The history of the imaginary universe known as the Loop was stored in 620 terabytes of holographic memory; even now, twenty years later, it was safe and sound. To get to the lab, it was faster to take the New Line than the old subway system. Kaoru left the university hospital and headed for the station. He only walked for a few minutes, but by the time he boarded, his T-shirt was wet with perspiration. It being early afternoon, there were few passengers. As a result, the air conditioning cooled the air a little too efficiently for Kaoru. In no time, his T-shirt felt clammy and cold against his skin. He had a seat and took from his briefcase the stack of printouts he'd just gotten from his father, containing the entire base sequence of the MHC virus. The sequence consisted of the letters A, T, G, and C, representing the different varieties of nucleotides. He could, he knew, stare at it forever and it still wouldn't get him anywhere in particular. But he had nothing to do. If he'd had a paperback he'd be idly flipping through it right about now, but as it happened his briefcase contained nothing else to pass the time with.
