In the Flesh and Other Tales of The Biotech Revolution [SSC]

by Brian Stableford

  Stevie complained about the whole thing to Dad as soon as he had buckled himself into the BMW the following morning, but sympathy had never been Dad’s strong point. It wasn’t that he didn’t try—he just wasn’t any good at it; these days, everything had to be about him and the injustice of Mum’s treatment of him.

  “What’s happening, Stevie,” Dad told him, “is that your Mum’s projecting her own feelings on to you. She feels bad because of what’s happening between us, but she feels guilty about feeling bad, so she tries to let herself off the hook by convincing herself that she’s worried about you when she’s really angry with me. I’m sorry about that, but if she were the kind of woman who didn’t do things like that we probably wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.”

  “But you should have seen how much blood they took!” Stevie complained, because he knew he couldn’t admit that it was the crying that had really disturbed him. “It was at least an armful. It’ll take me weeks to grow it back.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Stevie,” Dad told him. “I’m in the business, remember. These days, they can get a whole DNA-print from a sample no bigger than a teardrop.”

  Stevie knew that Dad wasn’t really “in the business”, although he did work for a pharmaceutical company and was always prepared to go on and on about “making the future happen” whenever Mum charged him with never being home. Mum always replied to that by saying that Dad was just a sales rep who “might as well be hawking soap to corner shops” and that just because he was “conning doctors into overprescribing poison” it didn’t make him a professional himself.

  “They took more than that,” Stevie said, defensively.

  “Did they?” Dad replied. “Well, they probably have to do lots of different kinds of tests and need a drop for each one. Maybe they need extra for the National Database. Now that the Generalissimo’s given the go-ahead, they’re spectrotyping everybody as the opportunities come up. So much for civil liberties. They’ll get me if I so much as park on a double-yellow. They’ve had your mother for years, of course—she’s always down that bloody surgery.”

  Stevie’s father always referred to the prime minister as “the Generalissimo”. It was an insult, although Stevie had never been able to figure out why. Stevie’s father hadn’t voted for the Generalissimo, and didn’t approve of his policies, although Stevie couldn’t quite see why it was a bad thing for everybody in the country to have their DNA analyzed and recorded. That was the way they caught murderers, according to the TV, and Mum had told him that the doctor only knew which medicines to prescribe for her because her DNA spectrotype told the doctor exactly how she’d respond to them.

  Stevie began to get worried all over again, because he was sure that his DNA would tell the doctor that there’d never been anything wrong with him in the first place, and that he’d been wasting the doctor’s valuable time. He knew he’d get the blame, even though it had been Mum who had made him go. The fact that he’d tried to interrupt and tell the doctor that there was nothing wrong with him wouldn’t make any difference. Dad was always telling him that nobody ever got credit for trying, only for doing.

  “Where do you want to go for lunch, Stevie?”

  Stevie knew that he couldn’t say “home” because even if Dad mistakenly thought that he meant the so-called loft it would be a bad answer. Dad didn’t do cooking. He didn’t even try—which, considering the outcome of the “experiments” that Mum felt free to try now that she was no longer catering for Dad, might be a blessing.

  Stevie plumped for Pizza Supreme, on the grounds that their ice-cream was better. According to Pete, the Pizza Supreme scientists had genetically engineered cows so that their udders pumped out ice-cream by the liter, ready flavored, but Pete was always making up things like that. It was one of the things that seemed to impress Suzie, so he’d probably be doing it even more in future. Stevie wished that he had enough imagination to invent things like that.

  “Don’t worry too much about them getting your DNA, Stevie,” Dad assured him, even though he couldn’t possibly know that Stevie had worried about it at all, let alone why he’d worried. “I dare say they’ll have everybody’s by the end of next year, including mine. All these bloody CC-TV cameras watch our every move anyway. Used to be that if you didn’t want to be good you could be careful instead, but not any more. It won’t be such a bad world to grow up in, though, and you won’t miss what you’ve never had. You’ve always been a good boy—all you have to do is hold on to the habit.”

  * * * *

  Holding on to habits wasn’t that easy for Stevie, given that so many of his old ones had been worked around a Mum and Dad who were living together. Even though half the kids in his class had parents who weren’t together any longer, if they’d ever been together in the first place, Stevie had somehow never thought of it as something that was likely to happen to him. He’d just taken it for granted that things would stay as they were, simply because that was the way they were. He knew that he was always changing—growing older, moving up to year six, discovering new computer games and putting old ones behind him—but he’d never really thought that the world around him was changing in any significant sense, even though it would have been obvious enough if he had thought about it. The Generalissimo had been elected. Suzie had come between him and Pete. Simon had started using his obsolete nickname as if it were an insult. Mum had bought a Skoda after Dad had left.

  Because of what his Dad had said to him that Saturday Stevie had already begun to reflect on such matters before things began to get crazy, so when things did begin to get crazy on the following Wednesday he was almost ready for it.

  Unfortunately, almost wasn’t enough.

  Stevie only heard the doorbell ring because he was playing Blitzkrieg with the sound turned off, concealing the fact that he wasn’t doing his homework—although, of course, if he had been doing his homework he’d have heard it anyway, and would probably have crept to the head of the stairs in exactly the same way so that lie could eavesdrop on the caller’s conversation with Mum. Dad had begun to ask him questions about Mum’s callers, and always seemed reluctant to accept Stevie’s assurance that she didn’t have any. Next time, Stevie thought, he’d be able to provide a more satisfactory answer.

  “You want what?” his Mum said, while holding the door ajar so that she could shut it in a hurry. “No, Jack doesn’t live here any more. That’s none of your business.”

  Because the door was in the way the caller’s questions were muffled, but they were obviously making Mum more and more annoyed.

  “Why the hell would we need an agent?” she demanded, in a louder voice. “How the hell did you find out about his DNA anyway? What the hell happened to patient confidentiality?” Mum was always telling Stevie not to use words like hell, although it was very mild by playground standards, but she had stopped wondering aloud where on Earth he picked them up since he had been visiting Dad’s loft on weekends.

  This time, apparently, the visitor’s reply was more interesting, because it went on for at least a minute and a half before Mum said: “You have got to be joking.”

  But the man at the door obviously wasn’t joking, because it only required another minute and a half of inaudible reassurances to make Mum open the door a little wider, and then all the way. Then she shouted, unnecessarily loudly, for Stevie to come down.

  Stevie waited until he had counted ten before showing himself, so that it would seem that he had been concentrating had on his homework before being rudely interrupted. “What is it?” he asked, as he came down the stairs. The man who had come into the hallway wasn’t quite as tall as Dad but he was thinner and older, and there was something in the way his eyes fixed themselves on Stevie that made him seem like a man who liked to get things done, and never gave credit for trying.

  “It’s about that blood test you had,” Mum said.

  She sounded so serious that Stevie thought that he must be ill after all. That was good, he thought, because
he wouldn’t get the blame for wasting the doctor’s time—but it might also be bad, if he turned out to have something nasty, so he didn’t know how he ought to react. He settled for going into the living room and sitting down on the couch without saying anything at all. Mum and the mystery man took the two armchairs.

  “This is Mr. Keyson,” Mum said to Stevie. “He wants to be our agent.”

  Stevie knew from having watched so much TV that there were lots of different kinds of agent. There were secret agents and estate agents, and actors and footballers had them too, but he hadn’t expected to acquire one of his own while he was still in school, especially as he hadn’t yet moved up from the primary.

  “May I explain?” Mr. Keyson asked Mum. He was only pretending to be polite, because he didn’t wait for an answer. His eyes were still fixed on Stevie, in a way that Stevie didn’t entirely like.

  “You see, Stephen,” Mr. Keyson said, “the analysis of the DNA in the blood sample you gave the doctor last week has some unusual features. Features that we...lots of people, in fact...have been on the lookout for, ever since they became alert to the possibility. Strictly speaking, the people at the lab should only have told your doctor and the government’s chief medical officer, but there’s been a bit of a fuss about the new government’s National Database policy and...well, to cut a long story short, the information leaked in our direction. It’s a good thing it did, from your point of view, because it allows you and your mother to get proper representation. The principle of informed consent requires me to inform you both as fully as possible as to what’s going on. Have you done any genetics at school yet?”

  Stevie didn’t get a chance to say no to this, although Mr. Keyson clearly expected him to, because Mum butted in: “The divorce isn’t actually finalized yet,” she said. “Does that make a difference? To my being able to sign a contract, I mean?”

  Mr. Keyson frowned at that. He hesitated before replying. “Well,” he said, eventually, “it is a complicating factor—but it might make it all the more necessary that Stephen should have independent representation. There might be a conflict of interest, you see. It’s possible that Stephen’s gene is a novelty—a mutation—but it’s much more probable that he inherited it from his father.”

  “Or from me,” Mum was quick to put in.

  “Well, no,” said Mr. Keyson. “Your DNA spectrum is already on file. Mr. Pinkham’s hasn’t been added to the National Database as yet.”

  Stevie observed that the tall man was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, although it was a perfectly good armchair. According to Pete, you could tell when people were lying or hiding things if you could read their body-language, but Pete hadn’t been able to go into details as to how the trick was worked.

  While Mum was digesting the implications of what the agent had said to her, Mr. Keyson switched his attention back to Stevie. “The thing is, Stephen,” he said, “that you possess a rare version of an important gene, which hasn’t previously been identified. The significance of the chromosomal locus and the gene’s variant intron-scheme were discovered several years ago, and the proteins normally produced with the involvement of that locus are hedged around with a whole raft of patents, even though the drug-derivatives are still in clinical trials. All the variant intron-schemes so far discovered produce proteins that are less effective than the standard set, but the imaging software suggests that your variant might be even more effective. The difference is probably slight, but it’s always the top-performing drug that earns the big money. So, to cut a long story short, your DNA might be worth a lot of money to a company that could obtain patents on a manufacturing process for the mass-production of the protein. Patent law is a mess, of course— it wasn’t designed to cope with modern situations like the Genome Project fallout—but even if the law eventually goes sour, the window of opportunity ought to last for five or ten years, so....”

  “He’s eleven years old, for Christ’s sake,” Mum burst out. “He doesn’t understand the first thing about genetics, let alone patent law. You might as well be talking Russian.”

  Stevie would have loved to be able to contradict her, but he couldn’t. Actually, according to Mr. Winthrop, who was very keen on moving with the times, he was supposed to know the first thing about genetics, and maybe the second thing too, but he hadn’t managed to get the hang of them just yet, and probably wouldn’t for quite a while if he didn’t start paying more attention to his homework. He took a keen interest in the practical aspects of SexEd, but the scientific aspects were still a little beyond him.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Keyson, although he didn’t seem sorry to Stevie. “I have to try...just for the record, you understand.”

  “What record?” Mum asked. “Are you taping this?”

  “Of course not,” Mr. Keyson replied. “But in the unlikely event that this ever goes to court, we both need to be able to testify that I did my best to explain the situation, in all its aspects.”

  “Well, he obviously can’t understand you. Neither can I, for the matter. How the hell can anyone patent Stevie’s genes? They can hardly charge him a fee for using his own genes.”

  Stevie knew that the last remark was a joke, but Mr. Keyson didn’t seem so sure. “No one can patent a gene as such,” the unwelcome visitor said. “Obviously, Stevie has an inalienable right to employ the natural protein-production mechanisms of his own genes. Until further legal judgments are made, though, preliminary patents can be granted on the processes by which particular genes are identified, isolated and subjected to artificial reproduction with a view to the mass-production and commercial exploitation of the proteins whose genetic code they bear.”

  Stevie thought that he could understand what Mr. Keyson was getting at, but he thought that he’d be able to understand more if the agent would only stick to practical matters. “What does it do?” he asked, when his mother lapsed into exasperated silence.

  “What does what do?” Mr. Keyson countered, warily.

  “The gene I’ve got.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Keyson. “I shouldn’t have left that out, should I? It collaborates in making a subspecies of proteins—only in certain kinds of cells, although we don’t know why it only operates in those particular tissues—whose function is to ameliorate and repair damage caused by free radicals.”

  Stevie had guessed by now that Mr. Keyson wasn’t really trying to help them understand, but Mum hadn’t. She looked utterly bewildered, and angry too. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

  As it happened, though, Stevie did recognize the phrase “free radicals”, and he seized the opportunity to demonstrate that he wasn’t as stupid as everybody seemed to think. “Four processes of ageing,” he recited, wishing that he could remember the other three just in case he was challenged. “Number four is free radical damage. Mr. Winthrop said it gave him wrinkles.”

  “Not just wrinkles, Stephen,” said Mr. Keyson, trying to sound suitably impressed but not succeeding. “Although preventing wrinkles is a far more immediate selling point than most of the others, given the world we’re living in just now.”

  Mum showed off her own emergent wrinkles by frowning deeply. “Ageing?” He said. “Are you saying that Stevie’s DNA might hold the secret of immortality?”

  “Hardly,” said Mr. Keyson. “And to be perfectly honest, even if it did have a marginal effect on longevity, it wouldn’t begin to pay off in time to make it economically interesting. Wrinkle prevention and brain-cell preservation, on the other hand...but you can see why you need an agent, don’t you, Mrs. Pinkham? We need to get moving on this as soon as possible. The window of opportunity might not be there for long. Will you let me represent you?”

  Stevie could see that his mother was “getting into a state”, and suddenly realized why that was. This was the kind of decision she’d always handed over to her husband, but Dad wasn’t here any more, and the responsibility was all hers. She was scared—frightened that she might do the wrong thing,
and even more frightened by the fact that she didn’t know how to handle the situation, given that she hadn’t a clue what the right thing to do might be. Stevie wanted to help, but he knew that he couldn’t. Whatever he did, neither Mum nor Mr. Keyson would see it as “help.” He watched Mum closely, willing her to find a way to get out of the mess without blowing her top or breaking down in tears. In the end, somewhat to Stevie’s relief, she stood up abruptly, stuck out her hand, and said: “Thanks very much for coming round. If you leave me your card, I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made a decision.”

  Mr. Keyson didn’t seem at all pleased, and Stevie thought for a moment that he was going to persist—but he was already uncomfortable. Eventually, the agent’s hand extended itself, rather mechanically, to grasp Mum’s. That was signal enough for Stevie to leap up and open the door, as if he were being polite.

  That put a smile of Mum’s face. “Tomorrow,” she promised the agent. “I’ll call you then.”