Distress

I left a note in the hall for Gina and walked up to Epping to get myself inoculated for the journey ahead. Scientists on Stateless broadcast local "weather reports"—both meteorological and epidemiological—into the net, and despite all the other bizarre acts of political ostracism, the relevant UN bodies treated this data just as if it had emerged from a sanctified member state. As it turned out, neither pneumonia nor malaria shots were indicated—but there'd been recent outbreaks of several new strains of adenovirus—none of them life-threatening, but all of them potentially debilitating enough to ruin my stay. Alice Tomasz, my GP, downloaded sequences for some small peptides which mimicked appropriate viral surface proteins, synthesized their RNA, and then spliced the fragments into a tailored—harmless—adenovirus. The whole process took about ten minutes.

As I inhaled the live vaccine, Alice said, "I liked Gender Scrutiny Overload."

"Thank you."

"That part at the end, though… Elaine Ho on gender and evolution. Did you honestly believe that?"

Ho had pointed out that humans had spent the last few million years reversing the ancient mammalian extremes of gender dimorphism and behavioral differences. We'd gradually evolved biochemical quirks which actively interfered with ancient genetic programs for gender-specific neural pathways; the separate blueprints were still inherited, but hormonal effects in the womb kept them from being fully enacted—essentially "masculinizing" the brain of every female embryo, and "feminizing" the brain of every male. (Homosexuality resulted when the process went— very slightly—further than normal.) In the long term—even if we took an Edenite stand and refused all genetic engineering—the sexes were already converging. Whether or not we tampered with nature, nature was tampering with itself.

"It seemed like a good way to end the program. And everything she said was true, wasn't it?"

Alice was noncommittal. "So what are you working on these days?"

I couldn't bring myself to own up to Junk DNA… but I was just as afraid to mention Violet Mosala, in case my own doctor turned out to know more about Mosala's TOE-in-progress than I did. It wasn't an idle fear; Alice was obscenely well read on everything.

I said, "Nothing, really. I'm on holiday."

She glanced again at my notes on her desk screen—which would have included data from my pharm. "Good for you. Just don't relax too hard."

I felt like an idiot, caught out in an obvious lie—but as I walked out of the surgery, it ceased to matter. The street was dappled with leaf-shadows, the breeze from the south was soft and cool. Junk DNA was over, and I felt as unburdened as if I'd just been granted a reprieve from a fatal disease. Epping was a quiet suburban center: a doctor, a dentist, a small supermarket, a florist, a hairdresser, and a couple of (non-experimental) restaurants. No Ruins; the commercial sector had been bulldozed fifteen years before and given over to engineered forest. No billboards (though advertising T-shirts almost made up for the loss). On rare Sunday afternoons when nothing else claimed our time, Gina and I walked up here for no reason at all, and sat beside the fountain. And when I came back from Stateless—with eight whole months to edit Violet Mosala into shape—there'd be more of those days than there'd been for a long while.

When I opened the front door, Gina was standing in the hall, as if she'd been waiting for me to return. She seemed agitated. Distraught. I moved toward her, asking, "What's wrong?" She backed away, raising her arms, almost as if she was fending off an attacker.

She said, "Andrew, I know there's no good time. But I waited—"

At the end of the hall were three suitcases.

The world drew itself away from me. Everything around me took one step back.

I said, "What's going on?"

"Don't get angry."

"I'm not angry." That was the truth. "I just don't understand,"

Gina said, "I gave you every chance to fix things. And you just kept right on, as if nothing had changed."

Something odd was happening to my sense of balance; I felt as if I was swaying wildly, though I knew I was perfectly still. Gina looked miserable; I held out my arms to her—as if I could comfort her.

I said, "Couldn't you tell me something was wrong?"

"Did I need to? Are you blind?"

"Maybe I am."

"You're not a child, are you? You're not stupid."

"I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to have done."

She laughed bitterly. "No, of course you don't. You just started treating me like some kind of… arduous obligation. Why should you think there was anything wrong with that?"

I said, "Started treating you… when? You mean the last three weeks? You always knew about editing. I thought—"

Gina screamed, "I'm not talking about your fucking job.'"

I wanted to sit down on the floor—to steady myself, to regain my bearings—but I was afraid the action might be misinterpreted.