Chapter 1

October 2006

Dan Grant hopped over a narrow stream and landed ungracefully on the other side, his heels sinking into the mud and face slapped by the dripping wet foliage. "Aw crap." He put down the large pan of fruit and vegetables he was carrying and brushed the water from his cheek with the back of his hand.

"Awwwwwwww ... cawwww ... cawww." A large hyacinth macaw swooped overhead and landed on a branch overhanging a nearby waterfall.

"You think that's funny, Max? How about we feed you last, and we'll see how funny you think that is?"

The big bird grumbled a bit in response, but kept his eye glued to the fruit. A rambunctious toucan pranced to and fro on a nearby woody vine, twitching its wings, eager to get Grant's attention. He handed the exuberant bird a grape for its trouble and continued on his way.

Practically everyone that knew Dan Grant thought him a bit odd. Never married and blessed with the financial resources that allowed an early retirement, Grant lived, quite literally, in his own world.

A bright white cockatoo, its crest erect, was climbing in fits and starts down a tree a few feet away from where Grant stood. The bird was screaming loud enough to etch glass.

"Cool your jets, flyboy. There's plenty to go around." Grant set the pan in a shoulder-high feeding station. A surly, roughly feathered Amazon parrot alighted the second he backed away and grabbed a piece of apple before the cockatoo had a chance to flutter over. The bobbing cockatoo screamed again, chasing the Amazon to the upper canopy and causing a second cockatoo to fly over to investigate. The macaw by the waterfall screamed even louder, as impossible as it seemed. Other large parrots, yet hidden in the dense canopy, joined in.

"Can't we all just get along?" Grant said. His cellphone rang, startling the raucous 'too into a momentary silence. Grant handed the bird a chunk of carrot and pushed his way about 25 feet through the humid underbrush to take the call. He found a small clearing by a bend in the stream where he could hear himself think and took a seat on a weathered sandstone boulder. A flock of festively colored Gouldian finches, frolicking in the shallows, took flight with his approach.

"What's up, doc?" It was Grant's younger brother, Paul, the orthopedic surgeon.

"The trip's on," his brother announced. He and his wife were flying to Las Vegas over the Columbus Day weekend for a medical convention.

"Joyce asked you about taking the kids for the weekend, didn't she?" Joyce was Grant's sister-in-law.

"Yeah, not a problem. I could always use the extra slave labor."

"Great. We'll put them on the train after they get out of school; figure you'll need to pick them up at the station around five. Mandy will call you from the train with the exact time." Mandy, Grant's 17-year-old niece, was a straight-A student and a high-school track star.

"Not a problem. Will Zack be bringing his tent with him?"

"I doubt it. He's got a book report due next week so he's supposed to be working on that, not his survival skills."

"I'll try to keep him away from the matches," Grant snickered. Zack, his 11-year-old nephew, was a Boy Scout and something of a budding pyromaniac.

"They're skipping school on Monday, so you'll need to hang on to them until about 4:00, then just stick 'em on the train. We should be home by them. I'll call you if there's a problem."

"No sweat."

"So ... what do you have going on? Spent all your money yet? When are you going on your own vacation?" Dan Grant had spent 30 years building a nationally successful wholesale pet supply business. He recently sold the operation to a major corporate conglomerate for a handsome eight-figure price.

"You're kidding, right? I am on vacation. My whole life is a vacation," Grant said. "And I'm going to leave all the money to your kids, so you better be nice to them."

The two brothers caught up for a few more minutes before saying their goodbyes. Grant tucked his phone away and sat quietly for a moment. The waterfall crashed into its pond, the brook splashed its way through the stony obstacle course that was its bed and the many birds chirped, trilled, screamed and squawked. After a few minutes Grant arose, carefully traversed a couple of flat stones to cross the stream, then turned to his avian wards for a last word before leaving their company:

"I'm gonna make myself a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Anybody else want something?"

The chatter in the lecture amphitheater, only about a quarter full of students scattered across the hall, hushed noticeably. Perched on a four-foot-tall, gnarled grapevine playgym atop a wheeled pedestal table, a parrot was pushed into the room. The bird was about a foot long, all gray, but for a bright scarlet tail and pale yellow eyes.

Today's class, a three-hour Seminar in Modern Biology, featured a series of rotating lecturers and was required for first-year Rockefeller University graduate students.

Escorting the unexpected visitor was the lecturer scheduled for the next three weeks, Dr. Donald Ross. Awarded his doctoral degree in Life Sciences just 30 days earlier by prestigious Rockefeller University, Ross was now employed as a research fellow by the same. Twenty-eight years old with a pinched, squirrel-like face, he had a full head of messy brown hair and generally fit almost anyone's description of geeky.

The six foot two inch tall Ross rolled the playstand next to his desk, and folded his thin, wiry frame down to retrieve his books and notes from the bottom platform of the apparatus. The parrot appeared nervous and started to tentatively and repeatedly lift its wings, as if to take off.

"Heeheehee... Hey everybody, watcha doing? Heeheehee... Hey everybody, watcha doing? Watcha doing?" The bird's high-pitched voice was a little cartoon-like but otherwise amazingly clear.

"A perfect example of adaptive auditory camouflage," Ross stated, straightening his glasses. "Hanna here, you see, is prey. One of her most basic goals in life is not to get herself eaten. In the jungle, one of the ways she does that is by mimicking the sounds of the surrounding environment--screaming monkeys, insects or frogs, other birds, the sounds of rainfall or of the nearby river--in an effort to deceive nearby predators. She's quite good at what she does."

"What kind of parrot is that?" a female student asked.

"An African Grey," another answered.

"That's right," Prof. Ross confirmed. "She's a Congo African Grey parrot, reputed to be the best talkers in the parrot world. And we're going to be putting Hanna's talents to work for us, right Hanna?" He stuck his face within inches of the bird's, so she was clear he was addressing her.

"Hanna... Hanna banana... Hanna banana..." she responded, to everyone's amusement.

"That's the lab assistant's idea of a joke. Her name is Hanna."

"Hanna banana..."

"Has everybody read the advance material?" he asked the class. "The Pepperberg readings?" There was a scattering of grunts in response.

Professor Ross reached into his pocket and pulled out a selection of hard plastic chips in a variety of bright colors and shapes. He spread the red, blue, green and yellow chips across his hand and held them up to the parrot.

"Find the red chip, Hanna. Find the red chip."

Hanna picked the red chip from Ross's hand and promptly dropped it on the floor. "Here's red. I wanna nut," she declared.

Ross reached into his other pocket and pulled out a pine nut and rewarded the bird, then bent to retrieve the red chip from the floor.

He held out his finger and pressed it to the bird's belly. "Step up." Hanna hopped onto Ross's finger. He brought her down to his desk and let her step onto the surface. She immediately lifted her tail feathers and made a little poop.

"Now that wasn't very polite, was it, Hanna?" There were snickers across the room. He cleaned up the deposit with a tissue. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out some more plastic chips, and placed them in a line in front of the bird.

"Find the orange chip, Hanna. Find me the orange chip."

Hanna waddled up to the orange chip and slid it forward. "Here's orange," she responded. "I wanna nut."

Except for a few hushed declarations of amazement the class remained silent while Ross slipped the bird another tiny pine nut.

"Hanna, find the three-corner chip. The three-corner chip, Hanna."

The bird waddled right over to a green triangle and slid it forward.

"Three-corner," she stated matter-of-factly. "I wanna nut."

"Very good, Hanna," Ross said, awarding her another pine nut. The class was still silent. "Find the same color..."

The bird reached over to a green circle and slid it forward.

"What color is that, Hanna?" Ross asked before she could demand her reward.

"Green. I wanna nut."

She was given her nut.

"Very good Hanna. Now step up." He again held out his finger for the bird, who climbed on board and was transported back to her playstand. Proceeding to a stainless steel food cup, she started eating her pellets.

Ross turned his full attention to the class. "Now who can tell me what we just saw? Yes," he pointed to a young lady several rows back. "What did we just see?"

"I think we just saw a fairly convincing replication of Dr. Pepperberg's famous experiment where she proved that a parrot, Alex, I think his name was, could distinguish something like seven different colors and six different shapes." Speaking confidently, she proved that she, without question, had read the required material.

"Very good," Ross confirmed. "Pepperberg, 1990," he quoted the reference for the benefit of those scrambling for papers in their bags.

"Now why is that important? Anyone else? Yes, sir..." he pointed to a man with a lumberjack beard and red flannel shirt.

"It was the first time it was conclusively demonstrated that a bird could comprehend the concept of categories, and showed a level of complex cognitive organizational abilities in a species with a markedly different brain organization than that of mammals." He glanced at his notes as he answered.

"Very good. Thank you." Ross tossed a pine nut to the student, to the amusement of the others.

"Do we have any idea why parrots are so smart?" A few more hands went up this time. "Yes, ma'am," he pointed.

"The social life of African Greys is thought to be as complicated as those of chimps and dolphins, two species already noted for their intelligence. In the wild, huge numbers of birds congregate in constantly varying sub-groups, and need to cooperate to exploit widespread, unpredictable food and water resources." As she spoke, she also referred to the highlighted portions of her reading materials.

"Very good, thank you."

"I wanna nut," Hanna leaned forward on her perch.

Ross lifted a blue chip from the desk. "What color, Hanna?"

"Blue. I wanna nut."

"Very good, Hanna." Ross complimented her, handing over her earnings.

"Hanna banana... Hanna banana..." she carried on.

"Okay," Ross handed over another nut to distract her, "As difficult as it might seem, I'd like to move the discussion away from the bird for a moment." He slid the plastic chips out of his way and sat down at the edge of his desk. "Has everyone here taken Dr. Shapiro's class on germ-cell mitosis?"

Heads nodded.

"Very good. You'll find what you learned there will come in handy as we advance the discussion. Has anyone here had the opportunity to do any lab work with Doogie mice?" One hand went halfway up in the back of the room. "Yes, sir! Could you tell us all what Doogie mice are, please?"

"I didn't actually work with them myself, but the lab technician went through the explanation for the whole class. They're genetically enhanced mice ... they've added a human gene to make them smarter. They learn faster and remember longer. Like Doogie Howser, MD."

"Very good, thank you. I'm sure you'll all agree that's a truly frightening juxtaposition of state-of-the-art microbiological technology and cancelled network television programming. Would it be fair to say that the genetically enhanced mice have been proven to be able to form faster, and longer lasting, associative bonds?"

There were scattered grunts of general agreement around the room.

Ross picked a dry marker from his shirt pocket and walked over to the whiteboard. He scratched out "NR2B" large enough to be seen from every point in the hall.

"Heeheehee... Hey everybody, watcha doing? Heeheehee..."

"Not now, Hanna, we're working. Has anyone heard of the NR2B gene?"

Silence.

"It'll be in tonight's readings. NR2B is a human gene whose expression has been proven very important in controlling the ability to associate one event with another." He rapidly sketched out a rough drawing of a neural bud, darkening small segments of the surface of the bud as he spoke.

"NR2B is the blueprint for a protein--NMDA--that spans the surface of the neuron. NMDA is a receptor that mediates the associative bonds that are fundamental for learning. Animal studies have shown that more responsive NMDA receptors facilitate learning. Specifically, those studies have demonstrated that younger animals have more responsive NMDA receptors than adolescent animals--and the younger animals learn faster, that is, they make easier associative bonds, than do the older ones." He turned away from the board and reclaimed his seat at the desk.

"The NR2B gene was introduced to the germ cells of lab mice, and eventually expressed itself in mice that learn more quickly, and retain that learning longer, due to the resulting more responsive NMDA receptors in their little mice brains. Now ... everyone here said they took Dr. Shapiro's class. Who can tell me the significance of attempting a gene transfer on germ cells as opposed to somatic cells?"

A few hands went up.

"Yes, over there..." He pointed to a professional-looking woman in her mid-30s, old for this class but not terribly unusual for Rockefeller University. The school's advanced science curriculum frequently attracted students who had already graduated medical school, or had been rewarded graduate degrees from other institutions.

"Somatic cells are regular body cells ... internal organs, neurons, skin and bones and the like. Assuming you could even get the gene to express properly at all in an embryonic somatic cell transfer, it would, at most, affect that one animal. Germ-line cells are the sperm and egg cells. If you can affect a successful gene transfer to a germ-line cell, all future generations of the animal will be, or at least could potentially be, affected. The genes in a germ cell are passed on to future generations."

"Thank you. Very well said. Now what are some of the dangers or concerns associated with germ-line gene transfer technology in general and transgenic transfers in particular? Yes sir..." he pointed to a scruffy-looking guy with a goatee and a motorcycle helmet on the floor next to him.

"Transgenic transfers--gene transfers between species--could have unintended consequences."

"That's right," Prof. Ross agreed. "We know what we know, but we don't know what we don't know. What else?"

"Unpredictable health effects."

"Very good. What else?"

"Any damaging effects caused by germ-cell genetic engineering will continue through the species forever."

"Good. How about more specific technical problems that we might run into? Something we know we can't control and know might lead to problems?"

No hands or knowing looks this time.

"What about position effects?"

"Oh!" the professional-looking lady took it. "When a new gene is introduced to the double helix, there's no way of determining where it will end up ... where it will be positioned along the chromosome."

"Why does that matter?"

"Genetic function is complicated," she continued. "It's very likely that genes may well influence the expression of neighboring genes ... at least in some cases, with some genes. So a 'position effect' could well lead to unpredictable changes in the pattern of gene expression and genetic function."

"Excellent, thank you. Now let's try tying this all together..."