Wilds Born

One: Almost finished this. As such, it will be posted every other day unless I forget (ie, life happens)

Two: This story includes swearing, sex, violence, what appears to be comments on society, war and other things. It was written as a NaNoWriMo and thus is a bit odd. Plus, I started this a week and a half before posting it sooooo it's no Adaptation.

Three: This is a sequel of Tweak and follows the same pattern as Tweak did, chapter wise. Split chapters, one for each main character.

As for the story in general, the idea occured to me as I wrote the last chapter of Tweak. If you've not read Tweak, I believe the two stories can stand seperate.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





He sat on an upper most branch of the great tree that his people called home. This area had been cultivated and tended, bent and weaved together to create something akin to a roof for the winter months, when the leaves fell and their protection lost. During the summer it made a sturdy perch for the venturous person to sit and watch the forest live.

To an outside observer, to the giant, stiff bird flying over head, it might have looked like he was sitting atop the tree itself, that he could sit on a single leaf and keep afloat, so covered in leaves was his perch. Nothing but green by his knees, nothing but clear blue sky over head. He found peace in the solitude, was able to lock out the drumming and vibrations that were the barely controlled thoughts of his friends and family.

Sighing out, he let go of the negative in his life and accepted the positive, accepted the existence of this thing that the elders called Mother Nature and that the younger generation had taken to simply calling Mother. High above, amongst the stars perhaps, was God, they said. God knew all and saw all, was all powerful.

Yet he could not deny that the presence he felt from above was uniquely different from the one that he felt on the earth, on the ground. Here was the in between place, that place between earth and sky where neither ruled and both shared.

The colour of the air changed.

He turned his head only slightly towards Mei and made a small acknowledging sound. Mei was his only friend, the only one who understood him. To the elders and adults Mei was an oddity. Too lanky, too curious, too able and quick. None of them could understand how Mei could exist as he did. Just as his own generation could not understand how he existed as he did. It had been Mei who had first noticed the oddities and who had taught him to control not only his powers, but his abilities and his impulses.

Only Mei would understand him when he said, “the air is tinged with greyed passion.” without asking questions or making a fuss because he was talking nonsense. Mei hadn’t taught him about the colours of the air or the smell of emotions, but the elder had given him words to put to his senses. Before Mei had taken an interest in him, he hadn’t understood what his instincts told him, couldn’t see past the entirely awfulness that was his confused and socially conflicted life.

Learning disability, Mei had said, that it would have been classified as a learning disability and he would have been quietly shuttled off somewhere, where none of the ‘normal’ people had to deal with him. But none of the tribe were normal, they were all odd in their own special way. It just happened that his oddities were more noticeable, his strangeness was darker than everyone else’s.

One of the others had a split tongue, for crying out loud. And he was the strange one!

“It would be,” Mei muttered knowingly. Settling down on the perch, the elder sighed out.

Without looking, he knew Mei’s green eyes were narrowing, revealing the odd, catlike shape to the pupils. Knew that Mei had opened his mouth to taste the air and translate for himself, to try to understand what had been ‘seen’ on the wind. The elder’s dark brown, almost black hair was lightening with age, making the slow transition into gray. Mei’s teeth weren’t perfectly straight, like all the other adults and elders, his were a little off, a little crooked. A little too long in the canines even.

“It feels as if there is going to be a great horror and yet something that could be so uplifting, so heart warming. It just doesn’t make sense,” he said quietly.

“Mavnen, you recall him?”

“He committed murder and his scent was greyed passion because he did it out of violent, vengeful,” he couldn’t come up with another word to go along with what he had been saying, “hatred. Has a crime been committed then, this night?”

“Tell me first, boy, what is murder?”

This was how he had learned. Mei would mention a word in passing and he would have to pay attention to the meaning because later on, he would be asked what it meant. The other elders did the same thing, asking him at each large word, what this or that meant. He thought the point was to make him some sort of history keeper, since the others his age could not recall such trivial things such as cars or genetic binary modular activity.

“Murder is the act of one taking the life of another to no end nor means. To snuff out the existence of another of the tribe without provocation or right. Murder is not the accidental taking of life during a show of dominance and none but a leader may declare an execution sentence - which is still murder but legally binding in such a form that it is considered acceptable by the societal standards that we uphold to protect the innocent from the criminals whom we do not wish to procreate anyhow.”

“Correct again,” Mei murmured, standing suddenly, “Great-elder has asked for your presence in his chambers. He is not feeling well this day, I think, perhaps, his mind has begun to wander in his old age. He was not built to last, like the others, he is so young to look so old.”

He didn’t understand what Mei meant by that. He knew, by the twitch of Mei’s fingers and the odd way that the elder’s head tilted just slightly to the side that something else was implied with those words. What he did understand was that when an elder called for a youth, the youth responded immediately. Some of the others his age, upon hearing that one of their companions had been called, would make comments, nudge one another and act like they knew something was going on.

Thus he stood, smoothed out his deerskin shorts and took a moment to enjoy the cool feeling of leaves against his bare feet. He was often called by elders, to listen to this or that story. His mother called on him more often than the others did, to try and teach him to tie nets or women’s work around the tree. She insisted that he at least try to learn the everyday chores of the fertile females.

That, he definitely didn’t understand. But when mother got it in her head that she was going to teach someone something, that someone was simply better off going along with the entire thing. Father had certainly learned that the hard way, and father was leader of the tribe, was the most dominant one of them all.

Great-elder had never called on him, however. Being the bearer of a special ring, a magical ring, great-elder had a good deal of sway over the adults and other elders. Whenever the others had questions, they went to the great-elder. When discussion of how to alter the tree arose, great-elder had presided, interrupting sporadically and seemingly illogically. The adults took this to be of great importance and listened to all the great-elder had to say.

He was great-elder, despite being younger than father and most of the other elders, for a reason.

Great-elder was younger than most of the others, this the youth of the tribe knew, but he was completely white. When great-elder’s mate had died, it was as if the man’s body had simply given up on living. Great-elder had gone white in the course of a few months. The elder could hardly bring food to his mouth without shaking bits all over the place.

Soon it would be time for the great-elder to take on an apprentice, to pass on the ring and all the knowledge that went along with the ring. Oh, the youth knew some information, understood the basic uses of the ring, but there were things that only the ring bearer would know.

Syano, the first of his age group to have earned a name, claimed that it was going to be himself. He wouldn’t blame great-elder for choosing someone like Syano. The male was strong of body and mind, wide and dominant, no one would be able to stand against Syano and that was just the kind of body that would support and encourage the uses of the ring. Great-elder talked often with Syano, who, in turn, bragged to the others about how he cared for great-elder and he was great-elder’s favourite.

Knowing that there was no point in asking, he followed Mei down through the tree branches and into the common area. In this communal place old folk and elders sat talking, passing along information and debating philosophy, another big word. Women sat at the hearth fire and tended food, mended clothing and nets, created items out of nothing.

By the time his generation was old, the elders told them, men and women could come and go however they pleased, because there would be enough of all. But for the moment there were not quite enough females for the amount of males and they, the females, were precious commodities. Another big word.

It was here that his mother was teaching his sisters to care for wounds with natural remedies. This was where his nephews and nieces were learning to walk. Where the youth sat after dark in wide eyed awe, listening to the tales of their parents and grandparents.

The common area was almost completely bound in by branches now. It had taken fifty years for the tribe to build the tree enough so as to not be snowed upon every winter. Another twenty for the rooms up above to be created so that the common area was not so full for three or four months out of the year. Yet another ten years for rooms to be created amongst the branches of the tree. All these facts, and how to alter a tree, were the basic knowledge that made up every youth’s lazy days.

Main branches, large branches, stretched up from the common area. One moved almost vertically from the edge, this led to the upper branches and was where Mei and he came down to the common area from. Another moved up and outward very gradually, on this branch the families lived with newborns and young children. One branch moved out horizontally with the ground, looped out and grew back into the tree with many offshoots that were adjusted so as to create hollows. This was where the elders and older folk lived and was across from the sharply rising branch.

Mei led the way across the common area, stopping at this group and that group to greet one person or to inspect the work of youths. By the time they had arrived at the elder branch most of the tribe was talking about Mei. Talking about how Mei wasn’t sharing what he was doing. Mei was usually the first one to gossip, he would tell everyone what everyone else was up to, it was what he was well known for and … sort of his duty to the tribe. The news giver and soothsayer, Mei was journalist, a big word that he hadn’t been asked about but was sure that he was using correctly, and story teller.

He paused at the elder branch and looked back over the common area. Everyone turned as one back to their jobs but were silent witnesses to what was going on. It was like everyone else knew something that he didn’t.

His heart skipped a beat, fear crawled into his belly and took firm control of him. What Mei knew, he knew and then some. Some of the tribe were not so good at guarding their thoughts, some leaked all over the place, especially when great-elder’s mate was near them. But this.

What could great-elder possibly need him for?

“Boy,” Mei murmured quietly, jerking him out of his daze, “great-elder has very little time to waste.”

“Apologies,” he responded just as quietly, turning away from the common area.

He knew the way to the great-elder’s rooms just as everyone else did. Around the bend and halfway down exactly was the entrance. The branch had grown oddly and created no place that allowed for them to easily divide the area cleanly into equal sections. Thus the largest section had been accidentally created at the middle of the branch, on the side that was against the trunk of the tree. This section had been given over to the great-elder as a mark of respect.

Through the enclosed hallway, he travelled into the elder section. It was the first section to be fully enclosed, hallway, rooms and all. Like a little city.

That one was a small big word, like DNA or war.

He stepped just inside the great-elder’s room. Father was already there, bent close to the great-elder. Father’s hair was dark gray, his eyes were brown, almost yellow. He and papa had both begotten children on mother, but father was very certain that papa had not helped mother conceive the youngest child of the family.

Him.

“Great-elder.” he said quietly.

Father and great-elder both turned towards him. Great-elder’s eyes were almost white now, so clouded from age that the man could barely see his hand in front of his face. Father, well, father’s eyes always looked so odd, like father was looking at the world through a haze of some kind. Every once in a while a new person would enter the tribe from the outside world and they would whisper a big word that no one would define.

Madness.

“Come in,” the great-elder rasped, turning towards the wall of his room to seemingly stare at nothing. This room of his was confining, yes, but so little time of the elder’s time, before his mate had died, had been spent in that room.

He settled on the floor of the great-elder’s room a distance away that he was certain was respectful, but not so far as to be insulting. Like many of the adults, great-elder smelled of something that couldn’t quite be described. Like swallowing blood, Syano had once said. Still more, great-elder had felt more and more like the darkest night sky and sounded like crisp, clean sky. It just didn’t add up, didn’t make sense. Like the greyed passion of the air, the great-elder was contradicting himself.

Darkest night meant death, that much he was coming to understand. Crisp, clean sky meant new life.

How exactly did those two go together?

“Do you remember all that I have ever told you of the ring?” great-elder muttered out, huffing at the end.

“Yes,” was all he said, but he had so much more that he wanted to say, wanted to ask of the great-elder about the ring. There had always been small portions of the passed on knowledge that bothered him. Holes in the history that didn’t add up.

“Go ahead,” great-elder nodded knowingly, “ask.”

He swallowed and considered before he answered, too afraid to make the wrong choice, not wanting to go beyond the respectful limits of a conversation. He took the great-elder’s words as an invitation to ask one question so he summed up his curiosity with only one question, “where did the ring come from?”

“Your father will explain the history that we have put together since coming to the wilds. The ring itself,” great-elder touched the ring, caressed it on his finger, moved it, “came into my possession when I stole it from a museum, do you recall what a museum is?”

“Yes, great-elder, a museum is a place where old things of historical importance were stored so that everyone in the world could view and learn their history. A place that we will never have to keep our history, thus we must memorize our history and pass it on absolutely correctly to the next generation for forgetting our past is to open ourselves to making mistakes in the future.”

“Good. This museum was going to destroy the ring and the ring called out to be saved and so was answered.”

“By you.” This made perfect sense. Great-elder was great for a reason, he had saved the ring and the ring had led to the salvation of his people, had made the tribe.

“By Elder Mally. She set it up, you see, she made it possible for me to steal the ring and deliver it to her. But she didn’t count on me putting the ring on. Didn’t count on any of what happened later. No, no she did not.” a small smile tugged at great-elder’s lips.

“Because the ring bonds with a perfect user.” this much he recalled, he knew that the elders had discussed at length who might be suitable to take the ring. All the youths knew and understood the dangers of putting on the ring when they had not been chosen.

“And destroys an imperfect one. By the grace of the ring, the bearer lives or dies. We think that it may sleep for a time, that I may have imparted on it the importance of not killing those who wear it. But there is a problem, you see.”

“Which child to try this on.” this had been a conversation amongst the youths and a much given taunt, that the elders would use the ring on him because it was the only duty that he would be capable of performing.

“Goodness no. What happens if the child I chose turns out incapable, what happens if the ring decides that the child is useless? Hmm? Death all around, I suppose. This is a problem, not just for the bearer, but for the whole tribe.” great-elder turned toward him.

“You want to try it on me, because no one likes me. I understand.”

“For all you know, you are still just a fool of a boy,” great-elder muttered, chewing over his lip for a moment before he continued on, “blinded by your own fears and your own dark secrets. Get past your own wounds, boy, what do you see then?”

“You,” he paused and considered, only too hopeful, too wanting to say it. So he did the stupid thing and just said it, “want me to be the next ring bearer?”

“Yes.”

The fear that had been crawling through his belly swelled, clawing its way into his throat as he protested, “But, great-elder is still alive! Should he not still be alive to teach the new bearer more about the ring, to teach the bearer how to tell yes from no, to understand the complex answers that the ring gives?”

A sigh, “boy, we are uncertain how the ring will react to you, how you will react to the ring. Nothing I tell you could prepare you for the burden, duty and glory that it is to wear the ring. When I first put it on I was barely twenty. Then, I saw it only as a burden. As the tribe grew, I found it to be my sole duty to keep everyone alive and deliver the message of the ring. From the time I was fifty until my mate died, I saw the ring as a glorious thing to have.

“I probably could have healed my eyes, gotten rid of the misery in my joints, prolonged my life indefinitely. But what would be the point, I ask you? I cannot, you cannot, extend the healing powers of the ring to other people. The protection of the ring from physical harm, yes, but only to a person you are touching. Healing. No.

“If I had chosen to extend my life, I would have lived it without my mate and my love. I would be forced to watch my children grow old and die and their children. And their children. What more misery could I feel, than to watch my family die, one by one. To watch my civilization fall?”

“Fall?” he asked, not understanding. The tribe was alive and well, then he realised that the great-elder didn’t mean the tribe, but the city place, that world outside the tribe. The place where the elders and adults had come from.

“You’ve heard the drums, haven’t you? The beat has changed. It is no longer the drumming to keep alive, that, my boy, is the sound of war brewing. A sound that has not been in the lands in many centuries. Not since the emperor fought the last battle. And how, how will our people in the tame lands protect themselves from the short people.”

“Technology, all the elders talk about it.” another big word, one that could be applied to many different terms. Technology went along with healing, with war, with power, with literature, with education and biological standards. Genetic sequencing.

“Talk about germ warfare, the fight with biological creatures so small that one cannot see them,” great-elder huffed out, “these people out here have immunities different from our own. Do you know what an immunity is?”

“The capability to keep out infection, disease or illness via one’s own bodily functions. Some people have more, some people have less. Immunity also plays a factor in choosing a mate, because if your immunity is the same as another person’s, you will not enjoy their company, nor will you find them attractive. The point of mating is to find someone with good blood and to make a better blooded one, someone with a better immunity.”

“Correct, our people do not have weapons any longer. We have knives, but only because we use them in a kitchen. We have hammers and axes because some people still live like that. Power is all we have and the power users will not fight. Those without power are too busy fighting those with it to realise what is happening. The people are pacifistic, do you know what that means?”

“To not want to fight, the opposite of aggressive or militaristic,” he wasn’t entirely certain about that big word, militaristic and he sort of choked halfway through it. But by the great-elder’s nod, he knew that he had used the right word in the right place, “but the other boys fight all the time.”

“The other boys were raised in the wild! Ever given a choice between fighting your own people or fighting the short people, chose the short people. We. We can win. We are silent death, they already mutter behind their hands when they come to the tree. They revere it and so they are afraid of us that reside in it.

“Look at it this way. Which would you be more afraid of, a wild wolf, or a lap dog? You recall what a lap dog is, yes?”

“Wolf,” he responded very quickly, “but why don’t the people outside of the forest protect themselves?”

“Because they are civilized, or so they think. They would rather try to reason with one another than slam heads into walls. They believe that violence begets nothing more than violence and that if they open their arms to accept the short people, everyone can just get along. But it’s not going to happen.

“The short people are banding their tribes together. They have lived in the wilds their entire lives, generations and generations of them. They are not a timid people, they are not shackled by what we call civilization. It is best to think of them as nothing more than animals who imitate some of our behaviours. They want new land and our people are on that land. A land of milk and honey, their idea of heaven on earth.”

“I … think I understand.”

“Good,” great-elder removed the ring from his finger, a feat that all knew was impossible. The ring was one with great-elder, the pair could not be separated but for in death. Slowly, slowly, it was making more and more sense, frightening his young mind, “You are now the ring bearer.”

Great-elder took the young hand in his old one, right hand, middle finger and slid the ring onto the finger. For a quiet moment, he wasn’t entirely certain what was expected of him. He felt nothing, nothing changed and thus he said, “nothing happened.”

“You won’t notice any changes for a while it takes time for the ring to get through to you. Try taking it off.”

He reached down and tugged at the ring. It didn’t budge, it wouldn’t move. Panic, anxiety, horror at what had just happened, this couldn’t be happening to him, he was a freak as it was! “it won’t come off!”

“Good, that means my decision was the right one, now, if you would both excuse me, it is my time to die and I would rather be near my mate when that happens.”

Great-elder stood and shuffled to the door of his room. There, Mei offered his arm to the elder and the two of them went off, leaving he and his father alone in the great-elder’s room.

He stared down at his hand, at the cold looking band that wound around the middle finger of his right hand now. Along the edges, he had been taught, were six, six pointed stars. On the inside was an engraving that none of the adults knew the meaning of, or what it said in its own language. The ring relied on the subconscious desires of the bearer and the needs of the ring itself. It had what the adults called a sentient but non-communicative existence. It was parasitic or symbiotic, depending on who put it on.

“Father.”

“Yes?”

“What do we do now?”

***

“Gomesh Genetics has handed over every one of those embryos as well as the original hosts from the stolen genetic material. Those responsible are long dead,” cold, angry blue-green eyes, perfectly coloured and ridged with darker shades. Blonde and brown hair, perfectly kept, was pulled into a tight bun. Flawless features and well aged skin resounded with the woman’s annoyance, “what you accuse us of-”

“What we accuse you of is keeping secrets,” the government arbitrator slammed his file onto her defence desk, raising his voice, jagged teeth flashing, “from the public! The genetic lines have been infiltrating the wilds. Have they, or have they not?”

“I can make no claim, either as a yes or as a no to that question. I do not know where these people originally came from,” she sat forward in her seat, “what I do know is that the Meita family, almost a hundred years ago-”

“Do not round numbers off, do not soften facts before this court!”

He couldn’t take it any longer, to see his mother treated in such a way. He sat forward in his seat, as heir of Gomesh Genetics it was his right to defend what would one day be his. In the end, he stood, a head taller than everyone else in the room.

Nothing out of the ordinary about him, nothing odd about his physical presence. So long as he kept control of his emotions. When his pupils expanded, the dark ridges of his eyes expanded, created a six pointed star. His teeth lengthened, nails hardened and took on a polished look. There was something about his stance that was completely and utterly animal.

Oh yes, and his hair stood on end, as it was slowly doing, strand by strand, standing up as he pulled his lips away from his teeth to prevent hurting himself in his annoyance.

“I am such a child,” he said, “when my mother found herself infertile-”

“We aren’t talking about you, you-”

“Silence your tongue in the presence of better genetic material!” he snapped at the prosecutor. Mother taught him to translate his instinctual urges into ‘civilized’ talk. A claim on dominancy sounded so rude when said in civilized, it would have been so much more polite to simply toss the man down and grip him by the throat until he passed out or gave in, “my mother, upon finding herself infertile. Petitioned the Toleran and Ishteshtin lines for a frozen embryo that she had handed over to them to be safely kept until such a time as they could be raised and released back into the wilds.

“Those great genetic clans came to you,” he pointed to the judge sitting there, for that was the same man who had presided over the trial, “and you gave them the go ahead. And so my mother took on a child of the wilds.” he turned and faced the court room, let his emotions rule him and felt the change prickling through his body. Those watching him shrank back, horrified they seemed by his presence, “and now you try to tell me that we have hidden information from you? At no point did Gomesh Genetics deny my existence or what I am.

“The people of the wilds are me. Except wild.” he raised his voice, felt it resounding off the walls and surrounding the more dominant people in the room, bowing them before him. He. Was. It. “you have a problem with the genetics going to the wilds? Take it up with them. You don’t like,” he pointed towards the people, “the genetic alterations that have been done to you or your children or your parents, take it up with them. The genetic lotteries only include sequencing that has been tested on multiple generations of tweakers and genetics alike. Without people like me, you could not have those parts of you that you like.

“But by all means, we shall stop the genetic lotteries. These additions are hugely expensive for Gomesh Genetics to give out, we could put the money into other places. Like a new house. I’m sure I could use a new house. Or a car.”

“Are you threatening us?”

“No, I am putting down an ultimatum,” he turned towards the prosecutor and pulled himself into strict control once more, “if you push this fact, if you demand that our records be opened and that we divulge secrets that we do not have, you will lose. Any pushing of the fact and all genetic lotteries will end.”

“How dare you.”

“How dare you,” he murmured, hand grazing over his watch to activate the viewing screen on the wall of the court house. A genetic file popped up, opened and spread out, “You won the genetic lottery. This included a boosted ego and a massive intelligence boost. These two paired together often lead to lawyers, judges, politicians.”

He paused for the briefest moments, “we decided not to boost your… size. But had we done so, you probably would have pursued the pornographic or prostitution careers. I’m not joking about that either. We’ve done studies.

“Now here, here, here and here are alterations that your parents paid for, receipts saying as much as well as the contractual agreement stating as much. Here is their signature stating exactly what they agreed to change. Note here, here and here,” a flickering of his fingers over his watch brought up the specific lines of the contract, “state that they only agreed to these items.

“According to you, legally speaking, we are not allowed to add anything besides that. Note the yellow highlights. Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, well. You get the point,” he turned back to the prosecutor, “had we obeyed what you call the law. You would be five foot nine with yellow hair, not blonde, yellow. You would be balding and gray by now, you would have a full face of hair. The. Entire,” he grimaced as he motioned towards his own face and encircled it, “thing. Your legs would be bowed, both of them.

“You would have no finger nails at this point because you would have sceptosclempishemia, a term that the genetic companies created to explain bad genetic codes. Basically, you would be liquefying from the inside out. Your genetic material is falsified by the fact that your parents are cousins.”

“What? They are no-” the colour the prosecutor’s face went as the screen flickered and brought up a family reunion picture was highly amusing.

“First. Cousins. Very closely related. First. Cousins. It’s much the same as. Say. A brother and a sister, or a father and a daughter. Mother and a son. You’re getting the picture, I’m sure. First generation, a genetic sequence was added in that adheres to strict animalistic instincts that prevent you from being attracted to your own family members. This sequencing was pulled out of the natural arrival that the genetics came to and then the tweakers, giving the commoners what the genetics had in hopes of bridging the gap between the genetics and commoners by this generation.

“A failure, certainly, but one that in the wilds would prevent someone like me from sleeping with my sister. Or cousin. I would find them so un-interesting that if surrounded by people that were too much like me chemically, too close to my genetic code or of lesser blood than myself, I would appear as an asexual being. Survival of the fittest, evolution geared up to produce a creature that is better than its parents at all times.

“We are made to adapt and to create children on our own that will, one day, not need genetic alterations because our bodies will create genetic alterations in the womb.

“You, sir. Have no right to demand that we be lawful. If you do, then. Well. I think I should inform you on behalf of all the rest of the race that you should curl up and die, along with any children you may have had up until this point because you are a tarnish to our race. You sully the genetic pool with your inbred genes.”

Surprisingly no one jumped up to tell him that he was out of line. The prosecutor just sat there, staring at the screen. This was all real, this was the actual report and their back up plan. Mother had wanted to leak it to the press if things got too hot. He wasn’t one to stand about waiting for things to fall in alignment. He wanted his way and he wanted it now.

He was quiet a moment longer, then cleared his throat and turned toward the judge.

“El…” the judge frowned and looked down at the file, reading the prompt that was presented to him, “I’m sorry. Your name is… what?”

“El will do just fine.” the papers and news stations all just called him the heir of Gomesh Genetics because they didn’t quite understand what it meant.

“Why El?”

Technically it was just the letter L.

“Because twenty-five of my brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles are currently frozen and of them all, the only base of choice that my mother had was the letter of the alphabet that was assigned to each of us. My assigned name was L-1569572. She chose me. Without looking at my genetic code, without tampering with my naturally inclined genes, she chose me.

“My mother loves me for who I am and what I would have become without genetic alterations,” he turned back towards the crowd, “can any of you say the same of your own mothers?

“All Gomesh Genetics, all any of the genetic companies want is to create in each of us the ability to adapt, to change between the generations and be able to destroy unnecessary genetic code to make way for useable sequences. They want everyone to be like me.

“I was not created, no,” he shook his head. How often had he been told this story as a sort of romantic tale? “my blood mother had just conceived me when she was raped and murdered by the Meita family. Thank God she was pregnant then, otherwise this would have been a very different story. Whoever is living in the wilds, wherever they are. They. Are. Free.

“Free of genetic sequencing and civilization, free of disease and illness, free of the need to eat. My people, your people. They’re technically the same thing. Except my people, when they fuck, they do it for the children. My people don’t decide to have a child and then go to the doctor and have the eye colour programmed, they don’t carefully select a baby daddy from a sperm donor or chose which animistic traits they want to bring out in their child.

“A man climbs on top of a woman. Or beneath her. Or around her. There are quite a few different positions… and they conceive a child the old fashioned way. Penis goes in, vagina receives and if you’re lucky, you get a kid. Thanks to genetics, that child, when born in the wilds under proper conditions and without,” he motioned towards the prosecutor, “first cousins never removed, will always be better than any child we create in a lab.

“We are not the oil companies. We are not rolling in money. Our workers are not rolling in money. Any profit margin we have goes into paying for the genetic lottery.

“Gomesh Genetics. You dream it, we create it. Chose the dream you want and be ready to live with the consequences of your actions!” He stood there a moment, waiting, he could feel it brewing under the surface.

A petite female in the back hoped up, pen in hand, “are there specific necessities to be included in this genetic lottery?”

“Each child being created has one ballot and one ballot alone. You must realise that only commoners receive the genetic lottery. If your income is such and to the point where you can fabricate your own child from the ground up, you are not a commoner, you are a genetic. They have the money to pay for alterations, let them pay. Commoners are the ones who need the lottery.”

“Saying that,” another reporter hopped up, “aren’t you afraid that the genetics will remove their funding from your programs?”

“What funding from what programs?”

“PRD.”

“Power Research Division does not exist, nor has it ever,” deny, deny, deny. Mother always lied when she said that it had never existed, he could tell but she never told him why she lied, “and the Toleran family is the only genetic family that will work with Gomesh Genetics. They are more than happy to pay for the alterations we provide because we are fair to all.”

“How… is it fair to exclude the genetics from the genetic lottery?”

“Look at it this way,” he paused just briefly, ordering his thoughts and considering the image that he was about to use, “how many billionaires play the lottery for money? None. So how many genetics would want to participate in the genetic lottery? I don’t know about other genetic lines, as I’ve not seen their code, but I can say from experience that the Toleran family would not benefit from the genetic lottery. What we hand out in the lottery has come from the tweakers and genetics, meaning the Meita and the Toleran, thus they already have what we are handing out. It’s like giving two umbrellas to a man standing in the rain when there’s a man standing right beside him getting soaked because he has no umbrella.”

“Do other companies do the genetic lottery?”

“Some may, some may call it something else.”

“What about the atrocities committed by your company-”

“Whoa! Slow down there,” how many times had his mother told the press not to ask him questions about that? It was before his time and he hadn’t had anything to do with it. Way. Way. Way before his time. “I believe you are referring to the class four, five and six felonies brought against the Meita family and Gomesh Genetics ninety-two and a half years ago. Tell me. What’s your name?”

“Uhm,” the reporter frowned as if he should have known her name, “Tel Fenlin.”

He looked it up and then he traced back her ancestry a bit and found a felon, “well, about that time, oddly enough, your grandfather raped and murdered six women, tell me. What about the atrocities committed by him? He was never brought to justice.”

“We aren’t talking about my family.”

“Turn about is fair play. If you continue to insist that something that was grievously wrong be paraded about for everyone to relive over and over again, how can a community heal? The people involved in that, as my mother has told you many times, are long dead. She was found innocent of all charges, I was found innocent of all charges. Considering the fact that I didn’t exactly exist at the time.

“Every year we are audited at random by a random government official. The worst that they have ever found was crayon scrawled across the wall of my mother’s office. And that was from,” he straightened his jacket and tried to look sheepish, “a certain three year old who had been told to sit down and play quiet while mummy gave the mean looking man a tour of the genetic design floor.”

That got a chuckle out of everyone. He nodded to them all and went to his mother’s side and sat down, giving her a sideways look, a plea for help as it dawned on him what he had just done. All the talks about controlling himself, all the lessons on how to deal with commoners and he had just. Had just.

“Handing people their asses, while affective,” his mother murmured quietly, “can blow up in your face. You need to end your enemy, not fuel his rage.”

“Oops?”


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