It had been two hours since Slaine was locked in that laboratory and he seemed to have found almost everything he needed to know. He closed the fourth volume.

'He knows that I'm reading...'

He looked at the final volume named 'The Aftermath'. He picked it up and looked inside.

"Those who live for death
Would be found among the dead
In a kingdom they can control"

That was it. The rest of the volume was empty. Slaine read it again and again-- Live for death, as in their own death? Oh wait-- Live for death, live for killing-- The X-DROIDs!

Would be found among the dead-- Graveyard? X-DROIDs in graveyards?

In a kingdom they can control... Does he mean England? But wait-- Oh! Oh I got it--Water! X-DROIDs can control water--Kingdom of water-- Sea! Or ocean maybe.

X- DROIDs, dead, sea." Slaine thought harder as he tapped his hand on the computer board before him, "X-DROIDs in dead sea! It didn't make any sense..."
"Showing results for "Dead sea." The computer before him said. He had accidently switched on the voice search while tapping his finger on the board.

The dead sea was actually a place! It was earlier known as East waters under the Manhatten bridge.

Ben wanted Slaine to go there!

So, without further ado, Slaine got up and threw all the books into a burner except the fifth one. It hardly had anything so he thought he wouldn't burn it but just keep it with himself as proof that what he read--Was not a dream because Ben was playing his cards smartly.

He left for the dead sea on his board with the fifth volume in his hand. He decided to organise his thoughts on his way.

(Please read the following extracts slowly to understand them better)

'Ben collected two samples from two different sources. And, since he mentioned haemoglobin, probably one of them was a human blood sample, and I think it was the blood sample A since B had a greenish-red colour.

The phenotypes (A set of observable characteristics of an individual) were the same, which meant that the mice still looked like mice with the same features like white fur and pointy nose, but the genotype (genetic constitution of an individual organism) changed.

But phenotypes and genotypes are related because if there is even the slightest change in the DNA--It will show changes on the body too. Observable changes... So, I guess those changes weren't observable--They must have been affecting the internal characters in that case! Like the length of the alimentary canal, the shape of the lungs and the occurrence of gills X-DROIDS have. That's it! 

He made asexual offsprings (basically clones) for several generations to produce homozygosity.

(Homozygous refers to having identical alleles for a single trait. An allele represents one particular form of a gene)

So, he made clones until all the kids that were formed had the same pair of genes. But then he noticed that the X chromosome was missing in them.

(The X chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes. Humans and most mammals have two sex chromosomes, the X and Y. Females have two X chromosomes in their cells, while males have X and Y chromosomes in their cells)

And since all of them had the same DNA, one defect had replicated into all of them so they all had only 45 chromosomes (Normal human body has 46 chromosomes) And that defect caused the Turner's syndrome in them. 

(Turner syndrome, a condition that affects only females, results when one of the X chromosomes (sex chromosomes) is missing or partially missing. Turner syndrome can cause a variety of medical and developmental problems, including short height, failure of the ovaries to develop and heart defects.)

Due to such chromosomal abnormalities (A missing, extra, or irregular portion of chromosomal DNA), male children couldn't survive--Because male children only have one X-Chromosome--If you take that away too, you're left with a single Y chromosome which is recessive.

So the first pure breed they formed were underdeveloped females. Asexual reproduction only helps in forming pure breeds--But for seeing an evolution within a species, sexual reproduction was necessary and for that, they needed both males and females. 

Their lifespan is said to be short too and this was because the blood type B they injected inside these subjects or parents caused internal haemorrhage indirectly. Indirectly as in, the blood didn't cause any problems, but the body didn't see it as its own part and triggered all the white blood cells to attack this foreign blood. In this process, it destroyed it's own red blood cells and the child died within a week.

Then, he studied the expressed sequence tags.

(It is a short sub-sequence of a cDNA sequence. They were used to identify gene transcripts or in layman terms, the sequence in which various elements of the DNA were organised. Example AAG or UUU) 

The alignment of sequences was done (Which means arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity)

These new species they were creating were related to human ancestors since according to a theory, all animals came from the sea--Including humans. And these creatures began resembling the marine life more than the terrestrial life. Even though they had a mammal's blood running in them.

I'm surprised that even after all this, the chromosome number remained the same since it is different in every species. So, it means they could still be counted as mammals.

Finally, he created a male progeny by forcefully inserting in a Y-Chromosome (Male sex chromosome) into the genetic material; but the body automatically created an X chromosome--to pair with that Y chromosome, leaving a karyotype (the number of the chromosomes in the cell nucleus is called karyotype) of 47 chromosomes. So, basically, by then, the body had adapted itself to changes, after so many generations of genetic torture--But this man didn't stop.

The individual suffered from gynaecomastia-- A genetic disorder which leads to enlargement of a man's breasts. But isn't it treatable? The answer is mastectomy. This type of surgery removes the breast gland tissue. I'm sure he knew of it but he didn't do it because genetic gynaecomastia leaves the body sterile meaning that such a man cannot have children. But the research demanded sexual reproduction.

Then, he replaced one X chromosome with a Y chromosome. But this time, the body did not create a pair. Maybe because it felt that the pairing was already done. He didn't add or remove any chromosome, he just replaced it. Basically, he could neither insert any chromosome nor he could replace an existing one because either way, the body reacted negatively.  

And why was this happening? Why was creating males so difficult? Because at birth, boys tend to be longer than girls. So, they needed more nourishment than they were being provided with. Ben changed the nutrition medium in which he was growing them, so he wasn't growing them in the womb of the mother but outside the body of the mother, in a separate nutrition medium.

Probably so that he could control their growth and see various patterns and stages of the child's growth. And just by this seemingly insignificant change, he got a male progeny. The next step was mating.

Due to their short lifespan, the mother would die before the childbirth every time. This was creating a roadblock in the research--Their lifespan was shorter than the gestation period of the mother. 

(Gestation is period of developing inside the womb between conception and birth)

He didn't know what to do since nothing was working and they weren't getting anywhere, so he decided to study the DNA--Thinking that maybe that would give them a hint as to what to do. And the results dropped a bombshell on the entire team. What they had created was not another species, but another genus altogether which had no relation with the humans whatsoever. 

That was a red flag--He should've stopped there but he decided to continue and see where this project would take him. 

He had managed to make the first X-DROID genes.

Later, he met Dr Nicole Frank as a partner of this crazy project he was working on.

(Anatomy is a field in the biological sciences concerned with the identification and description of the body structures of living things like the stomach, liver etc)

He studied the anatomy of the children he had created, it seemed less and less human as purer breeds were formed. They decided to carry out sexual reproduction outside the body by taking the male and female gametes from the parents and fusing them in a nutrient medium. 

The newer generations of the sexually formed children seemed more like oceanic creatures, with tiny fin-like appendages (a projecting part of a living organism, with a distinct appearance or function) at the sides on their pelvis or lack of hair on their body and presence of scales on the skin. Mammals like mice were laying eggs! I'm pretty sure they weren't mammals anymore.

Soon, he realised that the lifespan could be increased but only if those children lived in the UV light atmosphere. However, the light had severe damages on their bodies and caused more and more mutations.

(A mutation is a change that occurs in our DNA sequence, either due to mistakes when the DNA is copied or as the result of environmental factors such as UV light and cigarette smoke)

That UV light even affected him, he lost the pigment in his eyes. Meaning that they were of a different colour-- And since they turned to pink--They must have originally been of a darker shade of pink, like maroon or brown. It's not me--I have blue eyes. Do I even know anyone with brown or maroon eyes... Or am I mistaking the colours?

Anyways, UV radiations are carcinogenic meaning that they cause cancer and maybe that was the reason he suffered from cancer. He must have gotten it treated in the earlier stage to have made it out alive.

He came across the work of other scientists who compared the blood sample of mice with that of humans. He and his team had all their focus on the blood samples of mice--But it came out that a mice's blood and human blood was very different. Probably that was the reason behind the short life span? Murine packed red blood cells (pRBCs), basically, mice's blood, aged more rapidly than human blood.

Murine pRBCs exhibited higher lactate levels (34.9 ± 1.3 mmol/L vs. 18.1 ± 1.0 mmol/L, mouse vs. human) meaning mice had higher lactate levels. In general, a greater increase in lactate means a greater severity of the condition. That's why their life cycle was so small! So then, he decided to take human samples since they would have a longer lifespan.

Let's move to the very beginning--Blood sample B. How did he make that? Because obviously--Its a characteristic of X-DROIDs and they weren't made till then.

He was dangerous because he had fooled everyone into believing that his friend Nicole made the X-DROIDs since he knew this would happen! He knew it would carry them to a downfall! And then he acted as a saviour by making the ANDRIODs but he's the one who started this!

And he knows what is going to happen. We all are puppets doing exactly what he planned and he has the strings. Even while sitting in that dungeon, he is controlling all our actions.

-To be continued

X-DROID 
5500 Rebellion