by D. S. Murphy
“Dragon fire turns coal into diamonds.”
“How the hell did you figure that out?” I asked. His avatar shrugged, then launched himself back towards the dragon again.
“Keep attacking,” he said. “You get massive experience points with each attack.”
We found a rhythm, working together, taking turns attacking and avoiding the dragon’s teeth and tail. Eventually our health was running low, and as I feared, the dragon had been steadily recharging its health.
“It’s no use,” I said. “We can’t defeat him.”
“Follow me,” David said, leading the way back out of the cave. We stopped at a trading booth and David used the diamond to buy more health kits, and a dozen pieces of coal. Then we jogged a short distance away to another bridge. We fought the trolls again and descended into another cavern. This dragon was deep blue, with yellow eyes. David repeated his trick with the coal, then we fought with the dragon until we’d used up all our health.
“Wait, that’s it?” I asked. “You just go back and forth between the dragons, racking up experience points and diamonds? How long have you been doing this? You must have insane stats.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Like I said, it helps me think. The repetition, the patterns. I have a few million credits, but I rarely buy anything. I just like to play.”
My mouth dropped open. A few million? Damn. David could be a serious player, if he wanted to be. I don’t think even Jens had that much. He may not have the skills, but his little hack meant he could upgrade quickly, and he probably had enough diamonds already to buy anything he wanted. I couldn’t believe he’d hacked Illius. If only there was a hack to make that much money in the real world.
7
“We need to talk about monetization,” I said immediately the next day, as soon as Mr. Leister divided us into groups. We usually just killed time in class with other homework so that we could work in private during lunch. But today we had things to discuss. My gaming session with David hadn’t made me forget about our money problems, but it had given me an idea.
“My sister just got her second round of treatment, but there’s only going to be one more. That means, altogether we’ll only have three batches of nanobots.”
“That’s enough to prove our project works, and win the contest,” Brad said.
“Forget about the contest,” I said, whispering harshly. “You know science fairs are for corporations to just steal great ideas away from teenagers at a fraction of the cost. If this thing works, it’s going to be revolutionary, right?”
“With all the things we can do? Uh, yeah,” Brad said. “It’s going to be a big fucking deal.”
“So we put it out ourselves,” I said. “Publish the app. Keep the profit.”
“Isn’t that, I don’t know, wrong somehow? It just feels wrong to me,” Amy said with her hands tucked around her elbows. “This is starting to get out of control.”
“We’d get in less trouble if we could just play dumb high school kids who made something for a science fair project. Once we start selling it for money, the narrative changes,” David said, avoiding my eyeline. “I mean, if what we’re doing is illegal—and I don’t think it is, but it’s in very questionable area—people could come after us, hard. They could sue us. Take the money away.”
I hadn’t thought about that. I didn’t want to put my family into any more financial trouble. But I wasn’t ready to let go of my idea.
“If Megan can’t pay her bills, our supply of therabots goes out. We need to fund our supply,” I said. It made sense in my head, but sounded unconvincing out loud.
“I can set up an LCC and connect it to a bank account,” Greg said.
“A what?” asked Amy.
“Limited Liability Company,” Greg said. “Basically a company that the money goes to. We draw out of the company. The company can be sued, but they couldn’t come after any of us or our families. Not financially.”
“If we were going to sell it, that’s probably a good idea,” said David.
“Why not sell it?” Brad said. “I mean, if it works, this could be huge. Like, we could all become millionaires. You don’t want to be a millionaire?”
“Some things are more important than money,” Amy said.
“Not right now,” I said darkly. “The truth is, my dad’s broke and we can’t afford to keep treating Megan. If she doesn’t get treated she could go blind. Or die.”
Amy reached over and squeezed my hand.
“Okay, so we sell it,” David said. Gratitude filled me like a ray of sunlight. I didn’t think they’d agree this easily.
“But we have to be careful,” David continued. “And first, we have to make it actually work.”
***
Melissa was waiting for Greg outside of the classroom. She leaned up and kissed him, with both hands on his stomach. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. Then she chewed on his lip, looking over at me while she did it. Greg looked uncomfortable and backed away from her. He caught eyes with me, and there was a weird expression on his face. I turned and walked quickly in the other direction.
Amy and I had English after lunch. I’ve never been a great student, but I liked English. There were rarely any right or wrong questions. It was all just about your responses. Miss Lee was always asking us what we thought or how the literature made us feel. I wasn’t so good at writing out stories, at least not as good as Amy. But I could write something decent enough to pass on the first draft, which meant I could procrastinate on everything until the night before it was due.
Sometimes Amy helped. I’d come up with all the big ideas, and she’d put them down in words. Today we were supposed to write a dystopian story, and Miss Lee asked us to buddy up so that we could brainstorm. I wanted to write something about the advancements in medical science, and Amy was all about how AI was going to take over the world. Both ideas had always been firmly science fiction until recently, I realized.
We paired off with another group, and offered criticism to each other’s initial plans. Amy and I agreed on most stuff, but when I started complaining about how private health companies would be the ones regulating everything in the future, Amy argued that the government would step up and protect innocent lives. We were still talking about it when the bell rang.
We bumped into David in the hall and he fell in step with us.
“I had fun last night,” David said quietly.
“Um, yeah, me too,” I said, glancing over at Amy’s surprised look.
“Play again sometime?” he asked.
“It’s a date,” I said, then immediately regretted it.
David gave me a strange look, almost waiting for me to backpedal or change my mind. A shock of embarrassment ran through every inch of my body, but I resisted the urge to clarify.
We headed towards the cafeteria to grab lunch. Amy got a cherry Coke and a slice of pizza. I grabbed a chocolate milk. I’d brought a sandwich and some carrots from home.
“So, you and David, huh?” she said as we were leaving the cafeteria.
“It’s not like that. We were just playing WOL.”
“What about Jens?” she said. “I thought he was your battle buddy.”
“Yeah but we’ve never even met. Anyway, we just slew some dragons.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Amy said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“Shut up,” I said, punching her arm. “It’s just a stupid game.”
Greg was up ahead, holding the door to the lab open for us. He was so tall we just ducked under his arm. After we locked ourselves in the room, Amy and I started eating while David paced.
“The way I see it,” he said, “we have a chicken and egg problem.”
“Which is what?” Brad asked.
“Even if we can reprogram the government nanobots to do what we want,” David said, “there’s a market limitation. Few people have the bots at all. And we’re only going to have three batches. That’s not even enough for u
s, assuming we want to use it.”
“And we can’t get more without paying for my sister’s treatment, which means selling the app and making money,” I said, making sure everyone was on the same page.
“And nobody will buy the app if they don’t have the bots,” Greg finished.
My chest tightened and for a second my vision grew dark, like the last spark of hope had died.
“Okay, so we leak our process,” Brad said. He turned over a chalkboard and wiped it clean. Step one, he wrote on the board and underlined it.
“First we need to put out the hack, and instructions for getting more bots. Any teens with family members getting treatment could have access. It’s not ideal, but apart from ripping off the government or stealing a shipment of bots, I don’t know what else we can do. But they won’t go through the trouble until they see the benefits.”
“So we need to publish the app first. Or at least some videos or proof or something, to presell it. Tell people it’s coming and they need to get their hands on some bots,” Greg said.
“Then we need a function they can upload into the bots so they aren’t flushed out of the system; so they stay and can be reused and reprogrammed,” David added.
“The information is all free, they use their own bots, but they pay for the app,” I said.
“And they pay for individual upgrades,” Amy prompted.
“It’s messy,” David said, rubbing his jaw. “Let’s agree it’s not a great plan, but a working model for now.”
“Ok, so what’s next?” I asked.
“Earning potential,” Greg said. “My dad would say, we need to find the MVP—minimal viable product. We make something that gives us a quick win. The fastest path to market, something that can be done quickly and that people will want to pay for.”
“I had no idea you knew so much about business,” Amy said.
Greg shrugged. “I pick up a lot from my dad. Think Shark Tank for real estate. I spent a lot of time in expensive hotel lobbies, or doing my homework while he was closing a deal.”
“Boob jobs!” Brad burst out suddenly.
Amy nodded, catching on. “Girls want to fix lots of things about their physical appearance, but the fastest and easiest way to increase attention from boys is going up a few cup sizes. You could charge thousands of dollars for that.”
“Yeah but remember, our current plan is to be selling to high school kids who are okay with shooting pee-bots into their arm,” David said.
“Peebots!” Brad said, choking back a laugh. “That is awesome, we should totally trademark that! We use the world’s finest, Peebot technology to genetically alter your body for enhanced human performance,” Brad said in a TV advertiser’s voice.
“What I mean is, high school kids don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on personal appearance or personal development. And they aren’t likely to ask their parents for help in using black-market tech,” David finished.
“So we need a subscription model,” Greg said, putting his hand on his chin. The sun caressed his face, making him look like a finely sculpted piece of art.
“The changes aren’t permanent,” I said. “You get a free 24 hour trial. Then you can buy the upgrade at a certain price, but we make it weekly or monthly. And we make it cheap.”
“So instead of one boob job at $5000,” Brad summed up, “We sell 1000 temporary breast augmentations for $5 each.”
“Yeah but then that’s recurring revenue,” Greg said. “We could charge $5 a week easily. That’s like, one day’s lunch money.”
“So instead of one boob job at $5000,” Amy said, “we’d get $20 from a thousand girls. $20,000.”
“$20,000 per month,” I added, thinking about Megan’s treatment bills. “And that’s for just one upgrade. We could have dozens of different features.”
“We need to make one for burning calories, so you can eat what you want and not gain weight,” Amy said, gnawing on the crust of her pizza. “I’d pay $20 a month for that, easily.”
“And one to increase muscle mass,” Brad said, flexing his arm. “People pay much more than that for gym memberships they don’t use, or supplements promising to get you jacked.”
“And some fun stuff. Just a few, for shock value. In a category for disguises and costumes. Something really visual that teens can play around with, that’s so impossible everybody pays attention,” I said. “So they’ll try the free stuff and see that it works, and then buy other upgrades.”
“We’re nowhere near that point yet,” David said, running a hand through his hair. “I mean it’s fun to talk about, but we haven’t even started testing yet.”
“Well, if you want more samples,” I said, “we need to figure it out, fast, and keep paying for my sister’s treatment.”
“Yeah but we can’t rush it,” David said.
“This is my little sister we’re talking about,” I said, standing up. Why did David always have to be so practical?
“I get that,” David said, speaking slowly like he had to spell it out for me. “Speeding up a very complex DNA editing experiment using stolen government technology is a recipe for disaster. I mean, what if we really screw things up? What if it’s dangerous? We can’t just release something that could harm other people, not until we know it’s safe. Not for money. And not for just one person.”
I clenched my fists together. I was about to start yelling at him, but Amy put an arm around me and gave me a look.
“We’ll do everything we can for Megan,” she said, “and we’ll test everything ourselves before we release anything. But we’ll also move as fast as we’re able. That okay with everyone?” She looked around the table and we all nodded. I gave her a grateful look and squeezed her hand. I knew she wasn’t comfortable with this stuff, but I could count on her when it really mattered.
Brad flexed his fingers together, smiled and said, “Alright, now… how are we going to split up all the money?”
8
I was in my last class when I got a message from Brad.
Meet after school. Science lab.
I counted down the minutes, glaring at the clock, then rushed to the science room. When I entered, the others were looking at a bunch of white mice in a cardboard box.
“Ten?” I counted.
“You said you wanted to move quickly,” David said, adjusting his glasses.
“You did this?” I asked. I was surprised—I thought David wanted to be careful. Which meant he’d probably done it for me.
“Brad and I took last period off.”
“What?” Amy asked. “David skipping school? No way.”
“So walk us through it, Sherlock,” I said. Amy and I had spent the last few days working on the app, while the boys ran simple programs on the bots to see how they would respond.
“Mice have short lifespans and a fast metabolism. We should be able to see changes sooner. I guess we only got about half of Megan’s original dose, and the human to mice dose conversion is about 33.”
“Megan’s a lot bigger than 33 mice,” I said. “Even half of her is.”
“It’s based on surface area, and body weight. You said she’s 92 pounds, so half of her was 46 pounds, which would be about 33 mice. I’m pretty sure the calculations are right. An hour ago, I gave each of these mice a shot of peebots.”
“Are we seriously going to call it that?” Amy asked.
“What should we call it, zee formula?” Brad said, faking a German accent.
“Let’s just call them therabots,” I said. “That’s what people know. No use hiding it. And we’ll need to use the hashtag that’s already trending.”
“Peebots is funny,” Brad said.
“Maybe to you,” Amy said. “But a lot of people won’t see the humor in it.”
“Whatever,” David said, “I shot the mice with the bots. Then I figured out a patch to put them in a dormant state. After they do their thing, with no further instruction they’ll attach to a bone cell and hibernate until the next co
mmand. You’ll still lose some, even our skeleton renews every year. But they should last three months or so. Maybe six months, depending how much you’re using them. You’ll lose some after every mod, because not all of them will find their way back to a bone before they’re flushed out.”
“So, how are they doing?” Brad said, picking up the box and shaking it.
“Knock it off!” David yelled, grabbing the box. “Stressing them out could skew the results.”
“Chill, dude,” Brad said, as David placed the mice carefully back on the counter.
“So now what?” I asked. I couldn’t believe we were actually doing this.
“Now we give each group of bots a command and see how it works.”
“How do you keep them all separate? So they respond to only one command and not all of them?” Amy asked.
“That’s where I come in,” Brad said. “Right now they’re all the same. But we take one mouse…” he put it into a separate container by itself, “and we give it a shock. The electricity goes through its whole system, but it will prime the bots and deliver the instructions: it’s basically a tiny data transfer. The bots should get their marching orders and get started right away. They aren’t delivering any medicines, they are just programmed to look for a specific genetic marker pattern, interrupt the genome at a certain spot, and then fill in the gaps.”
“I thought we had to add in the DNA separately?” Greg asked.
“That’s the way it’s been tried before,” David said, “but I found a better way.”
“A better way than decades of scientists?” Amy asked, crossing her arms.
“Well, yes.” David pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
I’d always thought of David as shy and quiet. But now his confidence was almost unnerving.
“The genetic material is already there, so we just used DNA replication—a biological process found in all living organisms. DNA polymerase synthesizes new DNA by adding complementary nucleotids to the template strand. So we force a PCR, a polymerase chain reaction, to amplify the target DNA fragment from a pool of DNA.”
