Paul Levinson - The Copyright Notice Case

I, of course, knew, in spite of what I had told her that day in her apartment when we’d first glimpsed the light, that what she carried in her DNA was indeed both a blessing and a curse—a blessing in terms of the knowledge about our very origins that it could hold, a curse in terms of the price that three unknowing people had already paid in quest for that wisdom. A mechanism of beauty and horror, as Jenna had said herself. But to the degree that it was a blessing, I had to help it survive.

Yes, until further research could sort all of this out, I was willing to do my part to insure that the text she carried was passed on to future generations in its original form, where minds wiser than ours might come to better understand it, plumb it for its secrets, and neutralize its deadly penalties.

After all, the lethal qualities of the DNA she carried didn’t extend to reproduction. That, the copyright notice said, she was free to do.

I was prepared to help her do just that.

I moved my head over and kissed her face.

After all, I was a forensic scientist, but a scientist first, and though I’d pretty much reached the limits of my capacity to contribute to the ongoing research here, that didn’t mean that I’d shirk my responsibility to help the subject of the research live on.

That, and I so enjoyed looking into Jenna’s green-violet eyes when they were happy…

Illustration by Joseph Griffo