Read Online The Return of the Watchers (Armageddon Rising Book 1) by Denny Bennett - Free Book Online Page B

                                                                                                 
     
     
     
    Four
     
     
     
                 
                  After taking Yuki to the airport Dorian decided to get some Chinese carry out, then returned to the house he owned in Ann Arbor. It was a large old two-story historic home that had seen many previous owners over the years, and that had been through several renovations and restorations to bring it back to its former glory. It had a nice carved stone fireplace that he would occasionally park himself in front of on nights  such as this. The crisp air outside, along with the smell of burning logs from the homes in the neighborhood, made him feel alive, bringing back memories of his adolescent years in Colorado. Curling up on the couch in front of the fireplace, he ate while sorting through his mail.                                           After scanning the physical mail and filtering the hundreds of emails he had piled up, he turned on the television for all of two minutes before it depressed him enough to shut it off. “Another tsunami kills thousands; what in the world is happening to this planet?” he said.               That night he dreamt of being trapped in his house, only it was filled with garbage and junk piled from floor to ceiling. It wasn’t the first time he'd had this strange dream, and he wondered why it kept repeating.                             The following day, b ecause it was the weekend, he did a bit of shopping and laundry before going in to the lab a bit later than usual.
                  After taking care of his errands, he got back in his car and headed towards the University. A gathering of about four hundred people were braving the colds outside the medical science building. They held up signs  indicating things were about to go bad for him and for anyone else involved with the lab. One read: “Genetic manipulation is an affront to God,” another: “You are not the creator!” There were several signs with biblical passages, and many of the protestors were chanting various poorly-rhymed anti-genetic slogans. Dorian had been so preoccupied with his work that he hadn’t noticed the growing public resentment towards people who worked in the industry.                                                                                     Genetic engineering had become fashionable, as those with the means were able to have designer children : One could choose the sex of their child, the height, eye color, hair, even their dexterity. This practice was extremely controversial at first; so much so that it was not  in the United States until after it had been used elsewhere.                                                         It had initially begun in China, where the population was so out of control to begin with. Well-to-do parents wanted their progeny to be exactly what they wished for at the start; no need to rely on chance. From there the technology moved to India, where for decades many female babies had been killed in the womb, or in secret after birth by their parents, or given up altogether because of the desire for a male child. Parents in the west took notice and began going overseas for custom in vitro fertilization and paying big money for it. Governments, being the starving elephants they were, decided to tax and regulate rather than let business leave their country.               Dorian's research had nothing to do with enhancing children; quite the contrary, he was trying to save lives from a terrible disease. It didn’t matter, however. In these desperate times, people had become