Blunders of modern science experiments conducted in impenetrable confines of high profile.....
COVER STORY
Blunders of modern science experiments conducted in impenetrable confines of high profile, top-secret research facilities, if ever reach the ears of the masses (in the rarest cases), never come as a single complete truth. They are merely like hints dropped by the weakest link in the chain of the billion dollar investments sponsoring them, just like a hacker gets access to decode some of the most confidential documents in the Pentagon and divulges to the world the partial truth. The rest is guesswork, a Pandora box left for the investigators to unravel. But even then, the world is divided into two types of men - one that is intrigued by a new fascinating story viral in the market, and the other that hates the first type for doing so and discards it as conspiracy.
The majority of taboo researches are hushed up in the silence of secret walls, above the ground or sea or under them, never to be known.
As such, who could even imagine that the President of the United States of America was not the man they thought he was but only a clone of the real one who had been shot a year ago. How could they ever explain the sudden change in his government policies and the clandestine forces driving it?
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Year 1998 - the University of Health Sciences (UHS), USA
Doctor Kevin- A young oncologist, who has recently specialized from the most prestigious University of the USA with the highest distinction, is the talk of the town. A man, who has studied on a full scholarship hailing from a small town orphanage and climbing the ladder of success to land with Prof. Kerry as a Research Assistant, is the envy of the young doctors. He has to be extraordinary to end up with Prof. Kerry who is famous for not having taken any assistant for years now. The local media is giving him a celebrity status; the aspiring juniors are chasing him wildly or hating him for being abnormal. But it seems no one knows about his current whereabouts.
“Oh! He is fine-looking but this aura of ambition, i.e., a lot of ambition about him amounting somewhat to voracity, and all that surliness, makes him sly. He doesn’t have friends, and his only girlfriend is a weirdo too. He hangs around with Prof. Kerry 24/7. He copies him, and even resembles him,” remarks a colleague on the local TV.
“He is nerdy stuff, a laconic; stays mostly to himself; never talks... We used to share room in the first term but then he had his changed to a separate one down the deserted corridor that no one in his right mind ever wishes to take. Umm, he is belligerent...kind of weird...once I really freaked out because he had put a brain in the fridge. He said it was sheep’s, for some studies, but I doubt it. Probably he drank its blood and ate it raw. Yikes!” went another colleague of his appearing nauseated.
“He is crazy. I almost believe I caught him swallowing a fly once in the corridor. I think I almost did. He never comes to meals in the hostel mess anyway. Maybe that’s the secret of his great brains, avoiding junkies for food and settling for natural proteins...” giggled a third.
“And we have named him Dexter, the serial killer who slices up people in the famous drama. But my friend here thinks he is too cool for him as he might be more like the cartoon Dexter who was always busy in the laboratory doing crazy experiments and blowing things up...” a gang of boys burst out in laughter.
“Good Lord! That was fascinating. Here’s an insight to our young hero Dr Kevin’s real life. From what we have gathered, he was raised in an orphanage. They tell us that his mother died young from an aggressive brain cancer and the father left them. No other family reported either. We are sorry viewers, we are receiving your overwhelming request mail to get him interviewed at Med Miracle TV, but despite much effort, we haven’t been able to reach him once. We don’t know for sure if he even exists in reality or is just a myth. So, until we hunt him down, enjoy the show by learning about all the interesting things his colleagues might have to say about him,” concluded the reporter to his satellite camera.
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Professor Kerry’s Research Laboratory, UHS, USA March 2020
“You know Kevin If I had a child, I would have wanted him to be like you.” said Prof. Kerry.
“Yes Professor ... This research is your life ... Above all other things I have learnt from it, I value being in your company the most,” said Kevin.
“I have spent more than half my life on it. I never made a family because I devoted my life to this. This laboratory you see has been my home, my office and my place of worship. And now decades down, finally it’s yielding. It’s yielding and my joy is making me wild. It shines in my eyes, beats in my heart and flows in my blood making me feel whole!” the professor exclaimed in a frenzy of joy.
Young Kevin bent over the shelf, bearing on top of it, an intricate complex of interconnecting pipes and cylindrical pumps. Especially conspicuous, was a dome like transparent chamber with nutritiously enriched fluid and oxygen tubes going in and out of it. Lit by a dim blue light, Kevin observed the human outline inside it submerged in the fluid lying still. Connected to him were various infusions and electric leads monitoring its brain and heart activity. The face was partially shaded by a gas mask attached to an anesthetizing agent that kept him sedated.
Kevin’s eyes glittered in incredulity and pride as he scrutinized intently the face of the individual inside the incubation chamber.
He gazed in awe at the perfect resemblance they both had to each other. As he mused to himself, off course, why wouldn’t there be? It was his body, after all, the stem cells procured from his bone marrow to genetically engineer the first human clone ever. His clone!
“How much more time, sir?” He asked impatiently of the Professor still eyeing the still body in the chamber.
“It’s all set to deliver.” he said, resetting the ventilator mode to a more effort based one whereby the man could get more independent of the ventilator.
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“This should give him estimated 24 hours after which, my dear Kevin, we will behold before our very eyes, our miraculous product. A total revolution!
“Meanwhile, I am readying our surgeon for the organ harvesting. Tomorrow we will start the first step of the process that is to take his organs out and preserve them in the cooling chambers for transplants the next day. It’s going to be a hundred percent compatibility”
“Look here! The integrated circuit we have designed to display the synchronization of his brain to yours will prove it. Can you see a sudden disruptive pattern of wave activity on the electroencephalogram device attached to his brain while I talk? Literally his brain is as excited as yours at the news!” the Professor chuckled.
“Here, take this lead and look with your own eyes.”
Kevin put on the head phone like device and adjusted it over his head. Seconds later, a new wave depicting his brain activity appeared on the monitor display. The two patterns of the EEG wave became almost similar in form, confirming the Professor’s statement about the similarity of their brain functions.
“This implies he now knows my name as his, and has full knowledge of my past and the present. Right now, we might even have similar thoughts except that he has been sedated with drugs while I am conscious.”
“Yes, that and more...” on getting a quizzical look from his intern, the Professor reminded him, “As you are aware, he will not have any cancer like the one inflicting your brain currently. To those stem cells of yours, we did genetic tampering by injecting anti-apoptotic genes of BCL family to weed out any cancerous cell destruction. The moment they sense cancer cells, they “switch on” to act pre-emptively in defense. So, in short, his organs don’t inherit the tendency to get it!
“Brilliant Professor!” Kevin felt extremely lucky and looked at “his knight in shining armor” with intense gratitude.
The Professor smiled back at him and ushered him to his office for a documentation of today’s progress.
Little did they know their eyes were to meet the most shocking surprise of their lives on their return! As if someone had snatched earth from under their feet, they stared perplexed at an unexpected situation for which they had no explanation:
A shattered chamber with fluid spilled all over the floor: The clone had vanished into thin air!
To be continued ...
