Read Perfectible Animals: A Post Apocalyptic Technothriller (EidoGenesis Book 1) Online
Authors: Thomas Norwood
Perfectible Animals: A Post Apocalyptic Technothriller (EidoGenesis Book 1) (33 page)
“So, despite the way this information was extracted, you are still admitting that everything you told us was the truth?”
“Yes,” Dylan says.
“Thank you, your honor.” Mr Brown turns back to his desk and sits down as if he’s just won the trial.
I feel my body collapsing under me.
Finally, it comes time for us to make our case.
“Michael, would you mind telling the court exactly what you were planning on doing with these modified children of yours?” Barnaby says.
“As you have heard, I have been involved in a project to modify the human immune system to make people more resistant to disease. Having seen my wife suffer from HIV-4, I know how terrifying and debilitating it can be for both the sufferer and the families of someone who has a life-threatening illness. Given that governments are now involved in bio-warfare, and that there are only going to be more diseases than ever in the future, I wanted to create an immune system which would protect future generations against this suffering.”
“And have you succeeded in doing this?”
“Yes, I have.”
“There have been some problems, though, haven’t there?”
“Yes. The modified children have started to breed viruses that are a potential threat to normal, unmodified human beings. Because their tolerance levels to viruses are much higher, the viruses have a chance to mutate when the modified children are in close proximity to one another.”
“Is this something you anticipated might happen?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Why not?”
“Nobody could have. There are always more precautions you can take in experimentation like this, but at some point you have to take a risk. If we didn’t take that risk, cures for many of the world’s diseases would never be found. Cures which save millions of lives.”
“Now that you know it is a risk, why is it that the code for this modification has been made freely available to the public?”
James informed me last night that pills containing our modifications had been discovered on the black market. They were starting to be spread around the world. There was also information available on the net as to exactly what those modifications would do for both you and your children, and the likely consequences of not taking them.
“I have no idea,” I say. “I was arrested before that happened.”
“So who is in charge in your organization, EidoGenesis?”
“I was, along with a number of others.”
“Did you give the order for this modification to be released?”
“It was always our intention to release it once it was finished, but if I had had a choice I would not have released it so soon.”
“And what did you imagine would happen once it was released?”
“The modification we were working on was designed to protect
Homo sapiens
as much as it was to protect their offspring. We imagined that eventually our new species,
Homo novus
, would begin to take over from
Homo sapiens
.”
“So you imagined that
Homo novus
would wipe
Homo sapiens
out?”
“No. I believe that
Homo sapiens
are taking care of that themselves.”
There is silence in the courtroom.
“Would you care to elaborate, Michael?”
“Science has proven that global warming has reached the point where, within the next fifty years, eighty percent of
Homo sapiens
on the planet will be wiped out. To stop themselves being part of that eighty percent, governments and corporate leaders around the world are resorting to bio-warfare, wiping each other out in the millions but protecting themselves. The problem is, this is a zero-sum game. We’re all going to lose. So what I imagined happening was a slow replacement of the surviving
Homo sapiens
with
Homo novus
, much in the same way
Homo sapiens
took over from Neanderthals.
Homo novus
is not only better adapted for disease, but they are also, thanks to their augmented cooperation, much more likely to establish a fair and just society.”
“So you did want
Homo novus
to take over from
Homo sapiens
?”
“Let’s not talk about them as if they are two completely separate species. They are identical to humans, in fact they are humans. The only difference is, they are better adapted for the future. A future that we’re creating.”
After lunch, Danny Brown gets up to cross examine me. This has always been the risk with putting me on the stand, but it is one we thought was necessary to take.
“Michael, can you please explain to us why you didn’t hand the modified children over to the government as soon as you realized they were a potential threat to the population?”
Without being able to say anything about the government’s role in the mass-murder of those people once living in the de-reg zone, explaining this is going to be hard.
“Quarantining the children on the islands was the safest and quickest way of dealing with the situation.”
“Do you really think you had the right to make that decision? To potentially put at risk the population of this country?”
“As I said, I believed it was the best thing we could do to protect the population, and to protect those children.”
“And you didn’t think it was necessary to report this incident?”
“We didn’t have time. I was arrested before we’d even had time to finish dealing with it.”
“Were you yourself not about to flee the country at the time of your arrest?”
“I wasn’t fleeing the country. I was going where I was most needed — to help the modified children and their mothers settle on the New Church islands.”
“Can you tell us exactly who was behind this project, Michael? Who was funding and supporting it?”
“You mean apart from the government? We did receive a fairly large grant from them.”
“Yes. Apart from the government.”
“The name of the company was HGM Industries. My original company, Geneus, was also involved, but they pulled out about two years ago for financial reasons.”
“You said before that governments and corporations are resorting to bio-warfare, and that you did what you did to protect people from that, but weren’t you yourself resorting to bio-warfare to help your new species survive?”
“That was never my intention. As I said, our modifications were also designed to help existing
Homo sapiens
survive. What would be the point of modifying children if they killed their own parents with diseases before they were even old enough to look after themselves?”
Barnaby and Danny give their closing statements and then for nearly three days, the jury deliberates. On the fourth morning, I once again sit in the courtroom. Once everyone is seated, the jury files slowly in.
“Has the jury made their decision?” the judge asks the foreman.
“Yes your honor, we have.”
“And how find you?”
The woman stands up and looks across at me. “On the count of intent to release a bio-weapon on Australian soil, we find the defendant not guilty. On the count of organization of terrorist activities, we find the defendant not guilty. On the count of conspiracy against the Australian people, we find the defendant not guilty. On the count of reckless endangerment of human life, we find the defendant guilty. On the count of attempt to avoid prosecution, we find the defendant guilty. On the count of withholding information of terrorist activities, we find the defendant guilty. On the count of conspiring with a terrorist organization, we find the defendant guilty.”
Two days later, I sit before the judge for sentencing.
“Michael Khan, given that you still refuse to disclose the names of the other members of the organization for whom you were working, I hereby sentence you to fifteen years in prison without parole.”
E
PILOGUE
I SPEND MOST of my time reading these days. Not many books are being written any more, as most people are just struggling to survive, so I read all the old classics.
It's taken me a good six months to adjust. Before I came here I was a scientist, a husband, a friend. Someone who was trying to do the best for the world in the only way I knew how. And now what am I? A prison inmate. No better or worse than the guy who killed three women who's locked up in the cell next to mine. It takes a while for one's ego to get used to that kind of change.
Now I have, though, I almost feel free. Funny that I should feel freer in here than I ever did outside, when I had all the freedom in the world. It’s a freedom from myself. I’ve come to terms with my incarceration. And although I don’t think I should be locked up for the things the government has locked me up for, I do think I should be locked up — for my part in what happened to the people in the de-reg zone.
I guess they call that karma.
Annie comes and visits me regularly and tells me about the lives of little Shy and Harvey, who she adopted out to two different families but keeps a close eye on. She never tells me who the families are, but I presume they’re nice. She occasionally gets a call from Dylan, who managed to avoid prosecution, and apparently all the other children are growing up healthily as well.
Even Justin comes in to visit me occasionally and tells me about a new job he’s working on: genetic modification of the digestive system so people can eat all the crap they want without ever getting fat. It’s the best job he could find. At least he’s happy with Shung, and they have two children of their own — both
Homo novus
.
Most importantly, though, our genetic modifications have gone viral. Now they’re open source, people all around the world are taking them. For a while they were outlawed by governments and corporate states, but given that everyone else was using them even those laws were soon overturned.
We weren’t the first species in this line of evolution, and we certainly won’t be the last. We’re nothing, after all, but perfectible animals.
DEAR READER,
ALTHOUGH Perfectible Animals is my debut novel, it is the result of nearly twenty years of writing! They say you have to do something for 10,000 hours before you get really good at it, and I think I just about put in my time before I got to the final draft of this novel.
Hopefully the sequel, which I am working on already, will be a lot quicker. In fact, I hope to have it out by mid-2014.
I am a self-published author and rely solely on my readers to promote my work, so please recommend
Perfectible Animals
to your friends (or do the modern equivalent and put a post on Facebook or Twitter.)
Also, please sign up to my mailing list at
The Last Reader
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Perfectible Animals
, please leave a review for me here:
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Thanks again for reading and I’ll see you next time.
Thomas Norwood.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
I WOULD like to say a huge THANK YOU to the following people who helped in the development of this novel. Without you this novel would never have become what it has.
Iliana Hernandez (Manuscript assessment and life support), Allan Dyen-Shapiro (Science advisor and manuscript assessment), Ezra Lunel (Story development consultant), John Robert Marlow (Story development consultant) and Derek Broughton (line editor).
And my beta readers: Lucy Norwood, Zara Officer, Niyati Mavinkurve, Sara Marschand, Alysia Seymour, Derek Broughton, Catalina Perez, Chen Xi, Darlene Suber, Juliette Hughes-Norwood, Tristan King, and Kathleen Reagan.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Thomas Norwood is an Australian novelist. He lives in the hills of the Yarra Valley with his wife Iliana and their two cats, Camila and Sawa. Perfectible Animals is his first novel.