The Perfect Generation

by C. P. James

  From The Perfect Generation: A Memoir

  by Dr. Brent A. Geller

  My relationship with Baz would have struck most people as peculiar, when in fact it was just convenient. We were polar opposites in most respects. I'm messy, he's fastidious. I'm anxious, he's patient. We didn’t like the same kind of food, so we’d often stop at two different places for lunch. I credit these differences with making us a good fit in the lab. For example, he could interpret my stream-of-consciousness rants and rearrange them into something we could eventually publish. Like so many rare and wondrous things, it wasn’t evident on the surface. Still, it was remarkable that he could stand to be around me for any time at all. There’s a reason I never married, and it’s not because I’m gay. I don’t like people and they don’t like me.

  I considered Baz a friend, but I doubt he would’ve said the same. Things changed after his son, Perfecto, died—even before we learned why. To dedicate your life to something that kills your adopted son is a hard thing to process.

  His was never the most buoyant of personalities. As a first-generation college student, he took himself and his studies very seriously, as though knowing that what he lacked in intuition he’d have to make up for in hard work and tenacity. He could actually be pretty funny once you got him lubed up a bit, but mostly he was a buttoned-down, bookish guy who concerned himself with his work and the needs of others. But when Perfecto died, whatever light there was inside him seemed to die as well. He went away—so much that even his wife, Lucia, to whom he was singularly dedicated, knew that despair would forever be his mistress. They divorced amicably in 2053.

  You might say he threw himself into his work, but in fact he simply had more time for it. All he’d ever had beside the work was Perfecto and Lucia, and they were gone. He had money to burn; he could’ve gone anywhere and done anything for as long as he wanted, but all he could think to do was show up at GIG sometime around 7 and leave right around dark. I couldn’t tell you what he did on the weekends, but I imagine him in a chair, reading or listening to NPR. He liked to work in the yard, too. He even liked to remove snow.

  We poured millions into reversing or preventing the fatal gene switch, but deep down I knew it was futile. There was a very good reason we administered the Cure in vitro, and without getting into the fine details of gene editing, it’s mostly a numbers game. The number of stem cells in an embryo are manageable. If you can change their DNA, then they’ll retain the changes as they divide. The closer you get to adulthood, those cells—which are specialized by then—start to number in the tens of trillions. That’s a lot of editing. Plus, our cells don’t like to be fucked with, so you need to deal with a potentially life-threatening immune response.

  Baz and Erik both believed GIG had to keep trying and I thought it was a wasted effort. Since that fundamental disagreement stood to become antagonistic, I decided to remove myself from the equation.

  Many still believe I ran away from the problem or that my departure was a self-imposed exile. That’s understandable. In medicine, there comes a point where a doctor realizes that all options for saving a patient have been exhausted, and they make a call. I called it, but only for my part. By then I was nearly 60 and had spent about 35 years working on some aspect of the Cure. No one understood it better, or its complications more thoroughly. If I thought there were unexplored avenues, I would have stayed until I couldn’t work anymore. But there weren’t, and I didn’t. If you want to call it giving up, nothing I say will change your mind.

  Baz took over more of the business end of GIG, first as VP of laboratory operations, then R&D, then finally CEO. If I’m being honest, I’d say the business aspect suited him better than the research.

  Between 2057 and 2063, I followed GIG’s fortunes the same way anyone else did—by reading and watching. I kept up with professional journals and the news, though I didn’t have much stomach for the latter anymore. Occasionally I’d be fishing or taking my dog, Crick, for a walk and have some flicker of an idea for reversing the effects of the Cure, but I always realized it either couldn’t work, or would come too late to save anyone. Mostly I lived the life of a retired person who prefers solitude. The only people who knew where I was or how to reach me were Baz, Erik, my mailman, my cleaning lady, and probably the IRS and NSA. That all changed on a picture-perfect Tuesday afternoon.

  Heidi Robb was the granddaughter of my friend and mentor, Jim Robb, from Laird College. She somehow found me at my ranch in Montana, as I suspected she someday would. I remember seeing her for the first time on the banks of a creek on the south end of the property, swaddled in golden prairie light. She was pretty in a wholesome, no-fuss sort of way that ensured she never looked bad. Sparkling white teeth, blond hair that fell just so about her shoulders, blah blah blah. A beautiful woman.

  I would characterize our initial meeting as uncomfortable. Her vision for how our conversation would go didn’t comport with reality. She was there because she somehow knew that Jim had asked me to personally administer the Cure to her mother. Jim had died, she said, after defending me and my science against the growing number of Lairdians who found me contemptible. She wanted to hurt me with the news, and succeeded.

  Heidi made the same incorrect assumptions about me as the general public. But she was right that I hadn’t ever personally witnessed a PG die, and therefore hadn’t been personally touched by the whole tragic story. I didn’t see Perfecto suffer and die, and to be honest, I’d barely known the kid in the first place. Baz had been the closest thing I had to a friend for almost 30 years at the time, and I don’t know that I could’ve picked his only son out of a lineup.

  Of course, the most intriguing thing about Heidi Robb wasn’t her looks, but her age: 27 years and counting—the oldest PG on Earth as far as anyone knew. I had a notion why that was, but until that played out, I needed to come out of retirement for a while.

  29

  The next morning, Geller and Heidi took a helicopter down to Missoula, where his jet was stored and occasionally leased out. Drawing him back into the fray was her goal from the moment she left St. Paul. Once the doors closed, he helped himself to a drink and placed a phone call to GIG. He wore the same khakis and sweatshirt as the night before, and still hadn’t shaved. She felt silly for thinking he’d wear a tweed jacket and jeans with cowboy boots and a shirt unbuttoned too far for his age, but little about him aligned with her expectations. Brent Geller was both more and less than she imagined.

  Stories about Geller abounded; the business world viewed him as a visionary genius who swept everyone up in his personal momentum and left them adrift when not at the till. Most everyone else thought he was a crackpot who had too much power and influence. She imagined that his return would inspire equal parts relief and dread, like a game that hinges on the team’s best but streakiest player. Do you give him the ball or stand on principle? She didn’t know.

  Her own role in all this was uncertain. She hadn’t given it much thought and wasn’t sure what would be expected of her. She suspected they would draw blood and tissue, and that details of her life and family would be recounted ad nauseam. Beyond that, she had no idea.

  Barely an hour into their flight, the plane banked west and began its descent into DIA. She had no idea she’d nodded off. Geller nudged her awake.

  “Wakey wakey,” he said.

  GIG had sent a black SUV to pick them up. A casually dressed young man came around for the door and looked positively awestruck to see Geller in person.

  “Who the hell are you?” Geller said, as nicely as he could.

  “Jason Chang, sir. It’s such an honor to—”

  “Jesus. Did you just get your license?”

  “I’m twenty-one. I work in the comms office.”

  Geller studied him for a moment, apparently deciding how best to ask the obvious. The young man read his face and let him off the hook.

  “My parents emigrated from China when I was two,” he said. “I’m not a PG.”

  �
�Lucky you. Heidi here’s the world’s oldest PG,” Geller said, gesturing toward her. “Get her there safely and she may give you an autograph. But grab our bags first.”

  With that, Geller got in the back seat and Heidi followed. Jason loaded their bags into the back and drove them out of the airport.

  Downtown Denver was visible through a tangle of ramps and overpasses to the south. Heidi thought she could see the top of a roller coaster at Elitch Gardens, one of the many amusement parks that had gone belly-up courtesy of the Cure. She happened to be in Denver a few weeks after they shut it down, and the community was still reeling. She’d never ridden a rollercoaster and probably never would.

  Geller dozed off by the time they hit the freeway. Jason and Heidi made some small talk, but otherwise they rode in silence. Once they got through the Eisenhower tunnel on I-70, they drove another 15 miles or so then took an exit onto a two-lane road that wound off to the south. Twenty minutes later, the SUV slowed for a driveway with a surprisingly nondescript sign and a small guard shack. They were waved in immediately, and the guard leaned down to see if he could catch a glimpse of Geller before Jason’s window closed.

  GIG headquarters was a stunning piece of architecture. Tubular superstructures wound in a grand corkscrew shape along a central waterfall-fed pond, crisscrossing at four points that were home to diamond-shaped common areas, including a cafeteria. Around it were still more massive steel tubes, similar to the rails on Elitch Gardens’ rusting thrill rides but much thicker, with beefy cables supporting the roof at key points. It was meant to evoke a DNA double helix, and it did so beautifully. The deep blue mirrored glass of the main structure reflected the sky of a perfect Colorado day. She nudged Geller.

  “Wakey, wakey,” she said, smirking.

  “Good job, Jason,” he said, coming out of the fog. “Let’s use my old parking spot.”

  The color seemed to drain from Jason’s face as he drove around the back side of the building and into a hole carved into the granite hillside that Heidi quickly understood to be a parking garage entrance.

  “Of course,” he said, unsure.

  “I’m kidding—I never had a parking spot. Security risk. You don’t have one, do you?”

  “No, sir,” Jason said, obviously relieved.

  They stopped at a set of automatic glass doors and Geller hopped out.

  “Need anything out of your bag?” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” Heidi replied, closing her door.

  Geller rapped on the bumper and raised a hand to Jason, who nodded into the rear view mirror and continued on around a cement wall.

  “Well, welcome to GIG,” he said. “After you.”

  The massive doors slid silently open to reveal a moving walkway that angled down toward the main building, not unlike an airport. She stood, watching a row of displays showing scientists at work, including an image of a much younger Geller. He motioned for her to follow as the walkway leveled out into one of the common areas, some kind of welcome center. A tall, thin, slightly stooped Latino with salty hair peered down at them over a pair of conservative glasses. The corners of Geller’s mouth inched faintly upward at the sight of Baz, but that was all. Anyone could see there was a complex history between these two men, and that neither was particularly thrilled to see the other.

  They drew within a few feet of him and stopped. Neither made any physical gesture of greeting—no hands, no hugs. Only:

  “Brent.”

  “Baz.”

  After a chilly two seconds, Baz shifted his attention to Heidi and warmly extended his hand.

  “Miss Robb, welcome to GIG,” he said. “I’m Dr. Basilio Montes. Everyone calls me Baz.”

  Heidi smiled and glanced sideways at Geller, who didn’t react in any way.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Everything went well with your trip, I trust?”

  “Yeah, great,” Heidi said. “Private plane and everything.”

  “Please,” he said, gently placing a hand on the back of her shoulder and gesturing toward one of the arched hallways. “Let me give you the dime tour.”

  They’d barely gone ten feet before Heidi noticed that virtually every person in the area had stopped whatever they were doing to stare at Geller, who was taking in the updates. She knew plenty of people who didn’t believe he was alive, or bought the very old rumor that he had been exiled by the government. Some younger employees asked older ones who they were staring at. A brave few introduced themselves and shook Geller’s hand, which he obliged with some reluctance, but he kept pace with her and Baz as they walked. A few times Heidi caught him wrinkling his nose at something or frowning at another, but she tried to focus on what Baz was saying.

  GIG was just as impressive on the inside. She didn’t have to know anything about science to realize that everything from the lighting to the labs was still state-of-the-art. Eventually they came to a locked door with an odd-looking handle. Baz grasped and held it for a moment, then turned the knob.

  “Most labs have advanced biometric access,” he explained. “They use a combination of fingerprint data and pheromone recognition to authenticate.”

  “Cool,” Heidi said. They went in.

  “This is where we’ll be doing most of the work,” Baz continued. “I don’t know what Brent told you, but most of what we need to try and learn about you genetically can be done with small blood and tissue samples, and simple questions. Your comfort and safety is my priority. You’re our guest here for as long as you’d like.”

  They entered the main lab space, mostly separate rooms with glass walls. The dozen or so scientists she could see stopped what they were doing to stare at Geller. Baz cleared his throat to break the spell.

  “Everyone, this is Heidi Robb. I know you’re all very anxious to meet her and get started, but she’s already had a long day. We’re on her time now, understand? I believe you know our other guest.”

  Heidi expected to feel awkward and even a little embarrassed, but in the eyes of the whitecoats in front of her she saw something she hadn’t seen much of in her life: intense, burning hope. They looked like benchwarmers finally getting their shot in the big game, and they were ready to form up behind the man with the ball. Until that moment, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to subject herself to any of this, but suddenly she felt as eager as any of them. There was no way to know if she had anything meaningful to offer. All she knew for sure was that she’d just become part of something much bigger.

  30

  After dropping Heidi off in the lab, Geller took a stroll. His original office was now some kind of brainstorming romper room filled with beanbags. The giant windows framed a breathtaking view of the valley, interrupted only by the gray ribbon of the seldom-used airstrip at the edge of the property. It wasn’t quite as good as the view from his living room in Montana, but it was as awesome as he remembered. Behind him, he heard the familiar voice of Jeanine, who used to be his admin.

  “This area is off-limits,” she said, with mock reproach.

  Jeanine had been with GIG since the very beginning. She didn’t put up with Geller’s shit, and actually shed a couple tears when he’d left almost 13 years prior. He didn’t get that very often. They embraced awkwardly.

  “How was lunch?” she asked.

  “Better than I remember,” he said.

  “You’re looking for Baz?”

  “Yeah,” Geller said. “I figured he’d be in my old office, but I guess not.”

  “Come with me,” she said.

  In fact, Baz’s office was several doors down, almost across from the bathrooms. Unsurprisingly, it was small and nondescript. He was bent over typing, and continued to do so for several minutes after Jeanine left Geller in the doorway. Finally he finished whatever it was and looked up at him.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Do for me?”

  Baz shrugged and stared at him expectantly.

  “I just thought we might catch up.”


  “Fine. Let’s catch up.”

  “I heard you got remarried.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Kalpana. We met at a conference in Bombay.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “We’ve known each other for what—45 years? You’ve never had any interest in small talk. Especially not about my life.”

  “Listen, I know this is all a little awkward.“

  “Oh? Which part? The part where you walk away for 13 years, or the part where you swoop in out of the blue and act like a rock star? Help me understand.”

  “My presence was toxic. You know that.”

  Baz guffawed. “Indeed I do.”

  “What should I have done?”

  “You could have manned up. You could have faced the pain you caused and swore to spend the rest of your days trying to fix it.”

  “It wasn’t fixable. How many times do I have to—”

  “All this time and you still don’t get it. It didn’t matter what you or I knew. What mattered was hope. There’s never been a mind like yours. Everyone can hate you—and believe me, outside these walls, they do—but they also knew that you were our best chance. When you left, that all went to shit.”

  “That’s a bit dramatic.”

  “Forget about the Cure for a second. What else could you have done in 12 years, with these facilities? What advancements could you have led in other areas? Did you ever think about that?”

  “Of course. You should see my notebook.”

  “Every time I think you couldn’t be more selfish, you go and prove me wrong. You’re like a little boy who spills his cereal all over the kitchen floor then goes out to play while someone else cleans it up. There haven’t been any consequences for you.”

  “Failure was my consequence.”

  “Poor Geller. Being wrong must’ve been such a burden.”

  “I knew you’d never understand why I left.”