The Cupel Recruits (9 page)

“And, are you following me? I mean, what are you doing here if you’re obviously not here to see Phillip Harriman?” she asked.

“I’ve been assigned to you while they’re doing the investigation, just in case what happened to your family was not an accident. We can’t afford to risk you being hurt,” he advised.

“Captain Willingham assigned you to me?” she asked, indignant. Brett laughed gently.

“No, Ms. Aquila, I do not work for Captain Willingham. I was a Captain about eight years ago. I’m here at the request of General Charles.”

“
General
Charles,” Lela repeated, absorbing the title of her father’s closest friend, “Look, I appreciate the babysitting offer, but I can take care of myself. I leave for Africa tomorrow, anyway, so you’re off the hook.”

“With all respect,” Brett countered, “my presence is required or you will be placed into federal protective custody, so you need to get used to it. I’m here more as a favor to a friend than in an official capacity, so think of me as a tourist added to your crew. My ticket for tomorrow’s flight is already booked.”

“Great,” Lela concluded and could tell from the look on his face that this was not a battle she would win.

Ruth Fielding stopped Saraceni just outside the training room.

“How are they doing?” she asked. Catching a quick briefing in the hallway often gave her information the team was too guarded to reveal in an official briefing, so she did it often. Saraceni was used to this and always left ten minutes early for the training room in case he was stopped on the way.

“Pretty well,” he responded. “They seem to be a pretty good group. Nothing revolutionary so far that makes me see why they are the Molior class, but it’s early.”

“Maybe today’s test results will yield something,” Ruth hoped.

“As soon as they analyze their results and we begin the teambuilding exercise, I will have Wood or Stone reprint their results from Platform 2 and run them to the senior leadership committee for full review,” he confirmed.

“Excellent, and Saraceni, if you need any additional resources, any at all, you let me know. We don’t want you to be underwater on this one and not speak up,” she instructed supportively. Saraceni was slightly embarrassed. His one major weakness in his work style was a reluctance to request additional help. He preferred to gut it out and make up for lost time alone. He knew she was right. She was always right.

When Saraceni entered the training room, most of the class was grouped along the back wall, discussing the paintings. He’d never had a class hold a seminar on the artwork before. He walked up behind them quietly and without notice.

“They all have similar themes,” George observed.

“People talking to God,” Chandra interjected.

“How is this one people talking to God?” Juliet asked, pointing to the first prehistoric painting. ”It’s people reaching up to this circle with lines beneath it. That looks like the sun. They’re probably sun-worshippers or something.”

“God was frequently represented in art as the center, or the sun,” Chandra responded.

“Look, you can’t impose your beliefs on everyone. Look at this modern one, it has stars and animals. No God.” Juliet held her hands up displaying their emptiness. The class noticed Saraceni’s presence and looked at him expectantly.

“I’m no art critic,” Saraceni said, and walked toward the front of the room. Molior followed and took their seats.

“So, yesterday we learned the basics of the outer universe. Today we’re going to explore the basics of the inner universe.” Saraceni moved quickly to Platform 2 and turned on the machine. The class groaned. “No, no, none of the other tests carry the same discomfort as the sensory acclimation test. I am sorry that was required.”

The class perked up a bit. “This machine records, sequences and analyzes your DNA and prints out a report you will be using for an important exercise today. So, let’s get the tests completed and then I’ll explain what you will be doing with them,” Saraceni communicated. "David, while we are conducting the tests, which are very brief, can you please explain this to the class?”. Saraceni dropped a file folder in front of David. Running Wolf opened the folder, and despite his extensive genetics background, was slightly puzzled by what he saw.

“Well, it looks like the Pheres software results, but much more complicated. There are sequences here I’ve never seen before,” he looked at Saraceni like a baby bird waiting for its worm, but it wasn’t feeding time yet. Saraceni reassured his pupil, but wanted the class to begin their thinking process while he was running the test.

“Please just explain the basics of what you do know and then I’ll bat clean up,” Saraceni urged. Part of Molior’s development process was about developing confidence in their own ability to analyze and execute. While they should look to him for guidance, if they became overly dependent, it could hamper their ultimate mission performance. “Kyle, let’s start with your test and just work our way down the right side of the room.” David stood up and held up the multicolored chart so the class could see.

“Okay, so this is similar to a DNA program we use back in my lab called Pheres. These colored blocks within the circle represent individual DNA code and then…” he switched charts to show a block presentation in place or a circular presentation, but the same color scheme, “…this one is a different representation of the same information, but the longer, rectangles make it easier to see matching sequences. For example, here is a sequence: green, orange, purple, red, yellow. Um, the key is different on this than what I’m used to, so I can’t identify the code, but, see here’s a matching sequence.”

“So, what’s a ‘matching sequence’, like if they match, does that mean you’re in the same family or you have the same hair color or what?” Kyle asked. By now he had returned and Jack was being tested.

“Well, Kyle,” David switched back to the circular chart, “genes are grouped here according to function, so items that do similar things are grouped together, like this section might govern the way you look and the adjacent section might govern disease states, so depending where you find a matching sequence would tell you what kind of similarity the match meant between two subjects.”

Jack returned to his seat with his printout of results and Juliet took her place at the platform.

“But what if you matched in some gene that wasn’t identified yet? I mean, they don’t know what they all do, right? Aren’t they still figuring out what some of them do?” Kyle asked

“Right,” David confirmed, “Actually, that’s much of my life’s work, figuring out what genes go to what functions or diseases. Actually, only about 5% of our DNA is even functional and only about a fifth of that does any protein-coding, so there really is just a bunch of unknown mixed in there as well, which most think is nonfunctional.”

“So matching the unknown junk is a waste of time, and you match the stuff that counts?” Kyle affirmed his understanding.

“We focus on sequencing the known, but also look for hidden clues to the unknown. It’s as much luck as science, though,” David responded.

“So, what’s the rest of it?” Jack Reedson piped up for the first time, “I have a hard time believing it’s just there for no reason. Wasn’t there a time when we didn’t know the function of any of it-we probably thought it was
all
there for no reason.”

“Well, there’s a debate about that right now among my colleagues. See, DNA wraps around partner proteins to form chromatin, and by looking at the chemical groups on the chromatin, the cells can tell which sections of DNA should be transcribed. So, scientists noticed that the transcribed ones have a chemical mark on them, but then they noticed many more of these chemical marks than there were protein-coding genes, so people started arguing that they must be marking something else, something other than proteins. So, it was suggested that they’re a type of RNA, you know how there’s messenger RNA, but there are also functional RNAs and then we recently found a new class called microRNAs, and the non-coding or linc RNAs. Well, lincRNAs have always been thought to be an exception, an anomaly, but some of us think they’re actually critical components and do perform a specific function. We just don’t know what it is yet,” David explained.

“Sorry I asked,” Jack whispered to Kyle with a raised eyebrow. Kyle smiled, but they both were actually interested.

“So, you think they have a function? I mean personally?” Juliet asked.

“Yes,” David admitted.

“Why?” she inquired.

“Because it’s consistent across all mammals. Usually genes that aren’t needed fall by the wayside. But these are there, and in large numbers-there’s like 1600 of these in the genome, and similar in all animals. That suggests to me they serve a vital function because of the consistency,” he confessed.

Gabriel, the last of Molior to test on Platform 2, stepped down from the platform and received his printout from Saraceni, who was now turning his attention back to the class. He was pleased they had gotten as far as they did and impressed that David had advanced to this level of understanding.

“Mr. Running Wolf,” Saraceni began to take back the reigns of the class, “don’t they call that the DNAs dark matter?”

“Yes,” David answered, sliding his large frame back into his seat at the table, somewhat grateful to return the class’s attention to their teacher.

“So, just to relate this back to what we were discussing yesterday, amongst all the matter and space within the universe, there also exists dark matter out in space. Our geneticist friends are likening these items of unknown function to a similar phenomenon that exists beyond the cellular level. Mr. Aquila, can you briefly describe dark matter in the universe just so we can all stay on the same page? ”

Alexander began, but Saraceni cut him off, “I’m sorry, Alexander, but since you were so helpful yesterday explaining quantum information processing, I was hoping the junior Mr. Aquila could assist us today. Gabriel?” Saraceni watched Gabriel intently. This recruit had been quieter than expected and uncharacteristically so for his personality. The leadership paradigm for this team was relying on his charismatic personality and personal leadership style to encourage and motivate the others later during their mission. If he didn’t start establishing his role as a lead figure now, the mission could suffer. Saraceni would nudge him out if his shell.

“Dark matter is really an unknown entity in astronomy, but it’s hypothesized matter that’s not visible, doesn’t emit or reflect electromagnetic radiation the way regular matter does, but its’ existence is presumed from the gravitational effects we do see on visible matter like galaxies and stars.” Gabriel recited it rote. He’d been tested on this many times in college and had it memorized verbatim.

“Good enough for now. Just trying to keep our concepts fresh so we don’t have to revisit later,” Saraceni said, switching topics. “So-now that you have your results from the Platform 2 genetic testing, you have an assignment to complete with them.”

“Mine is shorter than everyone else’s,” George observed, concerned that he was missing some portions of his printout.

“So is mine,” Kyle added.

“Yes, yours are shorter. A section has been removed to….preserve the intent of this exercise.” Saraceni was again careful with his words. George and Kyle’s sequences were so dense that they would make the exercise too long, so Saraceni had held them back. “It will not alter today’s exercise and I will provide them to you on a later training day so you will have a complete report.”

“Sounds like they’re just trying to make it challenging or something,” Jane said to George next to her and he didn’t pursue.

“Your assignment is to identify all sequences that you have in common with each other, then count up the colors of the matching sequences, arrange them in descending order from the color of the greatest amount of concordance to the color of the least amount of concordance. Everyone with me so far?” The class nodded and murmured agreement, so he continued, “Once you are that far, Wood here will escort you outside to a training area and you will proceed through the course following the colored markers that correspond to your matching sequences. “

Wood stood up in the back and nodded to the class, acknowledging his participation.

“He will also hand out the gear you will need. You will be given fifteen minutes following Part I of the exercise to change into your athletic clothing before he escorts you outside for Part II,” Saraceni concluded.

“I thought we couldn’t go outside?” Jane asked, concerned.

“In controlled circumstances, you can. The area is controlled for this exercise,” Saraceni responded.

“Controlled-how can they keep germs from being in the air at large?” Juliet asked Gabriel, supposedly sidebar, but Saraceni did hear.

“You were each given additional supplements at breakfast this morning. They were for this purpose,” Saraceni informed. Juliet looked down, realizing she had overstepped her bounds. Saraceni turned to leave, but turned back abruptly, “and…there will be a reward if you reach the end of the assignment correctly and within the time limit,” he added. With that, he left, and the class knew that but for Wood escorting them outside, they were on their own.

“So, what’s the best way to approach matching up our sequences?” Chandra asked David.

“I always just match them one at a time, line by line. It’s the most foolproof, but that will take forever with ten of us to examine,” he answered. They all began standing in a huddled group and holding their sheets side by side. It would be hard to look at all the pages lined up visually, and the potential for error or missed identical sequences would be great.

“We should call bingo,” Gabriel announced.

“Bingo?” Enam looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Yeah. One person reads out theirs in order and if we find a matching sequence, we each mark it off on our sheets. Then, the next person calls off only their sequences that didn’t match. Then we continue with each of us and it should get progressively shorter for each person, rather than taking the full amount of time times ten. It’s the shortest path that still covers every permutation without potential for a miss,” he explained.

“Sounds reasonable to me,” his father supported, “Can anyone think of a better way?” They all glanced around and no one came forth, so the consensus became solidified. Since it was his idea, Gabriel began and Molior intently marked their sheets accordingly. They went around the room, one by one, calling the remaining unmarked sequences, until they had moved all the way around the room from the back left table where Gabriel sat, to the second and last table on the right, where his father sat. To be sure they did not follow sequences that only a few of the classmates had in common, they went through each sequence and the class raised their hand if they had it marked. They highlighted only the ones where all ten of them raised their hands, which were greater in number than expected. David Running Wolf was instantly concerned.