a short story by Kyle W. Davis
Eighteen Years Ago
I’ll do anything for him. Celeste paced in the softly lit clinic room and felt that statement’s truth about Chase—their future son. As a math professor, she relied on step-by-step proofs to establish truths. Yet she couldn’t explain this premonition. But like gravity to the ancients, she knew it to be true.
Colorful pictures of plump, beaming IVF babies decorated the clinic’s walls. The room was made for conversations, not operations. She watched Mason as he swiped through the colorful pages on the clinic’s tablet. She knew another thing: they would be getting a gene—some gene to improve things—no matter Mason’s opinion. Years ago, her sister had received an experimental gene therapy to cure a would-be fatal condition, and it worked. Thirty years later, gene transplants weren’t for only saving life, but improving it. A marketplace for the rich, famous, and talented sprung up to sell copies of their genes to hopeful parents wanting the best.
“This stuff is impossible to understand,” said Mason. “Except the price. They have a lot of options, just—”
She completed his thought: Nothing for an associate math professor and a junior real estate agent after IVF costs.
“We have to do it,” said Celeste. “This is what parents do for their kids. It’s the smart thing to do.”
“If I sell 38 Stratford.”
Celeste read the tablet over Mason’s shoulder. Each page featured a celebrity, a pithy bio, details about their special gene, and colorful cartoons of a looping and twisting protein, impossibly complicated and yet perfectly calibrated.
“What’s this one?” said Celeste.
“Actin. From that Serbian tennis pro. It’s twelve thousand.”
He scrolled past a clip of the lanky Serb whipping his racket around with speed and grace, the ball skipping past his winded opponent. Actin, it stated, was involved in muscle contraction and movement. The Serb’s reaction times were one-hundred-and-fifty-two percent faster than average due to rare genetic changes that improved muscle strength and quickness.
He tapped the screen, another gene. Something sensible: a blood group antigen for type AB blood, RH positive from a famous actor. Chase could be a universal recipient, and every blood transfusion would be acceptable. Eight thousand. Mason tapped on others: a Michelin-star chef with superior taste buds; a Grammy-winning pianist with long fingers.