Page 30 - Unlikely Stories 1

DeathCon

Now, what we’ve done here is analyze the nucleotide bonding
between layers of telomere, the protective caps on your DNA that
enable it to copy itself accurately when the cell it occupies divides. In
normal circumstances, those caps disintegrate slowly over time—
that’s one reason we age: after a certain number of copies, the
telomeres end up shortened beyond being able to protect their DNA
against transcription errors, leading to cell death and the
abnormalities of cancer. You are probably aware of the longevity
research focusing on telomere preservation.”
“Uh, no, not really. So how does this Atropos 500 work?”
“Without getting into the biochemistry, Buell, I can tell you
my discovery of anti-telomerase, would, under other circumstances,
be worthy of a Nobel Prize—he was a major armament manufacturer
as well as a chemist who invented dynamite, you know, but I’m not
bitter. It is a simple compound patented under the name of Atropos,
the license owned by Genomonix. It can be sprayed as an aerosol or
introduced to the food chain completely undetected. Once in the
bloodstream it is taken into the cells of the body with little or no
resistance. There it begins dissolving the linkages holding telomeres
together. Months will pass before the enemy realizes it is facing an
epidemic of disease and premature death, none of it apparently the
direct result of an attack by a hostile power. The ‘500’ refers to the
number of days it remains stable; after that it decomposes into water
and CO2, leaving not a trace.”
“Ooh, that sounds wicked, Jessie. But now that you’ve gone
public with this, how can you be certain that the enemy won’t realize
right away that their people have been sabotaged by your diabolical
molecules?”
“Oh, Buell, that’s really cute. I don’t know if your naiveté is
for real—is it? Oh, don’t answer and spoil it for me—but you really
must know that Genomonix is also working on a test for the
presence of Atropos and an antidote to counter its effects. You see,
we’ve learned from agribusiness biotech: create the problem and its
solution, the pesticide and the resistant seed, and sell them both.”

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