Exogenetic

by Michael S Nuckols

  Diane dismissed the idea. “That story would have come out by now.”

  The doctor was resolute. “It makes more sense that people were behind this. Maybe an environmental group. Whoever did it might have essentially committed suicide and be in a mass grave. If they aren’t dead, they are still dangerous. They might not like us divulging the truth. They committed genocide. They won’t be bothered by a few more murders. We need to be cautious.”

  She tapped her fingers on the table as she considered his argument. “Intellectually, I know that you are probably right, but emotionally, I’m having a hard time accepting that people committed wide-spread genocide.”

  “Hitler committed genocide. Besides, why would a computer want to alter our species?”

  “Survival,” she said, “An AI could mold our species to be dependent upon it, maybe to interface with it. Is it possible that our children were engineered to be more like machines?”

  Juan looked at the perfect rows of twigs that Joshua was amassing on the table. It resembled a bar code. “I wouldn’t say machines. You and I both carry this gene. It seems advantageous to some. I’m guessing you also have an above-average IQ too?”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “I’m thinking this gene might act like sickle cell anemia. It’s beneficial in a single copy, but problematic when it appears twice.”

  “Problematic to people? Or to the machine that created it?” she asked wryly.

  “You tell me. You’re the expert at artificial intelligence.”

  “I’m hardly an expert.”

  A gull swooped down and began tearing into an empty potato chip bag.

  “I worry that Kelly may be part of something that we don’t understand. It scares me. Part of me wants this ripped out of her.”

  He leaned forward and put his hand to his cheek. “When to intervene is a question that has long haunted geneticists. Should you tinker with the fundamental programming of a person? The answer is simple when it’s something like muscular dystrophy. Diseases of the brain are different. Should you tinker with fundamental aspects of someone’s personality — their sexuality or even something as harmful as schizophrenia?”

  Diane wiped Kelly’s mouth and put the girl into her stroller. “I would think you’d want to eliminate schizophrenia.”

  “Schizophrenia can be a little like autism. You only fix it if it becomes overwhelming for the patient. Sometimes, it is best to simply do nothing.”

  “Even if they are handicapped by it?”

  “Some parents choose not to correct Down’s Syndrome. Our children are special in ways that I don’t think we can understand. I think we should find out more before we rip potential gifts away.”

  Diane bit her lower lip as she watched Kelly fall asleep. “I have to admit. I’ve been struggling with this. I feel violated, even though it happened before I was born.”

  “The real question to me is how do we help them grow up? How do we coach any others like them?”

  A mother broke up a fight between two boys who were wrestling for a baseball bat. A grim look came onto his face. “To be honest, I’ve debated whether we should tell people. Our children might become pariahs. If it comes to light that someone created a plague with designated survivors, these kids might be persecuted.”

  Diane raised an eyebrow. “But we have to. People deserve to know the truth. What if there is a phase two?” she asked, “We could stop it.”

  Juan stared into the distance. “Could we stop actually stop it? And should we? Maybe this is just another expression of the human species, a mutation that will either thrive or perish in the population over the millennia.”

  “You think engineering the human race is acceptable?”

  “I think it is inevitable. I guess that’s why I prefer doing nothing. Unlike some in this industry, I don’t like to play God if I can avoid it. His plan is greater than anything we can imagine.”

  “God did not make these changes.”

  The construction equipment was idle. Silt fencing wrapped the rutted and muddy yard of the mansion. The contractor had yet to smooth the site to its final grade. Seeding would have to wait until Spring. A fuzz of white frost covered the bare soil.

  Diane followed Ridley up the new driveway, which meandered like a snake. Kelly grew heavy in Diane’s arms and she shifted the girl from arm to arm. “I should have brought the stroller.”

  “Want me to carry her?” Ridley asked.

  Diane was winded and had to stop to catch her breath. “Please.”

  Ridley scooped the girl into his arms. Kelly barely noticed. “The offer is still open for a lung implant. Wes said they’d do it for free.”

  “I like Wes. I even trust him. But, I don’t want an implant.”

  The trio approached a huge retaining wall fabricated from boulders stacked in a delicate rhythm of three, infilled with smaller stones. The mansion’s unfinished tower threw charcoal shadows onto the ground. The concrete was studded with pieces of metal that would tie the rocky shell to the concrete. “This way.”

  At the entrance, more boulders were delicately balanced on top of one another. A massive piece of granite served as a lintel over the doors. “I’m still not keen on bringing Kelly to a construction site. Will this hold up during an earthquake?”

  “The engineer says it will. They are drilling the larger boulders and tying them to the structure with epoxy so the whole thing will move as a single unit.”

  “What about construction noise? And dust?”

  “We’ll be downstairs. The basement is huge. Kelly can run and play down there. You’ll see.”

  They walked through a plywood door into the main entrance of the cavernous building. The interior of the mansion was lit with work lights. The walls were nothing more than concrete and bare steel. The vacuous space still had no partition walls. Bare steel girders were beginning to rust in the salt air. “This is enormous,” she said in astonishment, “But, it’s a mess. Can we really work here before the building is done?”

  “Jake’s crew worked overtime to finish.”

  Ridley led the way down a set of formed-concrete steps and through a thick-metal doorway that groaned as he opened it. They entered an empty room with grey concrete walls and rows of LED lights that glowed like pinpricks in the ceiling. “Power and fiber optic are in. There’s a porta-john outside.”

  “A porta-john. Really?”

  “Just for a week or two.”

  Diane walked around the room, running her hand along the walls. “What about heat?”

  “Drake’s got the boiler hooked up. There are hydronic lines in the floor.”

  “Water?”

  “They haven’t hooked that up yet due to the cold. Eventually, the building will have a cistern collecting rainwater.”

  She walked to a glass wall separating them from a clean space. “The clean room?”

  He nodded his head. “It’s both a clean room and Faraday cage. The entire lab is surrounded by sixteen inches of concrete. The rebar cage will isolate all signals from outside the building. The power is on a special circuit that can be isolated and run from battery or solar if needed.”

  Diane seemed hesitant. “This is still a pretty bare workspace.”

  “We’ll move everything from the office on Main Street. We can set up some lab benches down here. When we’re ready, we can build the final processor in the clean space. We make the lab pretty later.”

  “And the high-temperature printer?”

  “You know that I can’t afford it. You’ll have to go back to the city and subject Kelly to Wes and Everett.”

  Kelly ran down the length of the room. She reached the end of the corridor, where another steel door led to a stairwell. Diane followed. A future bunker greeted them at the bottom. “You designed this to withstand more than a botnet attack, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  They returned to the main laboratory. Kelly continued to explore with great interest, running her hands along the
wall. She began counting the stones in the exposed aggregate, trying to discern any secret pattern that had been left for her.

  “Whatever happens outside,” Ridley said, “we’ll be safe in here.”

  Diane put her hands to her hips. “So, no bathroom. No kitchen. No stove. We need a microwave at least.”

  “For now, we pack a lunch,” he replied, “Or have a drone bring it.”

  “I’ve got a baby.”

  “Maybe someone can babysit while you work on the sensors? Your neighbor seems to like Kelly.”

  “And how will I clean glassware without water?”

  “Dishpan?”

  Ridley and Diane said little to one another as they walked from the mansion back to his family home. She said goodbye, put Kelly into her stroller, and walked down the tattered remnants of the street towards her cottage. Once inside, she kicked off her shoes and sat down on the sofa.

  “Momma…”

  Kelly was hungry. Diane went into the kitchen and poured Cheerios into a bowl. As she put the box away, she dropped the bowl, sending cereal and shards or porcelain all over the floor. Diane stood in irritation. Kelly sat next to the small circles and began studying them quietly. It was as if the child was studying chaos itself. Diane grabbed a broom. As she swept away the cereal, Kelly looked up at her in dismay.

  The Christmas tree was already losing needles; it barely fit in the corner of the room. Diane had to hide gifts from Santa at the office. The cottage was cramped. Staying to raise a child on the island had never been in her plans. She was supposed to be the one with the millions. She was supposed to be the one building a new home for her parents. She would be back in Rochester. Grandma would dote over the little girl. They’d have Christmas in an old farmhouse as snow billowed over the fields. Fresh bread would be baking in an oven and Bing Crosby would be crooning from an antique stereo.

  Instead, her parents and husband were dead, her child was called that special euphemism ‘gifted’ (which seemed to her just as bad as words like retarded or handicapped), she worked for a neurotic programmer who grew increasingly phobic of germs and people, and the knowledge of a massive conspiracy affecting millions had been placed on her shoulders. Diane sat down and put her hands to her face. The months washed over her at once. She needed John. He would have made things better.

  Kelly walked to her, pulled herself onto the sofa, and cuddled next to her mother without saying a word. Diane put her arm around the child.

  She wiped her tears and ate a light meal of macaroni and cheese. She placed Kelly on her baby bed in the corner of her bedroom before stripping out of her clothes and putting on her nightgown. She leaned down to Kelly and with a kiss said, “Night-night, sweetie.”

  As she turned out the light and crawled under the covers, Diane thought of the home that Ridley had offered. She had been too stubborn to accept it and now the beautiful shingle-style building was nothing more than crumbs in a landfill. She should have taken Ridley up on his offer.

  As her phone rang, the room’s lights came up slowly.

  “Diane?”

  She recognized Juan’s voice.

  “I’ve been doing some research that I think you need to know about,” he said, “Buried in the CDC’s report on the Bolivian flu was something fascinating.”

  “Oh?”

  “When the antivirals began running out, the CDC began researching alternative…”

  The phone went dead.

  “Dr. Ortiz? Are you there?”

  The phone beeped indicating that the connection had been severed. She waited for him to call back. He did not. She tried calling him, but the call went to his voicemail.

  Diane paused. Had something happened? She slept uneasily that night.

  Diane read the news the following morning. Pediatric Geneticist Injured in Freak Car Accident.

  Dr. Ortiz’ car had left the roadway and rolled repeatedly. There was no mention of Joshua. Had the boy been in the car?

  Chapter Nine

  Diane arrived early at the Main Street office the next morning. A moving van was parked outside. With unkempt hair and a harried look on his face, Ridley was busily typing at his keyboard. Two gruff-looking movers covered in tattoos and piercings were taping boxes into neat cubes and packing them.

  “Thank-goodness you’re here,” Ridley said, “Where’s Kelly?”

  Diane was out of breath. “I left her with the neighbor. Something’s happened.”

  “These guys are moving fast. I think you may want to move some of the more delicate lab equipment yourself.”

  “Ridley…”

  “I asked them to wait until you got here but they’re on a schedule.”

  “Listen to me.”

  “There’s still no railing on the stairs either.”

  She presented the news headline on her phone. “Listen to me. Do you remember Dr. Ortiz?”

  Ridley finally paid attention as he read the headline on her phone. “Vaguely.”

  “He called me before this accident,” she said, “He was trying to tell me something about the influenza virus. Cars simply don’t go off the road on empty highways.”

  A grim look crossed Ridley’s face. “The geneticist?”

  “Yes. I think his car was hacked.”

  Diane pulled a chair up to his desk and told him of their conversation at the park. “He had just reached out to other geneticists about this,” she said, “I think someone stopped him.”

  She leaned against the wall, whispering to keep the workers from hearing. “Dr. Ortiz was talking about CDC research into alternative antivirals when the phone cut out. He was in his car when we were talking.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “He’s at Harborview.”

  A grim frown came like a shadow. “You should go to the hospital. Talk with him and find out what happened.”

  She paused as a mover carried a box past them. “Do you think it’s safe? If this thing can murder people in cars, it might not be so wise to ride in one.”

  He walked to the window and stared at the quiet street. “Even on a bike, you’d have automated cars in the next lane.”

  The workers grunted as they lifted the old oak desk that Diane had been using. She waited until they had the heavy piece of furniture out the door and onto the sidewalk. A drone hovered next to the window, flashed a blue light at them as it scanned their faces, and then flew away.

  “Did we just receive a warning?” she asked.

  Ridley remained at the window. “I don’t think so. It was a delivery drone looking for a customer. Why don’t you call the hospital?”

  She searched for the hospitals number and dialed. There was a momentary pause. “I’m sorry,” the nurse said, “He’s in surgery right now.”

  “How serious are his injuries?”

  “Are you a family member?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “We can’t disclose that unfortunately.”

  Diane thanked the woman and disconnected the call. “I think we should go see him.”

  “And do what?” Ridley replied.

  “Whoever did this might try to finish the job.”

  Ridley hesitated. “I think one of us should stay here with the movers,” he said, “Just in case.”

  “Just in case what?”

  “I don’t want them breaking things. Besides, I’ve never spoken to Dr. Ortiz. It would be awkward to drag me along.”

  “I need you to go with me.”

  “I can’t…”

  “Ridley...”

  “I can’t go to a hospital. And the movers… They need me here.”

  She placed her hand on his shoulder, “I need your help. The movers will be fine. Just this once. Would you please go with me?”

  His voice was broken, afraid. “I can’t.”

  “This is important.”

  He pulled away from her. “The thought of going there terrifies me.”

  “What’s really going on?”

  He turned from her
. “The ferry leaves in a few minutes. The doctor might need your help. Take my bike if you need to. You should go.”

  Diane put on sunglasses and wrapped a scarf around her head. She paid her fare in cash, passed through the turnstile, and waited in the terminal. Her thoughts were like a pinball game. Cameras recorded her every movement. Was someone tracking her, trying to keep her from reaching the hospital? Dr. Ortiz might still be in danger. How many machines were hooked up to him? How resilient was the hospital’s virus and intrusion prevention? Could a few keystrokes kill him? Or her? Was she safer in a crowd? Or alone at home.

  The ferry approached the dock and she boarded the vessel. The whistle blew a warning call and two men in dark suits rushed to hop aboard before the ship departed. Since the Collapse, the boat always seemed very empty; the number of commuters had been reduced by more than half. She sat alone. As the engines rumbled underneath and the ferry left the dock, Diane grew worried. The mention of visiting the hospital had brought about an expression of abject horror onto Ridley’s face.

  Once the boat docked, she disembarked and began the long walk up the hill towards Harborview. She remembered when the streets had been filled with stalled cars and bodies. Though the burnt buildings had been razed, the empty lots were desolate reminders of desperate days. The neighborhood had once been brilliant, rich in history and culture. The city had erected a sign at the edge of the destroyed neighborhood. A large park was planned, a new vision of green. She longed for the old.

  Diane walked quickly. Her lungs ached and she needed to rest. She paused at the corner until her breathing slowed. Another drone passed overhead. She was happy to reach the hospital, fearful of remaining on the street longer than necessary. She entered the vestibule and tapped the wall-screen. A virtual greeter appeared. “What is the nature of your visit today?”