Tweak

Three days and not a word. Layaent was off one way, Ash came and went and they had small conversations. About the weather and how their day was going. They rarely spoke more than a few sentences before Ash would wander off again and Shin would have the room to himself again. On the third day he had left his rooms but Layaent and Ash were acting strange. As Shin passed by them, the only word they spoke out loud was ‘stillborn’ which had no sign, even in the commoner sign language.

Three days after that Shin got the email and realised what the pair had been talking about. Some dumb fool had gotten a commoner pregnant. It was illegal for genetics and commoners to couple and allow their seed to mingle. To protect the genetic heritage of the genetics and tweakers, such a line had to be made and enforced. Any found crossing their lines were neutered, any offending prodigy dealt with as necessary.

The email listed off the genetic material of the child. On and on, miles and miles of it. Some bits of the material were tagged and highlighted.

The child was male, fully developed and had died after his first breath. Thus, not quite stillborn but a very short life. The fact that this child had drawn a breath meant that all parties needed to be investigated due to the claim of the defendant. Meaning, the one who was being called the father was protesting, saying either that the child wasn’t his or it was impossible to happen.

It was all very vague and Shin plugged his phone into his computer, fed up with the vagueness of the email. Only as the company directed him to his commoner ‘partner’ did Shin realise how odd that was for him. He didn’t like face to face time, even if it was with the commoner who sat at Shin’s desk in the corporate office and filtered out the annoying bits. Basically, the male was Shin’s secretary, who happened to be training to take over Shin’s job. Once the male was fully trained and such, he would be transferred to a newer company that the genetic families had created to do the alterations on commoners.

This would keep the genetic companies free to do work for the genetic families and would cut down on conspiracy theories. The people had petitioned for a genetic company that was separated from the genetic families and the council of six had answered their petition almost immediately.

Genetic companies didn’t like doing pro-bono work anyhow.

“Good afternoon, Shin,” Orlan murmured, blinking his teal eyes to switch between the optical implants he had and his actual vision. Some technology could be inserted at birth and grow with the child. Orlan’s parents had spent their life savings on Orlan’s implants. Basically, Orlan’s brain was his computer. The implants were paying off for Orlan, but that was because he also had the intelligence and state of mind necessary for controlling the technology inside his head, “I take it, you received my email?”

The implants hadn’t been expensive when they had first come out. But after standards, tweaks and upgrades had been added so that the user didn’t fry their brain the first time they connected to the internet, it was so expensive that even genetics couldn’t be bothered to pay for them. What had cost Orlan’s parents some twenty thousand was, in modern times, over a trillion dollars.

Though the trillion also guaranteed that the user would survive.

“Yes, it’s awfully vague. Please explain.”

“The mother arrived at the house seven days ago, heavily pregnant,” Shin frowned as Orlan flipped over a paper and read out. Seven days previous had been when Layaent and Ash were sitting in Shin’s room when he returned from the garden. “The claimed father was certain he was sexually immature and had no awareness of the child’s existence. At his protestation and her claim, he was tested, it came back negative. This is a case of her stealing his genetic material.”

“Has that every happened before?”

“No one, from what I can tell, has ever been stupid enough to steal the genetic material of an Ishteshtin, let alone the oldest of the Ishteshtin line.”

“Layaent. Layaent is the father?”

“So the paternity test states. She refuses to admit that she stole genetic material and will not tell us where the egg was fertilized and inserted. There were no alterations to the child and thus there is no tag for us to trace back. There was, however, an amino acid in the child’s blood that was part of some ploy to keep the child alive. According to our calculations, had the amino acid worked, the child would have lived until it was twelve, then died the moment it entered puberty.”

“A timer?”

“A prolong method. The child wasn’t capable of surviving outside the womb. Mother and father, because of biological standards, genetic alterations or any number of natural causes were never meant to mesh cleanly together. It’s like taking a donkey and a horse and breeding them. Except the offspring is more likely to die than to survive long enough to breath.

“Because it did breath, I believe we have grounds to not only charge her with murder, for bringing to life a child she knew could not survive without alterations that she didn’t give it, but also for genetic rape.”

A commoner and a genetic couldn’t mesh properly? That didn’t even make sense. Even though the two groups had different biological standards, they should…

But then, one could not give a fourth generation commoner the same biological standards as one gave an eleventh generation genetic or tweaker. Tweakers and commoners crossed about as often as genetic and tweakers did, but genetics and commoners didn’t directly cross. In fact, Shin couldn’t think of a single time a genetic and a commoner had a child. The rule had always been there, from the very beginning. Forever and ever, it was.

“Shin?”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, “caught in thought. Have you analyzed the genetic material yourself?”

“I delegated out and glanced over what they highlighted, mainly it was just the gender and such things,” Orlan blinked, the action covered the man’s pupils with a teal slider that was the same colour as his pupils, “I’ll take a quick look now.”

Shin flipped over to the other page and scrolled through the material. He ignored the highlighted areas and looked at the rest of the genetic material. Shin was getting good enough that he knew the child, when fully grown, would share the same attributes as Layaent. As an adult the child would have been taller than his father and wider. He would have built muscle easily and his hair would be unruly as could be, a trait that must have come from the mother. His fingers would have been longer than normal as would his arms.

Layaent’s biological standards were assumed by the genetic material.

Shin could pick out a piece of genetic material that seemed to suggest that the child’s children would be all female and would be throwbacks, every one of them. They would have third generation biological standards and be weak in the immune system. At least, that’s what he thought that line of material stated.

After an hour of analysing he flipped back to the other screen. Something in Orlan’s head would let the man know that Shin had done this. A moment later Orlan blinked and focused on Shin.

“It will take years to find the piece that, for whatever reason, made this child a hybrid. But I don’t think your family has to worry. It would seem that Layaent’s genetic material is-” Orlan looked over Shin’s shoulder and so Shin turned as well.

Joral stood very calmly, hands clasped before him.

“Far superior from that of a mutt of a commoner. She’s not even a proper third generation, I looked at her genetic material. She’s got the standards of a third, but one of her parents was pure bred. I’ll leave you to your,” Orlan motioned over Shin’s shoulder, “Orlan out.”

Shin unplugged his cell phone from the side of his computer and shut the computer down before he turned his full attention to Joral, “what would you like?”

“The investigation, drop it. We’ve the evidence we need without looking into the genetic material of the child.”

“It’s a hybrid and you don’t want anyone knowing this because… that would make us an entirely different species from commoners? Genetics and tweakers cross, tweakers and commoners cross. Their children all cross, we are not some other species, other race. It was one child from one pair and you heard what he said, the parents are different. It’s not a matter of the child being hybrid so much as the trashy genetic material offered up against the magnificence that is Layaent. The child they produced, had it lived, would be measurable to Layaent so long as we didn’t allow it to breed. If it bred it would only pass dirty, disease causing genes around.

“And I’m not saying that to be anti-commoner, this woman is crawling with degenerative genetic material. Any children she begets might be fine but it’s the next generation that is going to suffer and we should fix her now, put a complete end to this. To say nothing of what we should do about her genetically raping an oldest child.”

“She’s dead. Shin,” Joral murmured quietly, “there’s no need to go delving any further into her past. She was taken by a malady that sometimes affects women directly after giving birth. We are ill prepared for a female who insists on delivering the child herself and for that, we lost the mother.

“As for the child. He is not the first of his kind and unfortunately he will not be the last. Genetics take commoners as lovers all the time but never you hear of a child being born. This is because no children are born, it is impossible for a commoner to conceive the child of a genetic without scientific alterations to the genetic material the likes of which we cannot do yet.”

“What are you saying?”

“Combining the genetic material of a genetic and a commoner always results in disaster. We can supplant bits of commoner genetics into our own, we can supplant small parts of our own into a commoner but just as we cannot conceive a child with a snake, we cannot conceive a child with a commoner. There are simply too many biochemical differences between us and them. We are one race, they are another.”

“But the tweakers-”

“Are called mutts for a reason. Their genetic material allows them to breed with genetics and commoners and pure bred. They are a mingling of all of this as well as the animals that we have added to the genetic material. Tweakers are not genetics, commoners, pure bred, just as they are not dog or cat or otter or snake. They are all of these things together.”

“Oh,” was all Shin could come up with.

“Which is why there is so much work with the Meita family falling. We must sever every connection they had and replace it with our own. Then we must gear up our companies to bring in the proper knowledge to reverse whatever it that they did to us. One switch thrown seven generations ago and lost to history has left us unable to produce viable children with commoners. There are millions of switches that can be thrown and we have no choice but to throw each on, one at a time. It could take hundreds of generations but we will figure it out.”

“Preferably before the commoners find out.”

“And that is why I need you to cease your investigation. Or at the very least, do not delve any deeper into the information. I trust your secretary with my life, I am the one who chose him to be your sit in, after all. But I cannot trust him a hundred years from now when his mind is gone and he is drooling in a nursery home somewhere. People might pay attention to his babbling or they might not. But we cannot take that risk.”

“As head of the household, you only needed to order me to do so and not give an explanation at all.”

“How will you know for the future, whether or not to investigate this type of thing, if I do not tell you all that is going on?”

“Point made.”

“Oh,” Joral raised his hands as if offering something, “the easiest way to cut off the investigation is to inform Orlan that the mother died and thus, there are no charges to be made unless he can trace back to the company who did the procedure.”

“He doesn’t believe so, but is looking into an amino acid.”

“Clever. I always liked Orlan, smart but not smart enough to figure out what was really going on,” Joral muttered, “come, join me for tea, I’ve a suitor family for you to meet.”

***

Stuff happened, a lot of stuff. While Shin did nothing, the estate was abuzz with every change in political positions. The genetic and tweaker families had to agree to a new genetic family stepping up and newgens were trying to by their way in. While genetic and tweaker alike were not interested in the bribes, the council of six were urging the families to allow the newgens to court them.

To allow the newgens to believe that they had a chance at the position, least they side with the commoners and cause a rebellion.

Toleran family had been named sixth genetic family in all but official title. Being that family meant that the newgens were hissing rumours, spreading as many lies as they could about the Toleran family. Which meant that Ash’s father had his hands full defending the family reputation from the oddest things.

Ash was left in limbo. Being a duly appointed genetic, he had more rights than others. Once things settled down and his genetic material was analysed by the families, his position with the Ishteshtin could change. If he was found to be as attractive as the genetic women had claimed he was for years, his worth to the Ishteshtin family and his own worth would multiply tenfold. If he was found to be on the same genetic level as Layaent, then the Ishteshtin would have no reason to keep Ash.

His family could petition to the council of six to get him released, thusly paying half his contract price to the pool to repay the debt he owed to the Ishteshtin.

As it was, Ash was sitting at a table in the garden with Layaent and Taya, playing tea party because Layaent decided that the servants were teaching his sister bad words. Genetic families believed in adult supervision for children and carefully monitored playtime. Taya would learn how to interact with adults. She would play with others her age under the watchful eyes of the guardians of all children involved.

The tweaker families were more laid back about teaching their young. Children asked the awkward question and they learned all the things that commoner children didn’t learn until they were twenty or thirty years old. The children would not have play dates with each other, they would more of set up play dates with their parents. Adults were responsible for the children they sired, thusly taking their children about the estates with them. The children wandered from the adults and started talking.

From the view of the children, they simply played. But the adults carefully watched everything that the children did, every interaction. Rarely did anyone need to step in and actually do anything.

“Are you and Shin having fun?” Taya asked, “I noticed that Shin doesn’t walk about with you and he hasn’t been at dinner. Has he withdrawn again?”

“He has not withdrawn,” Ash muttered in response, playing with his tea handle, “he is simply having difficulty accepting his lot in life and is thusly being difficult.”

“His lot in life?” Taya was suddenly very interested in Ash, which only made Ash realise that he really should not have said what he had said. Taya didn’t know about the ring and Ash didn’t think it would be a good idea to let that sort of information slip out.

“Shin is wondering what to do with himself,” Layaent said quietly, calmly, “with his life. Whether to go on with the genetic branch with the company or through the house as administration. If he wants to stay in the house or move to another one, if he wants to be in control of the tweaker household.”

“I.” Taya poured tea into her glass, some sort of herbal something that complimented the nutrients in her tea biscuits that she was eating, “want to be a nurse. It fascinates me how the body works. I’d like to help people, that would be nice as well.”

“I like,” Ash growled, “how helping people is the last thing you think about.”

Taya shrugged, “I like being annoying.”

“I noticed,” Ash muttered, sipping his water.

“I also like prying into adult business and the women of the family are absolutely abuzz about a partner that one of the families is offering up for Shin. Two children, full access to both families in case he needs space or his family. Coming and going as they please and a handsome pay.”

“That’s nice,” Ash murmured, “sounds like a nice and cozy contract.”

“Well, it’s good that you think that, because it’s your family offering the contract,” Taya said, looking at Ash pointedly.

“Oh, some-” sister or cousin, Ash was about to say, until he saw that odd look on Taya’s face, “what?”

“Just. The oldest of your father’s children,” Taya said, nodding.

“I’m… the oldest of my father’s children.” Ash choked as Joral and Shin approached. Ash stood immediately, glaring at Taya and then at Layaent. He lowered his voice, “what is going on?”

“A pairing,” Layaent said, barely able to contain his amusement, “is a male-female, male-male, female-female, or any number of other combinations as the council pleases. Head of house, Joral, may I introduce the suitor,” Layaent stood and straightened his shirt, “Ash, of the Tolerans. His head of house sent me a request three days ago but I’ve only now gotten to it. Shin, sit.”

Shin looked about as confused as Ash did. He didn’t understand what was going on, thought it was a mistake or a joke. The young man’s eyes drifted towards Layaent’s hands. That much, he at least recognised, that Layaent was not joking.

“A pairing-” Shin protested.

“A breeding contract is about children, that is something we can arrange for between two males. The projections for a child between the two of you is high,” Layaent said, motioning for Shin to sit, “you’ve heard how science can take a female and a female egg and combine them into a viable child. Same can be done with two males, except you take a female’s egg and extract her genetic material, adding in the material of both males and give it a little electrical shock.”

“Odd,” Shin muttered.

“Very,” Joral said quickly, “however, the two houses have agreed. Two children shall be created from this with a clause for more. This clause is put into many of the newer contracts and involves if a child dies, if the wilds can be colonized or if one of the children is found to be permanently infertile.”

“You’re an evil, evil man, Joral,” Ash snapped.

“All contracts are arranged,” Joral snapped back, “The Toleran family is forging contracts with all of the genetic lines and doing so quickly. Given our part in bringing down the Meita family, your family is gifting us with you. By all means, talk to your father and your head of house about it.” Joral huffed out a breath and made a curt motion, dismissing Taya. The young girl fled and Joral took her seat, continuing on in a quieter voice, “Let’s face it, Ash, you are not protesting because you find Shin somehow damaged. You are upset because this is out of your control.

“When you thought that there was a possible escape route, that you might be able to get away from the estate if you approached your own head of house, it was fine. You were fine with being here. Your escape route is gone and now you’re upset.”

“It’s a natural reaction,” Layaent said, “to fight against a breeding contract. Most do so, do fight. Goodness knows that when I was presented with my breeding partner I did everything in my power to annoy her unto death. It’s a breeding contract. What do you think, Shin?”

“He is not the worst partner that has been presented to me.” Shin said quietly, “however, he apparently has and attitude problem.”

“See,” Layaent said, motioning to Shin, “he’s already throwing a fit about you and he’s only known about it for a few minutes. You say mean things, he says mean things.”

“Like I said, speak with your father.”

“He is the head of the house,” Ash growled back, “we don’t chose our head of house as you do. He’s also told me that I must obey when the contract comes down from the Meita family. But they’re gone-”

“And the contract has come due, Ash,” Shin said, “breeding partners are arranged five to ten years before children are expected to be constructed and birthed. This gives time for the partners to become adjusted to one another and settle into a routine together. We’ve no choice about it.”

Ash sighed, sat back in his chair, “except you do, have a choice, don’t you Shin? Even if you won’t consciously say it, you have a choice about what you want and your life.”

Shin considered carefully, “I suppose, you are correct about that. If I did not want you, you would not have found yourself in this position and I apologise about that. Had I any control over the ring, I would control it and release you from whatever it is that is pulling you in.”

Which cancelled out every annoyed twitch Ash had. Shin was saying that this contract was not badly paired, not for Shin. It was Ash’s turn to sit back and look at what was offered to him. If what Taya had said was correct about the contract, it was generous. For the most part it was the basic contract but the moving between houses.

“How much are they offering, exactly?” Ash asked, “the payment?”

“We,” Joral stressed, “are paying them. A hundred and fifty thousand. This money will be put towards the breeding contract of another male in your house, one who is being contracted out to another family.”

“Hundred and fifty… what kind of alterations can you make with that little amount of money?” Shin asked Joral.

“The oldest of my family. They’re going to contract him out?”

“To secure four companies, including Gomesh Genetics. Cleaned up and under Evera’s control and the rights to him. If he and his partner birth the eldest, the eldest reverts to Toleran,” Joral said quietly, “your family has been very careful about your breeding. I’m impressed. We expect that any alterations needing to be made to your children will be because of Shin’s genetics. Your oldest was born to the oldest and so on. The tweakers do not rush their creation.”

“What would be the point? Our elder isn’t recognised as an elder, even if he’s born before yours is,” Ash murmured in response.

“Will you, or will you not, accept the contract?” Joral asked a moment before some sort of alarm buzzed from the estate, “Ash?” he asked, ignoring the sound. Or maybe he couldn’t hear it.

“I will. Now about that alarm.”

“What alarm?”

“The one that’s going off,” the alarm changed pitches and Shin winced, cocked his head as if trying to hear. Ash stood from the table as someone ran towards them. The alarm went up another pitch and Joral stood, turning towards the estate.

The head of house swore, “we’ve only moments now and I need you all to listen very carefully to how we proceed.”

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