Peter James: Perfect People

‘The regulations are changing all the time, as different countries try to get their heads around the whole subject, and scientific and religious arguments about the ethics vary. That’s why I’m running this offshore and will stay offshore until the dust settles. You are not breaking any law by being here and conceiving your child here.’

‘And we can go back to the US freely?’ Naomi asked.

‘You can go anywhere in the world freely,’ Dettore said. ‘But my strong advice would be to keep quiet about it and avoid getting embroiled in controversy.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, looking up once more at the list of her bad genes on the screen on the wall. One tiny egg contained about twenty thousand genes but that only made up a very small part of the total DNA. The rest? It used to be called junk DNA but it was now known that most of it seemed to play a role in how these twenty thousand genes get expressed. Some of it might even make you the person that you were. Every human cell contained clusters of genes – for the colour of your eyes, for the length of your arms, for the speed at which you learned things, for diseases that would kill you.

And for the way that you behaved?

Smiling suddenly, feeling a need to lighten things up a little, she said, ‘Tell me, Dr Dett- er, Leo,’ she said. ‘On this list, with all the boxes that you want us to read through’ – and now she looked pointedly at John – ‘is there a tidiness gene?’

Naomi’s diary

I’ve only caught a glimpse of two other passengers, a man and a woman – he looks a bit like a younger George Clooney and she looks like Angelina Jolie – one of those naturally beautiful women who always make me feel so damned inferior; what is it about them? John asked Dr Dettore how many other couples – patients – are here on this ship, and he wouldn’t say. Dr Dettore says he cannot talk about anyone else – total patient confidentiality. But I’m curious. So is John.

Apparently everyone is now on board this strange cruise, and we’re heading south towards the Caribbean, to warm weather and a couple of nights alongside a quay in Cuba. Dr Dettore says Cuba isn’t a signatory to any of the human embryo treaties, so it is not a problem to go there. He also says John will be able to get a good cellphone signal there. But we won’t be able to go ashore, which is a shame. I’d like to have seen a little of Cuba.

Finally ate properly tonight, some salad and fish. John had urgent emails that couldn’t wait, so he used the satellite phone – nine minutes – $81! I left him working on them and went for a walk up on deck – too blowy – then down below. Really eerie – just endless long, narrow, silent corridors with doors along them. It could be a ghost ship, sometimes. Just carrying us away. I needed the walk to try to clear my head. All the concentration today. All these boxes, all these gene groups – clusters – you can have removed, or enhanced if you want – all you have to do is put a tick. The enormity of choices and decisions is making me realize what a lottery human life is. Poor little Halley got a shitty deal.

It is going to be very different for the new baby. Our first choice is the sex. We’ve told Dr Dettore we want a boy, and it may sound silly at this stage, but John and I have been discussing names. Luke is our favourite. We haven’t fully decided on that name, but John is keen and it’s growing on me. Luke. Close to Luck.

He’s going to be lucky for us.

‘There is a whole science of how metabolism, energetics and sleep are all integrated by circadian rhythm, and this has a profound effect on children’s success in life, Naomi,’ Leo Dettore said. ‘Have you ever wondered how, for example, company CEOs and senior politicians are only able to get through their workload because they can survive on less sleep than most of us? What we’re looking at on the list now is the group of genes responsible for our circadian rhythms. We have the capability to reconfigure their architecture in what are called “pacemaker neurons” that keep the body as a whole in sync. By fine-turning these genes, we can reduce the risk of heart disease, fat accumulation, inflammation, diabetes and even reduce the need for sleep to just two hours a night.’

Naomi looked down at the list. There were ticks in the boxes against twelve of the two hundred or so of the options they’d covered so far. This was their second morning on the ship, and their third session with Dr Dettore. The sea was calm and her seasickness had all but gone. Today she was able to concentrate better.

It was hot outside, but the air conditioning in this office seemed to be turned up higher than yesterday, and wearing just a light cotton top over her jeans today, Naomi felt cold. Her discomfort was increased by a steady dull ache in her right thigh where, earlier this morning, the nurse had given her the first of fifteen daily fertility-booster injections with a needle that looked like it had been designed to anaesthetize elephants.

‘A baby who only sleeps two hours a night would be a nightmare,’ she said. ‘You’ve had children – surely you-?’

Dettore, beside her on the sofa, raised a hand. ‘Absolutely! That would be a total nightmare, Naomi, I totally agree. But this would not be a problem you’d have to worry about as a parent. Your child would have normal sleep patterns until mid-teens, then it would be a gradual process from around fifteen years old until eighteen. His whole sleep system would start benefiting him at the crucial period of his studies, enabling him to hit the real world with maximum advantage over his peers.’

Naomi glanced around the stateroom for some moments, thinking, toying with her watch band. Ten to eleven. At the rate they were progressing it was going to take them months to work all the way through the list. ‘Isn’t it dangerous to tamper with people’s sleeping rhythms? How can you be sure that you’re not going to cause him psychological problems?’ she asked.

‘Sleep deprivation can lead to psychological problems, sure, Naomi. This is different – two hours’ sleep for your son would be the equivalent of eight for anyone else. Now, if you do the calculations, say against someone who routinely needs eight hours’ sleep, over a normal human lifespan you will effectively be gaining your son an extra fifteen years of conscious existence. That’s quite a gift for a parent to give a child. Think how much more he would be able to read, learn, accomplish.’

Naomi glanced at John but was unable to glean anything from his expression. Then she turned back to the geneticist. ‘Nothing we’ve ticked so far will make him a freak. We’ve taken decisions about his height in the hope he will be six foot tall like John, rather than a shortie like me, because for a man there are definite advantages in being tall. Other than that, all we’ve done is to try to eliminate the horrible disease genes. We’re not interested in designing the shape of his nose or the colour of his eyes or his hair. We’re happy to leave things like that to chance.’

John, making a note on his BlackBerry memo pad, nodded.

Dettore topped up his glass of mineral water. ‘Park the sleep issue for now – we’ll come back to it later. We’ll move on to the next group on the list – these relate to the clusters of muscular, skeletal and neural genes that will affect his athletic abilities. We can redesign some of these groups to enhance your son’s hand-eye coordination. That will help him at sports like tennis, squash, baseball and golf.’

John turned to Naomi. ‘I think that’s interesting. It’s not something that could do him any harm.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not comfortable about that at all. Why would you want to do that?’