Change Agent

  Chapter 3

  Durand padded down a corridor lined with culture-grown hardwoods and printed metals. The decor had an elegant, Scandinavian simplicity. The door to his flat recognized him and clicked unlocked as he reached it.

  He pushed inside and gave a tight smile. “Morning.”

  His wife, Miyuki Uchida, sat at her desk with a cup of tea, engaged in an AR video conference with people invisible to Durand. Actual physical, framed photos of family, friends, and colleagues, along with mementos from years of development work in Africa, lined the shelves behind her. Her long black hair shimmered in the morning light as she turned a smile toward him, then blinded the line. “Hey, you.”

  He kissed her on the cheek. “You’re up early.”

  “My Accra team ran into permit problems. Now they’re talking in circles.”

  “Can I make you something?” Durand went into the kitchen.

  “Thanks. I already ate. There’s a mangosteen in there for you.”

  Durand filled a bottle of chilled water from the fridge door. In a few moments his wife followed him into the kitchen.

  “Birthday girl up yet?” Durand grabbed a white tropical fruit from the fridge.

  “Pretending to sleep—which reminds me: don’t forget to come home with her gift tonight.”

  “Why wasn’t it delivered here?”

  “She’s scanning deliveries.”

  “Ah.”

  “Something’s bothering you. I can tell.”

  Durand took a bite of the mangosteen. After a moment he shrugged. “Just work stuff.”

  She regarded him.

  He squirmed under her gaze.

  “I haven’t seen that look in two years.”

  Durand blinked. “My analysis got a civilian killed. Last night. A young woman. Human rights activist.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Ken. I’m sorry.” She hesitated. “Although I’m guessing it’s not as simple as that.”

  “I can’t get into the details.”

  “I understand.” She hugged him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “This is why I got out, Mi.”

  “I know, but this isn’t the same thing, Ken.”

  “It’s happening all over again.”

  “It isn’t the same.” She let go and looked at him. “No one’s launching air strikes based on your analysis.”

  He said nothing.

  She took his hand. “You know how guilty living in the Bubble makes me feel. There’s so much trouble in the world. We promised each other that we would only do this if what we’re doing here makes the world a better place for her generation.” She pointed at the refrigerator.

  Durand turned to see a printed photo pinned to the fridge of their daughter’s robotics team competing at a local maker fair. Smiling young hopeful faces.

  “I know you well enough to know that’s what you’re trying to do.”

  He stared at the photo and nodded reluctantly. Then he noticed one of his daughter’s plesiosaur polygon models pinned up nearby. He tapped the teacher’s gold star affixed to it and nodded to his wife appreciatively. “She’s getting good.”

  “Of course. She takes after me.”

  He laughed in spite of himself. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

  • • •

  While Durand ran an electric razor over his face, the family cat sat on the bathroom counter, watching him. Genetically modified, the breed was known as a “toyger” because it perfectly resembled a miniature tiger. The cat’s gaze unnerved him—as though a full-grown tiger watched from the far bank of some watering hole instead of the far side of the bathroom sink.

  “Nelson, do you mind?”

  The toyger answered with a rumbling meow.

  His daughter’s pet. For some reason it focused most of its attention on Durand. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of bespoke animals. However, neotenic pets—the cuter and more juvenile, the better—were all the rage these days. And golden retrievers weren’t an option in HDB flats.

  After shaving, Durand got dressed, knotted his tie, pulled on his suit jacket, and gathered his devices before heading down the hall. He knocked before poking his head into his daughter’s room, Nelson still close on his heels.

  His daughter’s room was decorated with solar system mobiles, deep field survey posters, and 3D-printed robot dinosaurs she’d created. He gazed down on her sleeping form.

  She looked peaceful, a plush dinosaur toy pressed against her cheek.

  He whispered, “You’re such a faker.”

  Mia opened her eyes and giggled. “You woke me up.”

  “Really.” He sat on the edge of her bed. “If you were asleep, then what’s this . . . ?” He reached under her pillow and produced a glim. Already powered up, the small dome-shaped device instantly located his eyes and projected a video game screen onto his retinas. A virtual aquarium suddenly floated in midair before him—alive with alien swimming creatures and fictional plant life.

  “Remember that talk we had about the importance of sleep?”

  She whined, “I did sleep.”

  “So if I check the log on this device, I’m not going to see you were up all night?”

  “It’s gamework. And it’s due today.”

  “Gamework.”

  “Yes. But I couldn’t solve it.”

  Durand examined the screen and the completion percentage in the lower-right corner . . . slowly decrementing: 72 percent . . . then 71. “Well, if I can make some suggestions. Your ecosystem is out of balance—that’s why it’s decaying.”

  She propped herself up on her elbows.

  He pointed. “You need more diversity to close your life cycle.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Well, see how energy is draining with each generation? Who’s cleaning the ocean floor and recirculating nutrients up the food chain?”

  She frowned at the image, which the glim was now projecting into both of their eyes.

  “You created big creatures—which is fun. But notice how they’re dying off? Instead make tiny, simple creatures, and they’ll evolve from there. Balanced ecosystems grow from the bottom up over time, not from the top down all at once. We don’t design complex systems; we evolve them. It’s what Nature does. And Nature is the best teacher.”

  She reached out to the virtual aquarium and started creating tiny organisms from building blocks on the ocean floor with practiced flicks of her hand—quickly getting engrossed in the simulation.

  The percentage jumped to 83. Then to 84. Then 85.

  “There you go.” He swept her hair aside and kissed her on the forehead. “You’re welcome.”

  She spoke without looking up from the screen. “Adele was wrong. I told her she was wrong.”

  “It’s not Adele’s job to do your thinking.” He got up.

  Mia looked up at him. “Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it wrong to edit babies?”

  Durand paused for a moment but then sat back down on the edge of her bed. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Because I was edited. Does that make me a bad person?” Mia kept working on the simulation.

  Durand sat in shocked silence for several moments. “Who says you were edited?”

  “You did.” She turned to him. “I heard you talking to Jiichan when he and Obaasan came to visit.”

  Durand closed his eyes in frustration at his own stupidity. “Well, first: you weren’t meant to hear that.”

  “So it is wrong?”

  “No. Well, babies don’t get edited; embryos get edited—when they’re just a single fertilized cell. And it’s rare.”

  She looked up at him. “Adele’s mom says babies—I mean, embryos—should never be edited.”

  “Editing isn’t necessarily wrong, and it’s n
othing to be ashamed of.”

  “But you and Sergeant Yi arrest people for editing embryos.”

  He leaned down to press his forehead against hers. “No, hon. Daddy doesn’t arrest anyone. All I do is help the police find people who break the law.”

  “But editing is against the law.”

  “Not all edits—just those that aren’t safe.”

  “Was mine safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of edit was it?”

  “It was to cure a disorder—one that’s hard to pronounce, but it’s called Leber congenital amaurosis. It would have caused your eyes not to develop, so you’d be blind. The doctors made a tiny edit to your SPATA7 gene and fixed it so you could grow up and see the world.”

  “So it cured me.”

  He nodded. “That’s right. There’s nothing wrong with curing an illness. I’m sure Adele’s mom takes medicine when she’s sick. People correct bad eyesight and cure diseases. Right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, that’s what your mom and I did because we love you very much.”

  “Then why are people on the feeds so upset?”

  “They’re not upset at you, honey.”

  “What are they mad at?”

  He paused again. “Like I said: it’s complicated. That’s why we wanted to wait until you were older to talk about this.” Realizing she wasn’t satisfied with this, he added, “Some people want to edit embryos even when they’re not sick.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they want to make their kids taller or stronger or smarter than other kids.”

  “But some kids are stronger and taller and smarter.”

  “Yes, but Nature does that.”

  “But Nature also makes kids sick—like I was.”

  Durand paused. “That’s true.” He laughed and thought harder. “But we don’t fully understand how all our genes work together. They took millions of years to evolve, and any changes we make are passed down to all future generations. So the results could change our whole species in ways we didn’t intend . . .” A thought occurred to him. “Like in your gamework.” He gestured to the glim-cast image. “Do you see how traits in your creatures are passed down to following generations?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, that’s how genetics works in the real world. When you took a shortcut and designed your creatures the way you wanted, they didn’t fit the environment, did they?”

  She shook her head.

  “And even though they looked cool, they soon got sick, and their offspring even sicker—and soon your whole ecosystem got sick. The same is true in the real world. If we make edits that don’t fit the environment—even though we think they’re cool—then bad things could happen to future generations that we didn’t expect. And we don’t want that. That’s why we only let sick people correct genetic errors—changes that will make them the way humans evolved to be. Any other edits are against the law. And those are the edits your daddy, Sergeant Yi, and Inspector Belanger try to stop—because we want to keep everyone safe.”

  She looked up at him.

  He brushed her hair away from her eyes. “Someday I’m sure you’ll know a lot more than I do about all this.”

  She laughed. “I don’t think so. You know a lot.”

  “You’d be surprised.” He glanced up at the time. “Now, if I’m gonna get to work on time, I’ve got to go.” He kissed her on the forehead and confiscated the glim. “Happy birthday, kiddo. And don’t fall asleep at school.”

  He went to the door. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She waved. “Bye, Daddy.”

  “Bye-bye, sweetheart.” Durand closed the door and turned to see his wife standing in the hall.

  She smiled as she approached him. Then she put her arms around his neck. “The birds and the bees are so twentieth century.”

  “The birds and the bees I can explain. Or at least I think I can. What do the birds do again?”

  She kissed him. “You did great. It almost makes me forget how badly you screwed up.”

  He winced. “I know. She must have been eavesdropping with one of her drones. You know how she gets when there’s company.”

  “Thankfully, it worked out.” Miyuki held out her hand.

  Durand placed the glim into her outstretched palm.

  “See you tonight.” She kissed him. “Don’t forget her gift.”

  “I won’t. I won’t.”

  Chapter 4

  Interpol’s Global Complex for Innovation, or GCI, resembled a fortified modern art museum. Originally built in the teens of the twenty-first century, it had been expanded and hardened against attack over the years. It now covered several acres of prime real estate in Singapore’s diplomatic quarter across Napier Road from the US embassy.

  As he approached the entrance, Kenneth Durand nodded to armed guards watching from beyond transparent aluminum blast shields marked with Interpol’s sword-and-globe logo. The entrance split into a dozen sealed chutes, only one of which opened to admit Durand. The chute doors operated on a randomized algorithm—with each visitor following a separate, illuminated path. The entire entry system was designed to identify and categorize people into risk tranches—moving them through without stopping and quickly isolating suspected threats. This way no one queued up, which itself would have presented a target to terrorists.

  And the GCI was definitely a target.

  Organized into financial, cyber, genetic, and counterterrorism divisions, Interpol’s GCI employed advanced technologies in the fight against transnational crime—though, contrary to popular perception, Interpol agents themselves had no police powers (at least outside their home countries). Likewise, Interpol itself had only two facilities worldwide—this GCI complex and a headquarters in Lyon, France.

  Instead, 190 national police organizations around the world maintained their own Interpol National Central Bureaus, assigning officers to liaise with Interpol’s network, receiving and issuing a kaleidoscope of colored Notices—Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, Purple, Black—advising other nations on the activities of global criminals and the increasingly borderless world of crime. Whether other nations followed up on those Notices depended on local politics and priorities. But if national police organizations wanted cooperation from other national police around the world, ignoring Interpol Notices wasn’t the way to get it. This quid pro quo arrangement had worked with varying levels of success over the decades.

  Member nations occasionally assigned—or seconded—investigators directly to Interpol headquarters, usually to learn or teach about new types of crime. And when it came to catching the next generation of high-tech criminals, Interpol was prepared to recruit from more than just the ranks of police.

  Kenneth Durand was fortunate to be one of those recruits. And it couldn’t have come at a more propitious time for him, personally.

  He cleared two more security checkpoints before arriving on the third floor and passing through another transparent aluminum blast wall emblazoned with the seal of the Genetic Crime Division—Interpol’s standard logo with the addition of a twining double helix of DNA around the sword, itself an alarming mutation to Asclepius’s staff.

  Durand entered the busy offices, nodding at a passing lab technician. The floor plan was sleek, modern—but crowded with makeshift workstations. Proprietary DNA theft, custom viruses, and baby labs were fast becoming the world’s most profitable criminal enterprises. That meant the Genetic Crime Division was growing fast, too.

  Durand entered the small, windowless office he shared with Detective Sergeant Michael Yi Ji-chang. “Morning, Mike.”

  “Hey.” Yi stared at an AR screen (or screens) only he could see. Yi was an athletic, handsome man. He’d been seconded to Interpol from the Korean National Police Agency in Seoul, which had been in turmoil ever since the reunificatio
n. He was here to share his expertise in embryo clinic cartels—and it was Yi who’d referred Durand to Interpol.

  “Something up?” Durand removed his suit jacket.

  “Oh, sorry. No. Just reading a note from my new cousin.”

  “New? They found another one?”

  “Yeah. Ministry of Health ran his DNA. Confirmed he’s related.”

  “Congratulations. You’re getting quite an extended family.”

  “Wants to come live with me.”

  “Shit.”

  “Blew through his reuni check. No marketable job skills. Fan-fucking-tastic.” Yi dismissed the virtual screen that was distracting him. “You look better than you sounded on the phone.”

  Durand hung his suit jacket behind the door. “Haven’t changed my mind, though.”

  “Let’s schedule an argument. Right now we’ve got our eight o’clock.” Yi got up and grabbed his own suit jacket from the back of his chair, then headed out through the cubicles.

  “Oh, right.” Durand grabbed his coat again and caught up. “The calendar just said ‘external briefing.’ What’s this about—the Mumbai raid?”

  Yi shook his head. “Two hundred and sixty-three embryo mills shut down on three continents last month, and you think top brass is upset about Mumbai?”

  “I’m telling you, it matters.”

  • • •

  Durand’s division lead, Detective Inspector Claire Belanger, stood at the head of the briefing room. She was a slim, elegant woman in her early fifties, with a sweep of gray hair and piercing blue eyes. She wore a tailored pantsuit and no jewelry save for a platinum wedding band. Durand knew it had been placed there by her late husband—before the bioweapon attack in Paris, an attack that not only killed Belanger’s husband but also sterilized thousands of Parisians, Belanger among them. Calm but intense, originally a biochemist, she had joined the Police Nationale in France and was later seconded to Interpol—where she now led the war against genetic crime. Life had delivered her here. Durand could think of no one more capable.

  Belanger spoke English with a slight French accent. “Good morning. I realize this briefing was called with little notice, but it will cover new intelligence critical to our mission.”