“Thank you. My life would not have been the same without you, especially those close to me. There are too many of you to mention, but you know how much I love you all. I’ve had the most amazing life I could possibly imagine, and the thing that has struck me most is how my life turned out nearly exactly as I thought it would. Unfortunately, even the bad bits! So, keep a rein on your imaginations, people, but don’t be afraid to use them. Don’t be afraid to imagine that however bad things are, a time is coming which will be better for everyone and everything on this tiny planet. Be kind to your neighbors, to other species, to each other, love one another, and above all, try to have fun! You deserve to be happy. You deserve to live in peace. So please, celebrate not my death but my life, and celebrate your own lives at the same time.”
With that, Rowen held up a glass of Nembutal, saluted us all, and drank it down.
Not long after, his body, lain to rest in a small canoe covered in flowers, was carried up over the water by a helicopter and set upon the waves.
That night and all the next day, an endless celebration took place.
On the third morning, Dylan came to visit for breakfast and told me that there was going to be a meeting of the chiefs of all the havens, and that they were going to decide the future of the organization. He asked me if I would come and speak to them and explain to them what I needed.
A few hours later, I stood in front of an audience of nearly a hundred men and women and gave my speech. Most of them seemed receptive, but whether or not they’d accept the idea was something Dylan told me was going to take days if not weeks of negotiations.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A WEEK LATER, I sat at a large boardroom table on the seventy-second floor of a serviced office building. Surrounding me on the black leather chairs were the other members of Gendigm. It was the first time I’d ever met any of them except for Bruno in person.
I looked around the room at these people who were possibly going to be responsible for the future of human life, and wondered if what we were doing was right. Desperate times required desperate solutions, though, and the world had become a desperate place.
“We need some way of making sure we can eventually wipe out any Homo sapiens who do manage to survive, or at least sterilize them, and if we’re working on too large an area that’ll be impossible,” Frank was saying.
“Hopefully, if what just happened at our clinic continues to happen, the modified children will start to create superbugs that will wipe out Homo sapiens naturally,” Zoe said.
“I personally don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. “In fact, I think we should create a somatic modification for Homo sapiens to protect them against that happening. A few tweaks to some of the modifications we’ve already come up with and I think we could manage that.”
“Why on earth would we want to do that?” Marianne said. “We need to get rid of Homo sapiens, not protect them.”
“Whatever we do, we definitely need to put some kind of safety control into our genome, so that procreation isn’t viable,” Graeme said. “We don’t want our gene pool to be sullied.”
“I don’t know if that’ll be necessary either,” I said. “Our new species will be so genetically superior that any infiltration into the gene pool will die out naturally.”
“What are we going to call them, anyway?” Jonathan said.
“How about Homo novus?” Zoe suggested.
Everyone looked around and nodded in agreement.
“What about if we altered the expression of sperm-egg adhesion receptors in Homo novus?” Jonathan said. “GV9 might be a possibility. That way procreation with Homo sapiens would be impossible.”
“Or we could alter their pheromone coding, so that the Homo novus are only attractive to one another,” Zoe said. “We could, in fact, make it so that Homo sapiens pheromones are a complete turn off for them.”
“Not a bad idea,” Jonathan said.
“It could lead to some fairly nasty cases of unrequited love,” Graeme put in.
“Okay, let’s work out the details of this in the lab, shall we?” Bruno said. “What other ideas have we got?”
“I think we need to find a way to allow the Homo novus to identify one another in a way that is invisible to Homo sapiens,” said a biologist whom my overlay informed me was called James Sterner, of MIT. “Maybe we should endow them with vision for an added spectrum, and do something to their skin which reflects that, so they stand out to one another.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Colonel James, an ex-military officer, said. “We want them to be able to infiltrate the population as safely as possible. Any exterior marker which allows them to identify one another could easily be turned against them by Homo sapiens and used to weed them out.”
“That’s why I think we need to find a way to wipe out Homo sapiens,” Frank insisted. “What’s the point of going to all this trouble if Homo novus, or whatever you want to call them, is just going to be killed by the more aggressive species? I mean, look at us. We’re a bunch of brutish cannibals who’d eat our own friends if we had to.”
“There’s also the issue of making Homo novus prolific enough so that they do end up taking over,” Jonathan said. “If we don’t tip the odds in their favor by removing some of the competition, then their numbers will never reach that critical mass.”
“Given half a chance, somebody will probably try to come up with a version of Michael’s immune system which doesn’t incorporate our cooperation and empathy modifications,” Zoe said. “Which basically means Homo novus will lose all evolutionary advantage, and be lost to the world just as millions of other species have been.”
I wondered where all this was going to end. I felt like I had gone crazy; lost all sense of what was right and wrong. The immensity of it helped in some ways to disassociate myself from it, to remove some of the personal guilt I felt; but sitting in this chair, listening to the way these people were talking, as if wiping out Homo sapiens entirely was a difficult but necessary step, was against everything I believed.
What else could we do, though? If humans continued on as we were, we’d end up wiping out ourselves and everything else out along with us. Global warming had already passed the tipping point, and as much as I believed in science, even scientists weren’t going to be able to save the majority of the population now.
They could have: eighty years ago, at the start of the century, there was probably still just enough time to limit the population or make the massive transition from dirty energy to clean alternatives. But we hadn’t been able to cooperate. Poor countries blamed rich countries for causing the problem, rich countries blamed poor countries for their over-population and rapid development, oil and coal barons went about happily selling their wares as they’d always done, and meanwhile the majority of the population was just too greedy or lazy or plain misinformed to do anything about it, despite the fact that they could have.
It was a pity, really, at the start of the 21st century we had gotten so close to creating heaven on earth. A place where even eight billion people could have lived in relative peace and prosperity.
“I have an idea,” I said, thinking that these people were starting to become just as ruthless as the military. If there was anything I’d learnt in the last few years it was that if we were going to change humanity we had to do it for the right reasons. We couldn’t change humanity because we hated ourselves, we had to change humanity because we loved ourselves. Because we were worth saving. Because, despite a few minor flaws in our genome which had led us down the wrong garden path, we were an incredible species. Probably the most incredible species to ever walk the planet. Not only that, we were the only species with the capacity to save both ourselves and all the others.
“What’s your idea, Michael?” Bruno said.
“Well, up until now we’ve kept our somatic modification of the mothers and our germline modification of the embryos separate. I think it’s time we joined the two. I also th
ink that we could create a further somatic modification that would protect Homo sapiens from diseases that Homo novus might create.”
“If we do that, how are we ever going to effect the changeover?” Frank said.
“By integrating the changes to the eggs and sperm into our modification. If the modification does everything: alters the sex cells that so that any offspring are Homo novus, provides the necessary modifications to the reproductive system so that women can survive pregnancy, and protects against any viruses that the modified children might breed, then everybody will be happy. Homo novus will take over within a generation, and no parents will die from disease before their kids are old enough to fend for themselves.”
Everyone sat there and looked at me.
“I like it,” Bruno said, looking at me and smiling.
“Why would people take it in the first place?” Frank said.
“They’ll have to,” I said. “Their own desire for survival and procreation will be turned against them. They’ll be so worried that other people will be taking it, and that if they don’t take it then either they or their offspring will be wiped out by all the new diseases going around, that they’ll be forced to.”
A few days later, I received a call from Dylan. The New Church leaders had decided they were willing to accept a few children on each of the havens. In total there were over one hundred havens, so there would be plenty of room for all of them.
Annie and I decided to adopt Harvey and Shy and go with them to the same island that Dylan and Sophie were living on. Annie stayed in Melbourne to start preparations for selling our house and packing all of our belongings, and I headed to the desert to help the mothers and children prepare for the move.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THREE MONTHS AFTER first being taken by ASIO, I am transported to a regular prison. Although my cell here is not much larger than my last one, at least I am allowed into the yard during the day and into the dining quarters at meal times, and have exposure to the other prisoners. Not that this is always a good thing — I’ve already been roughed around by guys who do nothing else with their lives but work out. I have made a couple of friends, though, and those friends have friends who do nothing but work out. So it’s not too bad.
Finally, after nearly three months without any contact, I am allowed to see Annie. I pace around my cell all morning, wondering what to say to her and how she is going to react. How could I have been so stupid as to get myself arrested? Why wasn’t I more careful? I should never have gone back to the city.
I wonder how they even found out. I presume that someone at the clinic, one of the nurses, told them about the virus that Annie had caught from the children. Maybe even Savage had me under surveillance — ever since I was caught leaving the de-reg zone. I’ll probably never know.
I wait eagerly with the other prisoners for access to the visitors’ booths. I want to hug Annie, kiss her, spend weeks alone with her, but fifteen minutes is all we’ve got. How ironic, that after spending years trying to cure her, I may never be able to live with her again.
Finally, my name is called and I can see Annie through the glass, walking towards booth twelve. I run down, not wanting to miss even a second. She is there, as beautiful as ever, even more so as she looks younger than when I last saw her. I press my hands and then my face up to the glass and she does the same. I stare at her, trying to fill myself with her image, every detail of her face, to take back to my cell. It’s lonely here, and I have been starting to forget the smaller details of her face.
I take hold of the phone and she does the same.
“My love!”
“My darling!” Her voice goes straight to my heart and I can’t stop myself from crying.
“How are you?” I say, sitting down and clutching the phone as if it were her.
“I’m okay. I’m better now. For months I had no idea where you were. Thank God you’re okay. Are you?” Despite her youthful appearance I see new lines in her face.
“Yes, I’m okay. I suppose. I’ve certainly been better.” I smile. “How is your health? Are you better?”
“Yes. One hundred percent. Baxter can’t believe it. We’ve started cloning antibodies and culturing natural killer cells to help others.”
“What about the children?”
“They’re okay. They’re fine. Harvey and Shy are here, in Melbourne.”
“With you?”
“No, of course not. They’re safe. It’s okay.”
“Why didn’t you let them go with the others?”
“They’re smart kids, Michael. They need an education. A proper education. That’s something they’re only ever going to get here.”
I look at her and shake my head. I want to ask her more about the other children, where they are, what has happened to them, but I can’t risk it.
“What’s happening now?” Annie says.
“I need you to get me a lawyer. The best you can find. They’re trying to charge me for terrorism.”
“But that’s ridiculous. They’re the fucking terrorists.”
“Shh, Annie, calm down, it’s okay. We’re going to get through this. Just get me the best lawyer you can find. Please.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”
Before I know it, our time is up and a guard comes to take me away. I press myself to the glass one last time and Annie puts her fingers up to meet mine.
Three days later, James Harrison, a tall, handsome lawyer, comes to visit me. We sit in an interview room together. James goes over my case and explains to me the charges. Dylan, apparently, is going to be one of the prosecutor’s main witnesses, having made a plea bargain in return for a reduced sentence and the safety of the New Church havens. Although James doesn’t yet know exactly what Dylan is going to say, we both presume it is not going to be good.
James asks me to tell him everything from the beginning, and I go over every detail of the last few years.
When I finish, he sits there staring, nodding his head.
“Well, what do you think?” I say.
“I think it’s all going to come down to intent. The government believes you did this on purpose. Did you?”
“No, it was an accident.” He is referring to the virus that was created by the children, and the potential for them to create even more virulent strains.
“Then why didn’t you hand the children over to the government?”
“They would have killed them or else used them for their own purposes — to create more bio-weapons.”
“Either way — that wasn’t your choice to make.”
“No, but I think it was the best one given the circumstances.”
“What are our chances of getting the other members of Gendigm arrested? That’s what the government really wants — to get to the larger organization behind this. I think that if you give them the information they want and it leads to their arrest then they will let you off or at the very least reduce your sentence.”
“No. I’m not prepared to do that.”
“Why not? You’re their scapegoat, Michael.”
“If there’s any chance of saving my project then that’s what I want to do.”
I can only hope that by now Gendigm has completed my work. At that last meeting, we debated using a benign but contagious disease to spread the modifications, but decided on a pill that could be distributed through the black market instead.
“Okay, if you’re not going to try for a plea bargain, I suggest we try to tell them that it was a mistake made under a lot of pressure. That you did what you had to do, which was to quarantine the children on the New Church islands, and that to the best of your knowledge nobody has died. In fact, you managed to come up with a cure for HIV-4 and potentially a lot of other diseases. They’ve got nothing else to go on, really.”
“What will happen to Dylan? He can’t claim it was a mistake caused by clouded judgement.”
“That’s not your concern.”
“I imagine they probab
ly threatened him in the same way they threatened me. If he hasn’t given away the location of the children, then I don’t want him going down for this.”
“If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life locked up in a small cell, Michael, I’m afraid that’s a risk you’re going to have to take.”
The next day, a guard comes into my cell and tells me that I have another visitor. I am taken to the booths again and directed to booth number seven. On the other side of the glass sits Sophie.
She looks up when she sees me but she doesn’t smile. I look a mess and I know it. Prison jumpsuit, unshaven, my hair long and unkempt. My eyes starting to retreat into their sockets as the world closes in around me.
I slump down into the chair and pick up the phone. I don’t even know what to say to her.
“How are you?” She shakes her head.
I try hard to contain my tears. “I’m so sorry, Sophie.”
She shakes her head again. “How could you let this happen?”
I put my head in my hands. “What have they told you?”
“That you’re a terrorist. That you were planning to run a terrorist camp using the New Church islands. Is that true, Michael?”
“Of course it’s not true. What has Dylan said? Have you spoken to him?”
“Yes. I spoke to him a few days ago. For the first time in months. I had no idea what was happening.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was horrible.” She wipes away a tear.
“And what has Dylan said? Has he given away the location of the children?”
“No. Not yet. They’re trying to get him to give up the children in return for his release. They say that if he does then he will get off. They’re acting like we’re some kind of terrorist organization — a threat to the country. Other government and corporate run states, their allies, are supporting them.”
Perfectible Animals: A Post Apocalyptic Technothriller (EidoGenesis Book 1) Page 22
