A Tiny Unstoppable Army

It is a bright busy blustery day in the city that never sleeps that February day in 2058 at least that’s how John Alexander, retired high school science teacher and veteran imagines it to be. That’s the kind of day that makes him feel most alive. Of course he could think of a hundred and one other places he’d rather be than here in this hospital bed, at James J. Peters VA Medical Center, waiting to die. He rubs the sleep from his eyes having just awoken from a nap. He looks around the small dimly lit room. The blinds are closed and the only light is coming from the bathroom with it’s door slightly ajar. He can hear a cart coming noisily down the hall beyond the closed room door. 1

He can see his wife Mary who had fallen asleep praying, sitting in a chair next to his bed with a bible in her lap. John thinks how she looks like an angel with her head back, face raised to heaven and her silver hair slightly mussed framing her head like a halo. He can smell the lilac scented fragrance she always wears. He breathes in deeply, he loves that smell.2

He regards Mary, the woman who has been his wife for more than fifty years, the woman he loves now as much as when he first met her in his second year of college. She is his soul mate, his rock and his refuge unwavering in her love and support especially during these last six months of sickness, treatments, pain and disappointments. She refused to leave his side even during the worst of it. 3

He had had a long and happy life and with the end coming the only thing he had to regret is leaving Mary. If only he had gone to the doctor sooner when he started feeling badly instead of waiting. When he finally did see his doctor he had been diagnosed with liver cancer which had already spread to his pancreas, lymph nodes, and elsewhere in his body. In spite of some great advances that had been made in the care and treatment of cancer in the last fifty years, his battle against the cancer was all but lost. He would probably be dead within the week.4

John listens to the low steady hum of the PED(Pain Elimination Device). The PED is a miracle of modern medicine. It had been invented only about ten years ago and it is already in wide spread use in hospitals all over the world. It works by subjecting a patient to electrical and ultrasonic impulses at a very specific frequency. This disrupts all communications of pain that the body tries to send to the brain while leaving all other sense signals unchanged. John is very grateful for it because the PED makes it possible for terminal patients like him to be conscious, alert and pain free until the very end.5

John’s thoughts are interrupted as his doctor James Walker and an older man with a short well trimmed gray beard wearing a doctor’s white lab coat enters his room. Dr. Walker explains that the man with the beard is Dr. Gerald Murphy, an M.D. and a medical researcher from New York University and he has a proposal that might very well save John’s life.6

Dr. Murphy says to John and Mary, who is fully awake now, that he heads a research project at NYU that has been researching Nanotechnology for medical uses for the past forty years. As part of this project they have developed nanorobots, molecular sized machines able to repair injuries and fight disease on a cellular and genetic level. 7

The first prototype nanorobots were built twenty years ago at NYU and they have been successfully using them in animal test subjects for ten years now. They are ready to test the newest version of nanorobots on humans. However the FDA is not completely convinced of their long term safety, mostly Dr. Murphy suspects because of paranoia based on science fiction fairy tales, so they will only approve them to be tested on one person at this time, a person considered to be on the brink of death. If John agrees then he will be that person. 8

Dr. Murphy further explains that there are no guaranties, the cancer has spread throughout Johns body and the nanorobots will need to replicate, they self replicate using proteins and minerals that are harvested from the body and blood stream of the person they are implanted in, from the hundreds to be initially implanted to several million that will be required to repair such extensive damage and John might die before the nanorobots reach a large enough population to be effective. 9

Another source of potential problems is that once they are implanted there is currently no way they can be removed, when repairs to the body are not needed they are designed to act as a super immune system to destroy all harmful bacteria and viruses before they can infect the body. Even if the nanorobots successfully cure his cancer there could still be unanticipated problems that could end up killing John or even damage him in some unexpected way.10

Dr. Murphy tells them that he will need a decision soon if the nanorobots are to have a chance to save him. John and Mary discuss it for a while and decide to risk the unknown effects of the nanorobots for the chance that they might save John‘s life.11

John is transferred to NYU Medical Center where Dr. Murphy waits for him in a large white room smelling of antiseptic. He has a hypodermic filled with what looks like ordinary tap water. He injects the fluid directly into a vein in John’s arm. Then he says to them now they have to wait to see what happens.12

John’s new room at NYU Medical Center is almost identical to his other room with the exception of a strange looking device, a tall black and silver machine with a multitude of blinking multicolored lights and a large red LED readout on it which stands at the head of the bed. A computer screen and a keyboard which are attached to the device with cables are sitting on a desk to the right of the machine. Dr. Murphy explains this device will be used to monitor the nanorobots. John is given a thick chocolate flavored protein drink with vitamins and minerals. 13

They start giving John daily blood tests, CAT scans, and physical exams. Three days later the tests reveal that John’s tumors are shrinking. Four days after that the tumors have disappeared altogether. Mary cries with happiness when she hears the news that the cancer is gone.14

Mary asks Dr. Murphy if John can return home now. The Doctor tells her that because of the experimental nature of the nanorobots, he would like to keep John for observation for at least two more months. John tells Mary that since he is no longer in danger, she should return to their apartment to rest and sleep in her own bed. Mary tells him that in the fifty-two years that they have been married, they have never been apart for a single day and she is not about to start now.15

They ask Dr. Murphy if it is alright for them to take a walk around the hospital. They want to celebrate and at home one of their favorite activities is to take long walks with each other. Dr. Murphy tells them that this will be fine as long as they don’t leave the hospital grounds.16

Mary brings John his robe and slippers as he prepares to go for his walk. When John puts on his artificial foot, he lost his right foot in a grenade attack in 2004 when he was stationed in Afghanistan while serving in the Marines, it seems a little tight to John. John dismisses this as just being in his mind because he hasn’t worn it in so long. 17

They both expect that John will be way too weak to walk for very long since he had been confined to a bed for most of the past month. But to the surprise of both of them he has no trouble walking at all. The first place they go is to the Maternity ward, to look at the babies, they both adore babies. They both coo and laugh at the wriggling squalling red faced newborns. 18

They then walk to the solarium. The contrast between the world inside the solarium and the outside world as seen through the large glass panels of the solarium is surreal. On the outside it is full winter; the sun is shining down on a thick blanket of snow and icicles hang everywhere, from tree branches, overhangs, eaves, gutters and even bushes. But inside the solarium it is warm and green with the rich smell of growing plants like a spring day.19

There are potted plants everywhere in the solarium. There are many kinds of vines, ferns, ivies and even amaryllises plants with long thin strap like leaves, the flower of the amaryllis doesn’t bloom until late spring. Someone maybe several someones obviously went to a great deal of trouble to keep these plants healthy and beautiful for the enjoyment of the patients.20

Mary looks at all the plants with envy. John thinks about how it’s funny that in all the years they had been married she hadn’t been able to keep a single potted plant alive more than a few months at a time. She had even tried a collection of cacti, but in three months they had all withered and died. She just didn’t have a green thumb. John sometimes kidded her about it being black instead.21

After they finish enjoying the solarium it is time for lunch and they decide to eat in the hospital cafeteria. Since it is a day to celebrate, instead of eating low fat and healthy like they usually did at home they go all out. They order fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and coleslaw with extra dressing. For desert they each order a large piece of New York style cheese cake with chocolate syrup on John’s and strawberry on Mary’s. They share bites of cheese cake with each other.22

After lunch they visit pediatrics and John does some magic tricks to entertain the children there. He had been doing a magic act at fundraising events for more than forty years. Mary laughs and claps along with the children, then she heckles John which makes the kids laugh even more. 23

Then they walk to the hospital gift shop. While Mary looks at all the cards and knickknacks. John buys her a dozen long stem blue roses. Mary kisses him because blue roses are her absolute favorite flowers. 24

Then Mary is tired, so they return to John’s room for a nap. After their nap, their oldest son John Junior comes by for a visit. With him is his wife Darlene and his daughter Naomi and Naomi’s children Cathy and Mark. They had all flown in from Dallas. Sadly John thinks about how all of his and Mary’s children have gone away and made lives for themselves in other parts of the country. They visit for several hours and discuss everything going on in their lives and in the lives of the rest of the family. 25

That night John and Mary fall asleep holding each others hand, her on her cot and him in his bed.26

The next day John’s artificial foot would not fit. After examining him Dr. Murphy determines that John’s amputated foot is being regenerated. Four days later his foot has been completely regrown. The same day they find out that his teeth have started to grow in again, he had all of his teeth pulled out when he was seventy. 27

The next week they have even more surprises in store for them. Mary notices that John’s gray hair has started to grow out black again. Also his wrinkled face is noticeably smoother. When she talks to Dr. Murphy about it. He tells her that he had noticed this and based on the results of the tests they had done that morning in comparison with the results from two weeks ago, it appears that he is getting younger. He tells her that everyone involved with the project is getting very excited about this development. Dr. Murphy orders a daily MRI be done on John in addition to his other daily tests. 28

Two weeks later John has all the appearance of a twenty five year old man. One month after that Dr. Murphy discharges him from the hospital with the condition that he return to the hospital every morning for his tests or if he notices any changes no matter how minor. 29

When John and Mary get to their modest little apartment they both breathe in a huge sigh of relief. It wasn’t that long ago that neither he nor she had thought that John would ever come home again. 30

While Mary goes to the kitchen to make them tea, John opens the living room window and sprays a floral scented air freshener to get rid of the musty odor from the apartment which had been unoccupied for more than three months.31

John then sits down on his favorite chair, a big old overstuffed recliner with a baby blue slipcover. Underneath the slipcover the chair was green with thirty years worth of stains. Mary and John argued every time she redecorated the living room because she always tried to convince John that the chair should go. He always said that if his chair went to the dump he would go with it, because it was an old friend that he couldn’t do without. Each time they reached a compromise of a new slipcover to match the new furniture.32

John starts thinking about his future, something he hasn’t done in quite a while. Being seventy-six years old he had thought that the only future he had to look forward to was in the next life. But according to Dr. Murphy their is no reason to believe that John wouldn’t remain as he was, physically twenty-five, indefinitely. The nanorobots would continue to renew and repair him. When they in turn wore out they would replicate new ones. 33

He thinks about what he would do now. He could go back to teaching. He and Mary had both retired after thirty-five years of teaching at Martin Luther King, Jr. High school in Brooklyn. He as a science teacher and she as an English teacher. Or maybe he would start a new career. When he was a medic in the Marines he often thought that he might like to go into medicine as a career. 34

Whatever he chose to do, he wanted Mary to be right there beside him. As soon as they were certain that the nanorobots were safe, whatever it took and no matter the cost he would have Mary Implanted with nanorobots as well. Then they would be young again together.35

When Mary comes back from the kitchen, she is carrying two steaming hot cups of tea on the sterling silver serving tray from the tea service they had gotten as a wedding present from Mary’s parents. While they drink their tea, Mary tells John that they need groceries, and asks if John will go to the market for them. John agrees to go and they make out a list together. 36

At the market as John is checking cantaloupes for ripeness he notices a very young woman, she could have been no more than twenty, looking and smiling at him. She is very pretty with big green eyes, shoulder length blonde hair wearing a white tank top and tight cut off blue jeans. 37

When she sees John looking at her, she comes up to him and tells him that her sorority is having a big party tomorrow night and she would like to invite him to the party. And if he didn’t want to go alone she would be glad to go with him as his date. He tells her that he is married. She tells him that is just fine. He can come with his wife to the party and they would have a great time. He tells her that he would think about it, and he goes back to his shopping.38

He is more than a little shaken, after all this girl is just a few years older than his great-grand-daughter and here she was flirting with him. What’s more he had found himself physically attracted to her. He feels like a pedophile.39

When John gets home Mary can tell that something is wrong and asks him what had happened. He tells her that nothing had happened. But Mary keeps at him until he tells her. He is completely surprised when she suddenly laughs loudly, and tells him that if she catches him sneaking off to that party and chasing that child she’d box his ears.40

Then still laughing she tells him to sit down while she fixes dinner. They eat baked chicken and a tossed salad with vinaigrette dressing for dinner. After dinner they go to bed and make wildly passionate love.41

The next morning John gets up early so he can go to the hospital and get his tests done with as early as possible. Then he and Mary can spend the rest day doing whatever Mary wanted. Maybe they would go to the zoo. Mary likes looking at the children looking at the animals. She says that the kids make a better show than the animals. He scribbles a note explaining where he has gone. Then he kisses a sleeping Mary and leaves.42

When he gets back from the hospital John finds Mary on the floor of the kitchen with blood pouring from her like a faucet. John puts a tourniquet on her arm above the bleeding wound then calls an ambulance. John tries to wake her but she won’t wake up.43

She had apparently been fixing breakfast when whatever happened happened because their are eggs cooking on the stove. John turns the burner off and puts the pan to the side, so a fire won’t start. There is orange juice on the floor as well as a great deal of Mary’s blood. John guesses that she must have been pouring a glass orange juice when for some reason she fell and sliced her arm on a broken piece of the glass pitcher. 44

After arriving at the hospital they repair the artery that has been damaged then she is given a CAT scan. The attending physician, Dr. Smith, tells John that Mary has had a massive stroke and she is in a coma. He says that they would give her more tests but he doubts that there is anything they can do for her. After the tests are complete Dr. Smith tells John that the tests confirmed his suspicions that Mary’s stroke had been extremely destructive, chances are that she would never come out of the coma and if she did she would be in a consistent vegetative state.45

John calls Dr. Murphy and tells him about what has happened to Mary and tells him that he wants her to be implanted with nanorobots. He tells John that he can’t do that because the FDA would never allow that. They have been closely monitoring the results of John’s implantation and though they are impressed, they told Dr. Murphy that they would need to have positive results for at least a year to be more certain of the safety of the nanorobots before they would allow more implantations. John begs him but he says he can not risk a project which could ultimately benefit billions for the sake of one life.46

When John enters Mary’s room, he sees that she is on complete life support and a nurse is giving her an IV of whole blood. He sits down in the chair by the bed. He thinks how fragile she looks, like a cracked porcelain doll ready to fall apart at the slightest touch. 47

Listening to the steady rhythm of the respirator and staring at the IV bag of blood he knows exactly what he has to do and he has to do it right now before they find out about Mary’s living will. He gets up and goes into the hall and walks down the hall until he comes to a supply closet. An intern is coming out of it with medical supplies. 48

John paces up and down the hall until it is empty. Then he goes into the closet and finds an IV start kit, catheter and needle unit, and IV tubing. He puts the supplies inside his jacket, and cautiously leaves the closet making sure nobody sees him. 49

The nurse has left before John returns to Mary’s room. John carefully removes the IV bag of blood from the other end of the IV tube connected to Mary’s arm. He brings the plastic bag full of blood into the bathroom. Then he empties the blood into the toilet and flushes it. Then he removes the medical supplies from his jacket He connects one end of the IV tubing to the empty bag then he starts an IV port on a large vein on the inside of his elbow. He attaches the other end of the tubing to this port. Then he lowers the bag until it is almost touching the floor and watches as his blood steadily flows into the empty IV bag He thanks God that he and Mary are the same blood type, O Positive. When the plastic bag is full John removes the port from his arm and bandages it. He then removes the IV tubing from the bag of blood. He puts the tubing and the used catheter and needle into the medical waste disposal receptacle in the bathroom.50

He goes back into the room and he carefully attaches the IV bag full of his blood to the IV tubing attached to Mary. Then he sits down and waits As he looks at his blood slowly going into Mary’s vein he prays that the nanorobots will have enough time to heal Mary. Six hours later there are signs that Mary is starting to come out of her coma. John is ecstatic, now when she recovers they can look forward to their new future together young and without bounds.51

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While he is daydreaming about their future together John notices that his hands are shaking slightly but noticeably and uncontrollably. John thinks to himself that he should call Dr. Murphy about this, but he really doesn’t want to leave Mary right now. He also thinks that maybe it will go away on it’s own.53

An hour later not only has it not gone away it has gotten noticeably worse. John calls Dr. Murphy and tells him that his hands have developed a tremor. Dr. Murphy tells him to come right away to be tested.54

When he arrives at Dr. Murphy’s office the doctor gives John a thorough physical exam. He then orders an extensive battery of tests for John, much more extensive than his normal daily tests. John asks him nervously what he thinks it might be. Dr. Murphy tells him that he really doesn’t know, but after the tests are complete they should have a clear picture of what is happening.55

As John goes through the tests he is scared but he tries to keep his spirits up by saying to himself that this is nothing and by thinking about Mary. About their wonderful future together young and immortal. 56

When Dr. Murphy sits down with John to discuss the results of the tests, he has a frown on his face. He tells John there's very bad news. 57

There is apparently a defect with the nanorobots. In order to coordinate with each other within the host, the person that has been implanted, this version of nanorobots communicates with each other using the host’s nervous system. They connect along nerve endings, nerves both major and minor, the spinal cord, and even in the brain. The problem that you are experiencing is being caused by the sheer number of nanorobots in your body. In order to cure your widespread cancer they had to replicate into millions. In order to reverse the effects of aging, which was an even bigger job than curing the cancer, they replicated into billions58

The problems started at this point because even when everything is at peek condition and there isn’t any repairs for them to do the nanorobots communicate constantly with each other to make sure that all bacterial and viral threats have been dealt with and that the host hasn’t suffered any injuries that require attention as well as the status of various maintenance tasks to preserve the host at peak condition. All this communication from billions of nanorobots started to put a strain on your nervous system, causing minute damage to parts of it. 59

We anticipated that there might be problems with an extremely large population of nanorobots present in a host so we programmed safe guards into them to recognize these problems and decrease their numbers to correct them. However for some reason that programming has failed to kick in and they have instead unfortunately misinterpreted the response needed to this kind of damage, which immediately reoccurs after they repair it, by replicating even more nanorobots to keep up with the repairs. And of course as more and more nanorobots were produced that caused even more extensive and more extensive damage which is only now becoming evident. As they keep replicating even more nanorobots they will eventually reach such a great number that even the nanorobots will not be able to reverse the damage that is produced and you will die. At the current rate that they are replicating and the damage level that they are currently causing, you should be dead within only a few days. 60

John then tells him how he had implanted Mary with nanorobots by transfusing her with a pint of his blood. John can see the anger in Dr. Murphy’s eyes as he tells John that it was a damned fool hardy thing to do. 61

John then asks Dr. Murphy if he thinks the same thing will happen to Mary. The doctor tells John that she may very well end up dying from the same defect. However we will have at least two or three months time to find a solution to this problem before it becomes critical.62

John is standing by Mary’s bedside nervously hiding his trembling hands in his pockets waiting for her to wake up. He looks at the woman he loves more than life itself and wishes that things could have turned out differently for them. Now soon he will be dead and she will be in a fight for her life. 63

He wonders if he did the right thing. Sure he had saved her life at least for a while, but is it something she would have wanted? Knowing Mary’s deep faith she might have greeted the quick and painless death from a stroke as a blessing. Now with the doctors preparing to do all kinds of experimental things to her to keep the nanorobots from killing her. Who knows how agonizing her life might become. 64

What’s more even though he had fantasized about her being forever young by his side, he had never asked her if she would want this. This gentle loving intelligent woman whom he had been married to for fifty two years and who still often surprised him might very well have said that it was ok for him but not for her.65

How will he tell her what he has done? Will she be mad at him or worse yet will she be disappointed with him?66

Just then she wakes up. He kisses her and tells her that he loves her.67