Biohack

by J D Lasica

  As he drew closer to the lecture hall, he heard a commotion up ahead. Hip-hop music blared from a loudspeaker over the sounds of shouts and sporadic chanting. Two African-American students were performing some modern dance moves in front of a crowd. To the right, a line of about eighty people hugged the perimeter of a brick building behind a series of barricades the campus police must have set up. To the left, a smaller but animated group of students pumped their fists in protest against something. Six campus policemen were trying to keep a lid on the chaotic scene.

  “Mr. Waterhouse?” An earnest-looking middle-aged woman came running up to him in red pumps. “I recognize you from your promo materials.”

  “Yes?”

  “We have a problem.”

  Things were getting more heated, and he stopped to take the measure of the protesters. About two dozen students were wearing black ski caps, black clothing, and those creepy Guy Fawkes masks you see on TV at Anonymous protests. They were waving signs and banners that he was trying to make sense of.

  REPROTECH = EUGENICS

  QUEERS ARE NOT A MISTAKE

  NEONATAL NAZISM

  SMASH FASCISM OF THE 1%!

  Well, looks like these kids have been misinformed. I’ll set the record straight in my talk. It’s a good thing I’ve come!

  The woman turned her gaze from the protesters, leaned toward him, and shouted over the din, “I’m the events coordinator for the university. It looks like we may have to cancel this talk.”

  “Not acceptable. Look, there’s some kind of misunderstanding. Let me talk to them.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that.” Her eyes swept over the growing throng. “We can reschedule.”

  A local TV news van pulled up and began setting up lights and camera equipment for a live report .

  Out of the corner of his eye, Waterhouse saw a figure approach. Familiar somehow. A man with scraggly hair and a red beard extended his hand while staring down the protesters.

  “Mr. Waterhouse, I’m Brandon Kale. We met at the Island Retreat last week.”

  Ah, yes. Brandon Kale. Leader of the National Coalition for Men’s Primal Rights. Single fellow from Orange County. He’ll be getting a baby daughter in nine months.

  “I heard you’d be giving a talk here so I brought a few of my members out. This protest is bullshit. Everyone should hear your message.”

  Waterhouse shook his hand and patted him on the back. “Thank you for coming out. What can we do about this?”

  Kale signaled to six men from his men’s rights group who were slumped against the lecture hall building watching the protesters. The men—middle age, a bit paunchy, and rough around the edges—left the event line and approached. They flanked Kale on both sides.

  Kale approached the largest group of protesters. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he shouted. “The new enhanced family empowers women. You won’t need men anymore.” Kale was grasping for selling points that would sway this crowd. He turned toward a group of men. “Guys won’t need women! This is freedom. Sex for fun, not procreation.”

  “Who’d want to sleep with you, creep!” a female voice called out.

  As if on cue, a chant went up from the crowd to drown Kale out: “Hey hey, ho ho, reprotech has got to go! Hey hey, ho ho, reprotech has got to go!”

  Waterhouse spotted a student in the bell tower atop the hall wearing Eyewear and waving to the crowd. Some of the protesters waved back. He guessed the kid was live-streaming the protest on whatever social site was in vogue these days.

  Kale’s handful of men’s primal rights supporters began walking along the line of protesters, thrusting their fists into the air in counter-protest and chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, your safe spaces gotta go!”

  One of the pro-Kale protestors dropped his shorts and mooned the women in the crowd, yelling, “Careful, ladies, trigger warning!” Campus police pounced and took him into custody.

  Someone shut off the music, and a woman in a ski cap with a purple bandana covering her face held up a papier-mâché blue-suited piñata with a photocopy of Waterhouse’s face plastered on it. Emblazoned across the chest were the words: WANTED: FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. She gave the piñata a whack in the gonads with her fist, and a cheer went up.

  Oh, Christ . Can you believe this? Part of him was thrilled his effigy was notable enough to command such passionate feelings. Part of him was also glad he had not been recognized yet.

  The speaker passed the piñata to an activist in a Guy Fawkes mask next to her, and he in turn passed it overhead to the next couple of people, each taking turns with a bare-knuckle thwack , until the piñata was crowd-surfing. Someone decided to dismantle it with a baseball bat, and the piñata split in half, spilling out dozens of pink and brown plastic dolls with torn faces, missing eyes, and limbs akimbo.

  The activist in the bandana stepped in front of a big loudspeaker and began talking into a handheld microphone. Her voice reverberated across the expanse of grass and concrete, drowning out the chants.

  “For too long, brothers and sisters, we have been silent in the face of corporate oppression. We have been si-lenced as privileged white men come to this campus and spread a hateful ideology.

  “Tonight we draw a line. Tonight we say no to white supremacy and misogyny! We stand with the oppressed and the dispossessed. Queers, trans, disabled people, little people”—Waterhouse recognized the politically sensitive term for dwarves. “Every life matters! Everyone has a right to be born! ”

  A uniformed campus police officer came up to Waterhouse. “Sir, we need to clear the area. We’re bringing a car around for you before this gets out of hand.”

  Before he could respond, the bandana-clad activist spotted Waterhouse and yelled, “It’s him!” Boos rained down. Someone yelled, “Go back to Texas!”

  The officer retreated a few steps. Waterhouse heard him talk into his radio and ask the L.A. police to send in reinforcements in riot gear.

  The loudest chant of all went up from the activists: “Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Sterling Waterhouse go away! Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Sterling Waterhouse go away!”

  The campus police formed a ring around Waterhouse, with the men’s rights protesters serving as the first line of defense. But the activists decided to press closer, drawing in tighter, almost as a single living organism, menacing and agitated. One of the women protesters reached out and pepper-sprayed Kale inches from his red beard. He cursed and began to flail. From the rear of the scrum, someone hurled glowing red flares at the steel-toed boots of the police.

  Before Waterhouse could move, someone in the crowd tossed three or four canisters of smoke bombs in his direction, releasing billows of white smoke.

  The living organism panicked. Screams erupted as the clutch of protestors surged forward, people shoving, swearing, stumbling, crying, pleading, coughing, ripping off their own shirts to try to find air in the pockets of clothing through all the smoke.

  The last thing Waterhouse remembered before he blacked out was the full weight of a beefy campus cop falling backward on top of him.

  12

  Biscayne Bay, Miami, August 16

  V alerie watched as Donovan, the most intrepid of her ten-year-old students, hoisted the steel trap from the shallows of Biscayne Bay with a pulley and carefully placed it onto the bow of the trawler.

  Valerie helped the boy detach the rope and remove the top of the cage. Slithering along the bottom of the white plastic container framed by metal bars was a menagerie of marine life.

  “This is like a treasure hunt!” Donovan declared.

  “It is,” Valerie agreed.

  “Good job, first mate!” the captain said. Decked out in white, the captain lifted the container and led the way back inside to the cabin where the other children were waiting.

  This was turning out well. Last week she had been out for drinks with her boyfriend and Alex’s friend James when they hit on the idea of a Citizen Science Expedition for the students in her care, all
of whom had moderate disabilities or physical impairments. But they were all bright and curious and eager to embrace new experiences. This would be the last field trip of the summer, and once all the parental consent forms were signed, James agreed to spend a weekday morning helping the kids learn about the area’s marine life.

  All of the children had paired up and taken on specific responsibilities. Two of them took photos of the specimens with Valerie’s smartphone. Others were responsible for identifying crabs, fish, or other sea life from a small plastic binder containing big, colorful photos that identified the sea life they might encounter. The students wrote down the names of the creatures in a large, official-looking notebook provided by the captain.

  The kids took turns holding up and inspecting a conch snail, a hermit crab, a honeycomb sponge, and a bright blue sea anemone. Valerie let the kids place inch-long lavender sea urchins on their palms and stroke the soft bristles on top after she made sure they were the harmless kind. She held a baby eel aloft, and no one wanted to place it on their palms until Donovan volunteered.

  When Valerie held up a horseshoe crab, with its beetle-like dome and pointy spike, Gina wrinkled her nose. “He’s funny-looking!”

  “Well, yes,” Valerie said. “But he probably thinks we’re all funny-looking, too.”

  Gina giggled at that.

  Everyone did a great job with their tasks. She gave all her kids a sketchpad with color pencils to draw one of the creatures they’d captured and documented. The captain told them their drawings would go into the Official Chronicle of the ship voyage.

  “But hurry!” the captain said. “We must return these precious creatures to their natural habitat!”

  The children finished their drawings and then followed in procession as the captain carried the trap back to the bow. One by one, the children gently—almost reverently—placed all the sea creatures back into the water. The kids seemed wistful about their all-too-brief encounter but happy that the creatures would be safe and healthy.

  When they returned to the cabin, the captain went around the circle. “Crew, you’ve done an outstanding job today. Now, as a reward, who wants the title of Citizen Scientist, and who wants to be a Junior Biologist?”

  “Biologist!” Gina yelled and raised her hand.

  Valerie emerged from below carrying a makeshift platter. Some of the kids reached up to grab a red ribbon with the Citizen Scientist designation while others snagged a cool-looking silver badge that said Junior Biologist.

  The adventure drew to a close, and Valerie thanked James as he steered them back to shore. As she sat down amid her amazing students, her phone buzzed. She’d forgotten to turn off cellular data. No biggie. She saw a new text from Erica, her genetic counselor at Birthrights Unlimited.

  “Any decision yet after attending the Island Retreat?”

  For the past nine years she’d felt as if she were trapped in a freeze-frame, as if life was happening to her but she was somehow apart from it, watching it from outside. Was she ready for her life to move forward again?

  She had spent the last few days thinking about having a baby. How it would change her day-to-day life. How it would affect her relationship with Alex. After all, she had other options. Maybe she could give her lottery winnings to a charitable cause that would help students like hers. Maybe she could marry Alex some day and adopt foster kids.

  But in the end, there were too many maybes in her life. She wanted the certainty of holding her own child, of being overly protective, of making sure her new baby would grow up safe and happy. She wanted that one true thing.

  She took a few moments before she tapped out a reply:

  “I’m a Yes.”

  13

  Dallas, August 17

  A t ten minutes to noon, a meeting notification popped up on Henry Lee’s Eyewear. As he removed his smart glasses, the alert hopped over to his smartphone. He knew he had to hustle.

  Bleeding-edge bioscience often clashed with business imperatives at Birthrights Unlimited, and Lee had a feeling this would be one of those meetings. Lee tried to keep these gatherings to a minimum. Otherwise, Waterhouse’s incessant requests would prevent his lab coats from ever getting anything done.

  Lee finished entering the data from his latest chimera experiment and sighed. His days as an on-the-rise prodigy were long behind him. At MIT he had been considered an all-star for two reasons: for his groundbreaking work on “suicide genes” to prevent malignant cells from multiplying and for his invention of a new method of sequencing DNA faster and cheaper than anyone thought possible. Sterling Waterhouse came calling a decade ago with an audacious startup proposal and connections with investors. Lee saw at once how easy it was to get on Waterhouse’s good side through flattery and by faking a battery of tests to score off the charts in personal loyalty.

  In the end, he decided to take the plunge on Birthrights Unlimited. He would get to run his own laboratory. He would have the freedom to push the boundaries of genomic science. He would have free rein to tinker as he pleased. He cared not a whit about profits or sales or any of that. He was more interested in creating artificial chromosomes and life forms and organisms that had never existed before. That’s where the real excitement was.

  They struck a deal. Waterhouse would manage the business and operations and he would be in charge of the science. Today would be another test of whether that original bargain still held true. He hoped today would not be another instance where he’d have to rein in one of Sterling Waterhouse’s outrageous flights of fancy.

  Lee checked the meeting location and hurried over to the Multimedia Center in the Data Zone for the start of Demo Day—with an audience of one. Waterhouse, fresh off his UCLA fracas but looking no worse for wear, and Lance Harrison were waiting for him, along with a uniformed officer.

  “Lee, this is Colonel Andrea Harkness of the U.S. Army,” Waterhouse said.

  Harkness took off her garrison hat, folded it under her arm, and stepped forward to shake hands. She had one hell of a firm handshake. “We facilitate partnerships between the private sector and Defense.” She handed Lee her business card. It said she was Special Advisor for New Technologies with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “Today I’m also wearing a second hat as an advisor to the Justice Department.”

  Lee knew Waterhouse was in early discussions with the FBI about licensing the Virtual Profile Simulator algorithm for FBI agents’ field work.

  “That’s why we’re starting in the Multimedia Center today,” Waterhouse said .

  Harkness opened her black leather attaché case and removed a frozen specimen box.

  “And this goes to?”

  “That would be me.” Harrison took the sample and headed to the side door. “This will take a little while, but I’ll be back asap.” He vanished down the hallway.

  If they had wanted to obtain a complete sequence of the subject, Lee’s Lab would do the honors. But since they were demoing the Virtual Profile Simulator, Lee knew that all Harrison had to do was put the specimen in a Petri dish and sequence the genes responsible for the face and head—which itself was no trivial matter: contour of the forehead, brow, cheeks, nose, ears, chin, eye color, and all the rest. Lee’s people and Harrison’s team had worked for the better part of three years to pull off this small technological miracle.

  Waterhouse filled in the colonel on some of the company’s latest projects. Then they made small talk and checked their smartphones while waiting. Forty minutes later Harrison returned and announced, “Ready.”

  Harrison led them out of the Multimedia Center’s reception area and into the Demo Room. It was a no-frills theater in the round with a dozen rows of seats circling a small elevated center stage topped by a short, round modular white platform. They all descended the sloped ramp and sat in front. Then they found the Eyewear on their seats’ armrests and slipped on their smart glasses.

  When they were ready, Harrison raised his voice. “Number Six, proceed with demo of new
specimen.”

  Moments later, a hologram began to take shape. This technology, Lee knew, was just as challenging as the time-lapse projections of a zygote’s DNA that Harrison had demoed at the Island Retreat. In this case, they were taking an adult human’s DNA and trying to project adult facial and head contours from the DNA alone—an incredible fusion of DNA sequencing, phenotype mapping, and quantum computing.

  Lee saw that the bottom part of the hologram consisted of the standard default they had designed: a featureless torso from the waist up. The face began to materialize. There would not be a single face but a couple of variations displayed by the AI based on statistical probabilities. After all, quantitative traits can express themselves in a number of ways and environmental and lifestyle factors also come into play.

  “Displaying profile projection number one,” Number Six announced.

  The hologram’s head rotated to the left and to the right to give them a glimpse of it from different angles. Lee didn’t expect to recognize the figure, whoever it was, though it did look vaguely familiar: the receding dark hairline, the imperious chin.

  “Projection number two,” Number Six declared.

  The face changed in small but noticeable ways. The nose broadened out, the cheeks became a little fuller and ruddy in tone, the overall appearance looked harder, more menacing. As Lee stared at the visualization, it hit him. That face! He was no news junkie, but he recognized that face. He’d seen it on the nightly news for years—the foreign dictator who was always making threats against the United States. Lee hoped this wasn’t a programming error.

  The men took off their Eyewear, a little spooked by what they’d just seen.

  “Colonel?” Waterhouse said.

  The Colonel paused, then eased to her feet. “Impressive. Very impressive.”

  “The speed and accuracy will only get better,” Harrison said.

  “We can discuss terms after our next demo.” Waterhouse stood and turned to Lee. “Please lead the way.”