Interrupt (12 page)

“I don’t want to make it political,” Emily said.

“It’s not. It’s science.”

“The implications are too easy to twist around,” she said. “People will make it ugly.”

“Some people,” Chase said.

He was derisive, but Emily felt miserable about her results. She said, “Some of it
is
ugly, Chase.”

There were scientists, even doctors like Chase, who believed technology kept alive more and more individuals who would have died in other ages, thus weakening the gene pool with traits as slight or as self-destructive as myopia, IBS, diabetes, or schizophrenia.

Emily wasn’t so certain. Evolution had never been an organized, step-by-step process like those goofy charts of a fish who became a reptile who became a monkey who became a man. Life was loaded with dead ends and miracles. Natural selection took generations to produce new characteristics that might be lost in recessive genes, then reappear centuries later. The deterioration of humankind was one explanation for the rise in children who were cancer-prone, depressive, or autistic, but Emily wanted no part of reinforcing this theory, because the most glaring solution was straight out of Nazi Germany. Eugenic programs. Genocide. It was unthinkable.

Some people would refuse her cures. Many families championed their sons and daughters with ASD. They said autists were different, not inferior. The more militant groups claimed the condition represented higher evolution because of the savant skills a tiny percentage displayed in mathematics, musical ability, or other talents.

Emily knew her media release would bring a lot of heat. Even before today, she’d received hate mail on her company email. Some people reviled her merely for writing on the subjects of autism and biotech.

“Here’s the thing,” she said. “My data suggests ASD is a throwback to prehistoric modes of consciousness. Whether that’s better or worse isn’t a value judgment I’m prepared to make.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I do. If I publish something that says the genetic markers for autism are homologous to specific sequences in Neanderthal DNA, it’s like playing catch with a gun. Somebody will get hurt.”

“Are you talking about your mom?”

“I—” Emily shook her head.

He’s always surprising me,
she thought. Was he encouraging her to defy her mother? Chase had charmed her parents by attending Christmas services and Easter Vigil with her mother and talking football with her dad. Emily was pleased to think he’d choose her over them. He could be such a politician himself, wooing both sides.

And yet… her success would be his own. Chase might gain even more traction at the hospital if his wife was a Nobel contender.

Do you really love me for me? How much of it is because of my job?

“Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten into this business,” she said.

“What are you talking about? I’m proud of you,” Chase said. “You made the right choice today. Rocking the boat would be stupid. The vaccine can wait. Maybe it takes longer than you want, but either way, you win. This isn’t about right or wrong, babe. It’s right and right.”

Emily smiled. “So you don’t care if…”

“Better health means better lives for everyone,” Chase said. “I see it daily, people spending all their money and time just to stop hurting. You’re going to change the world.”

“I know.” Her smile faded.

“Your gene therapies are just the beginning.”

“We have to be very, very careful how we talk about intelligence,” she warned him. “Everyone assumes you personally support any theory you advance.”

And it gets worse,
she thought.

Long ago, offspring with greater reasoning had become more likely to thrive. They’d passed their intelligence on to their children—but at a steep cost. The gap in cancer rates between chimpanzees and
Homo sapiens
appeared to be due to how each species’ cells self-destructed, a biological process known as programmed cell death or apoptosis.

Cancer and cognitive dysfunction represented a bizarre seesaw.
Homo sapiens
produced neurons at a much higher rate than chimps. The flip side of the coin was that human beings also failed to destroy cells as quickly.

In the end, men had conquered the planet. A higher cancer risk was never an evolutionary pitfall since most cancers didn’t manifest until after people reached reproductive age. From a standpoint of sheer efficiency and species propagation, it was an excellent trade-off.

“I wouldn’t know where to start with a new paper,” Emily said. “There are so many variables.”

“Name one.”

“I’ll give you three,” she said. “Dietary, lifestyle, and environmental factors are all at play in comparing chimps’ cancer rates to ours. For one thing, high caloric diets are a massive trigger, especially diets rich in sugar. We’d need to separate out how much of the incidence of cancer is predicated on obesity.”

“So you don’t expect funding from Burger King,” Chase said. “So what?”

We’re so different,
Emily thought with an appreciative smile. She valued his support, but thrashing out her plans with him could be exhausting.

Chase didn’t understand how badly her trends were muddled. Nor was cancer a single disease. People tended to group more than two hundred unique pathologies under the term
cancer
and yet the fascinating truth was humankind appeared to be regaining the cancer resistance of their cousins in unconscious, involuntary ways.

One benefit of Down syndrome was tumor-suppressing genes on chromosome 21. People with Down’s had a wildly reduced incidence of most malignancies, as did those with many other cognitive diseases—but not autists.

ASD seemed to have no correlation with low cancer rates, yet overall the data was bewitchingly suggestive. Was the rise in mental disorders the first step in evolving into a more cancer-resistant human? Why would that happen? Could it be in response to the pollutants they’d dumped into their environment?

“My little worrier,” Chase said, reaching out to stroke her forearm. “Just do your work. Some people are always going to get their panties in a bunch.”

“You sound like Laura.”

“Yep.” Chase knew Laura was in his corner, and he knew Emily had a high regard for her sister’s opinion.

Does he know I’ve been having doubts about us?

“Thank you,” Emily said. “I mean it. You’re really working all night?”

“’Fraid so.”

“I love you,” she said, feeling inordinately fond of her arrogant, educated husband-to-be. They made a good team. “We should elope right now,” she said. As she spoke, she realized she wasn’t entirely kidding.

Chase saluted her with his glass of iced tea. “Your mom would kill us.”

“I don’t want to wait. We… We could start our honeymoon tomorrow. Tonight.” Emily laid her hand on his thigh under the table.

Chase stared at her. “You’re not serious,” he said.

“Aren’t I?”

She was a bit stung by the alarm in his eyes. Chase had always been bolder and more spontaneous, which were traits she admired. Either he had his own doubts about their marriage or he feared crossing her straightlaced mother.

Did she enjoy upsetting her mom? No. Her career choice was not a second child’s act of rebellion, trying to get her parents’ attention. Her mom should have been proud of her even if the Church frowned upon reproductive sciences including biology and genetics.

She gave Chase an impish grin, teasing him, testing him. “I want to do it. Road trip. Vegas. We’ll save at least five grand.”

“Emily, let’s wait.”

“You’re just mad you didn’t think of it first,” she said. Letting him off the hook, she laughed out loud.

“Besides, you need time to get your next paper together,” Chase said.

Maybe he was right. In many ways, her trend analysis was even more intriguing than her work developing gene therapies. Her data definitely needed more scrutiny. The nature of humankind was changing.

But what are we becoming?
Emily wondered.
And why?

She was halfway home when she left the 110 on the first off-ramp she saw, drove under the freeway, and took an on-ramp heading back in the direction she’d come.

Speeding south toward DNAllied, she was frustrated by the traffic. At 3:32, the 110 had clogged with the afternoon commute. At least her rental car, a Nissan hybrid, was even nicer than her Altima.

She didn’t want to lose her job, but she couldn’t ignore her belief that DNAllied would bury her data for a prenatal vaccine.
I can’t be that selfish,
she thought.
I have to do it. I’ll pirate my own data for the guys at the University of Texas.

“Arrg, I’m a pirate,” she said, trying to keep up her courage.

What if Ray was still at work?

The DNAllied building was on South Union Drive in a light industrial neighborhood between downtown L.A. and West Hollywood. Emily slowed as she reached her off-ramp and merged into the city. The
radio was playing an awesome Taylor Swift song. That felt like a good omen, but as she sat at a traffic light, her windshield glowed with bands of purple and red.

What in the world?
she thought, leaning over her steering wheel.

The radio was suddenly reduced to static. The clear sky erupted with color. Then her vision exploded with blinding white shapes and ghosts.

The next thing Emily knew, she was staggering through her own small hell, moving on foot on the black asphalt of a street. Her cheek felt bruised. Her sleeve was torn. Other people walked around her, many of them crying or yelling. Somewhere a dog barked. At first, the people’s voices were confused. Then the yelling grew louder.

Where am I?
she thought.

Office buildings, a Sizzler restaurant, and storefronts lined the block. Motionless cars surrounded her. Emily recognized the street as West 6th. She was two hundred yards from the freeway. She saw her rental car down the block.

Most of the abandoned vehicles were in clumps, joined by fender benders and bang-ups. A blue sedan had gone through the glass front of a convenience store. No one appeared to be driving, although she heard a few engines running.

As she watched, an old Buick nudged past a smaller car and rolled several feet before crunching into the side of an SUV. No one sat behind the wheel. The Buick must have been left in drive. But not everyone had left their vehicles. Some people, disoriented, seemed to be trapped or unable to open their doors.

The mayhem reminded Emily of her crash that morning.

It’s happening again,
she thought, sorting through her broken memory.
But what’s happening!?

SOUTH CHINA SEA

D
rew hauled his jet up into the sunrise, twisting his head from side to side. The
Samuel Grant
lay below. A second Aegis destroyer was also in sight. His gaze left the ocean for the sky. What if more enemy fighters were inbound?

The Chinese MiG had just swept overhead, passing Drew at a downward angle as he climbed to 3000 feet.

We’re too low,
he thought.

To the west, the dark landmass of Vietnam had brightened in the sunrise, its coastline emerging from shadows to brown and green. Yellow light glistened on the always-changing surface of the ocean. Then the MiG slammed into the water.

“Shit,” Drew said. He’d had nothing to do with the other pilot’s death, but the sight filled him with dread. He thumbed his radio. “Six Oh Two, this is—”

“Missiles four o’clock high inbound!” Bugle yelled.

Drew forgot everything else. He dove for the ocean again as Bugle relayed their position and status on their control frequency, yammering through as much data as possible in case they were hit.

“This is Five Oh Four we’re under fire from bandits inside our screen I think in sector ten we’re fielding an EMP attack repeat a major EMP attack!” Bugle yelled as Drew accelerated into a steep turn to his right, firing chaff and flares from his aircraft’s belly. With luck, the air-to-air missiles behind him would retarget the incandescent chaff.

“No good! Still tracking!” Bugle screamed.

Drew punched more chaff and flares, executing a thirty degree cut left.