extrapenguin | A Gene to Clean (Vorkosigan, G, gen)

Wordcount: 303
Summary: What gene cleaners actually do. Vignette-ish.

Evgen Vorthane jumped out of his seat as soon as she walked into the room. It was most likely due to her grim expression.

“How- how is she?” he asked, worried. Not even a residual trace of hostility, so he must be very worried.

“Very bad. She's got the occipitoatlantoaxial malformation gene and severe combined immunodeficiency. They're both autosomal recessive traits, so I'd recommed getting any future siblings gene-cleaned as well, to reduce incidence in the next generation.” The cleaning would be an expensive operation, too. Especially since she could afford to charge through the nose as a galactic.

“How much for the cleaning?” Vorthane looked like he couldn't decide between preparing to be punched and anticipating salvation.

Rith named her figure. Vorthane flinched, then dug out his credit card.

The actual cleaning wasn't as simple as the name suggested. A better description would have been partial cloning, with a new zygote being formed from an improved gene print of the original zygote, morula or blastocyst. The extraction of the gene print destroyed the original, but that didn't really matter.

Gene print extracted, Rith opened up the lines of genetic code on her screen. Chromosome 9, the gene that coded for the enzyme DNA-protein kinase catalytic subunit. Two taps later, the enzyme critical for several different immune system molecules was working. Another few taps, and the skull's malformation was edited out of existence. Rith sent it to the zygote fabricator with the standard mitochondrion improvements.

Vorthane left with his prize broodmare's first foal in the replicator it had come in. Another few years and a couple more thousand marks of profit, and Rith Millisor's family might even forgive her for the Flying Tea-Coaster Incident.

She went back to daydreaming about the Arabian unicorn she'd make, this time with the Akhal-Teke gene for shininess.