The Cuckoo

I looked at the Carl’s results but they were hard to believe.

“What was your  sample?” I asked.

“Ten Thousand,” he replied, “Stratified across the major racial and socioeconomic groups.”

I shook my head.

“And so consistent.”

I handed the papers back to him.

“So, what do you make of it?” I asked.

“It’s a genetic marker of some sort.” Carl replied, “If you were born after 1947, you have this marker.  If you were born before that year, you don’t.”

“So, this is a mutation?”

Carl shook his head.  “No, a naturally occurring mutation would appear in a small part of the population and then spread through the rest.  But that would take generations.  This is something else entirely.  This is a new set of genes inserted onto our chromosomes suddenly and universally.  Technically, we should have never have found it, but one of my grad students stumbled upon it with some multigenerational studies.  It’s just weird.”

“OK,” I mused, “so we have a new set of genes appearing on our chromosomes after 1947.  What does that mean?  I mean do we have something doing genetic engineering on the entire human race?”

Carl lean back and looked at the ceiling for a moment, cleared his throat and leaned back forward toward me as if to tell me a secret.

“This is going to sound crazy.” he almost whispered, “Do you know how the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds’ nest?  Those birds never know, and raise the cuckoo’s offspring as if they are their own.”

“Yes,” I said, “OK?”

“I think this is like that.”