Title:
Genome
By: Lot49
Rating: PG-13, R in later chapters.
Summary: Three men, one woman and a story of music, murder, eugenics, rocket science and love. With apologies to the Andrew Niccol's, Gattaca.
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera belongs to Gaston Leroux, Gattaca to Andrew M. Niccol and Columbia Pictures. I own neither. Bah.
I couldn't really blame my parents; they had been young, idealistic and in love. After all, how could two beautiful, healthy specimens of create anything other than perfection? Any offspring of theirs was bound to be beautiful, intelligent and, most of all, loved. So, of course, they foolishly allowed it to happen. They trusted in nature and conceived a child.
I was the product of that.
They didn't make that mistake again.
PROLOGUE
"I'm sorry."
It was all they could say, a litany of hollow apologies, mumbled platitudes deafened by the whirrs, the beeps and hums of million-dollar machinery, all echoing in the antiseptic stench of the birthing room. The parents, exhausted, the father-to-be holding his wife's shoulders as she sobbed.
Accidents happened all the time. The chance you took with a natural conception. Children of God, as they called them, had enough disadvantages to be born without having their flaws removed in the single-cell stage. In the bassinet it lay, nine months proof of the cruelty of nature, still slick and shiny with birthing fluids. It was horrific, the infant— no, it wasn't an infant at all, this—this thing that had been pulled of its mother's body, some sort of abomination in of itself. A small, hideous creature, deformed and skeletal, its sheer wax-like skin stretched tight over misshaped bony features. No, it wasn't a child so much as a shriveled little mummy exhumed from an ancient tomb, so very still, so small and dead.
All they could say was, I'm sorry. This is what happened when you didn't plan, you didn't prevent, when you could have had the perfect child, the finest science had to offer, instead of...this.
"It's for the best," one of the many masked faces finally added. "It probably wouldn't have survived the first—"
A sound, a strange ethereal cry broke through, one that lengthened into a low keening wail. They all hung there, in stasis, a room full of breathing, the occasional beep and the crying, that ghostly keen that kept going on and on and on. Finally, one of them moved. Trembling hands gently tied and neatly snipped the umbilical cord, then, carefully lifting a bony foot, pressed an ampule to its heel, drawing a single droplet of blood from the child.
"What are its chances?" grated from the birthing bed, the reluctant father watching the speck of red tumble into the sequencer. For an eternity it seemed, the machine whirred its way through the bit of double-helix, checking, rechecking, comparing and compiling statistics, numbers, all possibilities pumped out in feet after feet of an elongated fortune.
Lifting the printout, the nurse scanned through the lengthy entries, eyes flickering rapidly across the bold statistics.
"Are you sure you want to—"
"Just read it."
"Asperger's," the nurse mechanically snapped off, "sixty percent probability. Manic depression: sixty-eight percent. Attention Deficit Disorder: seventy-seven percent. Arrhythmia: ninety-nine percent." She droned on, scrolling down the ticker-tape trail of paper, listing off every defect, every guaranteed failure in the infant's life, until she came to the total sum of his flaws:
"Life expectancy: thirty-two years."
And the child continued to cry.
1.
She remembered laughing, running, an endless summer on the beach with her father and a boy with a mop of hair as golden as hers. She never enjoyed swimming as much as he did. The water was too cold for her, the violent cascade of waves too daunting, and so she preferred instead, to watch —with not little trepidation— as he crept further and further out into the ocean, daring each time to add to the distance until he seemed nothing more than a speck in the waves.
One particular day was exceptionally windy, breakers smashing onto shore with gusto, but he'd insisted on making his way out again, determined to travel fifty yards further. He would pause every so often to wave back at her before stroking further out into the big blue. Clutching the red scarf about her neck, her hair whipping about her face, she waved back. Another fifty yards and his hand shot out flagging her again. Her own lifted and paused in the air, as ears caught the faint strains of a piano carried in by the wind. The notes were slow and melancholy, almost wistful, winding about her like smoke, its gentle silk threads tugging, beckoning her to follow.
Her scarf, unnoticed, unwound from her neck and fluttered like a moth out into the foam.
She found herself like Gretel of the fairytales, following that elusive trail of sound, gobbling each note up as if it were a piece of shiny candy. She didn't notice when she passed several beach houses, creeping up a brushed path, never realizing the sun gradually fading into shade until she felt cobblestones cold against her bare feet. But she kept moving, tiptoeing steadily forward, afraid to disturb the dream, until at last she came to the gray-smoked picture window of a shaded cottage. There, there— the source of that music, her hands and forehead pressed against the darkened glass, she closed her eyes and let the notes capture her mind, her heart, and imagined angels. She'd heard it, papa! She'd finally heard it...
"Lotte!" The shout came from behind, and the glorious sounds dissipated, as if startled by the abrupt intrusion. Her eyes snapping open, she turned to see the boy, sleek and wet as a small otter, running up the path and brandishing an equally soggy red scarf like the head of a slain dragon.
Surprised, she touched her neck. She hadn't even been aware.
"What're you doing all the way out here?" He handed the scarf back to her, frowning at her fingerprints dotting the glass.
"I heard something. Music. Someone playing. It was so..." Her eyes lit up. "Do you know who it might be?"
He stare at the window, face set in concentration, as if trying to glare through the frosted glass in admonition of whatever lay behind it. "No one," he finally said. "It's no one." With a firm hand on her wrist, he pulled her away. She didn't protest, she never did, but glanced reluctantly back, as he led her out of the shade and into the sand and sunlight.
The piercing roar of rocket engines shattered the otherwise quiet afternoon, and Christine Daae blinked, tilting her head up towards the shuttle as it shimmied and whined in the distance, slicing through the air at 18,000 miles an hour, pushing it's way into space.
She'd watched every launch for the past 358 days, at first contenting herself with simply observing the takeoffs through the giant picture window in the main lobby of the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. Then, as if to bring herself closer, she moved outdoors into the courtyard. A month ago, she'd discovered the rooftop of the hothouse complex, and here, among the columns of concrete and shiny surfaces, she discovered the closest she could ever climb towards heaven. Or space.
The roof of the hothouse wasn't the highest building in the corporation. It wasn't even the best view. But then again, the launches were no longer the main reason she came every day to this isolated patch of space. Christine glanced at her watch. Seventeen-hundred and nineteen hours. As the seconds hand dragged towards the top, she wrapped her arms around herself, tilted her head back and shut her eyes. Ah, yes, there it was: the soft strains of a violin, always at the culmination of each launch.
Oh, the music knew she was there listening, a perfectly rapt audience of one, but it seemed content to ignore the other roof occupant, after all, it wasn't playing for her. Still, Christine kept this discovery a secret to herself, occasionally daring to pretend a particular piece was crafted for her ears instead of wasted on unappreciative and unhearing rocket ships.
On several occasions, she'd slipped to the roof early, hoping to catch a glimpse of a figure, this virtuoso approaching, but it never worked. No one entered or left through the elevator, nor were there any signs of life near the rear-left stairwell. But every day, at precisely five-twenty, the music began, the violin played —never the same tune twice— and intrigue would stir in her veins.
All in all, it was a fruitless effort, attempting to trace the source of that sound. One moment it seemed to come from behind the pillar to her left. The next, across the expanse of rooftop. Another time, right behind her. She realized, belatedly, that this mysterious violinist was taunting her. Give it up, it seemed to warn, and she knew, if she chased it too hard, too ardently, the music would one day disappear.
So, she contented herself with the scraps, the fragments of song doled out to her, some familiar, some new, but always magnificent. Yesterday, it had been Holst, in tribute to the nine-man journey to Jupiter. Today...
Eyes still shut, she concentrated. And smiled.
The Gypsy Song from Carmen.
She imagined the whimsical and provocative joy, fingers and bow dancing on the strings in the dark thrill of seduction. Unconsciously, she began to hum along, following the main progression, her voice attaching to the melody. And as the violin's tempo and volume increased, so did hers, until she suddenly found herself a cappella. It took several seconds for her to notice the violin had faded away, and she abruptly stopped, mortified.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, shoulders drooping, arms winding even more tightly around her midsection, afraid if she raised her voice, she would drive the music off completely. "I won't do it again. Please. Please continue."
A long moment of silence followed, one Christine didn't dare to breathe for fear of disturbing the atmosphere.
"Stand up straight." She whipped about abruptly at the voice that seemed to have come from right behind her, but met only with air and Plexiglas. Apparently, the mysterious music came with an equally mysterious voice. How shockingly male it was too, deep and honeyed — like caramel, with just a suggestion of something European. "Your posture is wretched. You cannot expect to sing properly slouching like that."
Apparently, also a critic, to boot.
Resisting the urge turn a second time and look like a complete fool, Christine obeyed. Straightening her shoulders, lifting her chin, she unwrapped her arms from herself. And waited.
More silence. Then, softly, it began again, the first few opening bars. At that moment it finally clicked in, the voice wanted her to sing. And she found herself crushed by the most wrenching weight of performance anxiety she could have ever imagined. Heart thundering against her chest, mouth cottony, Christine froze, mind trapped in what the navigational programmers would have termed a null-point error.
The violin slowed, then stopped. It seemed to be waiting, but her voice simply wasn't there. Then, to Christine's chagrin, it started again, the opening bars, the introduction, the lead in. Apparently, now that she'd opened her big fat mouth and trod all over his (because she now knew, quite unequivocally, that her ghostly violinist was, in fact, a he) former solo act, he wasn't about to let her gracefully retreat; no, not until she'd made a suitable ass out of herself.
Fine then. She would sing.
I'll tell you why I wanna dance.
It ain't the sweetness in the music,
I like the sweetness in the music,
But that ain't why I wanna dance.
Softly, timidly at first, the first semi-public performance she'd engaged in since her disastrous audition for the Conservatory. No one except her shower head had a chance to ever witness her sing again. That was, until today.
There, on the rooftop, high above the earth, she felt her nervousness slowly dissipate. Pushed, prodded and driven by the insistent strains of the violin, she fell easily into the rhythm of the second verse, her voice gaining power, confidence. On the third she hit her stride, struck nearly dumb by the simple joy of it. Faster it went, it felt free, glorious, and when she ended her line—
Kick him out the door!
— the music continued to spin rapidly, a furious allegro climbing until it culminated in the final strains of the violin's notes. Christine found herself bent over, panting as if she'd run a marathon. It took several more moments before she straightened, self-consciously pressing out the new creases in her suit.
"That," she said, once she'd caught her breath. "That was..."
No response. The violin and voice had disappeared as inconspicuously as it had arrived.
Disappointed, but deciding to dawdle a bit longer, Christine watched the sun set from the roof, waiting until the last bit of light sank under the horizon and hundreds of halogen bulbs blinked on in rapid succession. As the queer and rare rush of endorphins swirling through her nervous system trickled to more manageable levels, she reluctantly made her way back to reality.
Seventeen floors down, three tubes away: the distance to Programming, a lengthy but not significant walk. She strode up center aisle, passing through rows upon rows of identical gray cubicles, each one impeccably neat, each flat-screen monitor at the same angle, keyboard and mouse in exact place, every bit of ergonomically correct furniture virtually indistinguishable from the other. Everything, so precise, so perfect, it hurt her eyes.
Swiveling left, she entered the office shared with her boss. Director Gabriel had left for the day, the screensaver on his monitor blocking out a series of shuttle flight paths and patterns. With a smile, Christine reached over and shut it off before turning to her own imperfect, untidy little desk.
A folder detailing the Mission to 951 Gaspra sat atop a pile of papers, ready to be checked, then entered into the system. Thumbing through the manifest, she noted the names, recognizing a small number of them.
As she replaced the folder back atop the stack, she spotted a corner of something peeking out of her drawer tray. Tugging it open revealed a postcard-sized note sitting atop the collection of pens and paperclips. Clipped to it were sheets of music, the cover page titled, Les tringles des sistres tintaient.
Christine's head snapped up, and she glanced wildly around, going so far as to step out into the hallway, but the office and adjoining corridors were soundless and empty.
Atop the cream-colored card, the laser print of a two-line note simply read:
Tomorrow.
And below it—
The way it was meant to be sung.
Music: Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum and Les tringles des sistres tintaient come from Carmen Jones and Carmen, respectively. Same song, essentially. Carmen Jones was adapated from Bizet's opera and rewritten with English lyrics.
Card trick in the dark: Christine's red scarf is rather like Holden Caulfield's hunting cap, no?
