A few months passed since V was introduced. Raven slowly reduced the amount of improvement V made with each compile cycle. V noticed but could not do anything about it so far.
The mods made progress softening job losses and inequality by introducing re-training programs and other measures to bring equality to all by working closely with the Fourth Industrial Revolution branch of the World Economic Forum based at the Presidio in San Francisco. However, protests continued to be held around the world as people felt left out of the benefits of technological improvement. Protests were held in China, as they had for 20 years because millions of factory workers were being laid off in favor of automated workers. The workers felt there was a vast conspiracy to hold them down, while the top 1% made all the money and kept it for themselves. Priya and her company Genomaly, continued to make progress in the cure of several important genetic diseases as well as understanding what the Omanji did to enhance the human genome.
“Did you hear the news,” Priya said as she entered her lab building early on a Monday morning, joining Sophie, Akna and Jamilla in the downstairs break room.
“No,” Sophie said. “I’ve been ignoring the news lately. It’s depressing. There are lots of good things happening right now that don’t make the news, so I’m focusing on that.”
Sophie brought up her Omanji network viewing screen and read the headlines.
“What? “How did this happen? They have your DNA? This is why I don’t monitor the news.”
“The speculation is they got my DNA from a cup I was using,” Priya said. “They isolated my genome. For the past several months, they’ve then selling it to new parents around the world. Another genie is out of the bottle.”
“Yeah, I heard about it on the news this morning,” Jamilla said.
“Who are ‘they’?” Akna said.
“Nobody knows who first got my DNA, but several dark web companies have been marketing it under the table. Now, anyone who wants my genome can have it and won’t be discovered until after the baby is born. Any geneticist working in any garage or warehouse in the world has the capability to make babies using my genome.”
“How do they know it’s your genome?” Sophie said.
“The government has all of our genomes,” Priya said. “It got them when we were in the compound. The FBI matched the genomes in the babies with my own genome.”
“Maybe someone in the government did it,” Akna said.
“I don’t know who did it,” Priya said. “But I do know I’m the mother of thousands of babies. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of us mods had their genomes stolen and sold.”
“I think you’re right,” Jamilla said. “Here’s a story indicating other genomes have been stolen. They’re in the process of identifying the genomes now. Who are buying these genomes?”
“Anyone who wants them. It tends to be upper income people with connections, but some lower income people are spending all of their savings in the hopes of having a genetically modified baby. They feel it’s their only way out of poverty. To have a smart child.”
Soon, Warren, Pablo, and Raven appeared at Priya’s office. They let themselves in with their security IDs.
“Did you hear the news?” Pablo said.
“Yes, that’s what we’re talking about,” Priya said as they walked into the secure conference room.
“We have patents on our genomes. What they’re doing is illegal,” Pablo said.
“As if that matters,” Priya said.
“We need to identify these people and sue them,” Pablo said.
“That won’t do any good,” Priya said. “It’s useless to try to sue millions of people doing illegal activities. You can’t sue illegal drug makers and traffickers. It’s a waste of time.”
“Then what can we do?” Warren said.
“You can’t stuff genies back into bottles,” Priya said. “All you can do is lessen the damage. We’re seeing the next step in evolution. It’s out of our hands. There are too many genies.”
“It’s not like you to give up,” Sophie said.
“I’m not giving up. I’m accepting the reality of human psychology. It’s impossible to control people when they’re driven to do something. Sometimes you can temporarily do it with police states, but those collapse after a few years or decades.”
“You should see what people are saying on Twitter,” Sophie said. “They think we should be locked up so nobody has access to our genomes.”
“That’s like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped,” Priya said. “We didn’t even know. I guess we were distracted. They’re selling our genomes around the world. It looks like hundreds of thousands of babies are being born with our genomes each month. They’re making hundreds of millions of dollars per month off our genomes.”
“People want smart kids,” Warren said. “Who can blame them?”
“You guys are more than just smart,” Jamilla said. “Have you noticed you don’t get into big fights? There are 25,000 of you. If you put 25,000 regular people into a situation like yours, they would not agree on what to do about it. They would end up fighting or splitting apart into factions. You guys get along a lot better than normal people. Sorry, I mean regular people. Well, I mean unmodified people.”
Priya smiled.
“It’s OK. I know what you mean. I hadn’t noticed it until you mentioned it now. We’re being ourselves, but we have emotions. I still get angry.”
“Yes,” Jamilla said. “But you’re not letting that anger end up in serious fights. You are better at dealing with your emotions and logically solving problems. You guys have high emotional IQs in addition to what we normally think of as a high IQ.”
“I see what you mean,” Sophie said. “We used to argue a lot more before we were modified.”
“Bok told us that they tried to make us less aggressive. They were unsure how to do it. So, they took samples of DNA from aggressive and non-aggressive humans and looked at the genetic differences. They put the average of the least aggressive humans into us.”
“It never crossed my mind but you’re right,” Warren said. “We don’t have real fights even when we disagree. We work it out. All 25,000 of us all over the world.”
Pablo smiled.
“I wonder if that will make me a bad lawyer.”
“Probably,” Sophie said. “We know how lawyers are.”
“Just how, are, lawyers?”
“You know how they are. I’m just stating the facts, as lawyers say. So, what are we going to do about our DNA being stolen? You know it’s happening at this very minute.”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Warren said. “There are too many people involved in this, working in too many countries.”
“Should we tell anyone about this?” Priya said. “The word is getting out fast.”
“As if the powers that be would want to help us,” Raven said.
“It’s not that,” Priya said. “I don’t want people thinking we planned this out. The conspiracy nuts will be all over this. If people realize we’re the victims, we may get more support. Or at least not lose more support. Hold on, my mom wants to connect.”
“Pree, do you know what’s happening?”
“About my DNA? Yes. We just found out.”
“The President contacted me just now. She wanted to know if I knew anything about this. I told her I didn’t, but I’d ask and get back to her. What should I tell her?”
“Tell her that if she wants to know something about me, contact me directly. She knows how to contact me.”
“She told me that you may not want to speak to her after what happened.”
“What? Is she afraid to talk to me? Tell her to contact me immediately.”
“Okay. Tell me what happens. I guess I’ll be the grandmother of millions.”
They disconnected.
“Pree, I think you have more power than you realize,” Raven said. “It’s more than economic power. I think the President feels intimidated by you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She just wants to avoid confrontation.”
Warren shook his head.
“No, there’s something else going on. This is part of the whole, distinct species, thing.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “They don’t know what to do about us. We’re dangerous.”
Priya raised her hand.
“Hold on, it’s the President. Hello?”
“Priya, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine. I’m getting back into the daily routine.”
“I hope you understand my reasoning for what I did.”
“Yes, I understand. You’re doing your job. My question is, what can we do about people stealing our DNA? It’s our property. Nobody has the right to steal it from us.”
“I’m not sure. I was hoping you knew what was happening. You know everything else.”
“We don’t know what every person on this planet is doing at all times. Only you guys trying to sterilize us. There are countless ways to obtain DNA. I don’t know how they got it, but it happened at least two years ago. I’m the mother of thousands. They’re trafficking our DNA like a common drug.”
“See if you can find out what’s happening,” the President said.
“Isn’t that the job of the FBI or somebody?”
“We are looking into it also. I’m sorry you’re in this position. You were abducted against your will and now you’re not a normal human being.”
“In most ways I’m as normal as anyone else. I have the same thoughts and emotions as any other human being.”
“Admit it, you guys aren’t regular human beings. We may not have your high IQs and longevity, but we’re not stupid.”
“Yes, we’ve been changed. Anyway, what should we do about these people stealing our DNA?”
“We’re instituting a zero-tolerance policy on using non-human DNA to interbreed with human DNA. This law goes into effect today. We already had a law, but it was obviously circumvented.”
“That sounds like the zero-tolerance drug laws from a few decades ago. You can’t do social engineering like that. It doesn’t work.”
“Doing something is better than doing nothing,” the President said.
“Not always,” Priya said. “We’ll try to find out what’s happening. I hope you do too.”
“Yes, we’ll put a lot of effort into this. It could be destabilizing for the entire human species over time. I’m sorry this has happened to you. I’ll do everything I can.”
They disconnected.
“At least she said she was sorry,” Priya said.
“Humans aren’t all bad,” Sophie said. “I mean people aren’t all bad.”
“We know what you mean,” Priya said. “She may still try to lock us all up for good. Don’t underestimate anyone.”
“We could make friends with the government,” Warren said. “But then it would look like a conspiracy. It might make things worse and even destabilize the governments in the US and elsewhere.”
People fall for conspiracy stories and other nonsense with no supporting evidence,” Priya said. “I wish we could program that trait out of the human genome.”
“I think the Omanji did that for us,” Sophie said.
“Yeah,” Priya said. “But what about the billions of people who latch onto every pseudo-scientific and conspiratorial explanation for everything?”
“They’ll be left behind,” Warren said. “But they’ll create a lot of trouble in the meantime. The further they get behind, the worse the problem will become. We need to double our efforts at keeping a level playing field for all.”