Christ Clone (10 page)

Although the week had passed quickly Travis was glad to be out of the office. It was a beautiful California day and as he stood beside his car, his hands on his hips, he stretched his spine backwards, feeling the sun's warmth on his face. Even though the journey was going to be relatively short in terms of mileage, the extra heavy morning traffic meant he was going to be in his car for a couple of hours. He didn't mind the drive; in fact, as usual, he was looking forward to it but the
Aston's leather seats, although comfortable, still played havoc with his back. In truth though, the destination more than made up for the discomfort of the trip.

Apart from his office, Simon Travis had one other passion and favourite workplace, the Communication and Teleportation research lab just north of San Diego in the Sorrento Valley. It was where he left his pessimism at the door, dressed himself in a lab coat and let his imagination take over. The possibilities of teleportation were endless; with it he could immediately control the freight and transport market; goods could be transferred door-to-door around the world as easily as sending an e-mail. All the usual costs involved in shipping — planes, boats, trains, and trucks, to say nothing of fuel costs — would disappear with teleportation, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

His company had been involved in the early successes with shifting protons. He remembered, as if it was only yesterday, the intense feeling of achievement as he watched the experiment progress to the point where all the theory and speculation met reality: actually seeing it happen. Their experiment had mimicked the ground-breaking achievement at the California Institute of Technology in 1998. In that experiment, physicists successfully teleported a photon to its new position one metre away and the original photon simply ceased to exist. In Travis' team's experiment, they increased the distance and overall size of the project and got the same result.

Travis didn't understand all of the science behind the experiment, but his desire for a successful outcome was enough for him to have more than just a passing interest. His real ambition was to transport people, not just around this world, but around the universe. A pipe dream perhaps, but he had a feeling that if anyone could do it, it would be him. He'd often wondered if the great scientists, Bell or
Newton perhaps, had felt the same sense of absolute conviction that drove him. He guessed they probably did.

As Travis understood it, for a person to be teleported successfully the science must be exact, the machine must analyze all of the seven times ten to the power of twenty-seven atoms that make up the average human body (effectively, seven followed by twenty-seven zeroes
— a number beyond comprehension), move them, and then reconstruct the person/atoms again, precisely. The slightest deviation would result in huge physiological defects. And of course, having the cleanest of environments was paramount. The archaic technology and basic horror of the movie
The Fly
effectively portrayed to Travis the nightmare scenario of miscalculation. Meaning that — aside from himself
— Travis was hard-pushed to find anyone eager to become a guinea pig in his future experiments. Travis often thought that Hollywood had played a large part in manufacturing peoples' fear of sharks and birds — even of showering in remote motels!

If the whole human teleportation thing were to work, it would open up several cans of worms regarding theory and practicality.
Theoretically, there were a number of ways it could be done. Some people believed it would work in the same way as sending a fax. You sent your genetic blueprint to a new frame at the receiving end, but the original still existed at the place from where you were sent; so, in a way, it just duplicated the original. An argument against this was that received faxes were usually a degraded version of the original — and of course, what became of the original?

The other, more popular, option was somehow to break down the atoms and transmit them to the desired location, rebuilding them like a giant jigsaw puzzle at the other end. This was a method made popular by Star Trek and similar science fictions.

In both cases, a combination of genetic cloning with digitization, or what was commonly called bio-digital cloning, came into effect.
The thought of arriving instantly at your desired destination with no time constraints or passport boundaries gave Travis a real buzz.

He finally arrived at the Sorrento lab's parking lot. Flashing his driver's license at the guard on the gate, he checked the clock on his dashboard. Happy that he'd made good time, even with the traffic, he drove under the raised barrier and parked in the CEO space. Once out of the car, he stretched his back again and admired the building before entering.

The research lab was, on the surface, quite an unobtrusive building; nestled among a number of other industrial buildings in the park, it could easily pass as a paper or food manufacturing company. The reception area was very plain because it didn't really cater for visitors.
A welcoming smile on the face of the receptionist, who was seated behind a grey desk, was the only greeting any would-be guest was likely to receive. Travis said hello and told her he was there to see Dr
Androna.

The waiting area was sparsely furnished with a few chairs and a coffee table covered with the mandatory company brochures and gossip tabloids. As Travis never had to wait long, this was a bittersweet treat for him. Of course he wouldn't have wanted to be kept waiting, but equally, he secretly liked to keep up to date with which celebrity was sleeping with whom that week. Ironically, the magazines were months out of date.

The heavy door's security lock clicked and Dr Androna entered the reception area. They exchanged the usual formal greetings and then went back through the heavy door, heading for the main elevator.
Most of the lab had been built underground; this allowed the scientists to work in a completely secret world, a world most people wouldn't understand, so they kept the place discreet. They walked in silence, each with his own thoughts. Dr Androna didn't want to give away his latest success too soon, and Travis just loved absorbing the feel and ambience of the lab.

As he looked through the glass windows lining the sides of the corridor,
Travis saw scientists and technicians in white lab coats bending over tabletops, engrossed in their work. There were test tubes being placed into centrifugal separators, vials of samples being rigged up to monitors, and results being logged onto sheets and into computer tables.

Each time he visited, Travis tried to add to his knowledge of how it all worked. What he had gleaned so far was that the embryo laboratory was generally kept as a clean room with filtered air and limited access. Volatile materials were avoided, and the handling of test samples was carried out in laminar flow hoods or isolates, better described as glassed cubicles set into the wall. This limited the possibility of outside contamination, which he knew to be a bad thing. The lab maintained a five per cent CO2 environment via large air-conditioning units, to avoid pH drifts — another bad thing for experiments. The air-conditioning units' loud hum made the scientists'
heads pound after a few hours, and therefore precluded long working hours. But the temperature control was vital, as under ambient conditions pH could rise above the physiological range within two minutes, which could have adverse effects on samples out of the main incubator, in effect screwing up the experiments. Lab temperature stability was particularly important for experiments, because chromosomes could break down or disorganize irreversibly with a reduction to room temperature.

The main incubator looked to Travis like a giant oven. All samples were mass-screened and placed into it through a single door opening.
The CO2 level in the main incubator chamber could take up to thirty minutes to recover from even a limited number of door openings. So much could go wrong, even the smallest change could affect the outcome of any experiment they did. Failed experiments meant a waste of money for the company, and of course its shareholders.

Travis stood for a while longer watching the scientists work. They were lab rats themselves, he thought. They had their experiments, and in turn, they were his experiment. 'I wonder who's watching me?' he muttered.

'Sorry, did you say something?' the doctor, slightly startled, asked
Travis.

Travis shook his head and moved on.

Arriving at the office, Dr Androna went straight to the projector and switched it on. Travis admired the doctor's office. There were always piles of research folders and books neatly stacked around his desk and along the sideboards, and while it looked to Travis like absolute organized chaos, he understood how much of his company's fortune flowed from this room, and from the doctor's mind. Travis took a seat at the smoky glass table and picked up the documents in front of him.

'You'll probably need to see the presentation before that will make any sense,' the doctor said. It was clear he didn't want Travis to jump the gun and steal his thunder.

After a little more setting up, Dr Androna killed the lights and the presentation illuminated the large screen.

Accelerated Growth, read the first slide.

Dr Androna went through the experiment's mission: to stimulate rapid cell growth and expedite growth from single cell to adulthood.

'In the late 1990s, scientists managed to bring fish to early maturity using of basic growth hormones. My team and I have taken this limited success, and through computer simulation, have developed the following theory. Accelerated growth can be achieved by germline expression of growth hormones and antifreeze proteins,' he announced.

'Germline technology?' Travis was lost already, so Dr Androna backtracked a little. 'Germline technology is completely different to the genetic therapy of the past, which is described as somatic treating the soma, or body cells. Human germline manipulations are adaptations made to the genes of our germinal or reproductive cells — the first cell in the embryo to exist — so that the genetic changes will be copied into every cell of the future adult as it grows.

Through in vitro fertilization, an artificial chromosome — with the expressed growth hormones and antifreeze proteins — is introduced to the cell. This genetic manipulation targets cell growth and later stimulates the pituitary gland into working overtime, manufacturing chemicals that tell body systems — both structure and cell — to grow, particularly during sleep.'

Travis was trying very hard to follow the doctor, but as he told the story Dr Androna was growing increasingly excited and increasingly scientific. 'The Human Genome Project itself has provided the basis for both somatic therapy and for germline therapy because it's revealed our genetics. The information learned from the Human
Genome Project is coupled with technologies like DNA chips — chips that can read a large number of genes at one time. Then with genomics
— the application of computer technology — to decipher and interpret our genetics and the way they impact the human genotype, all of this makes possible the manipulation of human genetics for germline cells.'

'Whoa, take a breath Doc!' Travis had lost the plot. 'Do you have all this in layman's language?'

The doctor seemed a little embarrassed; he'd been carried away by his own enthusiasm. 'Maybe the slide show will be easier to follow,'
he offered.

The initial slides displayed computer-generated images of scientists adding chemicals to the cell's nucleus. Along the bottom of each slide, as it appeared, was a timeline. The egg was inserted into the reproductive system, and the clock was started. Travis looked in amazement as, within days, the embryo started to make moves towards a basic human shape. The heart was formed, and the basic structure of the limbs, spine, and nervous system. This was equal to one month's growth in an unmanipulated embryo. At the ten-day stage, the less essential characteristics (eyes, nose, and ears) had been developed, and the embryo resembled a human — typical of the normal ten-week stage. The embryo was growing at a rate of one day equalling one week of normal growth. At the fourteen-day mark, there was a distinct change in the rate of growth.

Stunned, Travis looked at Dr Androna who summarized it for him. 'The major characteristics of the embryo have more or less been developed; it possesses all the requirements of a fully functional being. From this time onwards, the embryo will continue to grow in size rather than in complexity via cell division. This is where the pituitary gland is targeted.'

From fertilization to birth in one month!

The baby slides stopped at this point, replaced by an explanation of what had happened, including the cocktail of nutrients that had been pumped into the mother.

The next steps were even more astounding. The image changed as dramatically as a museum poster showing human evolution from ape to man. The basic rule of thumb for growth was the equivalent of one normal year for every week, slowing down as the image hit the sixteen to seventeen-week mark.

Once again Travis looked to the doctor, who explained: 'We've built a type of cut-off facility into the hormone; otherwise the subject would have a very short life. As it is, we're not sure what will happen during the mid-point of its life.' The doctor looked down at this point; he hated not having all the answers.

The process — from conception to adulthood — took between five and six months on the timeline. Travis couldn't believe his eyes.
The rest of the slides went deeper into the science and reinforced the theory. The simulation looked impressive, and Travis knew better than to ask if the theory would work in practice.

'What about things like learning, education, speech, and so on?'
Travis asked.

'Once again, a bit hit and miss on this, but since we are introducing the signature of another human into this melting pot, we are expecting the inherent memory to be drawn out.'

'This is fantastic!' Travis finally exclaimed.

'You bet it is,' Dr Androna agreed, filled with a sense of pride.