Wired Page 8

  “Close,” she allowed. She waited again for him to connect the dots.

  Desh’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. The only way to universally make problems easier to solve was to have better tools to solve them. But if enhancing computer capabilities wasn’t the answer, what was? His eyes widened as the answer became obvious. She was a molecular neurobiologist after all, not a computer scientist. “Enhancing intelligence,” he said finally. “Human intelligence.”

  “Exactly,” she said, beaming, as if pleased with a star pupil. “Just imagine if you could have infinite intelligence. Unlimited creativity. Then you could easily solve any problem to which you turned your attention—instantly.” She paused. “Now of course there is no such thing as infinite intelligence. But any significant enhancements to intelligence and creativity would truly be the gift that keeps on giving. What better problem for me to solve?”

  “Are you suggesting you actually solved it?” he asked skeptically.

  “I did,” she confirmed wearily, not looking particularly triumphant or even happy about the supposed accomplishment.

  “What, like a Flowers For Algernon kind of improvement?” he said, knowing that even she wouldn’t have the audacity to claim she had achieved increases in intelligence as great as those described in this story.

  The corners of her mouth turned up in a slight smile. “No. My results were far more impressive than that,” she said matter-of-factly.

  12

  Desh was almost prepared to believe she had managed some kind of improvement in her own intelligence, but not this. “Impossible,” he insisted. “Even for you.”

  “Not impossible. I have a deep knowledge of neurobiology and a genius level intuition with respect to gene therapy. Combine this with single-minded devotion and trial and error and it can be done.”

  “So what are you trying to say, that I’m talking to someone with an IQ of 1000? More?”

  She shook her head. “The effect is transient. I’m just regular me right now.”

  “Very convenient,” said Desh. “Not that I have an IQ test with me anyway,” he conceded. He thought for a moment and then shook his head. “I’m not buying it. We’ve evolved to become the most intelligent creatures on the planet. I’m sure there’s a limit. If we haven’t reached it yet we have to be awfully close.”

  “Are you kidding,” she responded ardently. “You can’t even begin to imagine the potential of the human brain. Without any optimization, it’s already faster and more powerful than the most advanced supercomputers ever built. But it’s theoretical capacity is staggering: thousands and thousands of times greater than a supercomputer.”

  “The human brain isn’t faster than a supercomputer,” argued Desh. “Hell, it isn’t even as fast as a dollar calculator.”

  “We’re not wired for math,” explained Kira, shaking her head. “We evolved, remember? All evolution cares about is survival and reproduction. The brain is optimized to keep us alive in a hostile world and induce its owner to have sex. Period. And when it comes to preoccupation with sex,” she noted, amused, “Male brains are especially optimized.” She continued to look amused as she added, “But don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to criticize men. I’m sure some of our male ancestors didn’t think about sex all the time,” she said. “But this trait died out. Do you know why?”

  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?”

  Desh refused to be drawn in. “What I would do isn’t important,” he replied. “It’s what you did that’s important.”

  Kira was unable to fully hide her disappointment, but she picked up her narrative where she had left off. “NeuroCure’s lab was ideal for my needs. We were working on Alzheimer’s, so it was already set up for the study of intelligence and memory. I used everything I had learned about the brain and autistic savants and developed cocktails of viral vectors with novel gene constructs inserted. Mixtures I thought would achieve my goals. I tested them on lab rats.”

  “I’d like to think that rat brains and human brains aren’t very similar,” said Desh.

  “It would be fair to say there are … slight differences,” she said, amused. “But if you’re questioning if there are enough similarities to make the results meaningful, the answer is that there are.”

  “So, were you able to create your Algernon?”

  “Yes. Algernon was a mouse and I worked mostly on rats,” she pointed out, “but yes. Rat number ninety-four showed dramatic improvements in intelligence. I spent another year perfecting the cocktail.”

  “And then you tried it on yourself.”

  She nodded.

  “And what—you became a super-genius?”

  “No. It almost killed me.” She frowned deeply and looked troubled as she remembered. “Apparently, rat brains and human brains aren’t exactly alike,” she noted wryly. “Who would have guessed?”

  “What happened exactly?”

  Kira shifted in her chair and a pained expression crossed her face. “There were a multitude of negative effects. I won’t describe them all. Complete loss of hearing. Some ‘trippy’ hallucinogenic and bizarre sensory effects like those caused by LSD. A killer headache.” She paused. “But the worst part was that I found the re-wiring had impacted parts of my autonomic nervous system. My heartbeat and breathing were no longer automatic.” She shook her head in horror. “Every single second for the three hours the transformation lasted—while dealing with LSD like hallucinations—I had to consciously instruct my heart to beat and my lungs to inhale, just as you would have to instruct your hand to clench, over and over.” She shuddered. “It was the longest, most terrifying three hours of my life—by far.”

  Desh found himself totally absorbed. “And this result didn’t scare you off?”

  “Almost,” she said earnestly. “Almost. But the rat work had shown me that it was an iterative process. The first seventy-eight rats died, so at least the research with them gave me enough direction that I avoided this fate—narrowly. But starting with rat seventy-nine, I was able to gradually refine the rewiring without further casualties, leading to number ninety-four.”

  “So you thought you could replicate this result with yourself as the lab rat?”

  “Exactly. The next few experiments I conducted inside a flotation tank. This way I didn’t have sensory input constantly bombarding my brain and tying up neuronal real estate. I could focus on what was happening in the creative centers of my brain.” She paused. “It took me another eighteen months to build to the current, stable level of intelligence, fifty to one hundred IQ points at a time. The more I improved my own intelligence the more obvious additional improvements became. At each new level, problems I had struggled with for weeks became solvable in minutes.”

  Desh thought about her claim. Could she really have shown this magnitude of improvement? Maybe. The existence of autistic savants certainly made this a possibility. As she had pointed out, it was undeniable that these rare humans could effortlessly calculate square roots or memorize entire phone books. How long would it take him to match these same feats? The answer was easy—never.

  Her story was far-fetched, but at the moment it all held together and explained her after-hours experiments at NeuroCure and why a sensory deprivation tank had been found in her condo.

  “And your final IQ?”

  “In the end, there was no way to measure it. The most challenging problems on a standard IQ test were instantly obvious. Any number generated on this scale would no longer have meaning.”

  Desh considered. “So how do you administer this viral gene cocktail of yours?”

  “Injections in the beginning. But I ultimately made advances and was able to imbed the solution inside hollowed-out gellcaps. This is basically the same as drinking the mix, except the gellcaps deliver precise doses and are more convenient. A gellcap hits the stomach, dissolves almost immediately, and releases the collection of genetically engineered viruses. They travel to the brain instantly and within a relatively short time they’ve inserted their payload genes into cellular chromosomes, which are rapidly expressed.”

  Desh paused in thought. “Were you able to eliminate the negative effects?”

  Kira sighed heavily. “For the most part,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I lost my ability to feel emotions. I became purely analytical, achieving thought in its purest form, divorced from any bias or emotional baggage. I did the experiments in my condo,” she explained. “I locked myself in and was alone, so I can’t be certain there weren’t other personality changes that would have been noticeable to people who knew me.” She lowered her eyes. “But there was one effect of the rewiring that was particularly troubling to me,” she admitted.


  Desh looked on expectantly.

  “During the short time the effect lasted,” said Kira Miller, “my thoughts became more and more,” she paused as if searching for a word. She frowned and shook her head worriedly. “I guess the best word for it would have to be, sociopathic,” she finished disturbingly.

  13

  Desh’s eyes widened. Once again, Kira Miller had surprised him. She had made such an effort to convince him she wasn’t a sociopath, chipping away at his resolve with worrisome effectiveness, only to make a statement like this.

  “That’s convenient,” said Desh. “You’re a model citizen. It’s this procedure of yours that somehow brings out the psycho in you. Is that it?” he demanded, annoyed that he had let himself be taken in by her for even a moment.

  “Look, David, I didn’t have to share this with you. But the only way you’ll ever trust me is if I tell you the absolute truth about everything. And no, I still didn’t do any of what Connelly says I did. These were thoughts only. I didn’t act on them,” she insisted. “They were simply strong predispositions, and they went away when my brain architecture returned to normal.”

  “So tell me about this state of sociopathy,” said Desh.

  Kira frowned. “Just so I’m clear,” she said, “sociopathy isn’t the exact right word for it either. Neither is ‘psychopath’ or ‘megalomaniac’, although they come almost as close. Basically, it’s pure selfishness with a complete and utter lack of conscience. Whatever you choose to call it. A ruthless selfishness, so to speak.”

  “As opposed to what?”

  “As opposed to this same condition with a sadistic element attached.”

  Desh considered. “I see,” he said. “So you don’t get your jollies by torturing others, but if you had to do so to achieve an end it wouldn’t trouble you in the slightest. Is that about right?”

  Kira nodded reluctantly.

  “That’s comforting,” said Desh with a look of disgust. He paused in thought. “This something-like-sociopathy of yours seems like an unlikely side effect of your treatment,” he said suspiciously.