The Third Adam

How does one become immortal?

I’ve been thinking about that question lately. It probably has something to do with my occupation, but probably even more with the fact that I’ll be dead within a few months. My name is Adam. I work for The Genealogy Center in the downtown district. It’s a little quiet this time of year at work since people are busy preparing for The Winter Celebration. For centuries it was a religious holiday, and I read that at one time the whole nation used to bid each other “Merry Christmas”, but that was long ago and nobody remembers that any more. Apparently the old standard greeting went out of fashion because it was offensive to some people. At least the Winter Celebration is inclusive of all people of belief and non-belief, and let’s face it, there’s not a whole lot of belief out there anymore.

And that’s alright with me.

At The Genealogy Center, my job is to help people trace their ancestral lineage. It can be quite challenging work. Fortunately, with today’s technology, it is easier than ever to plug the names of the living and the dead into the system and quickly connect them to other extant or deceased individuals via the Human Generational Tree, in which genetic associations for nearly everyone in the human family can be readily accessed. For many people, their ancestral line can be traced for multiple generations and even centuries. The hard work is usually not in tracing a person’s lineage back for generations if they have a “pure” line – most of that is well established – but in determining lineage that is “impure” (to be sure, the terms “pure” and “impure” are trade jargon that would result in disciplinary action if used in public due to their implied judgment value). Pure lines are relatively easy to trace, especially back in the days when male-female marriage was exclusive. Of course, it’s only been 50 years or so since society adopted alternative marriage standards – and marriage today in any form is an anachronistic aberration – but the past half century has proven to be at times quite challenging for my line of work.

In the old days, people had faith, family, and culture to keep them rooted in their identity. You can even say that this heritage is what kept them immortal as a people; it was the life-blood of civilizations. People want to know where they’re from and who their ancestors are. No matter how much or how little their ancestors contributed to society, whether they were princes or paupers, and whether they were above or below average in intellect and physical ability, all of my customers have an innate tendency to elevate their ancestors’ stature. After all, these are the people they came from, and no one wants to believe they originated from generations of convicts and prostitutes. Knowing their past seems to keep these people rooted in the present. They take pride in being Polish, Dutch, Japanese, etc, but many of them are even proud of their religious heritage – the practice of which is only limited to a small percentage today.

Those that I can’t help are often my young customers. Most of the youth today, as in any other era, don’t tend to be overly concerned with their origins, but those who see me often seem lost or even at times traumatized. It is not uncommon for me to quickly come to a dead end with their searches. When marriage between individual males and females was failing and being redefined in any number of ways, non-biological caregivers insisted on being named on birth certificates as the natural parent at the exclusion of the true biological (genetic) ones. Incredibly, the courts complied. When I discover that a person’s grandparents are “David and Mark” or “Amanda and Cynthia,” it can stop my investigation dead in its tracts. In cases like these, a DNA sample is routinely obtained from my clients and matched with a sample from those of the supposed relative in order to determine the relationship. If a match is discovered, the search can be conducted for the other biological relative. Unfortunately, this is often blocked due to the then common use of sperm and egg donor banks to conceive the children, as well as other similar reasons. It is not infrequent that the best I can do for these young people is to tell them that the prevalence of certain genetic markers indicates that their heritage is of (mostly) Northern European stock, Southeast Asian, etc. But in truth, even that can be impossible to conclude. They inevitably feel cheated.

I understand perfectly.

You see, my parents didn’t name me Adam. As a matter of fact, I never had a mom and a dad.

I had several…and was raised by none of them.

Scientists created me in a laboratory. These scientists’, my true “parents,” called me the Third Adam. The first Adam, created from “dust of the ground”, was the original Son of God. The second called himself The Son of Man. They called me the Son of Science. It was all very cynical, of course, for my makers believed in neither God nor man; they believed in The State. The next two generations of scientists who took over my ‘care’ were no different. As long as The State continues to fund them, they will continue to worship it. There was initial ethical resistance to creating someone like me, but science is patient: public opinion either eventually swings their way or, commonly, politicians and the public just stop paying attention. Overtly or covertly, scientific research will proceed. So it was with me.

It involved very advanced DNA recombination techniques. By using several eggs from a number of different women, they created a hybrid that was fertilized by a hybrid sperm. The scientists determined what characteristics I should have and went about making it happen. I wasn’t their first attempt, of course. All the initial attempts failed at one stage or another, but I was the first real success, and I succeeded…mostly…beyond their wildest expectations. I am now 53 years old. All biology and medical textbooks celebrate the genetic “miracle” of my origins. As to be expected, others like me have followed, some with greater success than others. “Success,” I’ve learned, is a term that is hard to nail down. I’m normal enough. No, that’s not quite true. Until recently, I’ve always been fitter, healthier, and more active than the majority of men my age. Intellectually, I’m above average. My “parents” chose my traits well, but I know I have disappointed them. They wanted me to be a scientist, like them, or a doctor. Failing that, perhaps I could have been a brilliant diplomat. In short, they wanted to be truly proud of their son and show him off. Instead, their son pursued the modest occupation of a genealogy hunter.

Have I been a rebellious son? I don’t know. What I do know is that my “parents” have never let me leave the nest. There have always been consistent episodes of probing, prodding, and testing since I am an ongoing experiment for them…after all, I am the first…and they need to keep the data coming. And yet, maybe I am one of the lucky ones. They want me. They need me. That’s more than can be said about the last couple of generations. Many of them, like me, were designer babies with genetic traits, sex, and emotional tendencies picked out in advance. Unlike me, most were raised via ectogenesis in an artificial womb outside the body. The first generation of them particularly fared badly; many of them are still locked away for criminal anti-social behavior. It turned out that the scientists had failed to sufficiently imitate the natural womb, including the reassuring sounds of “mother’s” and even “father’s” voices. They did better with each new “wave” of babies. These failures were unfortunate but couldn’t be helped. The well-to-do customers who ordered them were not, of course, going to subject themselves to carrying these children to term themselves, and since any woman who still wanted to be a surrogate was usually considered low class or “dirty,” ectogenesis was the only way to go. The fact that they were tailor-made and raised in affluent households still hasn’t helped these children. It turns out that when their novelty wore off, they were simply set aside just like any other unwanted toy.

My mother was a real woman. That is, I was borne in a natural womb. She wasn’t my natural mother, of course, since they were many, but only a surrogate. After she gave birth, she was undoubtedly given her money and sent on her way. I know nothing about her, and yet I sometimes find myself thinking of her. I even wonder if she loved me. It’s silly and sentimental, I know. I laugh thinking that she might have been a big black woman – or even a little Asian – who gave birth to a strapping young lad who could have grown up to be part of Hitler’s Arian race.  

I’m smiling even now at the thought while looking out my living room window at the darkness outside. But it’s not completely dark. The rising full moon is beginning to show gloriously orange-red through the snow laden trees. It’s calling to me, and I obey. Soon I am away from the house and awed by the stars shining and sparkling with such intensity that I feel I can almost leap off the ground and into the midst of them. And I suddenly think about the brain tumor. Two months, they said, two months and I’m finished. As they have done most of my life, the scientists – my parents – have decided what is best and have set the date when I will terminate my existence…with a doctor’s help, of course. I’m sure they are looking forward to slicing up my brain and analyzing it. I wonder if they will be able to determine if the tumor was a result of the genetic engineering.

With such a short time to live, I’ve been thinking more about the First Adam and the Second Adam. As the story goes, the first one brought sin and death into the world and the second one redeemed the world through his death. From my earliest years I was taught that religion was mere superstition and that God did not exist. It made sense to me. I certainly knew who my creators were. But lately I’ve not been so sure. Religion has at least one thing going for it; it teaches us how to die. Facing the abyss of atheism does not teach us to die well; it merely teaches us how to despair. Religion offers us the means to transcend mortality, to survive the fragility of a mortal existence. Religious man confronts death in order to triumph over it. The scientists claim that man created religion, but if this were so then why would even Neanderthal burial sites have grave gifts?

Maybe the scientists are right. But I wonder, and I wondered loudly as I shouted to the stars:

“Did man create religion or did religion create man?!”

The outburst caused a short, sharp pain behind my eyes that almost dropped me to my knees. Was that my answer? Perhaps only punishment for violating nature’s code of silence. I would rather believe that than the reality.

The stars remained impassive, but the heavens nevertheless responded when a thin band of silvery-white ethereal lights undulated across the night sky. I grinned widely…and occasionally grimaced… at the Aurora Borealis while continuing to bask under their radiant glow buttressed by starlight and moonlight.

“How is it”, I murmured, “that your beauty emerged from nothing?”

And how was it that “nothing” gave us the rational laws of the universe and birth to conscience beings that could unlock its mysteries?

I felt a tear wet my cheek. Was it from pain or joy? It was at this moment that I realized it was time to leave home. I was not going to make that final appointment with death. Not in that clinic. Not with those scientists. Not with emptiness before me. In the end, when I needed them the most, they were going to abandon me. 

I think I’m beginning to understand immortality.