Your One & Only(64)
It’s so lush and vibrant here, our own little slice of Eden, and when I think of the good we will do in this beautiful place, I can’t help but be thankful.
September 30, 2069
Today, over a year since we arrived and with the labs finally set up and the construction crews and support staff evacuated, the Project has officially launched. Hassan and I sat in the front row of the auditorium to hear the keynote address, and it was here that Dr. Vispa revealed the true nature of what we were setting out to do. We had thought we were here to find a cure, but it’s now clear that was never the intention.
She started with slides on the huge screen behind her scrolling through, showing human development starting all the way back in the Paleolithic Era.
As the slides reached the Middle Ages, she told us what many of us had already suspected. Global Health has decided confidentially that a cure for the Slow Plague, as we’re calling it now, is scientifically not within reach, and perhaps never will be. In other words, it’s destined to continue its terrible work of extermination. It isn’t just affecting children anymore, either. After it spread to adolescents, it started appearing in adult populations as well and, according to Global Health’s data, it’s crossing all borders of income, race, and region. Nobody knows any of this yet, however. To forestall planet-wide panic, Global Health will withhold any official announcement for as long as possible.
A palpable sense of doom crept into the room. Dr. Vispa paused for a long moment, head bowed. A shudder rippled through the crowd. The slides continued behind her, showing the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. They sped by, faster and faster. The eighteenth century, the nineteenth, the twentieth and twenty-first, showing images and faces so quickly it all became a blur. When the slides reached the end of our age and the new century coming upon us, the screen went stark white. We squinted against the light, blindingly bright in the dark hall, and then Dr. Vispa spread her arms wide, bestowing a kind of benediction on us all, and she smiled.
“Now,” she said. “Now is when we shape the future.”
March 24, 2070
Dr. Vispa designated the first phase of the Project “Enhancing Development,” which is a stage of intense genetic engineering that will ultimately send an improved adaptation of humanity into the future, a version free from the effects of the Slow Plague. Even in the midst of working nonstop, night and day, I still can barely grasp the enormity of what we’re doing here and the magnitude of Dr. Vispa’s vision. This is no five-year research grant like we thought. This is the work of decades, the work of a lifetime.
With political instability spreading in South America, travel has become more difficult, but my visit home to see my family is still scheduled for next month. We’re sworn to secrecy, both on the advance of the Slow Plague and on our Project in Costa Rica, so when Mother asks why I’ve been kept away for so long already, I won’t be able to convey how important our work truly is. They don’t know that, at this point, we really are the only hope. When it comes time to say goodbye, I don’t know how I’ll manage it. How can I not warn them of what’s coming? I keep waking up at night drenched in sweat, tears streaming down my face, feeling in my heart that this visit will be the last time I ever see them.
Dr. Vispa spoke at the last assembly about the coming second phase, which she said is as complex as the first, inasmuch as it involves laying down the moral and social foundations of the future community. She pointed to the slide on the presentation, “Enhancing Genetics & Establishing Culture.” I’ve gotten to know Dr. Vispa more since coming here. I’ve always recognized her passion, but I’ve seen more lately how she has a flair for the theatrical. She slapped her hand on the podium, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not arrogance! For the first time in human history, this is something we can do. Why build a world that will simply survive? We must build a better world. Harmony with one’s fellows, stewardship of nature, no war, no poverty, no racism, sexism, or class warfare. We will reconstruct and atone for our sins of the past. That is the visionary future that will be carried forward by the descendants of these young people!”
The fifty of us who’d been selected by Dr. Vispa (the “genetic seeds,” as we’re called) stood at that point and endured the applause that seemed to last forever. Dr. Vispa stood before us, beaming at all she’d accomplished. She’s an amazing woman.
January 10, 2077
We have our first success!
Finally, after all our work, all our failures, we’ve created the first entirely viable clone generation. Hassan has been calling them Homo factus?—the Made Man—and it’s true, they were indeed made by us. Now here they are, healthy and whole!
Only ten of the gene models have ever shown viability, so it seems we’re limited to those samples as we move forward, rather than the fifty we’d hoped for. We have five females and five males. Dr. Vispa especially was disappointed that her own sample never worked, though we tried countless times, and she poured so many of our resources into that one effort. She jokes that she’s lost her chance at immortality.
It was only late last year that the rest of the world became aware of the devastating impact the Slow Plague will inevitably have. The scientists here estimate another thirty years of human life before there’s nothing left. Panic has been kept at bay for now, with reports of countless research outfits still working on a cure, giving people hope that humanity will be saved. Only we at Global Health know that those pathways are already dead ends.