Chapter 268: Grand Slam (6)

Groom Lake Air Force Base was owned by the United States but located in Nicaragua, Central America. As the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union continued, Nicaragua’s Somoza government and the communist Sandinista rebels were in constant conflict.

This air base that was established in this volatile country had a surprising secret: it was home to a highly advanced genomics research facility.

And in the summer of 1986, the baby cried her first cry in the embryology laboratory. Alphonse Lofair, the lab director, realized that the last eighteen years of incredible hardship were finally over. His brothers and father thought he was pathetic, as he was the geek who had chosen biology over the family business of finance, but that ended today.

“How is the baby?” Alphonse asked Doctor Carlos, who came into his office from the embryology lab for a debriefing.

“She seems healthy.”

“What did Doctor Elsie name it?”

“Isaiah.”

“Haha!”

Alphonse burst into laughter.

“That’s very Jewish of her,” he said. “But she’s not wrong. That baby is a prophet who will save humanity, which has grown weary of the Cold War.”

The first genetically engineered human—a miracle child who was born normally, even with manipulations to hundreds and thousands of genes linked to intelligence.

“Everyone laughed at me, but I succeeded. That child is destined to be a leader who will heal the world and end the Cold War. She could be an artist, a scientist, anything, but I’m going to raise it to be the new human race and a revolutionary,” Alphonse said. “Lead the way. I must see the baby.”

He then proceeded to the maternity ward within the research facility.

Surprisingly, the maternity ward in the institute was fully equipped with everything a normal hospital had: a labor and delivery room, an operating room, rocking chairs, a postpartum unit, a prenatal examination room with imaging diagnostics including ultrasound and karyotyping, a nursing room, and an infant room.

The hospitalization unit for mothers could accommodate one hundred twenty patients at once, with numerous doctors and nurses bustling around.

What did having such a large maternity ward mean?

Eighteen years was an incredibly long time, but it still wasn’t long enough for a genetically engineered baby to be born. This meant that Doctor Ref was not the first genetically engineered baby—she was just the first success. There were many failures as well.

“I’m a little nervous.”

Alphonse walked toward the incubator, then stopped, wincing.

“Doctor Benjamin,” he said, pointing to the incubators on one side. “I don’t mean to disrespect life, but is it really necessary to put the future of our country beside the negative data that could die at any moment?”

“Sorry.”

Doctor Benjamin quickly came to the incubator and scooped three newborn babies into his arms. One of them was barely breathing, one had a congenital malformation of the liver and stomach, and one was too premature. They were most likely going to die anyway.

“A successful sample looks way more lively to begin with.”

Alphonse caressed Isaiah Franklin’s cheek.

“Sir!”

Someone ran out, knocking his hand away and stepping in front of him.

“She’s my baby. You can’t touch her without my permission,” Elsie said, looking extremely exhausted from childbirth.

“Hm. Perhaps you need to think about the clinical consent form again, Doctor Elsie. As you know, this baby...” Alphonse said, pointing at the baby. “Is the property of the lab.”

“I know. But she’s my daughter above anything else.”

“No. She is our property above being your daughter,” Alphonse pointed out. “And daughter? I can’t believe you’d use such an unscientific term. This baby, who has three thousand manipulated genes and was fertilized with your nucleus and sperm from some man you don’t know, is your daughter?”

Alphonse scoffed.

“Isn’t it already biologically too different from the traditional definition of daughter?”

“She’s still my daughter who I gave birth to.”

“Haha. You’re still wrong, even with your emotional appeal. If you were going to claim motherhood over this baby, you wouldn’t have signed the consent form and given birth to it in a place like this,” Alphonse said. “Look at the women who give birth in our facility. They’re black, homeless, women who have been kicked out of their homes, or drug addicts.”

“...”

“Am I wrong? Aren’t they selling their fertility to our clinical trials because they are broke and have nowhere else to go? You’re aware that our ‘legitimate business’ here might have some ethical issues, right?” Alphonse said. “But the reason this facility is allowed is because it’s the American imperative to advance humanity.”

There was a sense of desperation in Alphonse’s voice.

“Elsie, the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan, and we’ve put missile launchers in West Germany that can hit Moscow. It was only three years ago that a plane with our congressman was shot down in the western Soviet Union, killing over two hundred Americans.

“As of last month, the Soviets have more than forty thousand nuclear weapons. And in the space race, they launched the first module of a crazy space station called Mir. I’m guessing this Cold War isn’t going to end nicely.”

“...”

“That’s why everyone here is working with blood on our hands with a guilty conscience. You gave birth to this genius baby not to make a living, but for your own vain ambitions, and you dare to claim ownership of it in my presence, using motherhood as a weapon?”

Alphonse gave Elsie a bitter sneer.

“Stop being so shameless. From now on, this baby is the property of the genomics laboratory at Groom Lake Air Force Base. just like a patent on a work-invented idea belongs to the company, this achievement of yours belongs to me,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m going to hurt it. I’m going to raise it as best as I can. My family is known for raising the elite.”

*

“Why did you fight with Spade?” asked Doctor Diana, a scientist in her mid-twenties.

“Because that kid is an idiot,” Isaiah replied.

“But Spade can solve calculus at thirty-six months old...?”

“I did that, too. You should be able to do that if you have these genes,” Isaiah Franklin said bluntly.

“Can you tell me why you fought?”

“Spade likes Doctor Alphonse, and he thinks Alphonse is his dad. It was frustrating, so I told him that he’s going to kill us all soon. Then, he started screaming at me and trying to fight me. That little brat,” Isaiah said.

“You told him that Doctor Alphonse was going to kill all of you?”

“Yes. He’s going to kill me and my siblings who were born in the embryology lab after 1986—he’s going to kill Spade, and Clover and Redheart that you always kiss because they’re so cute.”

Isaiah Franklin, who was forty-nine months old, often baffled her teachers, but this time was different.

“W-What do you mean?”

Isaiah burst out laughing as Diana stuttered.

“Diana, you’re not a good liar. You also heard about disposing of me, right?”

Diana scratched her head.

“I really don’t know what you're talking about, really. Can you tell me why you thought that?”

“The Soviet Union will destroy itself,” Isaiah said. “The United States and the Soviet Union were in the Cold War until 1986, when I was born. Even when Heagan and Gorbachev met to talk about reducing arms, they couldn’t reach an agreement, so Alphonse probably believed that things were still going to be bad when I was born, but look.”

Isaiah spread some newspapers in front of Diana.

“They succeeded in a disarmament agreement in 1987, and the Soviet Union is pulling out of Afghanistan. And the decisive reason...” Isaiah said.

“Is the Chernobyl Accident. This accident is unprecedented. It happened around the time I was born, right? The United States is busy exaggerating the damage while the Soviet Union is busy concealing it. But in my opinion, the scale of the accident’s damage is even greater.

“And with the enormous amounts of money the Soviet Union invested in military expansion and the failure of the planned economy, they don’t have the financial resources to handle it. They’ve probably exhausted their budget.”

“R-Really?” Diana replied.

“The Soviet Union will fall. It’s over, and you won’t need me anymore. The biggest proof of this is that Alphonse is taking interest in NASA, using astrobiology as an excuse. He’s looking for a new path because he knows this place is a dud now,” Isaiah said.

“Once the panic passes and the madness wears off, you get embarrassed that you’ve pissed yourself. Now, the U.S. government is going to be embarrassed of my existence and will try to cover it up.”

“What? No, they won’t do that,” Diana said.

“Well, times have changed, and research ethics are pretty hot right now. But look, there’s been one thousand two hundred ‘failures’ that have died in this lab in the last eighteen years, and over two hundred eighty women with no friends or family have died from the side effects,” Isaiah said.

“Where did you...”

“I’ve been in this lab longer than you, Diana. I overheard it,” Isaiah said. “And all the female scientists here were forced to be egg donors, remember? They were coerced into signing a consent form, injected with hormones, and then had their eggs taken out for the fertilization experiment. Didn’t you do it, too?”

“...”

“Alphonse will do everything he can to destroy the evidence and keep people quiet, but he won’t let me and the other kids live because our very existence is evidence.”

*

On the last day of December 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved. The Cold War was over. That was one of the urgent signals within Groom Lake Air Force Base.

As soon as Lieutenant General Salona, who was in charge of security at the lab, heard the news on the radio, he called Alphonse Lofair.

“The Cold War is over. Shall we clear the research facility?”

—Yes, please proceed.

Alphonse’s reply was dry.

Salona knew he was going to go to hell.

The movements of the airbase soldiers were swift and precise. According to public announcements, the attackers were Sandinista soldiers who were opposed to President Violeta Chamorro’s leadership. Motivated by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they attacked the Groom Lake Air Base to re-establish a socialist government.

It was a plausible story, but the truth was different.

Genius or not, Isaiah Franklin was still a child, barely five years old. Gunshots and the metallic smell of blood, the acrid smoke and sirens—it was one thing to be prepared for death, but it was entirely different to witness it firsthand.

Isaiah’s legs stiffened and froze.

“Spade...”

A boy who looked of Hispanic descent was lying on the floor of the cafeteria with a gunshot wound. The other kids were probably dead, too.

Some of the cafeteria workers and scientists had also died because they weren’t contacted beforehand. They were probably weeded out to reduce the number of mouths to keep shut.

Bodies were rolling around everywhere. Isaiah had escaped disaster once because she wasn’t in her room, but she wouldn’t get lucky another time.

“Diamond has been found.”

One of the soldiers who had been killing everyone on sight—scientists, janitors, and surrogates in the clinical trial–spoke into his radio as he raised his gun. He was about to shoot Isaiah Franklin, but with a bang, a bullet flew out from behind her and pierced the soldier’s forehead.

“Isaiah! Come here!”

Elsie put the gun back into her pocket and pulled Isaiah into her arms. She was one of the people who were told to evacuate, but she had come back. Elsie was still proud of what she did here, thinking that it was the only good thing she had ever done as a heartless mother.

Elsie took off, running with Isaiah Franklin in her arms. The back gate of the laboratory was not yet closed, and Diana had said she would have a car waiting for them there.

“We just need to get to the back gate. Keep your eyes closed,” Elsie said.