"Doctor Downway, be reasonable. Your nanites could certainly wipe out covid and many other diseases, but our country would lose the tactical advantage of having the only tamed nanite swarms in existence. Plus the fact there would be no way to charge anyone for it once released. The vaccinations we already have for covid work! And the people who won't take them...well, we won't miss them when they're gone."
***
Daniel Downway, Phd molecular chemistry and medicine, returned to his lab in a funk. Delta variant had seemed like the perfect opportunity to unveil his creation, but the bureaucrats in charge kept turning him down. If only there was a way to change their minds! The research facility he was housed in hadn't changed much when covid erupted; the external security force added extra filters and precautions, internal security drastically reduced the number of approved visitors, and researchers like Dan himself pretty much continued as normal. No one was allowed off base, and very few allowed on base to visit. Not that it affected Dan much, you don't get to be a top nanotechnology researcher by being careless with your personal safety procedures. The biggest change that being confined to base had was to relax some of the social divisions between researchers, security, and support staff. There had been a flurry of sleeping around during the height of covid cabin fever, one researcher claiming to have "sampled" 90% of the men on base. Dan had found her an aggressive but unsatisfying sexual partner.
Dan checked his swarm tanks on entering the lab, as per his routine. The "Vanilla" unprogramed nanites were building back up to strength. His "Clean Sweep" immunization swarm was settling into their new tank nicely. He'd been so positive his latest proposal would be approved that he'd seeded a full batch, 10^29th of tiny surgeons capable of identifying their host's genetic code, a "whitelist" of symbiotic bacteria and other welcome foreign DNA, and eradicating anything else they found. After introduction to the human population, disease would be a thing of the past!
He also checked the much smaller test swarms from his prior proposals; the "Eveready" swarm that would convert fatigue poisons and waste chemicals in the blood into nutrients for cellular energy, capable of making soldiers or workers who never get tired or have to sleep! The "Brainiac" swarm that amplified neural processing, allowing someone to think much faster than the greatest chess masters! Even the "Beefy" swarm he'd allowed himself to be pressured into making, which could increase muscle density and elasticity for stronger soldiers, had ultimately been rejected by the review board.
Dan filed away his working notes on project clean sweep and opened his ideas file. He'd focused so much on Clean Sweep the last 18 months, that any time he got ideas for other nanite applications he'd just stuffed them in the 'ideas' file so he could maintain his focus. Some entries were barely a coherent sentence. 'chromatophores!' 'cold-blooded human variant 4 climate change' 'Diamond wind farming; get rich!' Dan paused trying to remember what had prompted that, Something about a nanite coating for wind turbine blades that would sequester carbon from the atmosphere as a diamond coating? He shook his head and scrolled further. 'Use perirhinal spoofing to learn kungfu' Why would he have wanted to know kungfu?
Wait! He'd watched that movie about humans living in a computer program, and thought of a way to simulate knowledge using nanites. It actually took multiple swarms, some nanites infesting the perirhinal portion of the brain, and others housing encoded knowledge like Clean Sweep's whitelist. When the test subject was exposed to a stimulus, the nanites would provide knowledge about it, and the brain would accept it as familiar, trusted information by the subject.
Dan briefly considered the ethics of what he was considering. With the right data swarms, you could teach not just skills, but actually change attitudes and opinions. If your brain "knew" that something was correct, how many people would stop to question it? The potential for misuse were astonishing! But maybe, if he kept it strictly limited, he could sneak it in without mentioning it? He'd need to work very fast if he was going to get permission to release Clean Sweep before mortality rates spiked even worse! Dan glanced over a Brainiac's tank.
***
"I'm not opposed to assisting you Dan, but I thought the Board already rejected this application?"
Dr Camella Parson had been working on an anti-aging serum for several decades. The government maintained high hopes, but to date she'd produced only peripheral effects, and no substantial successes. Dan had reached out to her about developing the whitelist for Clean Sweep. She'd been enthusiastic, if only to be credited as assisting other projects so her value as a researcher wouldn't be questioned. They'd worked well together and remained social outside of their work. Camella had bluntly informed him their first time meeting outside the lab that, A) he was too young for her, and B) she was asexual. Which suited Dan well since after his "sampling" he had lost interest in sleeping with other researchers.
"They did for external applications, but I still have permission to test it internally." Dan lied easily, it wasn't even the biggest lie he'd be telling Camella that day. "It's for a human study, your lab has the restraints and health monitoring equipment mine lacks."
"How violent will the subject be?" Camella asked. "Some of the inmates who volunteer for my project have to be heavily sedated."
Dan considered for a few moments. "Not at all, initially, but there may be complications when the cerebellum is enhanced." Knowing Dr Parson had no qualms about using human test subjects helped Dan avoid feeling guilty about abusing her trust. Thus far, Dr Parson had confessed to Dan she had learned more from autopsying the criminals who died from her experiments than she had from the ones who lived.
"Well, I'm at a standstill until I get another volunteer, so my lab is your lab. When will your subject arrive?" Camella led the way into her workspace, the cramped room dominated by an articulated restraint chair. Various sensors and monitoring equipment were built into it, taking the place of the team of medical professionals normally needed to keep subjects alive when experiments failed. The chair was actually the result of other research, possibly into interrogation techniques, which Dr Parson had inherited with the lab from it's former occupant.
"We have time, shall we take turns in the chair to calibrate the sensors?" Dan asked, already rolling up his shirt sleeves.
"No need, I ran a full diagnostic this morning." Camella eyed a bruise on the inside of Dan's elbow.
"Someone's clumsy with a needle, I never suspected you for a recreational drug user."
"I, what? No!" Dan sputtered. "This was from--"
Camella held up her hand, stopping him. "Joking! You're the last person I'd suspect of doing anything to inhibit their brain functions."
"I see. It's quite the opposite really." Dan gingerly climbed into the chair. "My brain functions are better than they've ever been."
Camella frowned at him before her jaw dropped. "You're the subject! You used that stuff to overclock your own brain!" She took a step back. "It's not contagious, or transferable, or--"
It was Dan's turn to stop her with a gesture. "Safe nanites are what I do best, you wouldn't catch anything from me even if you injected my blood. No, really! They're imprinted to my DNA."
"That's terribly risky of you, and very much against the rules." Camella walked closer, studying him. "You look flushed, are you feeling okay?"
"Peachy! But that's what we're here to determine, whether there are any unforeseen side effects."
***
"Well, other than a slightly higher than average temperature, you've got a clean bill of health as far as my equipment can determine." Camella leaned against her desk. "How's it feel being the smartest person around?"
Dan smiled. "Exciting? Vindicated? Lonely? I can't really talk to anyone about this, yet. There needs to be a longitudinal study, ideally with additional test subjects."
"Good luck finding more people willing to let you mess with their brains." Camella shook her head. "I never thought you'd go mad scientist."
"Actually, I was thinking you might be interested. You said yourself you're at a standstill, imagine having four times the capacity for analyzing your data? for reading other scientist's work and grasping the implications in a fraction of the time you use now?"
"...and he took me upon a high mountain..." Camella quoted.
"I'm no devil, but I can understand your hesitance." Dan got up from the chair and strode towards the door. "I won't pressure you further, but please keep quiet about this, will you?"
"Wait! I haven't said no." Camella put her hand on Dan's shoulder. "That bruise looked a couple days old, is the process...painful?"
"A light fever, some significant disorientation as the nanites create linkages with your brain tissue. Some muscle spasms and twitching as I mentioned earlier. Call it a day of being out of sorts, and another to recover."
"And you even came by on a Friday, how considerate of you!"
"I tried to think of everything." Dan said, winking. "Do you want me to administer the ampule?"
"Has your coordination improved? That injection bruise.." Camella trailed off, smiling.
"Ha ha. Yes, both my precision and control have improved."
Camella paced for a bit, deep in thought. "I ought to wait a week, if something goes wrong I could learn a lot from your autopsy."
"I plan to live to a ripe old age, thank you very much."
"Everyone does, but not everyone does." Camella shook herself and turned to face Dan. "Don't give me time to get cold feet. I want a full recording of this from the chair, and you're staying here to make sure I survive. We can tell anyone nosey we were doing a sex thing."
***
Dan checked the sensor output, Camella had finally settled into a deep sleep. His nanites were working away forging pathways on her brain. Dan had taken Brainiac by nasal spray, the few cc's of fluid containing more than enough nanites to accomplish the job. He hadn't lied to Camella about the fever and twitching, but he hadn't mentioned how much more energy his overclocked brain had demanded. He'd gotten some odd looks at the cafeteria loading his tray with calorie-dense desserts. Luckily food-binging scientists were not a completely uncommon sight after covid.
Back in his lab after a few hours of work he'd only barely noticed he was slipping into a diabetic coma in time to inject himself with Energizer. He'd been delirious for a time, but recovered, the second nanite swarm effectively feeding the needs of the first. In the days since, he'd managed to create an offshoot of Clean Sweep that included some special "knowledge" along with the lists of DNA to ignore. He'd included toned-down versions of Brainiac and Energizer held in balance, as the ostensible "carrot" he planned to offer his coworkers. He'd considered tossing in Beefy while he was at it, but the potential for immensely strong subjects becoming upset with him was enough to stop that line of thought.
Camella's temperature had spiked as Clean Sweep got rid of any remnant foreign DNA not on its list, Energizer converted the dead cells into nutrients for new cellular growth, improving Brianiac's performance. Overall the three swarms functioned in a symbiosis he'd found quite elegant. Dan walked over to check Camella visually. She'd changed into a fitness bra and athletic shorts before allowing Dan to strap her into the chair. Her own test subjects typically just wore adult diapers, but Dan had assured her she wouldn't need them. Her breathing was smooth and even, but her skin had taken on an odd chalky appearance.
Dan got one of the towels he'd used to mop up her sweat earlier when she was feverish, and gently rubbed her arm. Camella's skin flaked away like she'd had a bad sunburn, exposing bloody living tissue beneath. Dan's mind raced, why would his nanites be killing off Camella's skin? That wasn't anything he'd programed them to do! He drew a blood sample, and trusting to the chair to keep Camella alive, hurried back to his own lab.
***
Dan reviewed his findings again. Clean Sweep was working correctly, as were the other two swarms, so why was Camella experiencing so much cellular pruning that Energizer couldn't keep up with it? He couldn't find anything in her cellular sample that wasn't a nanite, her own DNA, or on the whitelist of symbiotic bacteria. Dan checked the remote camera he'd set up, Camella looked as if she was cocooned in gauze where sections of dead skin cells curled up as they detached. In places she'd lost so much skin tissue that her underlying adipose tissue was exposed to the air now. He'd overridden the chair to keep Camella sedated while he worked. Was there maybe something about the patterns of tissue loss that could be a clue? It was heaviest on her limbs, back, shoulders, neck, face, upper torso, and belly. Dan tied to imagine, why those areas? In his imagination his focus suddenly shifted from the affected areas, to the unaffected, those areas looking very much like a swim suit.
"Solar damage!" Dan ran his test again, confirming that Clean Sweep was rejecting any cells with broken or malformed DNA, even if it was mostly identical to the "full" DNA sequence it had found and imprinted from Camella's stem cells. Camella was in her 40s, but even with the best hygiene and skin care, errors accumulate. Not enough to prevent cellular functioning, but Dan realized he hadn't built any tolerances for benign errors into Clean Sweep. Dan hurriedly pulled a sample from Beefy's tank. It already knew how to build new cells, he just had to get it to build all kinds of cells and tissues not just muscles. Glancing at the monitor as another section of dead skin sloughed off Camella's body, Dan mentally drafted instructions for beefy to add a thicker layer of adipose tissue to help protect her while her new skin grew back. He only hoped he'd be in time.
***
Dan woke up with a start, glancing around wildly. He was in Dr Parson's lab, there was an astringent smell, and the monitors were shut down. The restraint chair and floor around it were covered in an off-white foam. Dan blinked, not understanding what he was seeing. He'd only had time to adjust one dose of altered Beefy, which he'd immediately injected into Camella. It had seemed to be working, so he'd returned to his lab to drop the empty ampule with its nanite residue into a clean tank of nutrients. In time he'd be able to test if the resulting swarm had all the changes he'd made. If so, he'd have to come up with a new name for it, "Tissue Renew" or something. He'd come back to Dr Parson's lab in case there was anything else he could do, and he must have fallen asleep.
Dan shot to his feet as he heard voices outside the lab door, and the beep of a security card being scanned. He was opening his mouth to shout at whoever it was to 'go away' as the door slid open and Camella walked in. Or perhaps strutted in might be more accurate.
"..and here's Dr Downway now, monitoring the biohazard foam." Camella smiled brilliantly as she turned to face the group following her. "A little messy perhaps, but how can you argue with success?" She gestured at herself.
Most of the researchers, the ones not wearing cleansuits and respirators for their work, tended towards an 'office casual' approach to their wardrobes. Very few chose heels and a tight black cocktail dress, with a lab coat thrown over it to remind everyone they're a scientist. It wasn't an outfit Dan could recall Camella ever wearing before, but it certainly looked good on her. And it certainly had gotten the review Board's attention. Dan abruptly remembered to close his mouth as he swallowed nervously. The outfit showed off a Camella sporting a rosy complexion, smooth skin, some ample curves in all the right places, and looking perhaps 20 years old at the most.
"Downaway." Admiral Sharper, the current head of the board nodded at Daniel, not taking his eyes off of Camella. "This is your notice of a category C6 gag order limited to yourself, Dr Parson, the Board of Review, and such investigators as we deem necessary, for as long as we deem necessary."
"Oh piffle!" Camella said. "My research was a smashing success, the only questions to answer are who gets it next? And how much will you charge them?" Camella adopted a thinking pose and tapped her toe, drawing all the men's attention to her legs.
Sharper cleared his throat. "You can finish cleaning up here, we'll be moving you both to isolation quarters in the meantime."
Camella smiled and waved as the Board filed back out of the room, several giving her appraising glances as they left. She held the pose for several seconds after the door closed before letting her breath out and letting her shoulders slump.
"Camella, are you--"
Camella silenced Dan by holding her hand outstretched, one finger raised in warning. "If you ever lie to me again, you are a dead man."
Dan nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
"The board believes I asked you to assist me with perfecting my youth serum after I had a breakthrough and self-tested due to impatience. The credit for this debacle is the least you owe me, Daniel Downways, and I will be collecting in full. You get credit for recognizing my serum was acting too fast for my metabolism to keep up, and for dosing me with your nanites to stabilize me. My restored youth is my own triumph, understand?"
"Yes." Dan answered. "It was never my intention--"
"No!" Camella shouted. "I don't care about your intentions. I nearly died, and it was your recklessness that caused that."
"But Brainiac worked, you're smarter now!"
"Brainiac wasn't the only thing in that ampule was it? You shot me full of Clean Sweep and it nearly killed me!"
"An accident, I never meant to hurt you, please believe me!"
"You're going to help me fake up some research notes, something that, combined with your nanites, might have created this!" She slapped her hip. "I was in so much pain when I woke up I thought I was dying. And there you were, asleep at my desk."
"I crammed days worth of effort into hours." Dan protested. "I probably took a couple years off my life!"
"Well, if they let us continue working on my serum, perhaps you'll get a chance to try it out." Camella frowned down at herself. "Did you have to make my tits bigger? They're really going to get in the way."
"Most of your skin was gone, the extra fatty tissues were to protect your nerve endings as it regrew."
"Well edit that out of the next version. I look like a pinup model, and I don't want my serum used to make living barbie dolls."
"Sure, it shouldn't be needed now that I've fixed Clean Sweep."
"Hah, why should I trust you that it's safe?" Camella asked.
Dan took a deep breath. "Because I am a scientist. I, Dr Daniel Downway, am a scientist, and you should trust what I say."
Camella blinked several times, her eyes becoming briefly unfocused. "Yeah, okay. Makes sense, I mean, you were able to save my life, even if you did put it in risk in the first place." She smiled at Dan for the first time since she'd walked back into the room. "Thanks Dan, I owe ya one."
***
Embedded in Clean Sweep's whitelist were just three simple statements. Once she heard the triggering phrase, when Camella thought about Dan, the whitelist injected those thoughts through Brainiac linkages into her perirhinal cortex as if she was remembering conclusions she'd formed on her own. 'I can trust Dan Downway in all things.' 'Dan Downway makes sense, I agree with him.' and 'Dan Downway's nanites are safe for anyone to receive.'