Samuel's downtime

[Grudge]

After gene sequencing is done he notes results but it doesn't seem serious enough to call anybody instead it seems some way of producing a cure or something like that Rina mentioned sparked that fire in him that made him become a doctor in the first place. Outside the minimum number of hours, he was assigned to rest. Over several days, thanks to Farhvan, he managed to get a few Blood samples from other meta species and approached the issue with methodical precision it made him an Honor Student when he graduated and one of the foremost scientists in bioengineering for the corporations in SiM. Mixed with unparalleled senses and fortitude of his kind. As soon as his shift ended he started to work on his project giving it about 6 hours on work days and 12 on weekends. For mortals gene sequencing after gene sequencing and parsing results in mind-numbing silence with supernatural precision, while taking notes, devising tests, failing them, and going from the start might make a living crazy. At least one of the benefits of being dead...and already a bit crazy. Two weeks after starting he began to see patterns as shadows in the dark but they were nearly impossible to pin down. It took some doing to fill up the data slate since they packed quite a ridiculous bit of memory, still, he was on his third. two previous always opened for some reference it seemed that all machinery was working nonstop and when other doctors left it began humming in other offices too. Doing this on his own was a crazy thing and also a challenge. Somewhere bunch of meta-scientists were doing the same thing, he did not lie to himself as he often fibbed to others, the chance to do it by himself and be better AND faster was the first time he felt alive in a long time. And since he came to his sustenance in the ambulance by an equally mind-numbing process of taking blood in basically half-filled shot glasses. It took sometimes 4-5 hours until he harvested enough blood and drank it that way to have his fill...while working. Not once did he think about gliding over the city as miasma and falling on some unsuspecting rube and drinking as the Devil intended him to, leaving his victim dazed but wondering what happened. Still, there was too much risk of exposure and his work consumed him at the moment, He even forgot it began as the wish to placate Rina, now there was just this mountain and he would claim it. 54 hours a week, 108 hours so far, and with no wish to stop. Even he couldn't grab tails of those answers, just outside his reach taunting him. Foolish. That only meant there were answers to be had, and his kind was nothing if not patient.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Grudge (see edit history)

[wrathgon]

at 100 hours you had to map the DNA of the locals and since the crew already had map the crew it was easy to bring up their from memory.

 

The first thing that comes up is these locals had older DNA than the crew, meaning they were created first and the crew were BASED on them. How the DNA of your earth people came from this planet that has been in a time bubble for god knows how many millions of years is something you prob would never know.

 

The local's DNA is unfinished. The arms of the strands should end and be tied off, but are open, allowing new DNA to be added into the core to make new DNA strands and new creatures. Studying the metahumans and the purebloods is where the metahuman DNA branches off. If you could tie off these ends the meta-human strain would have nowhere to attached and should be unable to mutate the human into a meta-human.

 

At 200 hours you had to follow every method to try to safely detach the meta DNA but none worked. While you could not test your thinking but the mutated DNA that resulted may be what the infected DNA would look like if you ever go some of their DNA to look at. Horrible mutations resulted when you detached the meta human DNA. You are unsure i a live person would survive the new transformation.

 

On your 3rd week of working on this, you discover when you go deeper in the DNA that theirs and the crew have markers to pick up other DNA that is held inside the core but does not add to it, like a vault of sorts that could be activated or used somehow but has no direct impact of change of the core DNA. It is strange cause its not for a full DNA strand but only a small part of one.

[Grudge]

Answers started to unwrap, it felt like Christmas, the fact he knew the theoretical way to stop mutation was something, it would be possible to create the vaccine. He still did not know which process would be the easiest and safest to manipulate and close loose strands. Also, the easiest and safest weren't always the same. However, the cure was an entirely new beast. He studied the results again, there were several questions, but like most thieves of secrets, he wanted to know what was in the vault. Still, the doctor in him recoiled with overt manipulation of DNA almost with the same apprehension mortals regarded Vampires, it was literally playing god. He did not hear from Enoch or Farhvan, so he assumed Zora was fine. It was the third day after that day and the third hour after his official shift He chuckled he was in the perfect middle. If it was some magical ritual to open this box this would be a good time to start it, he chucked his old scalpel in the air and caught it on the tip of the nail he remained perfectly still even for a vampire this was taxing and requires perfect concentration. The sharp tip of the scalpel balanced on his nail, only this now antique piece of equipment was good for this, if he tried it with one of these new molecular blades it would slice his finger and he wasn't sure how much of stolen blood was still in him spilling any would just poke the beast. This was one of the ways he used to get "in the zone" with perfect concentration. Box, potentially holding a secret to all of this, time misplacement mystery. Hypothesis one, whichever information was in the box required a key which again in DNA terms meant another packet of data that would connect to this one as long lost brother, basically cipher for decrypting the puzzle. What would be the cipher? Hypothesis two did not need cipher but a specific reaction, to be crude, like as lightning woke up Frankenstein's monster, some reactions, currently unknown, but most likely of chemical origin would free captured DNA and it would be free to attach itself wherever it wanted. But where? And what would you do? Create Meta's. Its presence in crew DNA slightly bothered him because, without the ship computer, he couldn't find their "Before" gene pictures. It was just as likely they were implanted with them while in SiM. Hypothesis three, scary one, entire Humanity had this package and it will activate eventually to whatever end. Time paradox made Humans here technically older, definitely more advanced and their "biological clock" rang at midnight. The crew was still in the grace period. He looked at his hand, he was technically a corpse, did the information hold with him too? Ok, he had 3 more hours tonight, he will run three, simultaneous tests. Well, three tests and one research. He cut a thin piece of his skin off, and placed him to "cook" so he could check the condition of his package if it was still there, He took one meta sample and one Crew sample and injected the Crew sample into the meta sample making sure two packages are on a collision course. To ensure zero contamination from one test to another each one was performed in a different room last one was most tantalizing although also most dire if true. He placed a clean crew sample and chemically induced a rapidly aging process while making sure the sample stayed alive 3 hours, if he pushed it with the chemistry he might get to close to 300 years, if in artificial 300 years packet pens and does anything he'll have the part of the answer. If any of these tests react he'll have some guiding light even if it goes wrong he'd have to just change parameters carefully until he finds the right answer. He looked at his vaccine setup, but he still wasn't able to make damn strands connect and prevent mutation. Tomorrow he decided to try stem cells, in 21 century they were considered miracle cells because they could become any kind of cell needed under the right circumstances, meaning under the right circumstances they could become a bonding agent that could serve as kind of a bridge between two keeping them together. But that was for tomorrow, now while waiting for tests. He had a simple math problem to solve. He knew when "his" humanity first-time sequenced genome when he found when people here did that, some math should tell him how large is this time paradox. Then coming to some kind of theory might be easier and if he's very, very lucky he might find some samples from the same decade at least and check do they have mysterious vaults too so far back. He opened one od computer and dove in the sea of historical research papers.

Edited April 5 by Grudge (see edit history)

[Grudge]

Samuel continues where he left off. With the preventive cure finished, he spent the whole time in the house working on a way to improve the procedure for teens with the only breaks being when he went to hunt. So as many hours a day as possible minus 2 hours every second day for the hunt, since this time he feeds "properly" and has his belly full he can go one day without food. He also takes 4 hours of pauses for "sleep". So as work hours go it's 20 hours, 18 hours, 20 hours, 18 hours...all the way until he is teleported to the Ship. So 134 hours of work, round it down to 130 hours. With DNA work done for now and unable to proceed until he gets better equipment, all 130 hours are spent on the ideas and calculation of improving prototype surgery.

[wrathgon]

the 7 days while you wait you dont have any more breakthroughs but You get a msg from Ozen on the HUDS.

 

"Seems like your work was found in your old lab, we are working to throw them off the scent of the more scarily end of world work but if you could help Enoch and Ross hide your conclusions of the mutating DNA work we really dont want them getting hands on something like that."

[Grudge]

Samuel's brows narrow and he pauses before answering "I melted my pad, took my notes, and disintegrated the building where I kept findings. All they could have was raw data from my place of work which would be nearly impossible to put together unless they don't know what they were looking for..." He reaches for the old box and retrieves several notebooks "How far along are they?" While not particularly caring someone found interest in his research, the sheer fact that someone was bastardizing his work made him angry. If he wasn't under strict Captain's orders to stay away from important areas, some bigwigs would had an unfortunate string of incidents.

Edited April 5 by Grudge (see edit history)

[wrathgon]

Ozen responds "Well however they did it they got your work, from what been told it looks like spy cams from multiple angles let me speak with Enoch and Zora about this, it is worrying they got it if you went to that much trouble, maybe you went to too much and they used something to recreate the lab."

 

Enoch and Zora are linked into the chat " Samuel has confirm his complete destruction of his lab how can they have pictures of his board and work over the time he worked on the project."

 

Zora comes back first " The tech on this planet is insane, if they had some reverse engineering device to rebuild matter back but then they just have the objects not photos. We still do not know the full power of these nanomachines everywhere, can they be used to record, store, and report finding in areas? Maybe until i get access to one of their control stations i cant guess what the little buggers can do."

 

@evedgebah

[Grudge]

Samuel started flipping through his notebooks with practiced speed throwing away three before stopping at the fourth one "As you said, from only surveillance images and a simple inventory of the stuff I used in the Clinic, any half-competent geneticists will get into the ballpark of what I was doing, not to mention I drew some info from previously published works of some scientists that are now with them."

He flips through the notebook some more and circles a few things "My den was free of nanos, I am not an idiot. The clinic was not, they have raw data and know most material I took from the inventory. They have all the pieces of the puzzle, they will connect it if not derailed. If we're lucky they already found some clues in the first pass, I contacted Enoch and Ross about the thing over the secure channel the Captain provided. With some luck, we can have them not only to avoid suspicion but maybe even get some credit for the work well done. I have to hear from them first to check how far they have gone."

Edited April 6 by Grudge (see edit history)

[evedgebah]

"I'll go and see what I can do. For reference, what were you trying to do Samuel?" Enoch replies.

[Grudge]

Samuel gives a slight smile, while not being friends, Samuel respects Enoch for his ambition, intelligence, and expertise in his field but most of all tenacity in declining the Captain's offer and trying to do things his way. Now with the help of that rain of sunshine Prax, or whatever it called itself these days, he might pull it off.

"I tried nothing. I made a vaccine for prepubescent youth that would disable potential META gene activation. The idea was to give parents a choice. If they want, they go through therapy so their child remains baseline Human, they could, or they could roll the dice if they are proud of their META heritage. Unfortunately as with any gene tampering it also can be used as a biological weapon, it can basically eradicate META's within a generation tops by aerosolizing vaccine and pushing it through vents of kindergartens and schools or adding it to food in secret. On the other side, it could activate the META gene in everyone and eradicate baseline Humans in slightly longer but no more than 4 generations. Once the formula is cracked it would be workmanship genetics to make that alteration. That's why I didn't really advertise it from the rooftops even if it was quite a breakthrough if I say so myself."

Edited April 6 by Grudge (see edit history)

[wrathgon]

Zora half snorts half laughs at Samuel statement about the nano " I like you hear how you did that my egoistic friend, did your bore then all to death and bite every one of the millions of them in your lab? The nano are in everything, in the air, the water, our bodies, the food, part of the walls there was no way you could back up that statement... Stick to healing people and leave the tech stuff to us."

[Grudge]

Shaking his head Samuel thought for a second should he answer but he was bored "I thought we were doing important genetic work here, but if you wanna just chat, sure. We were always so close after all. As my personal assistant Anthony, he is a bat you two would get along great, don't perform surgeries for me I don't do tech stuff on account they are not my expertise as Enoch can vouch for. I did not say I made my den clean from nanos, I said it was clean from nanos. Now I hold in my hand a cube that contradicts everything you said my condescending friend, and you should get one too soon enough. Once you figure out how does it works, I'll be all ears. Also, I specifically said that nanites were in the lab, and the den was clear, check your auditory processes. And how my den was clean before the cube is for me to know and you to transform into the table or something that you do when thinking. To ease your mind, that ability is dead and gone now when I had to skedaddle from the town. Thank you, for the primer on nanites for first graders, assuming all of us don't know that was not egotistical at all you shining beacon of benevolence and altruism."

Sam grins looking up "Now, be a good toaster, and let me see if can I help Enoch and Ross with the delay of development of a possible genocidal weapon before the Captain yanks my collar and throws me somewhere where you would also claim it is impossible. I'll call you if I need to change the cooling coils on my gene sequencing machine, don't worry techie I tend to stay in my lane but don't be jealous just because I know other technically minded people. You are still my number three gir...transformer thingie when it comes to tech. In truth, you were number four, but as I said, one avenue went dead and gone when I left, literally dead."

Edited April 6 by Grudge (see edit history)

[evedgebah]

Enoch has grown to appreciate Samuel's medical skills, though the fact that the he's a vampire still unsettles the cyborg. "Fascinating. I have dabbled in gene manipulation myself but have unfortunately not found anything that affects the ageing process as of yet. They are notoriously difficult genes to manipulate. As for the nanotech, I'd be very curious about any nano-interactive devices you have."

Edited April 6 by evedgebah (see edit history)

[wrathgon]

Zora responds to once again shut the vampire down " O Samuel its so cute that even as a vampire you think your the biggest brain in the room. If you are talking about the cube that the captain got that I had to show him how to use and warn him that it was a 1 use item, i have already worked it out for him and got him to successfully use it, a feat just as hard as your DNA work i would say. Now stop trying to show off with topics you know nothing about and put that brain of yours to use on what we need it for. Just accept you messed up and left your work exposed that we now have to clean up after you. Next time you want a clean nanobot room ask one of us that knows how to do it yea? I got some other work to do so i will leave you Enoch." Zora leaves the channel.

[Grudge]

Once Enoch is back online Sam stops playing and returns to business. "For obvious reasons, I have not dabbled in life-prolonging, but from some junk data. Well, junk for me. It would be possible to develop life-prolonging treatment, but not to give false hope from what I saw it would be treatment rather than the one-time vaccine. So every, at the moment, unknown length of time treatment would need to be repeated. And it would be, as you said, life-prolonging, it would be a limit. The ballpark would be an extra 2 to 3 hundred years. If you are near the console just pull up one helix of the Human genome. Apologies for rethreading some old material. In most simulations of it, they will make parts where 2 connect in another color, those different colored parts are the issue. After a certain number of cell divisions, those parts stop regrowing, basically putting the "clock" on how many times they will divide before they stop. In most simple terms, that is aging. Finding a treatment that would override their natural stopping point would allow cells to basically continue replicating unimpeded. Actual immortality, while alive I mean, would be if that "clock" could be removed once the person is an adult, or any age they want. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it is possible yet. But as a life-prolonging treatment stimulating them into regrowing periodically even with a stopped "clock" should be possible, I'd be happy to look into it if you want, it will take some time though it is basically as deep as the stuff we are working on now. Considering I have access to the same tech I had for the vaccine I should have preliminary results in 3-4 months, after that, I'd need a standard living human tissue sample to confirm my findings. Any tissue would do, but bone marrow would be perfect, with the tech here taking a sample should be as easy and safe as drawing blood. If all tests come as it should, experimental treatment should be ready."

Samuel pauses, there is the uncharacteristic careful note in his tone, after all, he knew Enoch's final goal. "I know it might sound cold, but I would advise the subject for an experimental treatment be not one of the crew. This is gene meddling, when things go wrong they go really wrong." He then continues "As Zora mentioned tech is not my strong suit, nano-block is fist-sized and makes us invisible to nanites, I really can't provide you with more info. You should get your own as soon as you're in the clear." With Zora jumping in mid convo he just slides in "I was literally in the room when he made the thing, on a sunk ship, try again techno dunce. You can try to get a raise from people with a pulse, nothing here Decepticon, remember? Better go and have a cry because I went to someone else for a clean room, which worked...you know on account I went to a better Tech. Sorry, I'm not compatible with plug sockets." He returns to his conversation with Enoch as if nothing happened. "Anyway contact me when you get the info and how can I help, also if you want me to look into life-prolonging genes just say a word, until I'm off to a mission that I'm not sure I'm allowed to speak about, I basically just roam the old ship and occasionally teleport out, but I'm not allowed near the old areas with the same face. Something to occupy my mind would be welcome."

Edited April 6 by Grudge (see edit history)