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Cracking the Code Life As We'll Know ItBy Rick Horowitz Down at the neighborhood Genome Dome, they were already waiting in line. The sun had barely cleared the horizon, but there, in the edgy angles of morning light, an observant passerby couldn't help but notice two parallel lines snaking down the street from twin titanium portals. Winston T. was nothing if not observant -- it ran in his family. His zip craft hovered momentarily to afford a better view of the busy scene, then at a single word from Winston, glided off again toward home. It was the first Saturday of the month, here in Year 17 of the Helix, and Winston knew just what that meant: It was 2-for-1 Day on the ChromoScan. "Maybe later," Winston muttered to himself. "Later, after the crowds are gone." It wasn't that Winston was uncomfortable in crowds; he'd had that corrected years ago. It was the small talk he couldn't abide -- everyone cranking out the mindless chatter as the line moved forward, then paused, then moved again. "Insipid conversation," Winston wondered. "Nature or nurture?" The Sponse Box clicked to life on the console. "Evidence is conflicting," it announced in a mellow baritone. "For additional information, select -- " But Winston wasn't in the mood, not even for synthetic jabber. If he were in charge (he'd pondered all this one endless afternoon while waiting for the Monitor Bot to adjust his settings), he'd knock out that chatter gene without the slightest hesitation -- assuming there was a chatter gene. He wouldn't miss it at all. In his calmer moments, Winston understood perfectly: People chattered at the Genome Dome because they didn't want to say anything important. As long as they could prattle on about the weather or the price of fuel cells, they didn't have to reveal exactly what it was they were looking for -- an adenine splash, a trait tuck, even a simple replication. It wasn't like it was in the first days, when only the well-to-do and the self-obsessed took advantage of the new possibilities. All the procedures were much more common now, and yet -- And yet the whole idea still bothered some people. For every one of Winston's neighbors eager to brag about the (now) green-eyed baby on the way, or the disabling condition barely avoided, there was another one perfectly willing to take her chances, to leave well enough alone. Not that there were any guarantees, whichever way you played it. What about poor Justin P., down the block? He'd been through the ChromoScan a month or two ago, bought himself an extra 30 disease-free years and was so ecstatic leaving the Genome Dome he never even saw the bus. So much for genetic engineering. There was another reason, Winston knew, why people in line prattled on about the weather or the price of fuel cells: They were scared out of their minds. The ChromoScan could look into the future, which was an altogether remarkable thing. But the future itself -- the future isn't always so remarkable. There are pitfalls out there, Winston knew. Susceptibilities. Sometimes they're clear, and sometimes the Chromo counselor merely says, "We think we see something." "'Something'?" Winston had replied, his heart suddenly sprinting, a perfectly nice Saturday morning curdled. "We think," the counselor had repeated. "We'll take another look -- come back next weekend." Winston turned his zip craft around, let it find a space in the Genome Dome lot. Waiting won't change anything, he told himself. He took four slow, deep breaths, then joined one of the lines. An hour and ten minutes later, he was seated in a shimmering glass cubicle, knee to knee with a pleasant-looking man in a lab coat. The man was smiling. He was smiling at Winston. "Just a little typo in your code," the man was saying. "It's easy to fix -- take a week's worth of these." There were more details, though Winston heard none of them. When it was over, he dropped the pills into his shirt pocket and pumped the counselor's hand -- five, six, seven times. He strode back down the hall, down the stairs, and out through the portals into the bright morning sunshine. Life was good. Life was very good. He looked both ways before he stepped off the curb. Posted 6/27/00. Are
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Rick Horowitz