The PRL Event: CZS 5
AEA7
Worthington’s Experiments
There are a wide array of parasites in the animal kingdom and even though their modus operendi varies from species to species, their underlying function is the same; infiltrate and take over. This takeover can be as simple as growing and multiplying inside of the host, but some parasites are much more savvy.
Take, for instance, the toxoplasma that Dr. Worthington is very familiar with. Toxoplasma Gondii is a neurological parasite that is known to have drastic effects on the behavior of mice hosts. The life cycle of the parasite starts in cats, and by way of their feces, mice become infected with the larvae that hatches, and then begins its work. It seems that the parasite alters the brains of mice, causing them not to experience fear of one of their most well known predators; the very cat that gave them the parasite. It seems that the parasite is capable of piloting its host in order to complete its life cycle.
Of course this breakthrough astounded Worthington and the implications gave him hope for his own goals. His tinkering with the super bacteria was mostly theoretical experimentation; he knew that it would not produce the results that he wanted most, namely to infect a population with a virulent disease that could alter their behavior in a significant enough way to make them more effectual and less emotional. He’d seized on the syphilis bacteria because he had presumed that those infected with the disease were an appropriate infection test population to gauge the effectiveness of the idea. Worthington’s prejudices forged his belief that those afflicted with venereal diseases were of the ineffective caliber of individuals, so he figured that if he could introduce a mind altering strain of a VD, he could impact a suitable population if his disease worked. But his experiments only produced monsters. Altering the syphilis bacteria so that it would impact specific areas of the human mind was not difficult, it just proved impossible to control the eventual spread of the disease across the rest of the brain. He didn’t want to kill people, not initially, though their deaths would hardly be a tragedy to Worthington. There were patients that he saw in the apartment complexes where his colleagues had illegal laboratories for human subjects, who showed inspiring progress in the early stages of infection, but each one would deteriorate, some into mindless vegetables, others into rage monsters. And the woman Crude was their worst failure to date. She’d been infected with the bacteria that had been enhanced with the help of Dr. Thomas Eakran and his alterations to the bacteria were so advanced and specific, that Worthington decided not to test it on patients. Crude was only able to come into contact with it after a doctor in the apartments recklessly disposed of it in a sink. Worthington had approached Eakran after many failed experiments, and after understanding Worthington’s goal, he spent two days in his own lab before Worthington got the call.
“I can make it stop, but the effects it’ll have until it turns off is a mystery.”
After all of the trouble and fall out that Worthington’s secret backers were forced to keep quiet through their shadowy means, paying or killing off government officials and local police and anyone else who needed silencing, Worthington was extremely heartened by the toxoplasma gondii, the parasite that made mice suicidal. Studies of the parasite’s effect on the mind suggests that in its natural state, it is capable of causing depression in humans. Worthington wondered if he could hijack the hijackers.
Of course he wanted to run this new question by Eakran, but he decided against it after the uproar that Crude had caused. He knew that the Crude woman was most likely contagious and needed to be contained, and his shadow backers were not happy to lean on their resources in the federal government to track and capture, then transport the woman safely to Worthington. So, rather than involve Eakran, Worthington had intense brainstorming sessions with his colleagues of the shadow organization who were eager to test his theories.
It was in those sessions that the intent of the modified parasite was sharpened. Worthington’s initial idea to develop an organism that could be released into a population to change the behavior of the population, stemmed from his desire to help his son Conner. Worthington hoped that he could make his son into a better person that he could be proud of. But his colleagues managed to change his mind.
“Don’t get distracted by a want to help these people,” one of the doctors said. “You’re helping humanity as a whole. Without our work, humanity has no hope of a future.”
Worthington was easy to convince and the only sticking point, though he never brought this up to the group, was that his son would have to die. Worthington viewed it as a mercy killing, but he knew that his wife would be devastated to lose any of their children. But she would get over it, Worthington thought, and she could blame her god for his death; she was always more religious than Worthington though he feigned religious devotion because he really did love her and it was important to her.
After agreeing on the aim of the parasite, the group had to figure out exactly how they would alter it to achieve their desired result. The desired result was to eliminate the ineffectual. This meant that the parasite would need to impact these ineffectuals exclusively; something physiological, something that ineffectuals have in common. This led to a review of various studies of the impact of profession on brain function and development. Again, Worthington thought to consult with Eakran, but his group included a skilled neuroscientist who suggested that they make the parasite target the precuneus in the parietal lobe. Studies have shown that this area of an artist’s brain contains more grey matter, or connecting tissue, than in the brains of non artists. But Worthington wasn’t satisfied with that.
“We aren’t just going to target artists,” Worthington explained. “They are very high on the list, but our aim is to eliminate the entire useless portion of the population.”
Worthington decided that the parasite should be conditioned to reject human hosts with a high level of brain activity and connectivity. The parasite would literally be drawn to dim brains, and target areas of the brain that were habitually neglected. Worthington knew that this would not rid the world of all artists, but he could suffer the ones who stimulated their minds enough to avoid his creation. And he knew that his son Conner would be the best incubator because the boy wasted away hours playing video games, even if he pretended that he was an artistic intellectual.
When the culling parasite was completed, it was capable of infecting humans, producing larvae in the semen, vaginal discharge, urine, and feces of humans that made it passable through unsafe (or simply disgusting to the creators) sexual activity. The parasite would only produce offspring after traveling to the brain of the host. If the parasite encountered a vibrant mind with many neural connections and firing synapses, it would die before reproducing. In dim brains, the parasite would thrive. It worked on the human mind by making the host more amorous, therefore more likely to spread the offspring. And the parasite would slowly destroy brain tissue, making the host less and less functional, until the host was dead.
Worthington’s colleagues continued their work in the apartment complex with the bacterial infection, hoping to turn the fate of Crude into a useful tool for their shadow backers. Worthington insisted on disseminating his parasite himself. He carried it in a small vial to his home in Asheville where his family gathered for their annual Christmas Eve dinner. Worthington did love his family, he would just get frustrated over the course of the dinner listening to the contributions to conversation from his two youngest children. After dinner, Worthington pulled his son, Conner, aside. He had two glasses of eggnog; the one that he gave to Conner was nonalcoholic and it contained the contents of his vile.
“Son,” Worthington said, “you know that I love you right?”
Conner was always nervous around his father because he had wondered from the day that he could form an opinion about his father, if the man even liked him.
“I guess,” Conner said, scratching the back of his head and too intimidated to make eye contact.
“Do you ever question if I love you?”
I know the answer, you don’t, Conner thinks. He had come to terms with that and he had made a life for himself that makes him happy. He wanted to be above needing the approval of his father, but some things are hard to shake.
“No, dad, I know you love me.” He didn’t know why he lied. Maybe it felt good to finally say something that he knew would make his father happy. “I love you too.”
Worthington hugged Conner, then lifted his glass to toast. “Everything I do, I do because I care about you. I hope that you know that. All I ever wanted for you was a life of consequence.” And I think I have finally given you that, he thinks.
PRL Serials 