CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Prototype
I should have been more reluctant to design another dragon prototype after Octavius’ design was canceled, but the challenge of designing a better flying model intrigued me. I brought up the Pterodactyl design that O’Connell and the Frogman had put together and perused it at length. Honestly, it was pretty good. They’d invested most of the feature points on wingspan, musculature, and endurance—the holy three traits of flight-capable animals—and devoted what paltry ones remained to intelligence. It was probably what I’d have tried first, too.
Having seen the results of the “Terrible-dactyl,” however, I figured I should take a different route.
First, I curtailed each of the holy three traits—which would undoubtedly limit the flight capability—and moved those over to intelligence. My simulator showed that the resulting dragon would have better flight control, with a reduced range. But I was still worried about whether the dragon was smart enough to navigate in three dimensions. The instinct of flight wasn’t bred in the same way its hunter and predatory instincts were. There were, as far as I knew, no flying organisms that contributed DNA sequences to the Dragon Genome.
So I robbed Peter to pay Paul once again and goosed up the intelligence even more. This time, the simulator showed that the dragon would hardly fly at all. Not that it couldn’t fly, but it chose to spend most of its time on the ground. Maybe it simply knew the limits of flight and preferred to save them for emergencies. Wild turkeys did that, so there was biological precedent.
But I could already hear the nicknames customers would produce for a flying dragon that never flew. “No-fly” or “Flying lemon” or “’Fraid-of-flier.” I scratched that model and started over.
Project Condor, as I started calling it, was doomed from the beginning. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to make a big, badass dragon. I sure as hell did. But balancing size with agility and intelligence while staying within Build-A-Dragon’s guidelines was virtually impossible.
I was at my desk, muttering curses to myself, when Evelyn stopped by for a status update.
“Noah, you are talking to yourself,” she said.
“Was I? Jeez. Sorry.”
“Are you making any progress?”
“Not really.” I was happy with the body size and cranial capacity, but the simulator said the dragon wouldn’t fly. The wings were too short. “You’re asking a lot.”
“I know it’s a hard design,” Evelyn said. “That’s why I gave it to you.”
“If you really want all of those features, I need some wiggle room with the point restrictions,” I said.
Evelyn chewed on her lip. “How much wiggle room?” she asked.
“Maybe twenty points,” I said.
“That many?”
I shrugged. “Otherwise it’s hard to make it smart enough and strong enough.”
Caution warred with ambition on her face while she considered this. “Do what you have to do,” she said at last.
I felt a thrill that I tried not to show. A chance to go outside Build-A-Dragon’s restrictive guidelines? Talk about a game-changer.
I had a few orders in the queue, but nothing pressing. I opened DragonDraft3D and entered an override sequence to put the program in “experimental” mode, allowing designs beyond Build-A-Dragon’s strict parameters.
The God Machine wouldn’t print an experimental egg without director approval, but I felt confident that Evelyn would grant it. An improved flying model, if it sold well, would be a major coup for her with the company’s top brass.
It was tempting to amp up everything: body size, wingspan, intelligence. To make something like the dragons out of legend that Connor was always prattling on about. I had to admit, it would be kind of sweet to create something like that and simultaneously use it to get him his long-awaited diagnosis.
But I’d never get Evelyn’s approval to print that egg, much less permission from Robert Greaves. Even so, a scaled-down version of it, a promise of such perfection, might convince them to lift the point restrictions permanently. And the fact that it would provide a perfect model for Connor’s mutation? Just a side benefit.
I cracked my knuckles. “Let’s do this.”
The first thing I did was push the wingspan out to three meters. I couldn’t entirely resist the liberty of sanctioned boundary-breaking, so I tweaked the metabolism and bumped up the cranium capacity. Then the fast-twitch muscle response. This dragon wouldn’t just be able to fly. It would swoop, glide, pivot. It would dance in the air. But it would also hold a secret: my brother’s so-called variant of uncertain significance. This was the model for it. I knew it in my bones. A strong, smart flying dragon would test its muscles in countless ways, just like a boy would. I couldn’t ask for a better model system.
If I was right about it, the muscle weakness would arise over time, and even then, it would mostly affect the lower limbs. With a muscle biopsy, I could compare their leg tissue to that of a dragon without the VUS under a microscope. Muscle cells from BICD2 patients had a striking visual feature called Golgi fragmentation. Basically, the compartments that move things around the cell are scattered and disorganized, rather than centrally located. If I could prove that cells containing Connor’s variant had the fragmentation, it should convince the doctors that it caused his disease.
Then again, these were a lot of ifs and shoulds. The thing is, few aspects of genetics can be predicted with absolute certainty. But I figured that an in-demand prototype to satisfy a key niche market was as good an excuse as I’d ever have to test out a model system.
Besides, if I managed to create a flying dragon that started out strong and deteriorated months or years later, they might give me a goddamn promotion. Even so, there was a risk here. If it became a mainline prototype, the design would get all kinds of scrutiny. Evelyn would check the design herself before she gave the print approval. She wrote DragonDraft3D, so it was very possible that she’d put in features that I didn’t know about. Features that might detect subtle acts of sabotage. I’d made all kinds of tweaks to muscular genes to get the flier’s performance where it needed to be. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice one more.
I sent the print orders to Evelyn at around two o’clock, which happened to be the busiest part of her day. She was usually double-booked for meetings and prepping for her board briefing. Sure, I was gaming the system a little bit, but the less attention she could give my design at this stage, the better.
The God Machine began purring a minute later. Jackpot.
The egg came out almost perfectly round, and the shell pattern was my favorite to date: whorls of green and blue with just a hint of orange. I paused a moment before calling the hatchers. I put my palms against the smooth surface. It was warm, almost hot to the touch.
I’d gone outside the guidelines. Maybe more than I should have. But I knew one thing: the results would be spectacular.