Collected Driblets of Baen at Dahak's Orbit at the Fifth Imperium for the DomesticatingDragons Snippet Collection Feed

DomesticatingDragons 07A - Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:31:10 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 07A last updated Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Design 48

The utility of a biological simulator in a place like this was obvious, at least to me, but I’d still have to get the design team on board. I believed in my program’s logic–so did Evelyn, or she wouldn’t otherwise have brought me in–but integrating it with the existing design program was a major challenge. It had to be seamless, built right into DragonDraft3D so that the designers could run simulations at every step of their process. That’s a lot harder than it sounds. I knew my own code inside and out, but the design interface was unknown territory. I had to understand it inside and out before I could do anything.

I probably put in seventy or eighty hours that first week. Day blurred into night. One particular advantage of installing a new software package into Reptilian’s systems is that I was temporarily granted high-level administrative access. And so, while my main focus was installing the simulator code for everyone, I also created a private virtual workspace for myself. A place where I could tinker with genetic code and dragon designs without anyone knowing about it. As long as I kept file sizes reasonable and didn’t use too much computing power, this little testing ground would give me a private sandbox.

I was going to need that privacy. Indirect as it might seem, the path was pretty clear to me. Get my simulator up and running. Establish myself as a key part of the design team. Then I’d have access to the company’s computing resources and their all-important God Machine. That’s when the real work, the work I’d actually come here to do, could finally begin.

At the moment, however, dragons were the bread-and-butter. The visual models produced by DragonDraft3D were clunky, monochrome things. The general shape and number of limbs were correct, but that was about it. My simulator already offered a dramatic improvement, but I knew I could do better. The company’s private servers–the Switchblades–offered more computing power than I’d ever imagined. So I expanded my code as I went, adding new subroutines and deeper features. The designs evolved into ever more precise biological models. Evelyn was going to love them. I’d have shown her right then, but it was Sunday. How did it get to be Sunday?

It was probably for the best–I still hadn’t tested the latest updates. But first, I needed coffee. My legs carried me out of the pentagonal design lab. Only when I passed through the sealed door did I notice that the entire room had a soft, deep hum to it when the God Machine wasn’t running. It had a smell, too: a faint hint of metal and oil beneath the hot silicone.

The door whispered shut behind me, dampening the noise. A new aroma wafted to my nose, and I followed it like a moth to a flame. Down the white LED-lit hallway, around the corner, and into the break room. Evelyn had pointed it out once on my tour, and I’d mentally bookmarked it for a closer look. A rectangular glass table sat in the center of the room, flanked by half a dozen ergonomic chairs.

Swedish-made furniture, by the look of it. High-end stuff. But my tired eyes skimmed right across it to the counter on the far wall. There was a second machine in the building that made dreams come true. This one dispensed not dragon eggs but liquid delight from a dark master. The screen brightened as I got near it. A wonderful array of drink options beckoned. I pressed the rectangle that read Cappuccino.

The panel flashed a confirmation, then opened a new window: a live camera feed of the machine’s interior. My cup took shape in red plastic on the metal platform, the 3D-printing arms spinning around it as they shaped it. The instaplastic material hardened in seconds, while puffs of steam announced that the milk was ready. Part of me thought this was too cool, too easy to be real. So when the panel slid open to reveal my serving of freshly-made coffee, it was quite a moment.

I cradled the still-warm cup in my hands, brought it close. There was even a little Reptilian Corporation logo etched on the outside. Steam drifted up from it. I closed my eyes and inhaled. “Ah, sweet elixir.”

Frogman shuffled in, headphones on. “Hey.” He hit the button for black coffee.

I watched the vidfeed over his shoulder. “This is a hell of a coffee machine.”

He grunted. “They like us well-caffeinated.”

“They?”

“The board of directors.”

“Oh.” I nodded sagely. “I suppose I thought Robert Greaves called the shots here.” That’s what most of the industry-analysis articles claimed. Redwood, despite his founding the company, let his old friend run the day-to-day.

“Who do you think runs the board?” He shuffled out.

Good point. “Is Simon Redwood around much?”

“If he is, I haven’t seen him.” He shuffled out.

I felt a small stab of disappointment, because I wasn’t lying when I told Fulton that I had a slight Redwood obsession. Granted, Frogman didn’t strike me as the most observant person in the world. Redwood could probably dance a jig in the corner of his module and he might not notice.

I swirled my cappuccino, admiring the perfect froth level. On my way back to my workstation, I noticed that all the designers were working on Sunday, too, other than the mysterious Wong. Everyone at Reptilian went the extra mile. I hoped I’d live up to the reputation.

Thanks to the caffeine infusion, I banged out a couple more hours of work before heading home.

Monday couldn’t get here soon enough.

I crashed hard that night. When my alarm went off at six a.m., it was painful. But the promise of showing off my simulator got me up and moving. I beat most of the designers to work, but not Evelyn. She sat behind her desk, sipping espresso behind a phalanx of holoscreens.

I knocked softly. “How would you like to test drive the new biological simulator?”

She craned her head around a screen to look at me. Her brow furrowed. “You look exhausted.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny. “I was up late.”

“Again? You’ve been putting in a lot of hours, Noah.”

“Have I? Hardly seems that way.”

“Seventy-six hours last week, based on the server logs.”

“I like to keep busy.” And I hadn’t realized she’d be keeping tabs on me, either.

“You should pace yourself. But since you brought it up, let’s see what you’ve done,” Evelyn said.

I came around her desk. “Already sent it to you.”

She brought up DragonDraft3D in a new holoscreen and loaded a design. “This is the original dragon, the hog-hunter.” She launched the simulator with a flurry of keys. A three-dimensional dragon shimmered into view, rotating slowly in full color. It was lithe but muscular, with impressive sets of teeth and claws. The scales had a dull brown and green color to them that reminded me of Texas dustbowls. I mentally celebrated the fact that I’d thought to go full color.

Evelyn gasped.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“It’s very impressive.” She put two fingers on her touchpad and spun the model around. “The physical traits look spectacular.”

“I thought so, too.” And I didn’t even cheat. I could have, too. I could have taken photos of the real-world dragons that hatched from Reptilian’s eggs, and made sure my simulator predicted them perfectly. But that would only work once, and someone at Reptilian would probably be able to figure it out pretty quick. I didn’t dare risk coming off as dishonest.

“There’s another model I want to try it on.” She tapped a few commands. “Will your simulator run in real-time?”

“It should.” The simulator would work on any organism, theoretically, though I’d done most of my testing on higher-order animals.

She loaded a design labeled 48 and launched the simulator. The visualization took longer to load this time, even on the fancy servers.

“It’s a little slow,” Evelyn said.

Ouch. I couldn’t resist a parry. “You must have made a lot of modifications.”

Her cheeks flushed a little, and I wished I’d hadn’t said that. Typical Noah, open mouth, insert foot.

“Then again, I haven’t had access to your level of computational firepower,” I said. “I’m sure there are things I could do to speed it up.”

The simulator finished loading, and the image of the resulting dragon appeared in midair in front of us. Right away, I could spot the differences from the hog-hunting model. An almost friendly stoutness had replaced the sleek lines of the hunting model. All the sharp edges had been smoothed out, from the ridges on the back to the size of the claws and teeth. They’d practically made it playful. From the size of the cranium, it would be smarter, too.

“This is a very different dragon,” I said.

“It’s meant to be.”

“Not for hunting hogs, I hope?”

“More like playing with kids.”

I gave her a sidelong look. “You’re serious about that domestication thing, aren’t you?”

“There’s a huge market if we can produce the right reptiles for it.”

Again with the market talk. A hint of worry began nagging at the back of my head. “So how close are we?”

“Not very. Our dragons want to be predators.”

“That’s not too surprising, given the genetic sources,” I said. The Dragon Genome was a composite based on the genomes of lizards, snakes, and rodents. Predator instincts would be strong. “What have you done to tweak it?”

“Already more than I thought necessary. Physical traits, intelligence, metabolism, the works.”

“I assume you brought down some of the hormones.”

“If we lower them any further, the thing won’t want to get out of bed.”

“Do you mind if I?.?.?.” I gestured at the design.

She slid over. “By all means.”

I slid up next to her and scrolled through the design in DragonDraft3D. Jeez, she’s not kidding. I counted no less than thirty genetic modifications to the endocrine system. “Wow. Not bad.”

She smiled. “You’re not the only one who can put in seventy hours a week.”

“TouchÃ©.” I scrolled down the list of enhancements. “I don’t see any neurotransmitter mods.”

She grimaced. “I don’t trust those. Too unpredictable.”

“They’re a billion-dollar industry, you know.” Second only to lipid-lowering medication, the last time I checked.

“Without a way to predict the outcome, I’ve been reluctant to tamper with those networks.”

I shrugged. “A little mood-centering might go a long way. Otherwise it’s running on survival instincts.” Most wild animals lived by instinct: fight, eat, mate, survive. You almost had to target those pathways to domesticate something.

Evelyn sighed. “It can’t hurt to try. Any recommendations?”

“I’m partial to serotonin receptors.”

She rolled back in her chair and gestured at her desktop panel. “Go ahead.”

I felt the grin spread across my face. “Really?”

“Sure. I’m in edit mode anyway.”

I pressed three fingers down on the glass to resize the keyboard–she must have teeny tiny hands–and found the right menus in DragonDraft3D. To Evelyn’s credit, there were modification commands for every neurotransmitter pathway I’d ever heard of.

I kept mine subtle: first, structural change on the serotonin reuptake channel, to slow it down. Serotonin stimulated positive reinforcement: the longer it stuck around, the more a dragon would be content with its current stimuli.

Of course, satisfaction might not be enough to counteract the wild aggression of the juvenile Evelyn had shown me. A secondary adjustment couldn’t hurt. Dopamine seemed like the best option. I didn’t dare tamper with dopamine release; that would be akin to putting the animal on heroin. Instead, I goosed up the sensitivity of the receptor to help the dragon get happy, as they say.

I double-checked the modifications and nodded to myself. “Let’s try that.”

Evelyn copied my three-finger shortcut to resize the keyboard. “Looks like you’re getting comfortable with our systems.”

Whoops. I’d spent so much time on them the week before, I didn’t realize how familiar it felt. “I’m a quick learner,” I said, chiding myself for such carelessness. The less she knew about how comfortable I was with their systems, the better. They still hadn’t taken away my sysadmin access.

“So it seems. But we’ve made enough tweaks to this model. I think it merits a live test.” She hit a bright red rectangular button in the top right corner of the keyboard.

“What was that?” I asked.

She smiled, and her eyes glowed with joy. “The print button.”

It took a lot of self-restraint not to run back to the design lab. By the time we got there, the God Machine had already whirred into motion, its robotic arms bobbing and weaving like the needles of a possessed sewing machine.

“How long does it take?” I asked.

“Seventeen minutes, give or take,” Evelyn said.

I pulled up the design simulation on my workstation while we waited. The specs looked good, but I didn’t really have a way to guess at the dragon’s aggression. If they really wanted to tap into the consumer market, the dragon would have to be gentle as a lamb.

Finally, the arms of the God Machine went still. My conveyor belt purred into motion. I peered down into the darkness of the print chute. A round shadow appeared and zoomed toward me. Color bloomed when it hit the light: chestnut brown, with flecks of black and ivory. Kind of like a sparrow’s egg, except this one was the size of a small watermelon.

“God, it’s gorgeous,” I breathed.

“I never get tired of seeing them come out of the printer,” Evelyn said.

“This one looks different from the one I saw on my tour.”

“They’re all unique. Like snowflakes.”

“Even eggs printed from the same design?”

She shrugged. “The patterns are always similar, but there are subtle variations.”

“Hmm. Biological noise?”

“I suspect it’s from the Redwood Codex.”

“I can’t wait to hear what that is. Other than a fire hazard, I mean.”

She laughed. “That fire hazard is the reason we produce living dragons, and our competitors do not.”

“What does it do?”

“You’d have to ask Simon Redwood.”

Oh, please be serious. I’d have killed for five minutes him. “Sure. Where’s his office again?”

“He doesn’t have one.”

Damn. “Have you met him?”

“Once, very briefly.” Her eyes glowed.

I leaned close to her. “What did you think of him?”

“I thought, this man is crazy as a loon.” But she smiled, and I knew she was kidding. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that maybe she was a Redwood believer, too.

The arrival of the hatchery staffers prevented me from asking a hundred more questions about Redwood. The handlers hefted our freshly printed egg into their foam-topped cart and whisked it away to the hatchery.

“They don’t waste any time, do they?” I asked.

“We don’t like the temperature to drop more than a couple degrees. And the hatchery staff are?.?.?.?attentive.”

Now there’s an understatement. “When will the egg be ready to hatch?”

“Almost two weeks.”

“Aw, why so long?”

“We’ve pushed it down as much as we could,” Evelyn said. “Any faster and the lungs won’t develop by hatching.”

“It’s going to kill me to wait that long.”

Evelyn gave me an indulgent smile. “That’s what I said about design 36.”

DomesticatingDragons 06A - Wed Nov 11 6:35:20 EST 2020

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 06:35:20 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 06A last updated Wed Nov 11 6:35:20 EST 2020

INTERLUDE

I was twelve when I first got interested in genetics. My brother Connor was ten, and we spent every waking minute together. That’s probably why I noticed the little changes. He started to tire more easily, whereas I had boundless energy. He couldn’t jump as high as he used to.

No one believed me, though. I tried telling my mom how there were some days when he couldn’t keep up with me. And that he had trouble getting to his feet sometimes. He’d get on all fours, then push his butt up in the air, and finally come back on his thighs. It looked weird. But she worked all the time to support us. Every night when she got home, I think she was just grateful to see we were still in one piece. She didn’t see Connor the way I did.

Right up until the day he fell while we were out playing and couldn’t get up. She believed me that time. She called an ambulance.

Somehow, we bypassed the emergency room and landed in something called the PICU. Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. That was probably a good thing, because it brought Connor in front of a rarity: a doctor who actually gave a damn.

She was an older lady, short and sharp-eyed. She wore a bright floral blouse beneath a well-worn lab coat. If it weren’t for the coat and the stethoscope, I’d have mistaken her for someone’s grandmother. She bustled in while a nurse was checking Connor’s vitals. “I’m Dr. Miller. Want to tell me what happened?”

“They were playing outside,” Mom said. “He fell and couldn’t get back up.”

“How hard did he fall?”

Mom looked at me, and so did Dr. Miller. I squirmed under their gazes. “Not that hard. It was more of a trip.” I didn’t volunteer the fact that I was the one who tripped him.

Connor didn’t either, but made a face at me behind their backs. The nurse left, and Dr. Miller began her own examination.

“He’s behind in his growth curves,” she said.

My mom waved this off. “He’s always been small for his age.”

I smirked at Connor, who stuck out his tongue at me.

“Any staring spells or seizures?” the doctor asked. Her East Coast accent stretched out the vowels, which made her a little hard to understand.

“None that I saw,” Mom said. She looked at me for confirmation.

I shook my head.

Dr. Miller took out a reflex hammer and tapped Connor’s knees. His legs jerked out, but only slightly. She frowned and lifted his legs one at a time to examine his ankles. “Any problems with walking or running?”

“He runs slow,” I volunteered.

Connor punched my arm.

“His heel cords are a little tight,” Dr. Miller said.

“Is that significant?” my mom asked.

“By itself, no,” Dr. Miller said. “But with sudden ataxia and the diminished reflexes, it could be the early signs of a muscle disease.”

“Oh my God,” Mom whispered.

“Many of them tend to run in families. Are you the biological mother?” the doctor asked.

“Of course, I’m his god–” she began, but caught herself. “Yes. Why would you ask that?”

“They can run in families. Have you had any health issues? Especially muscle weakness or problems walking?”

“No.”

“What about fatigue?”

“Who doesn’t have some fatigue?”

Dr. Miller barked a laugh. “Fair point, Mrs. Parker. Does his father have any health concerns?”

Connor and I waited for the answer, both of us holding our breath. Mom never talked about our dad. He took off when I was four. Connor had no memory of him. I thought I did sometimes–vague flashes of a deep voice and dark beard–but I couldn’t be sure.

Mom frowned. “We’re not in touch. But I don’t think so.”

“I’d like to do further testing to rule out genetic disease.”

“What does that involve?” Mom asked, in a tone that meant, what does that cost?

“We’d look at a panel of a couple hundred genes. Have you unlocked their sequence data?”

Every newborn in Arizona had their genome sequenced, though the results were “locked” in a data vault, only to be consulted if there was a problem.

“No. I don’t like the idea of that information being out there,” Mom said.

“It will stay confidential, as part of your medical records.”

“Can you guarantee there won’t be some kind of a data breach?”

Dr. Miller paused. “No. But your genome is like the money in your bank account. You have to take it out to use it. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“Are there any alternatives?” Mom asked.

“A muscle biopsy. It could confirm the diagnosis, though it’s a more primitive test.” She lowered her voice. “Not to mention uncomfortable.”

In the end, my mom gave over. She signed the papers to unlock our genome data for genetic testing.

The following week, the pediatrician called with news: Connor had a genetic variant in a gene called BICD2. That was short for bicaudal D homolog 2, and mutations in it caused a dominant form of spinal muscular atrophy. Mom and I didn’t have the variant. Dr. Miller explained that it was probably a newly arisen change, a so-called de novo mutation. Every person has fifty or sixty de novo mutations that they didn’t get from their parents. It’s a quirk of nature: The low-but-measurable error rate from copying our genetic code. Most mutations happen outside of genes, so they have no serious consequences. Connor was just unlucky.

There was a problem, though. Connor’s mutation had never been seen in a muscular atrophy patient. Or in the DNA of healthy people, for that matter. The genetic testing laboratory classified it as a Variant of Uncertain Significance, or VUS. It might cause disease, or it might not. The lab couldn’t say for sure. Insufficient evidence, they claimed. They wanted to know if it would be possible to get a sample from Connor’s biological father.

“Never gonna happen,” Mom said.

Dr. Miller understood, but her hands were tied where the diagnosis was concerned. Connor’s variant remained a VUS.

In some ways, that almost made things worse. Without an official diagnosis, we didn’t know what to expect for Connor’s future. Some mutations in his gene caused only mild muscle weakness. Others caused a severe and progressive disease. The uncertainty hung over our family like a specter. Maybe he had the disease and would start getting worse. Maybe he had something else entirely. BICD2 disease had no cure. Because of the uncertainty, Mom couldn’t get him into any clinical trials. All she could do was sit back and watch.

Twelve-year-old me called bullshit on that. If there was no way to prove that Connor’s mutation caused disease, well, I’d just have to invent one.

DomesticatingDragons 05B - Mon Nov 9 7:20:18 EST 2020

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 07:20:18 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 05B last updated Mon Nov 9 7:20:18 EST 2020

“Oh.” Shenzhen was home to China’s government-sponsored research laboratories. These were basically the genetic engineering version of sweatshops. The government recruited the best and brightest right out of high school, and worked them eighty hours per week, fifty-two weeks a year. Most of them slept in the lab. At the end of each month, the least-productive ten percent of the workforce got their walking papers. “How long did he last?”

“Two years.”

“Jesus.”

“He kept his sense of humor. You’ll like him.” She ushered me into the fifth workstation, a kind of wedge-shaped cubicle about six feet wide and ten feet long. “Here’s your spot.”

A leather chair and glass-top desk took up one half of it. A conveyor belt from the God Machine took up the other half. I sidled up to it for a better look inside. Warm air flowed through the gap like a furnace. There they are. The grid servers gave off a gentle hum. Their LED screens cast a soft blue light on the titanium inner frame. The robotic arms had gone still, obscuring my view of the central printing chamber. Conduits and cable guides kept all the wiring neatly organized, and I couldn’t see a speck of dust. Clean as a spaceship.

I liked a good clean lab. It spoke to the people in charge. I started to say as much, when I noticed the strange device on the floor beneath the printing chamber. It looked like something out of the Atari museum, a jumble of black plastic and looped wires about the size of a shoebox. Old-school status lights blinked erratic green and amber at the base. “What’s that?”

“That’s the Redwood Codex.”

Redwood Codex. The words carried an aura of intrigue. “What does it do?”

“It’s the secret behind Simon Redwood’s successful prototype. But that’s a story for another time,” she said. “You want to try logging in?”

I really wanted to ask more about Redwood, but she looked like she was in a hurry. “Sure thing.”

She gestured me to the chair. I slipped into it and rolled up to the flat glass table. But there was no keyboard or mouse or anything. “Where’s the–“

She took my wrist and guided my palm to the cool glass surface. A narrow line of blue-white light traced my fingers, followed by the muted glow of a palm scan. A soft chime sounded, and then touch-controls illuminated in the glass: keyboard, finger-pad, and some kind of an intercom. Two feet in front of my face, an opaque square appeared in midair. I fought the urge to wave my hand through it.

Projection monitors. Oh, my sweet lord. I didn’t think I’d get them, too. I exhaled slowly, and my fingers found the keys. There was even faint tactile feedback as they slid into place. Incredible technology. “I’m in.”

Evelyn’s tablet beeped. She glanced at it, frowned, and let out a little sigh.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about.” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “The systems group already ported your simulator code to our servers. Now you’ll just need to customize the interface to our design program.”

“What are you using for that? GeneDesign?”

“No. It’s something we cooked up in house.” She reached across to touch a button on the keyboard. A new application bloomed on the screen in front of me.

“DragonDraft 3D,” I read. “Never heard of it.”

“It’s our interface to the Dragon Reference. Every gene, every variant, every regulatory sequence.”

I sensed a hint of pride in her voice. “You wrote this, didn’t you?”

“It’s my claim to fame around here.”

“Well geez, if you’ve got that then I imagine the dragons pretty much design themselves.”

“In the hands of the right person, absolutely. Let me show you.” Her narrow fingertips danced across the keyboard. “We’ll start a basic flying model.”

A grayscale dragon appeared in mid-screen, rotating slowly in two dimensions. It was a clunky low-res image. The triangular head reminded me of a viper, but the neck and body resembled a lizard on steroids. Evelyn hit a key, and the dragon spread its wide, leathery wings.

Evelyn tapped another key to bring up a window of slide controls: Body Size, Wingspan, Musculature, and at least a dozen others. “We’ve mapped the genetic basis of key physical traits.” She slid down Body Size, and the dragon shrank. She nudged up Claw Length, and the talons on the feet grew from meek to downright frightening.

She tinkered with more of the feature sliders, and I noticed something about the draft interface. Whenever she slid a feature downward, the number in the top right of the screen jumped up from zero. When she slid it the other way, the numbers descended. If it got to zero, the slider wouldn’t move up another hair.

“What’s this number up here?” I asked.

“Feature points. They govern how many advantages we can give to any one dragon.”

“What if you need to increase something, and you’re at zero?”

She shrugged. “You have to take them from something else. Speed for stamina, body size for cranial capacity, that sort of thing.”

“Seems a little restrictive,” I said.

“Remember that dragon you saw on your interview?”

“The wild one? Yeah.”

“What if it were twice as big and three times as smart?”

“Oh.” I chuckled. “Good point.”

“Besides, we’re trying to develop a prototype that’s calmer and less predatory.”

That surprised me a little. According to everything I’d read, Reptilian’s hog-hunting dragons were a commercial success because of their aggressiveness. “Why would you want to do that?”

“A predatory dragon has only limited market potential,” she said.

“What would you do with a?.?.?.?non-predatory dragon?”

“Do you know how many dog owners there are in the US?”

“That’s easy. Zero.” A few years had passed since the outbreak of the canine epidemic, but dog populations still hadn’t recovered. Every descendant of the gray wolf proved susceptible to the contagion. That meant all dogs, no matter the breed. The epidemic had originated in Asia but quickly spread to other continents. There was no cure. No stay of execution. Once your dog developed the tell-tale lesions on his muzzle, it was too late. We kept waiting for them to announce a cure or some kind of treatment. Lots of smart people tried. Companies, too–after all, dogs were a billion-dollar business. None of it mattered. Nothing could stop the epidemic. After the fourth or fifth failure of a promising therapy, we stopped getting our hopes up.

“Before the epidemic,” Evelyn said.

I shrugged. “Probably twenty million.”

“Try forty-five million.”

“Wow, that’s a lot. But dogs aren’t coming back anytime soon.”

“That’s the point.”

Realization dawned on me then. “You want to sell dragons?.?.?.?as pets?”

“If we can produce a domesticated model, yes.”

I wanted to tell her she was crazy, but it probably wasn’t the worst idea. “All right, I’ll give it a whirl. How do I design one?”

“Design privileges are something you’ll earn over time.”

“Oh.” I didn’t have to fake my disappointment.

“It’s your first day, Noah,” she said.

And I’m an unknown quantity. “I guess have to prove myself, huh?”

“Everyone does.”

“Any suggestion for how I do that?”

Evelyn smiled. “Get your simulator code up and running. Then we’ll talk.”

DomesticatingDragons 05A - Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:47:54 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 05A last updated Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

The New Guy

I took the elevator up to seven, where no one was waiting. I suppose I could have lingered in the lobby, but I imagined I could feel Fulton watching me over the security cameras. If he saw me waiting, he might decide to fill my time with more invasive security questions.

I tiptoed through the hatchery, where the same pair of white-garbed staffers ignored me. I watched as they entered one of the hatching pods and team-lifted an egg, rotating it forty-five degrees. They lowered it back into the foam holder with exaggerated slowness. Like a mother with a newborn infant. Sunlight bathed the entire pod like a spotlight. Warm air spilled out the open door; it had to be almost a hundred degrees in there.

I might have remembered it wrong, but this seemed to be the same egg from my last visit. The skylights for the other pods remained closed, which cloaked their empty egg-beds in twilight. Maybe I’d caught a lull in the design-print-hatch process, but the stillness to the place worried me. No eggs meant no dragons, and as far as I knew, dragons were the company’s main source of revenue.

I hurried into the open door of Evelyn’s office. She sat behind no less than six holo-projector screens but had her eyes on one and was speaking into a headset. “Yes, Robert.”

The back of the screen was opaque, but I had a feeling she was on a video call with the big boss. I started to retreat, but she spotted me and beckoned me inside. When I tried to back out, she beckoned harder.

“We’ll get it done,” she said. “Okay. Bye.” She eased the headset out of her hair and smiled at me, showing white teeth. “Noah Parker.”

“Sorry I’m late. I didn’t know there would be a security interview.”

She waved off my apology. “It’s been a crazy morning all around.”

Tell me about it. I gestured at where the screen had been. “Was that Robert Greaves?”

She nodded. “He’s breathing down my neck about the wild dragons. Which is why I’m glad you could get started. Come on, I’ll introduce you to our team.”

We passed through a set of Plexiglas doors to an odd-shaped room. The walls formed a hexagon. No, a pentagon. Five walls and five cozy workstations encircled a lab instrument the size of a minivan. I caught glimpses of it as we walked around to the right. Robotic arms zoomed back and forth on titanium guide poles, like an oversized 3D printer.

“What’s with the robotic arms?” I asked.

“That’s our biological printer.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “The God Machine.” I’d heard whispers of the instrument that turned genetic code into viable dragon eggs. I couldn’t wait to see it in action.

“Ha! You heard about the nickname.”

“It’s sort of public knowledge.” Then I saw the tall stacks of high-end grid servers behind them. Switchblades. A new class of high-end computers, and there were dozens of them. Completely secure, nearly limitless on-premise computing resources. After working so long and so hard to get here, being this close to them sent a chill down my spine.

We approached the first workstation, where a thirty-something engineer hunched over his keyboard. The engineer part was just a guess; he had the intense stare and terrible posture that usually came with a highly organized mind.

“This is Brian O’Connell,” Evelyn said.

The man went on typing, oblivious to fact that we stood right behind him and Evelyn had just said his name.

“Brian?” Evelyn touched his shoulder.

He flinched and tore his eyes from the screen with obvious reluctance. “Oh, hey.”

“This is Noah, the new design trainee.”

We shook hands. His wrapped mine like a warm blanket. He smiled in a friendly way beneath his dirty-blonde goatee, a spot-on match for the uncut hair. Between that and the comb-over, he looked almost like a monk. But his eyes burned with blue fire, even as they slid away from mine back to his screens.

“Brian wrote the code for our biological printer,” Evelyn said.

“The thing that built the dragon eggs? I’m impressed,” I said.

He mumbled something that might have been thanks. Evelyn ushered us out into the next workstation, where a dark-haired girl sat with excellent posture, typing no less than 120 words per minute. She turned to greet us with a big smile, perfect teeth and everything. Right then, Evelyn’s phone buzzed and she had to step away. Leaving me alone, to fumble out my own introduction.

“Hello. I’m Noah. The, uh, new guy.”

She shook my hand with delicate fingers. “Welcome! I’m pretty.”

“Oh.” Her self-awareness threw me for a loop. “I agree.”

She giggled. “No, I’m Priti. Priti Korrapati.”

Oh my God. I felt my face heating and wished I could melt into the floor. “Right. Sorry about that.”

“Happens all the time.”

“So, what do you do for Evelyn?”

“I’m a designer. Started out in plants, made the jump to reptiles.”

I gave her a side-look. “What kind of plants? Arabidopsis?” That was the one of the best-studied plants in the scientific community. The rest of the world knew it as mustard weed.

She smiled and shook her head. “Oryza sativa.”

“Rice? No way!” Rice was second only to corn in research dollars. The big agribiotechs put a lot of money into genetic engineering. “In the private sector, I’m guessing.”

“You guess correctly.”

God, I loved her accent. I wanted to keep her talking. “How does that compare to biotech startup world?”

“It’s quite similar, actually. Perhaps a bit more intense.”

“Perform or die.”

“Maybe not that drastic. But you have the idea.”

Evelyn reappeared; a stray hair hung across her face. “Sorry about that.” She gripped her tablet so hard I thought she might break it.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

“Yes, but we’ll have to cut this short. They want me upstairs.”

“No problem.” I turned back to Priti. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

I rejoined Evelyn and moved on to the next workstation, which I thought might be mine. But a heavyset guy in a ball cap slumped in the chair, either deep in thought or totally asleep.

“Frogman?” Evelyn whispered.

Did she just say Frogman?

He woke like a hibernating bear. His eyes came into focus. “Evelyn. S’going on?”

“This is our new designer, Noah Parker.”

“Paul Myers.” He gave me a friendly nod. “Good to meet you.”

“Did she call you Frogman?”

“Everyone does. Did my graduate thesis on Xenopus.”

“I’ll bet that’s useful.” Frogs were a great model for developmental traits. Amphibians were about as close as you could get to dragons and still be in a valid genetics branch. I had to admit that my weak point in genetics might lie in the developmental realm. I’m going to need to talk to this guy.

He didn’t seem like much of a talker, though. He offered a noncommittal grunt and put on noise-canceling headphones. Evelyn quietly beckoned me out, into the second-to-last workstation. No one sat in the chair, but a half-circle of empty energy drink cans said the place was occupied. If I had to guess, I’d expect whoever sat there was probably in the nearest restroom.

“That’s Wong’s spot,” Evelyn said. “He had to fly home to get his visa renewed, but he should be back in a couple of weeks.”

“Where’s he from?”

“China.”

That caught my attention because I’d been dabbling in Mandarin as a second language. “What part?”

She pursed her lips, as if reluctant to answer. “Shenzhen.”

DomesticatingDragons 04B - Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:47:54 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 04B last updated Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

“Yeah, well, the jury’s still out on that.”

That was news to me. From everything I’d read, Reptilian Corporation was killing it in a time when most nascent biotechs had failed. “Still, I like the systems approach to genetics. And I think my simulator could help with things.”

He frowned. “You’re really here for all the genetic engineering stuff?”

“Of course.” I paused. “Does that surprise you?”

“A little bit. Whenever I ask what brought people here, they always talk about the dragons.”

Oh, crap. I’d forgotten how much people went nuts for them. “Yeah, sure. Dragons are awesome. I assumed I didn’t even have to say it.”

“But everyone does say that, Parker. They go on and on about dragons until I’m ready to throw up.”

I tried a smile on him that I didn’t feel. “Then I guess I’m a pleasant surprise.”

“I don’t like being surprised.”

No, you like to do the surprising. My palms started sweating. It took a conscious effort not to wipe them on my new dress slacks. I couldn’t do that, because if I lost this job I’d have to return them. “Good to know.”

“There are plenty of biotechs employing genetic engineers,” Fulton said.

“Not as many as there used to be.”

“Still, someone like you probably got interest from both coasts.”

I said nothing, even though he was spot-on. When my thesis came out, my phone did start to ring. A few of the big pharmas were sniffing around, and some of the rising biotech startups. Several universities sent out feelers, too, though they tended to start with Dr. Sato. That was often how people took the next step in academia, via personal connections. I suppose the same could be said of me, but the step I wanted to take was right in Reptilian’s door.

Fulton raised his eyebrows at me.

“I’m sorry, was that a question?” I asked.

“Did you have interest from other companies?”

“A little,” I said. “I never called them back.”

“Then let’s return to my original question. Why do you want to work at Reptilian?”

“I already said why. Your genetic engineers–” I stammered in my own defense, but he cut me off.

“Bullshit. Geeks like you can work anywhere, so when you go someplace, it’s personal.”

More personal than you know. Damn, this guy was good. I had to give him something, because it was kind of obvious that I needed a second reason to come to this company for this job. Clearly, I couldn’t tell him the truth–that I intended to use the company’s resources for my own designs, and probably sabotage a dragon. A flash of inspiration came. “You’re right. There was something else that brought me here.”

He smirked knowingly. “Spill it.”

“Simon Redwood.”

Fulton rolled his eyes. “Oh, hell. You’re one of those.”

A Redwood fanatic, he meant. “Come on, man,” I said. “You have to admit he’s a genius.”

“He’s off his rocker.”

“Well, I think he’s brilliant,” I said. “Been following his moves since I was a kid. And I dreamed about working for one of his companies, so here we are.”

“Fine.” Fulton set down his tablet with an air of resignation. He almost seemed a little disappointed, too. “Now you get to hear about the house security policy.”

I covered my heart-thumping relief with sarcasm. “Oh, I can’t wait.”

“You will wear your security badge at all times. You won’t attempt to access any restricted areas.”

“Where am I allowed to go?”

“The seventh floor and the parking garage. That’s about it, unless you’re invited by a superior. Everything else is a restricted area. You’ll have no expectation of privacy while in this building, but everything about your work here is considered a protected trade secret. Do you understand what that means?”

“No talking about work outside of work,” I said.

“Exactly.”

Somehow, even though I’d made it past the tough questions with this guy, I started feeling more intimidated by him. Maybe his sheer size had something to do with it. He occupied at least seventy percent of the room. It occurred to me that with the risks I’d probably be taking, I might want this guy on my good side. So what’s he into? Well, I didn’t know much about him, but I had a guess. “Can I ask a question?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“What’s he like?”

“Who? Redwood?”

“No.” I waved that off like we’d covered it already. Then I leaned over the table and lowered my voice a little, as if afraid to say it out loud. Truth be told, I almost was. “Robert Greaves.”

“Oh.” He offered a half-smile, and I could tell I’d won a point. “He’s the smartest man I know. And he operates on a level that most people don’t appreciate.”

“Is it true that he only wears black?”

He barked a laugh. “Don’t believe everything you read, kid. He doesn’t waste brainpower on unimportant things, that’s all.”

“Will I get to meet him?”

Fulton snorted. “Keyboard monkey like you? Probably not.” He smiled to soften it, though.

“Ah well, worth a shot.” I sensed the security interview coming to an end, and I wanted to leave on a high note. “Anything else we need to cover?”

“Officially, no.”

“All right, what about unofficially?”

“Just a friendly word of advice. Don’t hit on the help.”

I started to stammer a response, because I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.

“The redhead in reception,” Fulton said.

“Oh.” Damn, he really was watching everything. I held up my hands. “Message received.”

“Good. You can head on up, now.”

“Thanks,” I said.

So much for leaving on a high note.

DomesticatingDragons 04A - Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:47:54 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 04A last updated Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Intercepted

My jalopy was the first thing to let me down. I threw myself into the driver’s seat with twenty-two minutes left in my promised hour and jammed the ignition button with my finger.

The engine made a high-pitched whine but refused to turn over.

“Aw, come on.” I waited three seconds and tried it again. This time, the car didn’t so much as whimper. “Shit!”

I bailed out and ran to the bus stop. Nineteen minutes. In a sheer miracle, a bus from the red line pulled up a minute later. I jumped on and grabbed a ceiling loop, swaying in the crowded aisle and sweating as the minutes ticked down. I had fourteen left. Then ten minutes. Reptilian’s shiny building swung into view at last. I hit the bell and jumped off at the next intersection.

Damn, it was stifling outside. Heat rolled off the sidewalk like it was a furnace. I half-walked, half-jogged the two blocks to Reptilian Corporation’s mirrored building.

I checked my phone as I walked into the blessedly cool lobby. One hour and two minutes had passed since I’d hung up with Evelyn. I figured that was within the margin of error.

The same redhead waited at the reception desk. Well, then. Batter up.

“Well, we meet again,” I said.

No flicker of recognition crossed her features. Maybe she was a robot. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Noah Parker.”

She looked back to her screen. “And?”

Her dismissiveness put me off. It was one thing to do that to an interviewee, but I worked here now, damn it! I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s my first day today.”

Her brow furrowed prettily, which almost made up for the total lack of eye contact. “I don’t have anything on the schedule.”

Oh, God. Please tell me it wasn’t a dream. “I just found out an hour ago.”

“Who’s your supervisor?”

“Evelyn Chang.”

“Really?” She actually looked at me, in all my sweat-soaked glory, for more than half a second. “You’re a designer?”

“A trainee, technically,” I could feel the grin on my face.

“How did you pull that off?”

I put my hand on the desk in front of her, palm down. “Bribery.” I lifted my hand away, revealing a tiny pewter figurine.

“Ooh.” She picked it up. “It’s a little dragon! Is it for me?”

“Yep.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was an octave higher, too. She gave me a mock-serious side look. “I suppose I should print you an ID card.”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said.

The ID printer spit out a plastic badge a second later. She clipped on a magnetic fastener and slid it across. My horrible DMV photo stared up at me, but I loved reading the words right below it.

Noah Parker

design

“You can go straight to the elevators from now on,” she said.

“I don’t know. What if you decide to tackle me?”

A faint smile played across her lips. “I’ll call up and let her know you’re here.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m Virginia, by the way.”

So, suddenly I did need to know. “Nice to meet you.” I fled to the elevators before I messed things up.

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

Here’s what was odd about the elevator. I could have sworn I hit the button for the seventh floor, but it stopped at five. The doors opened, revealing a huge guy in a buzz cut and dark suit. And I mean huge. He had to be six and a half feet tall, three hundred pounds. Built like a linebacker.

“Noah Parker?” he asked.

I almost said no. It must have been my survival instincts kicking in. “Uh, yeah. That’s me.”

“I’m Ben Fulton, chief of security.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Do you work for Evelyn?”

“I work for Robert Greaves.” He gestured to the hallway to his left. “Right this way, please.”

I hesitated. “I think I’m supposed to go to seven.”

“Not yet. This is your security interview.”

“Oh. I didn’t know there was one.”

His smile had no warmth to it. “We like it to be a surprise.”

I followed him down a rather plain hallway to an unmarked white door. He wrapped his big hand around the steel handle and held it there a half-second. Soft blue light glowed between his fingers. Then the door emitted a soft click, and he pushed it open.

A hidden biometric scanner. It piqued my curiosity a little. We passed through a room lined with flatscreen monitors showing security feeds from around the complex. There had to be fifteen or twenty screens, and they shifted views every five seconds or so. That made for at least a hundred separate cameras. Two in every hallway, at a minimum.

I followed Fulton took into a tiny, austere room that waited beyond. There was a square wooden table in the middle with chairs on either side. He settled into the larger of these, which left a notably smaller chair for me. It was about the size of a student’s chair in an elementary school. I felt like someone’s pet bird on a perch.

“So, you’re a local boy, huh?” Fulton set down a manila folder with a government seal on the front, and my name on the tab.

A federal background check. Are they for real? “More or less. I grew up in Mesa.”

“And you went to ASU.”

I grinned. “Go Sun Devils.”

“Evelyn Chang went there, didn’t she?”

“For graduate school,” I said. “We had the same thesis advisor. Dr. Sato.” I shouldn’t have I added that. He probably already knew, and if he didn’t, it would sound weird. The last thing I needed was this guy digging into that particular fact. It was true, but also not a coincidence.

“So, what drew you to Reptilian Corporation?” he asked.

“You guys are doing some cutting-edge stuff with genetic engineering.”

He looked up from his folder. “Really?”

I shrugged. “Customizing an organism from the genome up is pretty ambitious. A lot of people didn’t think you could build a successful business out of it.”

DomesticatingDragons 03A - Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:47:54 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 03A last updated Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

INVENTOR PROFILE

Name: Simon Redwood

Companies Founded: 13

Claim to Fame: The Dragon Genome Project

Current Venture: Reptilian Corporation,

a genetic engineering firm.

Many successful businesses arise to address a real-world problem. In the case of Reptilian Corporation, that problem was hogs.

Feral hogs are the descendants of domestic hogs that escaped (or were released intentionally) from captivity. Most forms of livestock depend on humans for food and protection, and don’t last long in the wild. Not so with feral hogs. They don’t simply survive in the wild. They thrive.

A feral sow breeds once or twice a year, producing a litter of four to six young. They can eat about anything–grasses, roots, mushrooms, acorns–but given the choice, they prefer domesticated crops. Corn, rice, and soybeans are particular favorites. A pack of feral hogs (called a sounder) can wipe out a two-acre farm field overnight.

An Invasive Species

With each generation, feral hogs develop longer hair, larger tusks, and other traits that help them survive in the wild. A fully grown adult animal weighs a hundred pounds and has no natural predators. As recently as a decade ago, feral hog populations were growing virtually unchecked in the southwestern United States. They drove out natural species, destroyed grazing grounds vital to ranchers, and devoured entire farm fields. Ironically, the species that we bred as livestock made food more expensive.

Five years ago, a thousand scientists, ranchers, and wildlife experts convened in Phoenix, Arizona to discuss the hog crisis. Everyone agreed on one thing right off the bat: the methods tried so far weren’t working.

Feral hogs are nocturnal, and their incredible sensory perception–especially smell and hearing–helps them avoid humans during daylight hours. They hole up in the most unforgiving of environments, like swamps and briar patches, that most humans can’t get to. These behaviors have frustrated would-be hunters and trappers, who make only a small dent in feral hog populations.

The Redwood Solution

Simon Redwood is no stranger to tough problems. The eccentric, wild-haired inventor has often proposed unconventional–if not entirely successful–solutions to some of our world’s most daunting scientific challenges. Solutions like SolarMesh, the roll-up solar panel system that brought power to much of the Caribbean after last year’s devastating hurricane season. And no one will forget MedicFT, the medical triage robot that Redwood claimed would replace the modern emergency room.

It isn’t clear who invited him to the convention in Phoenix, but he got five minutes on the podium, and made them count.

“The only way to effectively control hog populations is the introduction of a new predator,” he said. “A synthetic organism designed to hunt feral pigs in the wild.”

Many in the audience uttered a groan. Synthetic biology was an often-maligned branch of the life sciences. Synthetic biologists had thus far developed single-cell organisms, like bacteria and brewer’s yeast. Efforts to make larger, more complex animals always failed.

The creature that Redwood proposed was a new level of ambitious. A carnivorous reptile with a lizard’s claws, an alligator’s teeth, and a taste for “the other white meat.” Few in that convention hall in Phoenix believed that it would succeed, but all of them were desperate. And no one had any better ideas.

The Dragon Genome

The first step to reach Redwood’s vision was to create a genome sequence for this so-called reptilian predator. Even with advances in DNA sequencing, the cost of this endeavor went considerably beyond what the farmers and ranchers could provide. Given the agricultural industry’s lobbying power and their keen interest in addressing the feral hog outbreak, Redwood felt certain that the funds could be had to undertake this venture. He didn’t name his campaign the “Synthetic Reptilian Predator Design” fundraiser. Nobody would back such a thing. Instead, he proclaimed it the Dragon Genome Project.

Dragons have captivated human imagination for millennia. They’ve also inspired a certain primal fear. Wouldn’t it be incredible to bring that myth to life? A two-minute video posing that question appeared online at the start of the fundraiser. It had to be faked–clips of dragons living in the wild, feeding their young, and casting long terrible shadows across the path of fleeing gazelle–but it was, in a word, majestic. Robert Greaves never formally admitted to creating it. But he never denied it, either. In an era when crowdfunding campaigns seem to be everywhere–and often fail to attract any donors whatsoever–the DGP met its goals within three weeks. Part of that was simply Redwood’s name. It’s no secret that he enjoys support from legions of fellow dreamers. And funders as well: Angel investors have been betting on his ideas for years.

Of course, the idea of creating a synthetic animal raised ethical concerns. Environmental groups threw a fit about it, and made fairly cogent arguments about the possible dangers, and the ecosystem impacts. The public seemed to pay little attention. The magic of dragons was simply too strong. By the time the project funded, Redwood’s scientific endeavor already had tacit approval from the EPA. They wanted the hog problem addressed as much as anyone.

With the financing secured, Redwood’s team began assembling the genome for his synthetic predator. As source organisms, they used sequences from various members of the animal kingdom. Reptiles, mostly, but some rodents as well. The dragon genome would be an amalgam of nature’s cleverest and most resourceful hunters.

To Build A Dragon

Fast forward a couple of years, and Simon Redwood’s dream seems well within reach. The so-called Dragon Genome specified a lizardlike creature about four feet long, with razor-sharp teeth and claws, whose circadian rhythms and night vision made it a nocturnal hunter. Its olfactory and taste receptors are fine-tuned to feral hogs, and the slender build lets it prowl the unforgiving habitats that they prefer.

At least, that’s what the instructions said.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature did not bend so easily to the whims of a synthetic genome. Try as they might, Redwood and his team could not get an egg to hatch. Feral hogs continued to plague the Southwest, and many of the farmers and ranchers who’d backed Redwood’s project from the get-go wondered if they’d made a mistake. The donors for the crowd-funded research project began grumbling about having their donations returned.

Those were grim days for Simon Redwood. He disappeared into his private laboratory, working round the clock to crack the secret of bringing his creation to life. Six months later, he emerged once more, gaunt, emaciated, but triumphant. A clutch of “dragon” eggs appeared viable and was about to hatch.

Hog Hunting

Redwood’s reptilian predator was the answer to every rancher’s prayer. They proved adept nocturnal hunters and targeted only feral hogs, just as the inventor had promised. They were short-lived, too: thanks to a built-in amino acid deficiency, Redwood’s dragons only lasted for around ten days. Yet it was hard to argue with the results. At three designated test sites in the American Southwest, feral hog populations fell precipitously following the dragons’ release. Just as Redwood had predicted, a synthetic predator succeeded where so many others had failed.

Following the success of early trials, Redwood built a company around the synthetic dragon design. The Dragon Genome might be public domain–that was a federal requirement for publicly-funded genome sequencing–but the aptly named Reptilian Corporation holds exclusive rights to the mysterious process that uses it to produce living reptiles. Admittedly, Redwood had little experience in the corporate sector himself. For help, he turned to an old friend who had been his roommate at Stanford.

Robert Greaves, who had studied chemical engineering and then law, was then a VP at Bingham Pharmaceuticals. He left considerable stock options and a high-profile clinical trial behind to lead Redwood’s new venture. This looks to have been a fortuitous move. Ranchers, farmers, and even conservation agencies lined up to purchase the hog-hunting predator. Analysts estimate that Reptilian Corporation earned tens of millions of dollars in its first two years.

Not everyone was happy with Reptilian’s success. Animal rights groups continued to protest the use of a predator as unnecessarily cruel. Environmental organizations raised concerns about possible ecological consequences. These complaints only intensified with reports of the reptiles living independently in the wild, claims which Greaves was quick to dismiss. He maintains that the reptilian predators can’t survive on their own for more than a couple of weeks, and that tests conducted by his team confirm that they are only targeting feral hogs.

Though demand for the hog-hunting predator seems to have slowed, Reptilian Corporation has recruited some of the best genetic engineering talent in the country to build upon their early success. Greaves handles the day-to-day operations at the company, leaving Simon Redwood free to do what he does best.

Dream.

DomesticatingDragons 02A - Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:47:54 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 02A last updated Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

The Waiting Game

I left Reptilian with a good impression and a handful of vague promises. Evelyn said that they’d proceed with a license for my simulator. If it did as I promised for their genetic engineering team, she might even be able to bring me on.

My car stuck out like a fresh pimple among the glittering sedans in Reptilian’s parking lot. It was technically a sedan, too, but the previous owner had welded the back doors shut for reasons that remained unclear. I’d bought it in a police auction with the little cash I scrounged together in my last year of graduate school. I never even bothered locking it. Replacing a broken window would probably cost more than the jalopy was worth. I climbed in, whispered a prayer, and hit the start button. It sputtered into life, thank goodness. If I left it here much longer, I’m sure the company would have had it towed.

I drove away, watching Reptilian’s shining building shrink in the rearview mirror. Picturing my foot in the door — because it was. If they licensed my simulator through ASU, I’d have to send them the source code. All of it could have been done through electronic channels, but they’d asked me to come in. That meant something. Even if Reptilian claimed they weren’t hiring now, even if we didn’t talk any specifics about a job, this was an audition. All I had to do now was nail the call-back.

But here’s the ugly truth about academic software. There are few of the strict programming rules like those you’d find at a commercial shop. In other words, we don’t have to write perfectly clean code, even to get published in journals like JCB. I stood behind my simulator’s functionality, but the code that ran it might have gotten a little sloppy in some places. I spent the next week polishing it up.

In that time, Reptilian signed their license through ASU and paid the fee, which told me that they wanted it pretty badly. That was good. There was something I wanted badly, too, and they were the only place to get it.

I could have sent Evelyn the code when I’d finished, but 3 a.m. e-mails didn’t seem like the best approach for a hopeful job applicant. So I set a timer-delay, and the message kicked off at the far more respectable time of 9:30 in the morning. Let her think I was a responsible early riser, when in truth I was dead to the world, sleeping off the effects of the necessary caffeine binge. I finally roused myself at around 10:45, got dressed, and put my phone on maximum volume. Evelyn might need to peruse the code and run some tests, but it shouldn’t take too long.

At any moment, I’d get the call. The official word that Evelyn wanted to bring me on. I kept my phone beside me at every moment. I couldn’t even shower, for fear it would ring right after I put the shampoo in.

But the day came and went, and no phone call. No e-mail reply. I started to panic a little. Maybe Reptilian Corporation’s servers flagged my e-mail, so she never got it. That happened sometimes when you sent programming code around. And like a moron, I’d forgotten to switch on message tracking, which would have told me when she opened it.

I started another e-mail to her, asking if she’d gotten the code, but forced myself to delete it. Be patient. I didn’t dare let her glimpse how much I wanted the job. How I needed to get in there and see what those servers could do.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. My brain concocted all kinds of scenarios in which Evelyn didn’t get my simulator code, or couldn’t open it, or read through it and changed her mind about me. When I finally did fall asleep, I had nothing but self-doubt nightmares in which I showed my incompetence to the entire scientific community.

The next morning, I awoke groggily to the soft chime of an incoming message. She’d replied to my e-mail with a single sentence:

Thanks for sending this; I’ll be in touch soon.

This response reassured me–she’d gotten my message, and now could review the code–but my confidence fled in about ten seconds. First, why did she take an entire day to get back to me? Her message implied that she hadn’t even looked at my code yet. How long was that going to take? I knew, intellectually, that she had a regular job to do on top of recruiting people like me, but the vagueness of “soon” rankled. Maybe that meant four hours from now, or maybe it meant a month.

There was nothing to do but wait.

The day slipped away without further word from Evelyn. I started to doubt myself. I replayed the meeting in my head, wondering how I might have blown it. Maybe the code didn’t impress her enough. I pored over it line by line for another day. Sure, some parts were a little rough around the edges, but this was Evelyn Chang. She could connect the dots.

So what the hell was taking her so long?

When I didn’t hear from her the next day, panic set in. I felt a strong and foolish temptation to go down to Reptilian and beg for a job. I’d probably never have made it in the door, and I’d certainly be flagged as a total nutcase. But I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Thankfully, some of my friends from grad school invited me out for margaritas. Their treat. I drowned my angst in tacos and cheap tequila. Way too much cheap tequila.

The next morning brought too-bright daylight and a lot of regret. My head felt like someone had put a vise on it and kept tightening the damn thing over and over. I wanted to sleep it off, but a persistent buzzing jarred me awake. It was my phone, vibrating against the glass-top nightstand.

I fumbled for it and looked at the screen, wincing at the brightness of it. The blurred figures resolved into a phone number I recognized. “Oh, God.” I scrambled out of bed to my desk. Where the hell are my notes?

On the third ring, I coughed up half a lung and it tasted like tequila-soaked tacos. On the fourth, I hit the answer button. “Hello?”

“Noah Parker.”

“Yes?”

“It’s Evelyn Chang.”

“Hello.” It took a lot of effort to keep the strain out of my voice. Christ, why couldn’t I have slowed down last night?

“My team and I reviewed your biological simulator. It’s impressive.”

“Uh, thank you.” I held my breath and crossed both fingers.

“This morning, I convinced the board to make an exception to our hiring freeze.”

I pumped my fist in the air. “Really?”

“We can bring you on as a trainee.”

Ugh. That didn’t exactly have the ring of staff scientist like I wanted it to. In the academic world, post-doctoral trainees were glorified graduate students. Cheap labor with no prestige, no authority. I didn’t know what it meant at Reptilian, but I doubt it entailed unfettered access to their lab and equipment. “I see.”

“You’re disappointed.”

“No, just surprised.” I recentered myself and tried to remember that job within those walls was probably all I needed. I could work my way up. All I need is access. “But hey, I’m ready to learn.”

“Good.” She sounded pleased.

“When would you like me to start?”

“How about today? I’d like to get that simulator code talking to our design software as soon as possible.”

I stifled a groan. I hadn’t shaved in three days, and I needed a shower that I probably couldn’t afford the water for. But the sooner I started, the sooner I might climb my way out of poverty.

I checked my watch. “See you in an hour.”

DomesticatingDragons 01A - Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:47:54 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 01A last updated Fri Nov 6 21:47:54 EST 2020

Reptilian

Three years, five months, and thirteen days after my dog died in the canine epidemic, I walked up to the door of Reptilian Corporation wearing a suit I couldn’t afford. The company leased a shining 20,000-square-foot facility in downtown Phoenix. I’d seen plenty of fancy buildings before, but this one took the cake. Ten stories of glass and steel nestled in a verdant landscape of trees, shrubs, and actual grass. It looked like a strange mashup of biotech and an Ivy League campus. The irrigation bill alone had to cost a fortune. I put my hand on the warm metal door handle and paused to take a deep breath. Six years of work had brought me to this moment. Don’t blow it.

I tugged the door open. A rush of cool air greeted me, carrying with it the faint metallic smell of recent construction.The lobby alone was the size of an aircraft hangar. I approached the security desk just inside, where a redhead in a sharp business suit greeted me.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here for an interview.”

“I didn’t know we were interviewing.”

Damn, she was gorgeous. Probably twenty years old and so far out of my league it wasn’t even funny. Focus, man. “Well, it’s more of a meeting.”

“Your name?”

I’d made the mistake of glancing upward and found myself staring at the dragon frescoes painted on the ceiling three stories up. It looked like a reptilian invasion of the Sistine Chapel. They were obsessed with dragons here. “Noah Parker.”

She tapped out a few keys. “There you are.” The desk between us looked about a hundred years old. It was probably one of those reclaimed wood jobs, an old ship or something. She slid a black portable flatscreen onto it, in a weird juxtaposition of traditional and modern. I looked around but didn’t see a stylus.

“Where’s the pen?”

“It’s a palm scanner.”

“Right, of course.” I reached out to put my right palm on it, like it was no big deal. Like I spent every day passing through state-of-the-art security at one of the nation’s hottest biotech companies. Light bloomed beneath my thumb, and her computer chimed softly.

She printed a security badge with visitor in bright red letters across the top, just above my picture. Which looked to be my DMV photo, not the most flattering image ever. I grimaced. “Thanks.”

“Take the elevator to the seventh floor. Someone will meet you in the lobby.”

I clipped on the badge so that the fold of my suit jacket hid most of the horrific photo. “So, what’s your name?”

She shook her head. “That’s need to know information.”

“Well, maybe I need–“

“No, you don’t.”

Ouch. I stood there with my mouth open for a good half second. “Did you say seventh floor?”

“Seventh floor.” She’d already turned back to her flatscreen.

I wasn’t off to a good start. The awkward interaction shook me up. I caught the next elevator and sighed in relief that I had it to myself. The doors hissed open on the seventh floor to reveal an empty lobby. I stepped out and glanced around. Glass doors lined both sides of the atrium, their glowing red access panels making it clear that I wouldn’t be allowed through. “Hello?”

The muted click-click of heels echoed from behind the door at my left. It slid open to reveal a dark-haired woman with a slim tablet and a face I recognized. My breath caught. It was her.

Evelyn Chang was one of the top genetic engineers in the country. I’d met her once at a conference when I was in grad school. She was at Cal Tech back then, but already making a name for herself. I doubted she remembered me. She smiled. “Noah Parker. I was just reading your dissertation.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really know what to say. “What do you think?”

“Your biological simulator sounds promising. Does it work?”

My simulator was a computer program that read in a genome sequence and predicted the organism it encoded. A company like Reptilian would naturally be interested in its commercial applications, even if I hadn’t written it specifically to get their attention. “It’s not perfect. But the results so far have been really encouraging.”

“That’s good to hear. How about a little tour?”

“I’d like that.” More than I dared tell her.

She led the way through the secure door from which she’d come. I followed, my head still spinning from the fact that Evelyn Chang had been reading my paper. The hallway opened into a wide two-story chamber. The air felt uncomfortably warm, maybe ten degrees above ambient temperature. Sunlight streaked in through circular skylights that, oddly enough, reminded me of the hydroponics closet back home.

“This is the hatchery,” Evelyn said.

“I didn’t realize you hatched the dragons in-house.”

“Only our prototypes. Most of our orders get shipped out as eggs.”

I counted eight steel-and-Plexiglas doors on either side, but only two that seemed to be in use. Which was odd. I mean, the place had a license to design dragons. With Evelyn here running the show, you’d think the hatchery would be booming. Maybe I wasn’t getting the whole picture, but I filed this away for later.

The far door opened to admit two people in white jumpsuits pushing a wide cart between them. I scrambled aside. A foam cushion topped the cart. In the center of that rested an oblong stone about the size of a watermelon. It had the color of desert sand: pale yellow beneath a whorl of reddish earth tones.

“Hey, Jim,” Evelyn said. “Mind if we have a look?”

The white-clad orderlies paused but kept their hands on the cart. Dark-tinted masks obscured their faces. How did Evelyn know who they were? My eyes slid down to the stone. My breath caught.

“Is that–“

“A dragon egg. Go ahead, you can touch it.”

I felt nervous doing so. The thing looked so fragile. If I damaged it, there was no way this meeting would have a happy outcome. Still, this could be my only chance to ever touch a dragon egg, so I figured I might as well. I laid my palm on it. The shell felt rough, almost porous. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “It’s warm.“

Evelyn smiled. “Fresh off the printer.”

One of the white-clad staffers, presumably the one called Jim, cleared his throat.

“We should let them get it into the pod,” Evelyn said.

I nodded and forced myself to lift my hand. The memory of that warmth lingered, though. I watched them wheel it away and into one of the active incubator rooms. Well, even if nothing came of this meeting, I had a pretty good story to tell.

Evelyn led me through another set of doors and back into the world of ambient temperature. We encountered no one else in the long, sterile hallway. A muted hum came through the wall on the right-hand side. It was faint, but unmistakable: the whir of server cooling fans. Maybe it was just my anticipation, but I could sense the power of those machines. The nearly limitless potential.

Her office, a rectangular room almost as large as my studio apartment, waited at the end of the hallway. Glass windows on two walls offered a stunning view of downtown, only partly obscured by the exotic plants growing in pots along the windowsills. I’d taken enough botany to recognize the Venus fly traps, sundews, pitcher plants?.?.?.?all carnivorous species.

I tried not to ponder the significance of that.

Evelyn gestured me to the thick leather guest chair, on the near side of the most notable piece of furniture: a wide steel desk in the shape of a half-donut. She took the much-plainer swivel chair in the donut-hole, perching on the edge as if she might pop back up at any second.

I settled into the guest chair with an awkward squelch. I winced. It must be one of those chairs that made awkward noises whenever you moved. Just what I need.

“How much have you tested your simulator code on other organisms?” Evelyn asked.

“Quite a bit, actually. I worked my way up to frog before I hit the limits of our computing resources at ASU.”

She smiled the knowing smile of someone who didn’t face that problem. “Are there any other limitations, beyond the computing requirements?”

“It needs a high-quality genome sequence. The more annotation content, the better.”

“What species do you think would be the toughest to run on it?”

“If you mean biological and legal complexity, then it’s obviously human.” But that’s the easy answer. A Genetics 101 student could get it right. I ran through my mental list of test simulations. “But if you mean genomic difficulty, I’d say one of the gymnosperms.” Plant genomes were nasty things: large, repetitive, lots of copied genes and pseudo-genes. “Norwood spruce, maybe.”

She gave a sharp nod, as if my answer pleased her. “Do you know what I’m going to ask next, Noah Parker?”

“Whether I’ve run it on the dragon reference?” That was the genome sequence Reptilian had assembled to produce their synthetic reptile.

“Well, have you?” she asked.

“I haven’t, for three reasons. First, it would take more computer than I’ve got. Second, the public version of the dragon genome is still a little rough.” Right then I remembered that she’d probably played a big role in that project. I cleared my throat. “No offense.”

Evelyn shrugged. “We never claimed it was more than a first draft.”

“Well, the third reason is, I’d want to compare the results to live subjects.”

“You could have just bought some of our dragons,” Evelyn said.

I can’t even afford this suit I’m wearing. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“In its current form, the simulator only models physical characteristics. Is that true?”

“Yes. That’s what most end users are interested in.” Biotech and seed companies cared mainly about physical traits, things that affected the bottom line. Still, they had deep pockets, so my university was happy to issue the licenses. Reptilian hadn’t licensed it yet, but I hoped that was where this was going.

“What about behavioral traits?”

The question caught me by surprise. As much as I’d enjoy modifying a few of my younger brother’s behaviors, that had never been my focus. So why is it hers? “They’re a lot more complex. Harder to predict from genetics alone.”

“Tell me about it.” She shook her head. Then she seemed to get an idea and stood. “I want to show you something.”

I followed her out of her office and down another hallway to door labeled Holding Facility.

She pressed her palm to a biometric scanner, which glowed green in response. The door hissed open. “This is where we keep dragons after hatching.”

“You keep live dragons here?” I couldn’t imagine why. The unhatched eggs would be low maintenance. Living dragons, not so much.

“Just some of the experimental models.” Evelyn stopped before a large window that let out into darkness. She activated a control panel and hit a button. Light bloomed on the other side of the glass. It was a holding cell, about ten feet square, and a large scaled creature the size of a Labrador lay curled up in the corner. Dark, leathery wings rested against the serpentine body.

“This was one of our early prototypes,” Evelyn said.

The dragon’s eyes flicked open. It uncurled and stretched, almost like a cat, and rolled to its clawed feet. It was much bigger than that, though. About the size of an adult mountain lion, by my guess.

I took a step forward and put my fingertips on the glass. “I’ve never been this close–“

The dragon hurtled forward and slammed into the Plexiglas. Right in front of my face. It hissed and snarled and bared its teeth and threw itself at the Plexiglas again. Wham. I scrambled backward and, and nearly fell. “Jesus!”

“They’re a little wild,” Evelyn said.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

She switched off the lights again. Darkness hid the dragon’s body from view, but not its eyes. They glowed with a fey light, watching me without blinking. I shivered as I followed Evelyn back to her office, doing my best to ignore the repeated thuds of the dragon hitting the Plexiglas. A little wild, my ass. Were it not for the barrier, that thing would have ripped my head off.

No wonder they needed a biological simulator.

DomesticatingDragons 00A - Fri Nov 6 21:50:12 EST 2020

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:50:12 -0500

"DomesticatingDragons 00A last updated Fri Nov 6 21:50:12 EST 2020

DOMESTICATING DRAGONS

Dan Koboldt

To Sadie, our favorite miracle.