by JC Ryan
News reports of the ancient civilization of giants in Northern Africa, northwest of Egypt, to be more precise, and more recently, an advanced civilization centered in an area that was now beneath the Alboran Sea, encouraged Ahab to believe there might lie buried or submerged around Crete the true structure that gave rise to the legend of the Labyrinth and the monster known as the Minotaur. In fact, he’d worked on the Alboran dig recently, hiding his natural abilities, to learn what he could about the civilization, for he thought it possible that it had been spread much wider. Crete was only about 1500 miles from the Alboran site, less if one traveled in a straight line rather than by sea.
Though the Ancient Greek myths and legends arose during the Greek Dark ages, beginning around the 12th century BC, Ahab believed they derived from collective memories of the remnants of civilizations that had been destroyed with no other evidence they’d ever existed. Perhaps even one of those recently discovered. As each extinction event left only a few individuals to adapt to new conditions and begin the process of growing a civilization over again, the memories became myths and legends. The stories survived to this day as curiosities believed by the ancients, now understood to be false, yet all too real in their origins.
Ahab was looking for a phenomenon so small that he could easily miss it if he didn’t carefully plot his grid search. A karst spring surfacing off the Cretan shore would be too subtle to see in any kind of rough water. However, he’d seen pictures of just such a phenomenon located yards off-shore around Crete. Subtle ripples in an otherwise calm sea would indicate a spring draining its system, an underground area called a karst, into the ocean. Karst springs are usually the end of a cave system at the place where a river cave reaches the Earth’s surface, or in this case, the sea. If he found one large enough, he’d be able to enter the caves at the spring, without the knowledge or permission of anyone on the island. And that was how he wanted it – secret – until he was ready to reveal the results to the world.
Ahab knew his appetites might not allow for an uninterrupted search. He’d satisfied his blood lust before beginning, but Crete was too small an area to risk indulging himself during his sojourn. If he must, he’d visit the mainland, but he was disciplined enough to forego the temptation for several months.
An organized killer, he would be almost impossible to stop unless he began to decompensate. But he was intelligent enough to have diagnosed himself and studied how to evade discovery by spreading his kills both geographically and in terms of elapsed time. Therefore, he felt he’d have at least eight or nine months to make a thorough exploration before being compelled to kill again.
However, as luck would have it, he found the first of the springs he was looking for only a week after he spent the first day searching the grid he’d laid out. Leaving the yacht on sea anchor, a generator running to forestall the curiosity of anyone boarding to check on the yacht’s occupants, he fitted a full-face mask and dove smoothly into the water to follow the spring to its origin.
Disappointingly, the spring emerged from a rift in the bedrock that was too small for him to enter. He considered surfacing and bringing back explosives to enlarge the opening but decided it wouldn’t be productive to start blowing up every drainage he located. Better to find what he was sure was here somewhere. If he was right about the Labyrinth being a real place, then there’d be an opening large enough to enter. In this belief, he was engaged in magical thinking, but didn’t recognize it as such. His narcissism did not allow him to understand that just because he wanted something, didn’t necessarily mean it was so.
However, he explored up and down the underwater slope for over an hour before giving up on the location and returning to the yacht.
A cursory examination of the interior relieved his anxiety about any unwanted visitor. After enjoying a meal that would have foundered an ordinary man his size, he moved to the next location on his grid.
Day after day, Ahab continued his search, at night returning to the villa he’d rented to continue his research into how to grow a small sample of DNA into a fully-realized, full-grown Minotaur. Ahab required little sleep, so the night hours afforded him plenty of time to do his research and develop his theories. Though he considered himself to be a patient man, he’d already decided that introducing the DNA into a human baby would take too long. A bull calf, which would reach maturity somewhere between 15 and 24 months, would be a better choice. However, there was the question of where he’d keep the monster out of sight until it was mature, so, he kept exploring the idea of a human subject.
He knew the experiments on himself began when he was about eight or nine years old. Would it be possible to change the DNA of a child that age? He didn’t know, but the concept fit his other compulsion. Children were easier to kidnap than adults and were therefore his preferred prey. They were also easier to hide. So, he’d decided on his ‘petri dish’, and was now engaged in the study of gene splicing.
He’d prefer to do the work himself, but without a medical background, he knew he’d have to ‘recruit’ others to help. Whether that recruitment would be voluntary or involuntary he hadn’t yet decided. Naturally, he’d prefer to keep all the glory and credit for the discovery for himself, so he leaned toward involuntary. But he’d need to also determine who was the best person to do the job, how that person could be kidnapped, where the entire experiment would take place. In short, there was more than enough work to do in the evenings.
The easiest would be if he found a living Minotaur. He dreamed about that on occasion. How would he capture it? How would he transport it and confine it? He was confident in his superior strength to men, but how strong was a Minotaur? Usually, he dismissed the idea as a childish fantasy. How would they have survived, hidden, for hundreds of millennia? On the other hand, maybe those Greek myths and legends held a kernel of truth. What if they’d only needed to survive for fourteen thousand years? Nowhere was there any mention of the life-span of a Minotaur. And if his theory was correct, there were probably a race of them, not just one. They might have somehow survived.
On the mornings after he’d gone to sleep thinking about finding a live, full-grown Minotaur, he’d wake up with an almost-irresistible hunger to indulge his secret. Every time that happened, he wrestled with the urge until he could convince anyone he met that he was just what he seemed – a wealthy young man on an extended fishing vacation. But every time it happened, the urge grew stronger. If he didn’t find the caverns soon, he felt he may have to take a short trip off the island to satisfy it.
7
THANKS TO THE previous work Mackenzie had done and Liu’s translations of the ancient texts, the research team, who’d dubbed themselves the Aquaman Project Team over Mackenzie’s weak protests, was making rapid progress. The self-proclaimed nerds among them joked that the only powers the DC Comics superhero possessed that humans fitted with nano-robotic respirocytes wouldn’t, was telepathy with sea creatures. As they also joked, who needed telepathy with sea creatures, when Mackenzie had the ability to talk directly with them?
Mackenzie had to laugh at the team’s culture of humor. Medical research often made its servants too serious, but she was convinced that happiness and contentment produced better work. She was on board with whatever made them truly happy, so long as the work didn’t suffer. Even if their team mascot was Aquaman, the weakest hero in DC’s arsenal, as Liam informed her with disgust.
In her office, they’d mocked up models of a normal red blood cell and the theoretical respirocyte that Freitas had originally described. Created as a spherical fullerine, that is, a hollow molecule of carbon atoms resembling a soccer ball, the respirocyte, once they’d found a way to stabilize it, would deliver pure oxygen directly into the bloodstream. Earlier research had already led to environmentally-friendly uses for ordinary carbon nanotubes, such as making touch-screen devices, hydrogen fuel cells for alternative fuels, and even items requiring high-strength materials, like bullet-proof vests.
These ordinary carbo
n nanotubes used recycled plastics in their manufacture, freeing landfills of much of the plastic waste that would otherwise have taken up an inordinate amount of space. The multiple wins – cheaper manufacture of high-tech goods, generating money from a waste product, and use of a wide range of plastics that would have been hard to recycle by other means – made them highly popular.
However, it had quickly been learned that their use as a delivery mechanism for drugs required a higher quality of carbon source. Problems such as allergy and toxicity had to be overcome before they could safely be used to carry and release the quantities of oxygen that Mackenzie’s vision required. And creating stable, buckyball-shaped nanotubes from the synthetic adamantine, or diamonoid, molecules preferred for their purity, was proving problematic.
At first, the nano-engineer had believed that with sufficient raw material, he could ‘grow’ his own fullerenes. But it was soon brought home to him that the complex geometry involved would require the expertise of a chemical engineer. He applied to Mackenzie for a colleague to share his lab, and the search for a new team member began.
As with every other new person on Freydis, the chemical engineer required a background check and security clearance, living arrangements, the addition of a salary, food and travel allowance to the project budget, and of course, her attention to recruitment. Mackenzie called another meeting of the staff.
“As you know, we’re going to be adding a new team member as soon as possible,” she began without preamble. “I’d like to make sure we have everyone we need, so that we don’t have to go through the long process and painful interruption again soon. Does anyone need an assistant, someone with other expertise, or anything else?”
The nanoengineer spoke hesitantly. “Have you given any thought to the fact that once we succeed in doing this in a small batch, we’re going to need something that will manufacture mass quantities?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you have in mind,” Mackenzie said.
The engineer glanced at her research assistant and the doctor for support. The doctor spoke up. “We’re looking beyond the initial research, Mackenzie. For practical use, or even for human testing when we’re ready for that, we’re going to need something like a generator to collect the large number of respirocytes needed to make a difference to a wounded soldier. Consider that they may be bleeding or burned extensively. We can’t just inject a few respirocytes into someone who’s bleeding and expect them to remain inside the body. The same goes for replacing hyperbaric oxygen therapy with respirocyte therapy for burn victims in the field. We’ll need hundreds of thousands of respirocytes for the initial roll-out phase.”
Mackenzie understood his comment but replied, “You have to keep in mind that our objective is not to commercially manufacture the respirocytes. We’re only to develop the method to do so.”
“Maybe not, but we’re still going to need a generator to produce enough for the animal tests, as well as for the human testing phase. If you don’t want to do another round of recruiting and budgeting, then perhaps a mechanical engineer would be a good addition to the team now. Maybe getting him or her familiar with the problem as your other engineers work on it will save time later, as well.”
Put that way, she had to agree. “Agreed,” she confirmed. “I’ll get on that. Anything else? Anyone?”
After fielding requests for a few minor items of equipment and laughing at the veterinarian’s joking request for a pet sloth, Mackenzie dismissed the meeting and returned to her office. She hadn’t anticipated the administrative work load of running the team, and in a way, it was a burden. Her love was for the research, and having to put that aside to be an administrator, was galling. While she was headhunting, she’d get an admin assistant in who could also serve as coordinator with DARPA’s HR.
WHEN CARTER RETURNED a month later, they’d had their first breakthrough. With the help of the chemical engineer she’d recruited, they’d made a few stable diamondoid fullerenes in the spherical shape she’d modeled on Freitas’ theory. The lab rats had tolerated them well, and they now had a few who could stay underwater for up to an hour.
Work was far from complete, though. The fullerenes apparently did not break down as expected when they had released all their oxygen. And there was no practical way to replenish the oxygen supply inside them, or none they’d found. So, they had to inject more fullerenes, and eventually they built up in the bloodstream, causing toxicity issues.
They lost a couple of rats before they realized it, and Mackenzie mourned the waste of any life. She asked the veterinarian to be sure to note signs of distress in the rats and ordered the data specialist to keep track of the number of fullerenes injected and calculate their saturation by volume of blood for each rat. She didn’t want the rats to suffer, but they needed to know at what level of blood saturation the fullerenes became toxic.
And then, just before the mechanical engineer finally arrived, it was Liu who discovered the real breakthrough.
LIU HAD BEEN involved in the first translation efforts for the Library of the Giants, or the LG as they now called it for short. She now divided her time between Freydis and Washington in supervising the translation teams and working with the computer geeks who programmed the automated translation software. But she still enjoyed working on sections of the libraries that had challenged the other translators and defied the automation. Most often, it was in the medical section of the LG. She was still interested in the area where she’d helped Mackenzie in Saudi Arabia – translating ancient medical texts in support of the respirocyte research.
She called these projects her hobby, and though her husband, Dylan, complained that you can’t have a hobby that’s the same as your day job, she’d bring the printouts of the ancient text home and pore over them instead of reading or watching TV in the evenings. One night, she’d stayed up after he went to bed, working on a document whose title she’d translated as ‘blood machine’. Those words got her excited. That was exactly what Mackenzie was looking for – an ancient “blood machine.”
She’d started with the words that had become familiar, leaving gaps where she didn’t immediately understand the proto-Semitic abjads of the Giant’s language. What she had in front of her on that night looked much like a redacted document, except that instead of black marks on some words, there were spaces. Once she had the entire passage transferred to a handwritten English page, she began on the unfamiliar words, relying on context to some extent to fill them in. Without a background in medicine, it was slow going, but she’d learned a lot during her confinement with Mackenzie, and in the years afterward while helping her with translations. So she persisted, growing more determined as she recognized this could be very important to the respirocyte work.
Liu’s concentration was unbroken when a sleepy Dylan quietly entered the room to check on her. Her silky black hair hid her face, but Dylan knew her tongue would be peeking out from between her closed lips as she worked. He watched her for a few minutes, and then quietly left again without interrupting her. She was so captivated she probably didn’t even notice his presence. He would do that twice more before her shout woke him at around five the next morning. She had worked all night.
Alarmed, Dylan leaped out of bed, grabbed his pistol, and ran to protect his wife. But he found no threat, only a jubilant Liu, dancing around the table on which lay her work and pumping her fist in the air. His heart rate slowed when he saw she was okay.
“Liu, what in the world?” he asked, gaining her notice for the first time all night.
“Eureka!” she answered.
“Eureka?” he asked, bewildered.
“It’s Greek for ‘I’ve found it’,” she explained, as if that answered his question. “Archimedes shouted that when he discovered how to measure volume based on displacement.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Believe it or not, I’ve been to school, but what’s this Greek guy got to do with your work?”
“I’ve found Mackenzie’s answer! This d
ocument,” she said, picking up the printout and brandishing it like a weapon, “explains how to create a respirocyte generator!”
Dylan gave his head a vigorous shake. Either his wife had gone ‘round the bend, or he was being particularly obtuse this morning. “Mackenzie? Respirocytes?”
Liu crossed the room to kiss him. “Sit down, honey. I’ll make you some coffee.”
“Okayyyyy… but...”
“Come, let me get some caffeine into your system first. Maybe that will get your brains working again,” she said.
Still in a sleep-deprived daze, Dylan followed her to the kitchen and plonked down in a chair at the table.
While she bustled around the kitchen getting the coffee started and then started making their breakfasts – yogurt and granola for her, bacon, eggs, toast, and orange juice for him – she explained the significance of what she’d found.
“You know Mackenzie is working on how to make masses of stable respirocytes – the artificial red blood cells. She’s explained that to you several times, Dylan.”
“Yeah.” Dylan had his hands around his first cup of coffee by the time she got back to his half-awake questions.
“Well, the Giants knew how to do it. And the work I did last night will give her a tremendous short-cut. It seems they’re on the wrong track with the diamondoid atoms they’re using to build the cells. Those will build up in the bloodstream and eventually kill the host. The Giants made them out of a biological substance that worked by replicating themselves in the lungs. It made their lungs able to absorb and use more oxygen.”
“But I thought that Carter told us there used to be more oxygen in the air. Why would the Giants need respirocytes?”