While conventional computers were designed to implement one calculation very fast, their performance had always been limited to the number of transistors that could fit onto a single integrated-circuit silicon chip. Enter the biochemical supercomputer, an evolutionary leap up the technology ladder. Instead of using the binary system, which delineated either an on state assigned the value one or an off state assigned the value zero, a supercomputer used strands of encoded DNA that produced billions of potential solutions simultaneously, outperforming a trillion silicon chips combined.

The most sophisticated man-made creation ever conceived observed me from multiple angles—one camera within its sphere, the other cameras mounted along the domed ceiling.

My first impression of the machine I had designed and programmed, then deserted before its actual conception, was that GOLEM resembled a giant floating eyeball. At the center of its sphere was a black mass—a pupil-like object roughly the diameter of a basketball. Functioning like the nucleus of a cell, the porous gelatinous membrane was filled with adenosine-triphosphate (ATP), a substance used in human cells to transport chemical energy for metabolism.

There were no circuits in a biochemical supercomputer, no mechanical devices to plug in. Swirling inside the sphere’s enzyme elixir and occasionally through the porous surface of this eyeball-like object were tens of thousands of six-inch-long wire-thin strands. Composed of DNA, each of these twisted double-helix strands had the capacity to store billions of times more data than a silicon chip, all while using far less energy. Color-coded in unique combinations of bioluminescent lime green, phosphorescent orange, neon pink, and electric blue, these amino acid nucleotides continuously and would perpetually pass through the black mass’s semipermeable membrane. Each exit generated a tiny spark of electricity that powered tens of thousands of computations in a process that mimicked the chemical reactions which occur in human cells.

“So, the prodigal son returns to see his child.”

Monique DeFriend was dressed in a skintight royal-blue one-piece jumpsuit, the redhead’s physical attributes as clearly on display as the computer’s.

I turned to face my former supervisor, preparing myself for one of our usual verbal jousts. “GOLEM isn’t my child. I was one of thirty scientists who worked on it.”

“It was your design we selected for the DNA matrix, I’d say that makes you its father.”

“And I suppose you’re its mother?”

“Of course.”

“Did its birth leave stretch marks? I’m guessing yes.”

Monique’s hazel eyes danced, her smile frozen. “You’re here to ask me a question: Ask it and go.”

“Okay. Has GOLEM evolved to the point of independence?”

“Eisenbraun, you of all people should know that evolution involves long-term adaptations. GOLEM is learning, reorganizing its algorithmic solution strands, which grow microscopically longer each time they pass through its solution matrix. The greater the length of the strands, the more experience the computer acquires. I’d hardly call that evolving.”