Diaspora Ad Astra (19 page)

“Wait, isn’t she pregnant? Can you receive glutathione injections when you’re pregnant?” Elaine asked.

“No, she did it before she got pregnant,” Amanda said. “And it’s not glutathione. It’s experimental genetic something, and—" she paused for
dramatic effect, "—it’s free."

“Hold on. Hold on. Wait a minute. Experimental?” Elaine said, shaking her head. “Amanda, are you crazy? We’re not rats. They can’t do experiments
on us.”

“Elaine, didn’t you hear me? It’s free!”

“I don’t care if it’s free,” Elaine said, her right hand waving aside Amanda’s argument. “I don’t want to be experimented on. What if
we get cancer or something? Look at what happened to those people injected with the experimental kind of glutathione. They started having seizures and tics.”

“That wasn’t experimental glutathione! It was fake glutathione. Besides, they won’t be injecting us with glutathione. It’s something else, and you
won’t need to keep having it injected twice a month like gluta. They give it to you one time, and that’s it, for the rest of your life,” Amanda said. “
Hay
, I
can’t wait to be white and pretty, and get a boyfriend.”

The elevator doors opened upon reaching the ninth floor. They stepped out and started looking for the clinic.

“I don’t know. Experimental? Sounds scary,” Elaine said.

“It works, Elaine. Look at my sister-in-law,” Amanda said.

“She probably used other stuff, as well,” Elaine said.

They finally reached the clinic. They opened the door and stepped inside. The clinic looked impressive. Silk wallpaper wrapped the walls of the clinic, and the air smelled of
ylang-ylang. On the wall, facing the door, hung a huge picture of a galaxy. Elaine and Amanda peered at it and felt like they were looking out a window from a space ship.

A tall, slender young woman in an expensive-looking business suit came out through the hallway. She looked like a model from a fashion magazine, literally, as if someone had
picked out a model’s picture and made it flesh. Her hair was long and shiny, and her skin looked incredibly smooth and luminous white. Her face was symmetrical in every way, chiseled to
perfection.

“Welcome to Gene Rx. I’m Ingrid, the clinic manager. May I be of assistance?” she said.

Elaine and Amanda stood there staring at Ingrid with their mouths slightly hanging open. Amanda attempted to say something, but nothing came out. Finally, Elaine held her
breath, stepped forward, and said, “We’re here for the experiments,” she breathed out, “The skin-whitening experiments.”

***

Ingrid invited them inside the consultation room. She explained to them that they were not doing experiments, rather, clinical trials. There was a difference, she told them,
although she did not elaborate. She explained that the substance they were testing would go deep down into one of the genes responsible for skin color.

“This substance, hopefully, will affect the expression of gene SLC24A5, the skin color gene, allowing the change in skin color from dark to light,” Ingrid said.

The two women were hardly listening to Ingrid’s explanation. They were fantasizing about how they would look after the procedure.

Ingrid gave them questionnaires and forms to fill out and sign, and then stood up.

“Of course, not everyone qualifies. The questionnaire and the subsequent physical examination via Internal Body Imaging or IBI will reveal if you qualify for the clinical
trial.” She gave them her pearly-white teeth smile, turned around and left.

***

“I can’t believe I didn’t qualify,” Amanda said. She slammed her purse onto the back seat of the cab as she got in. Elaine got in after her and pulled
the door close.

“
Manong
, Taft Avenue corner Quirino,” Elaine said to the cab driver. The cab driver nodded and set the meter.

Elaine looked out the window. Amanda was still going on about how she should have been qualified, but Elaine was only half-listening. She was recalling the events of the past
hour-and-a-half. It felt like a dream. Everything had happened so fast. One minute, she was hesitant to do it, the next minute she was signing her life away.

She fell asleep during the infusion of the substance and suffered from abdominal cramps when she woke up. The physician, Dr. Cruz, informed her that the cramps were a common
side effect and that there was nothing to worry about. She should see dramatic results within 48 hours, and should come back for a follow-up in a week. Dr. Cruz looked equally stunning. She and
Ingrid looked like they belonged to a different breed of humans, if there were such a thing. They were impossibly flawless. They had no moles, no skin marks, no wrinkles, and absolutely no
imperfections, whatsoever—visually, at least.

“—come back after a few months, maybe I’ll qualify by then. If only I knew why I had been disqualified,” Amanda said.

“What?” Elaine asked, shaken out of her dream state. She turned to look at Amanda.

“Oh wow, Elaine, it’s starting to work,” Amanda said. She opened her purse, took out a small mirror, and handed it to Elaine.

Elaine took the mirror, looked at her face, and said, “Oh my god, I have never seen anything work this fast.”

***

Elaine looked at her reflection on a spoon that she had just rinsed and gave out a sigh. She’d just had dinner with Danny, her husband, who was now brewing coffee.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Danny asked. He pulled up a chair to sit in as he waited for the coffee.

She yanked a dishtowel from its holder, wiped the spoon dry, and set it down.

“I’m blotchy,” she said. “I mean, my color is uneven. See, my face is great, it’s much lighter than before, but my neck is not. And look at my
legs—” she lifted her skirt, “—my left thigh is still dark.”

Danny smiled, reached out his hands, and caressed her thighs. She slapped his hands with the dishtowel. He shook his head and chuckled.

“You’re exaggerating. It’s not that bad, and besides, didn’t you say it’ll take 48 hours to take full effect?” he said.

Elaine did not answer. The coffee had finished brewing. Danny stood up to pour himself a cup, and then returned to his seat.

“You know, I still can’t believe you went through with it. I thought you were okay with the papaya soap. Did you even ask about side effects? I can see Amanda doing
this, but not you,” he said.

Elaine sat in the seat next to him, propped her elbows on the table, and cupped her face.

“I don’t know. I was just curious; maybe get a free consultation, but nothing more. I told her that I didn’t want it, especially after she said it was
experimental, but when we got there and was greeted by Ingrid, I was mesmerized. I thought the treatment could probably make me look like her.”

“Who’s Ingrid? What does she look like?” he asked. He took a small sip of his coffee, and then set down the cup.

“She was the manager, and she was gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. And when I met the doctor, oh, I became even more convinced. They looked alike, but not really.
They’re probably aliens,” she shook her head, “From Planet Gorgeous.”

Danny pulled his seat closer to Elaine, wrapped his right arm around her, and kissed her on her neck. She smelled faintly of ylang-ylang.

“You’re gorgeous, too. Maybe, just maybe, you’re also an alien from another planet,” he said. He slipped his left hand under her skirt, buried his face
in her hair, and whispered in her ear, “We’ve never done it in the kitchen. I think it’s time we try.”

***

A week after the treatment, Elaine went back to Gene Rx clinic for her follow-up.

“Good morning, Elaine. Welcome back,” a woman said.

“Hi,” Elaine said. She looked intently at the woman. “I don’t think I’ve met you before, just Ingrid and Dr. Cruz. How did you know my
name?”

The woman touched her face and looked alarmed for a tiny fraction of a second, but then recovered.

“From the visitor log,” she said. She gave Elaine her pearly-white smile.

“Oh, right,” Elaine said. She noticed that her smile looked like Ingrid’s smile, probably due to the whiteness of their teeth.

“By the way, my name is—” she paused for a moment, “—Ela. Please follow me to the exam room.”

***

Elaine stripped off her clothes and looked at herself in the mirror on the wall of the exam room. She still could not believe the change in her skin color. Her skin had become
five shades lighter, overall. Even her nipples and her areola had become pinkish. She put on a disposable hospital gown. Dr. Cruz came into the room, performed a visual assessment of Elaine’s
progress and set up the IBI scanner. She told Elaine to lie down on the bed and relax, and then left the room. As Elaine tried to relax to the humming sound of the scanner, her thoughts drifted
towards Ela.

***

Elaine went home after her follow-up at Gene Rx. Dr. Cruz hadtold her that the infusion was a success and that she should come back in three months for another scan. She sat on
the couch, turned on the TV, and kept surfing, unable to concentrate on any one show. Something didn’t feel right. She kept thinking about Ela—how everything about her looked uncannily
similar to Ingrid and how she kept touching her face, as if she were checking the contours of her chin and her nose. She dropped the TV remote, picked up her Internet tablet, opened the browser,
and searched for genetics. She started reading about genetics and everything else related to it. Her browsing eventually led her to clinicaltrials.gov, a database of clinical trials around the
world. She searched for genes and got 112 hits, none of which was for skin genes. She tapped a finger to her lips as she thought. After a while, she typed Philippines, and got 30 hits, but nothing
for genes or for Gene Rx. Then she searched for skin whitening, and got one result: a test for the effectiveness of glutathione isomers, but it had concluded a year ago. Elaine sighed, turned off
the tablet, and set it aside. Well, at least, her skin was fairer now.

***

Two months later, Elaine came to see her gynecologist, Dr. Fernan, who commented that she looked brighter. When asked what she came in for, Elaine said that she might be
pregnant. Dr. Fernan gave her a small cup and instructed her to collect midstream urine for pregnancy testing, for which she tested positive.

“Congratulations, Elaine. I know this is very exciting for you, but I need to inform you of some changes you need to do to protect your baby, including stopping the use
of glutathione or whatever it is that you’re using for skin whitening during pregnancy and breast-feeding.”

“Oh, it’s not gluta, doc,” Elaine said. “It’s genetics.”

“Genetics?”

“Genetics is—”

“I know what genetics is,” Dr. Fernan said.

“Oh, of course, you’re a doctor, of course you would know, of course,” Elaine said. She turned bright pink in the face.

Dr. Fernan thought for a while, and then said, “Gene Rx, is it not?”

Elaine nodded, still feeling warm in the cheeks.

“Elaine, you’re the fourth person I know to have undergone skin whitening via Gene Rx. When did you receive the drug?” Dr. Fernan asked.

“Two months ago,” Elaine said.

“And you’re two months pregnant now. The three other women also got pregnant around the same time they received the trial drug.”

“They did? What a coincidence,” Elaine said.

“Indeed,” Dr. Fernan said.

***

Although excited about the confirmation of her pregnancy, Elaine did not head home immediately to tell Danny of the wonderful news. Instead, she went to the hospital’s
coffee shop, ordered hot chocolate, and did some thinking. She thought about the other women who also got pregnant, about falling asleep during the infusion, about getting abdominal cramps
afterwards, about Ingrid and Ela, about how quickly her skin had become fairer, and about how she felt odd about all this.

She started to feel the onset of a headache and decided to go home. As she stepped outside the coffee shop, she noticed a poster tacked on the bulletin board near the
elevators. The poster announced the opening of a fertility clinic on the fifth floor.

Elaine remembered an item from the Gene Rx questionnaire: Are you sexually active?

Her heart started beating faster. She took out her mobile phone and called Amanda.

“Amanda, I’m on my way to Gene Rx, meet me there. I’ll explain everything to you later. And can you call your sister-in-law? I need you to ask her
something.”

***

Elaine’s unexpected visit to the clinic surprised Ingrid. She wasn’t scheduled to come in until a month later. Elaine was about to say something when her phone
rang. It was Amanda.

“Elaine, she said she thinks she might have fallen asleep, but she wasn’t sure, although she doesn’t remember much during the infusion, so she might have. Why
are you asking, Elaine? And, yeah, she had those cramps, too, like the—”

Elaine ended the call and slipped the phone into her bag.

“Is there a problem, Elaine? You look worried,” Ingrid said.

“What’s this thing you’re running here? Elaine asked.

“What do you mean? This is a clinical trial clinic, we—”

“Yeah, clinical trial, but what are you really testing? Skin whitening? Is that all? Or are you testing something else?” Elaine asked. Her jaw was tight.

“Elaine, please calm down. It’s not good for your condition,” Ingrid said.

“W-what did you say? My condition? How did you know about my condition?” Elaine asked.

Ingrid looked distressed for a moment, but quickly recovered. Elaine recognized that expression.

“Elaine, please,” Ingrid said. She led Elaine to the consultation room. While Elaine still had her back towards her, she pressed a small red button under the light
switch of the room, and then closed the door. She walked towards the center of the room where Elaine was standing.

“Tell me, Ingrid, what condition are you talking about?”

“Well, Elaine, I am talking about… the… um.”

Ingrid turned around and walked towards the red button on the wall, intending to press it again, but Elaine thought she was running away, so she grabbed Ingrid by the left
elbow and spun her around. When she saw her face, it was no longer the face of Ingrid, but of Ela. Elaine released Ingrid or Ela and backed away slowly.