FSF, February 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  But, of course, he was beyond control; so the system failed on its first test. Impatient with the slowness of our elevators, Wally came up the fire stairs and was past Sharon and halfway to my office before she could buzz me with the code words, “Mrs. Arkwright to see you."

  So Wally caught me, my desk spread with insurance forms, which meant I couldn't plead any urgencies to justify shortening his visit. He carried a small plastic case, like an insulated lunch box, from which he removed a set of petri dishes with transparent covers. They were marked with numbers and names. The names were familiar.

  "What is this?” I said.

  He touched one of the covers. Its label read Stanley Feltham. “That's your granddad,” he said.

  Next to it was a dish labeled Rose (Maguire) Feltham. “And your grandma."

  The two other dishes were labeled with the names of my mother's parents.

  "What is this?” I said again.

  "I've isolated each of your grandparents’ DNA,” he said, giving me that wide-eyed, farm-boy look that meant he had cracked open another doll.

  "How?"

  So now, finally, he explained. He could unravel a subject's DNA to separate what each of that person's parents had contributed to the mix. It involved microlasers and several kinds of enzymes—cutters, movers, and assemblers, he called them—and the whole process was handled by a super-fast computer that could sort through all the possible combinations and find the one that was true.

  "I patented the process and we're going public in a few weeks,” he said. “Write me a check for five grand and I'll give you stock warrants that will be worth two percent of the company."

  "And what will the company be worth?” I said.

  "Why, billions,” he said.

  "Why?” I said. “What will people do with their grandparents’ DNA?"

  He shrugged. “I suppose some of them will put it into an egg, insert it into a womb and give birth to grandma or grandpa. Most people have fond memories of their grandparents—from childhood, that is—but by the time the kids are old enough to really get to know them, the old folks are getting ready to shuffle off this mortal coil. Or they're senile."

  "Okay,” I said, and thought about it. My mother's parents had died before I was born and the world would thank me for not creating another Stan Feltham: there was already an oversupply of sourpusses. “Supposing there is a market for grandparent clones. It can't be worth billions."

  He waggled his hands on either side of his head. “Think, man,” he said, then he spread them wide as if offering the whole world. “We're not just talking grandparents. We can go way back. Way, way back."

  "How way?"

  "Wa-a-a-ay, way."

  "Give me a for instance,” I said.

  He moved the petri dishes aside and sat on the corner of my desk. “Got any famous ancestors?"

  There was a legend in the family on my mother's side that we were descended from one of Benjamin Franklin's illegitimate sons. My mother had never been sure whether she should brag about it or hush it up. I told Wally about it.

  "Ben Franklin?” he said. “Really? How come you never mentioned this?"

  "I guess it never came up."

  I probably had mentioned the Franklin connection at some point, but I wasn't surprised that Wally had missed it. In any discussion, he usually did most of the talking; listening was not among his alpha-level attributes.

  "Well,” he said, picking up one of the dishes that contained my maternal ancestors, “how'd you like to have Ben Franklin as your own son?"

  I thought about it and he read my face. “And how much would you pay to be able to do that?” he said.

  I wasn't actually thinking about me raising a young Ben Franklin. Chances were he would have been a handful and a half. I was thinking about all the people who named their kids Jared or Jessica some other J-name just because it was that year's fashion. They never thought about what it would be like for the poor kid to be one of four or five identically named people in every group they'd ever join, never thought about how the kid would feel knowing that that most personal of possessions, one's own name, had been chosen merely because it was popular and because their parents were irredeemably shallow.

  I was thinking about just how many such people existed and how many of them were willing to spend their bank accounts to remain in vogue. “Should I make the check out to you or the company?” I said.

  And so we were in business.

  * * * *

  And a very good business it was. Wally's company—Ancest, he called it—caught the world's eye and the world's ear. The backers had poured in plenty of start-up money, a good portion of which went into a saturation ad campaign on network television. Within days, Leno and Letterman were making jokes about their imaginary ancestors, Regis and Kelly were interviewing Wally live, and the stock price hit two hundred a share, then split. It was structured as a straight-out franchise operation and the prospective franchisees were fighting each other to get in the door.

  "Come work with me,” Wally said. He offered me a salary that was one figure more than the six I'd been getting as an orthopedic surgeon, plus options, expense account, corner office, company Lexus.

  I said, “What on Earth can I do for you?"

  "It's medical research. You're a doctor."

  "I'm just a bone cutter."

  He gave me his bashful Tom Sawyer look and said, “You're my touchstone. Everybody else, they're always slapping me on the back and telling me what a brilliant researcher I am. You don't do that. You're the only one keeps my feet on the ground, Jimmy-boy."

  I should have run for the hills. Instead, I took the corner office with the title of Executive Vice President on the mahogany door behind which I did a lot of not very much, while being well paid for my exertions. It turned out, though, that there was one chore Wally wanted me to take over.

  "I'd like you to interface with the backers,” he said. “Give me less time in meetings, more time in the lab. I've got some interesting projects on the burners."

  "Okay,” I said. I figured it wouldn't be too onerous a task to schmooze the money people, dazzle them with a little science and set visions of sugar-plum dividends dancing in their heads. Thus armored in my innocence I walked into the Wednesday afternoon board meeting with a fat folder of glowing results from the first few weeks and even shinier projections for the next three quarters.

  "We've blown right through the granddad and granny market, and we're into a serious run on major historical figures,” I said. “Now that the federal court has ruled that DNA from more than four generations back is public domain, it's not just Robert E. Lee's descendants who can have him for a son; we estimate we'll sell him to about five percent of the population below the Mason-Dixon Line. Plus the interest in European monarchs is picking up, particularly the Bourbons."

  I had plenty more, but I was strongly sensing that the five men in black suits on the other side of the table didn't give a damn. I set aside the bar charts on eighteenth-century poets and nineteenth-century composers and said, “Gentlemen, am I missing something?"

  "Project Parousia,” said the Chairman of the Board. He was a big, stone-faced man with eyes that had had a lot of practice at weighing and winnowing his fellow human beings. I had the feeling I was close to being assigned to the giant bin labeled Chaff.

  I shuffled through my papers but I knew there was nothing in there about any Project Parousia. I'd never heard of it, although the name rang a faint bell.

  "I don't have any information on that project,” I said.

  "Then get some,” said the Chairman. “Or get Applethorpe up here.” The other board members nodded, their jaws grimly set, and I realized that they were all cut from the same block of close-grained hardwood as the Chairman. Now that I inspected them closely, I saw that they didn't have the sleek, well-nourished look common to the upper links of the corporate food chain. Instead, each had the aspect of the zealot; they might have been carried over from some pre
vious era when the most popular pastimes were burning witches and crushing heretics under piles of boulders.

  "We'll be back tomorrow,” he said. “Be prepared to tell us what we want to know."

  * * * *

  I went down to the lab. It was below ground and behind a number of thick steel doors and an even larger number of men who wore uniforms and sidearms. At the last door, even my senior executive pass was not enough to get me through, but I managed to convince the head guard to buzz Wally and he told them to admit me.

  When I came into the lab he was bent over the monitor of a scanning electronic microscope, humming to himself. Without looking up, he said, “I think we've made it all the way back to Cro-Magnon man. In a week or two, I should be ready to clone a prehuman hominid. After that, Jimmy-boy, I'm going to get some birds and work back toward the dinosaurs."

  "What's Project Parousia?” I asked. My teeth chattered a little. The air was chilly; the large room was designed to keep its banks of super-fast computers happy. Humans could put on a sweater.

  "Oh, just a bee in the board's bonnet,” he said, looking up for a moment. “Don't worry about it."

  "No bee would survive a second in any bonnet of theirs,” I said. “Who are those people?"

  He had turned back to his monitor. “Backers,” he said. “Money people."

  I put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him down to my lowly plane. “No,” I said. “They're not. Tell me how you found them."

  I could see him consulting the part of his memory where he stored irrelevant details. “I didn't,” he said, after a moment. “They found me. After I published my paper on retrogressive DNA sequencing, they came to see me."

  "It was their idea to set up the company?"

  "Uh huh."

  "But they're not interested in our actual results and revenue projections."

  He looked mildly puzzled. “They're not?"

  "No, the only thing they care about is Project Parousia."

  "Hmm,” he said, and gestured to a lab bench across the room. “It's over there."

  His microscope was pulling him back to wherever he went when he was working, but I exerted a more immediate level of force and pushed him over to the Parousia bench. He examined a series of petri dishes connected to sensors and probes that were in turn linked to one of the big computers, then checked a stream of data that was zipping across a monitor.

  "Almost done,” he said. “Of course, it's just fantasy."

  "What is?"

  "Their idea."

  "Tell me about it,” I said.

  Wally said he figured that the board had gotten themselves all wrapped up in that goofy book about a secret society that had protected the descendants of a union between Jesus and Mary Magdalene through two thousand years. I hadn't read the book but I had heard about misguided enthusiasts trying to dig up church floors to get at supposed clues.

  I saw it now. “They want you to work backward through the DNA until you've got a clone of Jesus.” And now I remembered what parousia meant. It was Greek for the Second Coming.

  "They want to bring on the end of the world,” I said.

  Wally was the only person I'd ever heard use the word “Pshaw.” He used it now, then added, “It's just a myth."

  "Work with me a moment,” I said. “Suppose it isn't a myth. Suppose there really is a secret society. ‘Cause I'm thinking if there ever was a secret society of religious fanatics they'd look an awful lot like our board of directors."

  "Still,” he said, “what are the chances they could be right?"

  "I don't know,” I said, “but how much research could you get done if the seas are boiling and we're all being pitched into a lake of fire?"

  "That's not going to happen."

  "Okay, suppose all you give them is a mild mannered carpenter—aren't they likely to think you've teamed up with the Antichrist to wreck their plans? ‘Cause they don't look like the kind of people who would get their lawyers in and sue. I'm thinking, they're more the pitchforks and torches kind."

  At that moment the Parousia Project's computer emitted a discreet ding. Wally leaned over and picked up the last petri dish in the series. He peered into it. “There it is,” he said then looked around. “But I don't see any angels or wise men."

  "Fine,” I said. “Tomorrow I'll give it to them and maybe they'll go away happy.” Though I didn't think so. But planes left for obscure corners of the world every hour, and I would have enough time to pick a good one.

  Except that I noticed how Wally was looking at the dish with that expression I'd seen so many times before. He had found another doll he could crack open.

  "No,” I said, and reached for the dish. “For once, leave well enough alone."

  But he had already slipped it back into its connective armature and his fingers rippled across the computer's keyboard.

  He turned to me with that smile of genius I'd seen so often before, the one that is a virtual twin to the grin of madness. “I can prove it's a myth,” he said, “You see, if that's really Jesus, the Son of God, then half its DNA is Mary's and the other half is...."

  Ding went the computer.

  Behind him, from the lab bench, a light glowed.

  I turned to run, but the floor shook and the walls cracked and I was thrown down.

  I looked up and saw that the petri dish was enveloped in a flame that burned yet did not consume, and a voice that came from everywhere at once said, “Put off the shoes from thy feet for the place where thou standest is holy ground."

  "Oh, God,” I said.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Bread and Circus by Steven Popkes

  Steven Popkes lives in Massachussetts and is currently working with NASA on the Ares I. He gives credit for this story to his son Ben, who used to play soccer (using pine cones) with his father while they waited for the school bus. One day, Ben made a suggestion that triggered this fun tale of sports and sauropods.

  His phone rang as he was setting up for the game. He switched over, audio only. “Paderewski."

  "Mike—"

  "Barney, I've got to talk to the team. It'll have to wait—you know how they are."

  "Mike! Don't switch off. I just talked to Jim Matteson."

  Mike hesitated. “Who is?"

  "Husband of Kimberly Matteson who used to be Kimberly Ross. Who is the niece of Commissioner Hack Ross."

  Mike sighed. “Rumors. There are always rumors. You always get wound up on these end-of-season games."

  "This isn't a rumor, Mike. Ross is going to add another team to the majors."

  "That's not funny, Barney."

  "It's not a joke. They're going to elevate one of the minor teams. You know who it's got to be: us or the Legs. Who else is there?"

  Major league. As in wholly better than minor league. As in a real budget. As in not being owned by some other major team.

  "Arizona,” Mike said half-heartedly. “Miami."

  "Screw them both. It's always us or the Legs in the playoffs. Are they going to elevate a team that's worse than we are?"

  Mike thought for a moment. “Who else knows?"

  "I haven't told anybody else. But other than that, I don't know."

  Mike rubbed his face. “Don't tell anybody. Not a soul."

  "You got it."

  The line went dead. Mike wanted to throw the cell to the floor and stamp on it. Dance for joy at the chance. Dance in frustration that his luck couldn't be that good. What would the team think? What would Myrna think?

  Instead, he turned and entered the locker room. A thick, fetid odor of carnivore washed over him. Fifteen tons of therapod looked up as he came in the door. He could tell by the splattering on the wall that somebody hadn't made it to the stalls in time. Pre-game jitters.

  Their teeth gleamed as they watched him. He rubbed his hands together. Time to get to work. Play it close. Play it easy.

  "Okay, team,” he began. “Listen up."

  * * * *

  Al: Welcome to an
other episode of Monday Night Sports brought to you on the Hopkinton public access feed. I'm Albert Staab, Senior at Hopkinton High School.

  John: And I'm John Albermarle. Also senior at Hopkinton High School.

  Al: Tonight we get to bring you the sport we love, DinoBall. Also called Dinosaur Soccer or Sauro-Futball.

  John: It should have a better name. DinoBall sounds like something you'd play in an arcade.

  Al: Tonight, it's the Minor League final playoff for the East Coast Division. It looks like a good game tonight.

  John: That's right, Al. It's the Scranton Legs versus the Providence Braves. There's no love lost between these teams.

  Al: They've been rivals for, well, years. The Legs have been playoff champions of the division six of the last seven years.

  John: That sure hasn't made any friends in Providence. Each of those championship matches were between the Braves and the Legs. The Braves are hungry for a win.

  Al: I don't think it looks good for Providence. There's a rumor that the Legs are going to take Sebastian Genzyme off the disabled list.

  John: Tom Vertech isn't going to be happy about that. He's the one who put him there.

  Al: Cool. This could have the makings of a grudge match.

  John: Yeah. Any idea why they hate each other so much?

  Al: The coaches of both teams have been closed mouthed about it. It's pretty unusual among the late Cretaceous therapods. Up in the majors, don't the Miami Mosasaurs have a Spinosaurus goalie and a T. Rex center?

  John: Stan Merck and Tam Lilly. Both left and right wings are Velociraptors.

  Al: Not a bad combination.

  John: Then again, San Francisco has a Gigantosaur goalie with an entire line of Allosaurs.

  Al: There's a lot of friction in San Francisco.

  John: It was a bad trade. Allosaurs rarely get along with any of the larger carnivores. But I've heard that the friction between Sebastian and Tom goes back to the days when they were both in the majors playing for the Saint Louis Claws under Mike Paderewski.