‘Nature hides her secrets out of essential loftiness and not by way of ruse.’

Einstein.

 

PROLOGUE

 

0135 hours, 23rd August 1794, Winnipeg.

 

The short wiry man cowering behind the barrel knew he was going to die, but he was not bothered. What concerned him was the safety of the secret he had been entrusted with years ago, by a very important man.

“…keep it safe, with your life, if need be.” The man had implored him, while handing over to him the small intricately carved box containing the secret. He held the box closer to his chest now, as his assailant’s footsteps grew louder in his direction.

His pursuer finally came into view, masked and holding a sawed-off shotgun. The hunted man stood up and charged in a last-ditch attempt to protect his treasure. It was futile. His assailant pulled the trigger, stopping him dead in his tracks. The last of his own generation of The Keeper of Secrets was dead.

The hunter snatched the box from the Keeper’s dead hands and smashed it open, eager to get at what was inside. What he beheld left him in shock.

It was the wrong box, and it was very empty. He had been lured away from the real box and the keeper had sacrificed himself to protect it. The real box by now no doubt would have been ferried far away by another member of the hated brotherhood. He spat on the dead keeper in disgust.

There will be another time.

 

1

It was November, the final days of autumn. The tell-tale signs of winter were beginning to appear in Ketchum, a small quiet town of about a thousand residents. The air was crisp and clean and quiet; the birds having long ago migrated to warmer climates, some preparing to hibernate through the long and cold winter. The surrounding flora previously covered in a spectrum of brilliant colors were starting to fade away. The first snow will soon start to fall, covering it in a patina of white and accentuating its beauty. It was a place of refuge for the rich and powerful. A place of quiet solitude for those who would rather shun the sun-drenched beaches of southern France or the glitz of Monaco.

Tucked between the Baldie Mountain range in Blaine County, Idaho, and a forest of tall pines, Ketchum is situated well away from prying eyes and secured by an efficient security system, comprising both man and state of the art equipment.

Taking advantage of what the town has to offer – security and isolation – Biogen Inc., a biotechnology firm chose to site one of their apex research facilities in Ketchum. Occupying an ordinary-looking residential building, about three miles from the centre of town, it was one of Biogen’s most secure facilities for advanced biomedical research and it was from here that Dr. Francis Ducci the resident scientist at the facility announced a discovery that could revolutionize healthcare forever.

Jovial, thoroughly unassuming, in his mid-forties and with none of the typical stereotypes of a research scientist, at a towering six feet and seven inches, a slight build and with his happy-go-lucky attitude, he will easily pass for an A-list movie star, rather than a scientist with several patents under his belt. He is the uncle, friend, and colleague everyone dreams to have.

For a company like Biogen, discoveries of the magnitude and importance as suggested by Francis that night can bankroll the company for decades and so news about them are taken seriously and information about them jealously guarded.

Thus, that night when Biogen’s vice president of research, Richard Brownstein received a call from his resident scientist at Ketchum, hinting about the possibility of a breakthrough, as he sat in a quiet corner at a bar brooding quietly about his own problems, he dropped everything and listened carefully to what he had to say.

“If I understood what you have just said, you mean you want to commence trials? Human trials?” Brownstein said with barely controlled excitement.

“That’s correct.”

He listened quietly and intently to the voice coming from the other side for any signs of mischief. There were none. He also was not expecting any. He has been friends with Francis now for more than two decades and not even once has he had to joke about his works. He takes them very seriously. Likewise, the voice he is listening to over the phone now. It sounded dead serious.

“… the things I’ll need to your email by morning,” the voice continued.

“Yes, yes,” he replied absent-mindedly as his mind raced. Francis hadn’t just called to inform him of a breakthrough in his research he realized, but as head of the unit it’s also his job to make whatever he’ll need available and he has called to give him a heads up, knowing he has been having run-ins with other members of the board lately.

Another meeting of the board takes place in a week’s time and the thought of the resistance he will have to deal with was already suffocating him. It was no longer news that he has been scheming to be the chief executive of Biogen one day, but accusing fingers were already pointing his way from rival quarters as being the one responsible for losing the company millions in several bad deals.

He had recommended the purchase of three start-ups whose products had somehow ended up in rival companies, costing the company millions and nearly bankrupting it, and his rivals couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use that against him. Afterall, if he cannot put his own house in order why should he be given the much bigger responsibility of running the company? But there is hope now, he thought. Francis’ announcement of a breakthrough couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Managed properly the information he had just been given could land him his dream job. He holds all the aces now. He just needs to play his cards right.

Also in his early forties, he is prone to the occasional fits of temper and can sometimes be impatient. He is of average height and build, with an enormous reservoir of energy and intellect both of which he could deploy to effortlessly grind any problem or adversary into submission. His demeanor and outlook on life was shaped by years of deprivation growing up. He grew up poor but was raised by proud parents who taught him the virtues of honesty and contentment, but even as a child, he wanted more. Barely out of high school at just fifteen, he took up menial jobs that were available in agrarian Marshall County in Indiana, to scrape together enough money to get him into college and more menial jobs saw him through. He was a fighter, and experience had taught him that surrender was never an option.  

He reclined in his chair, staring into nothingness as he did so, reminiscing to the day twenty-two years ago when they had first met, at a conference in Boston where he had gone to give a talk about the progress that he and his team at Biogen had so far made in their fight against breast cancer.

After his presentation, he had been lamenting to another participant about how difficult cancers were to tame, when their discussion was interrupted.

“What if we’ve been approaching this issue of a cure for cancers the wrong way?” It was a tall lanky young man about his age looking bored, with a perpetual twinkle in his eyes, giving him the look of a mischievous daredevil.

“I’m Francis Ducci, Caltech,” he said, offering a handshake and inviting himself into the discussion, impudently, Richie felt.

“Richard Brownstein, Biogen, and this is Harry Manning from Harvard,” Richie responded automatically.

“I must say those were quite some strides you and your team have made in cancer research.”

“Thank you, but I must admit too that you made quite an extraordinary observation some moments ago,” Richie replied. “Care to tell us more about your thoughts?” he asked, almost mocking. The young man reared up before diving into his explanations.

“Cancers are difficult to control because they are not detected early enough,” Francis stated matter-of-factly.

Richie stared mouth agape, finding it difficult to believe what he had just heard.

“We have a profusion of advanced methods and technologies for the early detection of all sorts of cancers,” he retorted.

“Very true, but there has also been no noticeable reduction in the occurrence of cancers. So, it is either those technologies and techniques are not working, or they are not being properly deployed.” Francis countered.

“The purpose of the early signs of a disease is to call the attention of the sufferer to it so that it can be dealt with on time before it can cause irreparable damages.” He continued. “Interestingly, in the case of cancers, that seems not to be the case. Even as early as we presently are with our best technologies, we still are already too late. They would have spread by the time they are discovered, making them extremely difficult to deal with. If we genuinely want to help, then our efforts now should be geared towards developing technologies that can detect these cancers even before their signs start to manifest.”

“Population-wide screening you mean? That will be a logistical nightmare. Besides, with a cure it won’t matter anymore whether they can be detected early or late.”

“There are cures for cancer already.” Francis replied, deadpan. “Very effective cures with almost no side effects.”

A cure for cancer? Did he just say that? Brownstein and Manning exchanged glances, both looking bewildered, then looked at him like a demented fifty-year-old trying to convince himself he was the smartest person in the world. They felt sorry for him. Not even in their wildest imaginations would they imagine someone would make as reckless a claim as this man was making now about a cure for cancer. Certainly not in a gathering like this. That will be suicidal.

Scientists have only barely scratched the surface in their quest to understand the phenomenon called cancer not to talk of finding a cure, and at the rate at which known cancers are evolving into newer yet to be understood cancers, it will be wise to exercise some caution in making such daring claims. Yet here is a man who claims to be a scientist spewing out only who knows what?

They would have left him immediately except that their curiosity got the better of them and they wanted to listen to him make a fool of himself.

“Cancers by their very nature are not diseases that come to just make you feel uncomfortable. When they strike, their purpose, it seems from all that we know about them presently, is to kill and nothing else.” Their guest continued.

“They are nature’s biological assassins. Psychopathic killers who would have no compunctions dying alongside their hosts and they seem to have evolved expressly for this singular purpose. To kill. A function they accomplish with brutal efficiency, and like other organs of the body – the heart and lungs for example – they never let up. Until the host dies.

They remain under the radar during their formative stages when they are still weak and vulnerable to the body’s defenses, masking their presence using some of the most advanced and ingenious stealth techniques known to nature, until they reach their maximum lethal potential when they no longer can be stopped and that is when they make their presence known. When it is already too late to escape their wrath.

At this stage, the present crop of drugs we use in fighting them will have to be used in much larger quantities, because these cancers at this stage in their evolution would have developed highly efficient systems with which they can render these drugs harmless, either by neutralizing them, or by the cancer cells themselves changing into forms the drugs can have no effects on any longer.

All drugs used in high enough quantities become poisonous. Unfortunately, these cancers seem to have deliberately engineered a situation where, trying to get rid of them will mean having to administer poisonous doses of the currently available cancer drugs. It’s a brutal checkmate. The person usually dies regardless of what is done, either from the cancer or from the effects of the cancer medications.

So, you see the problem is not so much the drugs as it is the nature of the disease itself. If only they can be picked up much earlier, at a stage where the smallest effective doses of these drugs can be used to fight them off, we will record more successes in our fight against cancer.”

They moved to the bar and ordered some drinks. Richie and Manning were looking less skeptical now and a lot more interested after Francis’ lengthy exposition.

“Any ideas how that can be achieved?”

“Not a clue. Whatever it is though will have to be cheap and easy to use.”

He smiled, as he remembered what happened next. A beautiful young lady had just entered, spotted them, and immediately made her way towards them. Dressed in a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a pair of slip-ons, she looked like someone who had just waltzed in from a nearby apartment for a quick cup of coffee. Her red hair was let down shoulder length, and her face was almost without make-up. She looked stunning.

“You look smitten pal,” Francis quipped.

“That’s Pamela. A geneticist with Harley’s bioinformatics. She’s half French – her mum – very feisty and a genius to boot,” Riche droned.

“Hey Richie!” she squealed from afar as she spotted them and headed in their direction. She reached where they were in no time.

Richie’s voice suddenly became hoarse. He quietly cleared his throat.

“Hello Pam, good to see you,” Richie replied and then proceeded to make the introductions.

“You look disappointed to see me.”

“I think he likes you. Really much,” Francis volunteered his opinion.

Richard choked on his drink, as he shot him a murderous look. Francis only shrugged.

“You should let her know.”

“I know. He’s been trying to tell me for some time now, only he doesn’t seem to have made up his mind.”

They were married eight months later.

Francis joined him at Biogen a few years later and they have worked closely together ever since.

Five years ago, Francis had informed him that he will be starting a new research work on cancer. Could he have found a solution to the problems they talked about years ago at the conference? He would have to weigh his options thoroughly. If he approves Francis’ requests and it turns out to be another dead end, he could as well kiss his ambition of one day heading Biogen goodbye. But if it truly was a breakthrough, he stands to gain tremendously from it. He will need to find out more about Francis’ research, he thought. Francis will not talk about it, at least not in the details he will need to make his decisions. Not even to him. It is company policy, he understands. Things may not be as simple as he may have wanted them to be afterall, he thought as he remembered the problems that he had been trying to figure out solutions to before Francis’ call came through. His own personal nightmare. It was already the early hours of morning. He paid for his drinks and headed home, a plan already taking shape within the depths of his mind. He left his car preferring instead to walk. The early morning breeze soothed his mind. He needs his mind clear, to focus on what he was about to set in motion.

The scenery was beautiful and serene, but he knew the serenity was fleeting. He walked past the park, and for a moment was tempted by its peacefulness and beauty to sit and forget his troubles, but he kept on walking. He must act fast. This is the moment he has waited so patiently for, for so long, and he knows that the ultimate victory is just within reach. He will not allow anything or anyone to jeopardize what he has labored very hard for. No, he will not. What he is about to do though repulsive, he knows it is for the greater good.

He stopped a taxi to take him the rest of the way home. It was a quiet ride. He will send for his car later in the day.

A few minutes later, he stopped the driver in front of an imposing building. A large Victorian style building sitting on six acres of land and steeped in history. Built in the early 1800s by a wealthy Bostonian businessman, who donated it to serve temporarily as a military base for the 54^th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the civil war, it was from here that Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his men marched forth that spring morning the 28^th of May 1863 in support of a beleaguered president’s efforts to keep together a country deeply divided. The mansion was destroyed in the final days of the war but was later re-built after the war. He bought the property some years ago when the last owner put it up for sale at half its market price. He is in love with the house.

He went inside and headed straight for the kitchen to pour himself some coffee. He missed Pam and the kids. They are in Wisconsin with her parents. He went upstairs shaved took his bath and changed into clean clothes. He was now ready to face the new day. On his way to the stairs, he stopped in front of a closed door beside it, opened the door and went inside. It was a large room with tastefully appointed furniture complete with hard wood flooring polished to very high gloss, the ambiance subdued with cool lighting. Decorating the centre of the room was a delicately carved Victorian-style antique serving table surrounded by luxurious stuffed leather sofas. At the far end of the room was a large ornately carved solid mahogany desk decorated with gilt-tooled leather-top with paneled doors and drawers. Lining one side of the room was a row of bookcases. The opposite wall was lined with wood paneling broken mid-way by a recessed door. Two windows on either side of the desk permit unobscured view of the grounds. This was his place of refuge. His sanctuary. A place where he can quietly contemplate the issues that need his attention.

He sat at his desk. Picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory. He spoke for some time with the person at the other end and then replaced the receiver. Without picking it up again, he dialed another set of numbers, and this time there was a click somewhere in the room and a portion of the paneled wall swung open, revealing a featureless part of the concealed wall. Simultaneously, the surface of the desk closest to him lost its leathery appearance to reveal a capacitive touch screen, about the size of a keyboard. He punched in a series of codes and the revealed part of the wall clicked opened to reveal the inside of a safe. He removed some documents, placed them inside his briefcase and with the touch of a button inside the safe returned everything in the office to how they previously were. He left the room went downstairs to the kitchen, took his coffee, and left for work.

***

About 2500 miles towards the east coast, Detective Roger Stone sat in his office completely lost in his thoughts.

He is a nerdy-looking man in his fifties, with a considerable girth, an average height, an almost imperceptible limp, and a trademark horn-rimmed glasses behind which peeped two lazy-looking orbs that miss nothing and give away nothing. He was no detective, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. In a previous life, he had been a financial analyst who worked within the highest echelons of one of the biggest financial institutions in the world and specialized in hiding money for big clients. He was the best, with a very bright future ahead of him with the financial house he worked with until he was caught doing insider trading and was sent to prison. He became a pariah overnight, and his future crumbled right in front of him.

When he came out of prison, he discovered he possessed a unique set of talents. His ability to expertly navigate the highly convoluted world of high finance could prove useful as a private investigator. No matter how complex a crime or situation may be, there is almost always a common denominator – money. And if you could follow the money, you could solve almost any crime, and who better placed to follow the money trail than the expert at hiding it. He purveyed his skills, and before long, his reputation as an extremely thorough investigator and skilled negotiator spread. His client base grew, most of them rich, powerful, and faceless. Twenty minutes ago, he received a call from one of them.

2

The sky was overcast, heavy with dark clouds, roiling like a boiling cauldron of oil. The day was gloomy, the weather foul. For the past one hour the rain has been pouring in sheets, relentlessly pounding the hard concretes of Newton, as if trying to beat it into submission. That was odd, he thought quietly to himself, heavy rains at this time of the year, perhaps a pointer to a very cold winter just around the corner. Most people have gone to their respective places of work, but for those at home it was the time to curl lazily under the sheets or watch as the winds gently coax the vegetation to reveal their beauty. To the lovers of nature, this should not come to an end.

On the outskirts of Newton on a vast beautifully landscaped expanse of wooded land sits a huge building. A behemoth of steel and poured concrete measuring a breathtaking five hundred thousand square feet of floor space and standing an impressive fifteen storeys high and another seven below ground level, cleverly hidden from prying eyes by a thick wall of trees. This is the building that houses Biogen’s main research activities. Their research headquarters. The palace from where Richie co-ordinates the activities in his vast kingdom – a labyrinth of laboratories inside this vast building and a network of satellite laboratories scattered around the world.

It was here he was seated inside his office late that morning, his thoughts far and wide. He raised his head briefly from the papers he had been poring over for several hours, his eyes bloodshot from a lack of sleep and aching from continuously staring at the fine prints and details contained in the papers. He has not been home in three days, and he has gone through dozens of files during that period. The company’s monthly board meeting is in four days, and for him, things couldn’t have gone farther south. He already was being accused of mismanaging the affairs of his division, and his opponents are baying for blood, but they do not yet have the smoking gun to stop him. He knows they’re digging frantically for something and if they should get their hands on these, then it will be all over. These are the documents that can nail him, and he has kept them out of their reach in his own personal safe in his house. Now, he must prepare himself for the worst. The possibility that in four days’ time, he will be walking right into an ambush. The possibility that his opponents already knew what he has been hiding. That he has been….

His phone rang. It was an internal call from his secretary.

“You have a parcel from Rykon, Mr. Bernstein.”

“Send him in please.”

The delivery man entered, bearing a parcel the size of a small tablet. He signed for the package and tore it open immediately, spilling the contents all over his desk. He went through the documents carefully, and before long, he was convinced they were exactly the type of dirt he needed. He smiled. Every one of the documents contained nuclear grade dirt. Thermonuclear in fact. The last document was a photograph… No, three photographs, he realized as he separated them, time stamped and dated. He whistled, as he came to terms with what he was looking at. The content of each was so sensitive, he couldn’t start to imagine the implications of being in possession of information so potently explosive.

***

It all started with the cold war. A period of post-World War II geopolitical tensions between the USSR and its satellites and the United States and its Western European allies. A struggle between the two superpowers for global domination.

During the closing days of the second world war, the United States, on the advice of a group of scientists started developing a new weapon. One that was to unleash the power of the atom.

Information about this new weapon was kept from the Soviets, a key member of the allies for several reasons, not least among which is the ideological differences between the West and the Soviet Union.

At the Potsdam conference in May of 1945 President Truman formally informed Stalin that the United States possessed a new weapon. The Soviet leader took the news calmly. Stalin was however already aware that the Americans were working on the atomic bomb, being kept adequately informed by his spies within the Manhattan project and given that their own rival programme was also in place, it was safe to assume he was well aware of the enormous destructive power of the new weapon, and its potential to signal his country’s demise on the global stage should their own programme fail.

By 1947, President Truman’s advisers urged him to take steps to counter an increasingly emboldened Soviet Union’s expansionist policies. Truman employed the policy of containment to stem the tide of communism that was threatening to spread into Western Europe, South-east Asia, and parts of Africa.

By the 70’s the warring parties had become interested in accommodations to create a more stable international system, ushering in a period of detente. Both sides had however amassed enough nuclear arsenal to destroy the other many times over in retaliatory strikes if either of them should attempt a pre-emptory strike.

Known to both sides as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), it was thought to be enough to stop them from having a go at each other.

Detente collapsed at the end of the 70’s with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and lasting another nine years. President Carter responded by withdrawing the SALT II treaty from the Senate, imposing sanctions on USSR and massively building up the United States military. The military build-up was continued by Reagan and the arms race was re-ignited.

By the early1980’s, the USSR had built up a military arsenal and army surpassing that of the United States, becoming the largest in the World in terms of the numbers and types of weapons they possessed, in the number of troops in their ranks and in the sheer size of their military industrial base.

This massive build-up however came at a huge cost. The Soviet Union’s massive military consumed a whopping one-fourth of the country’s GNP.

Reagan, who was a vocal critic of the MAD (referring to it as a suicide pact) sought to correct this perceived discrepancy in military strength between the two rivals by rendering the massive Soviet military non-functional. This he sought to accomplish with his Strategic Defense Initiative. A system that was to use ground and space-based systems to protect the country from Soviet ICBMs by targeting and shooting them down mid-flight.

The extent of public knowledge about Reagan’s plans didn’t go much beyond what could be gleaned from the media, however, there was more, and a lot more sinister.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies for use by the military. Created in 1958 by President Eisenhower as a response to the Soviets beating the United States to space, this agency has since been responsible for funding and the development of many technologies that have gone on to have major applications globally, like the internet.

DARPA’s role was to prevent further technological surprises like the launch of the sputnik, and to create such surprises for U.S. military adversaries.

Quite a lot has been written about the success of DARPA, however, three qualities stand them out.

First, is the fact that DARPA is run quite unlike the other more conventional military research agencies. It is headed non-executively by the Secretary of Defense, meaning DARPA is represented directly in the President’s cabinet. This ensures a rapid flow of information and ideas between the highest levels of decision making (military and political), and the technical staff of DARPA. This gives DARPA the ability to respond very nimbly to situations as they arise.

Second is the quality of DARPA’s leadership and third is the ability of DARPA to attract the best scientists from all parts of the globe, who work either directly or indirectly for DARPA. So, when Reagan came up with his defense initiative, DARPA was well placed to execute it.

The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization was established in 1984 under the directorship of Lt. General James Alan Abrahamson, a past Director of the NASA space shuttle programme.

The president was however also keen on keeping the programme under the direct control of the Oval Office, away from the prying eyes of any Soviet mole.

After going through the SDI documents however, the warrior disagreed with some of the fundamental tenets of the initiative.

“No system is totally fool proof sir.” He explained to the president.

“Even with the SDI programme working at peak efficiency, the best it can do is to severely blunt an attack against the country, not completely neutralize it. Perhaps if the attack was not so massive, which will be an unlikely scenario. What will be more realistic sir, will be a massive coordinated nuclear attack against the country, in which case the few nuclear warheads that would be needed to cripple the country would no doubt have gone through an overwhelmed defense system.”

The president will have to respond in kind in the event of such an attack, but the economic incentive for going nuclear becomes reduced as is evident in Chernobyl, the warrior advised. More than 30 years after the accident, the place remains largely uninhabitable.

“So, what do you advice?”

“We may have to develop a new weapons system, Mr. President. One that’s quite as effective but not as contaminating.”

“Keep me posted,” the president replied curtly.

His job has just been cut out for him, and he needs to put his team together fast. First, he would need to choose his lieutenant, a capable person to superintend over the technical aspects of this project, and he has the perfect candidate in mind already.

Back in his newly arranged office he called for his candidate’s file and spent the rest of the day going through every detail. By noon the next day, he got on a flight to Texas. They will have to meet in person. Again.

They had first met at West Point several years ago, where the then Colonel Abrahamson had gone to recruit some new graduates of the academy into some of NASA’s programmes. The younger officer was one of those who had been interviewed, and the colonel was impressed by his depth of knowledge on a wide range of issues, particularly the myriad of ideologies as they pertain to specific situations of national defense.

The younger officer however declined the NASA offer, preferring instead to pursue an advanced degree in biological research and had gone on to head a number of prestigious research institutions himself. Both men have retired now but have kept in touch ever since.

He got to Texas just before sundown, his rental car exactly where he had asked for it to be. Within minutes, he was cruising down the tree-lined streets of West Lynwood Avenue in San Antonio. A few moments later, he parked in front of one of the houses, got down and knocked on the door. It was opened by a tall, physically fit man in his late fifties with intense penetrating eyes and an unmistakable military bearing about him. His tone was clipped suggesting he doesn’t waste words, and neither does he mince them. They exchanged greetings as he was ushered inside, directing his guest to his study.

General Austin W. Betts has headed dozens of military research organizations, and he is the only former DARPA director with a military background.

The former director of DARPA listened to his guest without interrupting him, as he outlined the purpose of his visit.

“A weapon with the same destructive power as a nuclear weapon, but that won’t poison the whole place. How do you intend to achieve that?”

“I was hoping to get that answer from you.”

General Betts remained quiet for some time seemingly trying to make up his mind. After giving the issue some thought, he pulled out one the drawers in his desk and brought out an envelope which he gave to his guest.

“That’s a copy of a letter I wrote to Congress years ago while still at DARPA informing them of the possibility of weaponizing the human genome and that some of our adversaries could in fact have gained a significant head-start on us. I asked them to authorize our scientists to embark on similar research. Unfortunately, they declined.”

“The DNA?” General Abrahamson repeated, incredulous.

“That’s right it can be weaponized.” His host confirmed.

***

After Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA, scientists immediately saw how this structure could be responsible for a cell’s ability to make an exact replica of itself and all the implications that could suggest.

The DNA, a double-stranded helical structure can unwind itself, and then use each one of the two free strands as a template to build two identical copies of the initial double-stranded DNA. The cell then proceeds to divide itself into two, each cell, complete with its own double stranded DNA.

With the efforts to sequence the entire human genome already in full swing, it has become clear from what has been revealed that the human genome is an encoded set of biological instructions, not unlike a computer programme, and like a computer programme, it can be extensively rewritten, to produce new species with super-human abilities. Entirely new sets of instructions could even be written from scratch. The cell containing the codes can then be nurtured under special conditions to develop them into new species, at least in theory. Hordes of superhuman killing machines can be created this way.

When the President heard General Abrahamson’s proposal, he felt the weight of the office he holds. He was being asked to make the decision to bring new species into existence. Whatever happens, whether he decides against it or not, the buck stops with him, and he will be judged harshly especially if his decision ends up putting the country in peril.

 After days of consideration, the president finally gave his consent, and the Hercules project was born.

General Betts and his team finally settled on an amphibious species that can only develop in the depths of the oceans and can be kept there in hibernation until the appropriate signals can stimulate them into action. The activation and de-activation signals are specialized radio signals that will be broadcasted from space and be controlled from the oval office. Initial trials proved remarkably successful, and it was estimated that billions of this new species eventually developed in the oceans, with most possibly still there.

As is bound to happen with biological organisms however some of the new species evolved. They mutated into more virulent forms and escaped the control of the radio waves.

These would eventually be the cause of one of the most brazen acts of cover-ups in history.

It was a moonless night. The cloudless sky pitch black, accentuating the beauty of the numerous sparkling stars, like diamonds spilt onto black silk velvet.

Buccoli village, in the province of Baucau 129 miles from Dili and home to about 250 inhabitants, mostly farmers and fishermen was already quiet, most of the inhabitants having since retired to the comfort of their huts, except a few.

Saipul Nang, a middle-aged man of average height with a fast-receding hair line and a well-lined weathered face was still awake, gazing up at the night sky with his daughter.

“Aren’t they beautiful?” He asked her.

There was no response. He looked down to find his eight-year-old daughter already curled around his feet, fast asleep. He gently picked her up. It was past bedtime already, he thought. He took a few feet in the direction of his hut but stopped abruptly. He thought he saw some things about fifty feet away, not looking quite human. He carefully peered into the darkness trying to make sense of what he thought he had seen, but nothing seemed to be out there. It could be his eyes though, he thought. They are starting to dim. Or maybe he is just imagining things. He started once more towards his huts and what happen next defied every iota of logic known to him. The faces he had thought were not there appeared right in front of him, having covered about 50 feet before he could complete one step. Before he could retreat with his daughter, he heard a snap. He suddenly seemed very heavy as his legs gave way unable to support him any longer. They had just broken his back. The pain was unbearable, and he fell face first into the dirt, his attackers sweeping past him towards his hut, their movements fluid, their demeanor calm, as if they hadn’t just attacked a man. They were extremely well coordinated and seemed to anticipate each other’s moves. They were a functional attacking unit. Their next move was obvious, and it sent a chill down his severed spine. They were going to exterminate his family, and he seemed to have been cruelly left alive to witness it all. He wept. Why were they been killed?

When the dust settled, the entire village had been massacred, save Saipul Nang’s eight-year-old daughter who was found beneath the lifeless body of her father, catatonic, having witnessed horrors a child her age should never have witnessed. Investigators concluded it could be an act of genocide, but there were no clues to support that claim. No suspects were arrested, and neither could a genocide be proven to this day.

General Abrahamson and his team knew better though. Buccoli was close to the sea. He briefed the then president, who ordered the immediate discontinuation of the programme and the extermination of every virulent strain of the specie left. Many subs were lost in that campaign.

He had been part of the project in the early days, and so was one Dr. Frederick Lloyd, who happens to be the arrowhead of the opposition against his ambition at Biogen. Unfortunately, one of the documents delivered to him that afternoon clearly shows that the project has been restarted by Frederick under a new name.

It was bad enough that a direct presidential order has been disobeyed. What was worse was that the resurrected project was now being carried out on foreign soil, a clear danger to the country’s security, and a treasonable crime. He could not wait to throw this at his opponent.

***

There could be no pre-ambles. He will have to shock his opponent into revealing his guilt.

“Riche!” came the exuberant voice on the phone.

“I guess you’re calling to tell me…”

“About Project Alpha. What do you know about it, Fred?” Silence. There it was. The silent admission of guilt. He could almost hear the wheels of his mind turning furiously, as it tried to put together an appropriate lie.

“You have no idea what you’ve just got yourself involved in.” Fredrick hissed.

The definitive admission of guilt, and now on record.

“Why don’t you explain it to me Fred?”

“It’s a highly classified government operation you spied on Richie, and that could send you away for a very long time.”

“Highly classified government operation? On foreign soil? There is no way the government will allow a project this sensitive be carried out on foreign soil. You’ll have to be a lot more creative than that.”

More silence.

“The game is up Freddie. This is treason, and you could be sent to prison for the rest of your life. Fortunately, I’m more concerned about the nearest future, which for me comes up in four days. You will announce to the board that you will no longer be contesting for the position of the CEO of Biogen, citing health reasons or whatever other reason you can come up with. Just make it sound plausible. That should be easy enough, shouldn’t it? I’ll see you in four days.” He clicked off, imagining the state of mind he will be in after that encounter.

No doubt that problem is solved, he thought to himself with some satisfaction.

***

Four days later, Richie called Francis with news of the board’s approval of the next phase of his research.

“That’s good news.”

“It is. The funds have also been approved, so there’s nothing to stop us now.”

“Brilliant. All our volunteers have been screened and are ready. We can start by next week. In the meantime, we’ll recheck all our equipment and be sure they are in order.”

“That’s fine.” Richie said. “I have a request to make though.”

“Ok.”

He hesitated a while before he spoke again.

“I want you to continue the rest of your work here, at headquarters.”

“Headquarters? That is insane. That is going to cost us a lot of time and money. It’s not a good idea.” Francis protested.

“We will have to assemble new volunteers and get them ready. That takes a lot of time. Is this part of the conditions set by the board?”

“It’s not dear friend. It’s a personal request.”

“Are you Ok?” He thought he could detect a hint of fear in his friend’s voice. Richie doesn’t scare easily. So, whatever it is that could make him suggest he flout established company policy must be serious, and he would like to know.

“What is it?”

Silence. A long silence. Then he spoke.

“There’s a mole operating inside the unit Francis.”

Francis felt as if he had been hit by a truck. It was the last thing he was expecting to hear from Richie.

“A mole?” He replied, not knowing what more to say. He thought about all the long, sleepless nights he had invested in this work, and all his other works, and he felt sick and disgusted. Someone in the company has been stealing and selling other people’s works all this while? Who could that be?

“Since when?”

“From the looks of it, it seems it has been going on for a while, possibly the last five to ten years or so.”

“That long? Isn’t that the more reason I should stay away from headquarters?”

“I need to keep you close. You will be housed in the new laboratories, with new security measures designed by me. I’m leaving nothing to chance this time.”

“That’s good. But won’t that spook him? He might suspect you’re onto him if you move only me.”

“Six other works of research have been singled out for evacuation each coming from different satellite laboratories. I will also give out a statement explaining a purported reason for the move. I’ll make it convincing. Thank you for agreeing to do this Frank.”

“It’s the least I could do to help. Just catch the bastard.”

“I will. I promise.”

3

“Would you come down here? You need to see this.” Francis’ voice was as calm as he could manage it as he spoke with Richie on the phone.

It has been roughly eight months since work commenced fully in his new laboratory at headquarters. He had been allocated a huge laboratory, almost half the size of a football field. Such was the scale of what he was working on, as he had to make use of some huge and complex machines.

So far, the pace of work has been smooth and the data he has collected has been consistent with all his expectations.

About a week ago though, he came across something new, but not totally unexpected. He went through his data again, several more times to make sure he has not made a mistake. After several thorough checks and lengthy calculations, he made his decision. He was correct after all. That was not even the most interesting part. He zoomed in on a part of the screen in front of him, and after contemplating the contents for a while, he heaved a sigh of relief. This one here seems a bit more intriguing, he thought to himself.

The LCD screen built into the wall by the door came to life, displaying Richie’s face. He was breathless. Even after scanning his fingerprints and entering an access code, he still would not be permitted entry until the owner of the laboratory does the same thing from his own side. This is despite the fact that he is the head of the unit. He was truly leaving nothing to chance. Those entry credentials and recordings of everything that goes on inside each of the six new laboratories are stored somewhere within the bowels of the massive complex.

“Take a seat please,” Francis said immediately he buzzed him in, indicating a seat positioned in front of the screen.

“I wanted you to see this yourself. There is no way I could have adequately explained this to you in the phone. I’ll offer some explanations where necessary and allow you to figure the rest out yourself. They’re simple enough to follow.”

Francis punched a few keys and the screen filled up with rows of data that look like binaries.

“Am I supposed to be able to make any sense out of this?”

“Not without some explanations.” Francis replied excitedly, punching more keys. The binaries disappeared, replaced by a more familiar sight.

“You know this of course.”

It was a structure only slightly bigger than a peanut and found within the human brain.

“The hypothalamus.”

“What you saw earlier, the binaries, they came from here.”

“Excuse me?” Richie blurted, looking momentarily disoriented.

“That’s right. The hypothalamus is a repository of data, and the data seem to have been arranged in two sets. The first set contains static data and remain relatively unchanged, and the second set contains rapidly changing data.” Francis explained further.

“Extraordinarily detailed data streams are sent from every part of the body to this structure. Every single one of the trillions of cells that make up the human body sends a continuous stream of high-fidelity data about itself to the hypothalamus in real time, a process that is repeated many millions of times in a second. Considering that the hypothalamus, like other parts of the brain communicate using electrical signals, all of these tremendous amounts of data will have to interact with the hypothalamus as electrical signals one way or the other, and that is an enormous amount of electrical traffic passing through this tiny structure at any given moment. That on its own is a significant enough detail that we have managed to discover. What I consider even more interesting however is what these enormous amounts of electrical impulses accomplish.

Within the hypothalamus is an area no larger than a grain of sand formed by cells that have lost their individual cellular boundaries and have fused to form a composite structure. Within this composite structure are two very unusual proteins. The first of these two proteins receives the electrical impulses, before they are passed on to other parts of the brain. This protein then does something very bizarre. It gives off a barrage of neutrinos[1], all three types. At first, we thought the entire process was chaotic until we looked closer and discovered that there was an underlying order. The first protein ‘understands’ patterns of electrical impulses coming from the different parts of the body, conveying all sorts of information about these parts of the body. This interaction between this protein and the electrical impulses causes the protein to produce neutrinos each one with its own unique properties. These neutrinos are then written into the second protein again in a very precise sequence. Every neutrino is distinguished by its unique spin[2], as no two neutrinos ever produced are similar, and three neutrino spins read contiguously by a special protein subunit which forms part of the storage protein codes for a data point. Because neutrinos are unaffected by force-fields, and can interact only with these proteins, information once written on this protein for all intents and purposes becomes permanent. The first protein is analogous to a computer’s processing unit, while the second protein is like the ROM in a computer.

Those huge machines I requested were used to crack this neutrino code. We used them to rapidly read the spin of each of the neutrinos. Having cracked the code, we fed the readings from the machines into an appropriately programmed computer and that was how we came up with the rows of binaries that I showed you when you came in.”

Richie had a dazed look about him, Francis ploughed on. The questions will come later, in volumes. He wanted to finish his explanations before he recovers. He punched in a different set of instructions and the screen in front of them changed its display.

“This, dear friend, is not an animation at least not in the sense we used to know it. After the final processing of the data, this was what we came up with.”

The previous contents on the screen disappeared, now replaced by a complete image of the human form.

“The computer recreated a perfect dynamic image of this volunteer from parts of the data we got off the protein, and it was of such high fidelity we could visualize individual cells and their contents in real time. We now can obtain detailed information about the state of health of a cell or a group of cells at just the touch of a button, obviating the need for cumbersome gadgets and tests as is presently the case. It’s revolutionary and it could prove useful in making faster and better decisions about our health.”    

Richie’s thoughts raced. He knows an opportunity when he sees one, and this one is smoking hot. The company could make a killing from this if handled properly. More importantly however, is the fame he gets to gain out of this. With this he could knock his opponents out cold. He has lots of questions, but he is more concerned about one, the rest can wait. “How far back do these data go?”

“The proteins are formed immediately after conception but get incorporated into the hypothalamus about eight weeks after conception, I’d like to think the data goes back as far as the moments immediately after conception. We’d still prefer to make sure though.”

Bingo! Every man, woman, child and fetus on the planet, more than 9 billion people all potential customers of Biogen, he thought wryly. Biogen will control the world like no other corporation has before it. And he will soon control Biogen. He will soon own the world, and it’s just a matter of months now.

“You’ll have to address the board Franky.” He said. “Real soon.”

“I’ll set up the meeting. You should get ready.” He said as he stood up and made for the door.

***

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure we all will recognize these faces.” Four famous faces popped up on a huge screen. Francis was standing before a huge screen in front of the board members of Biogen Inc. The spacious room was packed. Everybody was in attendance. Richie had made sure of it. Today was a very important day, for the company, and for him too and he wants every one of these people to be a witness to his rise. Francis was dressed in a well-worn black tweed jacket with elbow patches, a pair of trousers, a light blue shirt with no tie, and a pair of black loafers, his pair of glasses precariously balanced on the bridge of his nose. The quintessential academic. He was no stranger to gatherings like this. This is his stage, and they were mostly his colleagues and people he knew quite well, but there were also a few new faces. He had long ago decided to limit himself to his laboratory, as he was not interested in the politics involved in the day-to-day running of the company. That was not to say he was an outsider though. The products from his labs have been responsible for many of the break-throughs Biogen has recorded in recent years. He is respected in this circle.

“We of course also know, sadly though, that all four of them are dead. All four of them at the prime of their lives when they would have been most useful to the society.

The two gentlemen on the right succumbed to some forms of cancer, while the young woman and the gentleman on the left died of heart-related diseases.

What was particularly revealing about their deaths was that none of them showed any signs of the illnesses they eventually succumbed to. They all seemed healthy, until they suddenly dropped dead with no warnings what-so-ever. I have used them as examples because they represent most of us in this room and many more out there. They are rich, they have access to the best and the most expensive health-care services the developed world has to offer. Yet the best we have to offer was still not good enough to detect that something was amiss until they all dropped dead unceremoniously.”

The four famous faces disappeared and were replaced by two new faces.

“These two faces belong to a John and a Jane Doe. They are also dead. Also, from similar illnesses. I’ve included these young man and woman just so we know that these diseases are not the exclusive preserve of the rich and famous.”

A ripple of laughter spread across the room diffusing temporarily the tension that had built up. Nobody likes talking about illnesses or deaths.

“Will there ever be cures for these diseases? Or are we meant to be sitting ducks to be picked off at will by these implacable, deadly diseases?” He paused for a few moments for effect, before continuing again.

“I’ll say we’ve developed a way to beat them, and that is what I’ve come here today to discuss.” The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The reaction to what he said was mixed. Some wore expressions of utter disbelief, while some were grinning lasciviously. They were already mentally counting the money. Yet others just stared blankly expecting him to say more. Whispers and murmurs filled the room. They were agitated. Richie was nodding his head gently and smiling as if conveying to Francis his approval of the way he had handled them thus far. This is vintage Francis, and he has got them by the balls now. From this moment on they will hang onto his every word.

“A cure for cancer?” Someone asked incredulously.

“Yes.” He replied emphatically.

“For a better understanding of what I’m about to show you, it’ll be good to put things into proper perspective.” Francis continued, before diving into the basic details of his work.

“The cells of the body require very precise sets of conditions to function at their best and to make certain of this, they have created for themselves an environment where these conditions can be strictly regulated. An environment that has been called the internal milieu. Because this internal environment must communicate with a constantly and wildly fluctuating external environment, extra-ordinarily efficient mechanisms have evolved to ensure that this internal milieu remain relatively unchanged, a process called homeostasis.

As long as the internal milieu stays within its pre-set limits, the individual should have no problems. To get a feel of how strong and efficient the body’s homeostatic mechanisms are, let us consider what happens in someone who is rapidly losing blood. First, the body tries to minimize the loss of blood by constricting the damaged blood vessels. Also, clots are produced at the site of the damaged blood vessels to help plug the damage in the rent vessels. If these measures prove insufficient to stem the blood loss, the body shuts off blood supply to parts it deems less important. The blood thus saved is then re-directed to parts that are vital to keeping the person alive – the heart, the brain, and the adrenals. The heart must be kept alive to continue pumping blood to the brain so that the person can stay conscious, while the adrenals need the blood to continue to maintain the constriction of the vessels. Usually, this intervention by the body’s homeostatic mechanisms is strong enough to delay fatalities by precious minutes. Enough time for proper interventions to be made.

It is thus obvious that the goal of homeostasis is self-preservation. The body seems to have been designed to stay alive at all costs and has been equipped with very capable systems to fight off any attempt to compromise this goal. Some illnesses by their very nature however seek to defy this purpose, as their sole aim seems to be the termination of the individual with extreme prejudice. The homeostatic mechanisms are meant to keep us abreast of happenings within us. In the case of some of these diseases however we remain completely unaware of the havoc they are wrecking inside us even when they have caused massive alterations in the internal environment. By the time these illnesses become apparent, the individual no longer stands a chance. Death will almost certainly end it all. In some instances, the person just drops dead with absolutely no warnings. This gives us the impression that some disease processes have devised the means to out-wit these very versatile processes of nature that have evolved to keep us alive. They are sworn to destroy us no matter what we do. And that, to me, makes no sense. It seems imperative and logical that we would be made aware of the more deadly diseases before they get out of hand. On the other hand, we have learnt from our experiences with previously ‘deadly’ diseases that what makes the difference between the deadly and the not so deadly illnesses is oftentimes knowledge. So, it is either what we know about homeostasis is not accurate enough, or there has to be a good reason for this anomaly. I felt it was worth knowing what really was going on, and after years of investigating, this was what I came up with.”  

John and Jane Doe’s faces dissolved and was replaced by a more familiar structure – the hypothalamus.

“Many of us here know what this is. Only very few here may not.”

He then proceeded to explain to them what he had earlier explained to Richie. Their discovery of the proteins inside the hypothalamus that has made all of it possible, the nature of the information that is stored, how the information is stored. He demonstrated to them everything he had earlier demonstrated to Richie, and he relished the looks of utter incredulity registering on their faces. They were finding it difficult to accept what they were seeing, yet they knew it had to be real. Nothing in their past experiences could have prepared them for this moment and what they were witnessing was truly shocking.

“The sheer volume of information we now have access to is astonishing, and it gives us new capabilities. All internal parameters are constantly checked and compared with a baseline established at the moment of conception. It’s staggering the amount of computational power that is required to get this done so effortlessly and unobtrusively, so much that we remain unaware that something of such enormity is happening within us at any given moment.” Francis continued. “We now can obtain detailed information about the molecular machineries of a cell – their structures as well as how they function and how they fare. In effect what we have done is that we have found a way to create a detailed digital replica of an individual, down to the individual molecules within the cell with unprecedented precision, using the massive amount of extremely high-fidelity data coming from this part of the brain.

Cancers for instance develop when insults to a cell’s molecular machinery accumulate over time without being repaired. Now, we have the capability to pick up those insults as soon as they occur before they could accumulate to cause cancers. In fact, we can now see as these processes happen in real time, all at just the touch of a button.”

Francis was proceeding at full steam now.

“Ironically, this reservoir of information is not readily available to us. I have no idea why, but maybe if it had been otherwise, our minds would have been overloaded with so much unnecessary information and we would have been left with very little intelligence or concentration to cope with our lives. Nature perhaps chose to prioritize intelligence over survivability, hoping that one day we would acquire the knowledge we would need to improve on our survivability.”

The audience was held spell bound. He paused to take a sip from the glass of water on the table beside him, but before he could continue, someone had managed to break the spell.

“You’ve made no mention of drugs in all you’ve said so far.” The man said.

He knew the man. He is not from Biogen. He was one of the non-executive directors.

“No, I didn’t.” He replied gently. “And that’s because I didn’t think it was necessary.”

The man looked like he wanted to say something. He opened his mouth to articulate his thoughts, but nothing came out. He closed it again looking thoroughly confused.

“I didn’t think it was necessary we re-invented the wheel.” He continued.

“Out there, are hundreds if not thousands of cancer drugs, all of them extra-ordinarily effective against the forms of cancer they’ve been developed. However, they are highly toxic at the current doses at which they are being used. The most effective doses of these drugs will only work against the cancer cells at their earliest stages when conventional detection methods will not work. So, what we need is to complement what had already been invented with an effective early warning system.”

“But that doesn’t help this company very much, financially I mean. It’s the drugs people want to buy and use.” Someone quipped.

“Yes.” Someone else answered.

“I don’t quite agree, but of course we’ve not yet got to the really interesting part.”

The room immediately went silent again.

“We discovered something else, something odd, but no less amazing and totally unexpected. As we were exploring these proteins, one of our equipment, a wave detector that happens to be lying in a corner and not being used for the experiment started acting up. It was struggling to pick up a signal that was barely there, virtually undetectable even to this machine, and that was odd. What was even stranger was the nature of the signal. It was like nothing we have ever detected before, and it was almost dismissed as a malfunctioning machine. Just out of curiosity, I decided to find out what the cause of the disturbance was, so I changed a few components on the machine and re-tuned it to improve on its sensitivity. It was not a malfunction afterall. The disturbance was still there, slightly stronger now and unmistakable, with properties of an electromagnetic wave, but fits none of the known waves on the spectrum. It was completely off the charts. The conclusion here was clear; the hypothalamus was emitting an unknown energy, probably transmitting something on it. To test that premise, we had to build this device…”

The screen displayed the picture of an unfamiliar gadget.

“… and sure enough it was. This energy is the pathway nature has provided to effortlessly get through to all of that data on the protein in the hypothalamus. All that was needed was to find it.”  

He brought out a tiny device no larger than a match box and attached it to the personal computer he was using. The screen instantly filled up with distinct patterns that was the exact number of those in the room. They were intrigued and were eager to see what will happen next. He punched in some instructions and the screen filled with binaries just as before.

“The data here are from me.” He said, as he proceeded to demonstrate to them using his own data all that he had done previously.

“What we offer the market is information. Before you start buying those drugs, you’ll want to know precisely what the problems are, and with this new technology we can put the people in control of their own health, and place that control right at their fingertips with ease and at vastly reduced cost. Illnesses hitherto too costly to treat will be prevented at no cost. Cumbersome and complicated tests will be breezed through at just the touch of a button. Biogen will build a more powerful device and invest in the intensive computational power and storage that will be needed to serve a larger population, and those who need the service can connect to Biogen servers. It is fast, it is secure, can be accessed remotely from anywhere, and the information provided is utterly reliable because it is information about you prepared by you. Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to the future of healthcare controlled by Biogen. Affordable, first-rate healthcare for all.”

The screen went blank.

There was a momentary silence before the room erupted in applause.

“We plan to file for patents on our new discoveries, as well as our newly invented device within forty-eight hours.” Richie said. He has joined Francis in front of the room.

The questions started pouring in, in torrents. There was no doubt whatsoever now about the feasibility of the project. It has just been demonstrated to them, so no questions came along that line.

“How long before the product gets to the market? I mean before the service can be made available to the public?” Someone asked.

“We’re looking at a two to three-year time frame.” Richie answered.

“That sounds like a long time.”

“Considering that this is a new technology, and it has only so far been tested in a laboratory, we will need to develop the capabilities that will enable us to scale it up too. That will take some time. We will also have to await approval from the relevant regulatory agencies, so it’s unlikely our roll-out time frame can be earlier.”

Other questions that came were similarly done away with. Finally, the board chairman thanked them and tasked everyone involved to expedite action on the eventual roll-out without compromising on quality.

Click to download THE LOST CAUSE. 

[1] A neutrino is an elementary particle which rarely reacts with normal matter and typically passes through normal matter unimpeded and undetected. They come in three flavors: electron, muon and tau neutrinos.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino

 

[2] In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum carried by elementary particles, composite particles (hadrons), and atomic nuclei. It’s a fundamental property of subatomic particles.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_%28physics%29