sounds of indignation and disbelief, but the Norse goddess was looking at him with greater and greater interest.

Her looks were getting intense enough that they were actually starting to make him nervous. He also noticed that Anjali looked surprised and pleased.

Just as Jack finished, Greg yelled, "I think we’ve heard just about enough of your drivel. Anjali, how can you tolerate listening to this boy spout such nonsense?"

At that moment, Jack felt something tap the side of his foot.

He glanced down and saw Anjali holding her right hand under the table, where only he could see it. She gave him a thumb’s up, then pointed towards Greg, and made the sign for money, rubbing thumb and index finger together.

When he looked up at her, she turned her head and winked at him with her right eye, so that only he would see it. Almost immediately, he understood what she was trying to communicate.

The thumbs up meant she believed he was right, and the pointing at Greg and making the money sign meant she wanted Jack to make a bet with Greg.

He smiled and turned to Greg and said, "And what makes you think I’m wrong?"

"Not even the brightest doctoral students can understand a tenth of what Doctor Satyarthi writes, so there’s no way a snot-nosed brat like you could possibly understand her brilliant idea, let along ascertain its validity."

"Wanna bet?" he asked impishly.

"The arrogance. The impudence!"

"Nora, what do you think would be a reasonable wager between a collage freshman and a towering patron of the sciences."

When Anjali spoke, there wasn’t a hint of humor or ridicule in her tone, yet there was something about the way she said, "towering patron" that left Jack thinking she had no respect for Greg.

It also explained why the man was speaking the way he did. He wasn’t a scientist and probably understood very little of what he and Anjali had talked about. He was just a classic fanboy defending the ’honor’ of his cherished female scientist.

"Hmm," Nora tapped her lips with an index finger. "It should be something they each can afford, but should also be proportionate to their means. Something like, oh, I don’t know, say, all the cash in their wallet. Or donating ten percent of their wealth to a mutually agreed upon charity."

When Nora spoke, it was with a faint Frankonian accent.

Jack wondered, was Anjali trying to use Jack to trick Greg into donating more money to her research? He wasn’t happy with the idea of being used. He also didn’t want to let Greg escape unscathed.

As he thought about alternative wagers, he remembered that as he was walking through the parking lot, he’d spotted a Maybach S680 parked near the restaurant. He suspected it this was Greg’s car. Who else there could afford it? What with them all being university employees.

"Or," interjected Jack, "The cars we used to drive here tonight."

"Why would I want your rusted-"

"Brand new Land cruiser? Fully paid off, no loan."

"Oh, well, in that case, I’m willing to make such a wager. As they say, a fool and his money are soon parted."

Half the people in the room suddenly had fits of coughing, but Greg didn’t seem to notice.

"So, I wager my Land cruiser that Doctor Satyarthi’s latest idea will prove wrong and you wager your..."

"Maybach S680," Greg said proudly.

"Maybach, that Doctor Satyarthi’s latest idea will prove correct."

"And witnessed," added Nora. Then she turned to Anjali. "Doctor Satyarthi?"

The entire time, Anjali’s face had remained inscrutable. But when Nora prompted her, she turned to Greg and asked, "Are you sure you are willing to commit to this wager?"

"Yes, I am a man of my word. Once I give it, I always keep it."

"Very well," she said seriously. "What only a few people in this room know is that I have been testing that very theory. And the video young Jack saw in his chemistry class today is a small snippet of the result from a simulation run we completed just a few days ago."

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