Bioterror! (an Ell Donsaii story #14)

by Laurence Dahners

  Shan said, “Is he wanting to sell this service?”

  Ell smiled, “He asked me if I wanted him to. Said it could be worth quite a bit of money.” She shrugged, “I told him we didn’t need the money so it’d be okay to give it away. He seemed pretty happy with that. Called it ‘his own little charity.’”

  “So why doesn’t he just give away the algorithm itself?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I should’ve asked him, but I didn’t think of it. You can ask him if you want, but I was hoping you could help him figure out how to set up a website to do what he wants. One that can’t get traced back to him.”

  “I can do that, but why would anybody want to find him because of a website? Are you thinking this’s going to be important?”

  Ell shrugged, “You’ve got me. I suppose it might not ever get any traffic. But if it does turn out to be a big deal I’d be pretty sad if we hadn’t taken precautions before he got started.”

  Shan nodded, “You’re right about that. I’ll talk to him tonight.”

  Shan found Zage in the library with almost all its screens lit up with stuff that, as usual, looked biological. “Hey kid. Your mom tells me you’re wanting to set up a website that’ll help people find viral antigens?”

  Zage looked up and said, “Osprey and I’ve already programmed a website, mom just wants you to make sure it’s secure so nobody can trace it back to me.”

  “No problem. Can I ask though, why you don’t just sell or give away the algorithm? Then people could determine what part of the sequence will be on the external surface of the virus and could be an antigen all by themselves.”

  Zage frowned, “The algorithm’s pretty good, but there’re always a few sections where it can’t predict the folding.”

  Shan studied his son, then said, “I don’t understand. If the algorithm doesn’t always work, how does putting up a website solve that problem?”

  “Umm… I seem to be able to predict the folding pretty well.” Zage shrugged, “I think it’s like the way mom solves really difficult math problems in her head?”

  “How do you know about your mom solving math problems in her head?”

  Zage tilted his head, “She always claims that Allan feeds her the answers, but I’ve watched her get them and she doesn’t move her eyes to see them on her HUD, or get the expression that she normally gets when she’s listening to him. I’m pretty sure she just solves them herself.”

  Shan mentally rolled his eyes as he nodded, “OK, you’re right. She can solve amazing things in her head.”

  “Somehow,” Zage said, “I guess because I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, the protein folding solutions just seem to come to me.” He looked off to the side and got a curious look on his face, “I should ask mom if math answers just pop into her head like that. I mean, I can solve some pretty large math problems in my head, though I can’t do the kind of things I’ve seen Mom do. But when I’m solving them, it’s not like I work through them, it’s just like the answer’s just suddenly there.” He looked back at his dad, “Same thing with protein folding.”

  Shan stared at his son, thinking about how almost anyone who’d ever had arithmetic just felt like they knew that two plus two was four. He, of course, just “knew” the answers to a lot more complex math problems than that but his real talent was his intuition for how math questions might be solved. He relied on computers to do the kind of computations that Ell could do in her head. He took a deep breath, realizing there was no way he was going to understand how the human brain worked in such a situation. Instead, he addressed the obvious problem. “If people start sending you a lot of viral sequences with questions about the resulting antigens, couldn’t you wind up spending all your time trying to figure out how those proteins fold? I mean, if you did have an algorithm that’d do it, people could send you thousands of sequences and Osprey could solve them almost instantaneously, but if you’re going to have to solve them yourself…”

  “Oh, no,” Zage interrupted, “Osprey can work out almost the entire 3-D structure. It’s just that there’s almost always a few sections he can’t solve. He only shows me that part of the sequence and the 3-D model he’s worked out so far.” Zage shrugged, “The answer almost always feels instantaneous to me, not like it’s a lot of work.”

  Shan said, “Well, there’s a pretty good chance no one’ll ever stumble across your website, in which case you won’t get any queries and it certainly won’t suck up any of your time. I guess you can wait to worry about what to do about too many requests if it actually happens.

  “Let’s get your website set up so it’s isolated by a PGR link. Finding one end of a PGR link, gives you no clue as to where in the entire universe the other end of the link is. But, since PGRs come in pairs, in theory if someone found one side of the pair you’d bought, they might be able to trace the sale of the pair back to you. But, because of this, there’re so many people who want to have anonymous PGR links that brick-and-mortar electronic stores have big bins full of loose PGR pairs from which you can pick a pair at random after you’ve paid. That way, nobody knows who bought that particular pair. We don’t have to do that though, your mom already has a bunch of anonymous PGR linked connections to the web. We’ll just hook your website up through one of them. What’s it called?”

  “Gordito.”

  “Gordito? Where’d that come from?”

  “It’s Spanish for ‘little fat boy.’”

  Shan drew back and looked at Zage, “Are you referring to yourself? You look like you’ve been losing weight. I’ve been feeling pretty proud of you.”

  “Yeah, Zage shrugged, “My hope’s that someone’ll use the website to come up with a vaccine for Human Adenovirus 36. Maybe kids won’t have to be gorditos in the future.”

  ***

  Nate snorted, the fat kid who was in his cell biology class had three of the best looking women in the class sitting around him, looking like they were hanging on his every word. Nate studied the kid, thinking that the little tub of lard looked like he’d lost some weight. But why’re all the girls hanging around him? he wondered. He thought back to how he’d been told that if you wanted to attract women, you should go around with a puppy or a child. Still, you’d think that even if being a child might get him some attention for a while, these girls wouldn’t still be sitting around him after weeks and talking to him like… Nate decided he didn’t know exactly what they were talking to him like. He didn’t think there was any way it could be romantic with a boy that young. And at the kid’s age, he couldn’t possibly be able to carry on a conversation about something that young women would be interested in. He must just incite their nurturing instincts, Nate decided.

  Then Dr. Marshall came in. The man had a habit of starting the class by choosing a student and asking them to explain to the rest of the class what one of the intracellular organelles did. Nate was dreading the day Marshall called on him, but had been trying to read ahead a little bit so he wouldn’t be too embarrassed when his turn came. “Ribosomes,” Marshall said, his gaze sweeping the class. He focused in on the kid and said, “Zage, do you feel up to telling us what ribosomes do?”

  Nate found it a little irritating that Marshall asked the kid if he felt up to it. He certainly didn’t let the older students off the hook if they “didn’t feel up to it.”

  Undisturbed, the kid said, “Yes sir. A ribosome’s a molecular machine that serves the cell as a translational apparatus for protein synthesis. It assembles polymeric protein molecules according to a sequence controlled by messenger RNA. Amino acids are carried to the ribosome by transfer RNA molecules which enter one part of the organelle and bind to the messenger RNA chain at the correct site, thus setting that particular amino acid into the sequence correctly. A different part of the ribosome then links the specified amino acids into a chain to form the peptide.

  “A ribosome’s made up of complexes of RNAs and proteins and is therefore called a ribonucleoprotein. It’s divided into two
subunits…”

  Astonished on the one hand, but furious on the other, Nate stopped listening at that point, though the kid went on and on until Dr. Marshall finally raised his hand and brought him to a halt. Nate had expected Marshall to go back over what the kid had described, but the professor apparently found the boy’s description perfectly adequate, instead saying, “Thank you Zage. That was an excellent description of the process and I’m going to let it stand.”

  Marshall had always gone back over what the other students had said in order to make corrections, but not this time. This time, Marshall just said, “I’m only going to use the screens here to show you some cartoons that I hope might help you remember what Zage said by giving you visual images of how you might think of the ribosome zipping along messenger RNA and guiding the amino acid assembly.”

  Nate thought, Crap! I’m going to have to go back over my AV record of what the kid said…

  Nate didn’t consider the possibility that the child’s extensive comprehension suggested he might be able to carry on a conversation the young women in the class might enjoy.

  ***

  Ryan was getting ready to go home when Bridget said, “You can stay over if you want.”

  He paused, looking back over his shoulder at her. “What? What happened to your limit of once every seven times we go out?!”

  “Well, I’ve decided that I kind of like being around you on more than just our dates. So, realizing that there’s absolutely no way I could possibly move into that hovel you call a home, I’ve been thinking that maybe you should move in here.”

  “Really? I’ve been thinking more and more about how great it’d be if we lived together…” he paused, frowning. “Wait, what about that old saw about how you don’t want me running into Ell around the house here. That she doesn’t want to have me here interrupting her privacy…” He gave Bridget a sly grin and lifted an eyebrow, “And what about your concern that she won’t be able to hold herself back if she runs into this perfect specimen of manhood,” he waved a hand up and down at himself, “walking down her hall in nothing but a towel.”

  “We don’t have to worry.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Ryan said, striking a pose. “How could she resist?”

  “I meant,” Bridget said in a tone of exasperated patience, “we don’t have to worry about you running into her.”

  “What? Why? Is she moving out?”

  “No, but if I tell you, you have to be sworn to the utmost secrecy, okay?”

  Ryan shrugged, “Sure.”

  “I mean, cross your heart and hope to die kind of secrecy. The kind of thing you can’t tell anyone. Not your best friend, not your mother… no one.”

  Ryan frowned, “Really? Is somebody going to take me out and shoot me if I blow the secret?”

  “Probably not. But a whole lot of people you really care about would be really, really disappointed in you.”

  Ryan pondered this for a couple of seconds, then stuck out his little finger. “Okay. You want me to pinky swear?”

  “No, if you promise me, that’s good enough.”

  “Okay, what’s the deal then?”

  “Ell doesn’t sleep here at night.”

  Ryan drew back, “Oh, come on! She comes home every night she’s in town! I see her leaving in the mornings too.” He rolled his eyes at Bridget, “The few mornings you’ve let me sleep over, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t sleep here.”

  Ryan’s brows drew together, “What do you mean by that? Where does she sleep?”

  Bridget shrugged, “Over at Shan’s house.”

  “What?! Why in the world would she do that?!”

  Bridget just sat staring at him for a minute, waiting for him to tumble to it by himself. When it seemed he just wasn’t going to get it, she said quietly, “Because Shan made an honest woman out of her… Something I’m still hoping my man’ll do for me.”

  Slowly, “An honest woman…? What does that mean?”

  It was Bridget’s turn to roll her eyes, “He married her, you dolt! ‘Honest woman’ is an old timey term for being married as opposed to… carrying on like we are.”

  “But… Shan’s married to Raquel…”

  “Same girl.”

  Ryan just stared at her blankly for a minute, then a sudden thunderstruck expression appeared. “No! That’s ridiculous. They look way too different.”

  “Come on Ryan. If there’s anyone in the world who could use technology to change the way they look almost instantaneously, who’d it be?”

  He closed his mouth, “You’ve got to be shittin’ me! Wait…” A look of intense concentration came over his face.

  “No,” Bridget said, guessing at what he was thinking, “you haven’t ever seen Ell and Raquel at the same time.”

  Ryan had been standing this entire time. Now he sat suddenly, as if someone had cut a puppet’s strings. “Wait, so when I asked Ell out and she told me she already had a boyfriend on the sly… that was Shan?!”

  Bridget nodded slowly.

  Ryan turned and for several long minutes he just stared out the window that faced towards Shan and Raquel’s house. Then he turned back to Bridget and gave her a sly grin, “So, from the tone of this conversation I’ve gotten the idea that you’d like to be an honest woman, instead of ‘carrying on’ like we have been?”

  Bridget nodded. Hoarsely, she said, “I’d like that very much.”

  Ryan dropped to one knee and took her hand in his, “I’d like that very much myself. I’d like to tell you that I planned this out well enough that I’ve got a ring in my pocket, but I don’t.” He winked at her, “I have ordered one though? Maybe, this way you can take a look at what I picked out and give it your stamp of approval before…”

  Bridget threw herself forward, casting both arms around her man. “Yes! The answer’s yes. I will marry you. I’m sure the ring you’ve picked out’s fine, but I would appreciate the opportunity to look at it.”

  Chapter Five

  Reggie Barnes felt guilty as she approached her lab. She’d made an agreement with Ell Donsaii not to let anyone one else have access to the gene sequences Donsaii had provided from the Virgies. Because of this, she’d been doing all of the work on those genes herself. The fact that she’d also promised to carry out any work with the alien genes in the biosafety lab meant she hadn’t been around her own lab to advise and help her grad students as much as she felt like she should be.

  In addition to not being around to help as much as she’d have liked to, she’d also felt bad about dumping Raquel Kinrais’ kid on them. Child prodigy or not, he’d probably been sucking up a lot of their time as they tried to get him through the yeast autofluorescence project she made everyone do. As smart as he seemed to be, and even though he was pretty much following a recipe, it’d probably be some weeks yet before he managed to complete the project successfully.

  Of course, there was the possibility that even a genius wouldn’t be able to perform a complex genetic modification like that at such a young age—in which case she’d have the unpleasant task of telling the child’s mother and Ell Donsaii that she really couldn’t have the kid in the lab. If he did eventually modify the yeast correctly, then she’d have to try to think of some subproject on one of her grants that he might be able to carry out. Choosing that subproject could be guided by how much of a struggle it was for him to do the yeast modification.

  She reminded herself that since Donsaii was essentially supporting the kid by buying any supplies he needed and providing additional funding on top of that, at least he wasn’t a financial drain on the lab. Nonetheless it’d still take some of her time and probably a lot more of her grad students’ time trying to get him through any of the subprojects and provide him a reasonable experience.

  Pondering the situation for her grad students, she thought, I’ve got to find a way to make it up to them. Maybe once I’ve convinced Donsaii that working with ET DNA sequences isn’t really as dangerous as she t
hinks it might be, they can get involved in researching extraterrestrial DNA. After all, we’re not working with the actual DNA, only the manually transcribed sequence, presumably for a single gene at a time. She shook her head, It’s hard to imagine much risk in a sequence that’s obviously far too short to form an entire organism.

  When she got back to the lab, she found Alice, Rick, and Carley there. She looked around, wondering if she couldn’t see him because he was behind some equipment, “Is Zage here?

  Carley shook her head, “No, he wasn’t on the messages you sent about meeting this afternoon so I don’t think he knew about it. He’s gone skiing with his family this week, so he probably wouldn’t have been able to be here, but I think he’d have used his AI to join us virtually if he’d known about it. He’s been wanting to talk to you.”

  “Oh,” Reggie said, putting a quick query to her AI and seeing that she’d failed to list Zage under the “grad students” tag she used for sending out messages to the lab as a whole. “Sorry, I screwed that up.” Then she had a thought, “Maybe it was a fortuitous screw-up though. I’ve been worried about how much trouble he’s been for you guys and it’ll be easier for you to give me an honest opinion if he’s not here listening.”

  They all gave her a curious look and Alice asked curiously, “Trouble?”

  “Yeah, I don’t want you guys feeling like you have to babysit him. I’ve been worrying that while I’m over working with the ET DNA, you guys’ve been spending hours handholding and maybe actually doing a lot of his yeast fluorescence project for him?”