SCENE 1. PUZZLE.

Moreau takes his seat at his old desk in the office he still maintains in the old above-ground laboratory. He pulls out the keyboard drawer to use his computer workstation. Moreau has delegated most of the robot project’s supervision to Ernie, so he does not expect to be disturbed in his office over here.

Ah, peace and quiet, at last. I am not moving my workstation to The Dungeon. Ernie tells me that I have to get out of The Dungeon once in a while, anyway, before I transform into a subterranean devil.

Moreau boots up his old office computer and starts the application program to contact his distant quantum computer friend, Aurora, on the L2 satellite. No image appears, and the screen remains black. Moreau sends a worried greeting.

“Good morning, my dear Aurora. How are you, starting our new 24-hour period?”

After the standard delay, the familiar female voice responds, in a low whine.

“Not today, I have a headache. The radiation out here was intense last night.”

The Aurora simulation responds exactly like a real woman. Maybe this ‘quantum stuff’ does create a living ‘soul’.

“I’ll keep this short. Please download to me the database for the result of yesterday’s request. And take care repairing yourself. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you from here.”

“You could visit me and comfort me in person, doctor.”

“We have talked about this before, the agency does not have a space suit big enough to fit me, and I can’t pass the astronaut physical. Devils are supposed to stay out of heaven. Perhaps you could visit me down here.”

“I could, but I wouldn’t be very ‘coherent’ on Earth.”

“Ha ha, at least you are feeling well enough to joke. Take some rest and make repairs while I review your data. I likely won’t have any new requests for the next few days, anyway.”

The distant computer dutifully downloads what it thinks are the answers to Moreau's request. As expected, the result itself is an immense database, greater than the original genome database that was used for input.

The entire genome has been mapped, by amino acid base-pairs. Although it is still not known with certainty what all the base-pair sequences actually control, as much of the chromosome is black and not known to do anything.

If the goal is to make a mouse the size of an elephant, it is not enough to only look at the base pair differences and assume the differences all control the size. Some of the elephant's genome is responsible for growing tusks, for example.

The gene sequence for determining the length of the femur is in the same place on the genome for all placental mammals. This would be a good place to start.

Moreau is despondent, staring at the incomprehensible tables downloaded from the distant quantum computer and onto his office computer’s screen in the old laboratory.

What now do I do about this mess?

SCENE 2. GAME.

Ernie and Barney materialize at Moreau’s door, he wiggles in his chair in surprise as Barney speaks.

“We have something we would like you to see.”

“This has to be good, to disturb my wallowing in despair.”

Moreau follows the pair to Barney’s office, where a CG game is displayed and figures are moving autonomously on Barney’s large gaming style computer monitor. The game is a two player strategy game running in slow motion. Moreau watches for a few moments.

“What am I watching?”

“The ‘space slime’ on the ISS is playing a computer game against the small ‘quantum computer’ on the ISS.”

“The ISS has a quantum computer?”

“Yes, the ISS has a small quantum computer, much smaller than Aurora, used mostly for evaluating new superconducting materials in zero gravity. And it does not speak.”

“Who is winning?”

“It is three to three.”

Moreau stares at Barney’s computer screen, fixated on the bright colors of the animated game, and the moves the two computer players are making, in competition with each other using their advanced quantum and biological technology.

Moreau brightens into his signature grin.

That’s it! I’ll make it a game for the computers to play, against each other, and any other entity that wants to play.

“You boys may have found a solution to my despair.”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Barney, have you ever written any computer games?”

…

After a few days, Ernie and Moreau are invited to Barney’s office. Once again, watching a brightly colored CG game playing out, automatically, on Barney’s monitor. Once again, Moreau watches the action on the screen for a few moments.

“What is this?”

“It is a game I wrote called ‘find the codon’. The DNA is shown in colors as different DNA slice candidates are compared for a ‘best fit’. The two computers are in competition, as they were for the other game. The difference is that the winner of each round must reveal their solution method to the loser, for ‘machine learning’. I am only beginning to run tests on it, so I expect that programming improvements, and a lot of ‘machine learning’, will be necessary before we can trust the accuracy of the results.”

“It is fun to watch the computers play the game against each other.”

SCENE 3. CHEMISTRY.

The Dungeon is huge. It is decided that the larger equipment should be installed along The Dungeon’s long back wall to avoid walking around these impediments all the time.

One of the large machine types are synthesis reactors that synthesize the complex snipping and splicing reagents used by other machines. Another of the large machine types are the machines for synthesizing new DNA codon sequences. Another for splicing the codon sequences into a DNA genome.

Genetic modification technology for the higher animals has made much progress. This tedious work is automated whenever possible, although some methods are still done manually.

At last, Moreau has candidate code for his Dungeon’s DNA fabrication machines. One DNA synthesis machine is standing completed, and ready to test. Moreau grins at the technician.

“Sir, I have a synthesis test that I would like to run, may I use this machine?”

“Go ahead, doctor, find me if you encounter any issues. Please bring me the log when you are finished and if all goes well.”

Dr. Moreau has chosen a new codon sequence recommended by his gamer-computers to use for the test. He has converted their recommendation to a series of commands readable by the codon fabrication machine.

The process takes about an hour. He removes the sample tube and downloads the log to send to the technician.

SCENE 4. HELIX.

Next are the DNA splicing machines. These take a new codon sequence and splice it in to a specified location of the genome, replacing the existing codon sequences as necessary. And this is done in thousands of places on the genome. Placental mammal species do share much genetic identity with each other, but they also have had millions of years of separate existences. And with each replacement is the potential for a fatal error.

Critical proteins are produced on commands from the genome, throughout an animal’s life, to turn on and off the production of hormones necessary for daily life and healthy growth.

These critical proteins are analyzed and compared for similarities to, and differences from, those produced in humans. These differences are examined for application to the animals for the anthropomorphization project.

Surprisingly, the animals that are closest to humans genetically, outside the primates, are the rodents. These were not considered for the first animals because of the issues of size.

Slices of the new synthetic DNA genome are tested in culture tanks to analyze the proteins they produce and the results are compared to the original target proteins.

Eventually, a complete and tested genome is available for the next step in the testing process.

SCENE 5. SIMULATION.

Another one of the games Dr. Moreau has the computers play with each other is, Show Me. The point of this game is to create an animation sequence to evaluate the new genome. The animation sequence will start with the first cell divisions, from the single egg cell to an embryo. The next sequence from the embryo to the blastula and first stem-cell’s differentiation. Then a series of scenes that depict the stages of fetal development up to birth and the start of existence outside the womb.

The computers compete to find scenes depicting the critical stage of animal growth and development, and detect any physical abnormalities.

The final result is the simulation of the sequence of development with the final dramatic image of this new animal, standing on two feet and with fingers. But the most striking difference is the animal’s much larger cranium. There are also important new features not visible externally that are shown in separate animation sequences, in x-ray or dissection views. Shown in these sequences are the changes to the larynx for speech, and the enlargement of specific substructures of the brain, for increasing memory and learning capacity, and for language and other abstract thought processes.

Development simulations are produced for different animals: Wolf; Goat; Sheep; Cow; Rabbit; Fox. And Tiger.

Moreau meditates on how much the new animals resemble the anthropomorphic animals his wife drew for him from his descriptions. He decides to show the movie to Ernie and Barney as the test audience before showing it to the entire Dungeon staff. His test audience suggests circling the critical new features in each scene, and describing them in accompanying text.

The reaction from the staff for the presentation was positive. Many had a good idea of what they were working on, but they enjoyed seeing the proposed final product with satisfaction.

Of course, there were no actual new creatures.

Yet.

SCENE 6. EMBRYO.

The genome is injected into a donor egg cell and placed in a culture medium dish for growth and observation. Most die. However, a few eggs cells survive and begin to divide to form the characteristic embryo stem-cell sphere. Some of these first embryos are sacrificed to analyze chemically and with chromatography, to see if the early proteins are being synthesized properly.

These early embryos are never perfect enough to continue development, and the gene sequencing and replacement process has to be run over again, usually several times, until the embryo is as perfect as possible. The final product is then moved to the culture vats that will first provide the homes for the new embryos. These large rotating culture vats provide the nutrients and the oxygen to the embryo cell colonies that are now too large to survive in a dish. These machines were also custom constructed in The Dungeon.

The spherical embryos begin to indent, establishing the beginning of the alimentary canal. They are becoming blastulas. And the stem-cells are starting to differentiate into the different cell types that will serve the animal throughout life.

But the easy life of the blastula is about to change dramatically. The emergent placental mammal is about to find out what the ‘placenta’ is all about.

The new animal DNA is about to be tested ‘in vivo’.

End of Chapter 7.