It was Friday evening and Sean was slouching in bed, immersed in a gripping novel, when a soft knock on his door interrupted him. 

"C'mon in," he mumbled surprised as Winona Cook walked in, since his parents rarely visited his loft bedroom, "Hi, mom."

"Hi, Sean," his mom smiled, her eyes sweeping round his room, ready to catalog any and all instances of disarray.

She paused puzzled, "Why are you wearing latex gloves and reading a book?"

"Oh... these, uh," Sean fumbled, holding up the book, "it's a crime novel. I was just trying to get into the spirit of it... by wearing gloves... you know."

While Sean's touch-scan ability was handy for cramming study books, it was a massive spoiler for  works of popular fiction. He had solved that by using gloves to suppress his ability and preserve the suspense, though gloves hindered his ability to turn the pages. He hated lying to his mother, but a curious reluctance held him back from full disclosure. Did it say something about his relationships that he was willing to confide only in Mei-Ling but not his parents?

"Okaaay," his mom gave him a bemused look, then smiled, "anyway the reason I came up here... I was at the PTA meeting with your teachers."

"And?" Sean asked warily.

"You never told me you tested out of all your basic subjects, Sean!" Winona exclaimed, cupping his face in both her hands, "and moved on to college prep AP track, no less. You've finally done what I've been asking you to do since 9th grade. I'm so proud."

"Unhhh," Sean extricated himself from his mom's formidable grip, feeling a warm glow of pride mixed in equal parts with guilt. He hadn't really earned her praise, since his new power made effort of will and hard work unnecessary for learning. It was normal students who deserved praise, the ones who had put in metaphorical blood, sweat and tears. But, when was the last time his mother had been proud of him? Sure, she told him that all the time, but kids were smart enough to know when their parents really meant it. Sean resolved never to reveal his secret and risk losing his mom's admiration, undeserved though it may be.

His mom was looking around his room again, confused, "Wait... is that a printer? But you don't have one. And what are all those test tubes doing there?"

A large cuboid sat humming on Sean's desk, hooked up to his PC through a USB cable, its LED touch screen glowing blue. It did look very much like a printer. A rack of half-filled test tubes sat next to it.

"That's not a printer," clarified Sean, "it's a DNA amplifier than accelerates DNA growth by cycling temperature. Borrowed it from someone at school."

"What are you doing with it?" Winona asked , "Science project?"

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"Working out a textbook computer science problem," Sean explained absently, and continued as his mom looked more confused, "called the travelling salesman problem. Suppose you want to find the shortest route that passes through all major cities. Sounds simple, right? We wouldn't touch a given city more than once. All we need to do is try out the combinations and pick the shortest one, right? But the number of combinations increases very rapidly for more than a handful of cities. Would take a computer forever to sort through it all. Some smart fellow realized you could encode the distances between cities as DNA fragments, and let the millions of different fragments react and combine into all possible solutions. Then pick the shortest DNA string. Easier said than done, of course. Like picking a needle from haystack."

"Kids, they grow up so fast..." Winona shook her head, smiling at her son, "anyway, too bad you can't just hook up a printer to this DNA stuff and print out the answer."

Sean gaped in surprise. What if he could deposit the DNA strings onto paper and simply read it using his touch-scan ability? What counted as readable text on cellulose sheet? It was an oddly specific ability. Stupidly specific. One constraint was he had to understand what was on the page. That much he had tested by touching a French book to no effect. But how tiny could the print be? Did it have to be naked-eye visible? What if he looked at the DNA fragments through a microscope and learned to interpret it? Would his power then work with DNA-on-paper? Definitely worth looking into. The hardest part of DNA computing was reading the results. What if he was uniquely enabled to leap frog over that hurdle? 

 "Something wrong?" Winona frowned.

"No, mom," Sean smiled, "you just gave me an idea. Oh... by the way, I've been invited to a birthday party at the Fuller residence tomorrow. Is it OK if I go?"

"The Fullers?" Winona blinked in surprise, "Of course you can go. I'm so glad to see you getting along with the Fuller boy."

"Jason didn't invite me," Sean seemed embarrased, "His sister Judith did."

"His sister?" Winona gave an odd look, "I didn't know she was your friend. Well... we need to go shopping at the mall . Get ready. Can't have you showing up at the Fullers' place in an old T-shirt."

"Mom," Sean groaned, "My T-shirts are perfectly fine. So... you really don't mind me going?"

"Why would I mind..." Winona frowned, and then sighed, "Oh, Sean. You aren't still brooding about your dad's ex-employer, are you? That had nothing to do with you."

Sean had much anticipated the summer before seventh grade. Dad had been an avionics engineer in the helicopter division of Fuller Dynamics, and the family had been saving up for a fancy vacation at Lake Louise in Banff. The week before end of school year, Fuller Rotor Division had been sold-off to Boeing which promptly fired a quarter of the workforce from its new acquisition. Sean's dad had been one of those let go. Sean's long anticipated vacation was shelved as his mom took a bank job to support the family while his dad looked for work. After that, his dad had drifted through a series of contract jobs but never managed to find full time employment again. It was the beginning of the rift between his parents, the summer of their discontent.

When Sean had gone back to school, the other kids had asked about the vacation he had bragged so much about. And Jason Fuller had joked about Sean's family being cheapskates. Something had broken inside Sean that day, and he had reciprocated by giving Jason a bloody nose. In hindsight, Jason had probably meant no offence and most likely been unaware of Sean's troubles. But Sean had resented the Fullers since then, for the turn for the worse that his life had taken.

END OF CHAPTER