The results came back. I downloaded the attachment—four hundred kilobytes representing the differences between myself and the standard human reference genome. I loaded this into a comparison app and checked it against two other versions of my genetic data, each from different labs, each obtained through different sampling methods—a swab, a needle, a lock of hair. There were only minor discrepancies between the files. Something to do with increased feelings of satiety when metabolizing certain aldehydes, and a twenty-three letter sequence that influenced the variability of the size and distribution of freckles in the iris.
This was a relief. There were no major conflicts, and I wouldn’t have to make any difficult choices about which of the analyses were most correct or most useful. I had already spent the last three months laboring over every sequence I wished to change. I’d tried to make my successor’s code more balanced, less prone to the types of melancholy that my predecessor had involuntarily caused to haunt me. This one would be more serene, but not at the expense of intelligence or apprehension.
I resolved the conflict by choosing the version with greater aldehyde appreciation, and minimized iris freckling. I sent the file to my virtual assistant and prompted it to take my genome and apply the patches and updates I had worked so hard to make. I didn’t look away from the progress meter, and when it came back green I realized how tightly I’d been gripping the arm of my chair.
The file passed all the automated screening tests, and my assistant reported no problems and even complimented my work. That made me feel a little guilty when I asked it to buy time on some of the higher-tier clusters and spin up a few thousand second opinions so I could make sure everything was copacetic. It would take a few hours, so I went outside to gather my thoughts. It was raining real lightly and the cool spray felt good and I closed my eyes and tilted my head back to smile at the sky.
Things had been this way for seventeen of my line’s generations now. Other lines reproduced more quickly, but mine seemed to take our time. This is how things were for everyone in the civilized parts of Earth. By law, the only offspring you could make was a clone of yourself whose genetic code differed by no more than two-point-five percent from the standard reference human, and you could have no more than two offspring at any time. This would be my first. A speck of rain landed on my eyelid. I went back inside.
I attached the file to a smart contract that I’d had one of the more expensive lawyer assistants verify, and had the logic double-checked with another two of the most expensive coding bots I could find. It was solid. I posted the contract to the blockchain, and when it was verified I opened an interface to the live and legally binding contract, carefully typing in a number which represented more than half my net worth. I sat for several minutes, staring out at the rain, not even really thinking. Just sat there, with my finger hovered over the keys. Just one tiny impulse of electricity, and it would all be set into motion.
I tapped enter, and the funds were drained from my wallet and put into escrow. The contract sent a message with its identifying details and current balance to a secure entrypoint inside a building in Kansas. A building that contains a bank of three elevators all of which descend to one location, six hundred some odd feet below the ground. An ancient salt mine, carved out centuries ago. The server verified its receipt of the contract, and posted a signature and a delivery date. In the bowels of that old mine under the weight of all that soil and clay, in the dry and perfect air of the most expensive fabrication plant ever built, one machine talked to another and another until finally a robotic arm selected one small ampoule from a shelf of thousands and swung round to insert it into the empty bay of another machine the size of a truck. Within the guts of that wonder, the fingers of one tiny little device carefully assembled a single strand of ribonucleic acid one molecule at a time.