Martin Shultz knew he was a genius and no one could deny it. At thirteen he was a junior, Harvard was touting him as the next Marcie Haywood, MIT was saying he couldn’t compare to Marnie Haywood, Boston College responded with “meh”, and MassArt said, “wasn’t Marnie into Physics”. He couldn’t fathom how anybody raised by a couple of perverts, who encouraged their children to strip-off and provide them with entertainment, could get a passing CAP score. Although, he supposed, she’d have to be a fighter if she managed to keep her sick parents’ hands off of her.

Martin was studying for dual bachelor’s degrees in Genetics and Virology. He was working on two special research projects.

In genetics, he was correlating DNA sequences identified by the Human Genome Project with CAP scores. There was anecdotal evidence that the AIs would provide estimated CAP scores for children in the colonies but, despite actually testing “those perverted Haywoods”, refused to do so here on Earth. The ultimate goal was to find a way to allocate resources to deal with people based on their potential.

In virology, he was studying how certain viruses seemed to target certain traits. Sometimes the trait made the organism more vulnerable to the symptoms or caused their immune system to be less able to fight the virus, but his focus was on those viruses that were able to anchor themselves to specific genes.

His most difficult challenge was combining what he learned from both studies without letting his professors know. Not that he doubted they would approve; he just didn’t want them stealing the credit.

Janice Abbott was a freshman. At 14 she had tested at 5.8 and had managed to raise her score each year until plateauing at 6.4 for her retests at 17 and 18. Deciding her best chance for pickup was to buddy up to as many intelligent, creative, and ambitious people as possible, she was doing work-study at the research center’s reception desk, offering relaxation to all the important students and employees, and attending as many activities with them as possible.

“Hey, Marty. Do you want a little relaxation before getting started?” Martin was still a minor so, unlike the other researchers, her offer to him was limited to oral. An offer he had yet to accept, but she kept offering; anyone with his credentials and status would surely test highly, once he turned 14. Besides, despite his youth and cuteness, Marty was the only one in the building that set off her bad-boy tingle; the one that got her hot between her legs.

“No, I’ve got work to do.” Martin could understand her persistence; everyone knew she had missed the cutoff for her own ticket and was trying to wrap high CAP people around her fingers. From what he observed, all her fingers were taken by people who would gladly take her, if they got caught in an extraction together. However, when it came to relaxation he had things well in hand and he saw no reason to add superfluous attachments. Besides, just like with his pet project, Martin Shultz didn’t share.

Entering his lab, he received an alert. His latest gene grouping had kicked back his desired result from the Confederacy. Three genes, connected with a lack of empathy, narcissism, and antisocial behavior, that when combined with an STS on every Y chromosome always correlated with a failed CAP test. The Confederacy had refused to state which of the 38,000 genes were exclusive to particular CAP ranges, but had agreed to answer specific questions. His first response was a form letter for 27 genes; some he believed would correlate to sponsors and some to non-sponsors. All 27 had come back with a significant split between the two groups. He had spent over a month resubmitting those genes in groups.

Now that he had an answer, he could finally start working on his solution. In his mind, using resources on these potential Earth First recruits wasn’t just wasteful, it was criminal. And it’s not like you could get these people to volunteer for gene therapy. He got to work designing a virus that would target them. However, his lack of progress over the following two weeks irritated him and his carefully crafted demeanor started to slip. Even Janice noticed, ‘and she’s just a future concubine.’

After two weeks of increasing irritation and self-doubt, Martin smiled as he entered the Research facility.

“You’re looking better Marty. I guess you got your relaxation somewhere else.”

“No. I just figured out a problem I’ve been having.”

Janice’s constant smile grew wider and she asked, “in that case, do you want to find an empty room and celebrate?” She punctuated her question by shaking a loose fist in front of her open mouth.

“No thanks. I’ve still got to implement it. It’ll be a real feather in my cap, if I can get it done before I turn 14.”

Getting straight to work, Martin began splitting the filovirus RNA strand into four segments and adding the proper genetic coding to each segment so it would latch on to one of the targeted DNA sequences. Two days later, he started the computer simulations on a virtual machine, running from a hidden partition. He would have to wait before synthesizing his wonder-bug, but he would soon know the effects on the targets, the people with one to three of the targeted genes, and the general population, as well as the spread pattern of infection.

By Friday, he had his results. In the general population the virus would be killed before the host could become infectious or show any symptoms. Men with one other targeted gene would be the primary carriers, experiencing minor symptoms after becoming infectious. Men with two of the targeted genes would recover with scarring to the heart and lungs causing weakness and lethargy. ‘Nothing the Confederacy couldn’t fix if they get picked up.’

Starting the automated system that was usually used to synthesize viral gene therapies, Martin returned home and began researching Earth First recruitment tactics and local anti-Confederacy events the following week.

During the same three week period, Marty’s surly and brooding attitude had cranked Janice’s bad-boy tingle up to 11. She had realized her fertile period would coincide with his birthday and had stopped birth control. She was going to have his kid, even if she had to tie him up and show him every trick she knew.