Bots! by Jennifer Loraine Jamie waited apprehensively for the knowledge that the next hour would bring. He had only been married for three months when the symptoms began to affect him badly. He was glad that his wife hadn't noticed how run down he was getting. He had led her to believe that his fatigue was caused by job pressures at the University.
His energy had diminished rapidly over the last month, however, and it was only a matter of time before she discovered he was ill. He couldn't remember the name of the disease that the doctors had told him, but he remembered their description of it's effects easily enough. His body was running down. His DNA was no longer able to replicate without multiple errors.
The mechanisms to clean up the RNA-DNA replication process were no longer functioning. Like a mantle clock without a key, his system was unwinding inexorably toward entropic chaos. He would be dead within a month. Chelation and anti-oxidants had been tried on other patients without success. He sat in the specialist's reception room waiting for a reprieve. The doctor had run a newly developed DNA test in the hope that the diagnosis was wrong.
"Mr. Farr are you here for your Thursday appointment with the doctor?", the receptionist asked.
He nodded and went back to his thoughts.
"Mr. Farr, the doctor will see you now," said the receptionist brightly.
He walked into the doctor's inner office slowly, unwilling to face the death sentence he knew awaited within. The doctor stood as he entered and shook his hand. "How are you feeling today, Mr. Farr?"
"About the same," he replied.
"I received the lab results this morning," the doctor said. "I'm sorry, it's not good news. My diagnosis was correct. I've checked the results with several experts in this disease and they concur with my opinion."
"How......How long do I have?," stammered Jamie.
"Three months, perhaps six at the outside. I sorry, Mr. Farr, there's nothing we can do. You, of course, are free to get a second opinion, but I wouldn't hold out much hope. Have you told your wife yet?"
"No, I didn't have the heart. Mary and I only been married for six months. I didn't want to tell her if there was a possibility that it was something else."
The doctor, who had becoming more uncomfortable as the conversation went on, rose to end it. He held out his hand for Jamie to shake.
"Mr. Farr, If there is anything I can do for you please give me a call. I'm going to refer you back to your regular physician for treatment. I'll send him my notes on your case."
"Treatment?," asked Jamie hopefully.
The specialist shook his head and said, "Symptomatic treatment only, Mr. Farr. He'll start you on medications for nausea and pain."
Jamie said goodbye and left the office in a daze. He felt he had to talk to someone about the diagnosis. Perhaps his friend, Ben, the molecular chemist would be able to give him some advice about what to say to Mary.
Ben's office was extremely busy. Ben was surrounded by a group of happy graduate students slapping each other's backs and shaking Ben's hand. Ben waved at Jamie over the heads of the graduate students when he noticed Jamie standing at the entrance to his office.
"Be with you in a minute Jamie," he said in a happy shout.
Ben slapped his students on the back and shoed them out of his office. "Come in. Come in Jamie," said Ben. An open bottle of champagne sat on his desk. Ben picked up a glass of champagne and pressed it into Jamie's hand. "We're celebrating. Stage Three of the Nanobot project is a success."
"Stage Three?," asked Jamie absently. "Here Jamie, let me show you." He riffled through a stack of diagrams on his desk until he found a large folded chart which he spread out over the top of his desk.
"The nanobot project is an attempt to build self-replicating, heuristically programmed, molecular robots. We achieved that in Stage One. In stage two we programmed them to perform complex chemical tasks. We've used them to act as catalysts, build new molecules, even large macromolecular structures. In stage three, we began by programming them to build even larger structures, up to the cellular level. We've were able to program them to attack and replace damaged DNA structures in lab mice with cancer.
The final experiment in Stage Three was to arrest the aging process in rats. The nanobots attack free radicals, repair DNA, stimulate hormone production, even replace calcium in bone tissue. Since the nanobots have been given to the rats, they haven't aged a day. We've totally arrested the aging process."
"Did you say they repaired DNA?," Jamie asked, his interest suddenly piqued.
"That's right. Repaired. They use redundant enumeration and comparison to build a clean DNA paradigm. After approximately ten million iterations, they reconfigure themselves into DNA groups, each with it's own strand. Then they replicate themselves and replace all the "dirty" DNA in the cells. Of course, that's only the DNA aspect of the project, cellular repair was much tougher to implement."
"How do you get these robots into the rats? Do you have the rats swallow them?"
Ben smiled and said, "Nothing that complicated. We just put the bots in a syringe with some saline solution and inject then into a vein. The bots take it from there."
"May I see them?," asked Jamie excitedly. "Well.......I'm really not supposed to let unauthorized visitors into the lab, but since you're a full professor here at the University, I think we can overlook the regulations. Come on, I'll take you down to my lab."
Jamie found the electron photomicrographs of the bots fascinating. "Is this them?," he asked.
"That's them," Ben said proudly. "But I don't see any......any appendages. How do they do it? How do they make DNA?," he asked with a puzzled expression.
"Nothing as crude as hands, I'm afraid. Look at the convolutions on the surface of the crystal. Each of the peaks and valleys is a binding site. The general structure is determined by the bot's initial programming. As the bots replicate, the structure is modified to attract specific molecules. See those bumps on the sides of the valley? Those are active zones. They allow the bot to attract and bind other molecules to the work molecule. That's for mass production molecular repair. For nonspecific, low-output manipulation of molecules, there's an atomic tweezer on one node. The other side is the reproductive nodule where the bot can reproduce itself as necessary.
"Do they communicate with each other or does each act independently?"
"They communicate electronically with each other via the blood. The technique was developed in the Fifties by the Russians to enable spies to use lakes and surface water reservoirs to make a single untappable electronic connection between agents separated by a large expanse of water. I've developed a more advanced version of the technique to allows the bots to form a peer-to-peer network inside the body. Each bot operates independently, but reports it's findings via the net."
"How are they powered?"
"By the body itself. The bots are able to use heat, ATP and glycogen as power sources. Electrical energy is obtained from the ions in the blood. Electrically they're a hundred times more efficient than a nerve cell."
"You said they were heuristically programmed, what does that mean?", Jamie asked, fascinated by the concept of millions of molecular robots operating semi-independently to repair cellular damage.
"They are given a general set of instructions in their original program. As they find discrepancies between the program and the body they're in, they modify their instructions to match their environment. In short, they figure out what's wrong and how to do it. Then they go out and make the repairs. Well, ....what do you think?"
"This is fantastic! When will they be ready to give humans?", asked Jamie enthusiastically.
"Humans?," Ben laughed ruefully. "Not for a good many years, I'm afraid. We have years of testing ahead of us."
"But think of all the lives that could be saved!" Ben shook his head, "We have no idea what they would do in a human. Even though the DNA module would work, the programming for the hormones would probably be radically different. If we were testing the effect of the bots on another type of lab animal, we'd rely on the heuristic programming features to reprogram the bots. We couldn't take the chance on humans, there might be odd side effects."
The phone rang and Ben said, "Excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back."
He dropped his keys in an open drawer and went to answer the phone. Jamie glanced into the drawer, there were two more duplicate sets of keys lying further back in the drawer. Jamie shot a quick look over at Ben on the phone, then reached into the drawer and pocketed a duplicate set of keys.
Ben returned and said, "Congratulations from the "Head of Department" call. Do you have any questions?"
"How much do you give the rats? I guess I should say, how many bots do you give them?"
"Well, it's not the number that's important. A single one would do the job. You see, they're Von Neuman machines, as long as there's at least one to replicate, then the process will start. For practical purposes, however, the greater the number of bots that are originally introduced, the faster the enumeration process will take place. When we give an injection to the rats we introduce approximately one hundred thousand bots. About one-hundredth a cc of solution. The Head of Department wants to talk to me. Shall we go?"
Jamie nodded and lead the way out of the lab with a smile on his face. He had seen the means of his reprieve. Later that night Jamie returned to the lab and searched for the bots. After searching through all the cabinets he decided to try the refrigerator in the office. He discovered that the refrigerator was protected by a tubular lock similar to those found on pay telephones.
Fortunately, one of the keys on the spare set fit the lock on the refrigerator. When he opened the refrigerator he found it was filled with wire racks full of glass tubes. He looked and saw the bots were in rubber stoppered tubes sitting upright in the wire racks. He located a 10 ml syringe and filled it from one of the tubes marked "Bots-Stage Three-Final Ver. Series 731" and injected 5 ml into his antecubital vein. He replaced the tube and the keys, then turned out the lights and left the lab, locking the door behind him.
Friday morning Jamie woke up feeling as bad as ever. He got dressed and made a cup of coffee before going to the University. "The bots haven't had time to do anything yet. Give them time," he thought. He dragged though the day then went home and fell asleep on the couch waiting for Mary to come home.
When Mary came home from the University Wives' meeting, she put a comforter on Jamie and began making dinner for the two of them. She was used to finding him on the couch; Jamie always tried to stay up for her return when she went out. He was extremely jealous and wanted her to spend all of her time at home. The only way she could get out of the house was to go to a Wives' meeting.
Jamie gave her the distinct impression that he thought that she would "step out" on him if she had the chance. He'd wait for her so she could tell him where she'd been when she got back. She had begun to go to the University Wives' meetings so that she'd have witnesses to where she'd been and what she'd done. Mary knew that he'd never raise a stink about her new friends; the other wives would tell their husbands and his colleagues would give him hell if he did. Mary was confident that his behavior would moderate in time, she believed he was suffering from a newlywed's insecurity.
She woke him for dinner and then they went to bed. Jamie woke in the morning feeling terrible. He was exhausted. He felt like he was a hundred years old. When Mary tried to get him out of bed he groaned. She patted him on the head and said, "Does Jamie feel nasty today?"
Jamie groaned again and turned over. "I think I've got a virus," he said.
"More like a hangover, I think," she said with a frown in her voice. She got up and left him alone in bed. "Since it's Saturday, I'll leave you to sleep off your hangover."
He heard her make breakfast and then leave to go shopping. She woke him up about six o'clock and said, "I guess I misjudged you, you really must be sick. You slept the clock around."
She left and returned with his dinner on a tray. "Here Honey, try and eat something. Then you can go back to sleep."
He ate, then got up to go to the bathroom and went back to sleep. Jamie woke up feeling wonderful. He hadn't felt this good in years. He bounced out of bed and went to the kitchen to make breakfast for the both of them. He woke Mary with a kiss and gave her breakfast in bed.
"You must be feeling better. I guess sleeping the clock around did you some good," she said around a mouthful of eggs and toast. "Why don't you come back to bed?"
They didn't get out of bed until the late afternoon. Neither one of them went back to sleep though, they were engaged in trying to recreate the best moments of their honeymoon. When they got up and got dressed to go out to dinner, Jamie felt years younger.
Jamie looked at his face in the mirror as he shaved. "I look like I did when I was only an Associate Professor," he thought in surprise. "I guess the bots have started to work."
They went out to dinner and then went dancing. When they returned home Mary went directly to bed. Jamie followed her a few minutes later. He lowered the blinds, Monday was the start of Spring Break and there wouldn't be any classes for the next three weeks. He planned to sleep in Monday and didn't want the morning sun to wake them up.
Jamie woke up incredibly horny. He kissed Mary awake and began to slowly make love to her in the dark. After a delightfully long session with Mary Jamie rolled over on his back and sighed.
"That was wonderful Jamie," Mary husked. "You've never made love to me like that. You were as energetic as a teenager. It was like making love to an entirely different person," she said with a contented sigh. "Roll over here so I can give you a kiss," she said.
They kissed for minutes before she had to break for air. "Whee, you are different this morning! Let me look at you!" She reached behind her and turned on the lamp and ............screamed! "Who........Who are you?!!!," Mary demanded.
It took a moment for Jamie to answer, the back of his mouth was sticky with morning phlegm and his tongue was stuck to the roof off his mouth. He swallowed and spoke for the first time since he woke up. "Mary it's me, Jamie," he said, his voice cracking with the tones of puberty.
"You're not Jamie! What have you done with Jamie? I'm going to call the police!"
"Mary, it's me!," he yelled. "You?! You're not Jamie. You can't be more than thirteen! My husband is thirty-eight years old, you're not Jamie!"
Jamie leapt out of bed and dashed into the bathroom. He turned on the light and looked into the mirror. Staring back out of the mirror at him was the face of a young teenager, a very young teenager.
"Oh my God! What have I done? It's the bots, Mary! The bots have done this to me!" He rushed out of the bathroom to find her frantically calling the police.
"Mary, I'm Jamie. I can prove it to you! Please put down the phone."
She put the phone on the hook, reached into the bedside table, took out an automatic pistol, chambered a round and pointed the muzzle at his chest. "Okay, prove it, Mister!"
He sputtered a minute and then began to recount intimate details of their marriage to her. After a few minutes, she dropped the pistol onto the bedsheets and said, "Jamie, it is you! What's happened to you?"
He told her the story about his illness and his theft of the bots.
"We have to talk to your friend Ben.," she said determinedly. She went to the closet and started to get dressed while Jamie went to the dresser for a clean pair of shorts. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his legs in the shorts and pulled them up. He looked down and saw that his shorts were enormous on him. There was enough room for two of him in there. Mary looked at him and snickered, "Don't be silly, Jamie, those don't fit anymore. I'll have to get you some clothes before we go. I'll drive over to Wal-Mart and get you something to wear."
He dropped the shorts and sat back on the bed. Mary got dressed and got a tape measure from her sewing box. She measured his waist and inseam, then measured his arms and neck.
"I'll be right back, Honey," she said as she left.
He back into the bathroom to use the toilet. When he had finished he looked down at himself. All of his pubic hairs had fallen out, his pubes were as smooth and bare as a baby's! He reached down and cupped his testicles in his hand. They had shrunk to half the size they had been yesterday! Jamie put his head in his hands and wept. Ben would help him, he had to!
When Mary returned she gave him a pair of jeans, a tee-shirt and some plastic sandals. He struggled to put them on. "Mary," he said cautiously "don't you think these are a little tight on me?"
"Of course they are, Sweetheart. You're getting younger every minute. I bought them too small. I didn't want them to be too big on you when I got home! Here, sit on the bed and I'll help you."
She took the jeans from his hands, bent over and worked them up his legs. When she got them to his behind, she deftly lifted his legs and hips with one hand while pulling the jeans over his bottom with the other. She smiled in spite of herself when she saw he had lost all his pubic hair and couldn 't resist the opportunity to tease him. She felt the area with her hand and said, "Just as smooth as a baby's bottom. Little dickie looks soooo sweet all naked! And look, Jamie's got baby balls!"
Jamie blushed hotly and moved to zip up the pants. She slapped his hands and said, "I told you I'd do it Jamie," as she fastened his zipper for him.
She handed him the T-shirt and said, "Go ahead and put them on. They'll be okay by time we get to Ben's. I'll call him and tell him we're coming while you're getting dressed."
Mary left the room and called Ben at home on the kitchen phone. She explained to Ben what Jamie had done and asked him if he would help them. Ben agreed to meet them at the lab immediately.
Ben was unlocking the door of the lab when they arrived. He ushered them in and began to clear a work table. "My assistant, Laura will be here in a few minutes to help us," he said. She walked in as he finished moving the equipment from the table.
"Thanks for coming on such short notice, Laura. Would you get Mr. Farr prepared for a botscan while I get the instruments set up?"
Laura looked at the work table and said, "I'm going to fix a pad for this table, Mr. Farr. I'll be ready for you in just a minute."
She went to the emergency fire blanket which was mounted vertically in a long dispensing box by the office door. She grabbed the loop sewn to the blanket, pulled it free of the storage box, and draped it over her arm. Laura returned and folded the blanket into a long pad that she centered on the table.
"Just hop right up here, Mr. Farr," she said, patting the pad. Jamie jumped up on the edge of the table losing his pants in the process.
"That's alright, Mr. Farr, I was going to ask you to remove them anyway," she said as she reached down and picked up his pants.
She handed them to Mary who folded them neatly and put them on a table next to her. Ben came over to the table with a cable in his hand. He took a thin package out of his top pocket, tore the side of the package off and peeled the backing off a self-adhesive gel-pad electrode. Ben placed the electrode on Jamie's abdomen and said, "This electrode will allow my computer to communicate with the bots."
He connected the cable to the gel-pad and returned to his seat at the console. "Jamie," said Ben, "Do you know which sample you injected yourself with?"
Jamie felt uncomfortable talking about what he had stolen from Ben's lab in front of him. Jamie replied in a low, embarrassed voice, "It was in the front of the refrigerator, marked with a number, 731, I think."
Ben glanced at Laura and said, "Did you hear that, Laura? Would you go and check on the number for me?"
She nodded and returned shortly. "It was Series 731, Ben. The tube is almost empty," she said handing Ben the tube.
Ben looked at the tube label, shook his head and laid the tube down beside the computer console. Ben stared at the console as the computer flashed a message that it had achieved linkage.
"The computer's linked with the bots," he said, "I'll order a Ring 0 flush and terminate command.........They're not responding!...They must have reprogrammed themselves and given themselves a level thirty-one priority with Ring 0 privileges. I can't override! I'll try a NMI message...........Nothing! They've removed the NMI from their instruction set!....Jamie, there's nothing I can do. They won't let me take command of the job stack. All I can do is monitor their progress."
He bent over his console rapidly entering commands. "I'll have a population count in a few minutes."
He waited patently for the computer to complete the census. "Good God!!," he exclaimed as the figures were displayed. "This is incredible. I'd have never believed it if I hadn't seen it. There are almost a billion bots in him. They must be attempting to repair every cell in his body. Let me query the job stack............They are! They're doing a complete DNA re-write. Wait......I've got a census update. The population is declining. Slowly, but it is declining. I'll get an estimate of job completion time..........Two hours! The bots will be 99% completed in 2 hours and 14 minutes. I'll try to make a spline plot of his age. Jamie, how much of the solution did you inject into yourself?"
"About 5 ml."
"And when did you do it?"
"Thursday night, about eleven o'clock."
"Mary, you told me over the phone that he looked like he was about twelve or thirteen this morning. What time was that? Try to be as exact as possible."
Mary looked at her watch and said, "It was exactly one hour and fifteen minutes ago."
"And how old do you think Jamie looks now?" Mary looked at Jamie carefully and said, "I'd guess he's about eight, maybe nine years old."
"Okay, then. I think I've got enough data to make a rough estimate. I've fudged a lot of data we don't have, but at least we'll have a ballpark figure. There it is. At the current population and rate of population decline, I estimate Jamie's physiological age will be between six months to two years old when the bots finish."
Jamie looked shocked at the news, he had never expected that Ben wouldn't be able to do anything. "After all, the Bots are his invention," he thought.
Mary started weeping and Laura went over to her and put her arm around her shoulder. Ben got up and went to the office, returning a minute later with a bottle of Brandy. He poured about four fingers into a coffee cup and handed it to Mary.
"Drink it, Mary. I can't have you falling apart on me now. Think of how Jamie must feel. He's the one this is happening to. We're only bystanders."
Mary drank the Brandy in one long swallow and stopped crying. She appeared slightly green from chugging a coffee cup full of Brandy, but looked okay otherwise. Ben sat down at his console again while Laura stood behind Mary. No one moved for an hour as they watched Jamie shrink on the table.
Finally Laura broke the silence, "How old do you think he is now, Ben?"
"He's about three and half, perhaps four years old," Ben said softly.
Jamie looked up at Mary with a nervous expression on his face and said, "Would you hold me?"
As Mary got up from the lab chair next to the exam table and bent over him, Ben's assistant quickly rolled over a desk chair she been sitting in.
"Here, Mrs. Farr, you can sit in this. There'll be more room for the two of you. I'll get another from the office."
Mary picked Jamie up and sat down in the chair with her husband in her lap. She looked at the lab assistant thankfully and said, "Poor dear, he wants to be close to me. If it's okay with the two of you, I'll hold him until it's over."
The two scientists nodded and watched as she tenderly cuddled the diminutive form of her husband. Ben completed his calculations on his computer terminal and motioned for his assistant to come over to him. He whispered into her ear for a moment, then took out his wallet and gave her two twenty dollar bills.
"My assistant will be back in a few minutes. I' m sending her out for some special supplies."
Mary nodded absently, she didn't care what they did, as long as she could be close to her beloved husband Jamie. Ben rolled his chair next to hers and said, "Mary, the nanobots will complete their program in approximately sixty minutes. Jamie will survive. I think I can shut down the nanobots once they've finished executing their program. I've configured the job list to loop until recognized. I've given them the order to flush from his system and terminate. They'll exit his body through his large intestine and pass out of his body with his stools. Don't worry, once they've terminated, they're harmless. The code causes the control structure of the nanobot to break down into a meaningless silicon structure."
They waited and watched Jamie as the minutes and years of his life dribbled away. Ben's assistant returned with a bag from Wal-Mart which she put under the table. Ben looked at his watch and said, ".....three minutes until completion." He turned back to the monitor and watched, then counted down the remaining seconds, "Four, three, two, one. Job completed. Flushing commencing......... Termination mode activated...... All units shut down. Mary, it's over. Jamie will live."
Mary wasn't listening, she was looking down at Jamie and repeating, "My poor, poor baby! What have you done to yourself?"
Jamie mewled and started to pee. "Oh Jamie," she said, "what are you doing? Stop that!"
Ben's lab assistant reached under the table and opened the bag. She took out a small, folded, white object and presented it to Mary, saying, "Mrs. Farr, I think you should put Jamie in this."
Mary looked at her distractedly and said, "Put Jamie in what?"
"A diaper, Mrs. Farr. I think you should put Jamie in diapers," said Laura, unfolding the object to reveal what it was; a disposable baby diaper.
"A what?," asked Mary in confusion.
Ben came over to Mary's side and said gently, "Mary, Jamie is going to have a bowel movement very soon now. The command I gave to the bots have caused them to stimulate the passage of stools. I think you should put him in a diaper right away, before that happens. Don't you agree?"
She looked at the diaper in the assistant's hand, then down at the wet spot Jamie had made on her pants. "I think you're right," she said.
Mary put Jamie on the table and expertly diapered him, then picked him up and held him close to her bosom. The assistant took a small flannel blanket out of the bag and said, "Here, Mrs. Farr, I bought a baby blanket too. Why don't you wrap Jamie in this? You don't want Jamie to get cold, do you? "
Mary took the blanket wordlessly from the lab assistant and carefully wrapped Jamie, then reseated herself in the chair. The assistant took the bag and went to another lab table. She busied herself with glassware and lit a bunsen burner; apparently involving herself in an experiment. Mary sat in the chair cuddling Jamie and murmuring to him in a low voice, "Jamie's been very, very naughty! Look at you! Do you see what happens when you steal? You've become a baby! What am I going to do with you? I can't even give you back to your mother. She's in the last stage of Alzheimer' s. She can't take care of you, she's as helpless as you are. She's in the hospital and back in diapers herself. My poor, poor baby! You need someone to take care of you. You look so helpless. What will you do for a mommy?"
She frowned and said, "I'll guess I'll have to take care of you myself. What do you say to that Jamie? Do you want me to be your Mommy?" Jamie looked up into Mary's face, smiled and cooed pleasantly. Mary smiled at Jamie and said, "Jamie likes that idea doesn't he? Don't worry Darling, Mommy will take care of you."
Mary looked at Ben and said, "Isn't there something you can do for him? Can't you order the bots to change him back?"
Ben shook his head no and said, "Mary, what the bots did is irrevocable. The bots have completely replaced his cellular structure. You were right when you told him that he's a baby. Any attempt to rewrite the bots programming would be very dangerous. When they rejuvenated him, the template of all the changes in his body that maturity made was lost. That information isn't recoverable, it's lost forever. I can't do anything. The only option we have is to let him grow up and age normally. You'll have to be his Mommy."
His lab assistant returned and handed Mary a baby bottle full of formula. "Here Mrs. Farr, I made a bottle of baby formula for him. He's probably thirsty, why don't you give it to him? The temperatures okay, I warmed it to thirty seven degrees Celsius."
Ben put his hand on her arm and said, "Mary, I'd like you to give him the bottle. Feeding him will help stimulate the bowel reflex, he needs to void the bots as soon as possible."
Mary took it reluctantly and approached Jamie's head with the bottle intending to put the nipple in Jamie's mouth. Jamie seized the bottle eagerly from her hand, jammed the nipple in his mouth and began sucking thirstily.
"Mary, I'm going to call a friend of mine, Dr. Walsh to come over and examine Jamie. She's a pediatrician at the University Health Clinic and is more qualified than I am to evaluate Jamie's condition. Dr. Walsh is an old friend and she would respect Jamie's right to privacy. I'm sure you realize what a delicate position the University has been put in by Jamie's actions. I'd like to keep what's happened to Jamie out of the press if I can." Ben patted her hand and went to the phone and place the call.
"Alice..............Hello Alice, this is Ben............I was wondering if you could do a favor for me?............Could you come over to my lab?............Yes, immediately if possible..............Well, I can't really say over the phone. I was wondering if you could examine a friend of mine.........How old? I can't say.......Yes, I know that sounds cryptic. This friend is a pedi case, is that a help?................Thanks, we'll be waiting for you. Bye." Ben hung the receiver up, returned to the table and said, "She said she'll be here in about thirty minutes. Has he had a bowel movement yet?.........No?......Well, let's try to get him to evacuate his bowels. He needs to void the bots. Mary, try to get him to walk. Exercise should do it."
She unwrapped him from the blanket and stood him on his feet on the lab floor. He rocked and swayed unsteadily before Mary could grab his hand. "Walk, Jamie! You can do it! Come on, honey. Try and walk for Mary."
He stood and wobbled uncertainly on his feet. Laura knelt down to his level and was rewarded with a dazed smile from Jamie. Laura returned his smile and cooed invitingly at Jamie, "Walkies, Jamie! Go walkies for Laura!"
He smiled again and took a step.
"That's a good boy. Come to Laura!"
She backed off a pace and knelt with her arms outstretched. "Come to Laura, Sweetheart!"
He took another step and fell on his bottom, still holding onto Mary's hand. Jamie's expression rapidly changed from surprise to frustration and he began to cry. Laura looked at him sympathetically and said, "Let's see if crawling will do it. Mary, would you put him on the table?"
Mary picked him up and placed him on the table on his hands and legs. "Crawl Honey!," Mary demanded. "Crawl for Mary."
Jamie crawled to the end of the table obediently, then turned and started to crawl back to Mary. Halfway across the table Jamie stopped with a puzzled expression on his face. Jamie's confused frown turned into a half-smile and Laura said, "Look, Mrs. Farr. He's pooping in his diaper. I'll get ready to change him."
Laura picked up the bag and put it on the table next to Jamie. She took a small travel pack of baby wipes, a blue box the size of a pint of milk, a box the size of a toothpaste tube, a tube of KY Jelly, and a stack of clean diapers out of the bag. She went over to a supply cabinet and brought back some contaminated material bags and a box of latex gloves. She gloved her hands and said, "We need to be careful when we change his diaper, there might be some active bots in the stools. We'll have to treat the diaper as a Class One Bio-hazard and incinerate it."
They waited another five minutes until they were sure that Jamie had finished his bowel movement. Laura picked up Jamie under his armpits and laid him on his back. She unfastened the tapes on the diaper and pulled it down, exposing his pubic area. She opened the baby wipes and lifted his legs with one hand, then cleaned his bottom with the wipe. Mary slid a clean diaper underneath his bottom and Laura gently lowered him back to the table. Ben supervised the operation and explained the next procedure while Laura sealed the dirty wipe, used diaper and gloves into a contaminated materials bag.
"We need to make sure that all the bots are out of his system. The computer indicates that all of them have flushed into his rectum and ceased to function, all we need to do now is make sure his rectum is completely cleaned out. Laura, when you've finished with that bag, would you prepare the solution for the next step while I begin the initial cleaning?" He gloved up and turned Jamie on his stomach, causing Jamie to squeal in fright. "Mary, would you glove up too, so you can help me? I think Jamie needs some reassurance."
Mary put on the glove dutifully and held Jamie's back down while Ben opened the toothpaste sized box.
"It's alright, Sweetie. Ben won't hurt you. It'll all be over in a minute," she cooed down at Jamie.
Ben held up a accordion-like plastic tube filled with a clear jell. He lubricated the end and inserted it into Jamie's behind searching for the anus. When he found it, he slipped it all the way in and began to collapse the accordion, forcing the jell into Jamie's rectum. He withdrew the laxative applicator and dropped it into an empty materials bag and then turned Jamie onto his back.
"This should only take a minute, Jamie. It won't hurt, I promise," Ben said. J
amie gazed into the eyes of his old friend with a trusting look that rapidly changed into one of surprise. A minute later, Jamie pooped onto the diaper lying flat on the table beneath him. He wiggled his legs as the jell continued to ooze out of his behind. Mary put her hand on his abdomen to keep him from moving off of the diaper.
"We're ready when you are Laura," Ben called.
Laura came over with a stoppered 1000 ml Erlenmeyer flask full of a white soapy looking solution.
"I'm ready now Ben."
Ben wiped Jamie clean and disposed of the materials just as Laura had done. Mary put a clean diaper under Jamie and stood silently while they prepared another enema for him. Laura took an enema syringe out of her lab coat pocket and filled it from the flask.
"Mary, could you turn him over on his stomach for me? When I've finished injecting the enema solution, turn him on his back again for me."
Mary did as Laura requested while Laura lubed the syringe. The operation took less than a minute and Jamie was lying on his back again. Laura tucked the diaper up between his legs to catch the solution. Seconds later, soapy water began to spew from his anus into the diaper.
"Again," Ben said, holding an empty bag for the wet diaper.
They gave Jamie enemas until the flask was empty, then disposed of the syringe in the bag. There was a knock on the door and Ben went over to see who was there. He opened it a crack, stuck his head out of the door, then threw the door open. "Come in Alice, Come in."
Dr. Alice Walsh came in and he hurriedly closed and locked the door behind her.
"Alice, let me fill you in on what's going on here."
They huddled together in a quiet conference and then came over to the table. Alice set her bag on the table and took out a stethoscope. She listened to Jamie's heart and lungs, then palpated his back. She took a oto/opthalmoscope from her bag and looked into his eyes and ears, then she took a tongue depressor from her bag and looked at his throat. Alice peeled his bottom lip down to look at his gums and teeth, then palpated the sutures on his skull. She turned Jamie on his stomach, then took a rectal thermometer from a small case, shook it down and inserted it in Jamie's anus. He squirmed as she held him down for the measurement.
Alice took her ballpoint pen and ran it up the sole of his foot several times, then switched feet and repeated the procedure. His toes remained uncurled in response to the pen each time. Then she stroked the outside edge of the sole making the big toe flex. Alice stroked his palm with the pen and noted that his palm remained open. She put the pen in her pocket and turned his head in one direction then another, watching his trunk twist each time in the direction that his head was turned. Then she put her finger next to his cheek and brushed it lightly, noting that his head turned as she touched him.
Alice put her forefinger into his mouth and withdrew it when he attempted to suckle her finger. She stood him up on his feet and watched his stance, then tried to get him to walk. He collapsed without trying to walk, evidently preferring to crawl.
"Well," said Ben, "What do you think? Is he okay?"
Alice looked at all of them gravely and said, "He's about 22 pounds and appears to be healthy. He doesn't seem to have any neurological damage as nearly as I can tell, but his reflexes seem to be those of a nine to ten month old baby. The only abnormality I could find was that his cranial sutures seem to be completely closed. If he were really an infant, that might be a problem, there wouldn't be any room for his brain to grow. In his case I simply don't know, it might not be a problem.
"What do you mean, it might not be a problem? Wouldn't his brain be crushed if it grew?," demanded Mary.
Ben put his hand on her shoulder and said, "She means that there's a very real possibility that he might not grow, Mary. He might stay like this the rest of his life."
Alice nodded in agreement and continued, "I would say that you have a miracle on your hands, Ben. You have a middle-aged man with the body of an infant. I see that you've got diapers for him. Have you diapered him yet? "
They all nodded. "Has he.........utilized a diaper?" They all nodded emphatically.
"I see. Laura, could you rediaper him please. And that baby bottle I see on the table, I assume you gave him formula? Was there any problem getting him to drink from the bottle?" They all shook their heads no.
"Well then, my advice is to get him a nanny. A Mommy would be even better. He's obviously been regressed into infancy and will have to be cared for. Other than that, I can't tell you anything. I can't even tell you if he'll grow up. Ben's the expert in the effects of the bots. If he doesn't know, you'll just have to wait and see. Mary, are you Jamie's wife?"
Mary said "yes" in a small voice.
Alice looked at her sympathetically and said, "Mary, I think you should forget about being his wife. You're going to have to be his Mommy now. Can you do that? Can you be his Mommy?"
CONTINUE TO PART 2