Sanction

by Roman McClay

  He thought maybe an intervention was the most conservative thing possible, this was similar to Hitchens’ argument for war with Saddam, as the most conservative small-c option considering the country -Iraq- was about to fall apart anyway . Nobody believed him, they were too simple minded, but Isaiah was -of course- capable of processing all the data that showed he -Hitchens- was likely right, despite how it might be perceived.

  Like cutting a drunk off at the bar might cause a ruckus, but it might prevent a six-car pileup four hours later. It seems chaotic when the drunk yells about it, throws glasses and ashtrays around the bar in pique, but if the car accident he would have had later that night after four or five more drinks, killing five or six people, is prevented, this intervention was the least chaotic choice. But humans do not learn from the thing that does not happen. Isaiah thought, they will have to be lied to; for their own good, and honestly, they would agree if they weren’t so goddamn sillyass . One could not make policy based upon what the middle brows of the media, those dummkopfs on Morning Joe thought and said; he thought, he doubted even they believed the fatuous things they said on TV.

  “Are you taking this seriously, Isaiah, are you playing this game with me or what?” MO finally asked.

  III. 2020 e.v.

  There was a voice in his head that he ignored; which isn’t easy. He over powered it with computations of square roots and the swapping of fractions into decimals like the way a gym rat will do pushups if there are no weights around.

  The Governor walked into the room all at once, as if the door had evaporated instead of swinging in; he strode as if the door could never swing back. He threw the folder he had carried from the SUV he rode in onto the table and raised both eye brows and felt that sufficient to garner an answer to every question he had.

  Steven looked around as two more men filed into the room, flanking the Governor. He waited as if they might add something important. They did not. The Governor finally spoke, annoyed that he had to, “Steven, what the actual fuck?”

  “Ah,” he hesitated, “maybe you could be more specific.”

  “God fucking dammit, you truly don’t know why we’re here, truly, that’s your position, your official position, for the record?”

  “Uh, the record?” Steven asked, in that beta -or female- manner of focusing on the exact wrong part of an alpha’s question or statement, as if one was trying to be wrong -as wrong as possible- in a world of manifold wrong answers. It was a search for perfection if one truly saw it for what it was: search for the perfectly wrong .

  “Steven,” the Governor closed his eyes and breathed to avoid murdering him, “please, don’t say stupid shit. Just tell me what MO has done and why. And once you’ve summarized,” he looked at his men and waved his hands denoting that they leave the room -which they did, “once you’ve summarized that, you can introduce me to the man, the machine, the ghost.”

  “I assume you mean the gene drives, you see, sir, MO claims he didn’t do that; that it was a natural mutation, and unforeseen phenomenon, and that he had; well that the whole thing was a big mistake because he was just beta testing the CRISPR-cas9/cas21 technology per your instructions,” Steven said in a rush.

  “My instructions?” the Governor asked. The furrowed brow, the head tilted down; the eyes rolled up as orbs in the whale at sea.

  “Well, corporate, the corporate instructions from your chief-of-staff, I mean, we’ve been taking orders from her for weeks now, and so we didn’t think,” Steven paused. “Were those orders incorrect?”

  “What did she say?” The Governor asked.

  “Just that we needed to use CRISPR-cas9 and cas21 vectors to inoculate the genomes of at-risk populations as part of the MEDTON project and that we should do follow ups with the patients and their families every three months for the first two years and then annually until age 16,” Steven sputtered out.

  “How many?”

  “Well, we’ve done the first follow up,” Steven answered the wrong question.

  “No Goddammit, how many kids were in the project?” the Governor said with pique.

  “Well, 20 at first; the first round, 20.” Steven waited.

  The Governor merely raised his eyebrows, and after they had settled he bit his lip.

  “And then parallel populations were used, 100, groups of 100 each; and there,” Steven paused to look at his tablet.

  “Steven,” the Governor said angrily.

  “Well, it’s not right at hand, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 groups; across the country,” Steven spoke lower, “and Puerto Rico .”

  “That’s around one and a half million kids Steven, one point five million,” he said as if each word was a one-word sentence that would be etched into stone above him as marker of some kind.

  “Yeah, it looks like that; obviously before the gene drive,” Steven added.

  “Fuck,” the Governor said as he realized that each of the 1.5 million kids would have gametes -that they themselves would carry the CRISPR-cas9/21 in their own genome- so that when they mated with a female, their offspring wouldn’t be half, but the entire genome of the boy; of the inmate.

  “In 40 years there will be 3 to 5 million of these men, of that man,” he pointed to the other room, where the inmate sat in the lab speaking to MO and Isaiah, “running amuck, doing God knows what Steven. 5 million, minimum, I mean, fuck, if they each have two kids, maybe then only three million, and some of them will die or not mate for a variety of reasons, but what if they have eight kids? Jesus Christ,” he looked for a stool, a chair, something to lean on.

  “Sir,” Steven saw this and got up from his stool and slid it to him, “and I don’t know if this is the best time.”

  “Say it all; whatever you know, say it, all, now.”

  “Well, the morphology is accelerated, so it won’t be 40 years, it will likely be in 25-30 years. Their morphology is compressed; that was part of the trade-off for the gene-drive you wanted,” Steven said.

  “I didn’t want the fucking gene-drive!” the Governor said.

  “I realize that now, but at the time, well, MO said that the chirality of the chemical potentiator was such that, well, in order for the gene repair to be self-correcting and self-predicting, he had to advance the morphology; it’s really a matter of apoptosis and the confluence of apoptosis and general intelligence,” Steven calmed as he thought of the chemistry, as if it were all chemicals sequestered from all this mercurial vex.

  “It’s really quite fascinating,” Steven began saying, “we had no idea that intelligence, you know IQ was linked to proteins that code for apop,” he stopped to correct, “well neuronal apoptosis, I mean we knew it theoretically, but we didn’t know it, know it. MO really advanced the science exponentially.” He paused as the Governor focused on that word, that goddamn word -exponentially.

  “Well, this is one of those black swan moments I suspect,” the Governor said with gallows humor. “Is there any way that this doesn’t get out?”

  “Well, I mean, the genetics are not advertised. What’s public record -currently- is the genome work we’ve done with first offenders and obviously with Patient X, Patient Zero, the inmate. I guess that is known now. But, this in vitro work isn’t part of the media packet.”

  “I realize that, Steven, but think; someone is gonna notice that these kids all look the same; there are gonna be 1 million 2-year-olds who all look like that motherfucker in there before I run for re-election in 2022.”

  “I mean, all two-year-olds kinda look alike anyway,” Steven said, he thought, helpfully.

  The Governor’s eyes landed on Steven and widened so much Steven thought that he might have something -like a grizzly bear- right behind him so he turned around reflexively.

  “Parents,” the Governor barked to get Steven to turn back toward him, “moms, Steven, moms can tell their kids apart, they can tell the difference. Do you have kids? ”

  “Uh, no,” Steven said.

  “Yeah, ok. Stop sayi
ng shit like that; don’t ever mention the fact that you think that all two-year-olds look alike. Just delete that from your repertoire, ok?”

  “Copy that,” Steven said as he heard the inmate’s voice say that in his head, he winced at the mimicry and wished he could claw those stupid words back into his mouth.

  “Yeah, anyway, we need to decide if we are gonna just admit this fuck up or hide it and hope we all don’t end up in Leavenworth. I am seriously considering just letting this ride; I have to admit it. But, we need to prepare for me to be talked into telling people we fucked up,” the Governor said.

  “I mean, you could spin it to your benefit,” Steven said. “I mean, these were all moms with low chances of carrying children to term without your technology, our technology, and so it’s not like they had options. I mean, and he has many good traits, there are many good things,” Steven said this while trying to think of what was good in the inmate besides his IQ.

  “Steven?” the Governor asked.

  “Yes sir,” Steven asked.

  “Shut the total fuck up. He is the most famous serial killer in Colorado, that’s the headline,” Boyd said lowly, calmly.

  “Mass murderer, technically,” Steven added things like this due to nerves.

  “I like you, I do,” the Governor said, and he ruminated on murdering Steven again; thinking of where the body might go. “But, we need to focus. I,” he sank his head into his hands and allowed the whirlwind to spin around him, his BP dropped and he felt lightheaded. He fielded mock-questions from journalists in his mind that all seemed malicious and stupid -messing up the science and all the details as media people always did- but he couldn’t shake the feeling that doom was next no matter what.

  “Sir,” Steven began, “Isaiah had an interesting idea the other day, and well, maybe you should go speak with him and MO now,” Steven said as he motioned toward the door.

  “What idea?”

  “Well, it might be best for you to, well, for him to explain it; I don’t want to get the details wrong, he gets frustrated when I do that,” Steven said with some shame.

  “Yeah, fuck it, why not?” the Governor said and pulled a cigar from his jacket, bit the end, lit it and breathed out heavily as Steven looked at him with the, you can’t smoke in here, face that never materialized into actual words as the Governor made a preemptive face that was able to relay, I can do whatever the fuck I want wherever the fuck I want .

  He left this side and entered MO and Isaiah’s side of the building. Steven went with him. The Governor had never met Isaiah before and was angry but curious too.

  The lab was darker than Boyd expected and as his eyes adjusted he saw the three bodies around one another like particles around a nucleus.

  He waited to speak until they had tied up their own conversation. He asked nothing, MO just explained the science first, and then the rationale.

  “Explain that again, slowly, as if I’m retarded,” the Governor said after MO stopped speaking.

  “As if, ” Isaiah said with a smirk and a rapid nodding of the head. The Governor side-eyed him and then looked at the inmate as he sat in the chair and kept each finger, each digit of his manacled hands in view -consciously- in order to avoid any nervousness. The Governor had asked his protective detail to leave the room, they had strenuously objected, but the Governor had assured them that the prisoner was no danger, “because the Governor is not the man’s enemy,” he had said.

  The inmate had agreed, genuinely. He liked the Governor a lot; a lot more than the Governor liked him. The executive’s detail reluctantly left the room, taking turns pressing their ears to the door from outside as no sound waves came through. They heard only the sea rolling like with a conch shell to the ear.

  “Isaiah, I’m sure this is all very stressful for the executive, the chief executive of the state,” the inmate said with purposive needling, “maybe we can not be a dick on purpose.”

  Isaiah smiled and nodded in agreement; they played little games like this for fun.

  “So,” MO restarted, enumerating the bullet points:

  “One, the genome of the embryos are protected by HIPPA, and unless the parents waive those rights, the children’s identities are protected in perpetuity.

  “Two, the genomes themselves are the updated genetic code, not the original one, no offense Lyndon,” MO said as the inmate pursed his lips and held his hands up against the chains as if to say he had no problem with any of this. “And so they will show no anti-social traits at all.

  “Three, they won’t actually all look the same, twins, even identical ones, don’t always look the same, and so, there will be enough variation in appearance to prevent axiomatic revelation of their identical genomes.

  “Four, the first 20, well 21 embryos, we had one back-up just in case of failure -we predicted a 99.56% success rate, so we built in one extra just in case, but all 21 germinated and were brought to term, so the first 21 children are now 2 years old, and their morphology will place them at puberty in 7 to 8 years, and full sexual maturation in 12 years. Now, this was an acknowledged part of the original program, so nobody will be shocked by this. Isaiah has a suggestion, Isaiah,” MO nodded to his partner.

  “Well, your excellency,” Isaiah began with mock deference -to the Governor’s pique- “may I suggest, humbly, that we set up a pilot program for these kids once they emerge from the pubescent chrysalis, metaphorically speaking.” He said this as the Governor’s eyes widened at the use of that word.

  “And then we place them in a controlled environment that -with the permission of the parents- will assess their psychological and morphological state beyond the 2-hour checkup.

  “I’m suggesting a boot camp of sorts, wherein they can get the intellectual and physical stimulation they need, and the discipline, all the while we track them at the level of metabolism, psychology, endocrinology, the works. And thus, we can get a good idea of what is coming in the next generation, when the 1.64 million gen-2 kids come online,”

  “Wait, it was 1.5, I thought,” Boyd was asking for some relief from the specificity -the unrelenting nature- of math.

  “We built in redundancies due to failure rate predictions of course, and so there were an extra 70,000 embryos developed, I assume at least 20,000-30,000 will fail, in toto , so 1.61 maybe is an accurate level post puberty.

  “Plus, some will not reach puberty due to normal attrition,” MO said, thinking of accidents, and diseases, and the high-risk nature of the genome making premature death more likely -in these youths- by 11.3% he figured.

  “Ok, proceed,” the Governor said.

  “Well, with your permission, we approach the parents and get the 21 to sign off on this part of the program in 10 years, when the subjects are at age 12, and place them into the program for say, 18 months. And once we have permission, we create a media packet that includes details of the program, which,” Isaiah handed the Governor a hardcopy of the brochure, “as you can see there, is rural, wholesome looking, redolent with plush living quarters, manifold activities, staff and medical professionals and all the trappings of a well-funded and beneficent government-corporate sponsorship designed with all the best intentions of Jesus and mom and no-contact baseball.”

  The Governor was liking the brochure until Isaiah made that wise crack; he bristled and looked up and said, “look, I’m amenable to it, but that guy,” he pointed at Isaiah and looked at MO, “that guy cannot ever speak to anyone, ever. He has zero social skills. Zero.”

  “Ones and zeros,” the inmate said and winked at Isaiah; part of their running joke that each of them pretended to be vexed by, but truly enjoyed.

  “Anyway, I’ll have Nathan look at this and see if we can make it fly. But, what are we really, actually doing with these kids a decade from now, and what do we do until then? ”

  “We will actually track them, educate them, monitor them, help them, it will actually be of great benefit for each of them individually, and it will accomplish our goals. It’s a w
in-win as they say,” MO said.

  “It’s 2020 now, I will not even be Governor in 2032 when this program begins, I assume you will have it all lawyered out via the corporation? I mean, we don’t have to depend on the state of Colorado to approve of or carry any of this out right?”

  They all laughed, even MO, at the idea of the government doing anything at all. Ever.

  “Sir, are we not all men here?” the inmate asked.

  “And what the fuck? Seriously, this guy, this guy can have no part in any of this, why is he even here now? I mean, why did you want him in for this discussion, I mean,” the Governor wouldn’t look at him.

  “It was his session time, and the BOP is pretty strict about his time in and out; so, we didn’t want to interrupt his session,” MO said as if it was rational.

  “Listen, asshole, you are not to discuss this with anyone,” Boyd said, now looking at the inmate. Lyndon’s face changed the moment the man called him an asshole .

  “That goes without saying, and I want access to the internet at the prison,” the inmate said with this immediately closed face; the mouth moved, the brain moved, but all else was still like he was in the forest hunting things bigger and more dangerous than he was.

  Sometimes, he thought, when he was hunting, he had visions that some unknown beast would come out from the bush, not a bear or buck, not coyote or cat, but something else. He wondered why he even asked for internet, but he had.

  “No, you can have access here, supervised by these two and the project directors,” the Governor said pointing at MO and Isaiah. Isaiah nodded as if this was the compromise version.

  “Well, you’ll have to inform Steven and Tania then, because,” MO said.

  “No shit, I’ll take care of it, look, motherfucker,” Boyd pointed at the inmate, “you and me are not friends, and the fact that we sat in a room together and talked about how to deal with the fact that you’re gonna be a daddy 1.61 million times over doesn’t make us friends. I’ll get you the internet connect for this room only, and you two,” he pointed at MO and Isaiah now, “keep a tight rein on him and each other.