“Richard, are you satisfied with Dr. Stone’s commitment to help us?” Josephine asked.
“I will let his actions prove me wrong. However, if Dr. Stone tries to rejoin with the Augs, or if they attempt to capture him, I will do what has to be done to prevent it,” Richard said with a determined look in his eyes.
“Fair enough,” Josephine said. “Do you have any further questions for Dr. Stone?
“Yes, I would like to know how Dr. Stone has managed to keep from being infected by the mosquitoes?”
Dr. Stone cleared his throat and pointed to the back of his head. “I already have a tiny benign implant. It’s an early prototype, but it’s enough to keep the mosquito transmitted larvae from implanting in me.”
“So how could the Augs implant you if you already have an implant?” Richard asked suspiciously.
“My implant is not invasive and can be easily removed without damaging my brain. As you have probably already figured out, the active implants are permanent,” Dr. Stone added.
“We know the Augs are restricted to lower elevations, why is that?” Richard asked. He already knew the answer, but it was more of a lie detector test than anything else.
“The answer is simple, cranial displacement. There is a finite amount of room inside the human skull, the larger the worm, the greater the cranial pressure. Obviously there is a relationship between the size of the worm and the amount of performance enhancing biochemicals it can secrete. To meet the military’s demands, the worm had to have a displacement of approximately fifty cubic centimeters. When you gain elevation, the drop in atmospheric pressure causes the brain to swell. Normally the fluid surrounding the brain allows for this expansion and it is rarely an issue. Sometimes however, when a person climbs too high, or too fast, the swelling results in elevation sickness. If that occurs, the individual must descend immediately, or risk a variety of symptoms up to and including death. Augs however, are extremely susceptible to elevation sickness because they have a reduced cranial capacity caused by the displacement of the worm. When Augs try to ascend above eight thousand feet, the swelling exerts a dangerous level of pressure upon the worm, and it will not allow the host to go any higher. When I pointed out this limitation to the military they were surprisingly unconcerned. They had already analyzed the world’s likely combat zones and determined they were all well below that elevation limitation. In addition, manned aircraft were being replaced with UAVs so there was no perceived need for pilots in the future,” Dr. Stone explained.
“Do they have any other weaknesses?” Richard asked.
“No,” Dr. Stone replied as he rubbed at his eyes, indicating he was growing weary of Richard’s questioning.
“Is there any hope of surgically removing the worm from the host?” Richard asked.
“None, the larva interweaves into the host brain as it matures into an adult worm. Removing the worm would severely damage the brain stem, and leave the host a vegetable. Even if it were possible to remove the worm, the worm itself will kill the host if it feels that it is mortally threatened, sort of a mutually assured destruction scenario,” Dr. Stone asserted.
“Do you think the Augs can create new parent worms without your help?” Richard asked.
“Unlikely. The process is extremely complicated and I have committed the key steps to memory so that no one could steal my work,” Dr. Stone replied arrogantly.
“Well that’s good news, any chance that the military may have kept records of your work or spied on you while you performed the critical steps?
“Even if DARPA had cameras on me all the time, most of my work was conducted under a microscope. They wouldn’t have been able to see the crucial steps involved with the genetic manipulations. Even when you know what you are doing, it takes hundreds of attempts to modify the correct segment of genetic material to yield just one desired genetic trait. The parent worms have dozens of such precise genetic manipulations, so the odds of anyone recreating my work borders on the impossible,” Dr. Stone said with a smug look on his face.
“What about all the staff that worked with you, is there any chance that they could create new parent worms for the Augs?” Richard asked.
“I never let any of my research associates perform the genetic manipulation. Like I said, I kept my work a secret to protect myself,” Dr. Stone replied.
“Are there any other research or production facilities beside Great Falls?” Richard asked.
“I never sub-contracted out any of my work,” Dr. Stone replied confidently. Richard tried to hide his elation over the news, but a faint grin gave him away.
“Why is that amusing?” Dr. Stone asked.
“Because your ego has led to the Augs’ downfall,” Richard replied. Dr. Stone sneered at his comment, but his reaction seemed oddly subdued.
“Any further questions for me?” Dr. Stone said in a snotty voice.
“Not at the moment,” Richard replied, feeling a bit unsettled by Dr. Stone’s unusual demeanor.
“Thank you,” Josephine said as she got up and escorted him out of the room.
Richard looked on with disdain, uncertain as to how much truth there was in his overall story. One thing was clear, the doctor still revered his creation, leaving Richard to wonder if the Augs viewed him as their God.
When Josephine did not return after several minutes, Richard got up and left.
“There you are,” he said in a tentative tone when he saw her over next to Dakota.
“You were kind of harsh,” Josephine remarked when their eyes met.
“I’m sorry you had to see that side of me, but I know first-hand what he is capable of. He is not to be trusted under any circumstances,” Richard insisted.
“He didn’t create the Augs out of malice or spite. He was simply trying to improve humans and rid them of disease,” Josephine replied in his defense.
“That portrayal of his work was propaganda, a thinly veiled ruse to market his military sanctioned bioweapon to the masses. His motivation is forged out of greed and power, not the noble pursuit of helping humanity,” Richard replied.
“He never intended for the larvae to take over their host,” Josephine asserted.
“That may be true, but when he found out that’s what happened, what did he do to stop it, nothing. Because he truly believes that the Augs are superior to us in every measurable way,” Richard replied.
“I agree that he should be watched, but killing him is unjustified in my opinion,” Josephine contended.
“Unjustified… he is not as innocent as he has led everyone here to believe. Had you seen the things that were going on at the production facility, you would not think so highly of him,” Richard insisted.
“What things?” Josephine asked.
“Unspeakable human cloning experiments,” Richard cringed.
“I’m not faint of heart, tell me what you saw,” Josephine demanded.
“Alright, but only because you should know the truth about the good doctor. When we arrived at the production facility, we stumbled across a pile of child sized human remains behind a recently abandoned warehouse. Those remains were the result of Dr. Stone’s experiments, experiments designed to create humans with multiple heads. I believe he was either hoping to implant more than one larva into a single host, or he figured he could lop off one head when a worm died and then implant the other. Who knows, but all I can say is that those poor kids looked as if death was their only friend,” Richard said with emphasis.
“I had no idea,” Josephine replied with a horrified expression on her face.