The Biodome Chronicles

Fax Transmission

From: Biodome I, Hopewell, New Mexico Ecoday 2

Dear roomie:

How they hanging, Pincus, you old dorkface?

Inside the Biodome at last! I still can't believe it. Out of 32,917 applicants, they pick Hairy Larry Sherbrook of U. of South Idaho for the crew of the high-tech, self-sustaining ecosystem of the future, as Dr. Riger calls it. (He's our co-captain, our analytical systems officer and the oldest bionaut--by about a century and a half. Hope the guy loosens up or it could be a long two years.)

You still pissed at me? I can't really blame you, Pine. Hey, you're the genius biochem major and I'm the jock, and you know I applied only because you did. I'm sure there had to be some kind of computer glitch. But whatever it was, I forgive you for calling me a lousy brain-dead backstabbing creep and heaving my boom box through the window. You just got slightly deranged, so no hard feelings. Could happen to anybody.

Anyway, yesterday we marched inside to John Denver tapes (ewww!), all ten of us looking good in our dress jumpsuits, and there was more cheering than at the Utah Tech game. Everything feels moist and green in here, even the air. We each have our own Bio-capsule in the Human Habitat and mine's really great, except for the Visitor Interactivity Notch (that's biobabble for window), where tourists videotape me picking my nose. But I guess I can stand it if they can.

One of the six biomes--the artificial environments we work in?--is a little ocean. That's right, 25 feet deep, with real fish, mechanically driven waves, plus--get ready to retch from jealousy--a beach! Better believe I'll be catching many rays. It's only ten minutes from my hab--in fact, everything is. Dome sweet dome!

Also better believe I'm checking out the biobabe population. None of the five's exactly Kim Basinger, but Li Yiu--she's our wetlands expert from Taiwan--is semicute. After we all passed through the air lock and they officially sealed us in, I go, "Don't worry, babe, I smuggled in a six-pack in my shorts." She gives me this icy look and says, "You're a rare specimen." Girl's playing hard to get, Pinc, but I can tell she's hot for the Sherbster. I give her a week.

Hey, buddy, modem me a fax or something. I may be locked in a glass bubble, but we got communication gizmos up the wazoo! Old E. P. Bozell, our weird biozillionaire founder, went deep pocket on his little ecotoy here. Like $165 million worth.

Interactivity & Kisses, Lar

•

Ecoday 94 Dear roomie:

Is it three months already? Man, the time is roaring by. You see, I have been engaging in many stimulating ecosynergistic activities. Yeah, right. Actually, what I'm doing is working my butt off.

Every morning at 6:30, right after Biocouncil, we head for the agri biome. Course, you know that everything we eat in the Biodome we grow ourselves, right? Well, when they told us in orientation about "maintaining a totally self-contained life-support biosystem," it sounded super space-age. Know what it really meant? Slaving in the fields!

Problem is, my nine little biopals are all specialists. So we're like weeding the squash? And Carl Radley says, "Oh, I gotta go see if my fruit bats are breeding." And Mona Kefauver goes, "Gee, I gotta check on whether my ocotillo shrubs are aggressing into an alien biome." Pretty soon, I'm the only one singing ee-i-ee-i-oh.

"What am I, ecoserf?" I scream.

So Riger pats me on the back and says, "Nutrient support is our most vital mission, Larry." Then he says he's gotta make his daily co-captain inspection round and he's gone. Mostly he seems to inspect the marsh biome (your basic swamp), where Li Yiu works. This keeps up, Pine, my ecofist may need to interface widi his biomouth.

All this toil has really cut into my beach time, but that's OK because lately the water smells kind of like cat litter. I mentioned it to Todd Glaberson, Mr. Ocean, but he copped an attitude and said it was just a simple matter of algae adjustment and none of my concern. Dude's a little intense, if you ask me. Yesterday he gets in Carol Parr's face and says, "Hey, your damn lemurs are throwing guava rinds into my lagoon and threatening the integrity of my fragile coral reef." So she yells, "Are not!" Pretty soon it's Battle of the Nerds and I gotta jump between them to avert bloodshed. I mean, total grade school!

So how's things at oldUSI? You been expelled or what? C'mon, drop a line.

Your pal, Larry, Man of Science

•

Ecoday 156, Dear roomie:

Whoooo! Slap me five! Eeehooooo! Finally, some bionookie for ecoserf! And I didn't even have to play my Megadeth tapes. No, not Li Yiu. Swamp Gal is practically married to that geek Riger, though they're trying to hide it for some reason. Maybe the 85-year age difference.

No, I was in the medical hab, stripped down for my monthly physical (face it, Sherbrook, you're a lab rat), and Marcy G. Fenton, our mediconaut, tells me, "Look, keep this confidential, but we need to measure stress levels during copulative spasm." I'm like, What? But she starts pasting sensors all over me and next thing I know we're thrashing around on the treatment table like we're starring in Basic Instinct.

It was unbelievable, Pine. Two minutes later it's all over and Fenton's back in her whites, jotting down readings off instruments and telling me to suit up, like all I got was my blood pressure checked. "Hey," I say, "how'd I register on the dickometer?" She says, "Oh, grow up, Sherbrook. It's just research."

God, I love research.

Larry

P.S. My job situation's much better. I made a big stink in Biocouncil about being stuck in the fields, so we took a vote and I won. Now I get to recycle human and animal waste.

•

Ecoday 224, Dear roomie:

Hope everything's OK with you, Pincus, and I wish you'd get off your high horse and answer my faxes. For a bright guy, you always were a self-righteous stiff.

Biodome-wise, we're having our second HSM--high stress month--in a row. Lotta conflict-resolution sessions going on.

Everybody's lost 20 or 30 pounds. Seems we had a mite infestation (we bionauts don't believe in bug spray--in fact, that's our religion) and the bean and peanut crops crashed, so rations are low. Our diet is more nutrient rich and low cal than ever, which is great if you happen to like sorghum and papaya sandwiches.

The hummingbirds have gone deranged. They fly up too high, slam into the glass and--splat!

Marcy G. Fenton hasn't even looked at me since we had research. I mentioned it to Carl Radley and he goes, "Yeah, this month I was the research assistant."

Had our first emergency. Li Yiu left the Biodome for a week. Mission Control's telling the media it was a gastrointestinal problem, but between you and me, Pinco, Riger's not as old as he looks. And word is, on her way back Li smuggled in a duffelful of Mars bars.

Glaberson's weirder than ever. His poor ocean looks like the world's biggest dish of rancid lime jello, and the more he putters, the gloppier it gets. The gunk has seeped into Li Yiu's marsh system and now her catfish are glowing. Everyone was bitching at Glaberson in Biocouncil. Suddenly, he starts screaming, "Do not trifle with Poseidon's domain!" and stomps out of the room, and nobody sees him for three days.

Then yesterday Carol Parr's studying carpenter bee pollination patterns when--boo!--Glaberson jumps out from behind a bush, naked and howling. Today I found five pygmy goat heads arranged on the beach in a semicircle. Now Riger's in a big powwow with Mission Control about what to do. (This stuff is totally hush-hush, so keep a lid on, huh? The media would love to crucify us.)

Not much action on the babe front. I got Pam Bowles--she's quiet and mostly keeps to her Antarctic biome--to go on a moonlight stroll on the glacier. Just when I shoo the goddamn penguins away and make my move, she lets out a yell. Some tourists were camcording us through a viewing notch and Pam spooked and took off. Well, I gave the goofballs the show they wanted--a full moon in extreme closeup. Bad PR, great cinema.

Be good, Lar

•

Ecoticotico, Roomie-woomie:

I am biofaced, Pincus, you asshole, totally, synergistically polluted.

Ya ha!

Brewed me up a vat of papaya wine in the lab today, got megawrecked and decided it was time for the Senior Ecoprom. I got Prince pumping across (concluded on page 150)Biodome Chronicles(continued from base 112) four or five biomes and soon half the nauts are partying down at the beach. Some dickhead announced he could walk on the ocean--oh, yeah, it was me--but about ten yards out I sank slowly into the slimy sludge (say that three times fast) and it took four nauts to pull me clear.

Then I hear a gasp and turn around to see Glaberson--buck naked and covered with war paint--carrying off Li Yiu. We chased him but the loon disappeared into the rain forest yelling, "Poseidon's revenge!" and "Death to mortals!"

Hey, I'm no security expert, but I think we have a serious discipline problem on our hands.

OK, so then John Wayne Riger rounds up a posse (everybody), arms us with hoes and scythes and leads us into the boonies. Very confident, very determined. Ten minutes later, we're tear-assing back to the hab in blind panic, and Riger's got a homemade arrow sticking out of his butt.

Me, I was making good time till an acacia tree impacted negatively on my face. I'm on my back, stunned, when I hear a noise and look up in the branches and here's this big-eyed mama lemur with a baby on its back staring down at me. Jeez--a sign of hope! An affirmation of life! "Hey, everybody," I yell, "the primates are reproducing! Biodome works!"

This may sound corny, Pine, but as I got up and staggered back to the hab, bleeding, weeping and hurling, I felt this weird surge of optimism. I felt that, despite all our problems, maybe Biodome I points toward a bright new future for our beleaguered species on this bruised old planet hurtling through the black vastness of interstellar space.

Or maybe it's that I'm just as drunk as a boiled owl.

Anyway, now I'm sitting here catching up on my mail and feeling real good. The temperature is dropping fast, a vomitous green ooze is coming out of the rain sprinklers all over the Biodome and smoke is rising in the rain forest. We're worried Glaberson may have sabotaged the main computer. But he won't be bugging us much longer. A state police SWAT team showed up and their guys are posted at all the Visitor Interactivity Notches. (They can't come inside or it invalidates the whole experiment.)

Soon as one gets a clear shot, or so the buzz goes, Glaberson will be composted and recycled into the ecosystem--like all organic material in the Biodome.

You know, Pink Ass, this sulk-a-thon of yours is so juvenile. A guy less easygoing than me might take it personally. OK, so I put my name on your application. Hey, I'm sorry, all right? I was a little faced, that's all. Can't you take a joke?

Gotta run, Pine. Marcy G. Fenton asked me to bring some papaya punch over to Medical--strictly for lab analysis, of course. Damn, now I'll probably be up all night doing research.

C'mon, you pinhead, lighten up!

Your bosom bud, Lar