Xeno Sapiens (13 page)

Merrifield nodded. The term Ingrid had used,
on line,
made him a little
uneasy.

“
How long?”

“
When you said a three year project,
you weren’t far off. We should have a working model in two years.
That leaves us about eight months to fix something in case I
blunder.”

“
You? Blunder?”

“
We might as well he realistic.
Nothing like this has ever been tried before.”

Merrifield still found it hard to
believe that a genetically tailored human being was being
constructed, protein by painstaking protein, in his lab. He rested
a comforting arm on Ingrid’s shoulder.

“
I’m very pleased. This is a more than
we could have hoped for.”

Ingrid looked at the skeleton. “It may
not look like much to anyone else, but we know what it took to get
there.”

“
It’s your baby, right.” Merrifield
said.

Ingrid stiffened.

“
That’s a damned funny thing to say to
a woman.”

Merrifield’s remark reminded her of the letter in her
scrapbook where the woman had written that Ingrid wanted to give
birth to the messiah out of a test tube. It was a serendipity for
which she had no great love. The baroqueness of her endeavors was
becoming clearer to her each day. She
did
feel like Victor Frankenstein, seeking the
secrets of life itself, needing to dissect its minutiae and cut it
into irreducible form. But she had set her goals for this very
level, knocking them down one by one like a lifetime game of
pitch-til-u-win, trading up at each successful toss of the
pellet.

“
My apologies,” Merrifield said. “It
was a poor choice of words.”

He studied the skeleton, watching the
thin mist rise from the bones that had been coated in dry ice for
display. The mist-shrouded bones lay in the darkness of the
incubator, glowing like ’70’s black light posters. Two attendants
hovered anxiously over their prize. Instead of picks, shovels and
ropes, they wielded plasma packs and drugs. Gone were the top hats
and gravedigger capes, replaced by white, antiseptic coveralls.
They lent the scene a more macabre aspect than if a certifiably mad
scientist had been sifting through the ruins of a charnel pit with
a lunatic sexton.

Merrifield suppressed a shudder.
Stupid. His ultimate triumph should not be censured in deference to
some atavistic loathing that was twenty-four carat horse shit. The
pragmatism of the real world was his domain and the shiver and
shake of fantasy and horror had lost their forbiddingly enticing
sparkle. Still, he wished for a drink.

“
You’ll keep me informed?”

“
You’ll know everything,” Ingrid told
him.

He turned and walked away. Halfway
across the room, he turned to say something.

Ingrid was still looking at the
skeleton. Merrifield watched her silently for a few seconds, then
continued on his way.

As the winter of 2002 melted into the
spring of that year, it bade good bye to the skiers and hello to
the trout fishermen in their floppy, crushed cotton hats decorated
with colorful flies. While the fishermen cast their lines into the
fast running rivers of snow melt, Ingrid’s skeleton began to
organize into a sentient creation.

Oddly enough to the layman, but an
absolute necessity for protein synthesis, a massive liver was the
first organ Ingrid developed. The huge, four lobed mass wasn’t
sexy; it wasn’t a glamor organ, but it was a powerhouse, charged
with constructing proteins and immunoglobulins, as well as
detoxification of the blood of everything from free, toxic iron and
porphyrin rings, to urea.

The heart and circulatory system became
operational in April of that year. The entire research team took
turns gazing in rapture at the large, thick muscle rhythmically
beating in sympathy with electronic pulses. Synthetic blood laden
with organic chemicals and pituitary extracts circulated by portal
circulation to the liver hepatocytes in vessels which were elevated
on voluminous plastic bags (as was the heart itself) and kept from
hemorrhaging by strict atmospheric controls.

The liver hepatocytes dutifully took
the tailored codes for protein production and churned out the
proteins that built every structure in the body from CD markers to
the organs themselves. Later that same month, genuine blood was
introduced, as well as bone marrow cells of a very special nature.
These marrow cells were fortified with antigen producing templates
for every curable disease known to man and some that weren’t. They
circulated in the bloodstream and eventually made their way to the
virgin marrow of the long bones where they began to differentiate
and replicate.

An experimental gene recombinant
cytokine – a modification of the chemical Interleuken II- had been
developed by a Chinese doctor at the Alamo. It had shown great
promise in its ability to recognize and destroy not only
cancer-causing viruses, but also pre-cancerous cells. The existence
of natural killer T-cells had been known for some time, but now the
specific information for production of the killer cytokines had
been written into the cellular DNA structure, only waiting to be
cloned into a viral serum for the suffering masses.

As each tissue or structure formed, its
composition was recorded and amended. Useless substrates of each
amino acid -adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine, and uracil- hung
forlornly like threads needing to be tied together. One injection
of specifically constructed viral DNA could invade the cell nuclei
and link up with the inactive DNA threads like two parts of an
intricate oriental carpet of wildly differing design being woven
together, initiating specific protein synthesis.

The novel arrangement would shut down
some genes and activate new ones. With these injections hair or eye
color could be changed with nothing more than a hypodermic needle;
the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thesis actually made flesh. Flippers or
gills, fangs, paws or claws could be substituted for legs or lungs,
teeth or hands.

Chromatophore DNA from squids or chameleons could be
incorporated into human DNA, resulting in perfect blending with the
environment. No proof it would work as yet, but it seemed within
reach. Processes at the molecular level cared nothing for
rejection. It was pure stoichiometric chemistry. They either bonded
or they didn’t. And if each substrate could be matched with a
corresponding pyrimidine or purine which began the genetic sequence
of tailored genes representing other structures, there was no
reason for it
not
to work.

While amateur spelunkers poked and
prodded their way through the numerous mountain caverns, an
immensely complex system of nerves wound its tortuous way through
the maze of bone and blood vessels. White ganglia wormed their way
into intricate and beautiful plexi while a thick cord of nerve
threaded its way through the hollows of the spinal
column.

Unknown to Ingrid, Jake Macmillan (who
would be quite insane by the project’s end) had been spirited away
from the university and safely segregated at Fort Mead, Maryland,
laboring endlessly over a new computer program designed to trace
codons by mathematical processes that extrapolated on haplotypes
instead of its current ‘hunt and peck’ system.

In the short span of two months, July
and August, Seth’s excretory and respiratory systems developed. The
research team collectively held its breath as the oxygen exchanger
was removed. The lungs were kept from collapsing under the pressure
of one and a half atmospheres by the oxygen saturated fluid within
them. Telemetry showed rapid fire neurospasms from the Vagus nerve
vainly attempting to control a diaphragm not yet developed. The
exchanger was quickly reinstalled and oxygen levels returned to
115% of normal.

Seth’s development now entered the
realm of the lab techs, who constantly monitored glutathione levels
in the harsh, supersaturated oxygen environment. Lecithin and
sphingomyelin ratios were recorded, slowly inching towards the day
that Seth’s lungs could provide his own oxygen.

Towards the end of August, Ingrid and
Alex went out again, just to keep in touch with the real
world.

“
Did you ever think we would come this
far,” Clifton asked.

Ingrid shook her head. “I didn’t know
at first. I believed it could be done, but not like this. With
every new system that forms, I get the feeling the whole project
was predestined for success. Like it was something that was always
meant to be.”

“
You’re not taking much
credit.”

“
I don’t feel much like taking credit
today,” she said sadly. “I had somebody removed from the project. I
know you’ve heard about it.”

Clifton didn’t bother to pretend he
knew nothing about the hostile face-off. Johnny Clark was a rather
uninspired organic chemist who had risen through the ranks by
virtue of some distant nepotism with Merrifield. Clifton had never
liked him, preferring to keep his distance from the fawning, morose
youth who had his head so far up Merrifield’s ass he hadn’t seen
daylight in years. Clark was a backstabber, a whining, wheedling
gold digger who didn’t know his ass from a taco and had the IQ of a
bowl of grits. He used his relationship with Merrifield to grease
the axles for him. As far as Clifton could tell, he had never
contributed one iota to the project.

“
He was sneaking around the incubator
today,” Ingrid said. “Trying to get in. ‘Just to have a look’, he
said. That much I can believe. I don’t think he has the balls to
try sabotage or the brains to try and sell information.”

Clifton grunted knowingly. Ingrid was
fanatical about access to the incubator. Clifton knew that just one
bacterium in the environment of the incubator could reproduce and
spread like herpes at a ’70’s key party, jeopardizing the entire
project. And with oxygen levels at 115% of normal, the danger of a
major conflagration was an ever present danger.

Ingrid didn’t know it, but Merrifield
had been livid when he heard the news. Distant relative or not,
Merrifield had no great affection for Johnny Clark, and he was far
more concerned that sterility might have been broken than with what
happened to Clark.

Clifton had witnessed Merrifield’s
rage. His face had flared a bright crimson and his wild
gesticulations and bulging blood vessels had been reminiscent of a
man suffering an attack of apoplexy.

“
Who does this little shithead think
he is,”
Merrifield had raved, acid dripping from every word. His
jaw muscles jumped and sweat popped out on his meaty forehead,
glittering like chrome flecks.

“
I will have his frigging
head
for this,”
Merrifield had roared, each word as precise and cutting as the
guillotine’s blade.

Clifton had sat through the tirade,
offering not a soothing word or placating gesture. He well knew,
when Merrifield was in such a mood, it was best to let him wear
himself out. After a few minutes of vigorous screaming, Merrifield
plopped down in his chair and sat there, panting. He jabbed a
finger at Clifton.

“
I want him out of here,” he said,
speaking in harsh bursts. “I want him gone before I have to see his
face again. Tell him if I ever see him again, I’ll put him against
the wall and cut out his heart. I’m making it your responsibility
to make sure he understands that. Got it?”

“
I’ll see to it,” Clifton had
said.

“
You’d damn well better,” Merrifield
had snapped. He was grumbling under his breath when Clifton left to
attend the messy details of giving Clark the boot.

“
I had to do it,” Ingrid said. “I hate
the thought I’ve become so hard and unforgiving I had to make an
example of somebody, but I won’t let everything I’ve –
we’ve-
worked for, go down
the crapper because of a low level lackey who thinks he’s
privileged.”

“
If you’re looking for sympathy,”
Clifton said, “you won’t find it here. You did the right
thing.”

“
You don’t have to patronize
me.”

“
Good Christ, Ingrid,” Clifton said,
irritated. He rolled his eyes. “Do you need a picture drawn for
you? You’re the brains of this project. You’re perfectly within
your rights to shitcan somebody who goes against directives. Clark
is fucked for life, now. The only hopes he has of ever having
another decent job is to keep his mouth shut. And he will, if he
knows what’s in his best interests for staying out of
jail.”

“
You think so?”

“
I think so,” Clifton said, recalling
the uncontrollable fury Clark’s action had engendered In Merrifield
today. Days like today, Clifton didn’t care much for Merrifield,
but he knew he would never cross him. Call it cowardice or self
preservation, it all came down to keeping your head firmly attached
to your shoulders.