Genesis Code

by Jamie Metzl

  “What about him?”

  The look on my face is clear. Do you really need me to explain?

  “I don’t know,” Becker says.

  “Without his spiritual advisor, without your people, he’s done.”

  Becker nods.

  “There’s something else you need to do,” I say.

  Becker looks at me apprehensively.

  “You more than anyone understood the potential of genetic science. You know it can cure disease, prevent disorders, help us face the brutal cruelty of evolution. You saw the potential.”

  Becker does not seem to get where I am heading.

  “Senator King can still choose how he wants to position himself in the coming crisis. He can fight on in the name of orthodoxy that even you don’t believe in, or he and your people can finally help foster the national dialogue we need to help our country make smart decisions. This science can do a lot of damage, but it can also save a lot of lives and do a lot of good. You know that.”

  “So what do you need from me?”

  “Call Senator King, call him now. He needs to get ahead of this story, to be the one calling for a bipartisan national dialogue. Only your side can make this happen.”

  Becker begins to shake his head.

  “Listen to me, Reverend,” I say forcefully, “God knows I don’t want anyone breeding messiahs, we all know the danger of eugenics. I’m not that confident we know enough to start messing with the genetic code, but this science is the key for curing diseases and saving lives. This story will force the country to face up to all of this. You’ve got to call Senator King.”

  Becker nods apprehensively.

  “Good,” I say, “and one more thing. Your church needs to take care of Carol Stock financially.”

  “How—?”

  “That’s for you to figure out.” I look him square in the eye. My voice is neither stern nor aggressive, but I make my point and it registers.

  My mind shifts up a few hundred feet of altitude and looks down at the two of us standing at Becker’s door.

  “It was a crazy idea, you know,” I say.

  “Great things sometimes come from crazy ideas,” Becker says, beginning to regain his voice.

  I let the words settle before responding. “And sometimes people die from them, too.”

  I don’t hear Becker’s door close behind me as I walk to my car. I guess he’s watching me or maybe just looking out at the abyss we both know is waiting for him.

  72

  The knocking comes from deep inside a dream, from the middle of my head.

  Until I slowly realize it doesn’t.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  I press my eyelids down, hoping it will go away.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  I roll over and peer at my clock. Three p.m. I’ve been asleep, maybe even dead, for the past seven hours. My body aches. I need a shower. I look down at my u.D. Sleep quality: Good.

  I slide on my robe and slink down the stairs. My muscles have not yet adapted to their new reality.

  “Yeah?” I say, sounding like a bad guy yelling from an encircled cabin in an old spaghetti western.

  “Boss, it’s me, Joseph. I’ve been calling. I came by and saw the car.”

  I pull open the door and see a brief, awkward smile flash across Joseph’s face. He strides in with an alacrity that surprises me. “Have you seen the paper?”

  “Yup.”

  “Everyone’s waiting for you at the office. You’ve got to come in. Wes Morton sent me to get you.”

  I chuckle to myself about my change of fate. “Give me a few minutes,” I say calmly. “I’m going to go upstairs and wash up. Why don’t you go into the kitchen and make us some coffee?”

  Joseph stares at me with unbelieving eyes. “You don’t understand. Senator King is making a statement in thirty minutes.”

  After all of my rushing around, I am, strangely and not even fully understandably to me, in no hurry at all. “Five minutes,” I say with a warm smile.

  I walk up the stairs, drop my robe, and float into the shower. The steaming water feels baptismal. I think of Toni and of MaryLee, of Maya and Gillespie, of Kathryn Allison, Dakota Barnes, Megan Fogerty, Celia Guttierez, Louise Osten, Sunita Patel, and Amanda Sullivan, I think of their poor families, I think of Collins zipped up in a bag somewhere, and I think, of course, of me. The person who I was less than two weeks ago seems somehow to have been transcended.

  I towel off, comb my hair, put on a clean pair of jeans and a sweater, and walk downstairs a new person.

  Joseph stands nervously at the bottom of my staircase, an old plastic travel mug he’s somehow found in my kitchen in his hand. I notice the Scooba autobot inching its way across the living room floor.

  “Your story is the number one story this morning on the Internet,” Joseph says as he speeds downtown, “in the world.”

  “Wow,” I say, uncreatively.

  “The Catholic bishops have called this an abomination, Congress is already promising hearings, protests are forming in front of government offices across the country. The conservatives are all over the TV saying that this is what happens when human beings try to play God, when we give too much power to the government.”

  “And Becker?” I ask.

  “Resigned this morning, announced that he’s selling Rapture Grove and giving the money to Carol Stock. He gave a statement in front of his house at eight, said he was going to seclude himself in prayer.”

  The image of Becker at his door in the pre-morning flashes across my mind.

  “The police stopped someone with a home-made bomb lurking near his house,” Joseph continues excitedly, “and now have the place under twenty-four-hour watch. The press are staked out on his street. I think they’ll be there for a while.”

  Joseph shows me some pictures of the press mob on his u.D monitor.

  “Gillespie?” I ask.

  “Apparently recovering in a hospital in Oklahoma City. He’s in critical condition, but the doctors say he’s going to make it. There’s a mob of journalists at the hospital, but they’re not letting them in. They’ve also shut down the Bright Horizons clinics.

  I’m relieved to know Gillespie is in better shape but nervous about the Bright Horizons files. “I guess no one is threatening anyone with News Protection Act sanctions?”

  “Funny you mention that, boss. Martina Hernandez forwarded me the e-mail this morning. The cease and desist order has been rescinded.”

  I can’t help but smile. “And the scientists who’ve been pushing for more research in the life sciences?”

  Sleeping for seven hours has denied me access to a lifetime of knowledge. I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

  “A few of them have already been on TV trying to make the case for how important it is to keep going with the good research to cure diseases, but they’re having a hard time. People can’t really hear them right now. Everything is being lumped together as Frankenscience.”

  My calm elation turns to sadness.

  The government plan to create genetically enhanced babies without telling the mothers was a monstrosity, but I have far more ambiguous feelings about genetic science overall. The master plan of the universe, if ever there was one, cannot have been for humans to live nasty and brutish forty-year lives foraging desperately for food and humping each other in caves. If we are blessed with a passion for knowledge, why shouldn’t we use it to tame our surroundings, to enhance our connectivity, to extend our lives, improve our capacities? The concept of God may simply encompass the basic human drive to imagine a better tomorrow, the concept of science the drive to make it so.

  “The Chinese Foreign Ministry put out a statement,” Joseph says.

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Of course, they deny the whole thing. The rest of the world doesn’t seem to be buying it. It looks like they had agents across the US spying on America’s advanced genetic science capabilities. A bunch of them have been identified and are being deported. Min
Zhao was only one. All of this is having reverberations around the world. The UN Secretary General has already put out a statement saying we need to start thinking more about an international treaty to oversee human genetic science.”

  It’s shocking to me that so much has happened in such a short time. It’s as if my story has released a spring that was already primed to be sprung.

  We reach the Kansas City Star parking lot at 3:28. Joseph ushers me up the stairs with a hand pressing against the small of my back. As we enter the newsroom, everyone is standing together facing the giant screen as Senator King steps up to the podium.

  “Good afternoon,” King says solemnly.

  First one of my colleagues turns his head and sees me, then the others follow in a cascade of faces. Joseph ushers me to the middle of the pack. My colleagues close rank around me. I feel hands patting me on the back as I move forward.

  “As you know, a story has been released today by the Kansas City Star outlining a despicable national effort by the United States government to establish a secret genetic enhancement program and impregnate young American women with synthetically altered fetuses, all in the name of enhancing American competitiveness.” The look of disgust permeates King’s face. “With everything I am and everything I stand for, I condemn this heinous act. Today, I call for this program to be shut down immediately and demand that a major investigation be carried out into this program with direct congressional oversight to hold the responsible parties accountable.”

  The newsroom is nervously silent as King pauses to let his words sink in.

  “At the same time, I also have seen preliminary allegations that a member of Eden’s Army, the underground terrorist organization responsible for bombings at biotechnology laboratories around the country a few years ago, may have taken it upon himself to murder all of the women who had been impregnated in this despicable manner.”

  Maybe not all, I think to myself.

  “Worse,” King continues, “he committed murders in the name of a philosophy that many people in this country have embraced. My fellow Americans, all of us share a desire to make our magnificent country as great as it can be. All of us believe our beacon on the hill must continue to shine. All of us believe our country must find and take a righteous path. But I am speaking to you today because I believe we must find this path together, that the politics of division, if left unchecked, will tear us asunder.”

  I stand amazed at how King, the ultimate reader of political winds, is repositioning himself.

  “And so I come before you today to make the following announcements. First, that I will personally lead the Senatorial oversight special committee to review this incident. Second, that I am calling for the reestablishment of the National Bioethics Commission with representation across the American social, political, and religious landscape to help us understand the challenges and opportunities of the genetic frontier. Third, that I will be reaching out to President Lewis to discuss how we can all work collaboratively to bring this country together in this time of crisis. Fourth,” King pauses as he slowly scans the small crowd in front of him and the row of cameras behind them, “that I am no longer seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidency effective immediately.”

  The murmur of our assembled newsroom merges with the murmur of the television crowd and, I am sure, with that around the country and across the world.

  “Thank you,” King says solemnly. “God bless America and with his help, together, we shall overcome.”

  73

  Perhaps we all have only a few moments in our lives when we really step up. Perhaps we never know when those are, but our lives up to then are preparations for those moments, and our lives afterwards are ripples emanating from their wake.

  I didn’t set up the dominoes, but I did push the first one. And how the others have fallen. Congressional hearings, FBI investigations, the President’s speech, the rallies and counter-rallies in Washington, the constant stream of picketers, street protests, it’s hard to believe, as far away as Beijing. The Kansas City Star actually courting me.

  The last month has been a whirlwind. I’ve done twenty-six television interviews and my picture is everywhere. I’ve testified before the National Bioethics Commission and the special Congressional committee and been grilled by Carlton King, the new great statesmen of the middle ground, himself. I spoke at the KCPD ceremony for Maurice Henderson’s promotion to Deputy Chief. I’ve had seven very long interviews with the FBI team investigating Bright Horizons. I’ve even been asked, I’m not sure why, for my views on how the National Competitiveness Act should be reformed.

  All of this, but my work is not yet done.

  I feel the urge to speed, if only the traffic on 101 South would let me. The metaphor of butterflies has always seemed stupid to me, but I can’t think of another way to describe how I’m feeling.

  How I had come up with the idea, I’ll never know. I’m still struggling between thinking it was my greatest flash of genius and the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

  My windows are down. The hot air enters along with exhaust fumes. I breathe in. I park a couple of houses down and walk back.

  The key is still under the mat as it’s been for almost forty years. I’d always thought I started living when I’d exited this house. Now I wonder if the flow is reversing. I turn the key then pull it out and, by painfully instilled habit, place it back under the mat. I turn the knob quietly and tiptoe in.

  I’m still charting my announcement when a wildly yelping Shoonig declares my arrival. So much for that.

  “Who’s there?” I hear in the most familiar voice. It is not friendly.

  I don’t answer as I walk quickly through the back hallway toward the kitchen. The first thing I see is her rolling pin lifted and ready to strike.

  “Parev, Mayrig. Eendzee mee dzedzer,” I say with a mischievous smile on my face. Hello Mother, please don’t hit me.

  The pin drops. She screams. “Janeegus,” she shouts, dropping the rolling pin and rushing toward me. I see the other two coming up behind her.

  “Baby,” Toni says, her voice a mix of tenderness and joy.

  Now I believe in butterflies.

  My mother and Toni reach me about the same time, pulling the three of us together into a flowing hydra of waving arms coming together in a circle.

  “Baby, baby, baby,” Toni repeats through her tears.

  My mother sniffles.

  Toni pulls her head back from the scrum and faces Maya. “And what are you doing standing there like that?” she says sharply but with a smile.

  Maya doesn’t need much coaxing and we absorb her in the huddle.

  Even the damn dog is trying to push his way in.

  It’s so obvious, yet only at this moment clear. I am home.

  The group hug seems to last forever but still feels like it ends before it should.

  “Maya,” I say after a few moments, noticing how different she looks. “How are you feeling?”

  “Shad lav. Yev took,” she says, smiling, in broken Armenian. I am fine, thank you. And you?

  “This,” my mother proudly proclaims, “is one seriously jarbig girl.”

  Toni takes my hand and squeezes.

  “We’ve been having quite a time this past month,” Toni says mischievously. “I for one had no idea what a patuhas you used to be as a kid. But now that we’ve seen the pictures . . .” She winks.

  I smile inwardly. My worlds are dangerously colliding. I have a feeling I’m going to be heckled with Armenian jabs for years. Squeezing Toni’s hand, I sense it might be decades. “Now I’m really in trouble,” I say, smiling outward.

  “Your mom has been incredible,” Toni continues enthusiastically. “Let’s see, we’ve made bourma, cooked lahmajun, and drank sourj. Am I missing anything?”

  “Tel baneer,” Maya adds proudly.

  My mother beams with a joy I haven’t seen on her face since, well, before Astrid died.

  I’m a little stunne
d. I’d thought that Toni and Maya could be safe here. I guess I hadn’t fully realized that being here would also turn them into family.

  I look at Maya again. She smiles at me. She looks different. As if her belt has loosened a couple of notches. As if she is blooming.

  My mother sees me watching and puts her arm around Maya. “This is one good woman,” she says. Then she reaches over toward Toni. “And she ain’t so bad either.”

  “What have I done?” I ask joyously.

  I look down at Maya’s stomach. Her eyes follow mine. Then she presses her shirt against herself to reveal her bulge.

  “Superbaby is coming,” she says mischievously. “I just hope the thermogenesis doesn’t kick in before she’s out.”

  Toni picks up on the strange look on my face and steps in. “We’ve been talking a lot about it,” she says. “Maya?”

  Maya looks at my mother, then me.

  “I’m keeping the baby,” she says. I hear the determination in her voice. “I don’t know what kind of special qualities she’s going to have, but after all this there’s no way I’m killing her.”

  My mind pulls up all kinds of responses. How can I know if Gillespie has fully “zapped” her from the government files? What will the genetic enhancements do? What happens in the next generation? Only one small word escapes from my mouth. “She?”

  “We went for an ultrasound,” Maya says, “and,” she adds, looking over at my mother, “I’m going to raise her here.”

  “Here?”

  “For now, Dikran,” my mother says gently, radiating. “She needs a good home. Later will come later.”

  Later will come later. I play the words over in my head, and all of my philosophizing flies out the window. Later will come later, but now has come now.

  I turn to face Toni. We have the conversation without uttering a word.

  This scares the shit out of me, but I think we should, you know, kind of almost try to be together, I say with my eyes.

  Her eyes mock me. I can see through you, baby. I know what you are actually saying.

  My eyes respond. You’re right. I’m in. I love you. I’m scared.

  Our hands squeeze tightly together and the deal is done.