The Best of All Possible Worlds Page 3

  A good deal of progress in growth development had been made through the food industry, after all if a chicken, cow or fish could grow to maturity in half the natural time, much of the world’s food needs could be met with ease. Of course with a human, accelerated growth was only part of the problem…the easy part. What good would it do to have a fully grown adult human, but with the brain development of a child. Crane shook his head…things were progressing quickly…maybe too quickly, but up to this point D17’s intellectual growth seemed to be in sync with his physical growth. It was all very exciting and cutting edge. This was the time…right now, to be involved in genetic research. The world was changing, rapidly. It was a heady time for genetic scientists all over the world. Ever since Australian and Japanese researchers with the Suntory companies were able to genetically engineer a blue rose using CSIRO-developed RNAi[i] technology a new kind of race had begun, not a space-race this time but a genetics race, and this race was just as crucial for the United States to win if they wished to maintain their scientific dominance throughout the world.

  When Suntory successfully created a man-made ‘silencer’ gene that was able to switch off the gene controlling the color of the rose, so that it could be replaced with the blue pansy gene, the world had changed…utterly, though very few people around the world realized it at the time. Gene replacement promised endless human possibilities. It promised freedom from genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, to the possibility of slowing down or even possibly stopping the aging process all together. The breakthroughs in the last few years in Cryogen’s labs alone would be enough to shock the common man to his core and genomic research was now the most heavily funded scientific research in the entire world. Every developed nation in the world was racing to uncover the secrets to genetic engineering. The implications were staggering…far beyond what the simple Reverend Heyworth could possibly understand.

  Dr. Crane sighed and tried to explain.

  “The boy’s accelerated intellectual growth may not be able to be sustained. We will be able to understand the process better if we had several years in order to study him.”

  “A few years! You have no idea who D17 is!” Heyworth bellowed.

  “I know who you think he is,” Crane added, suddenly irritable. To him, the boy’s genetic beginnings were of no consequence, what mattered was first the gene mapping, which had now been proven successful, and the gene manipulation, the progress of which was still under scrutiny. It took years to pinpoint the genes which controlled aging and even longer to learn how to manipulate the code in order to control the process. D17’s accelerated growth both physically and mentally appeared to point toward success, but Crane was cautious like all good scientists. They still had to activate the designer gene which would turn off the accelerated growth. Such work was very delicate, and if they did not succeed the boy would literally die of old age within a few years. If they failed again…D17’s total life span would be no more than a decade.

  “You must give him and us a little time,” Crane continued. “In the end what will another year or two make?”

  Heyworth eyed Crane suspiciously, wondering if the man truly knew the identity of D17. It would be a shame to lose Dr. Ian Crane, but in these times such actions may become necessary. On the plus side, Crane’s death would mean he would no longer have to sneak about in order to spend quality time with Mrs. Rita Crane. Heyworth smiled. “You’re right of course. I’m just impatient. It’s an exciting time.”

  “That it is,” Crane agreed. “That it is.”

  †

  Adam Dawkins moved along the corridors of Cryogen Laboratories at a slow steady pace, diligently looking for anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t expect to find anything amiss and hadn’t in his entire two years on the job, but his long military training would not allow him to do any task half-heartedly. Before taking the job at Cryogen, Adam held the rank of Major in the Special Forces and served three tours early in his career, one in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. His involvement in both wars was still top secret nearly six years later.

  Up until three years ago Adam was career army, right up until the moment his wife Maggie and their eight year old son Galen died in a blink on the expressways of northern Virginia. Their death changed his life…completely. He carried on, went to work day after day, but he was an empty shell. Christine, his sister and only living relative, crossed the country three times in the first year to offer her support and love. Toward the end she implored Adam to come out west and start anew. He resisted at first, but in the end he had little choice. He had no chance for life in Virginia, so he sold his house, retired from the army and moved to New Mexico where his sister found him a job working security for Cryogen. He’d been walking the halls ever since, looking for anything suspicious and trying to push thoughts of Maggie and Galen to the recesses of his mind.

  “Adam! Hey Adam!” His sister shouted at him from behind. Adam recognized her voice instantly and turned. He was a bit surprised to see her walking about. Of course he was not surprised Christine was at Cryogen, for she was the senior biomedical engineer on the staff. What surprised him was that she was out of her own lab and roaming the halls. Adam rarely saw his sister away from the east wing where she normally worked.

  Adam frowned, but waited patiently for her to draw closer.

  “We still on for dinner?” She asked causing Adam’s frown to deepen; dinner plans were not nearly important enough to drag her out of her hole. He had dinner with his sister regularly, three times a week at the very least, so it was obvious that something was up.

  “Yes,” he answered, deciding to wait for her to reveal what she was truly after.

  “Good…Karen will be there.”

  Adam frowned again. Usually they ate alone but occasionally Karen, Christine’s fellow scientist and next door neighbor, would join them. Karen’s lab was up on the third floor. She worked under Dr. Erickson doing something with a plethora of rats that he couldn’t quite grasp. Christine and Karen both tried to explain it to him one night over several bottles of wine but in the end he just pretended to understand so they would quit harping on about it. They were both too smart for their own good, Christine always had been. When they were younger, her keen mind and smug know-it-all attitude just annoyed him, but now, as an adult, he found he truly enjoyed her company and liked to be with her…alone. Karen however, was finding convenient excuses to come over of late. Adam was beginning to think the two were conspiring against him and was not at all sure he liked the idea. Oh, Karen was attractive enough…and certainly smart enough, but Adam just had no interest in forming a relationship at the present time. And he was too much of a gentleman to play around, though few of Christine’s friends would have objected to a romantic dalliance…Karen included. Adam was tall, fit and from what he was told, exceedingly handsome.

  “It’ll be nice to see her again,” Adam lied.

  Christine scoffed. “Right…why I’m here…” she began, getting to the real reason for her travels. “You know him?” She asked and handed Adam a business card.

  ‘Military.” Adam thought even before he got a clear view. The card was all government…standard issue.

  Adam read the card. It was for a Colonel William T. Bradford, Department of Defense. Adam didn’t have to think about it; he knew the man, though not well. They’d met several times over state dinners in Washington. They even talked, though very briefly, and at the moment Adam could not recall the nature of the conversation.

  “We’ve met,” he told his sister. “Power broker…worked under General Stockton last I heard. Why?”

  Now it was Christine’s turn to frown. “He was just in the east wing. Came down and began asking a lot of questions about D17, even insisted on seeing him.”

  “And you let him in?” Adam asked, surprised. Christine, though small, was feisty, confident and very protective where D17 was concerned. He was her baby…so to speak.

  “He bullied Shirley; she l
et him in and then called me,” Christine explained. “When I got to the room he was just standing there staring at “D.”

  Adam smiled for the first time. “And what did the boy do?”

  “You know “D”. He was happy to see him,” Christine replied, obviously a bit miffed. “D” always acted happy to see visitors. It didn’t matter who walked into his room, the boy always acted the same, like the visitor was his oldest friend, someone he hadn’t seen for years and someone he missed terribly. “D’s” reaction did not vary whether it was a Colonel Bradford doing the visiting or if it was Christine’s third visit of the day, the greeting was always, always the same; unabashed happiness.

  “Did he ask him any questions?”

  Christine nodded. “He asked “D” if he could talk. But that was it and then he left. What do you think?”

  Adam remained thoughtful for a long moment while Christine waited patiently. It was something she’d always admired about her brother, his ability to remain quiet and take the time to think before blurting out an answer. Few people had the ability…herself included.

  “It can’t be good,” Adam finally said. “I believe it means the military is becoming interested in your work.”

  “That’s the conclusion I reached as well,” she replied. “But our research is already under the umbrella of the Department of Energy.” Her research was partially funded and very loosely supervised by the government.

  “Yes,” Adam continued, “but your work has obvious military applications.”

  Christine frowned again and Adam wondered how his brilliant sister could be so dense.

  “Grow a readymade army and have it mature in a third of the time…limitless soldiers…genetically engineered with certain enhanced traits.”

  Christine’s mouth dropped open. “The people would never go along with that…Congress would never sanction such a thing. It’s too much like cloning.” Technically the “D” series of experiments were not clones, though in the beginning their DNA was nearly identical to a previous human being…nearly identical but purposefully not exact…and no cells or organs were copied. D17 was an engineered organism that actually shared the DNA of two human subjects, just like any child born to man and woman. He was not a clone, not even close, but Christine doubted the layman would be able to appreciate the distinction.

  “Wouldn’t they?” Adam retorted. “Even if it meant never having to sacrifice America’s beloved sons and daughters again?”

  Christine grimaced and Adam reached out and touched her shoulder. “Chances are this will not affect your work directly. Bradford is most likely only interested in your results.”

  “I won’t have my research used to engineer armies of soldiers,” she replied adamantly.

  “You may not have a choice,” Adam added and they stared at one another for a long moment.

  †

  “Colonel Bradford to see you,” Ruth’s voice said over the intercom and Dr. Crane groaned inwardly.

  ‘Heyworth and Bradford on the same day. My karma must be bad,’ he thought but didn’t hesitate.

  “Send him in,” he told his receptionist and almost immediately the door to his office opened.

  “You’ve been holding out on me,” Bradford stated aggressively, moving quickly into the room until he hovered over the desk. Bradford was a large man and used his bulk consciously to intimidate other people.

  Crane leaned back in his chair instinctively. “How so?”

  “I’ve just visited your little experiment in the east wing,” Bradford explained, “seems the gene replacement therapy is finally a success…hell the boy can even talk.”

  Crane sighed. “The DOD is not strictly involved in Dawkins’ work,” he stated but Bradford wasn’t swayed.

  The Colonel smiled ominously. “I believe when you accepted the taxpayer’s money you agreed to full disclosure on all your findings…including the “D” series.”

  Crane frowned but before he could retort Bradford continued.

  “Regardless of your position, I’m bringing in a team to study the boy,” the Colonel announced.

  “A team?” Crane asked alarmed, his worst nightmare coming to fruition. Cryogen required vast sums of money to finance the many branches of genetic study currently being conducted within its laboratories and while private investors could support a portion of what was needed, only the federal government had the resources to truly back all the research. The computers required to study the human genome, by necessity, had to be extremely powerful and blindingly fast. The amount of information encoded with the human body was staggering. The human genome is comprised of all the information stored within one set of human chromosomes; such a small thing, a human chromosome, but each strand contains approximately 3 billion base pairs. The total length of DNA present in one adult human is equivalent to 67 round trips between the earth and the sun or over 12,453,383,800 miles.[ii] It was a mind numbing amount of information and without the help of fast, powerful computers mapping the human genome would be akin to walking on water.

  Bradford actually chuckled. “Don’t be too concerned. We aren’t here to requisition your labs. You’ve made some very impressive progress. You’re to be commended.”

  Crane actually had little fear that the feds would attempt to take over the labs since many of the current projects being studied would garner unwanted attention from the internally sponsored ELSI program. ELSI or the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications research program was the watchdog over the entire Human Genome Project and as its name indicated, the group studied the ethical, legal and social issues involved. Experimenting with human genes was tricky political business and at the moment Cryogen’s relationship to the federal government was black on black.

  No, the government might encourage and even support certain projects clandestinely, but Crane knew the sensitive nature of some of Cryogen’s work would keep even the most reckless government agencies at arm’s length. What Crane feared was government intervention in certain projects before they could be completed…the Dawkins project for instance. Currently the DOE did have the power to ignore, condone, or shut down any project they saw fit, and the more government authorities became involved with daily operations, the more likely it seemed to Crane that someone would object. For Cryogen to be successful, they had to maintain a certain autonomy from its investors, including the government.

  “Dr. Dawkins’ work is at a very delicate point. Her current sample, D17, is progressing nicely, but we have had setbacks before. It would not be wise to interfere at this juncture,” Crane stated and then waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “I want passive access for my team to study Dawkins’ research,” Bradford continued. “We believe it to be a matter of national security and of great military value.”

  Crane nodded. He could read between the lines. Leave it to the military to think in small…human terms. Dawkins’ research had far more sweeping implications than creating an army of genetically engineered soldiers.

  “I think that can be arranged,” Crane agreed tentatively though he knew Christine would not like the idea. Well, he was founder and chief administrator of the lab and Dawkins would just have to accept the fact, after all feeding information to the feds was not like giving up the entire project.

  “Oh, and the boy, he’ll have to be terminated,” Bradford added.

  Crane’s head shot up. “What do you mean?”

  “You know damn well what I mean,” Bradford answered. “Who is he anyway?”

  Crane shrugged. “As far as we know his DNA comes from a fourteenth century criminal.”

  Colonel Bradford stood and stared down at Crane for a very long moment. “Excuse me? A fourteenth century criminal…that’s the DNA you chose to work with genetically?” He asked, realizing he would never understand the mind of a scientist, any of them. Who could? All those he’d met were truly a brilliant group of utter idiots!

  Bradford shook his head in amazement. ‘The boy’s a complete wild car
d!’

  Crane nodded.

  “Terminate him!” Bradford insisted. In his judgment, the boy was simpleton in any case. Bradford didn’t care whether he could talk or not, even if he was only fourteen months old. The Colonel was accustomed to people responding to him in a certain way…even young people. Nearly everyone was intimidated or downright frightened by his size and serious demeanor, but not the boy. The boy acted like he was his goddamned long lost father or something. Happy as a lark to see him…kind of unnerving the way he was always smiling…and the look in his eye, like he was in love with him. The boy gave him the creeps.

  “He’s only equivalent to the age of ten in human years,” Crane responded growing angry. ‘The idiot grunt will ruin everything!’ He thought but took a deep calming breath before trying another tack.

  “Colonel, you have to understand, synchronization is the key, and it looks as if we finally solved the riddle. Right now, today, his physical and mental progress appears to be in sync as he ages, but there is no telling if it will continue up until maturity. If you terminate now we will just have to start fresh with a new subject…it will put us back several years.”

  “Years?” Bradford asked.

  Crane nodded. “Three or four at least, maybe more. We’ve performed extensive DNA alterations on the subject, where his original sample came from is of little consequence.”

  “If we supplied a new sample of DNA, how long before you could have it ready for therapy?”

  Crane frowned. It would take very little time at all, but something told him Bradford should not be made aware of this fact.

  “I’m not sure…depends on what you would like done…I would guess maybe six months.”

  “And how long before you will be sure the accelerated aging process is a success with the boy?”

  “Again years. We would have to tailor enzymes to specific genes and create new ones. D17 did not happen overnight, he’s an evolution of genetic science,” Crane answered, holding his breath. “Seventy-seven failures came before him. We need to continue this experiment to its conclusion if we are to learn all we can.”