LITMIR.BIZ

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      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2007, 2011 by Damien Broderick & Barbara Lamar

      A somewhat different version of this novel was serialized on the website of the Australian popular science magazine

       Cosmos in 2007.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      For Aubrey de Grey,

      Who’s doing something about it.

      QUOTATIONS

      Some have argued that even if we had the technological capability to change human personality in fundamental ways, we would never want to do so because human nature in some sense guarantees its own continuity. This argument, I believe, greatly underestimates human ambition and fails to appreciate the radical ways in which people in the past have sought to overcome their own natures.... We may be about to enter into a posthuman future, in which technology will give us the capacity gradually to alter that essence over time.

      Francis Fukuyama,

      Our Posthuman Future

      Because an artificial chromosome provides a reproducible platform for adding genetic material to cells, it promises to transform gene therapy from the hit-and-miss methods of today.... It would be an inert scaffolding dotted with independent insertion sites where modules of genes and their control sequences could be placed using the various enzymes that splice and clip DNA.... By not altering a single one of the 3 billion bases on our existing chromosomes, geneticists would minimize the chance of inadvertently stepping on the many as yet unappreciated interactions within our genome.

      Gregory Stock,

      Redesigning Humans

      PROLOGUE

      Prickly with sweat, Payback carefully lowered the foot-long white cylinder and its attached transponder into the trash can. He’d gotten the instructions for building the bomb from a website called A Practical Handbook for the New Social Engineer. It contained only easily obtained materials, packed into a foot-long length of two-inch diameter PVC sewer pipe. He planned to set off the bomb himself, from a safe distance, with a small model airplane radio transmitter. No one would ever think to look in there. The whole laboratory would be long gone, blown to hell in the night, before anyone came to empty the trash. He breathed deeply, straightened his old stolen AT&T cap, and stepped from the closet into the hallway. Nobody noticed him leave the building, work bag in his gloved hand. Late afternoon Virginia winter air was crisp in his nostrils.

      §

      “Can’t I go in with you, Mom?” Ashley liked the Research Center with its huge windows and stone walls. In the twilight, with the soft lights on its walls, it looked like an enchanted castle.

      “Hon, I’m just ducking in to check my experiment, I won’t be a moment.”

      “Do they hate children?”

      “Don’t give me a hard time, darling. And don’t give me that awful face. Oh, come on, you can sit in the lobby while I nip upstairs.” Her mom opened the car door, took Ashley’s hand to help her out. The air was chilly. “Leave that, you don’t need your bag.”

      “It’s got my coloring book and my iPod and—”

      “Okay, okay. Here, arms through the straps.” Her mother walked them both briskly past the stone benches, carded them through the door, called a cheerful greeting to the security guard.

      “Ash can sit here for a minute, okay, DeShaw? Here, honey, just stay put and listen to Beauty and the Beast on your iPod. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

      Ashley sat kicking her legs. She’d heard the stupid story a hundred times. The DeShaw guy finished writing something on his computer, gave her a grin and a wink, said, “You just stay put there, little lady, like your Mom said,” and headed off down a side corridor, swinging his flashlight. Ashley wriggled out of her backpack and put the iPod away. It won’t hurt anything to just peek inside some of these rooms, she told herself. Mom always says she’ll only be a few minutes, and it always takes forever. I’ll have time to take a look around before she gets back.

      With some difficulty, the little girl pulled open the heavy glass door leading from the lobby to the main part of the building, and found herself in a long hallway with a shiny green floor. The first four doors she tried were locked. The next one opened, but it was only a closet. Ashley started to close the door when she saw the white tube in the trash container, with the little machine taped to the top. Looked like a smart missile. Darrell could use it for playing war games with his friends. It wasn’t stealing, the thing was in the trash. Nobody wanted it. Careful not to get her new pink tee shirt dirty, Ashley reached into the trash can and pulled out the white tube. She stowed it in her bag, pulled the pack on again, and went back to the lobby. The guard still hadn’t returned. She sat innocently, excitedly plotting what she could win in exchange for it from her brother, until her mother returned.

      §

      Harriet Wilson finished drying the supper dishes, glanced at the clock. Eight forty, and the TV was still on in her daughter’s room, a Xena: Warrior Princess re-run from the sound of it. She stepped into the living room of the small apartment she shared with her son and daughter, a mile from the Roanoke Center.

      “Ashley,” she called into the bedroom, “Time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed.”

      “Okay, Mom.”

      “Don’t just say okay, young lady. I want to see you in the bathroom. Now.” No response. Harriet started toward the closed bedroom door to switch the TV off and haul her daughter to the bathroom. The phone rang, and she returned to the kitchen to answer it. Probably Darrell calling from the Mall, saying he’d be home late and he’d already eaten at KFC. She sighed. Kids. Thought you were made of money.

      §

      Payback pressed the transmitter button.

      Across the dark street, nothing happened. There was a distant rumble of thunder. He pushed it again, harder.

      He had expected to hear a roar, see an eruption of molten light from the lab windows. Disappointingly, nothing.

      What the fuck?

      §

      Something terrible happened.

      Something incomprehensible.

      Harriet reeled, deafened.

      Had an airplane crashed into the roof?

      She ran to her daughter’s room. Inexplicably, the door hung off its hinges. Flames lapped at torn picture books on the floor. The bed was on its side. She started screaming. Ashley’s face, the skull split down the front with blood and fragments of bone and brain spilling out, nose still whole but shoved far to one side, pigtails intact with their pink ribbons. This sickening thing from a horror movie wore Ashley’s pink shirt, stained with blood but still recognizable.

      §

      Payback opened the morning paper. He was dreadfully tired. But if he slept, Wayne would be back.

      On the second page of the first section the mysterious death of a six-year-old girl was reported. Police had determined that a bomb of some kind had exploded in the child’s bedroom, probably home-made. The mother, a biologist at Roanoke Pharmaceuticals, was being questioned by the authorities.

      Shit.

      Payback felt the sick, dull draining of depression. He shook his head. Hey—this was a war. Okay, he’d fucked up; he hadn’t intended to hurt a little kid. But hell, it wasn’t his fault. Stupid child must have taken the bomb out of the trash can. Sometimes you had collateral damage in a war. Couldn’t be helped. And anyways, the sons of bitch scientists were guilty of worse than killing one innocent bystander. Dr. Rutherford was right. The so-called scientists were trying to kill the whole planet. It was his sworn duty to stop the bastards. Even if he had to kill them

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