Tweak

Despite the investigation, or perhaps because of it, Shin’s father had decided to take the tenth generation out several days early. Genetics visited the wilds for all sorts of reasons. Usually it was one family unit or one generation going out. Every once in a while someone from the family got married, and then the entire families of both parties involved, went out into the wilds and had a massive party.

Married, as in, the old archaic convention that bound two people together until death parted them. The one that said no lovers or others could come between man and wife. Most preferred breeding contracts and the ability to dictate what was going on, when and how often.

The wilds were just that: wild. There were jackalopes and vampire bats that were well known for drinking a man dry. Vines and flowers would eat anything and everything. The wilds were the untameable lands that lined the nation. City states had merged together because there had been no area to spread into, no way for a colony to begin in the wilds. Small patches of arable, tameable land dotted the wilds but few people could afford to run generators or to fly over the wilds and to these places of land.

Except for the genetics.

Each family owned a number of estates in the wilds. Each family had different traditions and rights within their grounds. Some of the lands were large enough for two or three families to have estates on and on these lands, the families shared. If the people ever turned against the genetics and the viruses happened to not work for one reason or another, the genetics could flee the nation and reside in their wilds estates.

Cramped into a hovercraft with twelve other people was not Shin’s idea of a good time. Especially when one of them, Bri, had motion sickness and vomited several times. Getting Bri and Ash an invite had been easier than naming her lover to Layaent, though the man still insisted on calling her such.

Being key witnesses in an investigation, or at least what the council of six considered key witnesses, the pair had been placed with Shin’s family for safe keeping. Paid vacation time and all. Bri had been very excited about the whole thing. She had never been to the wilds before, never been in a hovercraft, never really been on a vacation.

When the craft landed on the small brick circle that was its landing pad, Bri was the first one off. Ash was the second. The family spent a moment sitting before they filed off in an orderly manner. All tenth generations plus Shin’s father, mother and sister had gone to the estate for a two week stay. Fifteen people were tenth generation in his family. Nine had gone through second growth, he had not, and then there were the five younger tenths, the second wave that was meant to be nursemaids and nannies. Ones like Taya were created to care for the children of the older ones, like Shin and Layaent.

The command structure at work, though Shin had not fully realised it until he had begun learning about his new rank.

Mysh was with them, quiet and sedated, the man was almost thirty and had spent almost two decades in the confinement facilities beneath the estate. No one really talked about what went wrong with Mysh. The man had short cropped hair and was pale. He carried himself as if his legs didn’t quite work, as if something had broken and healed improperly. His teeth lined up properly, he had the height and beauty of an elder but none of the intelligence that had been programmed into his genetic code.

There were eight others who had not travelled to the wilds with them. Eight females who were sitting at home, being pampered while their eggs were being harvested for breeding.

Shin, being the runt, was automatically given the worse room available. The one that Ash also had been assigned to and was beside Bri’s. With a door going between the two rooms. Shin bore his teeth to Ash and dropped his bag beside the door.

“This is not acceptable. Not acceptable at all, I am going to speak to Layaent right now.” Shin growled.

“Good thing,” Layaent stepped up behind Shin, startling his younger brother, “Layaent was coming to speak to you about it. This arrangement, given your condition, is best. Ash has seen several of his generational siblings through the second growth. He knows the signs of things going wrong. Besides that,” Layaent took Shin’s right hand and pulled it up, “he can guard something else while he does so.”

“I do not share my room.”

“Put him through his paces,” Layaent said to Ash, “don’t let him push you around. He’s not as submissive as he was programmed to be, but he’s not overly dominant either. He likes it when you show a bit of backbone but be steady with your demands. Not too much, not too little. Who knows, the pair of you might come to enjoy each other.”

“I am standing right here,” Shin snapped at Layaent, “stop playing at being daddy and get gone, since you aren’t going to listen to my protests- wait a minute, what do you mean come to enjoy each other?”

“Oh,” Layaent grinned, “nothing. Just, you’re both homosexual.”

“That’s not how it works!” Shin snapped.

“Wait,” Ash stiffened at Layaent’s words, “he is homosexual?”

“Yes,” Layaent said, “and I thoroughly expect the pair of you to,” the man paused and went a little red, stepping back from Shin’s dirty look, “attempt to make a connection. I think it will improve Shin’s mood substantially and it would make him easier to deal with, if he’s all pleasured up instead of uptight.”

Shin’s mouth dropped open, he couldn’t believe what was being said. With him there in the room, no less. Layaent was acting like some kind of commoner and in front of a tweaker no less. If word got out that Layaent had wonton sex and tried to arrange such a thing for his own brother, his own homosexual brother, the family would never live it down. Never.

“I will have nothing to do with this animalistic plot of yours,” Shin said, stepping away from Layaent to put an end to the conversation.

“Right, well, Ash, dinner is in an hour, then the tenths are going into the wilds for a walk. Leave Bri at home, this part of the journey is far too dangerous for-”

“If you say,” Bri appeared in the doorway, looking slightly green and worn out, “too dangerous for a woman, I will kill you where you stand.”

“I was going to say too dangerous for a third generation,” Layaent responded, “we’ve not got the time to take care and ensure a third does not wander off and get herself, or himself, killed. You will remain at the estate with the children and my parents. If you stay here, the odds of you being eaten, mauled or raped are drastically reduced.”

“Raped?” Bri asked, obviously not believing Layaent.

“Yes. This is howler territory.”

There was silence over the room. Shin was glad for it and hoped that Layaent left very quickly so that he could stake out his territory in the room. He was taking the bed, Ash could sleep on the floor. It was, after all, Shin’s estate, not Ash’s.

“What’s a howler?”

All three males turned towards Bri.

“You’re joking,” Layaent said, sounding strangled.

Ash waited a moment longer before speaking, “a howler is a humanoid creature, eh. Distantly related to us, genetically speaking, whose entire adult life is breeding. They will hump everything in sight and rape anything with an orifice.”

“Hence the term, a howling good time.”

“Gangs use that… ohhhh,” it seemed to dawn on Bri what the saying meant, “I just thought that meant it was a really good party.”

“Go wash, Bri,” Ash muttered.

“I’ll go wash,” Bri nodded and shuffled back into her room.

Layaent waited for the door to close, “wash, then come down to dinner. We’re having tablets tonight. I think, I heard mother saying that the cook had said that it was flavoured like mango puree. Ash, is that not a favourite of yours?”

“It is, yes,” Ash murmured.

“It is also a favourite of my brothers. Perhaps the next time you see him, you could let him know what dinner will be?”

“Of course.”

“There’s no need to talk about me as if I weren’t here,” Shin snapped, turning back to Layaent, “I’m right here.”

Layaent turned and looked at Shin lazily, “but it is the way of civilization, to end a conversation by turning one’s back to the person one was speaking to. Perhaps, if you want to be included in the conversation after treating me so, you aught to act more animalistic.”

Shin felt his face heat up, he couldn’t help it. Layaent stared at Shin until Shin looked away, unable to meet his brother’s eyes.

“Supper is in less than an hour. I expect you to be ready.”

***

Dinner was not fun, it wasn’t even close to comfortable. Bri was fine, the genetics had even planned a meal for her. Being a third generation, Bri still needed to eat a good deal more food than the tenth generations.

The genetics and tweakers didn’t need to take tablets every day but it was seen as good practice, to eat each day and have a sit down period for the families. They, the tweakers at least that Ash knew of, could eat like a commoner and their metabolism would automatically speed up to burn through what it could. Eating made one feel more energetic, made it easier to get things done and meant that, for Ash at least, they needed to sleep less.

Genetics, from what Ash had been told, only ate food during puberty and second growth. The only other nutrients genetics received were tablets and the food that they ate at balls and parties. Still, having known Layaent for as long as Ash had, he had never seen Layaent eat actual food.

Judging from Shin’s longing look towards Bri’s soup, the young man was suffering from hunger pangs. Nothing more than the small, orange tablet was offered to Shin, the servant somehow forgot to even give the runt a glass of water. Shin accepted his tablet and made no attempt to correct the servant.

The tenth generation genetics took their tablets and had a small amount of water, sipping in between small sentences. Layaent asked for his cup to be refilled three times. Upon tasting the water, Ash realised that the Ishteshtin spent a good deal of money to get crisp, clean water in their wilds estate. He drank a glass but decided that asking for more would be too greedy.

Water that tasted of nothing but water was hard to come by and, therefore, expensive.

After the meal, Layaent collected his generational brothers and the one sister who had gone through second growth and had accompanied them. Ash collected Shin, at a glance from Layaent that had all the command that he needed to react. Shin followed Ash outside and picked at a bush as the pair waited for Layaent to arrive.

Ash had been in the wilds before, he knew the safety precautions and the risks. He also knew that many genetics went into the wilds because the forest was the only thing that gave them any sort of challenge. The wilds were the place where the genetics tested out muscles that had become the biological standard but were all but useless for desk jobs.

Some genetics went into the woods and never returned again.

Teenagers and youngsters were not taken into the wilds, not into the forest itself. Something about youngsters drew the more dangerous animals. Second growth gave genetics and tweakers the muscle, reflexes and capability to fend for themselves.

“Ash…” Layaent appeared, catching Ash off guard. He hadn’t even heard Layaent approach. The genetic was looking over Ash’s shoulder, so Ash turned to where Layaent was looking. Shin was chewing on a branch from the bush he had been picking at.

“Shin?” Ash said quietly, politely. He folded his hands in front of him and waited patiently as Shin seemed to realise what he was doing. The young man’s nose scrunched up, he spat out the leaves and then worked his tongue around his mouth to try to get out all the bits, “you should not eat things in the garden, the gardeners get very upset when you do that.”

Shin shot Ash a look, a glaring sort of thing before he turned to study the bush. The young man rubbed a hand in the leaves, as if to cover the branch he had broken off.

Ash turned his attention to Layaent as the other genetics melted out of the shadows.

“Ash,” Layaent sighed out, “I must swear you.”

“Not a word will pass through my lips,” Ash murmured in response.

He understood, he knew on some logical level that all of the genetics were different. Ash didn’t count on the sound that came out of the female’s throat, on the eagerness spilling from Layaent’s siblings. Layaent himself was the only control, the eye at the center of the hurricane. Ash’s skin buzzed.

Something in the tablets, Ash realised, cold dread creeping up his back. Panic clawed at his chest even as his body reacted to the narcotics that had been mixed with his ‘meal.’ Shin set his chin on Ash’s shoulder, which required the runt to stand on something, then, likely, stand on tiptoe.

Ash didn’t allow himself to drift as Layaent ordered the group of tenth generation genetics to move out. There was a male that was taller and wider than Layaent but had a dim sort of look in his eyes waited a moment longer than the others before he turned and left. Mysh, Ash was very certain that was who the male was, but Mysh and Ash had not been properly introduced, he had no clue what the male looked, or smelled, like.

Shin made a small sound once they were alone.

“Amusingly,” Layaent muttered, “water cuts the reaction of the drugs. We still haven’t worked out the kinks.”

“Kinks?” Ash asked.

As Shin wrapped long fingered hands around Ash’s upper arm. As the young man whimpered and pushed himself up against Ash’s side. Shin was a bundle of sensitive nerves, a body built for running, leaping and flesh that was sensitive to the slightest change in the environment.

Good god.

“Watch him for me?” Layaent murmured.

“If I can keep up,” Ash growled, he could feel Shin’s muscles tightening with each passing moment.

“Oh,” Layaent grinned, “just take in his scent, if he gets ahead of you… you’ll catch up. You’ve more stamina than hi-”

Shin bolted. Layaent paused for the briefest of moments, face getting the exasperated look of someone who had done this many times before. The look of an older brother who had just been tagged, again, by the young sibling with too much energy. Perhaps he had, there was something different about Layaent as he rolled his shoulders back and bent his head, cracking his neck loudly. Eyes flickered in the dim light, mouth opened to breath in the scent.

“Run, Ash.”

“What?” Ash was surprised his voice didn’t break, didn’t sound strangled.

“Run, mother and father have decided not to spend the night at the estate,” Layaent shifted his weight towards the building behind him.

That was when Ash really went cold. That feeling, rolling off of Layaent, that thing running under it all. It wasn’t power, no, it was pheromones of some scent that he wasn’t familiar with. The translation rolled through Layaent’s mind, any other way and Ash would have assumed it was simply fear rolling through his body.

What the hell was-

“Run!”

Ash sprinted, rushing to the garden wall, a leap, a bound, a hand up on a branch and he was over. Instinct kicked in, took over, driving him through the bushes. Ash opened his senses, released his power across the wilds. Animals turned away from him, uninterested. Plants withdrew their creeping traps, not wanting to tangle with a prey that could tear them apart with a thought.

He breathed through his mouth, not wasting the effort to breath faster through his nose. Scent turned to taste and tasting the forest drove him mad with hunger. The tablet would not get him far, not with his power let loose and him running for dear life.

Mummy and daddy were hungry and wouldn’t much care who they got their hands on. Was that why Mysh was with them? Was that why, after so long, the failed elder was being released into the wilds? So that the mother and father of the oldest of the family could hunt him down and slaughter him?

That would certainly take care of the little family embarrassment.

Shin.

Ash turned, grabbing hold of a tree, swinging himself around. Something grazed past him and he caught a thought, feral and predatory as he hit the ground, skidded down a hill and leapt over a creek.

Predators. The parents of Layaent were some sort of trooper genetics, created to attack and destroy an enemy. Uwahn was something similar, made to be cocky, arrogant and all powerful, she had been created to be the elder and thus to lead the generation as the Meita family saw fit. Ash still didn’t understand why the female hadn’t been scrapped.

Shin.

Ash nearly hit the boulder, instead he managed to change the stumble into a bounce, managed to hop off the stone and then a tree. He heard the first, half thump, someone attempting to bounce as well, then the solid thump of someone running straight into the tree. The male voice groaning told him who had hit the tree, which was an issue.

Females amongst the Meita had been altered to be more dangerous than their male counterparts. For the very simple reason that females were more likely to be hurt or abused due to societal beliefs. The mother was still behind him and still able bodied.

And she had a good deal more training, more experience than Ash.

Shin.

Ash breathed out and leapt over the crevasse in the ground. He almost lost his footing on the other side, almost fell backwards into the hole. His arms spun in a circle for a moment before he managed to shift his weight forward and keep himself upright.

The runt’s smell didn’t lead in a straight path and Ash couldn’t ’see’ smell like some of his generational siblings. Which meant that Ash was basically running the same path that Shin was running and had no warning as to what was coming up on him or where Shin was turning.

He ducked under a low hanging branch and then leapt over the next one. Only his single minded following of Shin’s scent saved Ash from burying himself headfirst in the hive of a group of angry wasps. He, at the very least, caught the buzzing and reached out and smacked the hive with the back of his hand. A wall of power kept the wasps from coming after him momentarily, but he knew that as soon as he hit the next rise the shield would fall.

When he hit the rise, Ash forced himself to run faster. Such was his speed that he missed the cliff entirely and all but floated over. He had that moment, the moment of peace and quiet, of nothing at all and no sound to bother him.

Then he had the ‘oh shit, I’m in trouble’ moment.

He hit the ground and rolled, tumbling over rocks and logs and roots. At the bottom of the ravine Ash managed to get his feet under him and bolted across the dried river bed.

Shin.

Up the damned cliff face.

Ash’s eyes didn’t quite catch the hand and footholds, but Shin’s scent was strongest in those places. All Ash had to do was follow his instincts and think like someone Shin’s size. His hands and feet found the places and his nose told him which way was safest. At the top of the cliff face, he thrust himself over the edge and rushed.

Shin.

Not the smell, the actual runt. Ash skidded to a stop and gasped in a breath. Shin stood, looking over the edge of another cliff. Contented for the moment, the young man’s body was recovering from the rush. Breathing hard, stomach growling, Shin looked from down the cliff face and to Ash.

Ash pulled himself to the forest, to where they were. Because he was there, Shin was safe, but there was a den of trap spiders three feet away from Shin’s feet. A giant predatory bird was circling over head, hoping beyond hope that something interesting would come out of the forest. Three things that looked like weeds were actually miniaturized mantraps that were eager to nibble on toes.

Thank goodness for his power’s use as a weapon.

Over the edge of the cliff was a raging river. Ash could hear the water rushing by, feel the cool breeze caused by its movement.

And behind them…

Ash turned as mummy-dearest melted out of the shadows. Fight or be killed situation, the female was up on the drugs and wanting to see blood spilt. She knew her target was on two feet, but could she tell the difference between a runt and Mysh in this light? In her state?

The female bore her teeth. Shin grinned back toothily, not quite understanding. The ring was buzzing, Ash could hear it, physically, like a swarm of angry wasps…

No. That was actually a swarm of angry wasps. Ash took a hold of Shin’s arm, ready to do what was necessary to keep them both alive. Screw the mother, she had come out looking to kill something and decided on a tweaker who probably wouldn’t be missed.

The wasps swarmed out of the forest and struck the mother. A moment later Mysh came flying out of the swarm, babbling, screeching and going on. The male was excited, not hurt.

He also didn’t have enough space to stop in, given his size and how fast he was moving. Mysh slammed into Ash, using the wall of muscle and bone as a bouncing point. Ash, hand wrapped around Shin’s wrist, stumbled backwards. Shin, being a runt, had no muscle to dig into the ground but that that didn’t stop the young man from trying.

By the time Ash’s brain caught up to him, it was too late to let go.

They were tumbling over the edge with no anchor to save them.


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