Biohack

by J D Lasica

  She flipped to her right side and gave a fake pout. “You can’t go yet. You promised to help me with my list.”

  “Ah, yes. The list. The list!”

  She propped up her pillows and leaned back, breasts dappled by the reflection off the water coming through the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors in her bedroom.

  She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the notes she’d been scribbling for the past week along with a large blank yellow notepad and pencil. She drew a line down the center of a blank sheet and wrote Pro and Con atop each column.

  Valerie had told Alex some of what she’d experienced at the Island Retreat, and then they both shared what they’d turned up on Birthrights Unlimited. The company had a clean track record and seemed to be the consensus leader in reproductive biotech.

  “Okay,” she said, “let’s start with the pros of using a Preferred Surrogate.” Preferred meaning heavily screened and matching your criteria. “You go first.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not touching that one.” Alex pulled up his boxers.

  Valerie let out a little hmmpfff sound. “You’re a total chickenshit. Okay, I’ll go first.” She bounced the pencil eraser on the tip of her tongue. “In no particular order, the benefits of using a surrogate are … No morning sickness!” She scribbled that down. “That’s one for the pro-surrogacy column. I won’t miss feeling nauseous. And here’s another pro: no weight gain. Took me months to lose what I put on last time.”

  “This is what you put at the top of your list?” Alex teased.

  “I said no particular order!” she reminded him. “Let’s see. No stretch marks. No weird midnight food cravings.” Her pro side was filling up.

  “No strangers coming up to you in the supermarket aisle wanting to touch your belly,” Alex chipped in. “No relatives cooing about a ‘bun in the oven.’ ”

  Valerie nodded and jotted those down. “Now you’re cookin’.”

  She scanned through the scribbles on her sheaf of notes. “Okay, some serious benefits, too. Childbirth has its risks. Once in a while, something goes wrong.”

  Alex nodded, trying to show his support.

  She didn’t say this aloud but wrote at the top of the pro column: Get real, I’m no spring chicken! At thirty-nine, the odds of her getting pregnant the traditional way were already fairly grim, and the percentages dropped even more dramatically if in vitro fertilization was involved.

  “We talked about this last weekend. The odds of pregnancy are much higher if I use a surrogate,” she said. “Another bonus: No pressure on us.”

  “Right.” Alex buckled his shorts. She couldn’t be sure if that was a Right , as in he agreed, or a Right , as in he was noncommittal about this whole idea of her having a child.

  They’d been discussing this topic for weeks. Alex had been supportive when she told him of her decision to have a baby—even as she knew it would radically change their relationship.

  They’d been dating for only a few months, and neither had dared utter the word “love” yet. It was far too early to think about marriage, much less consider having a kid together. Even if she could. But she wanted to be a mother again and felt the window of opportunity receding by the day.

  Last weekend, sitting on South Beach as a full moon glistened in the tide, she told Alex about the decision she’d finally come to. About how she planned to use Birthrights Unlimited to have a baby, since having a kid the old-fashioned way seemed like a longshot and she desperately wanted a child.

  “Trust me,” she’d told him, “this isn’t a ruse to get a ring. When the baby comes, things will definitely change, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make it work.”

  She didn’t say: Baby first, and Alex a close second. She was already unsure how much this baby thing might strain their relationship, so she didn’t mention that she hadn’t told her ex-husband yet. At some point, she would have to tell her ex about this.

  When she was done sketching out her plans, she was afraid Alex would bolt from the beach blanket. But he didn’t. He said he would be there to support her decision all the way through.

  I might have a keeper here. Alex might play a starring role in my second act, my do-over .

  “Drum roll, please,” she yelled. “And the number one reason for using a surrogate. I won’t get all bloated and unsexy!”

  Alex leaned down in his Save Miami T-shirt, clasped her wrists, and brought his face right above hers. “Well, you’d be sexy to me even if you were a beached whale.”

  “Liar!” She laughed and thumped his chest.

  He looked at her notepad. “Looks like pro is the winner.”

  “Not so fast.” She inspected her scribbles. “On the con side: No bonding with the baby during pregnancy. No breast milk.” She added those items to her list.

  Her hand-scrawled notes had originally contained several cons, but she’d decided to cross them out. Chances of the birth mother changing her mind? That’s never happened at Birthrights, they assured her, and there’s an ironclad contract in place, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

  Health risks? Birthrights Unlimited monitors each pregnancy 24/7 so there’s no risk of the child being exposed to smoking, alcohol, or drugs, they told her. She decided not to add that to the con column.

  Valerie thought harder. “Birthrights is a little bit different in that you don’t spend any time with the surrogate during her pregnancy.”

  “That sounds like an upside to me.” He slid into bed next to her. “You want to bond with the baby, not with the surrogate. I mean, there’s no biological tie between the surrogate and child, right?”

  “True.” Alex was right. This was just a quibble, not really a con. There would be videos, photos, constant updates.

  “I guess cost is the biggest con,” she said.

  “Well, let’s hope it’s not a con.”

  “Very funny. Okay, yes, it’s expensive, but I’ve already set aside the funds, so you can forget about that second yacht, mister.”

  “Dammit. There goes the onboard orgy. ”

  “I guess another con is the idea that one day you’re childless and the next day you’re a mother—that could be jarring for some people.”

  “But you’ve been a mother before,” Alex reassured her. “You know the insider tricks.”

  She nodded. “I’ll tell my relatives and friends in advance so it won’t come as a total shock. Still haven’t met most of your relatives. I hope they’re not too scandalized.”

  “They won’t be.”

  “Okay, I think I’m done.” She inspected the sheet and sized up the final tally. Alex was right, the pro-surrogate side was the clear winner.

  Alex hopped out of bed and grabbed his wallet from the nightstand. “As long as the baby’s healthy and he has your dimples, I’m good. We’ll make it work. Listen, I gotta go.”

  She rose to her feet, still naked. Alex wrapped his strong, comforting arms around her and kissed her. Then he let himself out.

  She put on a robe and stepped out onto her small balcony. The cool morning breeze prickled her skin and teased up the hairs on her arm.

  In their talk last weekend, Alex didn’t volunteer to be her sperm donor, with all the legal and emotional issues it would entail. And she didn’t want to push it. That would be too heavy for their relationship.

  So it seemed like the two remaining open questions had been decided.

  She would go ahead and use a surrogate at Birthrights.

  She would let them use cells from her dead son to create a new Jordan.

  10

  Los Angeles, August 15

  R andolph Blackburn thudded his knuckles on the plate-glass doors of the main entrance of the Getty Museum. A kick of thunder came from somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. Overhead, a huge banner snapped in the wind, the spotlights throwing a pale gold wash over it.

  FRANCISCO GOYA: A RETROSPECTIVE

  A museum guard unlocked the door. “Good evening sir, we’ve been expecting you.” Two hours ago
the Getty closed its doors to the public, but not to the billionaire financier who’d contributed generously to its endowment.

  Blackburn stepped into the vast, empty cathedral of a lobby and crept with difficulty up the winding stairway to the second-floor balcony. He had climbed this very staircase, holding his nine-year-old daughter’s hand, on the museum’s opening day.

  There wasn’t much time to get everything done. The world seemed to be hurtling by, and it was all he could do to hold on .

  He took his position at one corner of the overhang and watched Sterling Waterhouse and his security chief Gregor Conrad enter the lobby. “You’re late!” he barked. Two minutes late, and every minute more precious than ever.

  The two men climbed the winding metal staircase and greeted him at the top of the landing with all the warmth of an IRS auditor.

  “Waterhouse. Conrad.” Blackburn made it a point of not calling Waterhouse by his first name despite the man’s best efforts to be chummy. “This way.”

  Blackburn directed them down the hallway into a gallery where a sign with gold letters announced: THE BLACK PAINTINGS, c. 1819-23, Courtesy of the Prado.

  They entered the dimly lit gallery and Blackburn led the men down the row of paintings. He adored Goya. The madness leapt off the walls. Today’s artists didn’t create art like this. Today it was all unimaginative abstract bullshit. Where was the humanity? Where was the epic conflict?

  He paused to admire one of his favorites, a large canvas behind a velvet rope.

  “I do like this one,” Conrad said, his eyes fastened on the painting of two men clubbing each other.

  “You have good taste.”

  Gregor Conrad was here, in this room and in this role, only because of Blackburn’s efforts. He had strong-armed Waterhouse into hiring Conrad two years ago. Birthrights didn’t need a glorified security guard, he’d told Waterhouse, it needed someone who could get things done. True, he’d gotten Waterhouse to launch teams of trackers right at the outset. But the trackers program needed someone tough-minded to oversee it.

  Same with the DNA Legends. He and Waterhouse had been jibber-jabbering about the idea for years. Talk, talk, talk, and no results. Conrad changed all that. With the handful of proof-of- concept operations he’d recently engineered, Conrad proved to be a man who could follow directives.

  He turned to face Conrad directly, keeping Waterhouse out of his vision.

  “No hitches with the Vatican operation, I take it?”

  “You would have heard,” Conrad replied. “Clean getaway. Nothing that could trace back to us. Now it’s up to the Lab.”

  Blackburn nodded in approval. At first, Waterhouse had resisted the idea of retrieving the most famous bones in the world. But Blackburn had insisted and in the end Waterhouse relented, partly because an investor of his stature commanded inordinate deference, partly because a trial run would prove useful, and partly because a successful extraction would mean they would have considerable leverage with the Catholic Church, which could come in handy after the other grave team missions were completed.

  Blackburn had financed the operation and, with Waterhouse’s assent, Conrad had overseen the planning. The St. Peter’s job laid the groundwork for the grave team operations to come. All extractions would follow the same formula: Identify the target, assess the optimal method for extraction, scope out the security, put into play the required assets, map out an escape route, get the materials to the DNA Sequencing Lab at Birthrights Unlimited, and go from there.

  For the Vatican operation, he was less interested in sequencing St. Peter’s DNA or seeing a hologram of a bare-footed peasant and much more interested in extracting a measure of revenge. The Holy See must be in full panic mode right now.

  “Have you reviewed my list?” Blackburn continued down the row of paintings.

  Waterhouse and Conrad exchanged exasperated glances. “We’re in the process of narrowing it down to a workable number of targets,” Waterhouse said. “Can I ask how you came up with the names? ”

  As he led them through the gallery, Blackburn wondered how much of his personal philosophy to share. About how the era of Great Men had ended. The movers and shakers who had propelled civilization forward were now hemmed in by the great unwashed masses, hamstrung by those who had neither the vision nor courage to act.

  He recalled the words of Thomas Carlyle: “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” Leaders, heroes, extraordinary individuals who—through their charisma, intelligence, wisdom, political skill, or skullduggery—wielded power with decisive force to change history. Wasn’t it Nietzsche who said the goal of humanity lies in its highest specimens?

  It galled Blackburn that he was living in an era of smallness. Small men thinking small thoughts. Even in the private sector, everything was run by committee with the goal of arriving at a feel-good consensus. Where were today’s exceptional men, the giants astride the earth?

  In the end, he decided not to share any of this. Soon enough, soon enough.

  “Never mind how I came up with the names. Most are self-evident.” Blackburn paused next to a painting of a giant biting off the head of a man. “Waterhouse, when are you going to act ? I’m running out of patience.”

  “These things take time. What’s the rush? You and I have been discussing this for years.”

  “And in that time we’ve kept things positive. Trust me, you don’t want to toy with a man who has nothing to lose. I’m not above using those three board seats I control.”

  Waterhouse drew back, a startled look flickering across his face, as if realizing for the first time that he could lose his company.

  Blackburn leaned into a narrow beam of track light and made damn sure Waterhouse saw the storm rising in his dark blue irises. “I wonder if you’re up to the task, Waterhouse. ”

  “The grave teams are a huge undertaking. We need more time.”

  “You’re out of time! This has taken on new urgency.” He turned to confront them. “I’ve already put up all the funds you requested. What’s the blasted holdup? I want these grave teams launched no later than two weeks from today—or else!”

  Waterhouse and Conrad looked at each other.

  “That would be challenging,” Conrad said, shaking his head.

  “Not possible,” Waterhouse agreed.

  “Make it possible. The difference between success and failure is finding a way to push ahead—in spite of any and all obstacles. Or I’ll find someone who will!”

  Randolph Blackburn turned from them with the full knowledge he would have his way.

  “I don’t like a gun pointed at my head, Randolph,” Waterhouse called after him. “Nobody can do what I do.”

  Blackburn decided not to respond. He felt his neck muscles tighten as he ambled down the staircase of the Getty, perhaps for the last time. He had the means, he had the resources, and he had a plan, a plan bigger than even Waterhouse could imagine.

  The one thing I don’t have is time.

  11

  Los Angeles, August 16

  “ S ince when did college girls get so hot?” Sterling Waterhouse said to his Uber driver, peering out the window at the young women of UCLA in their tank tops, exposed midriffs, and hip-hugging jeans. At forty-five, he had been away from the college campus scene for far too long.

  “Since forever?” The young male driver, all business, pointed down the walkway. “This is as far as I can take you with the new campus security measures. The lecture hall is two blocks down on the right. Can’t miss it.”

  Waterhouse hopped out of the luxury sedan. He was early so he wanted to stretch his legs a bit, taking in the sights. He was a player in his day, before his two marriages and divorces, and he thought it would be playful if he wore his SEX IS FOR FUN T-shirt beneath his blue blazer, but it was attracting quizzical stares from the passing coeds—ah, he reminded himself, don’t use that term —stares from the young ladies. No matter. Today was about business. Even though it was summer break, t
here was enough activity on campus that his speech was sure to attract a crowd .

  He tried to put this morning’s voicemail out of his mind. Petrov had called to remind him of the deadline he’d set for the next delivery—only two days from today. Still had to find a solution. This, on top of the new two-week deadline for the grave teams Blackburn imposed last night.

  What was wrong with these investors! Didn’t anyone just want to make good old-fashioned craploads of money anymore?

  Waterhouse’s mind pulled in several directions at once. Friday’s big marketing meeting, and the company’s burn rate, and the clinical trial results he would soon share with the feds. But why fixate on the hard things? The skies were blue, the college girls were hot, and he began to focus on the immediate task at hand: delivering the first public talk about Birthrights Unlimited’s pioneering genetic enhancement work.

  His talk was titled, “The New Enhanced Family,” and his CMO, Sharon Sullivan, did a superb job in scrabbling together a presentation that would blow these kids’ socks off. He would no doubt be addressing a roomful of future customers. Perhaps a few surrogates as well—college girls’ eggs were in high demand in every IVF facility in the nation. More important, his talk would impress the handful of reporters who’d registered for the event.

  This was a slight shift in strategy for Birthrights Unlimited. The recent Island Retreat had gone so well that Sullivan and the marketing team recommended opening up the kimono a little, letting others know about the genetic future that awaited them. He was on board with that. Otherwise, how would he cement his place in history as the Father of the Enhanced Family?

  This appearance was a bit of a test run before they’d take it on the road to major media outlets and Fortune 500 corporations. The arrangements for the UCLA talk had come together quickly: a half-hour public lecture and slide show followed by an audience Q&A. Easy as can be.