Chapter 101 - Hannibal

The title “SECURITY” could refer to either “defense” or “protection”. It could also refer to duties of ensuring safety.

In this case, it would be subjected to security personnel. In other words, a security force.

In the Mainland, many people regarded security as an extremely lowly position, but it was not seen that way in foreign countries.

Compared to mercenaries, at least this profession was far more stable and safer.

Hmm, at least it was this way for now…

However, even if they still had to perform acts of fighting and murdering as they did in the past, the salary offered spoke for itself.

Even in SouthEast Asia, the continent with the highest rate of death in the Earth Federation, you would hardly be able to find someone matching the price Chen Chen was offering. The average rate for this line of work was only in the range of 8000 to 12000 U.S. Dollars.

After buying out this group of desperadoes, the next phase of his plans became that much easier.

Before signing the contract with this group, they were comparable to a bunch of timed bombs set to detonate in the research center at any given moment.

The thing to note was that the rules of the jungle were strictly law abiding in these forms of almost primitive-like profession. The moment Chen Chen officially became their employer, he essentially turned this group of people into a sharp blade, free for him to wield.

Besides, not just anyone was able to extend them an offer of 30000 U.S. Dollars to work for them. For this price tag, they would never allow anyone to come close to Chen Chen to bring him any harm.

Chen Chen split the thirty of them into five groups, each with six members. They got to choose their team leaders while Cheng Cao temporarily assumed the position of a captain.

Needless to say, this group of people would be somewhat bothered by having a Chinese man commandeering over them. However, if they had any opinions about it, the matter could be settled the old fashioned way. With the GS combat suit on, Cheng Cao had the clear upper hand in a straight-up brawl.

If Cheng Cao was still not able to keep them in line even with such a distinct advantage, then there was not much Chen Chen could do about it.

To better manage these battle-crazed animals, Chen Chen went ahead and built a training center on the open field outside the research center. He also repurposed the second-floor basement of the laboratory building into a shooting range.

There were also separated shifts with a week off each month for these adrenaline-fueled beasts to catch a breather in the bars of Walvis Bay.

Chen Chen set up a security department known as “Black Security Service” which consisted of these thirty members along with Cheng Cao’s team.

Whether it was by design or unintentional, Chen Chen further assigned the fifteen local security guards into this department as well. He also formulated a strict departmental regime.

For example, training began at six o’clock sharp every morning. There must be two teams on patrol every night, and such.

The coming period should prove to be very interesting.

Chen Chen did not invest all of his time in these matters. Instead, he quickly shifted his attention to the group of villagers in Gorob Village who played the part as their experimental subjects.

After nearly two weeks of cultivation, the cloned embryos of the elderly villagers had successfully developed into a sac formed embryo. Later, Chen Chen’s assistants proceeded to extract its embryonic stem cells and moved on to the next step which was the process of proliferation and cultivation.

Among the group of elders, three of them were diagnosed with liver cirrhosis and another two of them who used to be miners had pneumoconiosis. For these five individuals, Chen Chen had specifically cultivated an extra cloned embryo.

Instead of extracting the cloned embryo for its embryonic stem cells, Chen Chen preserved them.

The fact remained that all of the techniques Chen Chen was developing was for the sake of extending the human lifespan. Apart from replacing the stem cells, there was a more direct way of achieving this goal, which was organ transplantation.

The human heart, lung, liver, kidney, and other important organs could be transplanted. Strictly speaking, any form of disease contracted in these specific organs could be easily rid of via organ transplantation. In that case, why was it then tens of hundreds of thousands of people die every year as a result of these organ failures?

That was because there was a problem with the availability of these organs. Not only were they rare but there were also the issues of compatibility and rejection that had to be considered.

What if you could clone your organs?

If Chen Chen planned to garner approval using a lifespan extension technology in addition to the technological treatment of reversing the effects of aging, perhaps he could add another aspect…

Chen Chen had thought of this a long time ago and had already begun implementation.

He came to the fifth floor of the laboratory building where there was a tissue engineering laboratory.

Inside the laboratory, several researchers were working attentively. These were the batch of newcomers Chen Chen had invited.

Chen Chen had invited a total of 300 young talents of the biological industry who were full of potential, 200 of them ultimately chose to work with him. Most of them were assigned to the group of professors as their assistants, the ones that remained became Chen Chen’s researchers.

“Boss!”

“Boss!”

Chen Chen nodded and turned to the device in front of them. “Are the preparations complete?”

“It’s done. We’ve successfully created ten artificial endometriums.”

A blonde-haired young man who appeared to be leading them answered Chen Chen. After that, he stepped in front of a transparent aquarium.

Aquarium was a far too simple way to describe it. A more apt way to put it was an aquarium-shaped incubator. It was surrounded by transparent materials on each side; the top side was sealed by a metal lid. There were two rubber hoses, a black and white one respectively which were inserted into the tank from its top.

From where Chen Chen stood, he could see the rubber hoses latching themselves onto a palm-sized organism in the tank which seemed to resemble some sort of organ.

The organism seemed to take on an almost triangular shape, it looked like…

“This is the artificial endometrium that we’ve developed.”

The blonde-haired young man observed the lump of meat with fascination like he was taking it as a piece of art. “Following the ‘Three-Dimensional in Vitro Cell Culture Model’, we first used the biodegradable ‘Poly Lactic-co-Glycolic Acid ‘(PLGA)’ to create a human-shaped vessel that can accommodate a fetus.

“After that, we implanted the ‘Endometrial Stromal Cells’ and ‘Epithelial Cells’ on the top and bottom part of the PLGA and supplied it with an appropriate amount of nutrients. After about fourteen days, the cells began to fuse into a sheet, which consequently morphed into multiple layers to form the intended three-dimensional model.”

Chen Chen nodded in response. This was not a complex technique. It was nowhere close to variation of dark technologies like “Complete Humanoid Organ Generation”, it was merely an inner membrane layer. Even as early as 20 years ago, Professor Liu Hongqing of Cornell University in North America had already accomplished this technique.

The only difficult part of this particular technique was in figuring out how to generate blood vessels for nutrient delivery which emulated that of real human structure.

“In that case, can the artificial blood vessel networks be embedded?” Chen Chen asked again.

“Yes, we incorporated a mixed proliferation method.”

The blonde-haired young man pointed at the two tubes. “By the time the endometrium was produced, it had already formed a self-sufficient intramural circulation network automatically. We only had to connect it to a dialysis machine to pump fresh blood in and separate the waste blood. After injecting the appropriate amount of nutrients into its blood, we were able to essentially ‘bring it to life’.”

Chen Chen nodded. The two tubes played the role of the veins and arteries.

As for the blood inside, they were no regular human blood. Instead, they were emulsion of perfluorotributylamine (PFC) which had oxygen-carrying capacity.

These substances were manufactured artificially and had excellent oxygen-carrying capabilities. Their solubility of oxygen was twice higher than that of ordinary blood and they were biodegradable as well. In medical practice, they were often used as a substitution for blood.

“Excellent.”

Chen Chen was visibly pleased. He patted the young man on his shoulder. “Hannibal, would you be interested in being part of my next project?”

“Is it the next step of the process following the making of the artificial endometrium?”

The young man named Hannibal lit up immediately. As an expert in biology subjects, he was well aware of what this project led to.

“Yes.”

“I’m more than willing, Boss!”

The young man nodded ceremoniously. This was a young man who was immensely passionate about subjects of biology.

The young man was Hannibal Caesar, former sophomore at MIT. Just last year, he had published a very important paper in the field of synthetic biology in Science magazine and won the Lemelson-MIT Award that year with his heralded “genetically modified phage” technique.

Since there was little the school had left to teach him, he was recruited by Chen Chen before he managed to graduate and began officially working for Blacklight Biotechnology.

Chen Chen saw a terrific amount of potential in this young man.

Unless affected by some external influence, there was a chance this young man could become the next Darwin, Mendel or Schwann in the decades to come, spearheading a new branch of biology…