Cain's Blood Read Online Free PDF

antisocial spectrum disorders and psychopathy. each chromosome of human
DNA carries a million different strands with specific instructions on
what that person’s genetic makeup will be. One particular location,
a strand labeled XP11, controls the MAOA gene. When there’s an
anomaly on that strand, it characteristically indicates abnormal dopamine levels, potentially influencing a genetic predisposition to abnormal
violence. Does that help?”
“Better, thank you. And these clones are created so that your team
can better study and . . . develop this specific gene.” Castillo met erdman eye to eye. “To ultimately, I assume, harness violence.”
The geneticist weighed his options, clearly deciding how much
more Castillo was allowed to know. “yes,” he said. “And to cure it,
too. We’re not here only to construct weapons, Mr. Castillo. In the
last ten years, this pioneering research has tendered more than fifty
patents to medicate depression, bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s disease,
and PTSD.”
Castillo glanced at erdman to see if the PTSD reference was deliberate. A slam? How much do they know about me? The geneticist’s expression revealed no intended insult.
“Parkinson’s?” he followed that path instead.
“remedial manipulation of dopamine levels will eventually cure
the disease. We’re in clinical trials now on several innovative products
toward that selfsame purpose.”
“And you test on these kids?”
“No, no,” erdman shook his head. “Not at all. you’re not . . . If we
want to test a new protein or antibody, or whatever, we have mice and
monkeys and human volunteers for that. The boys are where we harvest the new proteins and antibodies. Perhaps it’s easier to think of these
boys as living drug factories, flesh-and-blood bioreactors. A single pint
of their blood contains thirty grams of genetically enhanced human
protein and is worth millions.”
Castillo’s face must have revealed his revulsion at the idea.
erdman sighed. “A traditional protein-development factory would
cost four hundred million and take five years to build. Subjects in the
Cain project cost one hundred million each and take a single year. each
boy is projected to produce six hundred million in profit in his lifetime
merely by donating a little blood a few times each year. I know what
you’re thinking. It was not the boys’ choice. The ethical implications
are, admittedly, complicated.”
“Complicated. Or inhumane.”
“A question we should debate later, perhaps. Today, there are lives
at risk, yes?”
“fair enough.” Castillo willed his voice to stay even. “Why’d you
even tell me? The clones, I mean. you guys might have just told me six
violent kids were missing.”
“Colonel Stanforth said you’d figure it out eventually anyway.”
Castillo nodded. It was a nice compliment from a trusted mentor,
but: Could I ever have really imagined this? “Why killers? Shouldn’t we be
cloning little einsteins. kobes? I don’t know, eddie Van halens?”
“Who’d pay?” erdman replied. “fifty years from now, the consumer
market might sustain such programs. But, at this stage, start-up costs
are in the hundreds of billions. Not many industries can undertake that.
Oil. Telecommunications, maybe. But, who’d we clone for them ? The
military’s driven human technology for ten thousand years. And, if some
good comes from that, the medicines for instance, all the better.”
“Ok. Then, so why well-known serial killers? Wouldn’t it have been
far easier, safer, to grab your run-of-the-mill psychopath? The prisons
must be filled with them.”
“Tens of thousands. A million, maybe. But Jacobson, who directs the
program, always wanted the most violent. Not just gangbangers or family annihilators. he wanted consummate psychopaths. Serial killers. And
most of those men, the ones society eventually catches, become famous.”
“And no girls here. Safe to assume males are more prone to