Wheel of Time - A Prequel
Chapter 3
Nabil, clad in black with a sack slung over his shoulder, made his way across the industrial complex in near pitch blackness. The complex was completely shut down at night to minimize pollution. He took a circuitous route, avoiding lit areas from overhead spotlights and ended up in an isolated area, in front of a nondescript two-story structure that was approximately 30 meters wide and 100 meters long. The only opening to the structure consisted of a door at the base of one of the short walls, which was secured with multiple locks. Retrieving a set of keys from his pocket, the researcher unlocked the door, and stepped into what appeared to be an unused and unlit storage facility. He walked in the darkness past dusty machinery and tools to another locked door at the far end of the structure, and passing through, made his way up a stairwell that led to the upper level of the structure. Nabil unlocked the door at the top of the stairwell, opened it, and blinked at the sudden light that temporarily blinded him.
The brightly lit room occupied the entire second floor of the structure, with researchers clustered among the rows of equipment and computers that were arranged tightly together. Nabil walked over to a row of cages, produced a small animal from his sack, and gently placed it into one of the empty cages, locking the door.
"What were you able to capture tonight?" asked Kali, one of Nabil's colleagues. Her long raven hair draped over the cage as she peered into it.
"It appears to be some type of fox, although I'm not sure exactly which species."
"That's all right," Kali began writing on a slate attached to the top of the cage. "We'll identify which type it is later."
"So have we been making any progress?" Nabil inquired as his eyes scanned the banks of equipment.
Kali's slim statuesque form turned as she gestured, "Nothing so far. We've captured approximately 100 animals from nearly 20 different species of Canidae and Squamata, along with some left over Rodentia subjects, but none of the experiments have yielded any results so far."
Nabil considered this. Almost six months ago, they had moved into this building and set up their makeshift laboratory using equipment scavenged from the Collam Daan university and other locations. He had taken a canister of template nanobots from the Nanotechnology department. The brainchildren of Akiko al'Sabbar, one of the department's researchers, these nanobots were engineered RNA-based machines that had been outfitted with basic computing, transmitting, and manipulating instruments. Nabil had collaborated with several colleagues, including two from his department, on adapting and replicating the templates to integrate with the physical structures and quantum wave functions of their test subjects' brains.
Rodentia had been their initial, and obvious, choice on which to experiment. These animals, even with a frail ecosystem, were still considered pests. A large and dense forest bordered on the industrial complex, and it contained a large number of Rodentia species. The templates were modified and had incredibly small and precise instruments added to them, built atom by atom. They were then replicated and injected, trillions at a time, into the braincases of the test subjects. They were designed to spread throughout the brain and communicate with each other, utilizing clustered computing in an attempt to tap into the brain's quantum wave functions and manipulate the universe.
The animals were connected to lab equipment that measured the wave functions' connections to the universe. Since all of the Rodentia subjects that were tested lacked adequate sentience to deliberately influence their environment, the nanobots were used to overcome this limitation. They were programmed to primarily accumulate in the basal ganglia, chosen for its influence in cognitive and motor functions, as well as being present in all vertebrate brains. Once there, they would manually stimulate the neural clusters and carry out several experiments in order to access space time turbulence. This turbulence, or quantum foam, was believed to be the underlying fabric of the universe. As initially postulated by the High Energy Physics department, if externally-linked quantum wave functions could be manipulated, the fabric of the universe could potentially be controlled, and the theorized vacuum energy could be harnessed.
Unfortunately, none of the experiments yielded any access to the quantum foam, much less changes to it. After a series of meetings and heated discussions, it was decided to commence experimenting on other animal orders, including Squamata and Carnivora. These orders were chosen based on the numbers of animals and diversification of species that were available within the forest, as well as based on the risk of a potential backlash if they were ever caught. Nabil scanned the banks of cages and the more than hundred animals locked up, awaiting experimentation. There were about thirty more animals that were currently being tested on, hooked up to various pieces of equipment and monitored.
He sighed and made his way to retrieve his lab clothing from the changing rooms.
Akiko checked the information on the containment fields that held the nanobots isolated and suspended within five vessels. The walls of the titanium vessels were sandwiched with thing layers of lead to provide protection to the nanobots from radiation. In spite of the interior walls of the vessels being highly polished, the nanobots were so small that if dropped, they would become trapped and lost in the metal's grooves at a microscopic level. As such, and the suspension fields were also the most effective way to prevent the nanobots from being lost. As usual, the sensors monitoring the fields reported zero fluctuations due to the multiple redundant systems. She turned away from the vessels and looked at her computer.
Akiko and her team had diverted most of their time and resources over the last year away from the vacuum energy project to another project. She had inspiration for a departmental project based on an epiphany during a meditation session almost a year ago, and had pulled several researchers to assist her. Effort on the vacuum energy project had significantly decreased, and several of the researchers that had worked on the project had either transferred out of the department or only visited the Nanotechnology department infrequently. Nabil was one of these people. He had reduced his time at the laboratory more than a year ago, although he was in the department's laboratory today. He saw Akiko from the other side of the lab, approached and smiled at her. "Salamat Akiko."
"Salamat Nabil. How have you been?"
"Doing well, keeping busy, and yourself?"
"I'm doing well, and the rest of the department is also doing well. We really miss you around here. You only come in once a month. What have you been doing with the rest of your time?"
Nabil waved his hand vaguely. "Oh, I've accepted a part-time research position at another university."
"Oh really? In V'saine or another city?"
"In V'saine," Nabil looked at Akiko. "You know I'd prefer working here full-time, but with the cut in funding..."
"I know Nabil," Akiko put her hand on her colleague's shoulder. "I'm sorry that the vacuum energy project fell through, but we're working on another project in conjunction with the Biology department, and I'd love to have you on it."
"Really? What is it?"
Akiko gestured towards her screen. "It's somewhat tangentially related to the nanobot templates used for the vacuum energy project. I was thinking about other potential applications using what we already have. What do you know of telomeres?"
"Not too much, what are they?"
"They're nucleotide structures attached to the end of chromosomes. To simplify the explanation, every time our cells divide, damage occurs at the ends of the chromosomes. Ancient sea-faring ships used sacrificial anodes to prevent seawater corroding their metal hulls. A mass of metal was installed on the exterior on the ship in such a way that the seawater would corrode it, instead of the hull. Similarly, damage occurs to telomeres instead of DNA each time chromosomes replicate, thereby keeping the chromosomes intact. That said, our telomeres are a certain length upon birth, and each cell division shortens them. Eventually, the telomeres become so short that damage to DNA occurs during replication, which leads to age-related conditions and organ failures.
"The Biology department originally tried to address this through in vitro gene therapy, but success in vitro had little correlation as organisms aged. Telomere manipulation can be potentially effective on combating aging through the use of telomerase to replenish telomeres, which was part of the problem. Do you know what else exhibits that property? Cancer cells. They constantly have their telomeres rebuilt, which makes them effectively immortal. The Biology department wasn't able to manage that balance, and essentially bred those animals composed of cells that were able to rebuild their telomeres. However, they ended up differentiating into cancer cells. For some reason, this either didn't manifest in, or appeared very late in the life cycles of lower lifeforms, but occurred rapidly in higher lifeforms, especially primates."
Akiko looked crestfallen for a moment. "This is one of the primarily why Abir refused to allow early animal testing on the vacuum energy project - dozens of animals that appeared to be healthy upon birth died within four years, including several primates. The death of those primates wiped out nearly ten percent of the global population. The backlash was so great that many people called for the closing of the university."
"I never knew that," Nabil's eyes grew wide at this revelation. "I suppose I can now appreciate why he was so adamant that we exhaustively did our simulations."
"That's correct. I believe this was before your time. You can imagine that, combined with the fragile state of the global ecosystem, and how it would affect people. I don't believe Maxwell Schlange was working here either when that incident occurred. In any event, gene therapy proved to be unpredictable after birth, and it was impossible to repair all the damage to all the billions of cells in the test animals once the cells mutated. It was just a matter of time until they all died. Biology was never able to identify the underlying mechanism for that differentiation, and as a result their research was cut.
"I must admit though, that Abil may have either underestimated the time required for the vacuum energy projection, or overestimated the patience of Collum Daan's administration.
"In any event, we needed a project that could give us a relatively quick win, and I thought that if we were successful, we could make a case to reinstate full funding. I said quick win because unlike with vacuum energy, the goal of using telomere lengthening to combat age was achieved. It was just the regulation and damage repair mechanisms that were flawed."
"Wait," Nabil's eyes opened even wider than before and point a finger at Akiko, "Are you saying that you're able to use nanotechnology to combat aging through telomere regeneration?"
Akiko gave a coy smile. "We're still working on it. That said, we've been successful in our simulations having the nanobots complete several tasks including the identification of chromosomes that require telomere lengthening, replicating telomerase using minuscule amounts of existing materials within an organism, and storing, manipulating and using that telomerase to replenish telomeres. The final outstanding task is for the nanobots to identify and eliminate cells that have the potential to become cancerous."
Nabil gave a broad smile. "That's incredible, I'd love to see more of your research. Do you have some free time now?"