Sub-Human Helpers: Because We Could

By John Douglas Hoge

By 2050 the multinational corporation BioGenAssist (BGA) uses genetic engineering and cloning techniques to create thousands of bonobo-based, cloned Helpers capable of doing the large variety of work that still requires a “human touch.”
Initially BGA only sells Helpers as personal companions. But over time people find Helpers are good workers in many settings, some of which are dangerous or even criminal. Trouble escalates when people learn that Helpers’ organs and other body parts are compatible with humans.
BGA hires former DEA Agent Jaye Jennings to lead its new Helper Authority Law Enforcement (HALE) division in an all-out effort to control these unintended illegal uses of Helpers.
In the final chapter Jennings discovers here-to-fore unknown Helper capacities that could dramatically reduce Helper neglect, misuse, abuse, and capture for use of their body parts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669814757

John Douglas Hoge

Dr. Hoge’s research and writing focused on critical thinking, character and values education, history teaching and learning, and citizenship/law related education. He is the author of numerous curriculum materials, articles, chapters, and books. His service work included being the Georgia State Coordinator for We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution and serving as a Subject Matter Expert consultant to Disney Learning. He has two successful sons with growing families. He lived in Cuba, Colombia, Brazil, and the USA (Indiana, Wisconsin, Idaho, Colorado, Florida, Georgia). He loves writing, is a political news junkie, restores old motorcycles, and seeks relaxation in the outdoors including camping, hiking, and fishing.

Book preview

PART ONE

Meeting The Future

By 2050, sophisticated computers, drones, robots, and androids ran much of the world. Artificial Intelligence (AI), was everywhere, controlling transportation, manufacturing, and many services. Millions of jobs in business, manufacturing, agriculture, and service disappeared. There was simply no need for human truck drivers, salesclerks, bricklayers, mail carriers, taxi drivers and many other types of city and farm workers.

Computers kept getting faster, Information Technologies (IT), Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) kept advancing. Drones, robots, and androids were everywhere, performing millions of different tasks. Thankfully, some people were employed to design and maintain these technologies. But there has always been a downside to digital technologies other than people losing their jobs.

A dark side emerged in the never-ending hacking and cyberwarfare that did everything from stealing business information for ransom to shutting down essential infrastructure. Digital technologies also formed the backbone of intelligent weapons that made conventional warfare evermore destructive and impersonal. The only good part was that many thousands of people were employed to overcome or defeat these destructive activities. A smaller but significant number of people were criminals who made their living by hacking and cyberwarfare.

Genetic engineering, however, had yet to reach its full potential. What started as limited and beneficial editing of plant genes was soon applied to animals. Worldwide, people planted drought-resistant, high-yield seed and raised disease-resistant livestock that were better than anything before. These advances in genetic modifications for plants and animals rose along with the perfection of cloning techniques. BioGenAssist, often just called BGA, had become the world’s largest multinational genetic engineering corporation not just because of its genetic engineering expertise, but also by explicitly pursuing a humanitarian mission that benefitted people around the globe. Its products saved and improved the lives of many millions of people. So, when BGA called a press conference to announce a new product, many people around the world paid close attention.

On January 3, 2030, BGA’s CEO, Valencia Angelina Garcia, announced the immediate availability of 1,000 genetically engineered bonobo-based Helpers. BGA facilities in 5 more nations around the world were also ready to sell their first 1,000 Helpers. BGA made sure that their diminutive 4.5-foot-tall, hairless, genderless helpers, would perform many kinds of work, but more importantly, would love and obey their owners better than the most devoted dog.

Large multinational corporations such as BGA had been skirting around national and international laws for decades, so nothing could stop Dr. Garcia’s January 3, 2030, announcement. It was an unparalleled event that went surprisingly well—-at least from a scientific and technological point of view. For BGA and humanity, the upside was potentially huge: for about the cost of a typical service android, buyers could own a fully grown, educated, and loving Helper that lived for 20 years in great health.

BGA created Helpers, but could it control the many ways humans would use them? What moral, ethical, and legal responsibilities did BGA have for their creation of Helpers? And how long could its attorneys keep this prize product from being copied or modified with new genetic changes?

CHAPTER 1

First Creation

The thrup, thrup, thrup of helicopter blades mixed with the nasty high-pitched buzzing of a dozen small news drones hovering like a small dark cloud 100 yards below. Every news organization in the area had dispatched one of their remote coverage drones, attempting to capture footage of the protesters gathered outside the stainless-steel security gate of Helper Production Facility 01 (HAPF-01). The event? The creation of the first 6,000 Helpers world-wide. The date? Jan 4, 2029, exactly 1 year before Dr. Garcia’s historic, Jan 4, 2030, announcement.

Hovering in the helicopter 500 feet above the protest, 40-year-old Ryan Cooper, an engineer by training and now the HAPF-01 site manager, looked down on the scene, reading protesters’ signs saying JOBS FOR PEOPLE NOT THEIR PETS, TO HELL WITH HELPERS, NATURE HATES GEN-MODS, AND GOD WILL PUNISH YOU!

Ryan Cooper, his assistant Laura Blake, and their android protector, Alpha02, examined the scene as the chopper pilot struggled to maintain a steady hover in the 15 mile-per-hour easterly wind coming off the ice-cold north Atlantic Ocean. Cooper had been an Army helicopter pilot as a young American warrior, and he appreciated the skill it took to keep their aircraft in a stable hover. His post-service degree in mechanical engineering gave him new insights into helicopters, many other machines, and all sorts of production systems. His visibly graying thick black hair gave away his age more than his youthful body and face.

I count 34 protesters, yelled Cooper above the helicopter noise.

Laura responded, It looks like more than that.

It’s 37, responded Alpha02, and there’s something strange about one of them.

What’s strange!? What do you mean? asked Cooper.

Before Alpha02 could respond, a shooter sprayed bullets toward the two security guards who quickly crouched behind several large cement barriers that protected the two bullet proof glass doors at the visitor entrance. Seeing the commotion, the chopper pilot instinctively flared left, pulling up away as the huddle of news drones scrambled to better capture closeups of all the action. Alpha02, sitting behind the pilot spoke, Control is sending law enforcement. Both guards are in danger. Take me down so I can help get them to safety inside the building.

The pilot looked at Cooper as if requesting permission to land on the facility’s helipad, but Cooper said, Do what Alpha says. The helicopter pad wasn’t more than 300 yards away, and the profile of the building prevented the shooter from targeting the chopper as it quickly descended out of sight.

Several news drones rushed to cover this new action as the helicopter swiftly landed. Cooper and Blake ran toward the helipad doors as Alpha02 sprinted around the building toward the cowering, unarmed guards. The small size bullets from the AR-15 gunfire was no threat to her ¼ inch thick titanium shell and her excellent speed and balance. Shielding both guards, she pushed them safely inside the bulletproof front doors. Then, as the gunfire faded, Alpha02 moved toward the protesters, her laser-like eyes glowing bright red instead of their normal gray green.

Arriving at the front entrance, Cooper and Blake took in the scene, the two guards checking for injuries, recovering their composure and Alpha02’s glowing red eyes. Cooper commanded, Stop Alpha! There is no need for further action. They’ve stopped firing and we don’t want to escalate this situation. Come with us to the administration section or stay with the guards, but don’t take any further action against the protesters.

Law enforcement sirens could be heard in the distance, so Alpha02 replied, Okay, I understand. I’ll stay here with the guards and wait for law enforcement to arrive.

That’s fine, replied Cooper. You can show the officers the shooter.

Walking rapidly toward HAPF-01’s administration section, both Cooper and Blake heard and felt a large explosion at the rear of the building. Smoke rose and sparks sprayed as the power lines to HAPF-01 toppled to the ground.

Shit! exclaimed Cooper as everything went dark. These people aren’t just protesters, they’re terrorists. Let’s get to the office before they start firing RPGs at us!"

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The violent Jan 4, 2029, first creation protest by the group called X-UM foretold much of the resistance that continued to threaten the ever-expanding uses of Helpers in the years that followed. By 2050 X-UM had chapters in each of the six nations with HAPFs.

X-UM members would publicly shame Helper owners, often throwing colored vinegar, ink, or water paint on Helpers and their owners. X-UM’s goal was to discourage and hopefully eliminate Helper use by shunning and shaming their owners. Sadly, these attacks reduced Helper owners’ willingness to be out and around town, fully exploiting the capabilities of their personal Helpers.

The local leader of X-UM’s creation protest, Ben White, was a self-styled radical critic of many things American. His elementary and middle school records showed an intelligent youth with performance and behavior problems. He had attended three elementary and two middle schools, all transfers requested by his often-jobless parents due to conflicts and other troubles he was having. Police picked Ben up several times as a juvenile for truancy, property destruction, and underage possession of alcohol.

Ben came to fancy himself as a cultural rebel in high school, participating in no clubs or sports, hanging out with an everchanging group of fringe students. With failing grades, he dropped out of high school in the middle of his junior year with no objections from his parents who later learned that Ben had gotten two classmates pregnant. One girl had an abortion at the insistence of her parents, and the other became Ben’s teenage wife.

To say that Ben his. wife Laura, and their baby girl Ann were living on love would be a mistake due to their daily afternoon and nighttime fights. Living in a run-down singlewide trailer on the outskirts of a small town with no potential ways to escape was depressing. Being sometimes unable to find a manual labor job, and never being able to hold on to any job for long, Ben and Laura discovered what it meant to be poor living in the USA. Having little money meant never going out to a restaurant or having a vacation, getting food from the foodbank and shopping at Goodwill or other 2nd hand stores.

To Ben, fighting the rise of Helpers was a mission to save what few manual labor jobs that still existed. He knew Helpers would be mowing lawns, cleaning windows, and even flipping burgers. Organizing X-UM protests was a to make the wealthy who could afford a Helper companion pay for his misery.

More violent resistance to Helpers came from X-UM members who deeply believed, often for religious reasons, that genetic engineering should never have created new creatures of any sort, let alone one that could talk, that looked so much like a dark-skinned adolescent human, loved us, and could not survive without our assistance. These dissidents accused scientists of using human genes to modify the bonobos asking, How else could they get a hairless ape with enough intelligence to talk and do so many types of work? It made no difference to them that science had verified that bonobo DNA was 98% identical to human DNA. Helpers were unnatural, godless beings best eliminated from Earth.

For the first ten years, as BGA intended, people bought Helpers as domestic companions, so it wasn’t difficult to monitor their use via home-based AI surveillance. The HA also scrutinized every applicant and made sure that the purchase placement met with its standards. But over the years, as production ramped up, it became more difficult to monitor people’s increasingly creative use—and abuse—of Helpers. By 2040 Helpers were working in many commercial settings because they were better than people in so many ways. Veterinarians found Helpers to be excellent handlers of animals. Helpers were comfortable living in spartan conditions right at the office, they were reliable, never complained, didn’t get sick, or even need a paycheck! Helpers made their vet practices much more profitable. This same thing happened in many areas of business and industry.

Had BGA conveniently overlooked the ever–present moral and ethical problems related to peoples’ use of Helpers? Did the BGA executives really think that the HA’s interview and AI surveillance could provide sufficient Helper protection? Had BGA anticipated illegal and violent opposition to Helpers? Was the HA really expecting social norms and law enforcement to protect their creation?

Throughout history, humans have consistently proven they could misuse anything, twisting its potential for good into criminal activities and, some would say, evil ends. Would that history of misuse apply to Helpers, too? Were people responsible enough to take good care of their Helpers? Or would the conflicts and crimes of society pervert and spoil their use?

CHAPTER 2

Public Relations

BGA’s CEO, Valeria Angelina Garcia, was genuinely excited about announcing their new product. Born to a wealthy family in Trinidad, Garcia received her education in the EU’s best private schools, then attended Harvard university for her B.S. degree, earned her MBA at Wharton, and her Ph.D. in biophysics at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Garcia had the drive, knowledge, and leadership needed to run BGA. Although she gave her speech in Spanish, instant AI translations made it seem like her speech was in English, German, French, Cantonese, Arabic, and Hindi, so the world would know what BGA had accomplished.

Because it was a secure world-wide video presentation made for BGA employees and a few invited government officials, BGA’s public relations Vice President, Benjamin T. Warner, offered a brief, informal introduction, simply saying, Good afternoon. I’m glad to see you all here for this historic announcement.

(He inserted a dramatic seven-second delay to help the 100 or so in-person attendants settle and focus.)

I’d like to start today by asking our audience a few simple questions. Will you please raise your hand if you have a pet dog or cat in your home?

Over half raise their hands.

"That’s good. I know you enjoy your pet, in part because it is great to have someone to greet you each time you come home and to