Chapter 13
Low Earth Orbit, International Space Station
Thursday
9:30 a.m. Eastern Time
“Looking through the microscope feed here…” Dr. Fahid pointed at the monitor. “You can see the little xenobots working diligently to self-replicate. On Earth, in gravity, they form into shapes like a flattened-out Pacman. I’m sure you’ve seen the many videos of them. For whatever reason, the stem cell and frog embryo mixture there always reproduces the same shape. This will continue for nearly a dozen generations before they stop reproducing for some unknown reason.”
“So, yes, I’ve seen those on Earth real-time, Raheem,” Schwab told the scientist. “These are clearly different.”
“Yes, my friend. I can tell you have been paying close attention for the past couple of days. As you notice here, these are more three-dimensional and more like an hourglass than a ball, as one might think.”
“Well, actually, if you take the Pacman-shaped ones in two-dimensions with an axis through them along the back of the C, or Pacman’s back, and then rotate that C about that axis it makes more of an hourglass shape. Simple rotation of solids-math problem,” Karl argued.
“Hahaha! Dr. Schwab, in two days you realized what it took us years to discover. We tried and tried to build the three-dimensional version for a decade and each time the more Pacman xenobot was reproduced by them. Certainly, we have managed to engineer the shape to be circles, triangles, stars, amorphous, but the most fit for survival seems to be the Pacman shape. A Pacman more like a pancake, not a ball.” He paused to steady himself with a hand against the console. Dr. Fahid tended to wave his hands about as he spoke and in microgravity this imparted angular momentum.
“Sure, gravity limits their movements. But you’d think being in a mixture and being practically neutrally buoyant might enable three-dimensional growth and replication,” Karl said. He had learned to be more still, mainly due to the motion sickness that still hadn’t subsided. Any fast movements made his head start spinning, which in turn amplified the nausea. One of Dorman’s brilliant coders had also sent him an app that displayed an avatar of him with axes of rotations shown. From the accelerometers and gyros built into the microcircuitry of the glasses and a detailed photogrammetric map of the wearer, which it had, the app would calculate the avatar’s rotation and suggest countermovements. Karl had gotten very good at playing the game and keeping his body fairly stationary in the microgravity. Just holding himself still using the feedback of the glasses had an almost meditative effect on the brain. He enjoyed it. Karl made a mental note that some version of that would be a great “spa activity” for the hotel.
“Well, yes and no,” Fahid corrected him. “You see, these things are always grown in shallow Petrie dishes whereas there is a flat boundary on bottom and a meniscus on top with only a few millimeters at best of depth.”
“Yes, I see.” Karl rubbed his chin slowly in thought. “But millimeters of depth is very deep to these micromachines. This is like swimming in an Olympic depth pool for them. My guess is somehow gravity is giving them a restraining direction.”
“Hahahaha! Once again, Dr. Schwab you are apparently correct! I see why you funded this research now. You understand it quite well. This experiment proves this.” Fahid again sounded impressed by Schwab. Karl couldn’t believe the naivete of the man. Did he think an investor would grant millions and not understand to what end? Fahid continued explaining. “It is an effect, but we do not understand the mechanism through which they detect gravity yet. But, that has led us to this next experiment.”
Raheem Fahid worked the touch screen through a couple of pull-down menus and then changed the live view on the screen. A new microscope camera view showed a set of the same hourglass-shaped xenobots self-replicating. But there was something notably different about these microbots. Very notably different.
“Spike proteins!” Schwab exclaimed, pointing so excitedly that it made his freefall unstable. The glasses showed him to move his left hand and right foot simultaneously. He chose to grab a handhold to steady himself instead. “Spike proteins and lots of them.”
“Yes indeed! Each of these cells carries very large dendritic proteins that seem to be identical in every way on each generation. And, thus far, I have managed to measure nineteen generations with identical proteins and no mutations. These are being built more so than born. Very unique indeed!”
“How many proteins per bot?”
“Interesting question. They are designed from a standard monoclonal antibody or antigen. As you can see here, not all the proteins look the same.” He zoomed in on a still shot of the xenobot and rotated it about in all dimensions. “All three proteins for severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronaviruses are here. Others can be added if we like. I made a batch with the p53 and BRCA 1 and 2 breast cancer tumor suppressor proteins. They seemed to be more susceptible to folding that could lead to prions.”
“Really? That is very interesting.” Karl thought about the applications of that long term. The prion disease diagnostics, treatments, and insurance markets had been a sluggish growth market for the last decade or so. It was a unique place to make a fortune of fortunes. As it stood, only a small percentage of humans got prion-type diseases, which usually ended as brain cancer and death. But if all humans, or just the right percentage, could start getting it, just enough to push the market to trillions, while keeping the growth rate just slow enough to stay under the radar… SARS vaccines and boosters with the spike proteins would be a perfect place to hide such a thing. He made himself some mental notes that his glasses recorded for him.
“The proteins for those still available?” he asked.
“Of course, all of my strange creations are saved and stored.”
“And the proteins are longer and more precise than typical monoclonal or chimeric ones grown on Earth?”
“Of these you see now?” He shrugged cautiously as to not whip himself about in the microgravity and then nodded proudly. “Yes.”
“Any way to kill these things?”
“Kill them?” Fahid sounded shocked and surprised by the question. “They die out after nineteen or so generations. After six months or so, they simply stop replicating and the population dies like a yeast colony.”
Booster shots required, Karl thought but he kept that thought to himself. “So, Dr. Fahid, how many of these things have you made so far?”
“See for yourself.” The scientist pointed to the Microgravity Dendritic Growth Experiment module and beside it was a small refrigerator.
Karl pushed off the console to the MDGE and braced his socked feet against the wall to have a means of pulling. The refrigerator didn’t open. He stopped rather than pulling harder and looked at the handle of the device. There must be a catch.
“Button on top right,” Fahid said.
“Ah, okay, I see.” Karl depressed the release button and he could feel the catch let go. The door opened with very little resistance. There was a tray there with a ten-by-ten array of vial holder holes. There were only a handful of empty slots. The rest of the slots contained vials that were filled with a clear liquid. Each had a label with multiple alphanumeric sequences and a date printed on them. A second tray filled with vials marked UNVIABLE sat beside it. “Unviable?”
“Ah, yes, the more experimental ones, like I just mentioned with the p53 and BRCA proteins,” Fahid explained.
“I see.” Karl shook his head in wonder. He noticed there were also several small rectangular containers with a reddish gelatin substance filling them partially. He assumed those were new samples being grown or in stasis, but didn’t ask. Just beside those were several small bags of a clear fluid that could be used for intravenous systems. The bags were marked as trial samples ready for use. Karl decided that the doctor had been busy. Money well spent. He closed the refrigerator door. “Wow. How many viable proteins do you think you have made?”
“A computer algorithm is required to be precise, but the first xenobot will produce for days before going dormant.” Dr. Fahid tapped at the touch screen a few times before pulling up a graph showing population growth versus time. He pointed out various interesting points on the curve and how the experimental measurements of the xenobot population tracked with the mathematical model. “During that time, it will replicate as many as five or six times. And each of those seems to be viable for as many as nineteen generations. Using a Lotka-Voltera–type logistics growth model with no predation leads to something like a hundred billion spike protein xenobots, or SPXs—I call them ‘specs’ for short—per run. That takes about a month or so, and they stay viable for over six months until they cease functioning.”
“And we’ve no idea why they cease functioning?” Schwab was considering if the things had an off switch. If they had an off switch, they would have an on switch. That could prove useful.
“Not really. Perhaps they just get tired from all that building. Maybe it is a normal lifespan of such a creation. Any answer is truly spec…ulation.” Fahid raised an eyebrow at Karl with a smile on his face.
“I see what you did there, Raheem.” Karl grinned but not for the same reasons that the scientist did. “Very nice work. I’d like a complete download of all your work by tomorrow night. Design models, failures, tests, processes—everything. Don’t worry about nice grammar, typos, and such, just get me the information. I’ll throw in another twenty million for the continuation of your research. Just stop what you are doing right now and capture everything and get it to me.”
“Another twenty…”
“I want everything…by tomorrow night. That means, even the spec…ulations.”
“Haha! I see what you did there, Dr. Schwab. Very nice. I’ll get right to work.”