“I do not understand,” the shipping magnate said. “You have genomes of modern animals, but not of this ancestor?”
“Genetic mutation is the basis of evolution,” Danté said. “But not all genes mutate at the same rate. As species branch out from a common ancestor, some genes mutate faster, some don’t mutate at all. By using a molecular clock, so to speak, we can gauge which sequences have changed, and by comparing that gene to the same gene of another mammal, we can tell which sequence is older, closer to the original ancestor’s genetic code.”
The woman smiled. “I’ll be damned. That’s such a simple concept, just use the lowest common denominator. You take out everything that’s unique, and you’ll be left with everything that’s common.”
Danté nodded. They were getting it. The woman was the toughest sell. The software mogul was in, Danté could see that as plain as day, but if the woman invested the last three would follow.
“Our staff created an evolution lab inside the computer,” Danté said. “This program statistically analyzes genomes based on the probable function of each gene sequence. The computer works with our digitized ancestor genome, predicting final form and function, then makes changes, predicts again, and measures probability for desired traits. It’s just like evolution, only in reverse and a million times faster than nature. We create the creature in the computer, one nucleotide at a time. Since it is created from scratch, we know—for certain—that it’s free of any viral contamination.”
The Chinese man spoke. “But that animal on the screen, it is too small. You could not put its heart in me.”
“Correct,” Danté said. “But that animal on the screen was created only in silica, only on the computer, to give us a baseline. We’ve already done that. From there, the computer added specific virtual genes coding for size and human organ compatibility. Our first living generation won’t be perfect, but we can analyze the phenotype—the size of the animal and what it looks like—against the genotype—the actual DNA coding. Once we have that, we keep modifying the genome until the animal’s organs are ideally suited for human transplantation.”
The mop-haired man sat back down. “But if you have all this technology, why not just grow the organs individually?”
“Some companies are working on just that solution, but it’s not yet possible. And when it is possible, growing an individual organ will require an expensive lab or manufacturing center. Short answer, the cost per organ would be astronomical. Genada’s ancestors, on the other hand, will be herd animals. Most importantly, they will be able to breed. All we have to do is put them out to pasture and feed them. Organ demand grows? We simply raise more animals.”
“What about PETA,” the woman asked. “And what about the Animal Liberation Front? They’ve been targeting xenotransplantation research.”
“We think we have the competitive advantage there as well,” Danté said. “The ancestors do not occur in nature. We made them, down to the last strands of DNA. We will even use that fact to insist other companies abandon research on pigs and primates. If Genada has already solved the problem, there is no longer a need for that potentially dangerous research.”
The software magnate laughed. “You want a monopoly. A monopoly on human life.”
Danté nodded. “Lady and gentlemen, nothing sells like life itself. When we succeed, we will be the only vendor. We will be able to charge whatever the market will bear. For the millions of people not quite ready for death, the market would bear quite a lot.”
Within an hour, all five had left, and all five had given the same decision: yes. That gave Genada enough capital for at least one more year.
Magnus would be so pleased.
NOVEMBER 8: DOT-DOT-DOT…
THE WRIST WATCH BUZZED. It wasn’t an alarm buzz, because for alarms, the watch beeped. The buzz only meant one thing.
Contact.
The buzz was a five-minute warning, a notice to go somewhere, be alone before the full message came in. There was no one else in the room. The five minutes passed very slowly.
A tiny chip in the watch picked up certain heavily encrypted satellite signals. The chip decoded those signals, buzzing out the translated message in the simple dots and dashes of Morse code.
After all this time, the command to act. How odd, when the project was so close to completion, close to extending life for millions of people. No, not when… the correct word was if. There was no guarantee they would ever overcome the immune response.
And besides, who gave a fuck? Someone would figure this out eventually. As long as Rhumkorrf didn’t get the credit, it would all work itself out.
It would be dangerous, true, but the plan was already made and it wasn’t that difficult. Quietly take out the transportation and communication to completely isolate the project. Then, destroy the data, both the live set and the backup. After that? Play dumb and wait for Colonel Fischer and his goons to arrive.
At the computer, a few key taps brought up a private menu. Several prepared programs were ready to go, hidden inside a miles-long stream of archived genetic code. No way it was safe to hide the programs in a ready-to-use format, not with Jian on the island. That woman interacted with computers in a way that defied logic—if hacker programs were just sitting there, Jian would have found them somehow.
These programs would cause some damage. How much damage depended on whether Jian was awake or asleep. She was the only real variable, which meant something had to be done about her or the plan might not work.
Regardless, tonight it would all be over… one way or another.
NOVEMBER 8: A SHOT & A CHASER
A
G
C
T
OVER AND OVER again, the endless chains scrolled across the screen, some segments highlighted in yellow, some in green, some in red, other colors. The special language. The true language of life. A language that for some reason only she could really see, really understand.
Biological poetry.
“Jian?”
She blinked. The poetry changed back to scrolling letters. She was in the bioinformatics lab. She looked up to see Tim standing in front of her desk.
“Mister Feely,” she said, and as she did she realized that he’d been standing there for several seconds, quietly saying her name over and over. Part of her brain had heard him but hadn’t wanted to come out of that special place.
“You’re my boss,” he said. “Think maybe you can finally stop calling me mister?”
She shook her head. No, she could not do that. Sometimes she tried, tried to say P. J. or Tim or Claus, but it always came out Mister Colding or Mister Feely or Doctor Rhumkorrf.
Her seven-monitor computer array here was identical to the one in her room. Tim held up a bottle and a medicine cup, reached around the outside monitors to offer them to her. “You forget something?”