Greg Bear - Blood Music

Vergil shook his head. Edward reached through the slit in the robe and traced his fingers along the back. Vergil lifted his arms and looked off at the ceiling.

“I can’t find it,” Edward said. “It’s smooth. There’s something flexible; the harder I push, the tougher it becomes.” He walked around in front of Vergil, chin in hand. “You don’t have any nipples,” he said. There were tiny pigment patches, but no nipple formations whatsoever.

“See?” Vergil said. “I’m being rebuilt from the inside out”

“Bullshit” Edward said. Vergil looked surprised.

“You can’t deny your eyes,” he said softly. “I’m not the same fellow I was four months ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Edward played around with the images, rotating them, going through the various sets of organs, playing the NMR movie back and forth.

“Have you ever seen anything like me? I mean, the new design.”

“No,” Edward said flatly. He walked away from the table and stood by the dosed door, hands in his lab coat pocket “What in hell have you done?”

Vergil told him. The story emerged in widening spirals of fact and event and Edward had to make his way through the circumlocutions as best he could.

“How,” he asked, “do you convert DNA to read-write memory?”

“First you need to find a length of viral DNA that codes for topoisomerases and gyrases. You attach this segment to your target DNA and make it easier to lower the linking number—to negatively supercoil your target molecule. I used ethidium in some earlier experiments, but—”

“Simpler, please, I haven’t had molecular biology in years.”

“What you want is to add and subtract lengths of input DNA easily, and the feedback enzyme arrangement does this. When the feedback arrangement is in place, the molecule will open itself up for transcription much more easily, and more rapidly. Your program will be transcribed onto two strings of RNA. One of the RNA strings will go to a reader-a ribosome-for translation into a protein. Initially, the first RNA will carry a simple start-up code—”

Edward stood by the door and listened for half an hour. When Vergil showed no sign of slowing down, much less stopping, he raised his hand. “And how does all this lead to intelligence?”

Vergil frowned. “I’m still not certain. I just began finding replication of logic circuits easier and easier. Whole stretches of the genomes seemed to open themselves up to the process. There were even parts that I’ll swear were already coded for specific logic assignments—but at the time, I thought they were just more introns, sequences not coding for proteins. You know, holdovers from old faulty transcriptions, not yet eliminated by evolution. I’m talking about the eukaryotes now. Prokaryotes don’t have introns. But I’ve been thinking the last few months. Plenty of time to think, without work. Brooding.”

He stopped and shook his head, folding and unfolding his hands, twisting his fingers together.

“And?”

“It’s very strange, Edward. Since early med school we’ve been hearing about ‘selfish genes,’ and that individuals and populations have no function but to create more genes. Eggs make chickens to make more eggs. And people seemed to think that introns were just genes that have no purpose but to reproduce themselves within the cellular environment. Everyone jumped on the bandwagon, saying they were junk, useless. I didn’t feel any qualms at all with my eukaryotes, working with introns. Hell, they were spare parts, genetic deserts. I could build whatever I wanted.” Again he stopped, but Edward did not prompt Vergil looked up at him, eyes moist “I wasn’t responsible. I was seduced.”

“I’m not getting you, Vergjl.” Edward’s voice sounded brittle, on the edge of anger. He was tired and old memories of Vergil’s carelessness towards others were returning; he was exhausted, and Vergil was still droning on, saying nothing that really made sense.

Vergil slammed his fist on the edge of the table. “They made me do it! The goddamn genes!”

“Why, Vergil?”

“So they won’t have to rely on us anymore. The ultimate selfish gene. All this time, I think the DNA was just leading up to what I’ve done, you know. Emergence. Coming out party. Tempting somebody, anybody, into giving it what it wanted.”

“That’s nuts, Vergil.”

“You didn’t work on it you didn’t feel what I felt. It should have taken a whole research team, maybe even a Manhattan Project, to do what I did. I’m bright but I’m not that bright. Things just fell into place. It was too easy.”

Edward rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to take some blood and I’d like stool and urine.”

“Why?”

“So I can find out what’s happening to you.”

“I’ve just told you.”

“It’s crazy.”

“Edward, you can see the screen. I don’t wear glasses, my back doesn’t hurt, I haven’t had an allergy attack in four months, and I haven’t been sick. I used to get infections all the time in my sinuses because of the allergies. No colds, no Infections, nothing. I’ve never felt better.”

“So altered smart lymphocytes are inside you, finding things, changing them.”

He nodded. “And by now, each duster of cells is as smart as you or I.”

“You didn’t mention clusters.”

“They used to cram together in the medium. Maybe a hundred or two hundred cells. I never could figure out why. Now it seems obvious. They cooperate.”

Edward stared at him. “I’ve very tired.”

“The way I see it I lost weight because they unproved my metabolism. My bones are stronger, my spine has been rebuilt—”

“Your heart looks different.”

“I didn’t know about the heart.” He examined the frame image from several inches. “Jesus. I mean, I haven’t been able to keep track of anything since I left Genetron; I’ve been guessing and worrying. You don’t know what a relief it is to tell someone who can understand.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Edward, the evidence is overwhelming. I was thinking about the fat. They could increase my brown cells, fix up my metabolism. My eating habits have changed. But they haven’t got around to my brain yet.” He tapped his head. “They understand all the glandular stuff. Old-home week. But they don’t have the big picture, if you see what I mean.”

Edward felt Vergil’s pulse and checked his reflexes. “I think we’d better get those samples and call it quits for the evening.”

“And I didn’t want them getting into my skin. That really scared me. Couple of nights, my skin started to crawl, and I decided to take some action. I bought a quartz lamp. I wanted to keep them under control, just in case, you know? What if they crossed the blood-brain barrier and found out about me —the brain’s real function. I figured the reason they wanted to get into my skin was the simplicity of running circuits across the surface. Much easier than trying to maintain lines of communication through muscles and organs and the vascular system; much more direct I alternate sunlamp with quartz lamp treatments now. Keeps them out of my skin, as far as I can tell. And now you know why I have a nice tan.”

“Give you skin cancer, too,” Edward said, falling into Vergil’s terse manner of speech.

“I’ve not worried. They’ll take care of it. Like police.”

“Okay,” Edward said, holding up both hands in a gesture of resignation. “I’ve examined you. You’ve told me a story I cannot accept. What do you want me to do?”

“I’m not as nonchalant as I seem. I’m worried, Edward. I’d like to find a better way to control them before they find out about my brain. I mean, think of it. They’re in the billions by now, more if they’re converting other kinds of cells. Maybe trillions. Each cluster smart. I’m probably the smartest thing on the planet, and they haven’t begun to get their act together. I don’t want them to take over.” He laughed unpleasantly. “Steal my soul, you know? So think of some treatment to block them. Maybe we can starve the little buggers. Just think on it. And give me a call.”