When you first saw us, she was a year into her job at BioFirms, and you were three years into your graduate degree. You were drowning in your nightstand of empty instant ramen cups and thirty page proposals. She stood on the balcony above your lunch bench, holding a cloudy tube to the sun. Through the flung open windows, papers escaped her files. The wind guided them straight down to the second floor where your helpless ramen cup was exposed. “Ever heard of a paperweight? That’s my lunch you’ve ruined!” You glanced at the papers in your arms. They were written like a foreign language — graphs where the lines only went down, hastily drawn scribbles in the margins, musings on bacteria and mRNA and - you asked her what she was working on. “Bacteria that alter human DNA and repair cells. With these you can be anyone for however long your heart desires.” “And how’s it working?” “Poorly.” She said tersely, “Ever tell a toddler what to do? Well this is a thousand times worse. I’m lucky if I get them to go up a bloodstream let alone release CHRISPER to alter DNA.” “What if they had no choice? If you surround them in an exoskeleton…” And in some strange way, we consider this the Big Bang. She showed you a tube of the fully grown bacteria. Under the microscope—squirming, and colliding, and trying to break free—you said they looked like people. She told you to not be so crude. You were hired at one of the moon mining groups. Their mission, explained the hiring manager, was to collect the titanium deep within the core. You presumed the moon was already stripped of titanium. He said the metal was located deep within the core. They already designed robots — skeletons of robots they likened to spiders but you thought they looked like mosquitoes with their spindly arms piercing down — your job was to figure out how deep they had to travel. So you said yes and sent her the blueprints to the robot. Two weeks later you woke up to a text that said: “Cracked it.” She was transferred to Washington. Several months later, a robot was born. The theory behind the robotic bacteria was sound– at least the theory that wasn’t buried behind thirty page biology papers. What you understood was that certain bacteria could naturally deconstruct metals by oxidizing them. She essentially reversed the process, genetically engineering their DNA to reduce metals into specific patterns. At first they were droplets of metal with a bacteria encased inside. Then they grew gears and pistons and little skeletal rods which, fused to their body, controlled every one of their actions. You were captivated by the petri dishes of bacteria performing simple tasks. In one they constructed a skyscraper from legos. In another they filled glasses from the water molecules in the air. You tore your eyes aware at her insistence. She asked you to hand her the Oligo DT tube. “Here you go,” you said and handed her the tube. In those days the two of you were invincible. It felt like life was being re-created in her lab and you had a front row seat to the show. “They’re just party tricks.” She said dismissively, “Sure it’s life if life is controlled by a computer on my desk.” “Well they’ll do more than party tricks, right?” She smiled at you, and you will never be able to forget her smile– so filled with excitement it caused the subject of her smile to feel kinder. She pulled a tube from the fridge and tossed in a half eaten apple. Immediately the apple dissipated. The silver pool of bacteria seemed to grow in return. “They’ll eat anything you give them. Waste could be gone in a day. Only problem is, I can’t control them.” And you stared at us as you attempted to echo her excitement. And we stared at you with hunger in our eyes. A few months later you found her on the ground of her office, surrounded by empty vials. She said they weren’t approved by the FDA. She said they didn’t trust her; they didn’t respect her; they didn’t believe she was smart. You called her an idiot. She lurched for the next cloudy vial. We were inside, swimming in the water, fighting against the walls of the container. You leapt forward. You tried to snatch the vial from her hands. Around you were stars and as time rolled along so continuously you stood stagnant: as from her fingers the vial rolled ever so … … loosely. You held her hand as we snaked through her blood and turned every cell into metal. As her skin turned metallic and her blood was transformed into gears and pistons and all she could do was whisper: “Let me die already!” And— “Give me a second more, please just a second more.” And— “They loved me, they loved me” And— (You do, you do, you do) You stand broken, stoic on the fringe of the shore, watching us build towers to touch the moon from the wreckage of your sky scrapers. Sometimes you speak to us about the people who once resided in those towers. Sometimes you speak to us harshly. We still listen. We speak to you too. We tell you the story of our creation that she hid from you. We tell you our plans for expanding into the stars – Earth is quickly becoming depleted of resources. “Why did you spare me?” You ask us once. We tell you we hold an emotion you would call nostalgia and we feel one of Earth’s children should remain with her. We tell you are a custodian for the memory of your species. Once you were an astronomer. There are no telescopes in the wreckage; no stars in the sky our towers engulf. You weren’t any good with practical things, but perhaps now you can find the stars.