“Hey, do you still have those prototypes of the DNA tests that your company was working on?”

Such an innocent beginning.

He replied with a manila envelope filled with gridded paper sheets. A drop of blood in each square would turn blue or black depending on the presence of certain genetic markers. A neat bit of applied biochemistry, but then fast and cheap sequencing machines had made such specialized tests all but obsolete.

After analyzing the processes involved, it was easy to miniaturize it. It was harder to make it work on a thin artificial rubber membrane instead of paper, and it was hardest of all to design the molecular transport mechanism that the test would activate. But after five years of work, we were ready to mass-produce the tech. Only cells possessing genes which correlated with increased intelligence could pass through the barrier.

Our anonymous benefactor ordered ten billion of the condoms, as a start. Working for the world’s sneakiest eugenicist was turning out to be pretty profitable.