1.

An explosion lighted up the sky in the countryside of New York City, a big fireball broke through the roof of a lab and rushed into the air, formed a beautiful mushroom cloud and lighted up the dark sky. Five scared little birds led by a big bird flew out of the smoke into the far sky.

Two days ago, was the graduation ceremony of Stanford University, Gene Editing Class of 2054 were wearing red doctoral gown, saying the last good-bye, but unlike everyone else, Eric stood aside alone, held an old tuxedo puppet doll, the kind of puppet doll that you would expect to see in a horror movie. He did not remember how he gets this doll, this doll was with Eric since his first memory, he refused to go anywhere without it.

Eric could feel people’s eyes were looking at him and talking about him, but he already got used to it, because he’s not only just a weirdo but also a smart one, too. He was only 18, the youngest student who received Doctorate of Gene Editing major in Stanford history. A couple of his classmates walked toward him, they were much taller than him. “Here is our whiz-kid.” They mugged.

“Don’t call me that!”

“You still sleep with your doll, don’t you?” A man laughed, he seemed to be the head of that group.

Eric turned his head the other direction to avoid them. He held the puppet doll tighter. “He…his name is John.” He said quietly.

“Did you hear what he said?” The man shouted. “It has a name!” People around him started laughing. “Did you hear him? That stupid doll has a name!”

“Leave him alone!” Sam pushed the crowd to make a way in and yelled. Sam was Eric’s best friend and the only friend he had, a year larger than him, and 100 pounds heavier than him. “I will fight you if you don’t leave.” He posed like Chinese Kung-Fu movies but he was too fat to keep balance.

“He’s crazy.” The man looked at Sam said and left.

            “Thanks, Sam,” Eric said.

“No worries,” Sam said. “It’s a shame that I don’t get to punch them in the face, really.” They looked at each other, Eric began to laugh, then Sam also laughed. A few seconds later, Eric suddenly stopped smiling, he looked at the crowd, sighed.

“They are coming.”

“Who?”

“My parents.”

“Your parents? I’d love to meet him.”

“No, you don’t,” Eric said, looked to the crowd. They saw Eric and walked toward him. Eric’s parents were putting a lot of stress on him about his career, his life.

Eric’s mother shoved her way out of the crowd, spread her fat arms and gave him a big hug, the stinking sweat on her skin was all on Eric’s face. “There’s my son! The youngest graduate ever!” Mother said loudly on purpose to make people notice them.

“Mother,” Eric said, trying to act a smile on his face.

“My little genius.” Eric heard the sound and turned, saw his father, hesitated a moment. He and his father had a weird relationship. “Fa…father.” Eric approached and hugged him as well.

“Your mother and I spent a lot of you, it’s time for you to have a job to earn them back,” Father said. “Do you have any idea how crazy it is? My phone rings so often that I have to turn it off sometimes. Those big companies, they want you!”

“Father, I haven’t decided yet, just give me more time.”

            “To decide with what?” Father asked, looked confused. “Besides, you always good at biology, and you like it…Do you?”

“Of course I love biology, but it’s just I’ve doing biology for my whole life, I feel kind of…burnt out.”

“What are you talking about? What are going to do if not biology?”

Eric took a deep breath, “I am writing a novel recently…” He said. Eric never told anyone except Sam about his little project before, he did not know what will his parents react.

“A what?” Father could not believe what Eric said. “A novel? How dare you? Do you have any idea of how much money your mother and I spend on you? Do you know how our relatives would think about us if you become a poor writer?”

“I don’t care, it is my life.”

“And you are my son!” 

Eric did not say anything, tears dropped down from his face

“You will find a real job, stay at our house, the end of the story,” Father shouted, and left. Mother came to Eric, used her hand whipped tears on Eric’s face.

“Your father is doing this for your own good, you know that, don’t you?” She said.

Eric did not respond.

“You will understand, eventually.” She said.

2.

In the middle of that night, Eric suddenly woke up, jumped out from his bed filled with excitement. While he was sleeping, he got a great idea for his novel that he has been writing on from his dream. Eric ran to his writing desk in the darkness. He sat on the chair, with a pair of shaking hands, Eric turned on the lamp, a black old typewriter from 19th century appears on the desk. Eric had this for a long time since he was a child, the first time he saw it, he felt somehow connected to this, but he had never written a complete story out of that typewriter.

He put his finger on the key broad carefully, but suddenly the idea he remembered was gone. “No! Not again!” Eric put his hands held on his head, shouted, then he used his head crashed on the keyboard. “No! No! No!” He shouted as he kept hitting the keyboard, and the key “S” fell on the floor and bounced away. All the sudden, the anger turned into tears. He kneeled on the hard and cold floor, looking for the key.

The door of his room opened and father’s feet stepped in, in front of Eric’s eyes while he lay on the ground miserably mixed with tears and snot. A handpicked up of the “S” key Eric was looking for, “Is this what you are looking for?” father said.

“Give it back, dad!” Eric said, stood up.

“What are you doing in the middle of the night?” Father asked, did not respond to Eric.

“I was writing,” Eric said.

“That does not like writing.” Father pointed at the paper on the typewriter, it was some random letters made by him while his head was punching the typewriter.

“Not your business, give it back!” Eric shouted.

“It is my business when it is about my son,” Father said. “This typewriter has driven you mad, I’m taking it, and locking it up.”

“You can’t do that, I am a grown man, not your child anymore.”

“You are my son, living in my house…”

“Which I did not have a say on both of these things.”

Father paused a moment and clapped Eric’s shoulder. “I am doing this for your own good.” Then he left the room.

Eric laid back to the bed, watched the ceiling and could not go to sleep. He flipped from left to right, then flipped from right to left. The first night after graduation, he thought he could have a nice sleep, but he could not, he had too much in his mind. The phone rang and scared Eric. He picked up the phone, saw the caller ID: “Sam”.

“It’s the middle of the night!” Eric said. “Why you are calling so late?”

“But you are awake, aren’t you?”

“How do you know I didn’t sleep? Are you spying on me?” Eric joked.

“No time to talk about that. Listen, I have a great opportunity here.”

“If it is a job offer, I’m not interested.”

“No, no! Wait, before you hang up, listen,” Sam said. “This company that I work for, Harris & Lee, they are offering you a million dollar…”

“A million a year?” Eric laughed. “That still below the average for me, I’m a whiz-kid, remember?”

“For 10 hours tomorrow,” Sam said. Eric lay back to the bed, sweat rolled down from his face and wet the bed. “And that’s not the coolest part yet,” Sam continued saying. “Do you know what does this company do? They customize real human!”

“Really?” Eric asked with shock, excitement full of his head. “That’s so cool! I thought the professor mentioned it a long time ago, I didn’t know it’s still operating.

“So, are you in?”

“Of course, I…” Eric looked down on his typewriter, suddenly the excitement inside his head was stopped, he fell in thought.

“Listen,” Eric said. “I appreciate what you are trying to do, but…”

“You want to be a writer, I know that.”

“That’s my dream.”

“I know, but here is the same!” Sam said. “It’s all about creating things! Besides, you could still be a writer after you retired.”

“I don’t know…” Eric responded. He felt his head became hot like something is floating in his head. He knew that it is the work of Dopamine, every time.

“How’s your writing going?”

“Not good.” Eric sighed. “Every time I got an inspiration, I just couldn’t write them down, it’s like…when I started writing, they just flipped away, like something inside of me stopped them.”

“You don’t sound happy,” Sam said. “Dream does not be supposed to be painful like this.” Eric didn’t speak, tears rolled out from his face. “Just…trust me on this,” Sam continues to say. “I texted you the company, promise me that you will go tomorrow to try it out, feel free to quit after if you still feel like to be a writer.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Eric said, then fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

3.

In the early morning, Eric woke up, opened his closet looking for something nice to wear at work, but he could not find any. Finally, he ended up grabbing John-----his puppet doll and wearing his pajamas. While he was dressing, his father came in. “What are you dressing up for?” He asked.

“A job,” Eric said. “Which I’m probably going to quit today, so don’t hold too much hope.”

“Really?” Father seemed to be surprised. “Which company would that be?”

“Harris & Lee. Have you heard it before?” Eric responded, tried to act normal, but he could not help to look up to see father’s reaction.

“No, no I have not,” Father said.

“Well, you should look it up,” Eric said. “They do some cool things. Do you know they can customize babies? I don’t know why I didn’t hear anything before.”

“Wow,” Father said, but he did not look surprised. In fact, he looked nervous.

“And it pays well.”

“Good,” Father said flatly. “That’s…good.”

“I’m confused, I thought you wanted this,” Eric said.

“No…I mean…I’m truly happy for you, kid.” Father said, tapped Eric on the shoulder and left the room. Eric followed him to the living room, his mother was preparing breakfast. “Our son, he is going to…I need to make sure it is right, Larry & Lee, correct?” Father said to mother.

“Harris & Lee.” Eric corrected.

Mother stopped her work immediately, seemed to be shocked. “Just so you know,” she said. “If you want to consider to continue your writing career, we are completely OK with that.”

“What do you mean?” Eric shouted. “Why are you guys suddenly acting weird? What do you want?” Nobody responded. Tears started dropping on the mother’s face. “What is going on?” Eric yelled, he was freaked out. “This is bullshit.” Eric grabbed John and left the house.

4.

Three hours later, the cab stopped with a hard brake. Eric looked out from the window, it was an old building with white ceramic tile wall, dyed by the black and brown marks left by water; the windows are closed and covered by dark wallpaper, no light could shine in nor out. Eric held the puppet in his arm hardly.

“We are here.” The taxi driver turned and looked at him, said.

Eric got out of the cab. The trees covered all the sunlight upon him. He looked down, a bald man on the stair was looking at him. When Eric’s eyes met the man’s eyes, Eric felt a familiar yet strange connection. He was sure that was Doctor Harris, he did not how, he just knew. The man kept looking at Eric with no emotion on his face. “Hello, I’m Eric, you must be Doctor Harris?”

The man nodded. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time, my friend.”

“I’m sorry,” Eric felt confused. “Did we meet before?”

“I don’t think we had.” Doctor Harris reached his hand. “Welcome to Harris& Lee”.

“Oh…my pleasure.” Eric struggled to pull his hand out from the puppet. He did not realize that he squeezed John so hard that his hand was so sweaty. “I know you probably heard a lot of this, but I just want to say that I really admire what you are doing, it is a miracle of…”

“Come in, we have a client to take.” Doctor Harris interrupted Eric, said.

Eric followed Dr. Harris into the lab, a strong smell of disinfector hit Eric right on his face and made him feel dizzy. He struggled to put on the blue surgical gown on, that made him like a blue penguin.

Eric followed Doctor Harris into the lab. Inside, there were no much different than a normal school laboratory: it had microscopes, liquid in test tubes with different colors, freezers, and some complex computers. “Here is the Editing Room, where human beings are recreated, where we get to be god.” Doctor Harris announced. 

“How are we manage to do that?” Eric asked excitedly.

“You see, homo sapiens claim themselves as a complicated species, believe that they have a freed mind, but they don’t realize that their mind is controlled by only one thing: dopamine. Do you think diligent people love working so much? Wrong, it’s just because their bodies secrete more dopamine to make them feel satisfied while working. You think robbers and rapists are truly bad inside them? Wrong, they just secrete extra dopamine than normal people when they doing the bad things. People’s fate is designed before we were born.”

“Not if we change the secretion of dopamine by us,” Eric said with excitement. Doctor Harris nodded, “Imagine what that means to the society,” Doctor Harris said. “imagine a world that people are hardworking, lawful, and patriotic… people will behave the exact thing what we need them to behave.”

“Are we able to change the intelligence?”

“Yes, we can,” Harris said. “But it is not legal yet, those politicians are too stupid to see the value of it, but they will come around when they saw North Korean using edited human being dictate the world.”

“You sure we can do this? Have you test it?”

“We test it once, and it went very well.” A weird smile crossed Doctor Harris’ face, but he hides it very soon.

“Is the another of your partner here? Mr. Lee, he is in the company’s name.” Eric asked. “Just curious.”

“Don’t bring him up again.” Dr. Harris said with a cold face. Eric did not know why the door suddenly opened, a couple came in, the husband brought a big silver case. They had the surgical gown on, but it can’t hide their excitement.

“Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, welcome.” Dr. Harris walked to them and shook their hands, they were the clients Dr. Harris was talking about. The man handed the case to Dr. Harris carefully. Dr. Harris slowly opened the case, white steam came out from the case, a small plastic sample box was inside of it contains the embryo of their baby. He slowly but steadily put the sample box in a tray of the computer.

            “This is happening!” The wife whispered to her husband with a shaking voice. “We are going to have a son that is exactly what I want.”

“What we want.” The husband reminded her.

Dr. Harris opened the computer screen, said. “This computer needs a password to function, don’t touch it because once the password you putted is incorrect, the computer will lock automatically.”

“What is it?”

“You don’t have the authority to know yet.” Dr. Harris said. “Only two people on this planet know it, me and Dr. Lee.”

“Can we start now?” Mr. Andrews complained.

“Dr. Harris unlocked the computer, a piece of code formed on the screen. Eric had no idea what it is. “You will have a daughter. When she plays music, her brain would secrete 40% more dopamine than normal. However, when she studies math, her brain would secrete 40% less of dopamine, which means she would be bad at math. According to our data analysis, 56% of children like your daughter can’t go to college.” Dr. Harris said.

“That’s easy, she doesn’t need piano talent, money is what he needs. Make her like math so she can study finance."

“A good decision, sir.” Dr. Harris said, deleted some of the code and retyped them. “But I need to remind you that your daughter has a low IQ, we can’t guarantee that she would be successful only by the secretion of dopamine.”

“Then change her IQ.”

“It would be illegal, we can’t do that.”

“We paid you big money on this!” the husband yelled.

“You two can leave, I think we had enough for today.” Dr. Harris said. Until they left, he stood up and said, “Follow me, want to see something cool?” He pushed a heavy door open. Inside was nothing visible but darkness. Eric followed Doctor Harris’ steps carefully into the room. “We call this room the Womb.” Dr. Harris said.

“Why this room is so dark…”

“Shush.” Doctor Harris stopped Eric. “Keep quiet, we don’t want to disturb them.

“Who?”

“You are witnessing the greatest achievement that humanity has ever made.” Doctor Harris turned on a torch, Eric saw clearly that five, not fully-grown infants were flowing in glass jars with green liquid. “The green liquid you are looking at is the hardest part of this project, it keeps the environment sterile, even a tiny bit of contamination will infect them. We made our own prescription of disinfector, we keep them in the storage room downstairs.” Dr. Harris pointed at the small door on the floor, opened, a ladder from the top all the way to the dark bottom.

Eric walked to one of the infants, a sign under it said: “Jim, No. 142”. Jim floated in the liquid. It was the first time Eric ever get a chance to observe an unborn infant, the excitement was flowing on his head. “Fascinating.” He murmured. 

“This technology allows us to monitor the infants 24/7 to make sure there is no accident.” Dr. Harris said as Eric continuing watching. Jim slowly spinning in the liquid. Eric moved forward, put his head close to the glass waiting to see its face. The infant’s face spin facing toward Eric, the moment Eric’s eyes connect with Jim’s cold, empty eyes, Eric felt two arrows shoot directly into his heart. He stepped back, fell on the cold floor with tears coming down from his face.

“This is wrong!” Eric yelled. “This is all wrong! They don’t belong here, release them!”

“I know it looked intimidating, but think about what they could offer to society.”

“You are sick! This place is disgusting!”

Dr. Harris seemed surprised at the time, wanted to say something but he stopped.”

The door suddenly opened, a woman came in. “Dr. Harris, a man at the front door says he has an appointment with you.”

“I will be there in a minute.” Doctor Harris said, nodded, then turned to Eric and said. “You had a good start, but now I’m beginning to feel a little bit of disappointment in you, child.” Dr. Harris was walking out of the room.

“Am I fired?” Eric asked.

“No, you stay.” Dr. Harris walked out of the room and closed the door.

Eric in the middle of the room, suddenly a steel-cold stick pointed at the backside of his side. “Is that a gun?” Eric asked.

“Shut up.” A man said.

“We are not going to hurt you if you do the things what we tell you.” Eric recognized that he was the client, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. “You know how do work that thing?”

“What thing?”

“That supercomputer stuff that can make my daughter smart.”

“That need a password that I don’t know.”

“Who are you fooling? You work here, of course you know.” Mr. Andrews yelled. “Open it!”

“I said I don’t know the password.”

“Open it!” Mr. Andrews shouted again and pushed the gun harder against Eric’s head. Eric felt his whole body was shaking, and started to realize that he was squeezing John again. Eric put his shaking hands on the keyboard.

“Just, do something, god dame it,” Mr. Andrews shouted. “I will push the trigger I swear to god.”

Sweat came down from Eric’s hands and head, dust on the floor constantly sprinkled up by people and flew into his face. “The dust has a special smile.” He thought. He remembered that smell, he remembered that a person had the same smile. “Who was him? He wore a black topcoat, and he…sited by his bed. He handed a puppet doll over him, “His name is John.” He whispered to his ear.

Eric looked at John lied on the ground, typed: “J”, “O”, “H”, N”, and click “ENTER”, and the computer unlocked.

“Do the thing!” Mr. Andrews used even bigger power to push the gun to Eric’s head. Eric tried to find the “Lisa Andrews” file, but there were a lot of files, he could not find it. “Quick!” Mr. Andrews shouted.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Eric said. “Would you help me to see which one is your daughter? I have a bad vision. Mr. Andrews leaned forward closed to the computer from Eric’s back. Eric no longer sensed the gun, and used his whole strength to push Mr. Andrews to the ground, the gun fell to another side of the lab.

Mr. Andrews lied on the ground, punched Eric’s nose tried to fight back. Eric did not felt pain but sore at first, then he heard something broke from his nose, tears started to blur his eyesight, but he did not let go. Eric used all his strength chocked his neck. His face was turning purple, and his body slowly stopped struggling.

“Release him.” Mrs. Andrews shouted. Eric looked up, saw her pointing at him with the gun. He totally forgot about her. Eric loosened his hand, Mr. Andrews lied on the floor, coughed. “Raise your hands to the air.” She said. Eric did what she said.

“We trusted you, but you have failed us.” She said, continuedly pointing the gun to Eric. “You left me no choice but to…” The alert suddenly started to ring, red light covered the whole lab. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews fled. While they were running to the door, Eric saw a man covered in black was looking at him. They had eye contact then the man disappeared.

5.

Eric came back to the computer, tried to turn it off, but the computer was not in his control. A video popped out and started playing, a red-headed young man appeared in the video. The alarm was loud, it was hard to hear the video. “This is David Johnson Harris,” The man said. Eric could not believe this man was Dr. Harris, he never knew his first name before. “Experiment vlog 089, January 5th, 2036.” he continued to say. “Today is special, it is the first day after my former partner Dr. Lee, uh…abandoned me.” As he was speaking, he pulled out an embryo, the same as the one that Mr. and Mrs. Andrews brought. “His name is Eric,” He said. This surprised Eric.

“It’s just another person with the same name.” He whispered. “It’s just another person with the same name.”

“Eric Robinson, that’s his full name.” Dr. Harris added the last name. Eric started to panic. November 11th, 2036 was his birthday, this happened nine months after his birthday. “This can’t be right.” He murmured. But he knew deep down, this is real.

“I convinced his parents to change his passion for gene editing, that took some hustle, but it was worth it, he would only be a pathetic untalented writer if not because of me.” Dr. Harris continued to speak. “Later this day, I will change his intelligence to the highest as I can give, and eighteen years later I will have a new partner…”

The door was suddenly opened, Eric turned and saw Sam and Dr. Harris came in. “Are you ok? We heard the alarm, is there a breakthrough?” Dr. Harris asked.

Eric looked at Dr. Harris, “A pathetic untalented writer.” He said.

“What?” Dr. Harris asked.

“Does that sound familiar? Any chance you have said it before, Mr. David Johnson Harris?”

“Yes, and that would be true if not because of what I had done to you.”

“Well played,” Eric laughed, said. “You planned it well, using a random kid from a normal family so there are no subincisions; Putting just enough of intelligence in me so I would graduate fast but not too smart to be noticed. But that’s not enough. You need someone to control me, to look after me, someone to give me a little push at the right time.” Eric looked at Sam, but Sam avoided his eyes.

“You paid my best friend to spy on me?” Eric stared at Dr. Harris, asked.

“Not exactly, I paid him to be your friend.”

“Please, Eric, forgive me if you can,” Sam said, tears starting rolling out from his face. “You have every right to be angry…I just want you to know, that after all the time we’ve spent, I am seeing you as real my friend.”

“You end my dream!” Eric shouted. “You said I could trust you!”

“This “dream” you are saying, is just a result of your body generating dopamine to make you happy when you are making stories up. Can’t you see? It is fake!”

“This is my decision to make, not yours!”

“Even though when it is wrong? Dr. Harris asked, smiled. “I see, young man, you have questions that need to answered, how about let me answer you right now?”

Eric did not respond.

“Remember when you asked me about Dr. Lee? You see, the first time we started this, we thought we found something extraordinary, that we can control people’s lives. But then, Dr. Lee discovered that our kids have a high rate of having psychotic disorders, even split personality.”

“Why is that?”

“We don’t know for sure, but Dr. Lee had his own theory. He believes that there is another thing controlling us.”

“What can it possibly be? Did he discover a new organism?”

“Well, no, it’s actually a very old idea. The soul.” Dr. Harris said. “The program we designed will have a conflict with the soul and destroy the host.” Eric could not believe his ears. “But this is his mad talk, there is no such thing as a soul but…Dr. Lee believed in it. My foolish partner left this cooperation, so I have to make another partner----literally make one, and I chose you. You are the first client after Dr. Lee left me. I persuade your parents to make you into biology, then I changed your intelligence illegally. But things didn’t go as planned,” Dr. Harris looked at John, said. “It appears that he paid you a secret visit when you were little and gave you that.” He pointed at John. “A clever trick, but to separate you and me? No, not enough, we are much stronger than that; you, you are smarter than this. Think about what would you achieve in the field of biology?”

Speaking of biology, Eric felt dopamine started to flow in his head again. Dr. Harris was right, what is the point of fighting for a dream that doesn’t exist? He looked down on John, maybe be the only thing in here that is real. The two cold eyes stared at Eric made him chill.

“Stop it, you lying piece of shit!” Sam jumped in. “You did this to him not for him, but for your sick obsession of power! The parents, they are doing this not for their kids but because they like it when their kids are under control. You all are control freak!”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that!” Dr. Harris yelled back. “Stay here, the rest of your life will be rich and happy!” Dr. Harris said to Eric.

“Eric, follow me and get out of here, you will find your true self,” Sam said. They both looked at Eric, expecting his response, but Eric did not know what to say.

“My…life…destroyed.” Eric murmured.

“What?” Sam and Dr. Harris asked they could not hear him because the voice was too low.

“There are…more…more would suffer…” Eric continued to whisper. Suddenly, He walked towards the desk, grabbed a match. “The downstairs of this room is the storage room.” He said calmly. “The Womb needs a big amount of disinfectant you said it yourself, which made by Benzoic Acid, an explosive chemical.”

“Put it down!” Doctor Harris shrieked. “You would kill the five unborn infants that are in the Womb! Five!”

“Yes, it will, but death is better than no liberty,” Eric said. “Besides, your sick lab will be destroyed for good.”

“Please don’t, my life-long research is in here, I…they are my babies…” Dr. Harris begged.

“It’s funny, if you didn’t edit me, I will never come up with this plan,” Eric said, laughed. Then he turned to Sam. “Sam, you go.”

Sam nodded. “You are a brave man, Eric, my friend,” Sam said. “I mean it.” He walked towards the door.

“One more thing,” Eric stopped him. “Was that you who triggered the alarm?”

“No, I don’t know who did, nobody was supposed to be there.”

“Dr. Lee. It was him all along.” Eric murmured. As Sam left, Dr. Harris suddenly starting running outside. Eric picked up Mr. Andrews’ gun on the ground fast, aimed for his leg and pulled the trigger, A giant sound was made and Dr. Harris fell on the floor with a red flower on his leg. He struggles to crawl to the door, but it was too slow. “You see what it is like now?” Eric walked towards him, said. “You wanting to do something, but there is always a force stopping you.”

Eric fired the match, lighted John and throw it in the storage room, the red flame came up from the ground swallowed his whole body, but he felt the freedom that he never had before.

The five little birds continued to follow the big bird flew taller and taller, till rubbles of the lab were no longer to be seen by eyes.