“Well,” said Jack. “The only way I see that we can be sure to get the production rates necessary is to use the body's cells themselves.”
“You mean like the virus does? Infect cells with blocking molecule machinery and allow them to create the needed copies?”
“Yes,” said Jack.
“Preposterous,” said one of the virologists listening. “But it might work.”
“Jack,” said Dr. Williams. “I hope you will consider collaborating with us as we pursue a viral cure.”
“Certainly,” said Jack smiling. “I would be more than pleased to help out.”
“Jack, Phylicia,” said Dr. Hughes interrupting the discussion. “You may not realize exactly what you have done. You have essentially legitimized the use of synthetic biology in biological research. Something that, as you know, was frowned upon for years by the biology establishment because of the accident that killed the fruit flies.”
“Well,” said Jack. “I was an engineering student before I switched so the idea of using synthetic biology to design a mechanism for viral detection seemed logical. The history of the reaction to that accidental release of gene drives from the Moscow lab seemed to me more of a knee jerk reaction among those fearful of foreign research groups. Gene drives, which everyone knows override natural selection to pass a desired trait down through succeeding generations, in this case selection for male offspring only, have nothing to do with synthetic biology. As far as I know the reaction, which was never an outright ban, chilled synthetic biology research in academic labs here but nowhere else in the world which is probably why many people are looking at restarting their programs and why I continued with it in my research.”
“I think you will find most of the researchers here at the CDC agree with you. But since we work for the government we could not approach its use logically as you have,” said a virologist.
“Well,” Jack said. “I guess that is the result of not having a real job over the past few months and not needing official approval for my work. I am fortunate in what happened to me although at the time I was pretty distressed. I had personally wanted to be the one that discovered an effective approach to handling viral infections. You only realize after long reflection that it is the effort you contribute to the goal that counts not whatsoever you do.”
“I would be willing to bet,” said Dr. Hughes, “that the methodology that you have provided for researchers here will eventually lead us to accomplishing the goal you set for yourself all those years ago, a universal viral cure.”
“Thank you Roberta, those are kind words,” said Jack.
“And you should be proud,” continued Dr. Hughes, “of what you have accomplished so far. You have contributed just as much to helping us find a vaccine for this current outbreak as anyone here.”
There was immediate agreement expressed by the other researchers.
“And I believe your wife and son would be proud too,” said Phylicia.
Jack looked at Phylicia, he was smiling again.
War through the pines
Image - © 3000ad - Spaceship wheel near Earth - www.dreamstime.com
1
Donner Jackson was thirteen years old when his family moved to the remote valley. At first he found it lonely and frightening, the way the wind howled through the pines at night sounding like an animal alive. And the darkness, Donner found it all enveloping, almost suffocating. It was too dark, almost too dark to sleep.
Donner busied himself with getting a satellite internet connection so that his nights wouldn't seem quite so lonely. Although Donner's dad, Jack, was too busy to help, Donner had no trouble setting up the old mini-dish and modem bought at a yard sale. These dishes and their electronics were cheap now since the introduction of the omni-directional antennas a few years earlier. The new antennas didn't require the careful alignment that the dishes needed. But cheap was good on Donner's budget.
He used his dad's metal working equipment in the barn to attach the dish to his telescope mount for accurate tracking. It wasn't necessary to track the satellites in the array but it would bring in a stronger, steadier signal and consequently, a higher data rate. If he could get the data rate high enough he could even play online games again with his friends.
Luckily, the house was located across the grassy field from the mountains and slightly above the valley floor which kept the peaks from masking the satellites Donner needed. He worked at locking his makeshift antenna onto their signals. He managed to catch an occasional signal. And the more he worked on his system the better it got at tracking and locking onto the satellites.
The next step was decoding the signal. Donner would use his personal AI device, called a ANI (Artificial Narrow Intelligence) or Annie. Annies could learn to do anything with a little software and a lot of machine learning. They learned by training on data sets that the user submitted to them. It was very important to use complete, correct and valid data. Good data, good result; bad data, bad result. Donner's Annie was a portable device but still had the power to decode the satellite data streams if enough samples from the satellites could be acquired to train it.
Because of the obstacles the mountains offered, Donner had a twenty minute window with each satellite which was reduced somewhat as the dish took time to lock onto the signal. So it was hit or miss for a while. But slowly Donner built a database of satellite data. And his Annie became better and better at decoding the data.
Once his Annie could decode the data sufficiently Donner was quick to renew his game play. His friends were happy to have him back online because he was a good game player although they would kid him about being out in the sticks. Donner also got his shows and movies and access to online bookstores again. Unlike his friends Donner had a love for physical books. His mother, Phylicia, found Donner's latest purchase one morning when a delivery drone landed in the front yard with a package addressed to her son. She was upset that Donner would be so extravagant when he could easily have downloaded the ebook.
When she told his dad about Donner's exploits, his dad suggested to Donner that it might be a good idea to get the family's media Annie online so that his mom could catch some of her shows too, Donner could charge the service to his father’s credit account. Donner did so and the incident faded from family memory.
With his dad's support Donner soon had two dishes running. One could be receiving from the satellite currently visible while the other was locking onto the following satellite in the array. Because of the high data rate he was getting he was even able to meet up with his old friends using his virtual reality helmet, almost feeling as if he was back home. It helped relieve the loneliness.
The setup worked great unless his mother was recording something off one of the satellites, then he was back to one dish. He solved this by talking his dad into buying a cheap used dish, amplifier and tracking mount and adding it to his setup. Now he had at least two dishes at all times to monitor his internet satellites.
Then he got the idea that he could use his setup to receive more television channels for his mom if he could receive the satellites in geosynchronous orbit, about ten times further away. All he had to do was combine the signals from his dishes to get enough signal strength to pull in the weaker signals. In effect he would create one large dish out of his three smaller ones.
He talked to his dad. “Son,” replied Jack. “You are right in theory but in practice that is a very difficult engineering job. And professional equipment that could do something like that costs in the five figure range. It would be easier and probably cheaper to get one of the newer omni-directional antennas and the appropriate electronics.”
But not as much fun, thought Donner. “But if I wanted to try what would I need?” he asked.
“Well,” said his dad. “You would need to phase lock the signals from the different antennas so that they don't destructively interfere. You want the signals to synchronize so that they build in amplitude like ocean waves approaching the shore. To do that yo
u will need a super accurate clock which would allow you to compensate for position and tracking errors between the dishes. So it's quite a challenge isn't it?”
“Yeah,” said Donner. “I'm going to have to think about it for awhile.”
2
To Staff Sergeant Emily Rosen they weren't just sleek flying machines. The hypersonics were her babies. She programmed the onboard flight ANI and nurtured the “beast”, the hypersonic scramjet that put the hyper in hypersonic.
And every one of the more than thirty hypersonics located at the secret west Pacific island airbase had a personality as far as Emily was concerned. She was sure that “Superman”, as she christened one of her charges, would no doubt make a success of any mission he was assigned. But as for “Lex Luther” well, he would do okay as long as the others led the way. Lex hadn't exactly shown himself a leader.
Most of the squad were kinetic energy weapons. The size of a small fighter jet, they would deliver their bulk against the target at hypersonic speeds. The resultant destructive force would pierce any target no matter how hardened it had been constructed. A couple of hypersonics in the squadron provided reconnaissance, they would help guide the others if local conditions required. They were the only two that might return from the mission. Emily had named them “Looker” and “Booker”.
She was talking to Looker now.
“Looker report status,” Emily said to her Annie which relayed the request to Looker.
“Status nominal,” reported Looker. “Download of latest reconnaissance mapping from DOD satellite is complete. Integration into existing database is proceeding. Estimated completion, sixteen hundred hours.”
“Looker, memory upgrade sufficient for new information download?” asked Emily.
“Yes,” responded Looker. “A ten percent buffer will be maintained.”
Emily worried over that number a moment.
“Looker,” said Emily. “How much did this last download decrease memory capacity?”
“Memory capacity decreased by five percent.”
Damn, thought Emily. Even with all my efforts memory is still going to be a problem. I can't believe the red tape involved in procuring upgrades. I ask for a thousand terabytes and I get ten.
Okay relax, she said to herself. Time to go off script.
When Emily went off script she meant she was going to solve the problem through her own efforts. The brass didn't need to know.
“You still talking to machines Sgt. Rosen?” asked a voice behind her.
Emily turned to see Lieutenant Warner.
“Sir,” said Emily as she saluted. “I find the audio interface of more efficient use than a keyboard.”
“Yes,” said the Lieutenant. “You've made that clear to me and the other officers Sgt. Rosen. But it still seems strange to me.”
“Sir, I can assure you that there is nothing strange about it. These machines have the same intelligence as the Annies most of us carry. And sometimes more,” said Emily, referring to her unauthorized modifications to the ANI in the aircraft which only she knew about.
“Well, carry on,” said the Lieutenant.
“Yes sir,” said Emily saluting.
“Good thing he has a great head of hair, makes him at least look like an officer,” said Emily to no one.
“I agree,” said Looker.
Emily laughed.
3
While Donner researched the electronics needed to get his antennas to sync he helped his father around the farm. Each week brought a delivery of some new equipment to make the farm more self-sufficient. They soon had the robotic vegetable gardeners working. The water purification and distribution system was automated and included the well, stream and the rain water cisterns. The fruit orchard was planted and attended to by a specialized robot. The work for Donner and his dad soon devolved into keeping the machines in good condition and updating their programming.
Working on his antennas and helping his dad didn't keep Donner completely occupied. He also explored around the farm and the adjacent woods and soon became comfortable with his new surroundings. He missed his friends but realized how much of their time together had been spent playing games online which he could still do.
These exploratory wanderings were something that he came to look forward to. The woods were always changing according to the weather or time of day, the nearby stream was quiet or raucous according to the last rain, and the birds and deer he saw were mostly unwary of him, as if he were not the intruder he thought himself to be. He made it a goal to learn more about the plants and animals in this part of the country.
Just after Donner turned fourteen it was time for school to start. He took his classes at home online with his mother as his tutor. Donner's mother was well qualified to teach with a degree in Biology and another in Mathematics. She had even completed much of a PhD in Microbiology before a disagreement with her adviser forced her out of the program. In fact, she and her husband had worked in the same lab, becoming close when Jack also was forced out of the program because of illness.
It was just before the end of the school year that Donner first got his project online. The electronics he designed with the help of his Annie used predictive look-ahead to estimate the necessary phase adjustment for each antenna signal. This look-ahead design gave the tracking motors the time they needed to maintain a lock on the satellite signal. This reduced the corrections necessary to something that a fast processor, such as the one in his Annie, could digitize and then use to eliminate the remaining errors mathematically.
Donner set the system up for nightly surveys of the geosynchronous region with an analysis the next day using his Annie. It wasn't long until he found a very unusual signal.
4
Lieutenant Brently Armstrong had always wanted to go into outer space. But he hadn't expected it to be his first assignment after graduating from the Air Force Academy. No doubt his double major in Astronautics and Physics not to mention his summer internships at the NASA Ames Research Center contributed to his selection.
The ride up had been a thrill. Chemical rockets might be old-fashioned compared with the Maglev system, which rail-gunned cargo into orbit, but wow they were still a kick to ride. Arriving in geosynchronous orbit the spacecraft docked with the Space Defense Platform and Brently transferred down the short docking tube to be welcomed aboard.
After a quick orientation lecture he was shown his quarters. The transition from the zero gravity of the docking section to the one-third gravity of the living quarters seemed natural to Brently as he traversed the ladder. Once he was in the wheel shaped rotating section which was sandwiched between two equipment and station keeping booms, he simply turned his body one-hundred and eighty degrees and continued 'down' the ladder. The rotating section provided enough gravity for people to sleep normally. Besides personnel quarters, also in this section was the exercise area, work rooms and the mess hall.
Brently was impressed with the number of robotic servers aboard. Most were about the size of a roll-about storage bin, some with drawers, some with doors. They would exit from a room and cross to the opposite wall and follow it to their destination. Brently later learned that they navigated by the colored strips and numbers painted on the floors and walls. They carried tools, food, clothes, anything that a station resident would need. They were all business, not stopping unless someone or something got in their way.
Stowing his personal effects he headed off to work room seven to meet his immediate boss.
Brently buzzed the door and heard someone call, enter. Pressing the button again rotated the latch and opened the door to reveal his working quarters. The workroom was large enough to notice the station curvature. Seeing someone at the far end Brently snapped to attention and said, “Lieutenant Brently Armstrong reporting for duty sir.”
“At ease Armstrong,” came the reply. “In this work room we are all equal. Outside this room you can salute me if you want.”
“Yes sir,” said Brently reflexiv
ely.
“My name is Eric Fermion, and yes I know that a fermion is a particle so you can leave the jokes outside if you don't mind.”
“Of course sir,” said Brently.
“In here call me Eric please, we haven't enough personnel in our department to maintain the usual protocol.”
“Of course, Eric,” said Brently.
“Now let me explain to you what needs to be done before we go live. Most of the installation work is finished. But we still need to calibrate our instruments. I'm going to ask you to work with the EM sensors. The electromagnetic fields up here are small but significant. They could provide us with advanced warning of a change in the space weather or even an attack. So we want the EM sensors calibrated to a fine degree and dependable.
From the Earth: A Future Chronology Anthology Page 7