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The Clean-Up
Beginning in the early 1960s, Dr Paul Breedlove and Dr Eleanor Singer performed advanced (for the time) research in genetic engineering, well ahead of other workers in the field. Initially experimenting with plants and animals such as white mice, in 1967 they suceeded in implanting an embryo produced from a genetically altered egg fertilized in vitro.
Their alterations were extensive and more ambitious than later experiments. They considered their work a success with Gabriel Ashlocke’s birth in 1968.
Gabriel Ashlocke was precocious in his growth and development. Prior to his second birthday he displayed some form of his mature talents, his unpredictability, and his lack of regard for other people. Constant heavy sedation proved a partial control.
Breedlove and Singer proceeded with great caution from this time, creating only a handful of mutants, many of whom were actually raised at Genomex in a section of the site located in a kind of sub basement with limited access. These individuals varied in their degree of health. According to Breedlove’s data, 36 % of them did not survive to the age of seven.
With the arrival of Adam (Kane) in 1978, many changes occured. A significant amount of funding was received from the federal government to support creation of many kinds of mutants. Breedlove, Singer, Adam, and to a lesser extent, researchers like Dr Robert Abelmann began creating more mutants in the course of a week than had previously been made in a year.
Also in 1978, Gabriel Ashlocke murdered his parents. He was put into a coma-like state using potent sedatives for the protection of people around him and society generally.
As soon as the ‘second flight’ began walking and talking, some health and control problems were noted. Nevertheless, the program continued. According to Adam’s documentation, the numbers of them actually increased until 1985, then tapered off into 1988 to a relative handful.
By 1988, even Adam admitted in private communications with Breedlove and Singer that there were problems, the most alarming being the attenuated mutant lifespan. By this time over 1000 mutants had been created at Genomex-by-the-Waters, and an unknown number at the Breedlove Clinics located throughout the US and Canada.
The ‘second flight’ began to enter puberty in the 1990s. A large minority of them displayed criminal behavior, mental instability, or both. Adam devised the subdermal governors and stasis pods to control the most dangerous mutants.
With the resignation of Adam in 1998 following the discovery of financial irregularities, the creation of mutants at Genomex came to an end. The focus of research re-emphasized commercially useful genetic engineering, and helping mutants cope with their lives.
By 2007, an unknown number of mutants were at large in society, most benign, but many highly dangerous and amoral. A program was initiated to quietly collect these most dangerous mutants and neutralize them by putting them into stasis, thus beginning the “clean-up” phase of the mutant program.
M Eckhart
Genomex-by-the-Waters
November 2007
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