by JC Ryan
At the time, Irene and everyone else she’d consulted had advised it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If permission had been denied, Carter and Sean would not have been able to rescue the children. And in any case, permission, even if granted, would have taken too long. Everyone on her side of the decision believed that consequences would be at most a slap on the wrist, given the successful rescue. But revealing the project to those who’d had to know to get the job done had constituted illegal release of top-secret information. It could result in a treason charge.
As Mackenzie prepared to introduce her clinician to give the details of the report, she stood and cleared her throat. She took only two or three seconds to calm and center her mind. Longer would have constituted an awkward pause. Her outwardly calm demeanor and the few seconds of silence served to focus everyone’s attention on her. This was like lecturing at her former University post. She could do this.
“Gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. We are here today to announce the successful completion of The Respirocyte Project.” She gave the name of the project sufficient vocal weight to convey the capital letters, and she noted the puzzled expressions of the attendees who had not previously heard of the research.
“Briefly, it has been a dream of mine for several years to bring to fruition a concept from the nineteen-sixties, and now known to have been described in ancient times. The concept is that increased oxygenation of the blood can provide medical benefits ranging from increased athletic ability to improved health for respiratory and cardiac patients, as well as improved longevity.
“By successful completion, I mean that we have found a way to provide these benefits via non-invasive injection of nanobots that then use the body’s available resources to self-assemble what a layman might call red super-cells.”
Seeing several people’s mouths open slightly to ask questions, she went on. “Please hold your questions until after the detailed report, and then we will answer them, and we will have a demonstration of some of the named benefits.”
A susurration of quiet responses, mutters, and release of held breath followed. After introducing her clinician with a very brief bio and recitation of her qualifications, Mackenzie sat down and prepared to listen to the presentation she and her clinician had worked out. She noticed several people giving Carter puzzled looks, but his presence there was part of the surprise she hoped would carry her argument that the technology must be released for general medicine.
The clinician crisply detailed the facts of the human trials, without mentioning the experiments that had gone before or the manufacturing process for the respirocyte generators. She kept her presentation to the progress of the six men and women who were the first wave of human trials. It took about ten minutes to show with charts that she passed to each participant, that the six subjects had all, without respect to varying ages or gender, improved in their strength, endurance, athletic ability, and general health.
The latter included respiratory and cardiac efficiency, and surprisingly, achievement of ideal weight. This she had originally attributed solely to the exercise the subjects got in the trials, but closer measurement revealed the fat was being broken down to supply much of the oxygen the supercells needed. In other words, oxygen was being stolen by the nanobots from the triglycerides in adipose tissue, creating a sort of reciprocal loop where more was oxidized, releasing CO2 and water.
Over the six months of the trial, the subjects had to eat more and more to replace the raw materials of the lost fat, but all stabilized at a healthy 15% body fat for the men and 21% for the women. Their appetites eventually stabilized as well, and two months after the end of the trial their follow-up exams revealed a natural ability to eat what they needed, no more and no less, to maintain their healthy weight without tracking or feeling deprived. If released to the public, it would be the first weight-loss plan that ever worked indefinitely to stabilize weight.
At this revelation, the assembled scientists broke out into excited chatter. Many of the most intractable health problems of modern life resulted from improper diet. Solve that, and you solved a high percentage of so-called lifestyle diseases, from Type II diabetes to COPD.
The clinician sat down, her part finished, and Mackenzie stood again to ask for questions. One of the first was about the demonstration she’d promised.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. The question had played into her plans perfectly. “Carter, would you please stand?” She introduced Carter as her husband, and he endured the smattering of applause that followed. “Nine months ago,” she continued, “our children were kidnapped in Athens by a man who believed my husband could assist in leading him to the answer to an ancient mystery. The details don’t matter, except that this man had somehow secreted our children in an inaccessible cave. Inaccessible to ordinary people, that is.
“We have since learned that this man was genetically engineered to have the same red super-cells, or a very close approximation, as our respirocyte generators provide for our subjects. At the time, we didn’t know how he’d done it, only that he had. The situation was desperate, and Carter had, with the help of a remarkable assembly of human resources, exhausted all options. Except this,” she said dramatically, pointing to a diagram of the respirocyte generator the clinician had queued up in the slide show. “We made the difficult decision to equip Carter and a member of his team with the generators, to allow them access to the deep caves where our children were being held. That decision led to our children being rescued, the kidnapper apprehended and later killed in an attempt to escape, and the discovery of his capabilities.”
Vocal expressions of surprise and dismay had begun with Mackenzie’s first admission of using Carter as a human experiment, and by the time she’d finished her last sentence, she was having to shout to be heard over the din. No sooner than she fell silent, Dr. Stevensen’s booming bass voice rang out.
“Am I to understand that you revealed top-secret information to your husband and his teammate?”
Irene intervened at that point. “Carter and his colleague both have top-secret clearance. I was aware of the decision and supported it. Carter and Mackenzie are my employees, and if you have something to say about our decision to save their children, say it to me.” Her chin lifted and her jaw set, she stared Stevensen down.
Wisely, he backed off. “You considered it a necessity?”
“I did.”
“Then we’ll let it go, assuming it has not leaked beyond the people required to effect that positive outcome,” he said.
“It hasn’t.”
Mackenzie now took up the narrative again. “Two things, Dr. Stevensen. First, Carter is here to provide demonstrations if you or your staff require them. His colleague is on assignment, or he would be here as well. Second, I would like to explore the possibility of releasing this technology for medical purposes to the public, or at least to selected institutions. The benefit to mankind is unquestionable. To keep it a secret is to condemn millions of people to unnecessary poor health and death.”
“Thank you, Dr. Devereux. Both doctors Devereux,” he amended. “I’m sure my colleagues will wish to avail themselves of the offered demonstrations. However, your request to release is something I’m going to have to take under advisement. I’m not unsympathetic to your position. But the final decision is above my pay grade.”
“Fair enough,” Mackenzie said. “When can I expect an answer?”
“I can’t say,” he replied. “But I will take it to my superiors immediately.”
50
WITHIN A MONTH, Mackenzie had a new contract with DARPA to develop a way to provide the first-generation respirocytes in medically significant quantities while designing a second-generation type that would give US military personnel a miraculous healing advantage. She had managed to retrieve most of her crew, and where it was impossible to buy out contracts for some, she had replaced them. The three engineers were now employed directly by DARPA, but they would be collaborating wi
th her new engineers in the second part of the project.
By August, she had authored and published a paper, with DARPA’s blessing, and by September, the breakthrough was receiving worldwide attention. That’s when a doctor at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic received an invitation from the Nobel Committee to submit a nomination for the following year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine. He could think of no greater medical breakthrough than Mackenzie Devereux’s respirocyte generator.
The wheels of the Nobel Committee’s evaluation process grind slowly. Nominations are by invitation only, to qualified persons who cannot nominate themselves, but must nominate someone whose discoveries have changed the scientific paradigm and are of great benefit to mankind. Their nominations are due back to the committee by the following January thirty-first. During March through May, the committee invites international reputable experts to evaluate the submissions, and during June through August, the evaluation work is in progress.
During the year when, unbeknownst to her or anyone outside the Nobel Committee and their evaluators, Mackenzie’s nomination wound its way through the process, her team found more and more economic and efficient ways to manufacture the generators. The procedure became affordable for everyone but the poorest patients in the US, whose access to it was hung up in Medicaid regulations. In countries with one-payer systems, access was universal.
Some industries developed terminal illnesses as newly-healthy people gave up smoking, voted with their wallets for more nutritious fast food, and stopped buying fad diet books. Others, like gyms, outdoor recreation gear manufacturers, and health food stores, flourished.
A year after her nomination, Mackenzie’s recommendation made it through from the Nobel Committee to discussion in the Nobel Assembly. On the first Monday in October, a majority vote of the Assembly awarded her the coveted prize. Early that morning, Mackenzie received an international call from Sweden. She and Carter were enjoying a last cup of coffee before going to their separate offices, Mackenzie’s in her lab and Carter’s in the translation building.
After saying hello, she listened, and her eyes grew round. “You’re kidding!” she exclaimed. Her eyes went to Carter’s face. He appeared mildly curious. Then she burst into tears. “Oh, my God! Thank you! Thank you!”
Carter got up and crossed to her, his face a mask of concern. “What is it?” he mouthed.
She shook her head. Then she said, “Yes, I understand. Yes, I will be there. Is my family welcome?” And then, finally, “Thank you again. Goodbye.”
She looked up at Carter, who was hovering over her as if to protect her from some threat from above. “Come on,” she said. “We have to get to my office in the next five minutes.”
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“I’m not allowed to say, not even to you, until the press conference. It will be streamed live in ten minutes. Hurry!”
Wearing a mystified expression, Carter followed Mackenzie at a leisurely trot for him. She was running as fast as she could. They arrived at the lab door in three minutes and she threw herself into her chair and woke up her computer, while telling him to get on the intercom and summon the rest of the team there.
Four minutes later, everyone was assembled, and she turned her monitor to the room where everyone could see. Then she rolled her chair around to watch as well, as the link she’d been given displayed “The press conference will begin in ___ minutes.” A countdown timer counted seconds in the underlined spot.
“Mackie…”
“Shh, they’re starting,” she whispered.
The screen message disappeared, and in its place, an image of two gold coins, or rather both sides of the same coin, appeared. The assembled team and Carter gasped as they recognized the profile of Alfred Nobel on the left, and the Genius of Medicine, an open book on her lap and a bowl collecting water to quench the thirst of a sick girl in her right hand. The inscription circling the edge of the medal read Inventas vitam luvat excoluisse per artes, loosely translated from a passage of Vergil’s Aeneid as “And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery.”
The room went utterly silent as the press conference began, announcing that Dr. Mackenzie Devereux had won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Then it exploded.
Questions rained on her from every side. Had she known of her nomination? Who else had been nominated? When was the presentation ceremony scheduled? Was she going?
To the first question, she answered, “No.” To the second, she couldn’t say. Someone mentioned they thought that information could only be revealed after fifty years. To the third, in December, and to the fourth, looking at Carter, she said, “I believe we will. It will be fun for the kids.”
Later in the day, Carter congratulated her as he’d wished to at the time but couldn’t because of the witnesses. Holding her in his arms after a lengthy and smoldering kiss, he told her he was so proud of her.
“I couldn’t have done it without my team,” she said. “It should have been awarded to the team.”
“The concept was yours, Mackie. The honor goes to the right person.”
“But we don’t need the money,” she said. “Would you care if I divided it among the team?”
“It’s yours. You do what you want with it. But I hope you’ll keep the medal to pass down to the kids someday.”
“Of course,” she said.
51
ON THE TENTH of December, Mackenzie accepted her prize at the award ceremony. In the stands to observe were her husband and children, her parents and brother, and an assembly of their closest friends, including Irene O’Connell, former President Samuel Houston Grant, James Rhodes, Sean Walker and his bride Sam, Liu and Dylan Mulligan and their toddler. Ahote and Bly had been invited, but they elected to stay and care for the ranch while everyone else was gone.
Also missing were the research team. Mackenzie had already told them that they would be receiving a share of the financial prize, and to a man and woman they had elected to remain at their posts to continue the work. However, they did assemble in Mackenzie’s office to watch the live stream of the ceremony as it took place.
Watching at DARPA headquarters, Dr. Stevensen reflected that the decision to release the technology had been the right thing to do. Any time an American won a Nobel Prize was a feather in the cap of the US. He was aware that the Devereuxs had requested an extended leave of absence from A-Echelon, but he had full confidence the research and development of the respirocyte technology would continue without Mackenzie overseeing it daily.
Communications technology would allow her to maintain contact with her team as she and her family sailed around the world, a well-earned break for Dr. Carter Devereux.
Because it was not in his office’s mission, Stevensen had not been informed that the sailing trip was also the cover for more extensive research into the dolphin ansible communication. Nor did he know that little Beth Devereux would be in constant touch with a young wolf at home on Freydis, with her mother recording the interactions.
All the Devereuxs still had questions they wanted to explore, from Carter and Mackenzie, to Liam and his little sister.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Also by JC Ryan
The Rossler Foundation Mysteries
http://myBook.to/RosslerFoundation
Here’s what readers are saying about the series:
“All in all, a brilliant series by a master of the techno thrillers turning old much debated mysteries into overwhelming modern engrossing sagas of adventure, heroism and a sense of awe for the many mysteries still unexplained in our universe. Enjoy!”
“I LOVED this series! It's readily apparent that the author drew from a large body of knowledge in writing this series. It's just believable enough to think it could happen someday, and in fact, aligns quite well with some of the current relationships that exist between present day countries and the USA.”
Th
e Carter Devereux Mystery Thrillers
myBook.to/CarterDevereux
Here’s what readers are saying about the series:
“Omg this series is awesome. Full off adventure, action, romance, and suspense. I've you start reading you are hooked. Carter and all characters are awesome, you will fall in love with all of them they become like family. I love the way J C weaves the human and animals together in the story. Try it you will love it.”
“The best! What a joy to read these four books about Carter and Mackenzie Devereux bad their adventures. A very good read. I will look for more of JC Ryan's books.”
“Suspenseful! Fabulous just fabulous! I enjoyed reading these books immensely. I highly recommend these books. Bravo to the author! You won't regret it.”
“What a wonderful and intriguing book. Kept me glued to what was going to happen next. Not a normal read for me. But a very enjoyable series that I would recommend to everyone who likes adventure and thrills.”
The Exonerated
http://myBook.to/ExoneratedTrilogy
Here’s what readers are saying about the series:
“J.C. Ryan is an author that writes tomes. The great thing about that is that you get great character development and the plots are all intricate, plausible, suspenseful stories that seems to draw you in from the first scenario right up to the end.
The Exonerated series is no exception. Regan St. Clair is a judge. Together with Jake she has her own way in pursuing justice in ensuring that the legal system is applied ...well, justly.”