Bugs In The Valley

“So, did you fix nature?” I leaned over the stool at the bar.

“Excuse me?”

“Ethics class,” I said. Amaya stared at me blankly. “Stanford,” I continued, “you argued science for the greater good means editing genes to improve humanity, population control to preserve resources. Nature botched the job…”

“And we should fix it,” Amaya said, her expression still stoic. “Right, you called me a eugenicist.”

I smiled but she merely turned back to her drink. She had the same loner energy I remembered from college. I never saw her at parties, or academic clubs, never saw her date anyone. I’d see her walking alone, her head leaning slightly forward as if her mind was already at the destination. Amaya was the kind of beautiful that didn’t know she was, or didn’t care.

“You were right.” I motioned to the bartender for another drink. “If we have the resources to design a better world, then we should do it.”

“I’m always right,” she said without turning to me. I took my drink and went back to the table with my work team. I watched as Amaya remained at the bar alone the rest of the night. She didn’t use her phone, she didn’t read anything, she never even glanced back to see who else was in the bar. She just looked forward, finishing one drink after another.

When I said goodbye to the last of my friends, I went back to the bar.

“You work in the Valley?”

“Yes.”

“Yea, me too.” I waited for her to say more, but nothing. “Tech? Business?”

“Medical.”

“What company?”

“Can’t say.”

“I work in tech. Not R&D, but the business side. My team and I were celebrating tonight. We got driverless cars approved statewide.”

For the first time, she turned and looked at me. “I thought that program was dead.”

“It was.” I sat down on the stool and told her my strategies—reshape the conversation, get buy-in from politicians, override regulation, create some new laws, repeat.

“One day my work will be ready for the world,” she said. When she looked at me, it felt like she was taking all of me with her. Then she turned away and the feeling was gone. She signaled to the bartender and asked for her check. It was abrupt. “Good chatting.” She put down the cash and walked away.

Later that week I used my connections to figure out where she worked. When I discovered it was Gamelin, one of the most heavily invested medical labs in the Valley, I knew she was working on something big. A few weeks later, Amaya reached out to me.

I arrived at a local cafe and found her already seated. “I hear you’re the best and can get anything to the market.” I was pleased my reputation had caught her attention. “Join my team.”

“You haven’t told me what you do.”

“You have to say yes first.”

My success in the Valley was knowing when to jump.

I went through a series of background checks, non-disclosure agreements, and interviews. Once approved, Amaya asked me to