***
Sasha returned to her laboratory and walked over to her desk. She sat down in front of it, and grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil. She tapped the pencil against her lips as she tried to come up with a new special candy product for Garth to sell at his shop. Unable to come up with anything after half an hour, she grabbed a Pixie Stick from a jar of them sitting on her desk, opened it, and poured the sugary goodness into her mouth. She couldn’t allow herself to fall asleep until after she’d come up with an idea for Garth.
The elevator door opened and Charming entered the laboratory. He had a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with him and a glass of milk. “Sasha, my love, I made you some cookies. I thought you might be hungry.”
Sasha looked up and smiled at Charming. “Those cookies smell delicious. Thank you.”
Charming strode over and placed the plate of cookies and glass of milk on Sasha’s computer desk with a flourish. He looked over her shoulder at the pad of paper and saw that it was covered in question marks. “What are you working on this time, my love?”
“Hmm, I’m trying to come up with a special new candy product that Garth can sell at his candy shop.” Sasha explained in a pensive tone.
Charming frowned at the mention of that insufferable demon man! “For Garth? I see…well, I’m sure you’ll think of something. You are a genius. Perhaps, watching a little TV will give you some ideas.” The robot suggested keenly.
“That’s a great idea, Charming.” Sasha grabbed the remote and switched on her large flat screen TV that was sitting on one of the tables next to her computer desk. Sasha swiveled her chair to face the TV and began to channel surf. She looked at few candy commercials and pondered.
That’s when an Ice Breakers mint commercial came on. In the commercial a white, sparkly unicorn with a horn made out of ice was shown. Its coat had little blue sparkles on it. The unicorn was prancing and jumping across the screen while a funky pop song was playing in the background: “I am your confidence…right in two great mints.”
The unique commercial brought a smile to Sasha’s lips. She loved unicorns. She had one as a pet actually. “Ice Breakers…” Sasha recalled the old Ice Breakers gum commercials where people would be shown getting icy breath after chewing the gum. “That was false advertising…” She pouted. “I remember how disappointed I was when I chewed that gum and my breath didn’t turn icy.”
Light bulb. Sasha’s eyes widened as a sudden marvelous idea came to her. “That’s it!” Sasha stood up from her chair and made her way over to one of her worktables where she had two mysterious DNA samples displayed inside two domed glass containers.
One of the samples looked like a horn and the other a talon. When the first DNA sample had been combined with a cat’s DNA - the cat had gained fire-breathing abilities. When the second DNA sample had been combined with a dog’s DNA that dog that gained ice-breathing abilities. The horn had come from a fire-type demon, and the talon had come from an ice-type demon.
“What if I were to create a demon DNA-based chewing gum. The two types of gum would give people the ability to breathe fire and ice.” Sasha tapped her chin in thought. “It might be dangerous if the effects were long-lasting, however, so I’d have to alter the DNA to self-destruct in…let’s say five seconds.”
The mad scientist nodded to herself. “Yes, that’s excellent. Excellent.” She drummed the tips of her fingertips together. “Now, I just have to figure out how to make the DNA self-destruct in five seconds, and figure out how much DNA each gumball should contain.”
Sasha returned to her desk, grabbed a chocolate chip cookie, stuck it into her mouth, and began to come up with formulas and equations to produce the chewing gum. While she worked Charming skillfully massaged her sore shoulders.
Several hours later, Sasha had finished off the entire plate of cookies and by this time she’d come up with what she thought would be the perfect formula for the gum. “Eureka! I think I’ve got it! Buwhahaha!” The mad scientist cackled happily.
Charming applauded Sasha. “Well done, my love.”
“Don’t applaud me yet.” Sasha chided her robot boyfriend. “I still have to make the gum using this formula and the DNA, and see if it actually works. In theory, it will work…but we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“I know it will work. After all, you came up with it, my love.” Charming assured her. “And your genius has already been proven with my existence.”
Sasha smiled. “Thanks. How do you like your new upgrades? Does everything feel okay?”
Charming opened and closed his hand into a fist. “I don’t feel very different, but my brain can control all of my new weapons easily. Hopefully, I won’t have to use them to protect you though.”
“Indeed.” Sasha walked around her laboratory gathering all of the ingredients she’d need to make the gum, and the electronic appliances she’d have to use. She carried all of these supplies over to a free worktable.
Sasha then made her way over to the two demon DNA samples. She lifted the domed glass lid and with a pair of tweezers carefully harvested a small DNA sample from the demon horn. Sasha collected a DNA sample from the demon talon next. She took the two DNA samples over to her worktable, and prepared to replicate them in vitro.
Sasha put on her goggles and rubber gloves. “Alright, let’s make some very special gumballs!”
To replicate the DNA she used DNA polymerases isolated from cells, and artificial DNA primers to initiate DNA synthesis at known sequences in the demon DNA molecules. Sasha used a PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) a common laboratory technique that cyclically applies such artificial synthesis to amplify a specific DNA fragment from a pool of DNA. In this case, the coded DNA that contained the fire breathing and ice breathing abilities.
After she’d replicated enough DNA and manipulated it so that it would self-destruct in five seconds, Sasha started to make the chewing gum.
One more batch of chocolate chip cooks and about three massages later, she’d produced two different types of gumballs. A batch of red-colored gumballs that were supposed to give Sasha the ability to breath fire for five seconds, and a batch of blue-colored gumballs that were supposed to give Sasha the ability to produce an icy breath. The red-colored gumballs had a spicy cinnamon flavor and the blue gumballs had a cool mint flavor.
Sasha removed her goggles and looked at the gumballs with a critical eye. “Now, all that’s left is to have them tested to see if there are any adverse side effects.”
“Will you use one of your pets to test them?” Charming suggested logically.
Sasha frowned at this suggestion, however. “My pets…have been though enough. I’ll do it myself.” She grabbed a red gumball and plopped it into her mouth before Charming could stop her.
“Sasha! No, wait!” Charming cried out.
Too late.
Sasha chewed the gum and there was this strange tingling sensation inside of her mouth. It felt like she had a hot chili pepper inside of her mouth and then she felt the heat rising inside of her mouth. Sasha opened her mouth and breathed out. A short blast of flame came out of her mouth, and stopped after five seconds.
“It…worked.” Sasha exclaimed as she chewed the now normal chewing gum. “Haha! It actually worked! Yes! Garth will love this!” She did a quirky little victory dance.
Charming was looking at Sasha in concern. “Are you sure you’re alright? How’s the inside of your mouth? You’re not burned anywhere?”
Sasha shook her head. “Nope. The demon DNA makes me fireproof for five seconds.”
“I see. But the fire is real, right? That’s a little…dangerous. Don’t you think?” Charming questioned in a chiding tone.
“Alright! Now I’m going to try the icy breath one!” Sasha said, ignoring Charming’s concerns. Sasha took out the gum she’d been chewing and tossed it in the trash. She grabbed a blue gumball and plopped it into her mouth. She started to chew and felt a tingly sensation i
n her mouth. It felt like she was sucking on an ice cube that’d been covered in sugar.
The cold feeling began to rise inside of Sasha’s mouth, and then she opened her mouth and breathed out. An icy cloud of white and blue breath exited Sasha’s mouth. The mad scientist smiled triumphantly at Charming. “This one works too! Yes!”
“That’s…wonderful, my love.” Charming tried to smile, but it was difficult. He didn’t like Sasha using herself as a guinea pig one bit.
There was a glint in Sasha’s blue eyes. “Now, I just have to mass-produce these babies so that Garth can sell them in his store by tomorrow! Alright! Let’s do this!” She tugged on the tops of her rubber gloves.
Charming raised an eyebrow at Sasha. “You’re going to do this now? Shouldn’t you get some rest first? You’ve been working for hours on this experiment already. You never even changed out of your new outfit.”
“There’s no time to waste! There are only a few days left until Christmas. I’m doing this now.” Sasha declared as she began to rush around the lab and gather all of the needed ingredients to make more fire and ice gumballs.
“Garth Mackenzie.” Charming grit his teeth angrily as he watched Sasha running around the lab for his sake. I really hate that demon male.
“Charming, come over here and help me with this, please.” Sasha called out.
“Coming, my love.” The robot made his way over to Sasha and began to help her make the gum. Together they worked on mass-producing the gumballs and worked straight through the night.
Around three o’clock AM Sasha was half asleep and dozing at her worktable as she stirred a large bowl, which contained the chewing gum in its rubbery malleable form. She reached out dazedly to grab the final ingredient, picked it up, and tossed it into the bowl.
A loud boom rocked the laboratory.
“Sasha!” Charming exclaimed at the sound of the explosion. He’d been gathering more supplies for Sasha when it had happened. He exited the storage closet he was inside of, and ran over to the worktable where Sasha had been making gum. He found her covered in strange, sticky, rainbow-colored goop. “Sasha, my love, what happened?” Charming rushed up to Sasha, cupped her face in his hand, and peered into her eyes concernedly.
Sasha yawned sleepily. “I think I added the wrong ingredient to this last batch. Oops. I guess I’m tired. I think I’m just going to rest my eyes for a minute. Zzzz.” Sasha fell asleep and would have fallen to the floor if Charming hadn’t caught her in his arms.
The robot frowned as he took in Sasha’s appearance: her new outfit was absolutely ruined and her hair looked like she’d stuck her finger into an electrical socket.
“Garth Mackenzie better appreciate this.” Charming muttered darkly as he swooped Sasha up into his arms and carried her over to a futon that had been set up in the lab for when Sasha pulled an all-nighter.
Sasha’s collapse was partly his fault, Charming realized. He was the smart robot who was supposed to know about human limitations. But he’d let Sasha overwork herself, forgetting that, well, his Master, Creator, and love, Sasha, was human.
Charming opened and closed his mechanical hand thoughtfully as he stared down at it. He never grew tired, so he didn’t know what ‘getting tired’ felt like. Well, he’d run low on energy, but then he’d just plug himself into the wall and recharge, or go out into the sun and use solar power to recharge his internal power source. Human bodies were so inefficient, so flawed.
And yet…marvelous. Humans had souls. In 1901, Duncan MacDougall had scientifically proved the existence of the soul, and discovered that when a person died they lost twenty-one grams in weight. Those twenty-one grams was the weight of the soul that left the body.
Charming reached out and tucked a stray strand of pink hair behind Sasha’s ear in a tender gesture. To be human and to have a soul…I wonder what that would be like?
To be continued in…Candy 10: Dragon’s Breath