The Visionary
by Adam Williams
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
National Human Genome Research Institute,
Bethesda, Maryland, USA. 1st September. Year ten.
“Henry, you must know why you’re here.” Richard glared at him from across his high desk. The office was much larger now than it had once been and decked out in lavish finery. Richard had changed much in two years. He was a more solemn figure now. He had gained weight, and his face seemed younger, and his raven black hair was thick and luscious.
“Why is that, Richard?”
“That is Dr Richard to you.”
“You have always called me Henry, and I little respect you, so I think that Richard will suit me just fine.”
Richard shot a hard sneer at Henry. “Are you seriously saying that you’ve not even the faintest idea why you’re here?”
“That is precisely what I’m saying, Richard. Do you want me to say it again? Write it out perhaps?”
“Oh, be quiet, Henry. I don’t even know where to begin listing the things you’ve done wrong.”
“I have made this place what it is today. Where would you be without me?”
“I said be quiet, Henry. Now, what do you think the H in NHGRI stands for?”
“What?”
“You heard what I said, Henry. Answer the question.”
“I am the foremost scientific mind of my generation, of any generation. I shall not be treated in this way by a fat, impetuous oaf such as you. Who do you think it is that brought in the money to this organisation that you have squandered on hair extensions and a big, new office.”
“Answer the question, Henry.”
“The H stands for ‘human.’”
“Correct. Now, if the word ‘human’ is in our organisation’s name, then, please, tell me why the majority of your work has been focused on gene engineering in animals? Let us see.” He pressed a contact on his computer, and the screen blared to life. Within a few minutes, he had found the list he was looking for.
“You have, over the past two years, used our facilities to produce larger salmon, to help wipe out a number of common marine parasites and certain mosquito species and to reduce the production of Trimethylamine in a number of fish species. The only human research you have done is purely cosmetic, and you’ve stopped even doing that. This doesn’t sound very expedient for the benefit of the human race now, does it?”
“What are you talking about? Of course it benefits humanity! Larger fish mean fewer people go hungry and, by eradicating marine parasites, I also help more people eat, as fewer fish die. Also, not everyone likes the taste of fish, do they? So, is it not a benefit to reduce Trimethylamine, which gives the fish its taste. How does that not benefit? And, furthermore, we get money from Tri-Marine International for our work. Everyone wins, everyone benefits.”
Richard laughed, a laugh that seemed to be filled with deep resentment and burning, unrelenting anger. “Not everyone benefits now, do they?”
“What are you trying to imply, Richard?”
“I am not implying anything. I am simply stating that your ‘cures’ aren’t all that beneficial now, are they?”
Henry said nothing, but his upper lip quivered and curled into a cruel sneer.
“Global infertility rates have almost doubled since your cure has been in practice. Rates for birth defects, testicular and ovarian cancer, Anencephaly, stillbirth and Down’s syndrome have all risen as well. And don’t even get me started on the increased infant mortality rates in Africa and Asia, caused by malaria, or the lung defects developing in the children of people who have taken your cystic fibrosis treatment.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do, that’s why you’ve been doing research into making infertile the anopheles mosquitoes that spread malaria. Maybe you could just try to cure their cystic fibrosis instead, that should do the trick.”
Henry said nothing, he could feel his face flush red. Anger, pure and terrible, was seeping through his veins.
“Henry, it’s simple enough to keep these things quiet when you’re making cures for cancer, but you’re not doing that anymore. They won’t ignore the truth unless you give them a reason not to.”
“You haven’t called me in here just to throw allegations at me, Richard. Why am I here?”
“Because you’re fired, Henry.”
“No!”
“No?”
“No. I quit.” He rose from his desk and made his way slowly to the door. “Oh, and by the way, Richard. If these so-called truths of yours ever come out, I will make sure to inform the authorities of how complicit you were. Maybe I could even tell them about how you used your power and influence to have an affair with an intern and then gave her a senior position in this organisation. Or perhaps how you have been blackmailing one Edward Jones to keep the whole thing quiet.”
“That’s not true,” Richard stammered.
“It is just as true as your allegations about my cures, Richard.” He turned on his heel and strode promptly out of the office, letting the door slam shut behind him.
* * *
The Marshall Institute for Research on Applied Genetics,
San Diego, California, USA. 3rd July. Year seventeen.
“Welcome to the Institute,” Henry said, with a broad smile, as warm and genuine as he could muster. “It’s a pleasure to have you here.”
Sarah shook her head. “Henry, why am I here? You dragged me all the way out to California, so tell me, what do you want?” She had aged. Her eyes were darker, shadowed by large bags, and lines of care wound around her face, like contours on a map. But, still, she was much the same in Henry’s eyes. “I know you pulled strings with the higher-ups at the Institute to arrange this sabbatical. You are a friend of William, and he’s the head of the Institute now, as you no doubt know. So, please, tell me why I’m here.”
“I want to offer you a job. I know that you hate teaching; you used to, anyway. I’m offering you a senior research role. I’m willing to pay triple what the Institute currently pays you.”
“You know that Phillip and I divorced, don’t you?”
“You did?”
“Yes, and you know that. That is no doubt why you have asked me to be here.”
“What? Why would you say that, Sarah? I am offended. What reason have I given you to think that my offer is anything other than professional?”
“Oh, don’t act like that, Henry. It’s sickening. And, worse than that, you’re married, from what I hear. To Jessica Burrows isn’t it, the news reporter?”
“Yes, Jessica and I got married last year. You didn’t accept the invitation to the wedding. Look, you’re here anyway for a few weeks. At least let me take you on a tour of the Institute, and you can think over my offer.”
“Fine,” she said, already regretting her decision.
Henry and Sarah strolled along the campuses of the MIRAGE. It was a stunning and open place, with modern buildings and beautiful green lawns. Henry led her first to the research facilities. It consisted of a series of large laboratories equipped with the newest and most cutting-edge technologies. Henry led her into one of the labs, and watched her take it all in. People in white coats hurried around the lab, all abustle like a colony of ants. “Well, what do you think?” Henry said, with a smug smirk.
“It’s impressive enough,” she said, with a mixture of awe and repulsion.
“We have seventeen of these throughout the grounds. We are working on cures for almost every major genetic disease.” He gestured to one of the lab-coat wearing workers to approach. A gaunt man waddled over. He was tall, with a pale complexion and dark hair, with thick, black glasses placed over his beady eyes. “Tell me, what are you working on here?”
“A Huntington’s cure, sir.” His voice was nasal and high-pitched.
“Good, get back to work.” As the man shuffled away, Henry turned to Sarah, almost expectantly. “Well?”
“You said seventeen years ago that you’d make the cure for Huntington’s.”
“Well, my Institute is working on it now. Besides, I had work to do, I made cures for cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. I made the cure for cancer.”
“No, you sold out. You made cures for the most common diseases you could, for fame and publicity, not for the benefit of mankind. And you didn’t make a cancer cure, you just made a cancer therapy. Don’t kid yourself.”
The tour continued on, and Henry led Sarah across a lush lawn to the Skinner building, where the majority of the cosmetic research carried out in the Institute occurred. Inside, it was much the same as the other research labs had been, complete with the white-coated scientists and technicians. “So,” Henry said, “this is where we carry out our cosmetic research.”
“Cosmetic?”
“Yes. The research aims to help cultivate particular phenotypes in offspring.”
Sarah was speechless.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. It is a much better practice than IVF. Instead of discarding foetuses, we simply use our technology to edit its genetic composition. We usually only do simple, surface-level changes, like hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, height, stuff like that. We are, however, working on being able to change the sex of the child, but that is still very much in the working phase.”
“This... this is barbaric, it is inhumane, unethical, downright evil.”
“I resent that, Sarah. Our work here helps countless lives. We often switch off the genes that cause obesity, giving those children better standards of living. Is that not helping?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. But how does hair colour, eye colour, anything else you do here help?”
“We make lives better Sarah! Our motto here at the Institute is ad humanitatem adiuvandam: to help humanity. Everything that we do is for our patients. And besides, certain eye colours have been shown to correlate to higher risks of developing cataracts or cancers. And, hair colour has been linked to conditions such as alopecia.”
“You really have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“Not everything, but it’s nice that you think so.”
“You make me sick, Henry.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“I don’t have much choice do I? You got me stuck out here for a week, and you’ll probably complain to Anthony if I don’t follow along, so let’s get this over with quickly.”
“Good, I’ll take you to the zoo next.”
The “zoo,” as Henry called it, was a small, squat building. It was perfectly rectangular and painted a dark black. He gestured to Sarah to go inside. The reception was dusky, and they hurried quickly through. The entire building seemed spotless, as though people little dared to make a mess. Henry led Sarah through double doors and into a large room. The room was empty, save for a few chairs, that faced the far wall. The far wall was, unlike the others, made of one-way glass. “Through there,” Henry said, gesturing vaguely at the far wall, “you can see some of our live experiments.”
Sarah approached the glass tentatively. Through it, she could see what looked like the inside of a barn. There was hay strewn on a concrete floor and cows milling about sluggishly. The cows however were far larger than ordinary. They were at once fatter and more muscular than regular cows, so much so that Sarah at first mistook them for bulls. They all seemed very tired and took deep gulps of breath. “What have you done, Henry?”
“That is one of the experiments we have been doing for our sponsor JBS SA. Those cows are larger than any others you’ll see around, engineered that way to give more meat. Besides that, they are resistant to most diseases and pests, and we even made sure that they have a lower metabolic rate so that the meat they give has more energy in it.”
“Henry, this is grotesque. I don’t want to see anything else.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Henry, they can hardly breathe, they hardly move. Those things shouldn’t exist.”
“You are always like this. You never see the good in what I do.”
“There is no good in what you do.”
“Go then; leave, if you want to be like that. I didn’t even show you the best bit.”
“Don’t tell me there’s something worse than this.”
“Not worse, no. Look, come on, I’ll show you this one last thing, and then you can leave.” He gestured her on. She trailed slowly behind him, loathing herself already for doing so.
The door seemed unassuming enough. It was a simple wooden door, with a flaking green paint job. “Behind there,” Henry said, with a smile that made Sarah wary, “is the future.” He pushed the door open. She entered, into the darkness of the room, groping for a light switch. She found one, flicked it and regretted it.
She could hear them before she could see them. A cacophony of wails, of shrieks, of screams, of squeals, all coalescing together in her ears. When she did see them, she was almost sick. They looked like pigs, though they were not. They had the bodies of pigs, but those bodies were misshapen and deformed. They were gaunt things, too. She could see their spines through their sallow, pink skin. Worst of all were their faces. They were just wrong. They were kept in cages, stacked row upon row, knee-deep in their own filth
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
“Wh-wh,” the words caught in her constricting throat. “What are they?”
“Hybrids. They are probably the most exciting thing here. I hybridised pig foetuses with human DNA. They are being bred for organ transplants with humans. The organs can be harvested on demand, and there will be less rejection than there would be using normal pig organs.”
Rage filled Sarah, and her hand balled into a fist. In an instant, before she knew what she was doing, she slammed it into Henry’s smug face. She drew blood. “Those things,” she said, “shouldn’t exist. They are wretched abominations that should be killed. They are nothing more than testaments to the idol of your ego. I hate you, Henry Marshall.”
“Sarah,” he said, his calm demeanour finally cracking, anger seeping into his voice. “Shut up.”
“I hate you!”
“I said shut up!” He was screaming now, as loud as he could. “I am a visionary, Sarah, a visionary in my field. I have single-handedly done more for genetics than anyone else in the history of mankind. I am the future. But am I thanked for it? No. For every success, people kick me down. I have had enough. I have done everything that I can to help, and you act as if I’m doing something wrong. So you take that back, Sarah, you accept the cushy job I’ve offered you, and let us have a happily ever after.”
“Or what? You can’t do a thing. Everything you’ve done has been for your own gain. You have sacrificed your morals to your own ambition. You have done nothing to help anyone except yourself. You are only after fame and power. You disgust me!”
He didn’t think. His hand just raised and slapped her hard across the face. She fell to the floor, blood gushing into her mouth. Promptly, she rose and strode away without another word.
Henry grabbed at her, tears forming in his eyes, clawing at her desperately so she wouldn’t go, so she wouldn’t leave him alone again. When he saw it was no avail, he sank to the floor, tears pooling around him, squeals reverberating in his ears. “Why?” he stammered. “Why don’t they ever see that I’m a visionary?”
Copyright © 2025 by Adam Williams
