Chapter 18
Lextr insisted he watch the sixth trial using synthetic DNA get recycled to convince him to move onto the organic samples. Samples that are still safely stored in the BioBank. He almost wept when Lextr told him.
“How many more partially formed copies of your brother are we going to recycle before we start the real trials?” Lextr asks as the trial’s arm floats by along with deteriorating parts of several other units.
Seeing a mirror image of your own face—though not fully formed—liquefy as it hits the reabsorption coagulum really ups the stakes. He swallows, the lump in his throat painful. “You’ve made your point.”
Lextr follows him out of the viewing area past a group of schoolchildren on a field trip. Giving the kids a chance to see science in action is one of the many things that sets CHOICElover apart from the rest. As a lab tech guides them onto the viewing platform, a child squeals, “Cool! A dead body!”
He chuckles as they enter the elevator. Jerme would have probably hung around and pointed out all the gross things for the kids to observe. Lextr’s right. It’s time to get serious.
“Where are we going, sir?” Lextr asks, almost having to skip to keep up with Res6’s long strides.
All the emotions—the anticipation, the fear, the self-doubt—threaten to erupt out of him, but he needs to stay calm if he’s going to do this.
There’s no room for emotional outbursts in science.
If he isn’t performing at his peak, he could accidentally corrupt one of the ten available samples.
He strides determinedly ahead. “The BioBank.”
Half an hour later, they have the samples and are in the designated Neuronic Gene Infusion lab, sterilized and suited up in their biohazard kits.
Lextr watches over his shoulder as he meticulously psion-splices nucleic imprints using the robotic PSI-splicer to edit them into RNA collected from his brother’s first organic sample.
Splicing all the pieces back together is the tricky part.
Thank Zorg for the containment suit; the sweat dripping off him in rivulets might contaminate the delicate sample.
After several nerve-racking hours, he has a stable protein.
With deceptively steady hands, he places it into the tissue replicator with Jerme’s original sample, a nuclease enzyme binder, and the raw organic building block material.
It takes another hour in the accelerated neural mesh incubator for the mixture to form a usable coagulum.
Using synthesized DNA like they do for customer orders is so much more straightforward.
He siphons samples from different sections of the specimen, dropping them into the synth-gel oscillator. Once the bio-plates are ready, he runs the BioLume Gene Scanner over them to test their viability.
Lextr, who’s been tracking right alongside him, studies the readings on the screen. “Looks viable.”
He grins broadly. “It does.” The next step is to package the kit and take it home to begin the activation process.
After nearly a hundred years, he can hardly wait the seven days it takes to grow and activate him.
He glances at the time stamp on the scan: November 7, 2390.
The anniversary of Jerme’s death is in one week.
But if he’s successful, he’ll no longer associate it with his death. It will also be his rebirth.