King of All I Survey
Chapter 94: Teaching an Old Dog...

Chapter 94: Teaching an Old Dog...

Dr. Wagner prudently insisted on us demonstrating the age-correction procedures on his dog before he would even consider it for himself. His dog, a border collie, was 14 years old. Her muzzle was graying, her eyes were clouded, and she walked with a hobbling limp that the veterinarians said was from chronic arthritis. She moved slowly and was a bit overweight. Whether because it hurt too much to move or for other age-related reasons, Wager’s dog, Millie, spent most her time lying down, drifting in and out of sleep.

She didn’t have much time, and she was likely in pain all or most of the time. Yet, her eyes lit up and her tail wagged excitedly whenever Wagner turned his attention toward her. It was clear that the two had a strong bond. Wagner decided that if there was a chance Millie could regain her youthful vigor, it was worth the risk. Her death was imminent if nothing was done, and her quality of life was already substantially degraded. If she didn’t make it, then he would endure his own old age without her. If she did regain her health, he would accept the treatment so that she wouldn’t outlive him and be left alone.

I had never had a pet dog, so I envied their devotion to each other.

"So, how is this going to work?" Wagner asked as we stood in one of the treatment rooms in SickBay.

Joe, in his brand-new android form, wore a white doctor’s coat, black pants and well-polished black dress shoes. His hair was dark brown and medium-short in length. He told me his hair would not grow since his body was artificial. He could have designed the body so the hair grew, he said, but it had seemed unnecessary. He had brown eyes, and I suppose people would say he had handsome features. He looked every bit like a trustworthy doctor, well-versed in the latest medical advances.

He answered Wagner directly, "Well, Ernst, first we’re going to introduce some chemicals into her blood that are typically present in higher concentrations during youth. This will help her system naturally repair some damage and operate with higher efficiency. The change, however, would be temporary since her body is no longer producing these compounds in sufficient amounts to maintain. So this is just to help make her a little stronger and help her body respond better as we proceed with the other aspects of the treatment. We’ll introduce them into her blood, by routing her circulatory system through a diffuser which will add them slowly, as her blood passes the membranes."

He indicated a small box with surgical tubing trailing out of it. "We’ll interrupt a vein in her neck and insert the lines to the diffuser from there. We’ll also be actively scanning for any blood clots that may occur from the added turbulence or flow rate changes. Should any occur, we will be able to immediately dissolve them with a tightly focused laser. The chances are quite low, but due to her advanced age and the relatively poor quality of her blood, it is not insignificant, so it’s best to be prepared." Joe’s android body briefly met Wagner’s eyes as he said this and showed a brief caring smile, before turning back to Millie. He was petting her as she lay on a table just above waist height for convenient access. We will also be giving her... I guess you’d say ’improved antibiotic treatments’ to deal with some minor bacterial presence in her blood stream and organs that cause inflammation and stress on her body. We will not give her any antiviral treatments at this point, since we are using an engineered viral vector to introduce some cellular modifications later in the procedure. We’ll give her 72 hours for the new blood compounds to work before we go to the next step. You should see a very dramatic improvement in her energy and focus within that time period, although I’m sorry to say her arthritis will not be much improved yet. We’d ask you to try to keep her from over-exerting herself to avoid any additional structural damage to the joints and skeletal structure."

"If all goes well, and you decide that you want to proceed with the procedures for yourself, your first step will be very similar, except we’ll use the brachial artery for our intervention. Oh, and we won’t use dog hormones." Joe winked at Wagner as he said the last.

Wagner’s usual joking demeanor wasn’t really at the forefront due to his concern for Millie’s welfare, so he was surprised at Joe’s remark, and it seemed to take him a minute to realize Joe was joking.

A brief smirk made its way to his face before he returned his full attention to Millie as she lay calmly on the procedure table. Joe, I knew, was using direct intervention in her mind to help keep her relaxed and calm. Even with that, Joe told me, having her trusted companion at her side would do far more to keep her relaxed and cooperative.

"After three days, we’ll assess her response to the first treatment. Barring any surprises, we’ll next introduce a targeted viral component that will specifically seek out blood vessel tissues, including some parts of the heart structure, though not the muscle itself." This will introduce some engineered DNA repair and replacement, by the virus itself and some temporary... I hesitate to use the word nanobots... let’s say payload delivery vehicles embedded within the engineered virus. Once they do their work, they will dissolve and be filtered out by the kidneys. The end result is that the circulatory system will be largely composed of youthful, healthy cells. I can’t say exactly what percentage of older, senescent cells will remain in a dog, or a human, for that matter. My best probability calculations show roughly 94 percent of her circulatory system cells will be ’rejuvenated’, for all practical purposes, they will be roughly as they were when she was about 10-12 months old."

Wagner’s eyes were bright with hope, "You hear that girl, you’ll be a teenager again." Millie’s tail wagged a little faster, responding to her best friend’s happy tone.

"I don’t want to bore you with too much detail, Ernst. Am I getting too far into the weeds?" Joe asked.

"No, please. I am a mathematician, details are my comfort zone," Wagner replied. "I think Millie wants to hear it, too. Don’t you good girl?"

Millie flicked her tongue out to lick Wagner’s face as he leaned in to talk to her. He smiled and pulled back, quickly. Joe’s android body reached out and scratched behind her ear. She leaned into the scratch, accepting Joe’s touch as though he were an old friend. I thought that was pretty interesting. I half expected her to be skittish around his artificial body, but she seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t an ordinary human. I wondered if he had included human smell in his simulacrum. I made a mental note to have him give me a full run-down of the new android bodies. After all, I had a couple made for my own use, and I was anxious to try them out.

"We’ll give Millie another three days for the maximum efficacy of that treatment. The improved circulatory system will improve her oxygenation and will also help with delivery of the remaining treatments. Her immune system, including anti-inflammatory responses should improve and we’ll see improved efficiency in some glands, organs, especially kidney function, and even her brain function. If we stopped there, it might add roughly 3-5 years to her lifespan, but she’d still have the skeletal issues and arthritis pain, as well as major organ senescence including significant loss of brain function efficiency. These unimproved areas would get some incremental benefit from the circulatory system improvements, but would continue to increase their senescent cell loads. At some point, organ failure or dementia would lead to increasing dehabilitation and death."

"Phase three of our process, however, introduces additional targeted and wide-effect viral carriers to make repairs throughout Millie’s system. Depending upon the efficaciousness, which can vary by individual and by specific location within the body, we will follow up with additional applications of components of the phase three treatments, and another compound to flush out a significant portion of any remaining senescent cells that are still in there mucking up the works. At this point, we’ll include agents to clear her blood vessels of any remaining cholesterol or plaque build-up, amyloid reduction in the brain, and a... I guess you’d say stem-cell therapy, though we already tell the stem-cells what they’ll be when they grow up, for cartilage repair, and bone tissue repair. Depending upon the specific skeletal and joint issues, we augment this with physical, structural interventions. This would be things like removing bone spurs or other malformations, and correcting for any aberrational shaping of the new growth. At this point, Millie will be as good as new. The only other intervention is a temporary compound to inhibit additional growth. Otherwise, she might add some height and overall size due to the presence of youthful levels of growth hormones."

"The process is largely the same for humans, of course the biochemistry is different, but the processes are almost identical. It is possible to do it all in one go over 48 hours, but the efficiency is maximized with the incremental treatment schedule."

"And afterwards, she ages normally again for another 13 or 14 years, and then what? Can you repeat it indefinitely?" Wagner asked.

"We would not make her go through the development of age-related degeneration over and over again." Joe said, "We would do smaller, less intensive interventions every few years, to maintain her youthful metabolism. For humans, of course, the choice to resume aging or continuing youth maintenance treatments is left to the patient’s choice. Some find that they eventually... I guess you’d say, lose interest in life, and let themselves age and die. Personally, I don’t really understand that view, but it’s fairly common in most intelligent species throughout the galaxy."

Wagner nodded, his lips pursed. "I can understand that. After a while, you might feel like you’re just repeating things you’ve already done, almost like a longer-term version of Groundhog Day. The desire for something new and different while being unable to find anything you hadn’t already done, could be... difficult."

"Perhaps," Joe added, "but others find that the universes are full of unending mysteries to be solved, or that sharing time with a loved companion," he reached out again and scratched Millie’s head, "never gets old."

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