by John Fast
“Yeah,” she agreed, giving up the small leather pouch in her hand.
I turned and started to walk away.
“No, look,” she added. “He’s not limping. He must be a splice.”
I froze in place for half-a-second, a hyperreal statue, then glanced back at her. She had given up the pouch, I realized, because she had found some common ground with her obnoxious friend.
“Either way he’s a freak of nature,” the boy said disgustedly as he stuffed the pouch into the front pocket of his jeans.
I walked around to the other side of the kiosk. I’d heard it all before: Alpha-Clones were reflections, xeroxes, spares; Highbrids were splices, cocktails, orchids. We met plenty of other local kids at the town swimming pool, tennis courts and basketball courts. We played in the same soccer and baseball leagues, and had the usual friendships and rivalries. We usually got along just fine. Sometimes we got into fights, especially when the more aggressive kids called out, “Hey, Frank!” Or, “Yo, Frankie!” Short for Frankenstein, of course, or, as the wittier version went, Frankeinstein. They called Avril Dumont, Director of the Genetic Institute, the “Bride of Frankeinstein,” and Max Anderson, Director of Alpha-Gene, Inc., “Baron von Frankeinstein.” The culture critics in the national newstreams often compared the Highbrid Protocol and the Alpha-Gene Project to the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein, and some of the local kids had turned the weak analogy into a street taunt.
As I continued to wait for Michael, I recalled a similar incident from the previous autumn. I was in the Cyber Café, in Palmer Square, with Xi Zhu and Xi Zhen. Xi Zhu was streaming his uncle, Xi Zhen’s father, in Beijing, when a couple of university students came in looking for a screen. We didn’t notice them until they stood over our table: tall, strong, future leaders of the world. They said they needed to print out a bunch of stock reports for their Econ 300 class which started in twenty minutes. Then they stared at us. I looked around the room and saw that all the other tables were taken. Xi Zhu ignored them and kept writing his note.
“Say, Janet,” the first future leader of the world began. “How can you identify a Highbrid?”
“I don’t know, Nancy,” the second future leader of the world replied. “How can you identify a Highbrid?”
“Give them the Turing Test,” Nancy said. “They’ll flunk it every time!”
Janet giggled into her hand.
Xi Zhu stared at them for a second, then finished his letter. We got up, put on our coats, paid the bill and left. As we emerged from the Café, Xi Zhen turned to his older cousin and asked what the girls had been talking about. Xi Zhu was furious, and didn’t reply. So I did.
“The Turing Test,” I began. “Imagine Tom exchanges text messages with Tim, and also with a really smart computer. If Tom can’t decide which exchange is with Tim, and which is with the computer, then the computer has passed the Turing Test. It has passed for human. Of course, the actual Turing Test is a little more complicated than that, but that’s the basic idea. And of course the computer is allowed to lie, but, even so, no computer has ever passed the Turing Test. They can’t sustain the illusion.”
“I don’t get it,” Xi Zhen said.
“It’s just a dumb joke,” I replied.
Xi Zhu turned to me and said, “No, you should explain it to him. He’s going to hear that stupid joke his entire life.”
He turned to his cousin and said, “They meant that Fast and I are so geeky, we can’t pass the Turing Test. Highbrids can’t pass as human beings.”
“Oh,” Xi Zhen said, his eyes growing wide with surprise.
I could still see Xi Zhen’s wide eyes as I waited for Michael on the far side of the kiosk. And when my brother finally did arrive, I noticed he was wearing his best blue shirt and best black pants. And I remembered that his very pretty Japanese piano teacher always inspired him to dress up for his lessons.
“Hey, Johnny,” Michael greeted me. “Word on the street is, you’re busted in Bologna.”
“Yep,” I acknowledged. “I lost in the second round. Very frustrating, but I’m working on a new strategy. I’m trying to develop some new kinds of algorithms that will evolve new levels of complexity.”
“Sounds good. I’m starving.”
“Let’s go,” I said, happy to get away from that annoying kid.
CHAPTER 19.
The Philosopher’s Stone
I was sitting with Alexa at the patio table behind her cottage three weeks later. I’d just turned fifteen, she was seventeen and more beautiful than ever. We were finishing our coffee and biscotti.
“If you really want to know,” I said warily, “I’m trying to write some neo-evolutionary algorithms.”
“Some what?” Alexa asked sharply.
“Neo-evolutionary algorithms,” I repeated, my heart sinking. “Computer codes that select and reproduce the smartest versions of themselves, generation after generation.”
“Like Alpha-Clones and Highbrids?” She wondered, suddenly curious.
“Exactly,” I replied.
“So you want to evolve smarter algorithms. Where does that get you?”
“It gets me smarter quaticals that can win the International Summer Quatix Tournament in Manhattan.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said dismissively. “I mean besides that ridiculous game. What good are they?”
“That ridiculous game, as you like to call it, has taught me how to write these algorithms. And some day I’m going to use them for my research.”
“Like how?”
I hesitated, then took the plunge.
“Okay,” I said. “Imagine some neo-evolutionary algorithms running on a quantum computer. Imagine they’re evolving ever more sophisticated neural nets which are evolving ever more sophisticated pattern recognition programs. Imagine they discover the key that unlocks all the secrets of the universe.”
“Neo-evolutionary algorithms; neural nets; pattern recognition programs,” Alexa recited. “I get all that, but besides the fact that no one knows how to build a stable quantum computer, who says there is such a thing as this magic key?”
“Pythagoras, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Einstein … and a few others,” I said, rising to the argument. “Think about it: the universe, life, mind, consciousness are all part of the ongoing flow of code, and every scientific breakthrough we’ve made has brought us a step closer to understanding that code. You might say the genius of nature has been sleeping, and now it’s beginning to wake up: in us. We are code becoming conscious of code.”
I was off to the races. I held nothing back.
“Einstein said, ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ But Thoreau anticipated Einstein. He said, ‘Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable moulds myself?’ The Big Bang is an ongoing explosion of code that’s evolving energy and matter, time and space, stars and planets, flora and fauna, primates and hominids, you and me. That code is flowing right through our bodies and the key to it is dangling right on the very edge of our consciousness. And all we have to do is reach out with our minds and grasp it. All we have to do is send out some neo-evolutionary algorithms to find it. All we have to do is make our way back to the cosmic tree where we can meet ourselves for the first time again.”
I paused to catch my breath and wondered how Alexa would respond to my outburst.
“Congratulations, Reverend Casaubon!” She exclaimed. “You’re an old Hegelian! Quite a philosophical accomplishment in just one year.”
“The Reverend who?” I asked defensively. “An old what?”
“Casaubon, in George Eliot’s novel, Middlemarch. Casaubon thought he’d found the key to all mythologies, while Hegel thought he’d found the key to all philosophies.”
Alexa looked into the distance, then continued in a more somber tone.
“But it’s the twenty-first century now,” she reminded me. “And you’ve forgotten your Darwin. You’ve forgotten that evol
ution is a contingent, nonlinear, emergent process that leaps to new levels of complexity. Instead of some grand celestial music playing in some grand celestial cathedral, our universe is nothing but a series of jazz riffs playing on jazz riffs in a smoky back room.”
“I’m not the Reverend Casaubon, and I’m not an old Hegelian,” I insisted. “And I’m not talking about celestial music. Instead, I’m talking about the intrinsic nature of nature, the contingent process. And, by the way, even jazz riffs have a generative dynamic, a complex code. And maybe some day I’ll write some neo-evolutionary algorithms and I’ll run them on a quantum computer and I’ll discover the key to that code.”
Alexa gave me a skeptical look, then she gazed into the distance again, lost in thought.
“Let’s take a walk,” she said after a moment.
CHAPTER 20.
The Ghost in the Mirror
Alexa and I walked down the lawn behind her cottage and through the adjacent field. Then we entered the woods. I waited for her to speak, wondering what she was thinking.
“I’m also trying to figure out the world,” she said. “And myself.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised at the tremor of doubt in her voice. She had always seemed so sure of herself.
“I’m also trying to figure out who I am.”
“But everyone knows who you are!” I protested. “You’re Alexandra Elena Pavlova. Alexander, your grandfather, was a brilliant Russian chemist. Elena, your grandmother, was a brilliant Czech sculptor. Hana, your mother, won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Then she got sick. She donated her DNA to Alpha-Gene, Inc., just a few weeks before she died. Hana was a tragic hero, only thirty-five years old, and you were the most famous baby on the planet.”
Alexa stopped short and I stopped with her.
“Hana … was … not … my … mother!” She said, pausing between each word for emphasis.
“I’m … I’m sorry,” I stammered.
“And human cloning is wrong,” she continued. “Metaphysically, existentially, wrong.”
“What?” I said, astonished by her words.
“Those brilliant genetic engineers haven’t even perfected the technique,” Alexa added without missing a beat. “Why do you think there’s so many sick jokes about Alpha-Clones with bad knees? It’s because nobody wants to think about what really happens when the process fails. And don’t forget that the planet is already desperately overpopulated. I mean, who needs more people? Especially copies of people with delusions of immortality–people who imagine that cloning is a modern form of metempsychosis, the transference of souls? So I’m glad there’s just a few of us, and I hope there won’t be any more. Human cloning is a fundamental abuse of science. Just because we can do something badly doesn’t mean we should do it. Alpha-Gene, Inc. should be shut down. Permanently.”
“But what about …?”
“And you know what else those brilliant genetic engineers are doing?” She continued, cutting me off. “They’re using their computerized sorters and sequencers to manufacture synthetic strings of DNA, and they’re using those synthetic strings to reprogram individual cells. In effect, they’re creating tiny protein factories. Sounds great doesn’t it? Think of the new vaccines we can mass produce! Think of the new biofuels! Cures for cancer! Super algae! And now think of those reprogrammed cells running amok. Imagine how they could disrupt our 3.4 billion year old bio-infrastructure. Imagine the genetic stream choked with synthetic proteins. Imagine the Mississippi River choked with synthetic algae. And you’ll say the scientific experts are too smart to let anything like that happen. And I’ll say it was scientific experts who decided to stack nuclear fuel rods on top of nuclear reactor vessels on top of tectonic fault lines and ocean coastlines–where earthquakes and tsunamis could happen any time.”
I felt torn between agreeing with everything Alexa said, and rejecting her basic premise. I couldn’t imagine the world without her. I couldn’t imagine my world without her. And what about the possibilities of new vaccines, new biofuels? And yet, for the second time in my life, her arguments made me question the economic and moral foundation of the Highbrid Protocol. I wondered if it really was such a good idea, after all, to clone and breed human beings. If it was such a good idea to tinker with the genes of viruses, bacteria, plants, animals, hominids without considering the ecological and physiological consequences. I wondered if all these so called scientific advances were, in fact, huge mistakes: nuclear power plants built on fault lines.
“My therapist says I’m not just a copy,” Alexa continued, struggling to hold back her tears. “She says I’m an individual with my own drives and goals. And yet, gene for gene, chromosome for chromosome, I am Hana. I look in the mirror and I see her face. Not mine, hers. It’s as if I don’t exist, as if I’m not even real.”
Alexa turned away from me and confided to the trees.
“I was raised by Alexander and Elena in Prague,” she said. “As a child, I wanted to know everything about Hana. I asked everyone for their memories. I practiced the cello–her instrument, of course. I studied the old newstreams and documentaries. And what could be more natural than a daughter who wanted to know her mother? Then, as I grew older, and as I started to look exactly like her, I realized I never had a mother, or a father. I wasn’t an orphan, much less a daughter. I wasn’t even sure I was human. That’s when I left Prague. I had to get away. I came to Princeton, to get some answers from Alpha-Gene, Inc. I found none.”
Alexa pretended to brush a few stray hairs out of her face so she could wipe her eyes, then she turned back to me.
“My therapist thinks I’ve got an Enkidu Complex,” she said.
I wanted to put my arms around her and comfort her, but my mind was in overdrive.
“Enki-who?” I blurted out.
Alexa smiled sadly and her eyes glistened.
“Not Enki-who, Enki-do,” she repeated, exaggerating the pronunciation of the last syllable. “You know? Gilgamesh and Enkidu? The Epic of Gilgamesh?”
I shook my head.
“Well, maybe we shouldn’t go into all that now,” she said quietly, looking down the path.
I urged her to tell the story because I didn’t want her to withdraw from me again.
“Okay,” she relented. “The short, short version: Gilgamesh was an Ancient Mesopotamian king who abused his people. They prayed to the gods for help, and the gods created Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s exact double, from the clay. Enkidu was a wild man who lived in the forest. He traveled to Uruk and became great friends with Gilgamesh. They went on many adventures together. Then Enkidu also started to act like an arrogant king, and the gods made him sick, and he died.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, feeling even more confused. “Why didn’t the gods punish Gilgamesh? Why did they bother to create Enkidu?”
“The gods didn’t punish Gilgamesh,” Alexa explained, “because he was a semi-divine king: two-thirds god, one-third man to be exact. Instead, they created Enkidu as his double and scapegoat.”
“But how does …?” I started to ask.
“I know, I know,” she said, cutting me off. “I asked Paxton these same questions. He told me the story is based on an ancient purification ritual. In those days, when the god-king did something wrong, his body was thought to be marked, or stained, and the high priests had to perform a cleansing ritual. So they magically transferred the stain, or stigma, from the body of the god-king to the body of his double: an actual person, or a clay figurine. Then, they sacrificed the double, killing him in order to destroy the stigma. Paxton said the ancient archetype of the double-as-scapegoat has continued to evolve for thousands of years: Gilgamesh and Enkidu; Yahweh and Adam; God and Jesus; Master and Slave; Capitalist and Worker; etc., etc. Now it’s Alpha-Prime and Alpha-Clone.”
I struggled to catch up with her, then the implication of the story struck home and I had to ask the next question.
“If your therapist thinks you’ve got an Enkidu Complex,” I said, “th
en … what? I mean, you’re not …? You haven’t …?”
I couldn’t say the word. I was afraid that if I said it, it might come true.
Alexa turned away again as I anxiously awaited her answer. She wiped her eyes again, then she turned back to face me. She took my right hand in hers and held it palm up.
“Have you ever looked closely at your hand?” She wondered. “It’s your hand, but it’s not your hand. It’s the hand of a primate who evolved millions of years ago.”
She paused and traced my life line with her index finger.
“You will have a short life and a mysterious death,” she said without a hint of irony.
I refused to be distracted by the gentle caress of her finger, or the harsh sound of her words. Instead, I concentrated my mind, willing her to answer my question. And I succeeded.
“Suicide,” she whispered. “Yes. I tried. Twice.”
“But why?” I asked without thinking.
“Because,” Alexa said quietly, “I never should have been born.”
I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. Instead, I just shouted at her.
“But you have so many gifts!” I yelled. “A full life ahead!”
Alexa gave me a weary look that seemed to last forever. Then she closed her eyes, sighed, and stood perfectly still. When she opened her eyes again her mood had shifted and she spoke with renewed determination.
“I may be possessed,” she said, “but I’m also royally pissed. And my anger keeps the ghosts at bay. Max Anderson, the so called father of Alpha-Gene, Inc., never could resist playing God, but I sure as hell won’t be his scapegoat, or my so called mother’s.”
“So what are you going to do?” I wondered, feeling both anxious and relieved.
Alexa started down the path again and I had to hurry to keep up with her.
“I’m going to become a political economist,” she declared. “I’m going to change the way the world works.”
“That’s great!” I enthused.