Larissa Lai

It has taken me almost four weeks oflate nights and taxed my mochaccinomachine to the limits. But Mira isready. She began as a prototype forFreshCleanse’s Liver Replacement line,but her capacity for toxin decompositionwas weaker than that of the liver McDowellHill came up with in the cubicle next tomine. (What’s with people who have lastnames for first names? It’s so tacky.) Forwhatever reason, the Boss Man likedMackie’s design better, and so Mira fell tothe waste heap of Great Inventions That Dieon the Drawing Board.

To be honest, I felt quite despondentabout it. It wasn’t just a blow to the ego, I’mused to those. It was more that … well, therewas something about Mira, a kind of beauty,extraordinary really. Something poignantabout her lines, something tender and sadabout her soft, brown-grey texture. Thefact that she would never go into pro-duction threw me into a bit of a funk.

It took me a few days to realize thatthis wasn’t something I would just getover, as I have with countless otherdesigns. By the fourth day, even after twomochaccinos and a double dose of Beverly,my despondency seemed worse. I phoned insick and went back to bed. My doctor hadexpressly told me how careful I had to be withBeverly.“This generation of antidepressantsis more precise but also much more potentthan what you’re probably used to,” she toldme, “so you have to watch your dosage verycarefully.”Whatever. It was too late now any-way. I closed my eyes. Halfway between sleepand waking, I thought I saw Mira slip inbeside me, larger than life, pillowy soft and alittle slippery, in a smooth, sleek sort of way. Ireached out to caress an elegant fluke. It wasalmost comforting.

A ringing phone woke me at four in theafternoon. It was McDowell Hill.“You betterget down here right away,”he said.“The bossdoesn’t care how sick you are. That weirdliver you designed — it’s jumped protocolsand has infected the mainframe.We’re losingthousands of hours of R&D with everyminute that passes. You better get yourpathetic, depressed butt down here ASAP.”For a minute I thought: ‘Who cares, yousmarmy creep. I hope Mira burns the wholeoperation down.’ But then I’d be out of a job. I got my pathetic, depressed butt downto the office.

The place was in chaos.The Tech Supportboys were mousing as fast as their caffeine-pumped little hands could move, jibing and

You know,I’m not sure she’s entirely stable.”“Anna was born here,”the Boss Man said.“Damn right,” I said, by way of letting

them know I’d been there behind them listening. Mackie turned, and shot me theevil eye.

“Can you fix this, Anna?” asked the Boss Man.

I pushed Mackie out of the way and slidinto my seat. “That’s the thing about organ-ics,”I said.“They aren’t static.They do things.They mutate.”

“We need better firewalls,”Mackie said.I didn’t fix anything. It was more like, I

appealed to Mira. I coaxed her gently with afew smatterings of code. I showed her the initial lines of a heart I was working on. Mirareturned to her original storage location.Shespat back most of the information she’ddevoured on her rampage. It wasn’t all in thecorrect order, and some of it had been cor-rupted, but it was pretty much all there. Itwould keep Tech Support busy for a week ortwo. I went back home to my depression,wondering if Mira was depressed too.

When I got back to my apartment, mycomputer was on.Mira was floating back and

forth across the screen like a prettybrown-grey fish in an aquarium. I don’tknow how she got from FreshCleanse tohere, but I suppose such things are rela-tively easy these days. I opened her upand began the modifications. I made hera little larger. I cribbed some slug pro-gramming off a biologist’s website to giveher underside motility. To give her eyesseemed too strange somehow. Antennaelooked better. I altered her coloration justslightly to give her an attractive iridescentsheen. It’s taken me a few weeks, but nowshe is finally ready to print. What’s wrongwith the print function? Never mind, I’lljust try it again. There we go. Hello, Mira!She tumbles gracefully from the printer

and slithers across my office floor.Oops. Must have pressed ‘print’

twice. Hello, Mira Two! … Oh no,something is wrong. Anotherflap of liver emerges from theprinter. She’s cute. I can man-age three. Here comes another.

Am I in some kind of trouble? I’ll let it go to 12 before I call

Tech Support. ■

Larissa Lai is the author of two novels, Salt Fish Girl (Thomas Allen, 2002) and When Fox Is aThousand (Press Gang, 1995; Arsenal Pulp Press,2004). She has an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia and is currentlycompleting a PhD in English at the University of Calgary.

futures

940 NATURE | VOL 434 | 14 APRIL 2005 | www.nature.com/nature

I love liver: a romance

JAC

EY

sniping at oneanother the whole time. Ifound McDowell and the Boss Manat my cubicle, rifling furiously through mypassword-protected files with brazenimpunity. Who needs this job? I thought. “Idon’t understand how a liver design can goviral like that,”the Boss Man was saying.

“Over-rationalization,” said Mackie.“The protocols are too close. And that wasone weird little liver Anna designed. That’swhat you get for hiring these foreigners.

A design for life.

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