Genewise

GENEWISE

CRISPR-Cas9 – The temptation to play God

Manipulating the code of life is no longer science fiction…

May Koliander

Copyright 2018 by May Koliander

Smashwords Edition

Cover design : © The Dramatic Pen Press

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-2-9700882-7-1

Also by May Koliander

Welcome to Freakdom

Freaky Pearl

Freak Away!

Quicksands

Love Code

The Cave of Treasures

Contact : may@koliander.ch

www.koliander.ch

This book owes a lot to C. Henderson’s "The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, and to J. Doudna & S. Sternberg’s A Crack in Creation" so, thank you !

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Prologue

Hidden under a clump of dusty bushes, the little one watched the old man. Every day the child threaded its way from the brick and sheet metal shacks on the outskirts of the war-ravaged town to the moth-eaten zoo. The small attraction had been a luxury and the pride of the inhabitants before the shooting and the destruction began. The firsts onslaughts had targeted the bustling market place and the shops down by the river but, like a disease, the fighting and killing had spread out, cowering the people. The very brave and the foolhardy who rose to try to stop the heavily armed invaders whose eyes only were visible between the swaths of dark cloth wrapped around their heads were soon mercilessly mowed down. When the soldiers reached the zoo, they showed the animals slightly more lenity than they had the townspeople – identifying perhaps with the beasts’ fierceness, they didn’t kill them straightaway but left them to slowly die of starvation and thirst in their soiled cages, now and then throwing them scraps, often neglecting to give them water. And every day when the child checked on the remaining beasts – two mangy lions, a skeletal lioness and a huge yellow tiger so skinny his stripes seemed to be sliding off his sides, its heart would jump around in the tiny cage of its ribs lest one more of the animals had given up the fight and sunk down onto the foul sandy floor to rot among the gnawed bones and tufts of fur of its dead companions. When the ghostly beasts heaved themselves up and their jaws dropped as they paced their cages, sulfurous eyes cutting through the bars, the child knew the old man was on his way, hugging walls and crouching behind piles of rock, keeping out of sight of the guard sitting on a knoll above the zoo. Out of boredom the soldier shot the squawking birds sailing by in the serene desert sky or took aim at the boulders strewn around the cages, enjoying the animals’ startled growls and frantic cries.

The old man would draw soft grayish chunks of meat from his pockets and throw them to the animals, one at a time, so as not to create a commotion and attract attention but that day the child saw him jerk and topple forward crashing against one of the cages before the shot even rang out, reverberating on the rocks. The old man remained prone, looking dead, but then two fingers of the arm that had fallen through the bars of the lion’s cage twitched. The beast had recoiled into a corner, cringing, but now it dropped into a crouch, eyes narrowed, mesmerized by the object lying on the sandy floor. The child wrung its hands in agony – the old man needed help, at the very least to be pulled away from the cage, but fear paralyzed it. Everyone, even little ones knew what the enemy did to women and children – boys as well as girls – when no one was about. Just then men’s voices came from somewhere above – sounds of a heated argument. By now the lion was inching towards the arm on its wrinkled belly. The old man’s eyes opened and when he discovered the child peering from under the bushes, there was both hope and despair in his stare. Two feet away from its quarry, the beast suddenly pounced and opening its maw, crushed the man’s hand between its jaws before savagely tugging on the arm, hind paws digging into the dusty ground, as it strained to draw its prize further into the cage. The other beasts, pacing madly in their cages, howled in a frenzy of rage and frustration. The child dashed out from under cover and reaching the man’s legs, grabbed one of his ankles, desperately trying pull him away but the load was too heavy so it crept up to the man’s face which was strangely inert, still and warm like a sunbaked stone. As the child tentatively slapped the weathered cheek to wake the man up the lion shot forward with a roar, slamming into the bars, paw stretched out to hook this smaller tidbit. Above the commotion, men’s voices rang out as did another shot and the child ducked back under the bushes, squirming away on its belly, too frightened even to cry.

Chapter 1

The man’s fingers drummed to the beat of the car stereo on the premium leather of the steering wheel. A wide smile he couldn’t suppress spread across his face as the Porsche glided on. Today, however, it wasn’t the delightful purring of the engine that induced his happy mood but looking into the near future. He was on his way to collect the last piece of a puzzle he had been assembling for years now and when he completed the picture, cars such as the 911 would be things of the past and he wasn’t thinking of those proudly touted gimmicks – self-driving cars… no, he had his eye on a vehicle in a totally different league – a Bugatti, the Veyron to be exact. If he played his cards right, and he had every intention of doing so, glory and wealth would be his and his fellows left far behind. Anyone in the scientific world who attracted attention was frowned upon and if, by some misfortune, they happened to make money, immediately considered as highly suspect. But he was used to that and didn’t care a fig about what losers thought. Now was the time he would show them all what a good brain and bit of imagination could achieve. And of course, there would be other prizes and satisfactions, women for starters, although he had never been short of female conquests, but also new business propositions and contracts… Yes, the future definitely looked rosy. All he needed now was the last piece of the puzzle and from what he knew of the actors involved, he didn’t doubt an instant he would be successful.

********

Are you sure we buried her deep enough ? The two women were sitting in the large kitchen, hands clasped on the table. Just thinking of what the wild beasts could do makes me sick, Arya went on, looking nervously out of the window at the dark green and blue pines and the spiky purply brush that spilled down the hill, hedging in their lawn.

We rolled those heavy stones over the grave, remember ? The older woman’s voice was tentative but she was trying her best to be reassuring. She’ll gently return to nature, as your father wished, in the garden they both loved.

He loved her so fiercely ! Arya’s voice was strangled. And she was all we had left of him. She felt curiously adrift, sitting in the familiar room, as if her moorings were being snapped one at a time. Magpie, their old black and white border collie had been disconsolate since her father’s death some three months earlier, and finding her curled up stone-cold, on the very spot where she had spent so many long days with her ailing master, curbing her need to wildly run around, had been a blow to the heart. It has also been a little needed reminder of how she, Arya, had failed her dying father, when not wishing to compromise the research experiment she was working on in Britain, she had delayed coming home.

Joan squeezed her daughter’s hand more tightly as silent tears rolled down the young woman’s cheeks. Although the dog had clearly chosen Joe, Arya’s father, as her master it had been the young woman’s companion for almost as far back as she could remember.

And you too loved your father fiercely, sweetie. I was of no use at all when you had those nightmares as a child, only your daddy could fend off the dark shapes tearing at you as you thrashed around in your little bed, shaking and keening.

I needed you also, Mom, Arya said, trying to smile through her tears as she took notice of how wrinkled her mother’s hand was. Thoughts of death crowded in on her, making her feel faint. Why had her parents’ had her so late ? How long would her mother still be around ? Without any siblings, she would then be alone in the world. Why couldn’t she have been born into a large family and had plenty of brothers and sisters ?

"I know you love me darling, but those spells of yours tore me up so much, I just wanted to go and hide somewhere… being quite cowardly, I’ll admit. But your father and Magpie – even as a puppy – would see the spell out, sitting by your bed.

And when daddy was away, Magpie would sneak under the covers with me when I woke up crying… she was warm and her heart beat was like a little drum…

Although I have never been one for animals in beds, I was so thankful she could comfort you ! Joan smiled.

Arya swallowed down the lump that had risen in her throat and brushed away her tears, glancing at the clock on the wall. She frowned. Didn’t you say Professor Drake was coming today ?

Why, yes, and it’s already half past two, no time to bake a cake – biscuits will have to do ! Joan gasped. Dry your tears and wash up ! We can’t welcome one of your late father’s oldest friends looking like desolate, muddy handymen !

But Arya remained seated as her mother got up, staring absently before her into a great void. Now that her dad had departed and Magpie had gone too, she felt poised on a threshold; it was dizzying but also strangely exciting to be perfectly candid. Her father had been John Drake’s mentor and they had become close friends years ago, when she was young, before the student surpassed the master and became Professor Drake, one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists – a reference in the science world in regrow medicine. He had moved away from Los Angeles to head research units in Harvard and later Europe. Arya had a fleeting recollection of a tall man dropping by, sometimes bending down towards her to utter a few words, while one of his strong hands lifted up her face as he stared at her, but that was about all. He had probably been scrutinizing her as many consciously or unconsciously did, her coloring being so different from that of her parents’. She had gotten used to it but for some uncountable reason, it always made her feel guilty and defenseless…

Glancing at the clock again, she now jumped up and went to change clothes. Professor’s Drake’s coming could mean a lot. Indeed, he was now head of a brand-new research center and on the lookout for an assistant in his latest project, someone who had training in the field of gene editing and who was familiar with the new CRISPR-Cas9 tool. This could be a real fresh start. The job at the university research center she had come back to wasn’t challenging enough and leaving her childhood environment behind might help her become more assertive and shed the lingering sadness she couldn’t seem to shake off. What was there to keep her back now ? She knew that her mother, ever since her husband’s death, longed to move in with her widowed elder sister. This gutsy matron would run the show, relieving Joan of tedious mundane matters, just as her husband father had done until lately.

Arya examined herself in the mirror of her upstairs room, hoping the dark pencil skirt and white blouse would help her be considered as a serious scientist and make up for the unruly curls, delicately chiseled features and luminous green eyes which men tended to concentrate on during job interviews, before getting down to her credentials.

Not for the first time, she wondered at the genetic fluke that had given her green eyes with a hint of yellow at their core, instead of both her parent’s blues, and a much darker hair and skin tone. But all families have secrets. The idea of digging into her parents’ backgrounds had often crossed her mind, but she had never dared voice it directly. She knew her mother’s grandparents had lived in Hawaii, growing coffee on the slopes of a volcano, which could perhaps be the clue to her dusky skin. She had tried to draw her mother out on the topic but found the woman extremely reluctant to speak about her family’s past and origins – perhaps one of her mother’s ancestors had lost her heart to a handsome Polynesian in times when miscegenation was still socially shunned ? Arya brushed out her shoulder-length curls again, brightened her lips with a touch of dark pink and checked her face one last time – try as she might she had never found any suitable eye makeup. Her lashes were coal black already and eye shadow took away rather than added to the allure of her gaze. She smoothed out her dark skirt, pulling a face – she loved colors and her outfit really looked drab. With a sigh, she slipped her feet into her best pair of heels. Professor Drake was not just making a courtesy call, this was in fact a job interview. Her father had imprinted on her, from a very early age, that a girl needed to have a solid education to be able to make choices and be independent, and she had always felt a strange restlessness, the compulsion even to be useful. When she decided to follow in her father’s footsteps, choosing biology as the field with the most promise, he had been overjoyed. Like all parents, hers had feared for her when she left home for her studies as she had led a very sheltered life, but they needn’t have worried; although she made friends easily, she had had caution drummed into her and was a bit of a loner, intensely focused on acquiring knowledge to try to make a difference.

A powerful car rumbled up the driveway and when the doorbell rang, she was on her way down the stairs, eyes bright, a smile on her lips, putting her sad thoughts out of mind.

Chapter 2

Well, that had been a surprise ! Instead of the slightly stooped ageing man she had expected, unruly eyebrows