Story
Dr X takes it on himself to secretly gene-edit human babies using powerful recursive CRISPR technology. At first this enables him to seemingly solve impossible infertility problems (dual Cystic Fibrosis, congenital heart defects, etc) for wealthy clients who "don't want to know" how he gets results.
Then he goes further, dabbling in more than just removing diseased genetics. Making a cocktail of 'perfect genetics' (intelligence, beauty, athletics), splicing them together, then adding an identifyable 'signature' of sorts (gold flinted eye strands). At the last moment, he considers the danger of what he's doing, and binds them only to X chromasomes, so they can't modify the entire gene supply. Then he secretly injects it into a baby.
The X chromasome linking ends up creating an effect which is 5-10x more pronounced in women in prime hormone years, between 13-22, with a copy on each X chromosome, unlike men who end up with just one.
Simon, a CDC investigator, is the first to know about the outbreak, and in realizing nobody can stop it. He's also the first to have first-hand observation of it's effects, through female teens in the small-town of patient-zero, and Lindsey, his young intern co-worker.
How much do they grow?
Affected women grow about an inch a week, and so he watches Lindsey's monthly progression (5'5" 100lbs -> 5'9" -> 6'1" -> 6'5" -> 6'9" 200lbs)
??? this feels too slow for story progression..
Where is it going?
explore dynamics with Simon and Lindsey, teens in the small town of patient-zero
Simon is a PhD CDC researcher, who has befriended a semi-cute but nerdy female techie data-analyst , Lindsey, who runs numbers and manages the computer systems. Expecting a big promotion, he gets "shafted" with a promotion to head up US domestic disease outbreaks, which are rare. His colleagues instead covet international disease positions. He grumbles, and settles into his large but boring new office. Lindsey comes to visit. However, hours later, he gets a strange call about a doctor doing human gene tampering.
Simon interviews the whistle-blower, who is vague, because she doesn't really know anything. She just talks about the fertility researcher boasting about his work... and how it's going to change everything.
This leads to a flurry of meetings at the CDC, where they try to decide if they should even be involved. Simon's boss asks a bunch of probing questions, asking if they know what technique the doctor used? Whether it could spread? Simon doesn't know anything, and his boss immediately escalates and says they'll have the doctor in custody within the hour.
Simon starts unraveling the damage, interviewing families,
starting with the recent baby with gold-flecked eyes.. though they don't have much to say...
However, some of the mad doctor's earliest clients are noticing something odd... not only are the babies cured, but the parents are too. Which they consider a miracle, until it spreads beyond just the parents. Local doctors notice a small community has all cases of Cystic Fibrosis cured.. and contact the CDC, and Simon - who doesn't know what to do with an epidemic of "cured-ness" in the town. / However, as he's pouring through data about the mad-doctor, he notices the name of the town on a patient address, and gets a hunch they are connected.
He's visits the mad-doctor in prison ... who is evasive about his questions (silence of the lambs criminal mastermind style)..
the mad-doctor hints at what could happen next. he investigates the next patients, slowly uncovering a pattern of change in people around the babies.
at first, just the 'signature' gold-flinted ring on the inner circle of the iris. he catalogs several of the people presenting with the gold flint.
back at the CDC, a random chat with a collegue leads to the idea of looking for the tech he used, rather than the changes he made, and Simon finds a crispter fragment, then several more. He goes into a frenzy and calls a huge meeting about a US epidemic, which most collegues initially laugh at, but before it starts, he needs to consults with Lindsey.
Not quite revealing everything, Simon asks her to make some spread projections based on his suspected mode and speed of transmission. She laughs at his silly thought experiment, "good thing nothing spreads like that", and shows him spread simulations, of it taking 5 days to cover the state and bleed into other states, 30 days to cover the nation, and just 45 days to cover 80% of the world. He gets immediately dour.
He thanks her for her time, and asks her to come to the chem lab. There he casually draws blood from himself, and then asks to draw from her. It kinda freaks her out, but he fibs a little, explaining that it's for a control. He puts the samples into the machine, and they head off to the big meeting.
He explains the US outbreak, instigated by the mad doctor, and his data about patient-zero.
he fills the next hour talking about hypothetical questions of ethics related to human gene modification. (is it right to test on humans? no. would it be bad if a gene mutation cured disease? no. what if it did more than cured disease?)
When the machine finishes, his fears are realized, as both his sample and her sample contain several occurrences of the CRISPR fragment. Now he needs to figure out what the mutations do.
He revisits one of the smaller patient towns, only to find *everyone* not only expressing the gold iris flint, but talking about it. He overhears people speculating about such wild things as it curing their cancer, ulcers, making them younger, prettier, thinner, taller.