by Mark Goode
Was it a seizure? The soldiers had been observed to be standing in place, rocking back and forth, and they appeared absent or disconnected. Angela went into high gear and scoured the world scientific literature for possible clues.
She reasoned that the core element of a behavior was ultimately expressed by a physical action movement or perhaps speech, such as a plant orienting itself to the sunlight or the closing of a Venus flytrap. Moving to the animal kingdom, she wondered, for instance, how the male Emperor penguin knew the complex dance of sitting upon an egg, turning it throughout the bitter Antarctic winter, and then regurgitating one last fatty meal down the throat of the new hatchling to provide for its survival until its mother arrived? How about a salmon returning from the ocean and swimming upstream against all odds to its birthplace? Where is this choreography written and how does it become reality? What is the nature of these behavioral scripts? If we could isolate the salmon subroutine and put it in a person, would that person also manifest Olympic swimming behavior searching for their home place in a remote Alaskan river?
Angela found cases in the forensic and legal medicine literature of extreme examples of spontaneous and bizarre behaviors called akathisia. This complicated brain state that manifests as severe restlessness and thoughts of death and violence was thought to result from genetic differences in the way individuals detoxify or metabolize medications. Affected individuals could rather spontaneously commit murder or suicide. Essentially, a biochemical condition resulting in a complex behavior.
Frequently, individuals subject to akathisia had coexisting psychiatric conditions that required medication. The phenomenon seemed to be exacerbated by polypharmacy, especially initiation and withdrawal of medications. This behavior at the intersection of law and medicine had been used successfully for the legal defense of murder in some cases.
Angela reasoned that, similar to apoptosis, internal and external preexisting conditions might trigger or predispose individuals to kill themselves. She also believed that the extent of the battlefield casualties was related to the specialized training the soldiers had been subjected to. They had been trained and repeatedly practiced military maneuvers that had enabled a network brain state to develop that was divorced of the checks and balances of normal humans emotions. These factors placed already-stressed brains in a position of vulnerability to environmental stresses.
She suspected that individuals so trained were exquisitely sensitive to chloroplast DNA, which in this case was acting like a behavioral toxin that unlocked the neurologic behavioral subroutines contained within them. She theorized the existence of a library of these subroutines that define human behavior — behaviors that compelled people to seek water, food, shelter, mates or that, under extreme conditions, could induce the network brain state of akathisia that resulted in murder or self-murder.
As all this dawned on her, she indeed began to feel the enormous weight of the major amounts of stress she was experiencing. Somewhat panicked, with sleeplessness and headaches, she was horrified that it appeared her work had somehow been subverted and used on the battlefield to the mass detriment of so many people.
Furthermore, she saw now the extent to which the technology could be inappropriately used intentionally as a weapon of mass destruction. With a heavy heart, she documented her research findings and conclusions. It would be best that she share them with a number of colleagues and officials as she planned her exit from the laboratory.
Chapter 17
She Wrote Me
a Letter
There was no denying the circumstantial evidence that Angela had discovered. She had confirmed the presence of chloroplast DNA on the battlefield. She was descending into a pit of despair, imagining herself somehow responsible for the horrific events. She didn’t know exactly how she played into it all, but she was suffering enormously, unable to tear her mind away from the awful conundrum. Throbbing headaches became almost constant companions to her fevered thoughts. She found herself desperate for an exit strategy.
Of the few people she knew in the community, one was a neurologist. One afternoon, while out trying unsuccessfully to outrun the pounding pain in her head, Angela stopped by the neurologist’s office. She asked the receptionist to see whether the neurologist had a few moments to visit with her about a personal matter. A moment later Angela was invited into the back office.
“Well, hello, Angela. What a surprise! How are you, and what brings you in for this unexpected visit?” she asked.
“I was literally running by and thought I would stop and see if perhaps you had time to go to dinner sometime, to catch up?”
“Absolutely, I’d love to. How about this weekend?”
“That would be fantastic. It’s a date.”
A few days later, the two of them dined at an Italian bistro. They talked and ate for several hours, consuming a fair amount of luscious red wine.
“I had better slow down a bit with the wine,” Angela said. “Reds tend to exacerbate my migraines.”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” Lisa said. “Plus, I’m feeling somewhat hypocritical because I usually recommend limiting such behavior to my patients. Wait — how long have you been getting migraines?” she asked with concern.
“Oh, they’re no big deal,” Angela demurred. “I’m just under a lot of stress right now. I expect they’ll let up once I relax more. This is a good start! I think we should switch from wine to chocolate now,” she said with a smirk.
Lisa raised her glass to that.
After dinner they went outside to hail a cab. As they parted, Lisa said, “Come by the office next week and we can do an EEG. We may need to do a CAT scan to investigate those headaches of yours.”
Angela was about to agree when her phone rang. She held up her finger and answered it. “Hi, Dad, may I call you later? I am visiting Lisa.”
Angela turned back to Lisa. “Thank you so much! It was great to see you, and I really appreciate it. I’ll check in with you next week, then.”
—
A few days later Angela walked into the lounge for a break and ran into Emma.
“Hey, Angela. Are you feeling all right? You look a little tired,” Emma asked.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Angela replied. “I’ve had a lot of headaches recently and that makes me tired and sort of kills my appetite.”
“Well, you must have one of my muffins anyway,” Emma said, offering a plate of muffins to her. “I baked them last night. Just take one bite. You’ll love them and they’re also very good for you.”
“Why, thank you, this will go nicely with my coffee.” Angela reached politely for the treat, and her phone rang. She saw that it was her father and excused herself.
“Hi, honey,” her father said. “I just wanted to touch base with you. Is everything all right? Your brother said you wrote him a letter. I just picked up my mail and it appears I also received one. Aren’t you a bit young to be writing out a will?”
“Well, I’m just trying to be socially responsible,” replied Angela. “It’s mostly about healthcare and not wanting to be caught flat-footed without something in writing in case of an accident or something.” She ducked into her office and closed the door behind her. “You know, I recently went to a humane society fundraiser, and I now realize how important it is for pet owners to provide for their animals’ care. I was really sad when I saw animals at the shelter that had become orphaned. I wanted to adopt them all!”
“Okay, honey, you can be assured that we will take care of your animals.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, and Angela made no mention of recent events at the lab or in her research, though her dad was usually interested in trying to keep up with what she was focusing on at work. When he tried to ask about the latest, she brushed him off, saying it was classified, and changed the subject.
Later, when she settled in at home fo
r the evening, she tuned in to her favorite news station to get an update on current events. World leaders were trying to set up coalition governments to cooperatively deal with the multiple humanitarian crises resulting from the war. The good news was that the war had officially ended.
But the number of major problems was growing steadily. In addition to a world already dealing with climate change and water shortages, many new social and economic issues arose, created by the catastrophic deaths of millions of soldiers and caring for the survivors. The scope of the problems was poorly understood and yet to be defined. Most of the surviving soldiers required inpatient psychiatric and medical care. What had happened on the battlefield was still unknown and was under intense investigation.
—
Angela continued to work at the lab as her migraine headaches worsened. One week, she had to take a few days off to rest at home.
In addition, she was getting paranoid, conflicted over her discoveries and how to share them with the scientific community, and even more so over the possible implications. She wrote two letters: one to a colleague and mentor in Switzerland, outlining the science behind chloroplast DNA and quantum ribosomes. And the second letter went to the president of the United Nations. She wrote one more letter with instructions, an email, and a separate encryption key from another server for fear that the messages could be intercepted.
Chapter 18
Angela Has a Stroke
Angela awoke on Monday to find the news media ablaze with reports of a new scientific finding. Turned out, a prominent group of scientists was reporting the presence of plant viruses on the battlefield.
Wow, it’s incredibly fortuitous that Emma and I did not publish our work earlier, she thought.
At work, she fired up her computer. She had purchased a number of portable hard drives to back up her data. This was no easy task because her work, particularly the mathematical modeling and chaos algorithms, consumed huge amounts of space. Finally, she decided to secure the data with a fractal encryption code.
It took a long time to do this, and she grew nervous. Once finished, she gave the 10 terabytes of data to a friend for safekeeping.
The next morning, Angela called and requested a meeting with Emma.
When Emma walked into the laboratory, Angela was nowhere to be seen. Emma went into the breakroom and found Angela lying on the floor. She was unresponsive and appeared to have had a seizure. No one was around who had seen what had happened.
Emma summoned the paramedics and they arrived quickly to whisk Angela away to the nearest hospital.
Upon arrival, the emergency room physician decided that the findings were consistent with an acute stroke and initiated stroke alert protocol. Angela was rushed for a CT scan of the brain.
By coincidence, the neurologist on call that day at the hospital was Lisa. Seeing Angela wheeled by on a gurney, she quickly took charge of the situation and pulled up Angela’s scans. She saw that the findings were consistent with a brain hemorrhage on the left side of the brain, in the temporal area, which was known to control speech.
She was admitted to the intensive care unit in a coma. Her family was summoned. It was uncertain whether she would recover. The physicians feared that she might not have speech or movement.
In the afternoon, Angela awoke in her ICU bed and stared silently at the ceiling. She demonstrated all of the symptoms of aphasia. She was unable to speak or to understand spoken language. In addition, she had partial paralysis of the right side of her body. She was not a candidate for clot-busting medications because the stroke was caused by brain hemorrhage, not a blood clot.
The doctors warned her mother and father that if her brain continued to swell, she could need a craniotomy to decompress the pressure. Later she required intubation and was placed on a ventilator. Her survival was guarded and uncertain.
When news got back to the lab, everyone was shocked. A flood of cards, letters, and flowers flowed to the intensive care unit. Angela’s family was very private, so no visitation was permitted, and they had requested a medical leave of absence for her in hopes that she would recover and someday return to work.
—
The world struggled mightily with the disastrous culmination of the Water Wars. The wound was so deep it was difficult to envision a process that could bridge this chasm. A substantial portion of a very important segment of the population had vanished. Widowed spouses, single parents, orphaned children would face this new life together.
The government, military, and society as a whole was ill-equipped to deal with this situation. What would death certificates reveal as the cause of death? Would the military classify the casualties as suicide, death by friendly fire, or poisoning by a biological agent? How would the survivors be monitored and cared for going forward? How would the families of soldiers who had died be supported and compensated?
The politicians pledged: “We are going to find out what the hell happened here and who is responsible.” And still the country was driven by the endless pain and suffering that accompanied the ultimate trauma of suicide, the hurt that never stops hurting.
People were ready to string somebody up. The military was desperate and needed to produce the perpetrator.
My grandmother, lying in a coma, apparently unable to mount a credible defense, stood square in the crosshairs.
The world’s scientists had established the battlefield presence of a plant virus and chloroplast DNA. Arnold Bitworth had reported Emma’s statements of concern regarding those findings up the chain of command.
The week after Angela’s hospitalization, the FBI and Secret Service showed up at the lab with a warrant for Angela’s work and laboratory records. Emma had been appointed the new interim director. She led them to Angela’s lab and handed over anything they wanted. They were unable to log on to her computer, so it was confiscated.
Chapter 19
The Trial
All is fair in love but apparently not in war. In an effort to maintain some semblance of humanity in the theater of armed conflict, provisions ensuring the humane treatment of soldiers, prisoners, and civilians were agreed upon. These included the prohibition of chemical or biological agents and the use of torture.
The use of propaganda and psychological warfare was not a new concept, whether it be visual in the form of printed flyers or audio in the form of radio or public address. Through the advances in technology, the electronic communications of the modern-day warrior through their headsets and electronic eyewear became an avenue for their exploitation. The use of subsonic sound was also not new to the battlefield.
In the aftermath of the mass suicides on the battlefield, when the Federalists were searching for a culprit, it was alleged that my grandmother Angela Starr had developed an illegal biological weapon of mass destruction and had deployed it in the war, resulting in the death of millions. They made this accusation public, and all eyes turned toward the scientist lying in an ICU in Colorado.
It was no small task to find someone to defend Angela.
Fortunately, and as a result of the chloroplast bioreactor business, her estate had sufficient resources to fund a legal team of experts. The logistics of the trial would be complicated, given the security requirements and accommodations required for Angela’s legal and medical teams.
Jury selection proved to be exceedingly difficult. In an unprecedented legal maneuver, it was agreed that there would be a primary and secondary jury. The secondary jury would come into play in the event that something happened to the primary or if they were unable to reach a conclusion. There would be 12 main jurors and four backup jurors on each panel.
Jurors were excluded if they had any relatives or friends that had served in the war in any capacity in the military or that had died of suicide or murder.
The trial commenced with the reading of the charges.
Angela,
propped up with pillows in her recumbent wheelchair, was brought forward to face the presiding judge, who read the indictment. The charge was Apoptocide. A new word invented to designate murder by a biological agent of mass suicide, allegedly discovered and developed by my grandmother.
Expectedly, the defense team responded with a motion to dismiss all the charges, claiming Angela was not medically capable of participating in the trial. They made a second motion claiming that the defendant had not committed the murders and that victims had taken their own lives. Both motions were denied.
The prosecution maintained that somewhere in her brain Angela had the cognitive ability to understand the situation. It was agreed that there would be some difficulties communicating, but that they were not insurmountable. Angela would communicate using her nondominant hand or possibly ocular movements assisted by the therapists.
Having been granted certain accommodations, the defense team agreed to consider the stipulation of certain facts to facilitate the proceedings.
One of the first witnesses called was General Pinz. He testified that Angela had worked with the military on a number of projects, that she was a brilliant scientist and mathematician. She held a top-secret security clearance. He believed she could’ve had a brilliant military career and that she worked as a consultant on projects requiring her scientific and mathematical skills. The military had provided Angela with state-of-the-art computer technology. General Pinz believed it was necessary to close her laboratory and seize all of her records as a matter of international security.
