The Twenty-Five Embryos

By Sam Prien

Doctor Robert Casa was just your typical college professor at a university in the western part of Texas; working on research, trying to teach disinterested students and ignoring what he considered stupid university rules. Until that fateful day his university loaned him out to help out a local sheriff at an accident scene because of his special skill in handling human embryos. Little did Casa know that a summer drive to look at an accident in the desert would lead to a series of adventures with the fate of mankind, not to mention his own life, constantly hanging in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543976496

Book preview

59

Chapter 1

It was a warm summer day, like so many others in West Texas. Ninety degrees and it wasn’t even noon yet. As I sailed down the highway the flat dry countryside was only occasionally disrupted as a sage brush went zipping by. I was fast approaching the site of my destination. The call had come in only two hours earlier. There had been a wreck, a single car rollover on a back road 40 miles from nowhere. Both the driver and his passenger were dead. However, that was not why I was called to the scene. I am not a cop, coroner, or even an ambulance jockey. I’m just an embryologist, a person who works in a laboratory growing what the world calls test tube babies at the local university. So why was I here? The university president’s office didn’t say. They only said that I needed to get myself to the accident scene as quickly as possible.

However, as I walked toward the accident, I got my answer. There, lying in the bushes about 100 feet from the mangled car was a cryoshipper, a carrier for frozen living tissues. It was half-buried in the sand, but the words HUMAN EMBRYOS were clearly visible on its side.

Just as I bent over to move the tank a big burly cop yelled, This is an accident scene, don’t touch nothing. I quickly replied I’m Dr. Bob Casa from the university, they called me out.

Oh, you’re the guy we been a wait’n fer, I’m Sheriff Doggit. Damndest thing, best we can figure them two fellers under the sheets were traveling about 120 MPH when they missed the curve. They flipped their vehicle about 12 times. That there tank must have been thrown out about flip six. Heck we wouldn’ta even seen the thing at all if the sun hadn’t bounced light off it. Well when we seen what it said on the side we started looking for someone to tell us what to do. I’m a guess’n that’s when they found you. Well, we left’er right there where she’s a layin. Don’t know if the things still any good.

I would guess that is why I’m here, I said.

I bent back down to examine the tank. It was a standard cryoshipper used by hundreds of human and animal reproductive labs the world over. The big difference, I had never seen one marked Human Embryos before. Labs such as mine would rather the carriers not know the contents of the containers they are shipping to keep the curious from opening the shipper and damaging or destroying its precious cargo.

Can I move it? I asked.

That’s why we called ya, answered the sheriff.

My concerns then shifted to how much damage had occurred as the shipper flew out of the car and embedded itself in the West Texas sand. These shippers are commonly called dry wall shippers because they are designed to capture liquid nitrogen in a sponge like material and cool the inside of the container to liquid nitrogen temperatures, -196 C (-320 F).

Because nitrogen is a gas at normal temperatures, the carriers must insolate the nitrogen from outside air temperatures. They work because they have two chambers in the carrier, the liquid nitrogen and embryos are placed in the inner chamber and the outer chamber is a dead air space to insulate contact between the inner chamber and the outside environment. If the outside chamber is damaged the insulation is lost and the nitrogen evaporates. I had seen numerous tanks damaged with far less activity. In those cases there was a fog like steam and either water or frost collected on the outer wall of the tank.

So ya goin’ to sit there all day? Sheriff Doggit’s voice woke me from my pondering trance.

Doesn’t appear to be any damage I said not seeing any signs of moisture on the outside of the tank.

I placed my hand on the tank wall; far from being cold, it radiated the heat it had absorbed from the summer sun. Either the tank was intact or was damaged beyond repair.

Guess I’ll stand it up and see if it still has nitrogen. I slowly pulled on the tank, amazingly the tank slipped easily out of its sand cocoon.

But as the sand receded from the side of the tank, new words began to appear. The whole label on the tank read, CLONED TRANSGENIC HUMAN EMBRYOS. Little did I know this was only the first of many shocking events yet to come.

Chapter 2

What’s wrong with you boy? Sheriff Doggit questioned, You look like you just seen a ghost.

Sheriff, I said, those words shouldn’t be there.

Why, asked Doggit, Don’t you folk label your containers?

No, I said, You don’t understand. The words shouldn’t be there because Cloned Transgenic Human Embryos aren’t supposed to exist.

The scowl was visible under Doggit’s white cowboy hat. You done lost me son, what you mean there shouldn’t be a cloned what-cha-ma-call-it? What the hell does all that mean anyway?

I paused a moment trying to find the right words to explain a cloned transgenic to a person who doesn’t work in a science field. You understand the idea of a clone? That it is an exact duplicate of the animal it came from, a copy?

Doggit looked annoyed. Yep, being his one word reply.

Well a transgenic clone is where we have replaced part of the DNA of the embryo with DNA from a second individual and that DNA doesn’t even need to be from the same species. It’s been done in animals, but humans are supposed to be off limits.

Well I don’t know clones from crap, but I do know its goin’ be over a hund'erd out here soon, the ambulance is here for the bodies, and the only thing a keepin’ me from my lunch is you, that tank, and them fancy worded popsicles. So figure out if you drove out here for a reason or not and let’s get a movin’. My lunch is 20 miles away and a gettin’ cold.

I carefully pulled the cryoshipper totally free of the sand dune which had formed in front of the sage brush during one of the frequent regional sand storms. Looking up at the rock hard barren ground in all directions it was obvious it had been a one in a million shot for the tank to land here and have the soft loose sand to cushion its landing.

The only question now was had it bounced first. I finished removing the tank and set it upright on the bare ground out front of the sand dune. As is normal when shipping human embryos, the top was sealed with an electrical cable tie.

Got any wire pliers? I asked not realizing Doggit had already produced a pocket knife from his back pocket.

Come on, lunch is a waitin’.

Using his knife I removed the cable tie and lifted the lid. A small puff of steam appeared at the neck of the tank as the dry hot air met the extreme cold from the shipper.

Well there’s still nitrogen in there, so whatever is inside is still frozen. I said, but it was obvious Doggit’s mind was already on the chicken fried steak he was having for lunch. "

Well load’er up and follow me into town, I’ll let the county buy your lunch."

So I carefully lifted the tank and we headed across the debris field toward my truck.

It’s a gonna take the road department a month of Sundays to clean all this crap up, said Doggit, as we negotiated the return trip to our vehicles.

About halfway back I spotted a small black notebook off to my left. It was setting in a fresh depression, obviously made by the car in its demolition roll across the West Texas landscape. Just as I was about to