Ptah Aegyptus.
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This happens during Nightflower's "Resurrection", after Dr. Zack gets the lab book and before he hands the results back to Lucas. Many thanks to Nightflower for the privilege to play a minor part in a wonderful story. It partially explains the doubts Cybersix expressed to Lucas about him.
The Characters "Kayla" and "Marryn" are (c) 199?, Nightflower
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Lab Notes and Fellow Scientists
Dedicated to the common bond that has formed
between all scientists who have devoted themselves to the search for truth,
and which has proven able to transcend the boundaries of language, country,
belief, and time.
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Dr. Zack carefully wrote, in block lettering, the equipment outlined in the old lab book that Lucas had given him. The notes had been written by Marryn to herself, rather than for a general scientific audience. Consequently, the equipment was referred to in rather cryptic terms, so he had to use the hookup diagram she had drawn, adding in his knowledge of what probably was happening at the quantum level to infer its function. At least two of the devices must have had germanium transistors. And judging from a note Marryn made to herself about what to buy in town, one even used vacuum tubes.
That was worrisome. Although it was a fictional story, Dr. Jekyll's downfall was an unknown impurity in his chemicals that was the actual effective agent that reversed the change that made him into Mr. Hyde. Marryn was a product of the old German school of scientific education which emphasized strict controls on all experiments to enhance reproducibility. She carefully noted down dial settings and power levels. Even the number of lighting strikes per hour and the inactive fraction of the batch of sustenance she was using were meticulously recorded. Dr. Zack knew that the amplification response curves for transistors and vacuum tubes differed from each other, as well as being changed over time in response to quality assurance practices and industry feedback. Substitutions had to be made, but they wouldn't be exact, threatening the successful outcome of the operation. Resurrecting someone was tricky business indeed.
He turned the pages of the lab book slowly, hoping for additional references, "Aha!" he grinned. He had found a note off to the side of some notes on fabricating Angels that complained of the failure of the tube based machine, but expressing pleasant surprise that the replacement was more than adequate for the purpose. She had written down the manufacturer, make, and model of the replacement.
He wished he could have met Marryn. She was a "hands-on experimental" scientist, as opposed to being a "theoretical" one like himself. He thought up the theories, but scientists like her were the ones who had to take the theory and turn it into an experiment that would prove or disprove it. And he was fairly sure that half the progress of science was probably due to happy accidents happening to scientists like Marryn. His "theoretical" peers were always complaining that such "untidy" behavior upset their carefully laid out theories. Dr. Zack privately thought that their egos were way too much inflated, and he always enjoyed the little song-and-dance that they always did at conferences when someone like Marryn from a fifth-rate college lab finished their report on a dicovery of theirs that demolished some pet theory. Reality is a wonderfully pointed needle with which to puncture somebody's pride.
He paused to read the small notes tucked into the margins that spoke about Kayla, and which remarked on her development and expressing approval at some accomplishment, "So, ma'am, you too fell under the spell of the cybers, didn't you?" he said out loud, smiling. He didn't mind being under the spell of Cybersix himself. She hadn't visited in a while, but he didn't blame her for wanting to be with Lucas. Discovering that Adrian had been Cybersix all along had been a surprise. At least he had given tit for tat when he outlined the flaws in her disguise to her. The look on her face only made him sorry he hadn't told her earlier.
After a bit of reinterpretation to allow for Marryn's unusual notation for quantum effects, he had figured out what she was after. She was trying to impose a very specific standing wave pattern onto the quantum wave field that held sustenance in a permanent excitated state. The wave pattern would cause resonances that would activate certain substrands of DNA. The DNA would reassemble itself into a biological machine that would selectively detranslate vast tracts of genetic material currently marked in the Human Genome databanks by the world's best genetic scientists as "IVER". Inactive: vestigial evolutionary remnants.
"Ha. Damn fools. Threw me out on my butt for TRYING to point that out." He muttered at the recollection. The progress of Biology had so thorougly disproved the vestigial organ argument for evolution that he was surprised that anybody still bothered to bet on that tired old nag.
In humans, the detranslated DNA happened to be the necessary instructions and protein machinery that guided the process of transforming a fertilized egg into a squalling baby in 40 weeks. The sequencing of pregnancy was determined and paced by the rate at which the DNA was retranslated back into "IVER". Sort of like telling the masons building a house that they could stop building the chimney once it was finished. If you didn't tell them, they'd just start building a second chimney. And a third. And a fourth. While granting that having a third arm would be useful at times, Dr. Zack preferred the present design limitation of two.
He had briefly considered the effect of detranslated DNA in a fully grown adult at the time, and had decided that it would be like having all the original builders return to the site after the house had been hit by a tornado. That the effect might cause wounds to heal and new organs and limbs to grow was very likely, but he had not gone so far as to consider reanimation: There was no technology available at the time to simultaneously activate the DNA in every cell of the human body to initiate the resurrection sequence. Sustenance was necessary to do that very thing. Using it with a human body was impossible: If it didn't dissolve immediately in the volatile stuff, it would explode instead. He had a pile of repair bills for his basement to prove it. "Just as well" he thought. He didn't want to think about a society where only the rich and powerful would be able to live forever. Lucas surely must have noted his immediate reaction when he saw the contents of the page that had been marked.
Dr. Zack was sure that Lucas wanted to have the stuff ready as a backup in case Cybersix got killed in action, but didn't want her to know. Which was the only reason why Dr. Zack undertook the job in the first place.
He suddenly thought about the possiblity of losing Data 7. Cybersix wouldn't stand for that. However, including Data 7 as a possible subject would require a bigger holding tube, and consequently the amount of sustenance required to immerse the entire body. He decided to spec out two different sized holding tubes. They had to be glass: metal would disrupt the standing wave pattern.
He rubbed his eyes, got up, and walked into the kitchenette beside his study for some tea.
It would take a lot of sustenance to revive Data 7. There were references to an earlier lab book, which probably held the method for charging the stuff, but Kayla didn't have it, so he was back to square one in that area. Sustenance decayed with time due to surface effects, and the inactive fraction had to be below a certain percentage in order to sustain the standing wave necessary to activate the required DNA. Its chemical composition was trivial to determine. It was the process of charging it that still eluded him.
He frowned. The additives necessary to temporarily condition the skin so that it would not affect the standing wave pattern and absorb fresh sustenance at the same time were a related problem. The amount to add had to be precisely measured to get the right concentration. Marryn had conjectured that Kayla's memory loss was due to the concentration of additive being too high, and he saw no reason to dispute that conclusion. She had no way to determine the correct concentration by trial or error, since she had only one chance to ressurrect Kayla. So she had decided to go for broke and use a concentration level that was sure to succeed, and deal with the consequences later.
That didn't appeal to Dr. Zack. He didn't want to be the only one in the room to deal with the consequences of a freshly ressurrected Data 7 who couldn't remember all the expensive filet mignons he'd guzzled in this house.
He suddenly remembered something himself, dropping the teacup he had been holding, "Kayla! Damn!"
He swore. She wouldn't. Would she?
"Idiot! This is CYBERSIX we're talking about!" he sternly told himself. Of COURSE she would! That woman's heart was easily three sizes bigger than any other's on the planet. It was something of a miracle that she hadn't yet been hit by a car while trying to save a stray cat or dog. He had ached in sympathy when Cybersix had told him the news of Kayla's death. It wasn't what she said. It was the way she said it. He knew what it felt like to lose a loved one, and knew that he himself wouldn't leave a stone unturned to get them back.
He got a towel and cleaned up the mess on the floor, considering his options now that there was a possibility of the body being resurrected would have been dead for months, not just days or hours.
He didn't have many. If he refused, Lucas would just take the lab book and go to somebody else. Somebody who might misuse the knowledge in it. Destroy it? His professionalism and new found respect for Marryn as a fellow scientist forbade it. And he didn't think he could face Cybersix's disappointment and loss of faith in him if he did that anyway. Burn down the house and make it look like an accident? Only as a last resort. Besides, all of his own notes would have to go up in flames too to make it appear really convincing. Not to mention the fact that the place had grown on him, and he was reluctant to lose it and all the defenses he'd painstakingly built into its walls.
He got a fresh cup of tea and took it back to his chair.
"Okay," he said aloud, knowing it would help him think more logically, "Assume it's Cybersix or Data 7, and not Kayla, that's going to be resurrected. No problem. I'd want them back as much as Lucas or she does, so I feel okay about that, especially if we're prepared for that eventuality."
"But,"he pulled out his pipe and began to fill it, "assume it's Kayla. Either it works on a long dead body, or it doesn't. If it works, still no problem. If it doesn't, she either stays dead, or turns into a mindless monster that's a threat to everyone. However, she's Cybersix's equal, and would probably cut herself on her own katana if she was mindless, so maybe we could take her down without too much trouble. How about an evil Kayla? Probably not, unless Von Richter or Jose got his hands on her first, and I don't see Cybersix or Data 7 letting that happen."
And there were the moral and ethical questions involved in raising someone from the dead to consider. Before his ignonimous firing from his University post, he would have laughed at the idea of a Deity, and would only have worried about the political and personal consequences of his decisions. He wasn't so sure now. The conclusion he had made in that damn paper and had stupidly circulated for internal review was inexcapable: The resurrection sequence and all the genetic machinery involved, including the translation process to prevent reactivation, HAD to have been designed. Although it existed in algae, it was used only by complex multicellular organisms that used sexual reproduction to construct their young. The odds of coming up with the DNA sequence to just maintain life were so long that billions of years were already required to barely cover the check being written on the probability bank. Slapping on the 80 times more DNA that was required to guide the embryonic development process, in an encoded form that would only be used in animals that wouldn't be around for another billion years to boot, would make that check come back stamped "insufficient funds".
Whoever the Designer was, Dr. Zack had no idea what It was like or what It wanted. That is, if It wanted anything. It probably was laughing at him right now. Maybe ever since he had wiped the dust of the boot print off the seat of his pants when he was shown the door at the University.
He lit his pipe and began to puff on it, mulling the ethical problems over.
He suddenly chuckled and turned back to Marryn's lab book, continuing the search for any equipment replacements she had been forced to make, grinning around the pipe stem.
He had recalled Cybersix's pained expression while she was telling him, "She's dead. Kayla's dead."
Right there, he had concluded that Life was Good. And since Resurrection meant Life, that was good too. If he, Dr. Zack, was going to be called onto the carpet for this decision, then the Designer would have a lot of explaining to do to him and Cybersix.
And THAT would be an amusing song and dance to watch!
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Note: Many organs once called vestigial (once having served an evolutionary purpose, but that do not any longer in their present form) have been found to serve a vital current function in the human body. Even the much maligned appendix plays a part in the immune system. At the moment, I think the current list is the coccyx (tailbone) and the "vestigial genetic material" cited in this story. With this kind of track record, I wouldn't bet on this old nag either.
Reference: Michael Behe, "Darwin's Black Box".
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