Anthem's Fall (16 page)

Kristen was alone in the closed atmosphere with Professor Vatruvia, who was standing silently and awaiting her reaction. Her shoulder’s slumped as she looked around the room, not sure what to find but expectant of anything. The room was entirely empty: tile floors and vacant walls. Kristen’s attention was drawn to the far wall where she heard many small squeaks in the otherwise silent surrounds.

“Uh . . .” Kristen vocalized unconsciously as she realized the source of the squeaking. The far wall was lined floor to ceiling with organized rows of enclosed glass cages, each housing a research mouse. There were dozens of mice, every one secluded in an individual cell.

“We don’t use animal testing.” Kristen said as she regarded the test mice with a growing unease. “What is this?”

“This is what you wanted to see,” Professor Vatruvia’s voice was cautious. “The applied technology resulting from all of our efforts.”

Kristen scanned up and down the row of cages, and then turned to make sure there was nothing else in the room she had missed. She had been expecting a table with an assembled microscope and a Vatruvian cell slide. “I don’t understand. Am I missing something here?”

Professor Vatruvia raised an arm and pointed to the mice. “Right there.”

“The test mice?” Kristen stared blankly at the scurrying mice.

“Yes, the mice,” Professor Vatruvia said. “Or, to be more specific, the Vatruvian mice.”

Kristen felt gooseflesh rise on her arms.

“No,” she blurted out, shrinking away from the cages and shaking her head with severity. “No. No. No. That’s not possible, absolutely not possible. Even it if were possible, that would be . . . years . . . decades . . . ahead of our progress. We’re still at the
cellular
level.”

“The team is still at the cellular level. I have been doing my own independent work, allowing the team to provide the appropriate progression for consistent funding.” Professor Vatruvia’s voice was steady, rehearsed.

Kristen was no longer apprehensive, but outright frightened. She interlocked her fingers on top of her head and shut her eyes. This was grossly unethical—even illegal? Or was it? The mice really represented no greater evil than cloning, and that was legal, though regulated intensely. Hell, cloning was an antiquated technology compared to the Vatruvian cell. But this was different—in some obvious yet elusive way it was inconceivably more disturbing to Kristen.

“These . . .” Kristen motioned to the glass cages in disbelief, her face pale, “ . . . aren’t real mice?”

“They’re Vatruvian mice.”

“These are
artificial
mice?” Kristen raised her voice.

“You know the technology,” Professor Vatruvia said. He moved to the cages and looked in on the mice with an excited expression. “They are Vatruvian mice, no fundamentally or morally different than the Vatruvian cell.”

Kristen knew he was telling the truth. It would not have been a stretch for her to create the mice herself with her knowledge of the Vatruvian cell and genetics. The mice were Vatruvian organisms. She also recognized that on some perversely theoretical level he had a point—artificial life was artificial life, what did it matter the size or complexity? Yet it felt instinctively wrong as she stared at the frantic movements of the mice behind their glass cages.

“I know what you’re thinking. That this is unethical. But it isn’t. These mice are no more alive than the glass surrounding them or the steel on which you stand.”

“They seem pretty goddamn alive to me.” Kristen turned to him and spoke over the high-pitched squeaking of the mice.

Professor Vatruvia’s gaze moved from mouse to mouse. “All it took was the first cellular replication. Once I established that, the various tissue structures fell into place easily given the knowledge of the mouse genome. After I showed you the Vatruvian cell replication images earlier, I realized it was useless to hide this work from you; you would figure it out anyway. You’re just as capable a scientist as I.”

“Of course I
could
have figured it out . . . 
could
have conceived of it.” Kristen felt herself getting angry, disgusted. “But I would never have gone ahead and
done
it!”

“To be perfectly honest, part of me was concerned you would consider moonlighting and creating a Vatruvian animal for a private research company.”

Kristen took a deep breath and tried to think clearly.

“This is
bigger
than me, professor. This is bigger than you. Artificial life is way, way too large a discovery to be sitting in an air-locked room like this. If Columbia finds out that you’ve been creating these mice without their approval, they will almost certainly let you go. If the government and international watchdog agencies get wind of this, I don’t even know what will happen. This is super, super immoral!”

“Now hold on one minute, Kristen!” Professor Vatruvia held out a stern finger. “First of all, no one is going to find out about this in the near future. You signed the contract. Secondly, nothing will happen when people find out about this development. These Vatruvian mice might be something we’re not accustomed to, but for all intents and purposes they’re blunt instruments with biological construction. They’re no different than the first Vatruvian cell—and that was celebrated by the public and academia both.”

Kristen shook her head in frustration. “No one is going to consider these
mice
blunt instruments.”

“All new technologies are feared at first. But that fear can’t be allowed to hinder the search for potential in the unknown. Think about electricity, or the airplane o-o-or one of the first vaccines ever administered. Of course, they were a bit . . . scary at first. But think of how far they have brought civilization. There is
nothing
unethical going on here, just unadulterated pioneering. A synthetic organism is the only logical progression in synthetic biology. You said so yourself in your own undergraduate thesis. This is what we’ve been working toward.”

Kristen’s mouth moved to speak, but she stopped herself, in disbelief of his one-dimensionality.

“Professor,” she said with strained earnestness as she pointed to one of the mice. “
This
isn’t electricity, or transportation, or some medicine. We’re talking about the creation of a new form of life. A form of life that, according to our data, is more efficient than biological life. You really don’t think there is some inherent danger behind creating a synthetic mouse that is physically superior to a natural mouse?”

“No. I don’t," Professor Vatruvia said with a rising anger in his own voice. “Not at all. And don’t you dare go down that road, implying Vatruvian organisms are fundamentally dangerous. There is not one single solitary aspect of their construction that would substantiate that standpoint.”

“You mean beyond their very existence? Beyond being alive?”

“Being alive makes something dangerous now?

“Yes, it absolutely does.”

“How?”

“By ways so self-evident that they require no explanation.”

Professor Vatruvia took a step away from her, his expression hurt. “You yourself helped me create the genetic code for the Vatruvian cell, and thus for these mice. I assure you they are not dangerous in any way. Our computer scientists designed a computer chip that’s embedded in their brains; it controls their entire endocrine systems and brainwave functioning. They can only act through controlled response. I made that a fundamental part of their design.”

Kristen’s mind raced as she considered his argument. “Prove it.”

Professor Vatruvia walked to the side of the cages and picked up a remote control labeled
twenty-two
from a tray. “Look at the mouse in cage twenty-two,” he said as he examined the remote.

Kristen scanned the glass enclosures for twenty-two. The cage was at her eye level. On the other side of the glass, a little brown mouse with white mottled spots was moving about frantically. Kristen frowned. The mouse’s movements seemed unusually agitated. It was charging the walls of glass over and over again. The impacts of the mouse’s head against the hard surface did not sound as though they came from a light mouse, but from a much heavier object. Kristen was glad it was enclosed in its cage; she would have been standing on a table if the mouse were loose in the room. The physical appearance of the mouse seemed to match a natural mouse flawlessly. Its fine whiskers and ungainly tail looked much like any other. Kristen watched the mouse pause for a moment and scratch the front of its button nose with tiny paws before running headlong into the glass once more. One would never consider that this little breathing animal before her was a synthetic organism.

Then Kristen noticed the mouse’s eyes.

She took her glasses out of her shirt pocket and pushed them against her nose, leaning closer to the glass and peering at the little mouse. The retinas did not look right. Kristen studied the mouse’s strange eyes for a long moment. They were an odd bluish color, strikingly inconsistent with the rest of its shabby pigmentation. The color was not a dull milky paleness from cataracts. The mouse’s eyes were almost . . . bright. Kristen could not be sure if it was due to the odd lighting of the room, but the eyes seemed to be emitting a bluish glow.

“Watch this,” Professor Vatruvia said. He pressed one of the buttons on the remote, and instantly the mouse fell on its side, completely unconscious, its pink underbelly rising and falling with rapid breaths.

“How?” Kristen asked, slowly taking her attention away from the sleeping mouse back to Professor Vatruvia.

He smiled proudly. “Like I said, a microchip in the brain provides us complete control.”

The few dozen other mice were scattering about their holding cells. Kristen sidestepped slowly across the wall of cages, her eyes lingering on each mouse in turn. The mice all appeared perfectly normal in every aspect, except for the overexcited behavior and the blue eyes. Kristen noticed every one of them had the same strange blue retinas. For a long time Kristen watched the mice, feeling only shame. Their research was no longer standing on the precipice of a slippery slope—it was careening and plummeting downward. Professor Vatruvia was playing god, a life giver to the concrete sentience of a new kingdom of life. And if Professor Vatruvia was to be Zeus, then Kristen undoubtedly also sat on a throne among the pantheon of Olympians.

“Now there is no longer any concealment. No more secrets to hide,” Professor Vatruvia said at last, turning the controller in his hands. “I hope you will understand the prudence of my keeping the knowledge of these mice private. But it was time for you to see them.”

“Who else knows about the mice?” Kristen asked.

“Very few, and no one on the research team. That is a testament to my trust in you, Kristen. But you see,” he placed the remote back into the bin by the squealing cages, “on Friday we are scheduled to give a presentation at a hotel down in Midtown. Are you familiar with the ICST?”

“The International Committee on Science and Technology?” Kristen asked, perplexed. “Yes.”

“Well, their yearly convention is coming up. They’ve asked me to give a presentation on our research progression. The scientific world is begging for an update, and I think its only fair that I deliver.”

“You’re going to reveal the mice?”

“No, not the mice. But I will show the public our advancement of Vatruvian cell cellular replication. The same development you and the team saw today. The mice will have to be revealed after a series of slow steps.”

“Many minds will jump to the same conclusion I did,” Kristen said. “Your peers will realize the significance of the cellular replication, even if the majority of the research team at the meeting didn’t.”

“You overestimate the minds of the scientific community, I think.”

Kristen found nothing to say as she stared at the cages.

“Well,” Professor Vatruvia sighed. “The convention is at the Marriot Marquis hotel next week. The ICST event planners asked me to come with one of my top graduate students to help present our work. The scientific world wants to know more about the young minds I choose to work with. I thought you might enjoy the networking opportunity.”

Kristen was familiar with the convention. The ICST was a huge foundation that published a number of prominent peer-reviewed journals. It was a big deal. There would be top scientists in attendance from all around the world. Professor Vatruvia’s presentation would almost certainly be the main event. It would be a huge opportunity for her, though at the moment Kristen was unable to focus on anything but the Vatruvian mice squealing beside her.

“What do you think?” Professor Vatruvia asked. “Want to do me a favor now that there are no secrets between us?”

Kristen stared at the mouse in cage twenty-two. It was still out cold, its tiny chest moving with breaths. “Yeah, I’ll go to the hotel convention. But I’m not finished with questions about these mice. And I’m
absolutely
not through with questions on the applications of this technology.”

“Well. Security closes the building down at six.” Professor Vatruvia said, checking his watch. “It’s five of.”

Kristen slowly drew her attention away from the unconscious mouse. All the other mice were moving excitedly, hysterically. The nature of their movements seemed strange, not timid like one would expect from a mouse. But Kristen thought she may have perceived it that way because she knew what they really were. “I will come along with you and explain what I have done for the project. But if I’m asked what I think about the ethical issues around Vatruvian technology I
will
give my honest opinion, which is that they are in desperate need of regulation.”

“Look,” Professor Vatruvia said. “We’ll have plenty of time to discuss all your issues. I wouldn’t expect you to answer any question at the convention untruthfully. I’m only going to announce the Vatruvian cell’s replication for now. I don’t think the public is ready for the knowledge of the Vatruvian mice. I showed you them so you understand we are on the same page. No secrets.”

Professor Vatruvia opened the stainless steel door to a gust of the airlock and they left the mice in darkness. As they walked through the lobby and out of the building, Kristen found herself unable to hold a thought. The enormity of what she had just witnessed was hard to comprehend, his nonchalant attitude staggering. When they reached the cool autumn air and bustling crowd of the street, Kristen turned south toward her apartment, and Professor Vatruvia began to walk north. She paused, her gaze lingering on the rooftops of Columbia’s buildings. She knew what she had to do. If she did not do what was right, who would?