The policewoman looked back at Bal.
‘If this is true, why is it a secret? You didn’t want to mention your son. Why not?’
‘Because of this.’ He waved a disgusted hand at the UCs. ‘We’re trying to give him as normal a childhood as we can, even though he has a unique ability. This kind of attention, all these people talking about him, doesn’t help.’
They looked aghast. Varsi took in their expressions, and Bal’s, and sighed.
‘No, I guess it doesn’t. But look at it from where I’m standing. I’ve got nothing to go on besides your word. And his.’ She glanced at the other officer. ‘Anything?’
‘No priors, good neighbourhood, good job.’ He gestured at the tablet. ‘Hasn’t shown up to work for a week or so, though.’
‘Really? Why’s that, Mr Senton?’
It caught him off guard. ‘I’ve been … been busy … other things …’
‘Couldn’ fi’ it into yer gem-bashin’ schedule?’ Donal shot back. He had pulled out his tablet, was doing something with it.
‘That’s not it! I’m not … I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘Yer a liar.’ Donal raised the tablet at him. It flashed. ‘Which I can prove in jus’ a mo’, I think, wi’out bringin’ the wee lad back into it.’ He flicked at his earset. ‘Wenda? Hi, darlin’. Callan awake?’
He listened to the response. Mikal rocked back on his heels, a sapling swaying over their heads, and chuckled. As a cold sense of finality settled over John, his earset started to vibrate.
It could only be Mac. He had one chance, maybe, to send a message. Warn them. Once he was arrested his earset would be removed. If they realised who he was talking to, his earset would be removed. But if he was quick and careful and Donal kept them distracted he might be able, finally, to deliver on his promise.
He was contained inside the fence. No one was looking at him. He shrugged to receive and spoke as quietly as he could.
‘Hi, honey.’
A moment of perplexed silence from the other end, then, ‘Brother John. You okay?’
‘Just trying to sort out a bit of a mix-up.’ They all remained focused on Donal. Still, take no chances. Callan might not have seen him clearly. ‘Mistaken identity. There’s a kid here who thinks I have something to do with those murders.’
He could feel the tension ratchet up on the other end. ‘Why would they think that?’
‘Kid’s a mind-reader, apparently. Claims to be looking right inside my head.’
‘Oh …’ Mac caught himself. ‘Only the Lord can do that.’
‘Well they say he’s got previous, so they have to give him the benefit of the doubt.’ He kept his voice as light as he could, but he could hear his own desperation. ‘Big to-do. Cops came racing in.’
A beat as Mac processed the message.
‘Are they going to hold you?’
‘Yeah. It’ll get sorted any second now, I expect.’
‘How?’
Across the lawn the three gems and two police officers peered into Donal’s tablet. It seemed to be taking a while for them to get an answer. The UC pair stood with their backs to him.
‘They’ve sent my picture to the one in hospital.’
A deep breath, then, ‘I’m sorry, brother John.’ Mac’s voice became quick, clipped. He had obviously decided to abandon subterfuge in favour of speed. ‘This the same child? The one the UCs were on about?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he there now?’
‘No.’
‘Describe him.’
‘Little. Brown hair. Looks normal.’
‘How normal?’
‘Completely.’
‘Dear God.’
Something had changed with Donal. He still looked at the tablet, but there was a stillness and attention about him now that John somehow knew was aimed at him. He stopped listening to whatever Mac was saying, and focused on Donal. A gust of wind whistled through the bars behind him and ruffled the young gem’s hair. John saw his ear.
‘Yes, I know you’ve got to go,’ he said to Mac.
‘Now?’
‘You wouldn’t want to be late.’
‘Bless you, brother John.’
23
Distinguishing Features: A Comparative Study of Social Behaviour
Prepared for the European Conference on the Status of Genetically Modified Humans, London, December 131AS
Introduction
One year ago I was asked to examine the question of whether genetically modified humans are fundamentally different from unmodified humans; not in terms of their origin, to which the answer is obvious, but in terms of their ability to function in and to form social groups, to integrate and interact with other groups, and to become, in the context both of their individual and group identities, engaged and productive members of the wider human family. Or, as an eminent member of the cross-party committee which commissioned this report put it to me at the time, ‘Do gems have any chance of ever becoming normal?’
This last point is of particular significance because, despite what some may think, the variation in ‘normal’ social structures and behaviours is enormous. What we think of as ‘normal’ changes across cultures and over time. In most places, and in most times, ‘normal’ has described the ethnicity, heritage and habits of powerful elites or demographic majorities. The correlative definition of the weak or the few as not-normal could historically be relied upon to coincide neatly with prevailing cultural and racial preferences.
So I asked the committee what they meant by ‘normal’. You are the scientist, came the response. You tell us.
I should pause for a moment both to thank and to congratulate them for their courage in issuing so revolutionary an instruction.
I must also thank my team of researchers, interviewers and analysts, and the geneticists, social workers, physicians, psychiatrists and other dedicated professionals upon whose assistance and insight we have relied. And last but by no means least I must thank the hundreds of genetically modified humans who consented to be interviewed, and who in many cases allowed us into their homes, hospices and workplaces, enabling us to observe their progress as they adjusted to a drastically different set of surroundings, expectations and opportunities, and a fundamentally new way of life.
This report will examine in detail each of the issues upon which I wish merely to touch in this Introduction. The embedded links will lead to the analyses on which our conclusions are based, and to the source material for those studies. Except for the redaction of names and other identifying information to protect the privacy of individuals, we have withheld none of the data with which we have been provided, and upon which we have relied.
One of these resources requires special mention, and a particular caution. We are grateful to have received a report from a leading bioindustrialist conglomerate, detailing their internal investigation into an assault committed by a genetically modified male upon two norm females. Vidcam surveillance documented the assault, which resulted in the death of a minor and severe injuries to the surviving victim. Names, faces and other identifying features have been redacted as mentioned above, and the vidlinks have been restricted to prevent further distribution, copying or streaming. Nevertheless the images are extremely graphic and very distressing, and while included here for the sake of transparency are unlikely to add much to an understanding of the incident, which is discussed extensively in both the internal report and our external analysis.
The questions surrounding this dreadful event encapsulate many of the issues which we are attempting to understand, and with which this Conference intends to grapple: the unknowns of the genetic legacy to which gems are heir, the doubts about the ability of some gems to lead independent lives, and the implications of the sudden, unrestricted introduction of thousands of gems into the wider community. The assumption of the assailant’s parent gemtech was that his actions were the result of an inadvertent genetic trigger, something unintended and unforeseen but possibly w
idely replicated throughout the gem population. Their search for this supposed engineering error, while thorough, was unsuccessful.
Our analysis has suggested a different explanation, one which requires us to revisit, however uncomfortably, our idea of ‘normal’. While the assault constitutes a horrific aberration from what would have been considered acceptable in almost any culture at any point in time, it is by no means a unique event in the history of the human species. Such crimes, while thankfully always rare, were well known and documented in the centuries prior to the Syndrome. Then, as now, no convincing explanation could be found, although theories ranging from the existence of a metaphysical evil to the psychological damage inflicted by childhood abuse to, yes, a genetically encoded flaw were put forward, studied and debated.
Our survey of the historical record, coupled with the lack of any apparent differentiation in the attacker’s genetype profile, has led us to the working hypothesis that, to the extent this gem’s actions had a genetic link at all, it was less likely to be the result of an array that had been engineered in than of a heritage sequence that has never been engineered out. This makes his capacity for extreme violence in no essential respect any different from the potential that may exist within each and every one of us.
The fact that a gem may commit a horrific act does not, ipso facto, imply that the horrific act was committed because he or she is a gem.
We have become unaccustomed in the last century and a half to the levels of warfare and violent crime that used to sadly be commonplace. It would be both easy and reassuring to imagine that the shared crisis of the Syndrome, and the changes to which it gave rise, have somehow eliminated this capability; have jumped us up an evolutionary step, so that we no longer feel the need to harm each other. I have only to point to the recent, equally horrific assaults on and murders of gems on the streets of London, by those who claim to be ‘true’ humans, to refute any suggestion that the genetic distinction between gems and norms makes one group intrinsically safer – or saner – than the other.
But what about the distinctions within groups? It is common parlance to say that not all gems are equal; it is certainly true to say that not all gems are the same. Again I will point out that this is also true of norms, and is not of itself a distinguishing factor between us. However there is no getting away from the reality that there exists within the gem population a vast gulf between those who are most intellectually gifted, socially competent and physically able, and their brethren who suffer from mental deficiency, physical deformity, or an inability to play well with others; far more so than amongst norms, where the latter imperfections have been almost completely engineered away.
And here we come to a secret which everyone knows, which is so ubiquitous a truth we seem somehow to have concluded it to be irrelevant – the fact that, apart from a few Remnants living remote from society, none of us are unmodified. We are all gems. Engineered characteristics aside, many of the illnesses and aberrations which we (and they) find so deviant and distressing are exclusively present in them only because they were engineered out of us.
Again we must ask the question: what is normal?
It is true that evolution would probably not, unaided, have thrown up a human with hyperspectral vision. It also would not have thrown up a population free from congenital defect. It would – and did – throw up a fair number of musical geniuses who happened to be blind, intellectual giants who happened to have neurological disorders and political leaders who happened to be crippled. In their coupling of extraordinary gifts with unfortunate limitations, gems represent the continuation of a truly human legacy.
Within the gem population, as within all populations throughout history, the almost infinite combinations of genetically encoded benefits and disadvantages form a continuum of incremental variation. Within this range the evidence shows that outcomes are mitigated – both positively and negatively – by environment. This has led us inescapably to the conclusion that any subdivision, any implicit and automatic categorisation of gems by ability or disability, would be scientifically spurious.
Furthermore, if we rely exclusively on genome analysis (as opposed to the historical circumstance of conception and birth) it becomes clear that this continuum seamlessly merges those we classify as gems with those we think of as norms. There is no point of purely genetic variation that divides us. Crucially, there is also no evidence that the choices gems make, the ways in which they act and interact, are on the whole fundamentally different from what we would expect of norms under similar circumstances. Our study therefore concludes that, while genetype does influence the individual and social behaviour of gems, it does so to no greater a degree and in no significantly different a manner than for norms.
The answer to the question asked by that member of the commissioning panel is a qualified yes – and the qualification simply is that they already are normal.
I expect to hear the cry But they’re different! rising from many thousand throats when this report is made public. To which I can only reply: Yes they are. They are as different from us as the European conquistadores from the Aztec agriculturalists. They are as different as the Pygmy tribes of sub-Saharan Africa from the dynasties of Tang and Ming. They are as different as the Romanian orphans of the Cold War from the intellectual elite of the Ivy League. They are as different as the Indians of the American plains, in their homes of hide and bark, from those of the Asian sub-continent, in glittering and bejewelled palaces. They are as different as that.
Eli Walker, Ph.D. (MIT) (Edin.), FRAI, FIBMS
Eli came off the stage feeling battered. He dawdled, his back to it, gazing up the terraced rows of seats as the rest of the room filed out through the rear doors. There were only half as many people as at the gem meeting a couple of days ago, but he felt as though he had just had to face down ten times the number.
Aryel was right. Again. What’s happening out in the world is reflected in here.
‘Penny for ‘em.’ Rob, at his elbow.
‘I was thinking how different this was from the other evening. I expected to get raked over the coals then, but everyone was more interested in pitching in to help solve the problem. Here I’ve done exactly what I was asked to do, and you’d think I had personally insulted everyone’s grandmother.’
‘What you’ve done has made their job harder. A lot of them were relying on having some kind of scientific excuse for the restrictions they already know they want to put in place – and you’ve said nope, this is a question of ethics not genetics. Of course they’re pissed off at you.’
‘I didn’t actually mention ethics. Not out loud anyway. And, this doesn’t prevent them from doing the wrong thing.’
‘It makes it harder,’ Rob said again. They began to move slowly up the room, following the crowd out. A few people were pointedly malingering along the aisle, waiting to talk to Eli. He scowled at them.
‘Any news on this morning?’
‘I think they’ve identified the dead. That’s about it.’
One man stood squarely in their path. He was portly and well dressed, and Eli thought he looked familiar. Rob knew him: a lawyer, one of the team of specialists hired to advise on constitutional and regulatory issues. His name was Jeremy Temple. It rang no bells.
‘I thought your presentation was excellent,’ he said to Eli quietly. ‘And at the risk of making a lot less work for my profession, it occurs to me that you’ve validated the notion of having no separation at all between gems and norms.’
‘Well, yes,’ Eli said, puzzled. He was sure he’d seen the man before.
‘Pardon me, Dr Walker, but if you take that to its logical conclusion, it means we don’t need an extensive legal framework to deal with “the gem question”. It suggests a solution that is both practical and ethical.’ He made quotation marks with his fingers while Rob grinned. ‘We don’t need new laws and regulations, we don’t need special protections or restrictions. What struck me is how well the existing infrastructure
has coped since the Declaration. It’s been stretched, of course, but the fact that you have the data you have tells me the system works, even if it’s creaking. It needs money and it needs personnel, but those would be required anyway.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Rob asked.
‘That all we need the law to say is that there are no distinctions within the human species, and gems are the same as everyone else. Same rights, same responsibilities. No special treatment beyond dealing with each individual’s needs. Think of it this way.’
They had stopped just inside the doors. He was animated, excited. His voice had risen a bit. Eli knew now where he had seen Jeremy Temple before: at St Pancras station, five days earlier, meeting a beautiful black-haired woman in a purple coat.
‘Say we found, right now, today, a group of Remnants that we hadn’t known about. They’ve been living off the grid for over a hundred years, they’ve got all sorts of problems – diseases, inbreeding, risk of the Syndrome, complete unfamiliarity with the modern world, you name it. And now they want to rejoin civilisation. Would we institute a whole new set of laws and departments just for them? Would we require them to wear some kind of marker? No, we wouldn’t. We’d absorb them. We’d treat their illnesses, we’d protect them from the Syndrome and make sure the children they had from now on were immune, we’d educate them, and in a generation or two you’d never know the difference.’
‘Okay—’ Rob was thinking. ‘You’re saying everything basically continues as it’s been since the Declaration, and the unresolved stuff – like voting rights – defaults to the norm standard?’ Temple nodded.
‘What about the gemtechs? At the moment it’s not clear if gems should have the right to sue them …’
Temple frowned. ‘The courts are refusing to entertain any motions until the legal issue is resolved. For this to work it would have to be done in a way that didn’t hang the gemtechs out to dry. I know a lot of gems might not like this, but I think the gemtechs would have to be granted an amnesty. Draw a line under the past. Maybe they have to pay for things that are reversible, like removing the contraceptive implants. And they get to develop their intellectual property in ways that are benign – medical research, voluntary adaptations for space travel.’ He shrugged. ‘Something useful.’
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