Distress

I'd spoken to a number of Landers' critics, including Jane Summers, a freelance biotech consultant based in San Francisco, and a prominent member of Molecular Biologists for Social Responsibility. Six months earlier (writing in the semi-public MBSR netzine, which my knowledge miner always scrutinized diligently), she'd claimed to have evidence that several thousand wealthy people, in the US and elsewhere, were having their DNA translated, cell type by cell type. Landers, she'd said, was merely the only one to have gone public—to act as a kind of decoy: a lone eccentric, defusing the issue, making it seem like one man's ridiculous (yet almost Quixotic) fantasy. If the research had been exposed in the media with no specific person associated with it, paranoia would have reigned: there would have been no limit to the possible membership of the nameless elite who planned to divorce themselves from the biosphere. But since it was all out in the open, and all down to harmless Ned Landers, there was really nothing to fear.

The theory made a certain amount of sense—but Summers' evidence hadn't been forthcoming. She'd reluctantly put me in touch with an 'industry source' who'd supposedly been involved in gene translation work for an entirely different employer—but the 'source' had denied everything. Pressed for other leads, Summers had become evasive. Either she'd never had anything substantial or she'd made a deal with another journalist to keep the competition away. It was frustrating, but in the end I hadn't had the time or resources to pursue the story independently. If there really was a cabal of genetic separatists, I'd just have to read the exclusive in the Washington Post like everyone else.

I closed with a medley of other commentators—bioethicists, geneticists, sociologists—mostly dismissing the whole affair. "Mr. Landers has the right to live his own life, and raise his own children, any way he sees fit. We don't persecute the Amish for their inbreeding, their strange technology, their desire for independence. Why persecute him, for essentially the same 'crimes'?"

The final cut of the story was eighteen minutes long. In the broadcast version, there'd only be room for twelve. I pared away mercilessly, summarizing and simplifying—taking care to do a professional job, but not too worried by the loss of detail. Most real-time broadcasts on SeeNet served no purpose but to focus publicity, and to guarantee reviews in some of the more conservative media, Junk DNA was scheduled for eleven P.M. on a Wednesday; the vast majority of the audience would log on to the full, interactive version at their convenience. As well as a slightly longer linear backbone, the interactive would be peppered with optional detours to other sources: all the technical journal articles I'd read for my own research (and all the articles they in turn cited); other media coverage of Landers (and of Jane Summers' conspiracy theory); the relevant US and international statutes—and even trails leading into the quagmire of potentially relevant case law.

On the evening of the fifth day of editing—right on schedule, reason enough for minor jubilation—I tidied up all the loose ends, and ran through the segment one last time. I tried to clear away all my memories of filming, and all my preconceptions, and watch the story like a SeeNet viewer who'd seen nothing at all on the subject before (save a few misleading promotions for the documentary itself).

Landers came across surprisingly sympathetically. I'd thought I'd been harsher. I'd thought I'd at least given him every opportunity to damn himself with his earnest account of his surreal ambitions. Instead, he seemed far more good-humored than po-faced; he almost appeared to be sharing all the jokes. Living off tire dumps? Shooting up HIV? I watched, amazed. I couldn't decide if there really was a faint undercurrent of deliberate irony, a hint of self-deprecation in his manner which I'd somehow missed before—or whether the subject matter simply made it impossible for a sane viewer to interpret his words any other way.

What if Summers was right? What if Landers was a decoy, a distraction, a consummate performing clown? What if thousands of the planet's wealthiest people really were planning to grant themselves, and their offspring, perfect genetic isolation, and absolute viral immunity?

Would it matter? The rich had always cut themselves off from the rabble, one way or another. Pollution levels would continue to decline, whether or not algal symbionts rendered fresh air obsolete. And anyone who chose to follow in Landers' footsteps was no great loss to the human gene pool.

There was only one small question which remained unanswered, and I tried not to give it too much thought.

Absolute viral immunity… against what?

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