Domesticating Dragons

by Dan Koboldt

  “We think you’re ready to defend.”

  The words hit me like a physical blow. “So you’re not just cutting me off, but you’re kicking me out, too?”

  Dr. Sato set his coffee down and brought the full weight of his gaze on me. “It’s time for you to move on, Noah. Ideally, to somewhere with significantly more resources.”

  “I-I . . .” Words failed me for a moment. I sighed. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  He harrumphed and plucked another sheet from a pile on his desk, seemingly at random. “I’ve taken the liberty of compiling a list of research institutions with top genetic engineering programs.”

  For a career scientist, this was the traditional path—you moved to a new institution at nearly every stage, to maximize your network of collaborators and find the right academic home—but I didn’t think of this as a career. This was a means to a very specific end. I took the sheet and scanned it. Stanford, Michigan, UC Davis, Emory. Great programs and solid reputations. But they were so far away from Connor and Mom. A tightness formed in my chest, squeezing away the comfort I normally felt in Dr. Sato’s cozy office. “Is there nothing closer?”

  “Not with the resources that you’re likely to need.”

  “Oh.”

  “You look like you swallowed a lemon,” Dr. Sato said.

  “Sorry. It’s a lot to take in.” I forced a calmer expression onto my face. “I just don’t want to have to move away.”

  “A change of scenery might be good for you.”

  I gave him a side-look. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’ve worked hard for this. Especially in the last two years.”

  “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

  “That’s not what I meant. But you should take some time to enjoy life, Noah. Before you look up and realize most of it has gone by.”

  “There will be time for that when the simulator is done.”

  “When will you call it done?”

  “When it can scale up to human.”

  “And presumably, there’s one particular human at the top of your list.”

  His directness caught me off guard. He knew about Connor’s situation, of course, but we hadn’t had the open conversation about the connection to my work. “Is it that obvious?”

  “To me, yes. But it raises an important question about your eventual goal. What is it that you hope to do?”

  I did know that part. “Prove that my brother’s mutation is the cause of his disease. Then he can qualify for gene therapy trials.” Spinal muscular atrophy had been an early success for gene therapy, and I knew for a fact that the BICD2 study was still enrolling. We’d tried to get Connor in, of course, but they wouldn’t accept anyone with a Variant of Uncertain Significance. The stakes of the trial were too high.

  “You’re convinced that it is,” Dr. Sato said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Let’s say your simulator supports the idea. Do you plan to call his doctor and tell them to change medical records?”

  “Well, not exactly.” This was the fuzzy front end of my plan, the part I felt less certain of. “I guess I’ll present them with the evidence and try to get them on board.”

  Dr. Sato chuckled. “You haven’t been around a lot of medical doctors, have you?”

  I bristled. “Actually, I’ve met quite a few.” Mostly when I’d tagged along to Connor’s appointments.

  “Yes, but you saw the patient-facing doctor. Now we’re talking about engaging them as a professional.”

  “I am a professional.” Or I would be, at least, by the time this happened.

  “Your project is research, which gives you a lot more freedom. When it comes to patient care, however, the clinical guidelines are much stricter.”

  A touch of anger bubbled up inside of me. “So they’ll just ignore what I say, because it’s research?”

  “If all you have is a computer program, yes. Clinicians want experimental evidence, not just computational predictions.”

  “I’d love to experiment on him, but he continues to refuse that idea.”

  Dr. Sato smiled. “As he probably should. But I was thinking more about animal testing.”

  “Aren’t animal models pretty much locked down?”

  “The classic ones are tightly regulated, yes, ever since the canine epidemic.”

  Not for the first time, I cursed the name of CFTD. No one had proved that it was artificially created, but there were strong suspicions. It not only robbed the world of dogs but ushered in a boatload of legal restrictions on genetic modifications of animals. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees had existed before the outbreak, but now they held as much power as the review boards for human research. “Getting all the approvals would take a long time.” Which Connor doesn’t necessarily have.

  “What about a synthetic model?”

  I wrinkled my nose. Synthetic biology was a relatively new branch of biomedical research, the kind that created new animal and plant species by engineering their genomes from scratch. Because they didn’t exist naturally on Earth, researchers had a lot more leeway on genetic research. A number of commercial firms had come in and tried to make a profit from synthetic organisms. “Oh, is Unicorns-R-Us still in business?”

  “No, they closed up shop last year,” he said.

  “What about Custom Chimeras?”

  “Just filed for bankruptcy.”

  “Damn. What’s happening to all of them?”

  “The same thing that happens to many startups. They each have a wonderful idea, but no way to make money from it.” He tilted his head, as if a new thought had just intruded. “Have you heard of Reptilian Corporation?”

  I had, of course. It was impossible to live in Arizona and not hear about the hog-hunting dragons. “Oh yeah,” I deadpanned. “Those are the guys who do identity testing on dog poop, so you can sue your neighbors when they don’t clean it up.”

  “That’s Doo-doo Digital, as you very well know.”

  I couldn’t fight the grin. “I just wanted to hear you say it.”

  Dr. Sato frowned. “Maybe I was mistaken about your readiness to defend.”

  I held up my hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right! Tell me about this Reptilian Company.”

  “Reptilian Corporation.” He found a glossy magazine beneath one of the stacks of paper on his desk—Southwest Business Journal, one of the few magazines still doing print—and flipped it open to a two-page spread about the company. The white-haired man in the feature photo looked familiar.

  “Is that Simon Redwood?” I asked.

  “It’s his company. Number thirteen, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Well, that’s one selling point.”

  “Are you a Redwood believer?” Dr. Sato asked.

  “Oh, absolutely. I couldn’t even tell you why.” I shook my head. “There’s just something about him.”

  “I really thought his space elevator was going to work.”

  “Yeah, that was a shame. He’s got some killer ideas.”

  “That’s not all.” Dr. Sato tapped his finger on the photo and drew my attention to the backdrop. It was a server room, with tidy grids of dark gray servers. The LED patterns on them were arranged in a distinctive double-X pattern.

  I gasped. “Are those Switchblades?” The next-gen computers weren’t due to hit the market for another month. Rumor had it, the waiting list was already a year long. Redwood must have gotten early access. And God, he had dozens of them.

  “Reptilian raised a lot of capital.”

  “Why don’t they just do it all in the cloud?”

  “That’s a good question.” Coming from Dr. Sato, this was a real compliment. He loved good questions.

  “Maybe they have something proprietary that they don’t want anyone to know about.”

  “Lots of VCs are still under Redwood’s spell. And they’re in Phoenix.”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “Right in th
e downtown. They’re not hiring, but a former student of mine, Evelyn Chang, heads their design department.”

  “The Evelyn Chang?”

  “Yes.” He smiled fondly. “She’s done well for herself.”

  I stared at the photo, wondering what in the hell this Reptilian Corporation did with all that computing firepower. If I worked there, I could not only run my simulator, but maybe put Connor’s mutation into a living organism. Two birds with one stone. “I would love access to a place like that.”

  “I would strongly recommend you call it a career opportunity, rather than access. A next step for you and your career.”

  I tapped the magazine. “Get me an interview there, and I’ll call it whatever you want.”

  Dr. Sato sighed. “I suppose I could put in a good word, but I want you to do something for me in return.”

  “Anything.”

  “I want you to remember that you’re entering the private sector.”

  I rolled my shoulders, feeling defensive. “I know that.”

  “Corporate America is a different world, Noah. A less forgiving world. You’ll have to learn to play their game if you want to last long enough to achieve your goals. You need to make yourself indispensable.”

  “Okay. How do I do that?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” He smiled. “Figure out what they need, and make sure you’re the person who can give it to them.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cancellation

  Ten days later, I’d just started a new design of a nonflying prototype for urban use when a calendar notification materialized on projection monitor four.

  Hatching event.

  “What the—” I began. Then I remembered the softball-sized egg for the little smart dragon. Even though my snarkiness had faded a bit since designing that model, I kind of wanted to see it hatch. At the very least, a tiny genius dragon against the stiff hatchery staffers was a matchup I didn’t want to miss.

  Sunlight streamed from seven of the hatching pods’ windows; we were running at full capacity. But all the pods held run-of-the-mill Rover models. My pint-sized creation was nowhere to be found. I went back and checked my calendar, which showed that the egg should indeed be hatching today. I couldn’t find it, and the rest of the design team had gone to lunch, so I walked down to Evelyn’s office. “Evelyn?”

  She peeked out from behind a virtual wall of projection monitors. Eight, to be precise. Anything more than six meant she was super busy. “Good morning, Noah.”

  “It’s one-thirty.”

  “Already?” She shook her head. “Where does the time go?”

  “I hate to bother you, but I think one of my designs is missing,” I said.

  Her brow furrowed. “Which one?”

  “Model 86. I designed it ten days ago.”

  Her mouth fell open. Then she pursed her lips and looked away from me. “That design was canceled.”

  “By who?”

  “Me.”

  I bit back an unkind word but couldn’t keep all the anger from oozing into my tone. “You want to tell me why?”

  She looked at me flat-eyed. “You sank all of the feature points into intelligence.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I assumed it was a joke.”

  More like proving a point, I didn’t say. Truth be told, it probably wasn’t the most marketable idea. But I still wanted to see how it would turn out. “So what happened to the egg?”

  “Quarantine.”

  That meant Build-A-Dragon’s desert facility, which was somewhere outside the city and off limits to regular employees. “That’s too bad. It’s still a viable design.”

  She sighed. “Look, Noah. We don’t have the luxury of building any dragons we want. Robert expects us to produce viable prototypes for new product lines.”

  “Which would be easier if he lifted the point limits. That’s the point.”

  She pursed her lips. “I don’t think that is going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “I brought it up with Robert today. He’s made up his mind.”

  “I don’t see how we’ll do much more than a basic pet, if that doesn’t change.”

  She smiled. “We’ll just have to get creative.”

  “I guess.” I turned to leave.

  “Sorry about your little design.”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking, not as much as I am. A smart little dragon would have been a lot of fun. Not that I cared too much. I still didn’t give a crap about dragons.

  I tromped back to my desk and collapsed in the chair. I felt no motivation at all to open up DragonDraft3D to start a new prototype. The point limitations were going to be a problem. My master plan hinged on creating a dragon that was strong and smart, with enough endurance to stress-test genetic therapy. If I couldn’t figure out how to print a dragon egg that went beyond the point limitations, I might never be able to do the experiment.

  My workstation made a sudden crackling noise, like a glass window about to shatter. I thought it might be a bad cooling fan. I shoved aside a pile of papers that had accumulated on both sides of the tower to get a better look, which is when I saw it. The duplicate egg.

  “Oh, shit.”

  I picked up the egg to take it down to the biowaste disposal drop-off. I felt bad for wasting the egg, even though Evelyn had canceled the design. Incredibly, the thing still felt warm. Almost hot. It must have rolled to the perfect spot to catch the outflow of heat from the God Machine.

  I wondered if it might still be viable. The God Machine was always on, so the egg might not have had a chance to cool.

  According to company protocols, I should have called the hatchery staffers to come get the egg. But I was pissed off. Not just about my design getting canceled without a heads-up, but with the leadership’s dogged insistence on keeping the point limits in place. The simmering anger made me want to do something reckless. I dug my insulated lunch box out of my satchel and shoved the egg into it. It made that crackling noise again.

  “Uh-oh.”

  How long did an egg take to hatch? Maybe half an hour, maybe less. I grabbed my keys and hustled out.

  I’ve never felt as open and exposed as I did crossing the design floor. Why the hell did we need this open floor plan, anyway? I avoided eye contact with the other designers, and prayed Evelyn wouldn’t choose that moment to come talk to me. I made it to the hatchery door. So far, so good.

  I opened the door to find Jim and Allie bearing down on me, a loaded egg-cart between them. I’d have turned around and gone the other way, but I couldn’t cross that floor again. Instead, I slipped in and pressed myself against the right-hand pod so they’d have room to pass.

  “Hey guys!” My voice cracked a little. Sweat dripped into my eyes.

  God, it’s hot in here. How they could stand to work all day in those white jumpsuits, I’d never understand. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice how much I was sweating.

  Allie ignored me. Jim grunted something that might have been a greeting. They never took their eyes from the egg on the cart between them. Right then, I could have taken my little egg out of the lunchbox and handed it over. That would get their attention. But my eyes fell to the one already on their cart, yet another cookie-cutter Rover design. That’s all we’d ever produce, if the top brass didn’t come around on those point restrictions.

  Screw it.

  I forced myself to walk to the far door. I pushed it open, bracing for the blinding red lights and the wail of the biological alarm. Nothing happened. Silence never sounded so wonderful. I hit the button for the elevator and didn’t breathe until it came. The doors hissed open. I sagged in relief when I saw it was empty. I scurried on and hit the button for the lobby.

  Ding. Seventh floor. The doors hissed open to reveal the towering frame of Ben Fulton, Build-A-Dragon’s security chief.

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  “Mr. Parker,” he said, stepping on.

  I edged over as close to the
wall as I could. “Mr. Fulton.”

  “Keeping out of trouble?”

  I forced a smile. “As best I can.”

  He hit the Close Door button. The elevator shot downward. At around the third floor, the egg decided to crackle again, loud enough that it could be heard through the bag and over the hum of the elevator gears.

  Fulton looked over at me, his eyebrow raised.

  I’m sure my face was red as a tomato. I fumbled with my bag. “Forgot I had some hard candy in there.”

  He grunted and turned to face the front again. I wasn’t sure if he’d bought it. What if he demanded to look in my bag? He wouldn’t without cause, though. He seemed like a standup guy. Still, I’d just as soon not get caught for something this stupid.

  The doors opened at ground level. Fulton sauntered off without so much as a backward glance. I took what felt like my first breath in a while.

  I prowled across the lobby to the parking garage. I paused just before the door. The moment I crossed that threshold, I’d break the law. The FDA considered dragons and other synthetic creatures to be “genetic engineering products.” Registration was mandatory, and Build-A-Dragon kept a close eye on registrations. I could be fired for this, sending years of hard work and preparation down the drain. Even if that didn’t happen, getting caught with an unregistered dragon would put me under a lot of scrutiny, which I certainly didn’t want. It seemed like a silly gamble for an egg that had no guarantee of hatching.

  Then again, there might never be another tiny, smart dragon egg printed again.

  Did I really want to see it hatch so badly?

  Hell yes.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Little Emperor

  We took great care to orchestrate the hatching of new prototype dragons at Build-A-Dragon. They heated the hatching room in advance to make sure it maintained the optimal temperature. A synthetic nest and a team of well-trained handlers ensured that nothing disturbed the dragon before it was ready to hatch.

  Having smuggled an egg out of the building illegally, I didn’t have such luxuries. By the time I got the egg home, the dragonet had punched through the shell with his snout. I swept aside the dirty dishes on my kitchen table and set the egg in the middle. Then I ran to the closet and dug out my old-school incandescent desk lamp. The thing hogged energy like nobody’s business—I kept it mainly to run up the energy bill for my jerk of a former landlord—but its sixty-watt bulb produced a little heat. I switched it on and tilted it toward the egg.