“In the future will our technologies help stabilise our planet and population, leading to a very long lifetime for us? Or will we destroy our world and its inhabitants, after only a brief appearance on the cosmic stage?”
Jill Cornell Tarter, astronomer.“This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to future events is purely coincidental. Ahem … it is, isn’t it?”
The Author.
Prologue
Mars, June 2500
The man felt the files downloading to his embedded chipset just in time, a few hours before his departure for the Kepler-1638b Super Earth. He had required data on the original unedited sources of his genome. The vast majority of records had been lost during the Genome Wars, so this was an unexpected gift from fate.
The files contained the names of four of his sources, all from the 20th and 21st centuries. This suited him fine as he was a historian fascinated by this period. His teammates laughed about his passion, and the few who were versed in old tales preferred delving into more interesting events such as the Climate Decay of the 22nd century, the Genome Wars of the 23rd century or the Pre-Asteroids Period.
But he saw the 20th and 21st centuries as a golden age for humanity. He had tried to understand this fascination as if making it rational would render it more acceptable. He had studied the language of those times and all the information he could find, but of course, data were scarce: the global devastations that had taken place during the previous centuries had wiped out most goods and storage units. They had been real history equalisers, and now the 20th and 21st centuries felt as distant as the Middle Ages or the Roman Empire.
At that time, people lived shorter but richer lives, he thought. The Earth was still a functioning ecosystem, and most people were convinced that the future would, overall, be better than the past. There was hope.
He remembered from his studies that, back then, cancer was a common cause of death, despite the fact that machines to diagnose and often cure it were available in many countries This was partly thanks to CERN, an old organisation which contributed to cancer treatment research. Improvements in environment and medicine increased life expectancy at birth by reducing early and mid-life mortality. The total world population increased, although longer lifespans were most common in rich countries, thanks to the greater level of infrastructure.
However, typical life expectancy stagnated at around 140 years at the end of the 21st century. It looked as if there was a mechanism that prevented most humans from surviving over that age. After an extensive research effort, scientists found that genome editing was the key to picking the longevity lock.
The Human Genomics Centre, HGC in short, was a private company that had begun collecting data for archival purposes but had then, at first unofficially, moved on to genome editing. Over the years, HGC had grown into a powerful multinational organisation which combined the extensive genome archives they had accumulated with the processing power of quantum computing. In this way, HGC scientists had managed to increase longevity. Many genetic modifications had become inheritable for humans, animals and plants. A new era had begun.
After the Genome Wars, fewer and fewer humans were born naturally Most were specialpurpose subjects, like he himself: modern laboratory creations with a selected genetic profile specially tailored to their duties.
The man eagerly opened the files and found a table summarising their contents.
Name Age Notes
Frank Ango 60 Newspaper article joined October 1976 Chicago
Lidia Cone 40 Related to Frank Ango (?) January 2023 Canary Islands
Maude Ivory 14 Stage name. Image joined January 2023 Canary Islands
Black Jack 55 Plumber. Image joined October 2033 Chicago
These humans were certainly physically different from him. Even the tallest among them would not reach his shoulders, and they had only two arms instead of his four, which were so much more useful in low gravity. Humans from the 20th and 21st centuries were stocky and strong, while his body was elongated and his tissues were radiation-resistant.
Scarce information was attached to the files. A New York Times article dating back to June 1976 showed a pixelated picture of a thin man with a surprised look on his face. It said that Frank Ango was the only known survivor of a naval disaster and had lived alone for more than 30 years on an island.
Was this an event that forged Frank’s life? Or did it instead crush him, the man wondered.
Then he thought about his own life. Will I survive my own journey, or will I die like Frank’s mates?
Lidia Cone was likely related to Frank Ango. But how? In addition, the genomes of Lidia Cone and Maude Ivory had been collected the same month in the same HGC facility. Did they know each other? The number of patients was already rather high, so that seemed unlikely.
The documents included two images. The first showed a dark-eyed girl with curly black hair, and its file was labelled ‘Maude Ivory’. She was standing by a HGC building, holding a big ice cream in one hand and some sort of musical instrument in the other. To her right, a young woman with a sickly-looking child was laughing. A tall church loomed behind them. Likely a nurse at the genome centre, the man thought.
The second image was in Jack Black’s folder. It showed an old stone fountain covered in green moss. Some engraved text was still partially visible, and he could just make out the word ‘America’. He wondered what that was about.
The man felt like those abandoned children he had read about in his studies, who discovered later in their lives who their biological parents were.
I am so pathetic, he thought. My sources have been dead for centuries; it’s not as if I could ever speak with them. But allowances should be made, he thought, considering what was about to happen to me next.
Which characteristics have I inherited from each source, the man wondered. How do they show in my character, my taste and my inclinations? In fact, the files did not specify which DNA segments had been used.
He searched the 21st century Earth maps, trying to locate the Canary Islands, now long submerged. Then he just kept staring at the photos, in the silence of the Mars Base control room, as if they could answer his questions. They did not.
Chicago, October 1976
In 1945, Frank Ango should have sunk with the ship bringing him back from the war. He did not. For the following 31 years, he remained stranded on an island. He was alone, with little food and no hope. When he looked at the sky at night, he remembered his ambitions, recognised his failure and wished he had died.
He was found in the spring of 1976 and brought back to a world completely unknown to him. His few friends were long gone, and he felt like a stranger, more so than on his island. He gained some notoriety and was a guest on some TV shows. The US Government gave him a small pension for his service during the war, despite his Italian origins and his original birth name, which was Francesco Angori, not Frank Ango. Then he was conveniently forgotten and left once more alone to adjust to his fate.
On Tuesday, October 12th, 1976, he woke up in his Chicago flat to his usual dream – a luxurious lunch buffet on some Italian seaside, perhaps around Venice. He had visited Venice just once, when he was 22 and had boarded the boat that would take him to Chicago to join
his friend Antonio. He was full of hope for a new life, a better future than he could expect in Italy. How often he had talked with Antonio at the stone fountain, during a rare pause between mowing the grass, back in their native Dolomites. They had dreamed of moving to the US, getting rich and growing old together. After Antonio left, he had carved their motto on the stone around the fountain. He had been a child, Antonio a teenager, and the Dolomites had looked down upon them. Antonio was now long dead while he felt old and lost.
He was due for a medical screening at the HGC in Chicago. This new institute had offered him free medical care in exchange for a sample of his genome – they actually had to explain to him what that was. They had told him they were putting together a genome archive of people with special characteristics. Apparently, his unwavering health after 31 years alone on an island qualified him as special.
He did not feel special or lucky to be alive. He was 60 and had been robbed of the life he had dreamed of and risked so much for. He felt angry most of the time. The only thought that brightened his day was that he would see Alba, the lovely Spanish nurse at the HGC. She was young – half his age! – full of life and in love with him. Or perhaps she just pitied him… but Frank hoped it was more than that. Alba meant “dawn”, and he thought a new day might just begin for him. He dressed and left the flat in a hurry without even drinking his morning espresso. Yes, today, a new life might begin for him. Two
Canary Islands, January 2023
Maude Ivory missed the mid-afternoon bus from Maspalomas, a tourist resort on Gran Canaria’s south coast, to Las Palmas. Now she had to wait until the evening for the last one. The weather was unseasonably warm and sunny for January, so she decided to do some busking. She settled on the “Paseo de Las Meloneras”, with the sea behind her and close to the local mall.
She first played her violin, then started singing old songs her grandmother taught her, such as ‘Time After Time’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’. She was singing ‘Forever Young’, an Alphaville hit from the early ‘80s, before she was even born, when she noticed the young woman that had come out of a clothes shop. She did not look like a tourist; she was likely a salesgirl. She was beautiful, with long brown hair and blue eyes. Her expression seemed sad at first, and then she smiled. When the song ended, she put 10 Euros in the tip jar and then went back into the shop.
On the evening bus, Maude Ivory sat at the back. Close by, she could see the young woman from the clothes shop opening her bag to remove a sandwich. Maude Ivory’s stomach grumbled loudly, and the young woman turned and smiled at her.
She appraised her quickly and then invited Maude Ivory to come over.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, the young woman split her sandwich and gave her half. Ashamed but famished, Maude Ivory wolfed down her half.
“I’m Lidia,” the woman said.
Lidia Cone used to take the bus to commute between Maspalomas and Las Palmas, where she lived. After leaving Chicago, she has been working as a saleswoman in Maspalomas for two years. Still, after all this time, travelling from the poor surroundings of her apartment to Maspalomas felt like a trip to Disneyland. Even in winter, the perfectly maintained lawns, the flower beds and the clean streets were beautiful, although somewhat artificial; she had witnessed the amount of effort needed for their upkeep. That evening she was not ready for small talk. Her son had been sick for several weeks, and her anxiety felt like a thick and heavy cloud around her. She had always been an anxious type of woman – she saw herself as a wild squirrel, raising its head at any motion to check for danger. And now she was constantly afraid of a phone call saying her son had got worse. The previous night she had dreamed of being in front of the Barcelona Cathedral and that everything was well. Her anxiety had lifted, but it was just a dream. The girl on the bus reminded her of herself at that age. Not physically, no – the girl had black hair and eyes while she had much lighter colours. It was more her behaviour, scared but at the same time hopeful. She used to be like that.
“What’s your name?” Lidia asked.
“Maude Ivory,” replied the girl. She hesitated before adding, “Not my real name, it’s a stage name. I took it from a character in a book who sang for a living and had an excellent memory for lyrics. Just like me. I love singing.”
“I like your name and loved your songs – you have a beautiful voice,” Lidia answered.
“My grandmother taught me how to sing,” said Maude Ivory proudly. “Really, she raised me. She was born in the Caribbean but moved to Tenerife many years ago. She was a singer. During summer, she sang for local hotels, and in winter, she taught piano and violin. She died on New Year’s Day.”
“I am so sorry. I know how difficult it is to lose a loved one,” whispered Lidia.
Maude Ivory felt weirdly close to this woman she had just met.
“My grandmother always told me that we should not add years to life, but life to years. She knew she would die soon and said ours would be just a long goodbye. She thought we were luckier than others, as we knew our time was short, and we could make it count.”
“She was a wise woman, your grandmother,” replied Lidia, and then asked, “How old are you?”
Maude Ivory hesitated again before answering, then decided to tell the truth. “I am 14 years old, nearly 15. But I was two years ahead at school, the teachers said I was very gifted. I
finished attending mandatory school before my grandma died. What about you – how old are you?”
Lidia answered, “I am 40.”
Maude Ivory could not believe it. “What? No, you are joking; that can’t be. You look so much younger!”
Lidia gave a little, sad smile. “I guess that comes from my father’s genes. He died some years ago; he was nearly 100 years old and looked no more than 70. He had a very unusual life: he moved to Chicago from Italy, then off he went to WWII – that’s the Second World War. On his way back, he got stranded on an island where he remained alone for more than 30 years. Then he was found and brought back to civilization. He met my mother at the HGC Institute in Chicago, where she was a nurse while he was a patient. When I was a child, we often sang ‘Forever Young’ together.”
“It must have been like a second birth when he came back,” said Maude Ivory.
“I am not sure,” answered Lidia. “He used to tell me about this old stone fountain in Italy, how he dreamed about the life he would have had. He lived a long life, but not a happy one. He felt cheated and was always thinking of what should have been and never was: him, young and strong, growing old with his friend Antonio and their own families. Even when he was in the room with us, he was never really there. It was as if his true life was somewhere else, especially after my mother died. Not even the birth of my son Jorge, his grandson, managed to anchor him in the present”.
“How old is your son?” asked Maude Ivory.
“He is just 9. He is sick – I left him at the HGC Institute in Las Palmas for exams. Tomorrow I’ll have a day off to talk to the doctors,” said Lidia. She did not mention that she had not slept much over the last weeks, so worried was she for her son. She felt she had failed him because she had inherited fabulous health from her father, but she had not passed it to him. She continued, “Do you live in Las Palmas?”
“No, I am just touring the Canary Islands, busking. One day I will go to the Caribbean, where my grandmother grew up. I will buy the biggest ice cream I can find and eat it on the beach. I promised her I would,” answered Maude Ivory.
“Do you have a place to sleep tonight?” asked Lidia.
“Well … not yet. But I will find something.”
“You could stay at my apartment if you wish, just for tonight,” replied Lidia.
Maude Ivory accepted.
The following day Maude Ivory accompanied Lidia to the HGC Institute, on the Plaza Mayor of Santa Ana, right in front of the cathedral. She gave her genome to HGC to be archived (or studied, she had not understood which it was) and was paid 50 Euros.
The doctors had good news for Lidia: they could try to cure Jorge by editing his genome and replacing the damaged part with a segment from Lidia’s DNA. She was told that it was an experimental method and that she should keep it a secret, but there were good chances of success. Lidia walked out of the HGC building with Jorge and Maude Ivory. As she looked at the cathedral – not like the big one in Barcelona, but a cathedral nevertheless – her anxiety left her, as it had in her dream. She laughed, thinking that Forrest Gump was right and that one could never know what life would bring next. Jorge might get better, she would pass on to him her father’s health via her DNA, and she had met a girl she already felt weirdly attached to. Still laughing, she bought an enormous ice cream for Maude Ivory. She asked a passer-by to take a picture of their small group with her phone and fondly thought they looked almost like a family.
Lidia told Maude Ivory, “You could stay with us for a while if you wish. Until you figure out what to do next.”
Maude Ivory answered quietly, nearly too quietly to be heard, “Yes, I’d like that.”
Three Chicago, October 2033
Jack Black could not sleep during his flight from Venice to Chicago. He had never expected to return to his hometown after moving to the Italian Dolomites four months earlier. His grandfather, Antonio Neroni, was Italian and had relocated to the US in 1930, changing his name to Tony Black. Jack had never met him since he died in 1970, but he had always wanted to see his old family house. This desire had grown after he was diagnosed with a rare form of skull cancer. His wife had left him after the diagnosis, and with no will to fight, he felt he wanted to die there.
Jack had found the old family house still standing but in a profound state of disrepair: nobody had lived there for nearly a century, since his grandfather’s sister died and left no close relatives. The surroundings were beautiful, though. On the top of a mountain and just outside an ancient village, the house was encircled by the Dolomites, tall and magnificent.
Before he could think it over, Jack had begun working on the house: a plumber by trade, he was a repairman at heart. People in the nearby village had noticed how skilled he was and hired him for small jobs. They were mostly heirs of locals or tourists who had bought old houses, spending the summer there. His Italian was rusty but good enough to communicate with them. When his pain came back, strong painkillers could still keep it at bay.
Soon a routine was established: in the mornings, he would make repairs to his grandfather’s house, and in the afternoons, he would work for people in the village in exchange for little money or goods. In the evenings, he walked through the woods until he was too tired to think. An old dog he had started to feed often accompanied him on these long walks. It was thin and full of scars. “You and me,” murmured Jack. “You and me, both.”
At sunset, a peacock sky would light up the Dolomites a magical pink, while crickets sang loudly. One night, back in September, the sky was exceptionally clear, and Jack could see many stars, big and small, fixed and twinkling, more than ever before. He wondered how it would feel to leave everything and travel up there to those stars. He imagined how someone in the future could do it, their enthusiasm for a new beginning, their eagerness to leave. He envied them.
The following day he walked further than usual. In the woods, he found an old stone fountain and stopped to drink. He thought that in the past, the fountain was likely encircled by meadows, and perhaps animals came there to drink. Then he saw some writing on the stone, half-hidden by the moss. With his hands more than with his eyes, he read the sentence: ‘Francesco Angori and Antonio Neroni are leaving for America.’ He had a weird feeling: that was certainly something his grandfather Antonio had carved. Francesco Angori was his grandfather’s friend, the one who got lost on an island for many years before Jack was born. He remembered the sky full of stars of the previous night and thought that the two friends’ trip to the US must have felt like an interstellar journey to them.
That seemingly minor event triggered something in him: at 55 years of age, he found out that he wanted to live, to have a fresh start as his grandfather had done. Now and then, he wondered if this new state of mind was a side effect of his cancer growing. He did not care and chose to embrace the change. He finished restructuring the house by the end of September and put it on sale. Then he decided to go back home.
As the plane descended towards Chicago, Jack looked at the picture of the fountain. It was his good luck charm when despair and doubts came back – and they did come back, occasionally. He had contacted the HGC in Chicago and discovered that there might be a chance to treat his cancer. Surgery would remove most of it; its remainders would be finished at the Baltic Helium Medical Accelerator Centre. In exchange, he would enrol in an experimental program at HGC that would edit portions of his DNA to avoid a relapse. It was a long and uncertain journey, but he was set on taking it.
The plane landed as the sun went down. Jack thought of how many times he had dreamed of winning the lottery in what he now saw as his first life. He had believed that having a lot of money would make everything right: his marriage, work, and even himself. What a fool he had been! Waiting for the plane to stop taxiing, he looked into the sun and felt at peace.
Epilogue
Mars, June 2500
It was about time to go. His interstellar journey was one-way only and would begin with a long period in suspended animation from which he might never awake. If he did, he would spend the rest of his life terraforming the new planet, his given purpose. Pathetic and futile as it might appear, he felt he had achieved some kind of closure because he had managed to discover something, although just a glimpse, about his origins.
The man closed the files so that only the names of his four sources remained visible at the bottom of his screen. At the top, he zoomed in on the three-dimensional map of the Cygnus constellation, then much further to Kepler-1638b, his final destination.
As he stared into that uncertain future, he longed once more for a distant past.