Your One & Only

by Adrianne Finlay

  I’m beginning to understand the wealth and resources devoted to this Project—​I find myself capitalizing the word, because that’s how it sounds when Una Vispa says it. It really is her vision. When she first offered the positions to me and Hassan, I was a bit starstruck, to be honest. Not just the head of Global Health, but the woman who actually conceived of and formed the most important international organization devoted to securing funds for medical research—​research that will benefit the whole world. And she was sitting in our living room, drinking that cheap tea Hassan buys!

  We’d already been through the countless exams, including blood tests and genetic history. Dr. Vispa wouldn’t say exactly what all that was for, but she did volunteer she was collecting the best scientists in the world, the most brilliant, and also those with healthy, strong constitutions and well-documented family histories. I guess to make sure we wouldn’t need any extensive medical care while living in such a remote region. We’ve also been selected for our youth. We’ve all earned doctorates, and none of us is over thirty, meaning we’ll be able to oversee the Project for years to come. She gathered agronomists, cytologists, epidemiologists, geneticists, physicists. The goal of the Project, she said, was to research the spread of the autoimmune disorders we’ve been seeing in so many children, though I’m not clear what my role as an evolutionary biologist might be. Dr. Vispa assures me I’m important to the team, however.

  She really is a visionary. She looks exactly like she did in that documentary Hassan and I just watched, the one where she bought all this land in Costa Rica and then used her wealth and influence to have it declared a semi-independent province, free from the taxes and regulations of either Costa Rica or the United States. She’s so elegant, with her flowing white hair, startlingly blue eyes, and perfectly tailored (and extraordinarily expensive) pantsuit. Even drinking out of Hassan’s ridiculous BE POSITIVE LIKE A PROTON! mug, she managed to look regal and charismatic.

  She explained to us that the financing from the World Commonwealth is far greater even than that provided for the Greenland plantations, the Sahara canals, even the new NASA missions. She took such barefaced pleasure in her project that it was impossible not to be delighted too. But then she turned solemn, saying it was worth every penny, that she’d even devoted a huge portion of her own wealth, because after all, it certainly would be the “last significant investment made in our epoch of humanity.” I’m not sure what she meant, but it certainly sent a chill down my spine!

  It’s rather wonderful, I think, though Hassan is concerned. He says all the protocols and political machinations that made this happen are unlike anything he’s ever seen, and he thinks Dr. Vispa and the executives at Global Health know something we don’t. He’s a worrier. In any case, a full community of scientists, engineers, technicians, support staff, and construction workers has sprung up seemingly overnight, and I’m still amazed we’ve been selected for this project. “This is our destiny!” I said to Hassan. “It’s what we were born to do, I can feel it!” He laughed and kissed me, even though I know he thought I was being hopelessly dramatic.

  It’s so lush and vibrant here, our own little slice of Eden, and when I think of the good we will do in this beautiful place, I can’t help but be thankful.

  September 30, 2069

  Today, over a year since we arrived and with the labs finally set up and the construction crews and support staff evacuated, the Project has officially launched. Hassan and I sat in the front row of the auditorium to hear the keynote address, and it was here that Dr. Vispa revealed the true nature of what we were setting out to do. We had thought we were here to find a cure, but it’s now clear that was never the intention.

  She started with slides on the huge screen behind her scrolling through, showing human development starting all the way back in the Paleolithic Era.

  As the slides reached the Middle Ages, she told us what many of us had already suspected. Global Health has decided confidentially that a cure for the Slow Plague, as we’re calling it now, is scientifically not within reach, and perhaps never will be. In other words, it’s destined to continue its terrible work of extermination. It isn’t just affecting children anymore, either. After it spread to adolescents, it started appearing in adult populations as well and, according to Global Health’s data, it’s crossing all borders of income, race, and region. Nobody knows any of this yet, however. To forestall planet-wide panic, Global Health will withhold any official announcement for as long as possible.

  A palpable sense of doom crept into the room. Dr. Vispa paused for a long moment, head bowed. A shudder rippled through the crowd. The slides continued behind her, showing the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. They sped by, faster and faster. The eighteenth century, the nineteenth, the twentieth and twenty-first, showing images and faces so quickly it all became a blur. When the slides reached the end of our age and the new century coming upon us, the screen went stark white. We squinted against the light, blindingly bright in the dark hall, and then Dr. Vispa spread her arms wide, bestowing a kind of benediction on us all, and she smiled.

  “Now,” she said. “Now is when we shape the future.”

  March 24, 2070

  Dr. Vispa designated the first phase of the Project “Enhancing Development,” which is a stage of intense genetic engineering that will ultimately send an improved adaptation of humanity into the future, a version free from the effects of the Slow Plague. Even in the midst of working nonstop, night and day, I still can barely grasp the enormity of what we’re doing here and the magnitude of Dr. Vispa’s vision. This is no five-year research grant like we thought. This is the work of decades, the work of a lifetime.

  With political instability spreading in South America, travel has become more difficult, but my visit home to see my family is still scheduled for next month. We’re sworn to secrecy, both on the advance of the Slow Plague and on our Project in Costa Rica, so when Mother asks why I’ve been kept away for so long already, I won’t be able to convey how important our work truly is. They don’t know that, at this point, we really are the only hope. When it comes time to say goodbye, I don’t know how I’ll manage it. How can I not warn them of what’s coming? I keep waking up at night drenched in sweat, tears streaming down my face, feeling in my heart that this visit will be the last time I ever see them.

  Dr. Vispa spoke at the last assembly about the coming second phase, which she said is as complex as the first, inasmuch as it involves laying down the moral and social foundations of the future community. She pointed to the slide on the presentation, “Enhancing Genetics & Establishing Culture.” I’ve gotten to know Dr. Vispa more since coming here. I’ve always recognized her passion, but I’ve seen more lately how she has a flair for the theatrical. She slapped her hand on the podium, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not arrogance! For the first time in human history, this is something we can do. Why build a world that will simply survive? We must build a better world. Harmony with one’s fellows, stewardship of nature, no war, no poverty, no racism, sexism, or class warfare. We will reconstruct and atone for our sins of the past. That is the visionary future that will be carried forward by the descendants of these young people!”

  The fifty of us who’d been selected by Dr. Vispa (the “genetic seeds,” as we’re called) stood at that point and endured the applause that seemed to last forever. Dr. Vispa stood before us, beaming at all she’d accomplished. She’s an amazing woman.

  January 10, 2077

  We have our first success!

  Finally, after all our work, all our failures, we’ve created the first entirely viable clone generation. Hassan has been calling them Homo factus ​—​the Made Man—​and it’s true, they were indeed made by us. Now here they are, healthy and whole!

  Only ten of the gene models have ever shown viability, so it seems we’re limited to those samples as we move forward, rather than the fifty we’d hoped for. We have five females and five males. Dr. Vispa espe
cially was disappointed that her own sample never worked, though we tried countless times, and she poured so many of our resources into that one effort. She jokes that she’s lost her chance at immortality.

  It was only late last year that the rest of the world became aware of the devastating impact the Slow Plague will inevitably have. The scientists here estimate another thirty years of human life before there’s nothing left. Panic has been kept at bay for now, with reports of countless research outfits still working on a cure, giving people hope that humanity will be saved. Only we at Global Health know that those pathways are already dead ends.

  We can’t make ourselves immune from the Slow Plague but, as the results of the blood tests prove, at least we know the clones won’t fall victim to it. We’re hoping that when they eventually sexually reproduce, they’ll be a population free of this awful disease. It’ll be a long time, however, before we can rely on sexual reproduction with a limit of only ten individual gene types. As we move forward, I’m sure we’ll find a way to develop more, and if we refine their scientific inclinations and educate them accordingly, they can continue the work of creating a more diverse gene pool after we’re gone.

  After such a long time, and with so much happening in the world, it’s indescribable to see these tiny babies finally with us. I was thrilled that both the Althea clones and the Hassan clones were among the survivors. The Althea babies look exactly like me, right down to the birthmarks on their cheeks. My grandmother used to say it reminded her of a rose, so I’ve chosen one of the little Althea clones to call Rose. She is darling.

  The new babies are a welcome distraction, and everyone is delighted with them. I’ve been too committed to my research to want my own children, and Hassan questioned bringing them into the world when they’re sure to suffer from the Slow Plague and we’re facing a planetary epidemic. He said their birth would be equivalent to “a death sentence in an empty world.” These clones, though. I feel such affection for them. I love seeing ourselves in their faces.

  We held a celebration in the assembly hall, and after the speeches were over, Dr. Vispa called us—​those whose genes now represent the survival of humankind—​outside to have our picture taken. I have the photo now on our bookshelf, and it inspires me every morning when I go off to the labs. When I look at the ten of us lined up on the steps of the residence hall and think of our work guiding the Project, I whisper Dr. Vispa’s words to myself—​a better world.

  For the first time, I have hope for what’s to come.

  The next several entries detailed the early lives of the first generation of cloned children. The Original Ten cared about them enormously, according to the Original Althea’s journal. They played with them and lived with them in some facsimile of family life that Althea couldn’t quite figure out. While reading, Althea thought for the first time about who this woman really was. Her Original had always been larger than life, a woman in a painting Althea saw every day, and now here she could read about her eating lunch in the dining halls and getting lost on the trails to Blue River. Althea found herself wondering what kind of place the Original Althea had grown up in, and what her life had been like. What had she done when she was Althea’s age? Had she enjoyed the same things, or had this woman, like Jack, read books of poetry and played baseball?

  A number of details about life in early Vispera surprised Althea. For some reason, she had always imagined the Original Nine—​Original Ten, she corrected herself—​as living and working alone for all those years, but she realized now that was absurd. The community had teemed with countless others, whole families, and people the Original Althea talked about as friends, acquaintances, rivals, sometimes annoyances. A janitor named Chris cleaned her offices every day and complained of a pain in his back. Althea had the sense of many daily conversations like this. Was this what the humans talked about with each other? Aches, illnesses, poor eyesight, and other structural defects? As time went on in the journal, the effects of the Slow Plague appeared in virulent form. All of them, the Original Althea included—​Althea Lane, Althea reminded herself, thinking how strange it was to see her own name with no number after it—​suffered from rashes, blood diseases, things with complicated names like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, celiac disease, vasculitis, and Sjögren’s syndrome. All manner of aches, pains, and allergies that were manifestations of their dying immune systems. They were diseases that had always existed, but they’d become more dire, more difficult to treat, and more widespread. The Slow Plague killed them young, and it killed their children.

  Although they were dying, their troubles and pain didn’t consume their day-to-day lives. Althea Lane wrote about food, families, animals they lived with and inexplicably gave names to, parties they held to commemorate the day each individual was born. And they talked about weather, always and relentlessly, and the weather of Vispera especially seemed to preoccupy them. Most of the residents of early Vispera, she gathered, had come from elsewhere, places with very different climates, places called San Diego, New York, London, Tokyo, New Delhi, Burlington, Edinburgh.

  The humans had spent evenings staring at televisions, appliances Althea had never really understood until she read about them in Althea Lane’s journal. A “show” would unfold elaborate tales pantomimed by humans pretending to be someone else. They watched the television often, and Althea Lane especially liked a television story called Family Days, about a human family, a mother and father, three children, grandparents, neighbors, and pets.

  The television also showed real stories, things happening to people on continents thousands of miles away. Many of the stories were about money, another concept hard to grasp. Althea knew from the histories that money was coins and slips of paper, and those became plastic cards, and then those eventually turned into electronic abstractions, but nevertheless one the humans would compete over and trade for things they wanted. They didn’t work together as a collective, like Althea’s people in Vispera, but fought one another for resources, sometimes viciously.

  Money seemed to have a lot to do with the collapse unfolding far away from early Vispera. Those with lots of money seemed to live longer, but not by much; they died too, and their children died with them. Althea Lane didn’t write very much about the collapse. It was as if she didn’t want to face it, as if writing it in stark lines in a journal would make it more real. Althea knew the history, however. From the point the Plague became public knowledge, it had taken thirty years for humans and human civilization to become sick and die, thirty years for it all to disintegrate into ashes. The telephones and televisions; the intangible money they valued so much; the particles of information floating through the air like dust motes, appearing suddenly and miraculously on glowing screens; the machines flying over the earth, carrying people to bodies of land all over the world, even carrying people to the moon. The families and birthdays, the mothers, fathers, children, and pets. All of it gone.

  In 2090, Althea Lane received word that her mother had died four months before, and Family Days aired its last episode. She wrote about the Originals gathering around a glowing communal television with the surviving cooks, janitors, medical personnel, and lab assistants of Vispera. They watched the end of the story of a family that had never really existed. They grieved the loss of the story and the people in it as if they’d been real, but Althea understood it was not just the made-up family they were mourning, but the familiar world they had always known that was now coming to an end, a world that wouldn’t be making any more television stories. Their world was falling apart, and their own families, their real families, were dying. When the show ended, they held each other and wept.

  Althea turned the pages, and read.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALTHEA LANE

  (Excerpts)

  April 15, 2091

  Word came today that Dr. Una Vispa died a week ago, on April 8, Easter Sunday, during the siege on the U.S. Global Health headquarters in San Francisco. She was there to fight for the continuation of the
Project, which the new government’s administration was threatening to shut down, calling it an abomination and a drain on resources desperately needed in the States. Before she left, I heard her speaking to the president of the World Commonwealth on the phone.

  “You have no authority over Global Health!” she said. “In any case, what use is it to feed your children? They’ll be dead before the decade ends! The work Global Health is doing in Costa Rica is not for something as insignificant as individual existence. We are working for human existence.”

  To the end she was silver-tongued, authoritative, and relentlessly single-minded. She was eighty-nine, an age none of us can hope to reach anymore. She’ll never see the world she built come to fruition, though none of us really will, not with the Plague sweeping through us as it is. Half of our community is gone now, but we carry on. This Project was her passion. Samuel said she was like a gardener who plants a seed but never sees the garden fully grown, never reaps the harvest. We’ve changed the name of the community to Vispera, in her honor. It means, appropriately, “eve,” and we surely are in those last dark hours before a new beginning.

  The first clones are fourteen now. They stared at us with blank eyes when we told them about the death of the woman responsible for their existence, a woman who’d sat with them in lessons, teaching them almost every day of their lives about everything from history to morality to science. “You should just make more of her,” one of the Kate clones said. I guess they’re too young to really understand. They’re a strange little group.

  May 31, 2094

  The riots in Brazil have spread into Peru and Argentina. The news out of India is even worse, and the World Commonwealth is saying they’ve lost contact with China. That’s what they said: “We’ve lost contact with China.” How is that possible? We’re so secluded here, closed in by the mountains, these images of disaster we see on television seem unreal.