Chapter 35 (My Story)

AFTER LABOR DAY, life sped up. I helped Dad apply for a passport and it went through without a hitch. Mom’s passport was out of date, so we got that renewed, too. They’d spotted a seniors’ cruise in the Caribbean and booked themselves on it.

Things really started heating up at work and it seemed like we were under a lot of pressure, after releasing the alpha version of our software, to get it connected to the actual hardware it would operate. Of course, all the way through the development cycle, the implantable device would function without being implanted. Later, our partner company would experiment with implanting it in various animals. That probably wouldn’t occur until at least summer.

People had bought into the falsehood of Bill Gates using the COVID-19 vaccine to implant tracking chips back in 2020. We knew there was no kind of technology we could devise to date that could be implanted through a vaccine needle. Not to mention that everyone was already trackable via the device that was always in their hand.

Smart watches were pretty common these days, but they had limited ability to track what was in the blood. They couldn’t reliably tell when a person needed insulin, for example, no matter how they advertised it. There were continuous glucose monitors available that operated with a small electrode under the skin to constantly evaluate blood sugar. These could be paired with an insulin delivery device and monitored through a smartphone app. I wondered if the new device would include an insulin delivery system. I needed to dive back into the spec.

The new implant would be able to perform a host of other blood tests: sodium, potassium, and chloride levels would be among the first. Active diseases could also be detected through blood samples—even some forms of cancer.

What people didn’t realize when they fantasized about being tracked by a chip, was this device would be close to an inch square when it was finally released. Even for so-called nanotechnology, a tiny device was still big when put beneath the skin. Our partners were working on reducing the size. It seemed possible. There were pacemakers available now that could be implanted directly in the heart. They were just an inch long and about a quarter inch in diameter. But they had just one function and limited monitoring—just send the signal to keep the heart beating.

Megan got back to town before Dad’s birthday on the eighteenth of September. I’d occasionally witnessed my sister when she was focused on a task. She could go for days, it seemed, with little or no sleep when she was on the scent of something.

The University clinic and lab took dozens of blood samples each day. A new release form, when signed, allowed them to send a sample to the genetics lab. I didn’t understand everything about the release specifications, but essentially, Megan could identify everything about the subject except their actual identity. General genetic information was forwarded back to the subject via the clinic. That information was essentially the same as what one would get through a commercial genetic testing site that told general characteristics and heritage, plus any discovered pointers to genetically inherited disease vulnerability.

Since the test didn’t cost patients anything and offered the same genealogical information, the percentage of people opting in was quite high. But they weren’t necessarily the target clientele that Megan needed. She began advertising through local community sites for ‘people from Ann Arbor with particularly good health.’ Those were a little slower coming in.

Nonetheless, she was quickly able to test DNA samples for the genome and found about one out of fifty showed positive for MBD4, a VUS or unknown variant gene that seemed to be where the qRNA was encoded.

Another of the advantages she had in working at the University was that she and Simon—her partner in this—were able to recruit lab assistants to process the samples and record the data.

“Well, I could do that,” Dad said when we were all having a Sunday dinner in October.

It was the first time we’d all met Simon, and he was getting along great with the family.

“How would you be able to do it?” Simon asked.

“Well, what you are describing is pretty much what my job was for nearly forty years. You have a questionnaire and you interview the subject. For me, it was people on the phone or responding to a survey. For you, it’s a spreadsheet of data that you need to generate statistical information from. It seems like the same thing,” Dad said.

“I think you’re right, Dad,” Megan said. “I never stopped to think about how close it was to what you did for a career. You developed some automated systems to collect the data, too, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes. We were as frequently called upon to do satisfaction surveys for all kinds of businesses as we were to project the results of the coming election.”

“Mr. Holbrook, could we book a little time to talk at the office about the comparison? We might be able to improve some of our current processes just by looking at a similar business,” Simon said. “Meg and I are both trained in statistics, but I for one am always interested in finding a new inspiration.”

“Only if you start using my name,” Dad said. “It’s Eugene, in case Megan hasn’t informed you.”

“Dad, of course I told him your name,” Meg laughed.

“Aunt Megan, does it really look like this mystery gene is linked to our good health?” Lisa asked.

“It’s still too early to make a definitive statement on that,” Meg said. “Our first paper, which is in peer review now, focuses on simply having identified the gene and some of its components. It will move it from a variant of unknown significance to a catalogued variant. Everything else is speculation at the moment. I think if we can get a thousand positive tests, we’ll have enough to draw comparative health data from.”