Anthem's Fall (2 page)

Evidently, the famous Professor Vatruvia had not agreed with her MIT professor, and Kristen was stunned one morning to see his name sitting amid the spam of her inbox.

Everyone in the upper echelon of academia and private sector research knew Professor Vatruvia of Columbia University. During the research for her senior thesis Kristen had read a number of his published papers. A few of Professor Vatruvia’s works had even been noted in Kristen’s lengthy citations section. Professor Vatruvia’s research in synthetic biology was on the cutting edge of modern science, and his creativity eclipsed all other minds in the field. Many people held the belief that Professor Nicoli Vatruvia would prove to be a modern visionary: a Da Vinci, Newton, or Einstein of the twenty-first century.

After staring at the name Nicoli Vatruvia and the subject heading,
Let’s Schedule a Meeting
, Kristen had clicked on the email.

Ms. Jordan,

I have read through your senior thesis and am very intrigued by your proposal. We should speak immediately. Please reply as soon as possible and we can arrange a face-to-face meeting. Got to run.

Best,

Dr. Nicoli Vatruvia

Kristen had read over the email a number of times in disbelief. It was surely a weird prank orchestrated by one of her friends. She immediately checked the email address:
[email protected]
by opening up the Columbia website and performing a staff directory search for him. It was not a hoax. Why would an internationally renowned synthetic biologist want to have a face-to-face with her? Kristen sat back in her desk chair and gazed out her window with uncertainty. There she was, sitting amid the relics of her childhood bedroom, having moved back to her parent’s home outside Boston. Beyond her window, the bleakly overcast November morning and naked tree branches mirrored her internal feelings. The excitement of a warm spring and a hopeful graduation day had since faded into a bare and discouraging autumn. Staring into the drab yard, she decided to take the trip to New York and meet Nicoli Vatruvia.

Later that same week Kristen anxiously sat by the sun-filled window of a Starbucks just off the Columbia campus in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. When they had spoken briefly on the phone, Professor Vatruvia had told her to meet him at that specific time and place. He had told her nothing else. Even as she sat in the busy coffee shop, Kristen had no idea what part of her thesis had piqued the celebrated scientist’s attention so completely.

Knowing his face from various articles she had read about him, Kristen sat upright when the man she recognized as Nicoli Vatruvia opened the coffee shop door. She wondered if he could be considered a celebrity? In scientific circles it would certainly be true, but to the others in the coffee shop he was probably just another bookish intellectual.

Kristen swallowed hard and quickly suppressed her rising apprehension. She waved and smiled politely.

“Kristen Jordan?”

“Yes, hi, Professor Vatruvia.”

Standing up, Kristen took his outstretched hand. For a moment Professor Vatruvia regarded her age with unmistakable surprise, before sitting down and taking out a packed manila folder from his briefcase. His looks did not demand attention, yet his features seemed inquisitive, and—although not youthful—he had a young way about him.

“Thank you for coming down to meet me.”

“Of course,” Kristen said, attempting to sound as polite as possible. The man before her was a superstar; a man so renowned that accomplished PhDs would be uneasy in his presence. Professor Vatruvia opened the folder and began flipping through dozens of loose pages as Kristen sat uncomfortably, unsure if she should engage the prominent synthetic biologist in small talk. People were shuffling in and out of line, and baristas hurried around taking orders for the customers.

“Are you from the Northeast?” Professor Vatruvia asked as he skimmed through many pages.

“Cambridge.”

“Nice town . . .” He murmured with little interest. “Ah, here it is.”

Finding what he had been looking for, Professor Vatruvia passed a solitary paper across the table. Kristen recognized the words at once. It was an excerpt from her senior thesis—the specific section that had caused most experts to write off her whole work as theoretical and bordering on science fiction. Kristen had spent many an hour in the MIT student library debating whether to include the section she was now looking at.

A knot tightened in her gut.

In short, the section suggested that the growing field of synthetic biology limited itself by researching synthetic cells only in terms of biological form and function. Kristen had proposed the idea of expanding synthetic biology to the next level of innovation, attempting to create not only improved synthetic cells in terms of their use by people, but also synthetic cells that differed in nature from all other cells ever studied. Now that a synthetic cell had been created—an incredible feat in its own right—it was now time to climb inside the double helix and see what new marvel could be created with this newfound control over genetics. Kristen had proposed that this extensive approach to a synthetic genome might give rise to new proteins, cellular functions, or perhaps something more. They were daring assertions, and she did not relish the notion of defending them against the world’s preeminent thinker in the field.

“Do you really believe that?” Professor Vatruvia asked after letting her examine the page.

Kristen could feel her face flush. “Yes, on a theoretical level I do.”

“A theoretical level?”

“Certainly, in theory.” Kristen paused and sighed before begrudgingly pressing on. “But the number of potential DNA base pairs is practically infinite, and a means of testing all those base pairs to determine which could facilitate viable synthetic functioning would take forever. It’s taken evolution millions of years to create the form of natural cells we already know, so I think it would be unrealistic to expect any drastic changes in a single lifetime.”

Kristen’s answer came out more smoothly than she had expected, which was encouraging. This was after all her thesis, and she had defended it against many hard-lined doctrinaires.

“I agree,” Professor Vatruvia said after a moment, glancing with little interest through more pages of the manila folder. “But if it did exist—a means to code and test base pairs at a rate never before seen—and the theoretical of your thesis turned into scientific reality, what do you think could result?”

“That type of research has never been done, so it would only be speculation,” Kristen said.

“And if it did? We aren’t recording this conversation for journal publication Ms. Jordan. By all means, I am giving you permission to speculate.”

“Well then, there is always the possibility, however unlikely, that these new artificial chromosomes and constituent parts could become . . .” Kristen tilted her head and trailed off. “I don’t know.”

“It sounds like you do know,” Professor Vatruvia said.

“Speculation has no place in science.”

“Indulge me. What could the artificial components create?”

Kristen sighed in resignation. “A functional cell.”

“A cell?”

“Well, not in the natural sense. I imagine it would function in a similar fashion as a cell. But it would have to be designed and created in a laboratory using artificial means.” Kristen shifted uncomfortably. “I am getting way ahead of myself here.”

“Exactly.” A thin smile surfaced on Professor Vatruvia’s face as though he had won some sort of dispute. “You and I are thinking along the same lines. I believe we have both perceived of a similar vision.”

Kristen maintained a noncommittal expression as she sipped her latte.

Professor Vatruvia sat back in his chair and folded his legs, regarding Kristen earnestly. “I am about to start a research project that will turn our individual visions into a reality. I’ll cut right to the chase. I would like to formally ask you to come work for me.”

Kristen choked and picked up a napkin to dab her chin. She shook her head emphatically. “Professor Vatruvia, I haven’t applied to graduate schools yet, let alone to Columbia. In truth, I don’t know if I
want
to go to graduate school. Thank you. Really, thank you. But I’m not ready to make any kind of commitment.”

“Look, Kristen. None of that is an issue. I can get you accepted and taken on for the spring semester. Our program would be a good fit for you. You can start research in the lab as soon as possible. I desperately need a talented mind like yours on the research team I’m bringing together. We visionaries can’t work alone, you know.”

Kristen stared at him in absolute bewilderment. “I don’t understand. What would I be researching?”

“The creation of your thesis.” Professor Vatruvia smiled with an enthusiasm nearly childish in its exuberance. “We can unravel the mystery of this synthetic system we have envisioned.”

In the months that followed, the research team Professor Vatruvia assembled was its own private research entity, barely affiliated with Columbia. The various minds Professor Vatruvia had drawn together for his research team were each brilliantly innovative, though from the very first day, the enterprise’s youngest member, Kristen Jordan, always stood out as one of the most gifted.

As time progressed, it became increasingly clear that their research was going to foster a scientific breakthrough. Supercomputers were put to work and laboratory technicians were hired in droves. Never before seen laboratory techniques were discovered and implemented. Each day Kristen and Professor Vatruvia came closer to conceiving their synthetic cell; each month a new impediment was toppled. Then, in the early spring it finally happened. After a year of labor and toil, Professor Vatruvia along with Kristen Jordan and the research team successfully brought about the genesis of their technology.

The Vatruvian cell.

Some experts celebrated their invention as the greatest technological breakthrough not only of the twenty-first century, but of the entire history of science. Technology had given rise to a new and unique form of artificial life. In the process, Professor Vatruvia had earned a Nobel Prize. Kristen Jordan had even appeared in the background of a
Time
magazine photo of their laboratory. The world had found its modern visionaries to extol, and their creation, the Vatruvian cell, was like nothing even the most decorated academics could have foreseen. Many of Professor Vatruvia’s peers correctly pointed out that his team had not created a form of life at all, because of the Vatruvian cell’s inanimate structure and loneliness of relatives within the tree of life. On the contrary, a complex machine—they said—was a more appropriate classification for the Vatruvian cell. Man had not created life; he had created the most involved and complex machinery in existence.

Professor Vatruvia had further shocked the scientific community by publicly announcing that his research into their incipient Vatruvian cell technology was still in the blossoming stages. From news headlines, to magazine articles, to television specials across the globe, the mainstream world was waiting for the next breakthrough from Professor Vatruvia and his Columbia research team. To Kristen, the end goal of their research remained at best vague. Despite her close relationship with Professor Vatruvia and her integral hand in the Vatruvian cell’s creation, Kristen was beginning to feel in some ways as uninformed as the general public.

“What is your field of study again, Cara?” Steve asked over the rising noise in the bar.

“Molecular pathology. I started my lab work on the Vatruvian cell a few weeks ago.” Cara said. “What about you?”

“Computer Science. Don’t have much in common with you biology nerds.”

Kristen looked at him doubtfully as she nibbled a chip with little interest. “Get real, Steve. You and I both know you’re the biggest nerd at this table. Are you going to bring up artificial intelligence again? Or maybe discuss which dumbass superhero is strongest?”

“Yeah okay,” Steve said. “How about we bring up the ethics of the Vatruvian cell again?”

“Are you
serious
?” Kristen said and turned to Cara, her voice abruptly turning humorless and stern. Steve struck a chord he knew would resonate. “Unlike our shortsighted computer scientist here, I raised a perfectly valid question at the last research meeting.”

“More like you called out Professor Vatruvia in front of the entire research team.” Steve said.

“What do you mean?” Cara asked. “Called Professor Vatruvia out for what?”

“It was nothing,” Kristen said.

“I wouldn’t have called it nothing. Cara, you know the research meeting that’s scheduled for tomorrow afternoon?”

Cara Williams nodded.

Kristen sighed with aggravation as Steve took a sip of his fresh beer, a layer of the thick head lingering on his upper lip. “At the last one, Kristen here asked—no
demanded
—Professor Vatruvia to tell the team the direction our research is heading.”

This seemed to evoke some interest out of Cara, and she leaned forward. “What did he say? I’ve been wondering that myself since I started working with the Vatruvian cell.”

“Absolutely nothing,” Kristen said with a severe shake of her head. “Professor Vatruvia hasn’t told us a damn thing. Evidently we’re his mindless drones; we are to complete our work and not question a single aspect of what we’re doing. It’s shameful I didn’t get more support from the rest of the team—a team of allegedly talented thinkers. When it comes down to it, everyone is a pawn who will do whatever he orders simply to be a part of the research.”

“Don’t look at me,” Steve said with a ring of genuine defensiveness. “I just keep the computer programs running. I don’t know the first thing about the Vatruvian cell. That’s your department. The Vatruvian cell work is still way over my head.”

“A little support couldn’t have hurt,” Kristen said.

“You know . . .” Cara began but fell silent, her brow creased. “I . . . I’ve been wondering the same thing, Kristen. I’m glad we’re on the same page. In a weird way the Vatruvian cell kind of . . . freaks me out.”