Wheel of Time - A Prequel
Chapter 2
Maxwell Schlange threw his cup across the room in anger. The rumors that funding was being diverted from the vacuum energy project were confirmed with a memo from college administration. His colleagues, already agitated at the news, jumped at the sound as the cup hit a wall, splashing liquid everywhere. He stalked past rows of desks lined with computers, cables, and other lab equipment, walked down a hallway, and made his way to the office of Abir Ramman, the head of High Energy Physics. Seeing that he was present, Maxwell barged past the reception area and Abir's assistant, brushing aside her protests, and entered Abir's office without knocking and began yelling. "I told you this would happen!"
Abir looked up from behind his desk and held his hands up. "Keep calm Max," trying to soothe him, "this was the best path we could have taken under the circumstances."
"Really? Wasting time continuing work on these...these theoretical activities? We had a workable plan, but instead of seizing that opportunity and taking the project to the next step, you've wasting everybody's time on endless simulations!"
Abir narrowed his eyes at the outburst. "Next step? There are still many unknowns, and we're conducting unprecedented research. I'd rather spend more time upfront trying to anticipate what might happen if we move forward, instead of barreling ahead and taking your suggestion to, what, use people as experimental subjects?"
Max move his hands up in a defensive posture. "I never said i wanted to use humans as test subjects. I suggested first using lower lifeforms to test upon, similar to what ancient scientists did, and then human testing, once we had successful results."
"There's no way I can condone doing that", Abir said, shaking his head. "Never mind that the global ecosystem is still in a delicate state, you haven't even determined which species would be viable. Are you willing to experiment on hundreds of animals from hundreds of different species? You know that the general public, and even many of the campus researchers, are extremely averse to anything that could threaten the biomes and cause another collapse."
The Great War had decimated life all over the planet. Scientists had been able to restore enough species to prevent a total ecological collapse and continued to toil, but the situation still remained precarious. All around the glove, everybody understood the dangers, and as such, sustainability was ingrained into the public consciousness. Outside the Collam Daan and a few other select areas in V'Saine, people had chosen lifestyles that minimized pollution, foresaking the use of ancient internal combustion engines and other similar devices, in an effort at self-preservation. All industrial areas, including the factories that manufactured their computers and other equipment, were kept to a minimum and isolated from habitable areas.
"Yes," Shlange said emphatically. "I'd willingly do those experiments. They'd allow us to generate actual results, which we could use to get back our funding and continue our research. More importantly, can you imagine the benefit to humanity, having a potentially unlimited and non-polluting source of energy? We could have the resources to repopulate and rebuild the entire world! It's time we moved forward and stopped with these simulations."
"I'm sorry, but I can't sanction these experiments. I sincerely hope that you're not serious about doing them. If you are, the Collam Daan would prefer to do without this sort of negative publicity."
Maxwell narrowed his eyes, and abruptly left the office.
Abir shook his head, and mentally braced himself to face the wrath of what was sure to be many more of his staff.
The swallow seemed to disappear and reappear as it gracefully flew through the lengthening shadows cast by the trees in the early evening hours, hunting insects. It never failed to marvel Akiko at how effortlessly the bird made flying look, and always helped to soothe her during stressful times. Her ragged breathing started to slow down and become more steady as her eyes tracked the bird's flight patterns, and her body became more relaxed as she sat cross-legged on the polished stone bench, her open arms resting lightly on her thighs in a meditative pose.
The central garden at Collum Daan was her favorite place on campus to visit and meditate when she either needed a brief respite from work or wanted the opportunity to enjoy nature, as rare and precious as it was. The garden was a micro-biome, one of the experiments to nurture their work, before reintroducing revived and engineered species to the wild. The blue and silver domes of the university in the distance reflected the light of the setting sun.
The ease at which the swallow moved through the air momentarily made Akiko want to transfer to the Applied Physics department. Hardly, she thought sardonically, shifting slightly in her seated position. It was true, from what she and other people at the university had heard, that they had recently made breakthroughs in antigravity, discoveries that were once thought lost, more than a millennia ago. Proofs-of-concept for flying vehicles that could defy gravity move like the swallow, and even more exotically, buildings with the ability to float. That said, the Nanotechnology department was her first love, being able to create and manipulate structures at a level nearly minute enough to affect the building blocks of matter.
Akiko al'Sabbar had spent the last five years working on a project, a partnership originally proposed by High Energy Physics and built on information theorized by the Biology Department, which was nanotech with the ability to affect energy at the quantum level. All of that hard work was now in danger of being in vain, with the massive cutback in funding and computing resources. Her almond eyes, which were a contrast to her olive skin - one of the identifiers of her ancient Japanese ancestry, narrowed and her brow furrowed as she nearly lost her meditative state. She closed her eyes as she contemplated the cause of her stress, in an attempt to confront and transcend it. Her streith shirt, partially obscured by her lab coat, reflected her mood, shifting continuously from white to a dusky yellow and back again.
The premise was initially exciting, but the excitement had eventually faded due to a lack of progress. Physics was able to use computing resources on both the Collum Daan campus as well as facilities in other cities, creating a simulation of the interactions between the nanobots of Akiko's department and a human brain, which consisted of nearly 10^11 neurons, synapses and other neural structures. The amount of processing power required dwarfed any other project ever undertaken.
It was thought that what was known of quantum interactions was sufficient to provide an accurate model for the simulation. However, there were two problems with this approach. First, the knowledge High Energy Physics had provided to fill in the gaps, was purely theoretical and guesswork. Secondly, and more importantly, the neural structures being simulated were just that, computer models with no quantum link to the universe. As such, the simulations had no causal relationship with, and were unable to influence the universe. As a result, university administration had recently scaled back computing resources and funding in favor of other projects with more promise. Her department had constructed several nanobot variations with could theoretically link with and utilize the quantum wave patterns, but without the exact knowledge on how to link them to the brain, they were unable to exactly tailor them to what was required.
Akiko sighed, took another deep breath of the cool evening air, and entered more deeply into meditation, focusing on kū, awaiting some sort of epiphany on saving her department's research. Part of her Japanese heritage passed down to her from her grandparents, meditation on kū, or the Void, gave her the discipline to transcend immediate problems and focus on potential solutions. Her awareness expanded as her distractions began to fade away. For some reason, she began thinking of telomeres...
"So you actually want to do this?" A group of researchers from Biology, High Energy Physics, and Nanotechnology sat in a rough semicircle around Maxwell Shlange in a lecture hall. He had asked for this late night meeting with some coworkers he felt shared his vision based on conversations with them, and more importantly, they were colleagues he felt he could trust. Thesar Daesad, a grey-haired man clad in a lab coat from Biology, called out his question.
"Yes," Maxwell replied, "you all know that we've already lost a significant portion of our resources, and if Abir continues on this ridiculous thought experiment, we will lose all of our funding. This may be our one and only chance to make any sort of actual progress."
"Have you thought about the logistics of what you're proposing?" Thesar Daesad asked. "Not only do we need to obtain an unknown number of test animals from any unknown number of species, but we also need some way to bring, experiment on, and observe all of these animals on campus without anybody noticing."
"Yes, yes, I know. I am also very much aware of the... distaste... of some the academic community on any sort of animal testing."
"Hardly from just the academic community", noted Thesar with a crooked smile, "more like the public in general."
"I realize that there is a danger to what I'm proposing, and that there will be a backlash no matter how we proceed. That said, I believe I have a strategy that will lessen opposition. All primates should be restricted from testing even though that are the most similar to humans, since they are near extinction. We would instead concentrate on species with large populations that could be considered revolting, threatening, or pests."
"What might those be?"
"I have a few options. We could look at the Squamata and Rodentia orders, and the Canidae family."
"Sorry, what was that?" Nabil Labur, a nanotech scientist, raised his arm.
Thesar turned to Nabil. "Reptiles, rats, and jackals, foxes, and other similar animals."
"Yes," Maxwell nodded. "Do you all understand now? These animals in that past have been thought of as pests or otherwise animals not looked upon favorably, and those feelings continue even to this day. I believe that we could commence our work with them. Ideally we'll be able to collect valuable data, and not have to resort to testing on animals that would cause a major backlash."
"I see," Nabil spoke hesitantly. "That could possible lessen any protests. However, where would you conduct the research though? You even mentioned that Abir is completely against this. If he hears about this, our research will be banned even before we start!"
"I realize that, and I agree it will not be viable to do our work on campus. I have a location in mind. It's on the outskirts of V'Saine, right where one of the industrial areas meets a dense and infrequently used forest. I know several workers there that will let us use an unoccupied building for our research, and we can obtain test subjects discreetly from the forest. Look, I know there will be opposition, but I called you all here tonight because I know you also want this research to move forward, and I think this is our best hope."
Several of the researchers began to nod their nods in agreement.
"Don't give me an answer right away, but think about it and let me know if you still want to be a part of this. I need everybody fully committed to this, will the full realization that we may be shunned by our actions. Thank you."
Schlange remained standing until all the people had left the room, feeling anticipation enter his body. He would go forward with this research, regardless of what Abir thought!