Transporter (an Ell Donsaii story #16), page 12
As a new set of vertical bars appeared to the right of the first set, he said, “These are the scores after one week.” The blue bar was a little higher than the red bar, but there was a lot of overlap between them. He continued, “Here they look a little different but the difference isn’t even close to statistically significant.”
“And, this is after two weeks.”
Reggie blinked. The red line was descending and the blue one was definitely climbing. The vertical bars of the standard deviation still overlapped, but the lines looked like they were going different directions.
Zage said, “They look like they’re differentiating themselves, but those differences still aren’t statistically significant.”
Another set of vertical bars appeared, now completely separated. The blue line was ascending while the red one continued going down. Zage said, “By three weeks the difference is statistically significant.”
Zage showed her three more weeks of data. The two lines diverged farther and farther from one another. The red one was falling faster than the blue one was ascending. However, there was no doubt the experimental mice were scoring better on the maze than the control mice—who were probably continuing to deteriorate as would normally be expected with progress of the disease. There was also no doubt that the experimental mice were getting better, which would be a feat since most medications only hoped to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s.
Reggie turned to stare at Zage, thinking he lived some kind of charmed life. No one has results like this, one after the other of their studies supporting their hypotheses with no failures. Suddenly she remembered all the trouble he’d had with the amyloid crystallization experiments. But even with that failure, he just seems to have unreasonable luck. Could he be fudging the results? Feeling guilty, she said, “Um, can I see the raw data Dominion Biolabs sent you?”
“Sure,” he said without hesitation. He mumbled to his AI. She heard a chime indicating an incoming packet. He said, “Let me know if you see something suspicious. I’m worried the results are too good to be true. I assume you are too.”
“Give me a few minutes to look it over. I’ll message you when I’m finished.”
Zage left and Reggie paused a moment to ponder the implications of the findings if they were correct. If this works in humans… holy crap! She shook her head and buckled down to studying the information in the data packet.
~~~
Zage reappeared in Reggie’s door within a couple of minutes of her message. “Did you find anything suspicious?”
She tried not to sound accusatory, “You didn’t tell me the packet included histological data showing that the experimental group had a decrease in amyloid, tau, and inflammation, or that the ventricles in the mice’s brains were getting smaller.”
Zage nodded, “I had that information in my presentation but I thought you interrupted because you preferred to see the raw data. Besides, that information’s only confirmatory. What matters is brain function. Some people get dementia without increases in amyloid. Enlargement of the ventricles doesn’t correlate well with brain dysfunction either.”
Reggie nodded thoughtfully.
Zage repeated his earlier question, “Did you find anything suspicious?”
“Nothing but the fact that the results are too good to believe. You’re sure no one there knows which are the experimental injections?”
“I made up the syringes myself, then sent them by port, labeled only in hexadecimal.”
“Have you gone down to look at the mice yourself?”
Zage looked uncomfortable. “Um, they don’t know how old I am. If I showed up down there, they probably wouldn’t let me in.”
Reggie snorted, “You’re right. I’ve gotten so used to having you around I’ve forgotten how I reacted when you first showed up.” She looked up at the data on the screen, then back at Zage, “But I think you’ve got to see the animals yourself. It’s the old, ‘remarkable results require remarkable proof,’ thing. We have to be sure of the results before we try to publish.”
“Um,” Zage said uncertainly, “I was thinking we might not be able to publish because the University would want to patent it as a possible treatment.”
“Oh…! That’s right, a treatment for Alzheimer’s could be valuable.” Reggie blinked, then studied Zage. “Why would you even know publishing something makes it unpatentable?”
Looking uncomfortable, Zage said, “I, uh, was involved in the discovery of a peptide at UNC. The University sold the rights to Bayer and there was a big hoo-rah about how we couldn’t publish.”
This kid’s already on a patent?! Reggie thought, surprised, yet believing. “You’re right. We’ve got to report it to the University’s technology office. I’ll get started on that as soon as I get caught up with a few of the other things on my plate.” She heard a ping from her AI, indicating the reception of another data packet.
Zage said, “Um, I just sent you a draft report and my attempt at filling out the documents on the tech office’s website. I hope they’ll help instead of hindering you.”
Reggie stared for a moment, then said dryly, “Undoubtedly, they will… We still need to figure out how to get a look at those mice and I wouldn’t be able to get away for…” She shook her head. “Maybe if I called the lab there and explained about your age.”
“I could ask Carley to go with me?”
“She’s not an investigator on the protocol so I’m sure they wouldn’t—” Reggie was interrupted by another ping. She laughed, “What’d you send me this time?”
“I filled out the forms to add her to the protocol. If you signed them, it’d solve that problem.”
“Okay, so they might let her in. But, is it fair to Carley to ask her to spend hours helping you with your project?”
Zage shrugged, “She’s got some significant financial issues. If the invention pays off, being on the protocol with some percentage of my rights would help her with them. I admit it’s a long shot, but the downside’s pretty small. Besides, I’ve helped with her projects so she might be willing to do it even without the rights.”
Reggie studied him a moment, “You realize that the University would take the lion’s share of the income from a patent, don’t you?”
Zage nodded, “And you’d get a chunk as my advisor. I was only talking about sharing my part of it, since she’d be saddled with doing the stuff I’d be doing if I was a grownup.”
“Um, your parents might not want to give away part of your income.”
“They won’t mind.”
Reggie shook her head, “People are unpredictable about money. We have to ask.”
Zage said, “Osprey, connect us to either my mom or dad, whoever seems the least busy.”
Reggie said, “I didn’t mean for you to interrupt—”
She heard a man’s voice, “Hi, munchkin. Whatcha need?”
Zage quickly explained the issues and, immediately, as if he didn’t give a damn about money, Kinrais said, “Sure, that’s fine.”
Stunned at how quickly he’d agreed, Reggie asked, “How much are you willing to give her?”
Zage’s dad said whatever Zage thought. Zage thought she should get half of his share, which was obviously far too much. After a brief conversation, Reggie and Zage settled on ten percent of Zage’s share going to Carley—which Kinrais agreed to without any further discussion.
Reggie had her AI ask Carley to come to Reggie’s office.
Within a few minutes Carley was in the office and, once Reggie explained Zage’s problem with checking the mice, she immediately said, “Sure. I’m happy to help. He’s helped me so much; I couldn’t ever hope to balance the scales.”
What all has he done for her? Reggie wondered for a moment, but decided to ignore how he might have helped Carley and went on to explain how Zage wanted to give her a share of any profits on any patent for her help.
Carley shook her head and said she didn’t deserve any share of a patent. Zage broke in to say the patent probably wouldn’t pan out, but he’d like her to have a small piece just in case it did.
She eventually agreed, then as they were leaving the office she asked, “What’s this patent for?”
“Use of the new peptide to treat Alzheimer’s,” Zage said offhandedly.
Carley stumbled and glanced back wide-eyed at Reggie, “What?!” she mouthed.
Reggie gave her a firm nod in return, thinking the young woman probably still didn’t understand the probable extent of the windfall the kid had just handed her.
That is, if it performed in humans like it did in mice.
~~~
It was a couple of hours before Reggie got around to looking at the report Zage had done for the University’s tech office. She started reading it with the thought that she’d have to make major edits. When she finished, she realized that she’d made three edits and they were all style choices, nothing of significance.
None of the grad students would’ve done this well, she thought.
The forms adding Carley to the protocol were perfect.
***
Carley enjoyed the trip to Apex with Zage, even though he spent much of the ride bringing her up to speed on the Alzheimer's mouse study so she’d know what was going on and could ask good questions. Once he’d done that though, they had a nice conversation. Carley kept wishing the men her age acted as… mature as Zage. She thought, Maybe he’s so nice because he’s not secreting post-adolescent male hormones yet.
She followed Zage into the Dominion Biolabs building and over to the admin office. Walking up to the person stationed there, Zage said, “Hi, I’m Zage Kinrais. This is Carley Heune. We have an appointment to look at the mice in our study?”
The man stared at Zage for a moment, then looked questioningly up at Carley. She gave him her best affirmative nod.
Visibly flustered, he looked back down at Zage. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Zage Kinrais.”
The man looked at his screen, apparently checking for Zage’s name on a list. “Um, have your AI send me ID, please?”
Zage spoke to Osprey, then the man’s eyes turned up to study his HUD. “Um, this says you’re Kinrais alright. Are you perhaps a Zage Kinrais Junior?”
“Nope,” Zage said cheerfully. “First and only I’m afraid.”
“But… you’re a child!”
Zage nodded pleasantly. “I am indeed. I’m the child who hired you guys to do the mouse study and now I’d like to check the work you’ve been doing. Your protocols allow the investigators to observe.”
“But… I don’t think we let children go back into the experimental space!”
“Maybe you could let me talk to Mr. Barrister? He’s the one running my study and he set up this appointment.”
“I… I… I’m not—”
“Mr. Needham,” Zage said, getting the man’s name from somewhere, “I’m sure Dominion Biolabs doesn’t want you turning away your customers without even letting them talk to the person running the study, do they? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier for you to just let the responsibility for this decision fall on Mr. Barrister?”
“Um, okay,” Needham said, looking quite happy to be out of the decision loop. He spoke to his AI.
Carley marveled at how well Zage was handling it. She’d expected to have to be the one who did all the talking and had been worrying about whether she’d be able to convince them to let her take Zage with her when she went in to see the mice. Having a sudden thought, she turned to Zage, “You’re handling these people fine. You didn’t need me for this!”
He eyed her a moment. “I am so far, but that was hardly a foregone conclusion. In my heart, I really wanted to just have you handle these interactions. But I decided I really should try to do it myself. After all, I need to learn how to deal with adults since it’ll be more than a decade before I stop getting these kinds of reactions. Um, knowing you were here to smooth things over if I screwed up has made it a lot easier… Thanks.”
She grinned at him a moment, “That sounded pretty good, but I still think you just wanted to hang out with me.”
He gave her puppy dog eyes. “That’s true.”
They both laughed.
Barrister came out and had much the same reaction as Needham had. Despite how frenetic he became with protests about Zage’s age, Zage remained equable. He gently pointed out that nowhere in the lab’s public documentation, nor the documentation provided to Zage as an investigator did it put a limit on the age of people entering the facility.
Barrister said, “That’s probably only because no one ever contemplated a child wanting, or having any reason, or even trying to enter!”
“Ah,” Zage said pleasantly, as if not at all perturbed by Barrister’s shrill tone. “But I’m not an ordinary child. I specifically hired Dominion Biolabs to do this work because I’m not allowed to do it myself in the facilities at Duke University where I’m working. Would you like to ask me some questions about the protocol to be sure I’m the one who set it up?”
The man spluttered a moment, then went ahead and asked a question. Zage answered it in such detail that the man finally put up his hand, begging for a halt. “Okay, okay! You know your stuff. I’ll admit you probably wrote the protocol.” He sighed and waved them after him. “Let’s go look at your rats!”
“Mice, Mr. Barrister. I certainly hope you’ve been doing the study in mice as per the protocol.”
Barrister rolled his eyes. “Yes, mice. I misspoke. Let’s get you in coveralls…” he broke off studying Zage, “We don’t have any that’ll—”
“It’s not a problem. I can roll up the sleeves and legs,” Zage said pleasantly.
~~~
They were looking at the mice. Some were inquisitive with brightness to their beady little eyes. Others stayed in the corners, immobile, often sleeping.
And Carley had the distinct impression that there were two groups. Could Zage’s peptide be responsible for the difference? She turned to Barrister who’d been droning on about how they cared for the mice. “Do you have a list that I can check the mice off on?”
“Check them off?”
“Yes. I’m noticing a… a characteristic in some of the mice. I’d like to check off the mice I’m observing it in, then later compare my list to the treatment and control groups so I can see whether the characteristic is more prevalent in one group than the other.”
“Oh. What characteristic are you speaking of?”
“I’d rather not say. That way we’ll have more unbiased observers available to give opinions later.”
Zage said, “I’m forwarding you a list. My AI’s set it up so you can check the mice off as positive or negative for your characteristic.” He continued speaking in a formal tone Carley thought was intended to impress Barrister. “May I suggest that if you can see this characteristic visually, that you have your AI record video of each mouse as you’re grading them. That way we could have blinded examiners grade the videos later.”
“Okay.” Carley stopped at each mouse cage, grading them as active/bright or inactive/dull and pausing a moment while she decided, giving her AI time to get a good video record.
Next, they went with Barrister to observe a few mice going through their radial maze tests. Nothing about this differed from what they’d expected.
In the car on their way home, Zage said, “If you’ll send me your list, I’ll have my AI break the scheme and see whether the ‘characteristic’ you observed was more prevalent in the experimental or control group.”
“How about if you send me the breakdown and I’ll have my AI do it. That way no one will wonder if you fudged the results?”
“Great idea,” Zage responded and Carley heard a ping as the breakdown arrived at her AI.
She gave a few instructions to her AI.
Seventy-two of the seventy-three mice she’d designated as active/bright were in the treatment group. Of the seventy-eight mice she’d designated as inactive/dull, seventy-four were in the control group and four were in the experimental group. I don’t have to run statistics to know that’s a real difference, she thought.
***
The Nature Learning class was gathered around the stream that crossed the property. Wearing rubber boots, a man named Gary Jonas was acting as Ms. Bakewell’s co-instructor for this exploration of aquatic life. They’d first gathered around a deep little pool and watched the small fish that inhabited it as they darted about.
Next Mr. Jonas took them to the edge of a fast-flowing area where he’d placed what he called a “glass boulder” consisting of a thick piece of plate glass with an inverted black plastic bowl glued on top of it. He’d cut a hinged door into the bowl and settled it on a bed of sand and gravel. All this had been in hopes of forming a perfect spot for a salamander to create a retreat. To his great satisfaction, a Necturus lewisi had burrowed under the boulder from the downstream side, shoveling out sand and gravel to build itself a den. Thus, they could open the door on the top of the bowl and peer in to view a “Neuse River Waterdog” in a nearly natural habitat—without disturbing it by turning over its rock.
Mr. Jonas did turn over a rock to show them one of the—very common—crayfish that lived in the streams of North Carolina. It backed away a bit, then lifted its pincers at them. Mr. Jonas laughed and said, “Look at him. He’s telling us to stay away from his place or he’s gonna pinch us.”
Wide-eyed, Olivia asked, “Would he do that?!”
Mr. Jonas nodded, “Frightened or mad, they’ll pinch you pretty good.”
“Does it hurt?!”
“Yeah, but remember not to pull them off yourself. When it happens, they’re scared to death of you. If you lower your pincered part back into the water, the crayfish’ll let go and take off, trying to get as far from you as it can.”
