*CLICK* *CLICK*
Is this thing on? Thank goodness, something in this trash heap that actually works.
These are the research and development notes of Dr Cora J Belvedere, and an account of my work here at the facility. The date is April the fourth, two thousand and twenty-one. In the raid last month, much of our equipment was seized, and many of our subjects escaped as a result. Therefore, a directive was issued that there is to be no digital communication allowed within the facility, and all records must be kept to analogue format, at least until our research is safe and ready for publication.
*Clears throat*
As I said before, many of our subjects escaped, however Subject 43 remains intact and alive, possibly lacking the social awareness to join the other stampeding subjects once the power had been cut to the holding cells.
*PAPER SHUFFLES*
Our most recent experiments indicated that the abnormal plastic qualities exhibited by Subject 43 could be subject to outside influence, and therefore have the potential to be controlled. One artifact that was recovered from the former facility location is a shard of Crystalline Bio-programmable Matter that my predecessor was working on. He had all but given up on that avenue of research, but it was my brilliance to recognise that with the DNA of Subject 43, the shard could be reprogrammed to integrate external DNA sequences with the host sequence, and potentially enable some kind of localised metamorphosis. I have so far made several sketches of the deceptively normal fingers of Subject 43, and how this process could be applied.
*Clears throat* *Sips Water*
These experiments in biological manipulation in Subject 43’s unique physiology could have applications from military to espionage, but they may also lead to massive leaps forward in human organ regrowth. Some poor soul could one day grow a new set of kidneys within minutes, or a new heart. I could even grow myself a new damn left eye.
*Several seconds of silence*
These experiments will be continued in the morning. Dr Belvedere, signing off.
These experiments will be continued in the morning. Dr Belvedere, signing off.
*CLICK* *CRACKLE* *CLICK*
*CLICK* *CRACKLE*
*COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH*
*Silence*
*COUGH*
––––ing plaster dust
*COUGH*
These are the research notes o f Dr Cora Belvedere. The date is the twenty fourth of April, two thousand and twenty-one. My research has been temporarily delayed due to funding issues, and I was called away to assist on a project for twenty days that our esteemed director saw fit to prioritise. Dr Graves, the project leader has not been ungenerous with her support, if a little cynical about some of my methods. She may have opened the door to the field of bio-programmable matter, but I will certainly be the one to make the leap into its applications.
*COUGH*
You would think that this place was under a pyramid the ventilation we get in here.
Anyway.
Before being seconded, I began to gather some physiological data from Subject 43 to begin the process. This has proved difficult, as the subject’s anxiety levels spike off the charts as soon as we touch any of it’s extremities, displaying a kind of phobia of losing them. This may prove useful if coercion is ever required. Through heavy sedation however, I was able to make an alginate mould, and cast it in plaster. I had to leave this sitting for three weeks after being called away by Dr Graves, but thankfully was able to demould it without any significant loss of detail.
*CHAIR SQUEAK*
The skin is far more wrinkled and heavily textured than would be expected of somebody of Subject 43’s life cycle, looking closer to sixty than twenty. It just looks like wrinkled old leather - God I hope my hands never end up like that. That kind of detail is probably going to make its way onto any additional programmed elements, so we’re better off growing internal organs otherwise there will be no chance of making any money from this.
In order to design the framework for the programmable matter, I will need a rough digital map of the finger. This will have to be done manually as all of our 3D scanners are occupied by Dr Graves project. There are some interesting observations that will have to be taken into account, such as the abnormal curvature of the finger, physical abnormalities of the skin, as well as the question of how the programmable material will need to be housed.
As you can hopefully see from the reference images,
*UNDER BREATH* (if Avis hasn’t messed those up)
*UNDER BREATH* (if Avis hasn’t messed those up)
I divided the plaster digit into sections in order to be analysed. The dimensions of each of these sections will be measured and used to construct the digital model so we can begin the experimental stage. But before that can commence, I need to select some suitable genetic material and investigate its practical applications as well as capacity for integration with Subject 43’s unique physiology.
Avis, have you finished making that coffee yet?
*CLICK* *CLICK*
*CLICK* *CRACKLE**CLICK*
DR BELVEDERE: I’ll just get this going. Given what is happening here, we cannot risk any kind of digital records.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Of course. Your discretion is as yet unmatched, Cora.
DR BELVEDERE: No point risking anyone’s career, is there Deputy Minister. Or is that Minister now?
DEPUTY MINISTER: Not quite, Alastair seems to be holding on for as long as he can. But most of his responsibilities have been delegated to his underlings, and I see that as many as possible are delegated back up to me.
DR BELVEDERE: Machiavellian as always, George. The PM had better watch his back, the way things are developing. Mind you, he has enough trouble putting one foot in front of the other these days.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Oh, when the time comes, he will be safely out of the way. It is very difficult to simply do away with somebody that popular, the public simply would not stand for it. Far better to martyr them and invoke their spirit while the nation is mourning. Emotion can be such a useful tool when applied … surgically.
DR BELVEDERE: And you don’t consider that at all undemocratic? You are an elected representative after all.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Well, if I am a representative, elected by the people, then it follows that whatever I do, must be what they want. But they don’t know Cora, they don’t seem to know what they want. The public claim that they want to be educated. To be entertained. So, we diligently gather their taxes and build for them vast public libraries, containing the greatest literary works in human history. And they stay at home and purchase a Netflix subscription. We subsidise fruit and vegetables, and they spend obscene amounts on fast food, tobacco, and alcohol.
DR BELVEDERE: Not like you or me at all then George.
*CLINKS GLASSES*
DEPUTY MINISTER: Oh quite. Now let us get to the matter at hand. What applications do you envision for your research?
DR BELVEDERE: Conceivably anything. The anatomical plasticity of Subject 43 is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
*PAPER SHUFFLES*
DEPUTY MINISTER: As I can see. A rather remarkable specimen. So, we could use his particular attributes in the field of espionage?
DR BELVEDERE: Its attributes. Better not to consider it as having any humanity. I try to avoid giving it any gendered pronouns when writing my reports.
DEPUTY MINISTER: You are beginning to sound just like my niece. She’s obsessed. Everyone seems to be these days. Mind you, it helps to drip feed social acceptance to the masses, it makes them feel like they are the heroes of the revolution.
DR BELVEDERE: You mentioned espionage, George. Anything you would like to let on?
DEPUTY MINISTER: Well, both sides seem to be at capacity, millions of programmers and technicians constantly hacking, defending, and counter hacking each other’s systems. The irony is that billions are being spent on this kind of security, and yet both sides are at stalemate. That is of course where your colleague Dr Graves comes in.
DR BELVEDERE: You mean the Bioneural Storage experiments?
DEPUTY MINISTER: Indeed. I understand that you and Evelyn have been making some excellent headway.
DR BELVEDERE. Nothing has gone catastrophically wrong so far. But writing information into human brains, even dead ones was never an exact science. But their capacity for both logical and lateral informational retrieval is staggering.
DEPUTY MINISTER: And that is exactly what I wanted to speak to you about today. I am planning a proposition for the minister’s approval that once your Bioneural Database is market ready; our government purchases the exclusive rights at a fraction of the current digital defence budget, uploads the entire database to a network of living minds, and just like that, the problem vanishes. And our enemies go into a tailspin trying to work out how we are shielding our data, when in fact we have upgraded to a superior kind of information storage. The finest machines on god’s earth.
DEPUTY MINISTER: And that is exactly what I wanted to speak to you about today. I am planning a proposition for the minister’s approval that once your Bioneural Database is market ready; our government purchases the exclusive rights at a fraction of the current digital defence budget, uploads the entire database to a network of living minds, and just like that, the problem vanishes. And our enemies go into a tailspin trying to work out how we are shielding our data, when in fact we have upgraded to a superior kind of information storage. The finest machines on god’s earth.
DR BELVEDERE: Have you given thought to the IT department? You really expect them to just retrain in cyber like last time.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Well, we do have to get the brains from somewhere.
*CHUCKLES*
DR BELVEDERE: You really do think of everything George. Another drink?
DEPUTY MINISTER: Please.
*POURING*
DR BELVEDERE: As proud as I am of my part in Dr Graves’ work, I am also intrigued as to how you see my frankly pioneering work in bio-programming fitting in with this master plan of yours.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Ah thank you Cora, I was just getting to that part. You see, once all government information is under bioneural lock and key, the other side will inevitably get wind of it. And that means they will be trying to build something of their own along the same lines. But this gives us a small window of advantage, where we can use your research to create an agent who can link and interact with any kind of biological system, to either extract, influence, or destroy it.
DR BELVEDERE: Well, that would certainly pose a challenge, but no reason why it couldn’t be done. Definitely some kind of biologically sensitive node which could sample the host DNA, reprogram the digit to reformat, and make the host think that it was merely passing data internally. But as much as I admire your vision, I expected more conventional challenge. Surely this kind of plasticity has the potential to create living camouflage, transforming an agent into the perfect biological copy of any target. Just think what you could do with that.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Hrrm, I doubt I have ever met anybody quite as sharp as you Dr Belvedere. You seem to have an alarmingly strong grasp of my proposal. It is almost as though you had already considered this and thought through the implications.
DR BELVEDERE: Well, I’m not saying I didn’t…
DEPUTY MINISTER: Then what are you saying?
DR BELVEDERE: Put it this way. When you know that your work is going to begin an arms race like you’re proposing, then you had better invent the atomic bomb pretty bloody quickly.
DEPUTY MINISTER: A sentiment I share, I can assure you. Could it be that you are having doubts?
DR BELVEDERE: If I had doubts, you and I would not be having this conversation. You can get me the funding?
DEPUTY MINISTER: Oh certainly. It helps to have photographs of the Chancellor in a rather … shall we say compromising position. I just have to say the word and he will jump to it. Perhaps I ought to set up a shell corporation that we can funnel the money through, just to allay suspicion.
*PAUSE*
DR BELVEDERE: How about we call it Persephone.
DEPUTY MINISTER: Ancient Greek, excellent. And a rather ingenious reference to your own name.
DR BELVEDERE: It can be tough to keep my ego in check when I know I’m the smartest one in the room.
*LAUGHTER*
DR BELVEDERE: And besides, I always thought that Persephone was just a front. Kore was her true self all along. It just took going through hell to truly understand that.
*CRACKLE *CRACKLE* *CLICK*
*CLICK* *CLICK*
-believe it's April twenty sixth already. Only a few days until I report back. From my conversation with the Deputy Minister earlier today, it would seem that this bio-sampling mimicry interface would be the obvious direction for my research to take. It does mean one step closer to regrowing my eye, so that’s a plus. 3D movies seem to have come and gone, so I doubt I’ve missed much.
*CLEARS THROAT*
Anyway.
To begin with, I need to find DNA samples that I can overlap in order to generate the requisite anatomical features These consist of a physical anchor to prevent the transfer from being interrupted, a probe or wand to take the DNA sample, a bioneural link to integrate with the foreign biological matter once physical transformation is achieved, and of course some kind of housing for the bio-programmable matter. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to house this within a secondary temporal lobe. That way, we can instruct the link to locate and retrieve information without the agent ever having to be involved. Better not to upset Subject 43 in any case, it has a delicate temperament at the best of times. Probably something for the next iteration.
Come to think of it, if this was bio-programmed to Subject 43’s index finger, then it could easily insert it’s finger into the ear of a sleeping person and influence their dreams. Now there’s a creepy thought, I might have to buy some earplugs.
Come to think of it, if this was bio-programmed to Subject 43’s index finger, then it could easily insert it’s finger into the ear of a sleeping person and influence their dreams. Now there’s a creepy thought, I might have to buy some earplugs.
*CRACKLE* *CLICK*
*EXTRACT*
As you can hopefully see, I’ve measured the slices in the computer and used them to reconstruct an approximation of the finger. Following this, given I had no data from the fingertip, I had to use some more traditional techniques in order to generate it. This should be a sufficient approximation, as the polymorphous process should target this area specifically.
*EXTRACT ENDS*
*EXTRACT*
From here, I used an organic growth simulator to create ideal growth pattern for the finger. For the sake of clarity, I made this a separate object from the finger. If one were inclined, they could print this out and wear it like a good luck charm on the end of a pencil. I then added the section of protruding bone which serves as a DNA extraction and replication node. Given the dangerous nature of the DNA rewriting, I opted to add a number of sharp adhering teeth for the Lamprey which uses them to attach itself to the sides of fish. Damn, this is making me hungry now.
*SIGH*
Anyways.
Using heavy equipment, I wrenched a shard of crystalline bio-programmable matter from the primary shard. I had already spliced in jellyfish DNA into the mix to act as a buffer zone, and just as a personal touch added a few rose thorns which I had previously infused with pineapple DNA, to act as an acidic sterilising agent. That takes care of any spare DNA which could get into the mix and corrupt the exchange process.
*EXTRACT ENDS*
*EXTRACT*
Well, that about wraps it up for now. I ran out of time to use the bio-fabricator to test one or two elements, but no matter. The Deputy Minister will be dropping round to inspect it at midday tomorrow. I have to say that it’s better than I expected, especially after I was called away to work on that other project. However, it is only a first draft, and once George’s people have field tested it, I’m sure I’ll be able to make some adjustments.
His haste to get this all underway does make me suspicious.
Perhaps the Deputy Minister knows something that he isn’t letting on.
Or perhaps I need to start sleeping more and worrying less.
*EXTRACT ENDS*
*CLICK*
