Bots – Chapter One
Jamie waited apprehensively for the knowledge that the next hour would bring. He had only been married for three months when the symptoms began to affect him badly. He was glad that his wife hadn’t noticed how run down he was getting. He had led her to believe that his fatigue was caused by job pressures at the University.
His energy had diminished rapidly over the last month, however, and it was only a matter of time before she discovered he was ill. He couldn’t remember the name of the disease that the doctors had told him, but he remembered their description of it’s effects easily enough. His body was running down. His DNA was no longer able to replicate without multiple errors.
The mechanisms to clean up the RNA-DNA replication process were no longer functioning. Like a mantle clock without a key, his system was unwinding inexorably toward entropic chaos. He would be dead within a month. Chelation and anti-oxidants had been tried on other patients without success. He sat in the specialist’s reception room waiting for a reprieve. The doctor had run a newly developed DNA test in the hope that the diagnosis was wrong.
“Mr. Farr are you here for your Thursday appointment with the doctor?”, the receptionist asked.
He nodded and went back to his thoughts.
“Mr. Farr, the doctor will see you now,” said the receptionist brightly.
He walked into the doctor’s inner office slowly, unwilling to face the death sentence he knew awaited within. The doctor stood as he entered and shook his hand. “How are you feeling today, Mr. Farr?”
“About the same,” he replied.
“I received the lab results this morning,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry, it’s not good news. My diagnosis was correct. I’ve checked the results with several experts in this disease and they concur with my opinion.”
“How……How long do I have?,” stammered Jamie.
“Three months, perhaps six at the outside. I sorry, Mr. Farr, there’s nothing we can do. You, of course, are free to get a second opinion, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope. Have you told your wife yet?”
“No, I didn’t have the heart. Mary and I only been married for six months. I didn’t want to tell her if there was a possibility that it was something else.”
The doctor, who had becoming more uncomfortable as the conversation went on, rose to end it. He held out his hand for Jamie to shake.
“Mr. Farr, If there is anything I can do for you please give me a call. I’m going to refer you back to your regular physician for treatment. I’ll send him my notes on your case.”
“Treatment?,” asked Jamie hopefully.
The specialist shook his head and said, “Symptomatic treatment only, Mr. Farr. He’ll start you on medications for nausea and pain.”
Jamie said goodbye and left the office in a daze. He felt he had to talk to someone about the diagnosis. Perhaps his friend, Ben, the molecular chemist would be able to give him some advice about what to say to Mary.
Ben’s office was extremely busy. Ben was surrounded by a group of happy graduate students slapping each other’s backs and shaking Ben’s hand. Ben waved at Jamie over the heads of the graduate students when he noticed Jamie standing at the entrance to his office.
“Be with you in a minute Jamie,” he said in a happy shout.
Ben slapped his students on the back and shoed them out of his office. “Come in. Come in Jamie,” said Ben. An open bottle of champagne sat on his desk. Ben picked up a glass of champagne and pressed it into Jamie’s hand. “We’re celebrating. Stage Three of the Nanobot project is a success.”
“Stage Three?,” asked Jamie absently. “Here Jamie, let me show you.” He riffled through a stack of diagrams on his desk until he found a large folded chart which he spread out over the top of his desk.
“The nanobot project is an attempt to build self-replicating, heuristically programmed, molecular robots. We achieved that in Stage One. In stage two we programmed them to perform complex chemical tasks. We’ve used them to act as catalysts, build new molecules, even large macromolecular structures. In stage three, we began by programming them to build even larger structures, up to the cellular level. We’ve were able to program them to attack and replace damaged DNA structures in lab mice with cancer.
The final experiment in Stage Three was to arrest the aging process in rats. The nanobots attack free radicals, repair DNA, stimulate hormone production, even replace calcium in bone tissue. Since the nanobots have been given to the rats, they haven’t aged a day. We’ve totally arrested the aging process.”
“Did you say they repaired DNA?,” Jamie asked, his interest suddenly piqued.
“That’s right. Repaired. They use redundant enumeration and comparison to build a clean DNA paradigm. After approximately ten million iterations, they reconfigure themselves into DNA groups, each with it’s own strand. Then they replicate themselves and replace all the “dirty” DNA in the cells. Of course, that’s only the DNA aspect of the project, cellular repair was much tougher to implement.”
“How do you get these robots into the rats? Do you have the rats swallow them?”
Ben smiled and said, “Nothing that complicated. We just put the bots in a syringe with some saline solution and inject then into a vein. The bots take it from there.”
“May I see them?,” asked Jamie excitedly. “Well…….I’m really not supposed to let unauthorized visitors into the lab, but since you’re a full professor here at the University, I think we can overlook the regulations. Come on, I’ll take you down to my lab.”
Jamie found the electron photomicrographs of the bots fascinating. “Is this them?,” he asked.
“That’s them,” Ben said proudly. “But I don’t see any……any appendages. How do they do it? How do they make DNA?,” he asked with a puzzled expression.
“Nothing as crude as hands, I’m afraid. Look at the convolutions on the surface of the crystal. Each of the peaks and valleys is a binding site. The general structure is determined by the bot’s initial programming. As the bots replicate, the structure is modified to attract specific molecules. See those bumps on the sides of the valley? Those are active zones. They allow the bot to attract and bind other molecules to the work molecule. That’s for mass production molecular repair. For nonspecific, low-output manipulation of molecules, there’s an atomic tweezer on one node. The other side is the reproductive nodule where the bot can reproduce itself as necessary.
“Do they communicate with each other or does each act independently?”
“They communicate electronically with each other via the blood. The technique was developed in the Fifties by the Russians to enable spies to use lakes and surface water reservoirs to make a single untappable electronic connection between agents separated by a large expanse of water. I’ve developed a more advanced version of the technique to allows the bots to form a peer-to-peer network inside the body. Each bot operates independently, but reports it’s findings via the net.”
“How are they powered?”
“By the body itself. The bots are able to use heat, ATP and glycogen as power sources. Electrical energy is obtained from the ions in the blood. Electrically they’re a hundred times more efficient than a nerve cell.”
“You said they were heuristically programmed, what does that mean?”, Jamie asked, fascinated by the concept of millions of molecular robots operating semi-independently to repair cellular damage.
“They are given a general set of instructions in their original program. As they find discrepancies between the program and the body they’re in, they modify their instructions to match their environment. In short, they figure out what’s wrong and how to do it. Then they go out and make the repairs. Well, ….what do you think?”
“This is fantastic! When will they be ready to give humans?”, asked Jamie enthusiastically.
“Humans?,” Ben laughed ruefully. “Not for a good many years, I’m afraid. We have years of testing ahead of us.”
“But think of all the lives that could be saved!” Ben shook his head, “We have no idea what they would do in a human. Even though the DNA module would work, the programming for the hormones would probably be radically different. If we were testing the effect of the bots on another type of lab animal, we’d rely on the heuristic programming features to reprogram the bots. We couldn’t take the chance on humans, there might be odd side effects.”
The End of Bots – Chapter One.
The story originally came from: https://littleab.com/story.html
If you want to read more stories about ABDL boys you can find a list here: Diaper Boys – Index