Desh remained silent.
“Because the horny guys had all the children,” she said, smiling.
In other circumstances Desh might have returned her smile, but he forced himself to remain expressionless and maintained his icy stare. He was a hostage to a psychopath, and he couldn’t afford to let her charm him.
“Anyway,” she continued with a sigh, clearly disappointed that her brief attempt at levity had had no effect. “My point is that we’re not wired for math. How does a square root help us kill a lion or stay alive? It doesn’t. What does help us is the ability to throw a spear accurately. Or to dodge a spear thrown by a rival clan,” she added. “And remember, unlike a computer, the brain is controlling our every movement, breath, heartbeat, and blink of an eye, and even our every emotion. And all the while it’s taking in massive amounts of sensory information—nonstop. Your retina alone has over one hundred million cells constantly relaying visual information to your brain; in ultra-high definition I might add. If a computer had to monitor and manage your every bodily function and download, process, and react to this never-ending barrage of information, it would melt.”
Desh was fascinated despite himself. Maybe she was the devil, he thought grimly. Here he was fighting for his life and inexplicably, against his will, he continued to respond to her both physically and intellectually.
“The roundworm C. elegans functions quite well with a nervous system containing just 302 neurons,” continued Kira. “Do you know how many neurons the human brain has?”
“More than 302,” said Desh wryly.
“One hundred billion,” said Kira emphatically. “One hundred billion! And on the order of one hundred trillion synaptic connections between them. Not to mention two million miles of axons. Electrical signals are constantly zipping along neuronal pathways like pinballs, creating thought and memory. The possible number of neuronal pathways that can be formed by the human brain are basically infinite. And a computer uses base two. A circuit can either be on or off; one or zero. But your brain is far more nuanced. The number of possible circuits your brain can use for calculation, or thought, or invention, puts the possible number available to computers to shame.”
“Okay,” said Desh, nodding toward her with his head since his hands were still cuffed to the headboard and unavailable for any gesturing. “Whatever else is true or false, you are an expert molecular neurobiologist, so I’ll concede the point. The brain has massive potential.” He paused and raised his eyebrows. “But how do you tap into this potential?”
“Good question,” she said. “If you’re me, you start by studying differences between the brain architecture of geniuses and those that are moderately mentally handicapped.”
“What does moderately mean?”
“IQ of forty to fifty-five. They’re able to learn up to about a second grade level. The dynamic range in human intelligence is remarkable. From the severely mentally handicapped with IQs less than twenty-five to those rarities with IQs above two hundred. Nature has already demonstrated the plasticity of the human brain and human intelligence before I came along,” she pointed out. “I also learned everything I could about autistic savants.”
“Is that a new name for what they used to call idiot savants?”
“Exactly. Like Dustin Hoffman in the movie Rain Man?”
Desh nodded. “I’m familiar with the condition.”
“Good. Then you know there are autistic savants who can rival your dollar calculator at math, able to multiply large numbers and even compute square roots instantly. Some of them can memorize entire phone books,” she added, snapping her fingers, “just like that.”
Desh’s eyes narrowed in thought. Idiot savants did provide a unique perspective on the potential of the human brain.
“They can perform amazing feats in a specific area, but their emotional intelligence is very low, and their understanding and judgment is poor. Why? Because they’re wired differently than you and I,” she explained. “My goal was to understand the genetic basis for these differences in their neuronal patterns. To map the differences between autistic savants and normals. To ultimately find a way to cause a temporary rewiring in a normal brain; to achieve autistic-savant-like capabilities, but differently, more comprehensively, and without the notable deficiencies. Not just to optimize the brain for math and memory tricks, but for intelligence and creativity. Tap into the brain’s almost limitless raw power.”
“Using gene therapy?”
“Correct,” said Kira. “The structure of our brain is always changing. Every thought, memory, sensory input, and experience actually remodels the brain—very, very slightly. I learned that the differences between the brains of autistic savants and normals were surprisingly subtle. And almost like crystal formation, once you nucleate a tiny portion of the brain into a more efficient, optimized structure, you get a chain-reaction that re-orders the rest. There are a number of fetal genes instrumental in setting up neuronal patterns during initial brain development that are turned off after birth. Using gene therapy, I could reactivate whichever of these genes I wanted in a given sequence and at a given expression level.”
Kira paused for a few seconds to allow Desh to absorb what she was saying and see if he had any questions.
“Go on,” he said.
“I started by experimenting on rodents. I used NeuroCure’s facility late at night so I could keep the research secret.”
“Why secret? The approach makes intuitive sense—even to a dumb grunt like me.”
“I’ve studied you far too carefully to buy the dumb grunt routine, David.”
“I ask again,” persisted Desh, “why not pursue this avenue openly?”
“I only wish I could have,” said Kira. She held up a finger. “First off, fellow scientists would think it was a wild-goose-chase that couldn’t possibly succeed.” She held up another finger. “Secondly, the FDA let’s you risk putting foreign biologics or chemicals in a person’s body, but only to help relieve them of a disease or adverse medical condition. Trying to improve someone who has nothing wrong with them is, ah … frowned upon.”
“Too much like playing God?” guessed Desh.
“That, and it’s also considered an unnecessary risk. The FDA would never sanction something like this. And without the agency’s approval, it’s illegal to test this approach on humans.”
“Even on yourself?”
She nodded. “Even on myself. I was risking my entire career and reputation. If someone found out, believe me, I wouldn’t be applauded. Especially in this case. Think about it, trying to alter the brain’s architecture, the very seat of the human soul. Playing God, as you said. There’s an ethical and moral dimension here that is quite complicated.”
“But you didn’t let that stop you,” said Desh accusingly.
She shook her head firmly but there was a note of regret in her expression. “No,” she replied with a sigh. “I was convinced I could succeed. I was only risking myself. And the potential rewards were staggering.”
“The ends justify the means?”
“What would you do?” she demanded defensively. “Assume for a moment you had reason to believe you could solve key problems facing humanity; invent technologies that could revolutionize society. But you had to skirt some of society’s rules. Do you do it?”