by David Dun
“The whole thing,” Anna said. “I want to know what’s wrong with Jason.”
“Well, as you know there were two codes just to get into the main files. Paul cracked the second, but then individual files were encrypted and we had to go back to Big Brain four times. Jason had hacked into various parts of the Grace computer and downloaded backup files from the lab in Kuching. We are the first to read them, and it took a whole team of us including some folks from the University of Washington and a private foundation lab. But we got their game or at least part of it. And it is fascinating.”
“How does it affect my brother?”
“Okay, maybe I should start with the rather glum conclusion and then explain it.”
“Yes.”
“They altered his DNA. The DNA of his neurons. His brain. It’s probably permanent unless the lab that did it has a fix. But there does seem to be a treatment and we know the active ingredient. It is a temporary antidote that will relieve the effects of the DNA alteration for about twenty-four hours. If he takes it every twenty-four hours, he may not feel the effects of what has been done to his brain.”
“So he’s paranoid because of this?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“This seems incredible.”
“Well, there is a lot to it. I can explain if you like. I will tell you that we can send you some hormone that will make him feel better.”
“Yes. Yes.”
“All right Where to start ... let’s see ... they needed to alter just certain of his brain cells. They started with neurons in the limbic system, the prefrontal cortex, and the amygdala. They alter them genetically. Once changed, they have radical effects on people’s state of mind. To change them genetically they alter the DNA. To do that they deliver new DNA that affects certain predetermined neuron cell types.”
Anna seemed to pale.
“Okay. We’re all ears,” Sam said.
“Okay, to begin with, if we’re trying to influence anxiety we go to the cells that influence that mental state. Anxiety is largely controlled by certain brain cells in the limbic system, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex.”
“Okay.”
“There are two kinds of cells there. Some enhance a response, such as anxiety, and others reduce it. Activator cells or inhibitor cells, we call them. Grace calls the inhibitor cells suppressor cells, so we’ll go with their lingo. If you increase the sensitivity of anxiety-suppressor cells, you will actually be suffering less anxiety, whereas the opposite is true if you increase the sensitivity of an activator cell. To increase sensitivity to a neuron they add what we call a receptor. It’s actually a molecule on the dendrite.”
Sam let George know that they’d become familiar with the workings of dendrites and synapses, courtesy of Dr. Yanavitch.
“If I understand this,” Sam said, “my next question is how they forced the DNA changes in Jason’s brain.”
“To deliver the DNA coding sequence they use a structure that is in some respects like a virus and it is called a vector. To make it they break apart a virus and strip away its protein coating. Then they insert two pieces of DNA. One causes the formation of the extra receptor molecule on the dendrites and that is called the coding sequence. The other is called the promoter strand and it identifies the cells that are to be changed by the coding sequence. It’s like the passkey to changing only the neurons that make a difference in the anxiety response.
“Specifically, Grace breaks down a monkey herpes virus. They splice in the coding DNA and the promoter DNA, reinstall a new protein coat around this new ring of DNA, and bam, they have a delivery vehicle that infects a foreign cell and installs new coding sequences. All body cells of different function are defined by the proteins that they make. What defines those special proteins that make a cell unique are the promoters that are active in the cell to produce their unique proteins. For cells that have specialized functions like a cell in the amygdala of your brain, involved in an anxiety response, there must be unique proteins produced by that cell and cells of the same function. Each cell type will have its own promoter.
“If the vector enters a neuron that doesn’t recognize the promoter, then there is no change in that cell. They introduce the vector (which for these purposes is like a virus that won’t replicate) and it invades all or most brain cells indiscriminately. The protein changes forced by the changed DNA will only apply to the desired cells of the brain. So if any given neuron happens to be a brain cell concerned with anxiety, the vector basically says, ‘Honey, I’m home,’ and the cell recognizes that voice.
“Now this is something of a simplification because Grace has identified over a dozen unique cell types involved in the anxiety response; therefore they used a dozen different forms of the vector, each with a different promoter but all having the same coding sequence. Remember that the coding sequence is just the formula for producing the extra receptors.”
Sam looked at Anna, who was nodding her head as if in shock.
“Here is how the research progressed. Grace started with rats and mice but moved to monkeys in their Kuching, Malaysia, lab. First thing they discovered was that it’s easier to take a calm monkey and make it permanently nervous than vice versa. So that is how they started. In effect, to learn about making nervous monkeys calm, they initially studied the reverse process. To make a monkey nervous all the time you put extra responders in those activator brain cells concerned with the fear response. You just turn up the sensitivity of the activator cells.”
“And this is what they did to Jason?”
“Well, we’re not there yet but this is the research track they were taking. They were making calm animals nervous as a prelude to curing anxiety disorders. Now remember that a vector is just DNA with a protein coat, and—”
“We understand,” Sam cut in. “What about the opposite process?”
“I was just getting to that. To make Jason calm they don’t touch the activator cells or turn down their sensitivity; they use a hormone to stimulate an inhibitor or as they call it a suppressor cell.”
“A hormone?”
“Yes, and get this, it turns out they use insect hormones, called juvenile hormones. They aren’t produced in mammals.”
Sam looked to Anna, shaking his head, wondering what was next.
“The activator cell receptors and the suppressor cell receptors are sensitive only to juvenile insect hormones. Each to a different hormone. They got part of the DNA sequences for the receptor molecules from insects and mass-produced the hormones in the lab.”
“This is sick,” Anna said.
“Yeah. So they can install receptors that make the calm person nervous by making activator cells more sensitive. To counteract the effect you introduce the hormone that sensitizes the suppressor cells to make the subject calm again. To make him very calm you just superboost the suppressor cells.”
“Or you could do the same thing in reverse,” Sam said.
“Right. We could stimulate the activator cells and do nothing to the suppressor cells and create hyper-paranoia. But the hormones have no effect on someone with normal DNA.”
“The applications for this are almost unlimited,” said Sam.
“Right. They have a profile known as the Soldier profile. On demand they hyperstimulate fear-suppressor cells as well as activator cells associated with extreme aggression. They also stimulate suppressor cells related to remorse. In sum they can create fearless, aggressive killers with absolutely no remorse.”
“Why haven’t we heard about this for gene therapy for healing applications?”
“They cured the so-called bubble children with DNA fixes to the immune system using retro viral vectors to place genes in the bone marrow and altered the DNA that way. The problem with vectors is the human immune system. It tends to attack foreign bodies and a vector is a foreign body. With the bubble children there was no immune system and hence nothing to fight the vector as a foreign body. We know that Grace somehow solved the problem with the immune res
ponse because Jason was not a bubble boy and had a fully intact immune system. Jason didn’t steal that file.”
The French fighters from the rooftop flashed in Sam’s mind.
“They take an ordinary individual, alter his DNA, and apply hormones to make him an ultrasoldier,” Sam recapped. “When they want him normal again they wait the twenty-four hours or so until the hormone dissipates or they create the opposite reaction with other hormones. And I heard you say this: To accomplish a permanent alteration of a subject’s DNA, all it takes is for the subject to inhale a real good dose of the vector. But how about discipline, intelligence, strategy, and so on? For soldiers?”
“Don’t know.”
“I faced a group of fighters that had no fear. Now I have a theory about them.”
“I doubt they had the full pop that we’ve been reading about or you wouldn’t be here. You’ve heard about the 110-pound woman who lifted a car off her kid? That’s what you’d be dealing with. There is one more thing I want to tell you, especially Anna.
“All of earth’s life, plant life, mammals, invertebrates, single-celled organisms, is ultimately made from a DNA blueprint. All life is controlled by its DNA. DNA, you may know, is just nucleic acid molecules strung together in pairs. There are only four nucleic acid molecules. Just four. And the order of them in strings is what controls life. We humans have three billion nucleic acid base pairs in our string of chemical beads. It’s the order of the base pairs that makes us human.
“Jason believes that Nannites live in the DNA and that all of life on earth is for the purpose of hosting DNA. That’s the Nannite strategy. Somebody monkeyed with his DNA and since he believes the Nannites have their abode in DNA, he ascribes his troubles to them.”
“I like my mother’s Christianity better,” Anna said.
“Well, I’d like to think I’m not a Nannite sanctuary. I hope Jason is wrong. Otherwise we’re nothing more than good hosts for DNA.”
“So that’s what you know that you can readily explain to the likes of us,” Sam said.
“That’s it.”
“You have discovered plenty, and we appreciate it. Somehow we’ll try to sleep.”
Thirty-eight
Sam felt close to her, perhaps closer than he had ever felt with a woman. And it happened so fast he didn’t know what to make of it. When they came down the hall from the conference call, she followed him into his bedroom. There was a love seat and some overstuffed chairs around a coffee table.
She sat on the love seat and patted the spot next to her.
He sat. “How are we doing?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “All that matters to me now is that we have Jason, and we understand the antidote.”
“We’re also leaving here soon,” said Sam. “But say nothing.”
“And I imagine you don’t want to tell me where?”
“It’s far from here. Knowing where is only a burden. What if you were captured and I got away with Jason and Grady?”
“I see what you mean.” She took his hand. “I don’t want to die never having made love to you.”
She untied the belt of her robe, and as the knot loosened, he began helping with the buttons. Her scent and the intimacy of her eyes and the fingers on her clothes aroused him.
Then he watched her as she stood and dropped the robe, and with his eyes he told her what he was starting to feel.
Her nightgown was a beautiful blue and left her form partially revealed. Across her chest it lay open to display a gentle cleavage at her breasts. And the swell of them and the dark of the nipples barely visible beneath the gown made a tightness in his groin. Slowly she lifted the nightgown until she slipped it over her head. She wore slim blue panties with white lacy trim. Her breasts were a dark red at the aureoles and petite. Firm. Something about the way they turned out and pointed enthralled him. There was faint coloring at her neck, where the sun had caught her and freckled her, that contrasted with the paleness around her breasts.
Sam stood and picked her up, slight and easy in his arms. As he walked to the bed he could feel himself start to harden and the flush spread over his own chest. When he put her on the bed she lay back to watch him undress. He did not hurry with his shirt and T-shirt, and she seemed to warm at the look of him. She came up to her knees to do his jeans and put her hand over the mound at his fly, watching his eyes as she gently rolled over him with her fingers. Then she slipped down his jeans. When he put his hands on her shoulders to come over her, she resisted with a whisper, “I want to play,” and peeled off his underpants. Using her hands and lips, she did things so exquisite that he wondered at the delicious agony.
Then he lifted her up and stripped off her panties, fascinated at the reddish tinge in her pubic hair and the perfect form of her thighs.
He buried his face in her; she was rich with scent, her sweet perfume mingled with the musk of her body. Gently he teased her with his tongue until he felt her swell. Then he kissed at her breasts, bringing the nipples full and engorged.
“Oh, dear God, Sam,” she whispered at the cooperation between his tongue and fingers.
They lay down and he moved inside her. She held him close, her arms tight on his ribs, and she fit herself to him and he let her find her rhythm until he could hear the tune in her soul and feel the beat of it. He pressed himself to her and kissed her, and in those moments he could feel a renewal of his hope and knew that for him the world could, after all, be reborn and his heart pulled from its slumber.
There was a brief respite in their movements while she let her body hold him and he felt her insides squeezing down on him. There was a feeling in her body through his fingertips that told him she was gathering herself. His eyes locked on hers and explored the life in them, and tried to discern the emanations and the unusual brightness that spoke to him of eagerness and hope.
He kissed her deeply—she tasted like the sweet spice of her cinnamon mints. The movement of her tongue stirred him and the feeling of her against him brought his hands low to cup her buttocks. He knew to lift her as she wrapped her legs around him.
She wanted him, but loved the slowness of his love-making and the patience that obliterated time. After her exuberance had nearly overtaken her, she rolled him over and sat astride him, feeling the sweet torture down to her thighs where his hand now became the genie of her imagination.
The want of him was almost painful, but she didn’t utter a sound; she was sure that he was hearing more from her than she knew to speak.
“I love you, I love you,” she finally whispered, feeling her breaths go nearly desperate, the sweat running down her sides and making the bedsheets wet.
Perspiration poured from her body, and he pulled her close to taste it with his tongue. At her throat as he mouthed her shivers, he could feel her clutch telling him things that she would not say. Once again he let her find her way until she gave herself to a waltz that he slowly began to hear. When he had found the rhythm of it, he learned her new dance and took her waist in both his hands. It was narrow and taut, the muscle of it firm, the movements of it growing strong. There was a clench in her thighs that told him she was nearly spent. He used their sweat to slide her like a car gone wild on a rain-slicked street.
When they had exhausted each other, she sat astride him with her head bowed and she looked and saw that she was naked, and she giggled and fell on him, leaving him to wonder if it would ever be that good again.
She lay with her face inches from him, her eyes not leaving his. The amber brown hues of them were at once soothing and exhilarating.
She leaned and put her lips to his ear. “Who are you?”
“I was born Samuel Browning. My name now is Kalok Wintripp. My father was of English descent. He was an Air Force parajumper. I grew up in Alaska. I received my Ph.D. from MIT when I was twenty-four and I took it as Kalok Wintripp. Grandfather picked my Indian name. It is the Tilok word for Eagle.”
“I have an idea,” Michelle said to Samir over breakfast.
He was less shaky than usual, as she had used extra oil that morning.
“Hmm?”
“I think we should give you a huge dose of the oil so that you can think like you used to think. A window of sanity, so to speak. All or nothing—figure out what to do to end this torture.”
Samir rang a bell and a servant appeared.
“Get me Fawd,” Samir said.
The man appeared in two minutes.
“Tell him,” Samir said.
She explained her idea and elaborated, this time emphasizing that the old Samir would have found a way out of the current predicament.
“I agree,” Fawd said.
“Okay,” Samir said. “Get it and let’s start.”
Michelle could see a difference within fifteen minutes, and marveled at how simply some unknown chemical or drug transformed the man. Ironically, it was his vulnerability that in part had drawn her to him, and now it faded fast.
This time when Samir walked into the five-star hotel in downtown Kuching, he felt like the billion dollars he was worth. He and Fawd had spared no expense when it came to men, and Fawd had been smart enough to keep a large contingent parked around various cheap hotels in Kuching and some in tents camping in the jungle. This time they would not bother to approach the compound so cautiously.
Benoit spoke quietly to Chellis, who sat behind an ornate desk longer than he was tall. His head was bowed over his hands and a thumb rubbed each eye.
They were in an eight-bedroom country house that was nearly a mansion, with surrounding grounds that measured in all over forty hectares. It was a gentleman’s farm an hour’s drive from Paris and located on a hillside near Chevreuse in a pastoral setting chosen by Benoit more for its security than its notable tranquility. It was prime real estate, with privacy and a view at the end of a long, tree-lined drive. Clearly it would be hard for Chellis to leave undetected.
“Do you have to leave?” he said to her as she gathered her gloves.
“I do. I have to run the business. But I’ll be back. You’ll be safe here, I promise. You’ve picked the guards yourself.”