by Dayton Grey
Geon stared at her, mouth open and frozen, not knowing how to respond. She smiled and winked at him and gave him a playful back-slap on the arm. “It’s okay, your secret is safe with us!” The two of them giggled and went back to their seats. Geon could feel his face flush as he sat back down.
“Geon, you think you could teach me tuh do that?”
“Kumuki, I don’t think I could ever do that again,” Geon quietly said, out of earshot of any other students. Kumuki sat staring, eyes bulging and mouth wide open.
“I wish I could do that. You were flying!”
Geon smiled, thinking about it for a moment.
It did feel incredible. For just a moment, it was like flying
Only minutes ago he desperately wanted to get off the board and back on dry land. Now, there was an alluring urge to experience it all over again. Another day, he thought to himself.
Once practice was over the three of them walked back to the Glidewing with Chiah following closely behind.
“Chiah, did you see Geon today? It was incredible!”
Chiah responded in between sips from his drink, “Coolcool. So….didyouhear? Some… wildanimals… loose… fromthezoo… inthecity.”
Neither Geon or Sabien knew how to respond.
Back home, Allea was waiting for them as they walked in. As Sabien told the story of Geon’s exploits, they could see her beaming with pride. Her smile grew bigger and bigger and at the end of the story she grabbed Geon in a tight hug and told him how proud she was of him. Soon after, as the realization of the danger of the event hit her, she began to tear. Then she smacked Sabien in the arm with the back of her hand and lectured him about keeping Geon safe and being the responsible one in the family. Geon smiled, realizing how emotional and fragile Allea was toward him, even though she seemed so confident and strong at other times. He realized that he was feeling a sense of happiness and hope that he hadn’t felt in some time. All in all, he thought, today was a good day.
Chapter 6
Morning came easily as Geon gently awoke, feeling rested and curiously content.
What is it? Why do I feel so happy this morning?
The memory of his JetSurf exploits the day before came rushing back and he smiled, half out of pride and half out of embarrassment, picturing himself flying through the air and bending in every which direction. His body slightly twisted in his REMpod as he relived the moment in his head.
He realized that now he really would have to learn the sport well, else he risked letting down his new friends and family. With a deep breath he opened his pod and jumped out. Allea was gone already and Kumuki was still fast asleep. Just then, Sabien’s pod opened and he jumped deftly out with one hand on the bottom lip of the pod and the other on the top, landing softly without a sound. He smiled at Geon, as if he knew exactly what was going through his head.
“Feel good this morning, eh? It’s a natural high when you please your fans. Imagine living with this high 24/7!”
Geon laughed as Sabien stood proudly posing in the center of the room, smiling from ear to ear, hands on his hips.
“All right, kid. It’s time to get you into real JetSurf shape. This is the Excelerator!”
As he pushed a button on his cuff, a panel in the ceiling opened up and a strange contraption dropped down from a pole, bouncing and swaying as it stood hanging a couple feet above the ground. It had multiple limbs of thin shiny rods that bent in like human joints and resembled a metal spider, spinning down from its silken thread. The two walked over to it, and Sabien helped get Geon strapped in. With all four limbs and his midsection secure, Sabien announced, “Level Three. Start.” Suspended in mid-air, Geon hung there not knowing what to do next.
“Geon, there’s no rule to using this device. You can run, you can swim, you can punch, kick, squat, thrust, shake, wiggle, jiggle, giggle, or anything else you can think of. It provides resistance and weight in every direction on every limb. The harder you work, the more difficult it gets, and the more points you get. Remember, CARE monitors how much you do, so you need to log in at least 700 points per week. Go ahead, start moving.”
Geon nodded and sheepishly began an awkward set of mid-air running, punching, kicking, and flexing.
He looked at his LifeCuff and could see that it was indeed counting the points that he had earned thus far. Within only seconds of this rigorous movement, he began to perspire and was short of breath. He noticed that as he moved faster, the machine would instantly recalibrate itself and make it more difficult for him to move. Each time it did this, it would provide beeping cues to alert him that it was changing.
“Keep switching up your body motions. Try to focus on as many different body movements as possible. No, that’s not it at all. Stop it. What are you doing? That’s not a… you’re just… gyrating. Stop it, G. What in the galaxy? You look crazy, G. There you go, speed up. Mama V could probably do this level, though I’ve never seen her on the Excelerator in my life. That’s strange, what are you doing now? That’s new—is that a dance? Okay, to each his own, keep going.”
Geon laughed as he focused and tried harder and harder to overpower the machine. The harder he pushed or faster he moved, the more difficult it became. He felt his muscles burning in every part of his body. As the machine beeped and clicked itself into a more difficult level, he realized the machine could be tricked. I just need it to think I can’t finish this cycle. Testing his theory, he began to slow down and pretended to struggle against the motion and resistance of the spider. Sabien looked at him, dumbfounded, trying to figure out why Geon was having such a hard time. The Excelerator immediately beeped and decreased itself to an easier level. Geon smiled and finished off his cycle with ease.
“Stupid machine,” he said with a smile, as he unstrapped himself and hopped out.
Sabien, realizing what Geon had done, exclaimed with joy, “Well, I’ll be! You’ve only been awake for a few days and you’re already teaching me new things! We’re going to make a good team, you and I, G.”
They got ready and met the rest of the household at the breakfast table. Allea had already filled in Mama V with some of the details of the day before, but Sabien wanted to start from the beginning and tell her everything in detail. Mama V stood beaming as Sabien described the first day on the waterways with his “protégé” Geon, and how Geon pulled off one of the most difficult tricks in the sport, just to “prove a point to Coach Aquila and Shiv Barron.” As he told the story his hands and arms gestured grandly and he stood and demonstrated the JetSurf motions on the ground to the others. Allea, Kumuki, and Geon all laughed at Sabien’s wildly exaggerated depiction of the events, but Mama V didn’t seem to care. She grabbed Geon in a tight embrace and told him how proud she was of him. Allea jumped in and told Mama V that Geon could have been hurt and that he should be more careful.
“Vat is dis careful? Don’t vorry… you are a child. Children are made of rubber or something! You not gonna get hurt. You just bounce off everything and get right back up again. You are bouncy boys and girls! When you fall, you bounce. Then you get right back up! Like a… Sabien, vat’s the name of that bouncy thing?”
“Uhm, I dunno, Mama V. Maybe a ball?”
“Yes, yes. Like a ball. You are built like balls! Don’t vorry, Geon, my baby, you go out there and show them vat you got! Mama is so proud of you.”
The three boys laughed as Allea looked flustered and teary-eyed, going back to studying her hologram and quietly sniffing to herself. She muttered something under her breath about bouncing off Sabien’s prodigiously inflated ego. Sabien, undeterred, talked about the upcoming time trials and getting Geon ready to make the team. He seems much more confident than I am, Geon thought to himself. I hope he knows what he’s doing.
At school that day, Geon noticed that many more of the students looked at him as they walked the hallways around the school. Sabien stood next to him with a smile and one arm over his shoulder, nodding and gesturing with one hand as if he were presenting Geon to
the world. Just as they were entering their first class, a voice behind them said, “So, are you enjoying all this attention?”
Geon and Sabien turned around and saw that Vaya and Vilu were both standing there, looking truly identical with only minute differences in their clothes and hair. Geon recognized Vaya as the one speaking because she had a slightly more crooked, mischievous smile, and was staring directly at him unabashedly. She had large sparkling green eyes and was very pretty. Her twin Vilu, was nearly indistinguishable, but Geon noticed there were slight difference between the two. Where Vaya was wide-eyed and bold, Vilu seemed restrained and shy. Vaya always seems to do the talking between the two of them.
Geon shrugged his shoulders in response to Vaya’s question. “I dunno, I mean I’m jus—”
Vaya interrupted Geon as Vilu giggled to herself, “Oh no, Geon, dear. I wasn’t talking about you. I meant your sponsor here. Or is it shaman? Guru? Mentor? Sabien? What exactly is your title these days?”
“All of the above, Vaya! And I’ll have you know that my protégé here will soon be showing everyone in the school what he can really do!”
Geon nervously fidgeted and interjected, “Sabe, I don’t think you shou—”
“G, my boy, save your energy! Flip-twists don’t just happen on their own, you know!” Sabien cried out loudly, for all students nearby to hear.
Apparently they do.
Vaya rolled her eyes and Vilu giggled again. “All right boys,” Vaya said with a smirk. “Whatever you say. We’ll see you out there at practice, and we look forward to your subsequent performance, Geon.”
Sabien replied loudly as the girls turned to leave, “And of course I will perform to my already-incredibly high standards, as always, of course.”
“Of course!” Vaya and Vilu both said in unison as they laughed and walked away.
“I think she likes you, G,” Sabien quietly said as they walked into the classroom. Geon smiled and felt a rush of excitement at the prospect of such a beautiful girl liking him. There was something about her, he thought. She was so bold. So vivacious. Unafraid to speak her mind. He felt as if she looked at him with honest and nonjudgmental eyes. He found her to be different and interesting and wondered if she really did like him.
“Okay, class be seated and let’s sync.”
On the board in front was displayed:
In front of the board stood Professor Keiran, the same tall, slim lady who sat in the teachers’ row behind headmaster Ulie each morning in the Commons. She had a long, slim face, bronze skin, shiny grey hair, and spoke with a Scottish accent.
“So. Gene modification. Who knows what it is?”
Half of the classroom raised their hands but Professor Keiran pointed to Chiah, who sat slouched a few seats to the right of Geon and did not have his hand up. Chiah looked startled as he nervously put down his drink, tipping it over on his desk and scrambling to grab it and sit upright at the same time.
“Um… I… it’slike… whenlikethethings… youmakethem… thesame… like… inalab… and… thenyougottagetdagenesanddenmakedatings…”
Most of what he said was unintelligible and his eyes darted around the floor as he talked. Toward the end he sort of trailed off into a mumble and a few people in the class quietly snickered while others just sat with perplexed looks on their faces.
“Well, from what I believe you said, part of that is true. Gene modification is in fact done in labs. Essentially we take the existing character-building blocks of living things, and we change them. We modify them. Many years before you or I were born it was unheard of to change the structure of a plant or animal, but as the Earth diminished and resources because more and more scarce, we found it to be a necessity to make these manipulations in certain things. It exists around us in different forms every day. I will give you some examples. See that drink that Chiah is sipping on?”
The classroom turned to look at the large red container that Chiah was quietly drinking from. He nervously looked down and continued to slurp hastily from the container.
“That drink was made in a lab. We don’t have any natural fruit anymore. So that drink was synthetically produced by first taking some sort of fruit, genetically modifying that fruit to be bigger and sweeter than the original one, taking the juice from that larger fruit, then reverse engineering the basic building blocks of that modified juice to create a liquid that has both the flavor and look of a natural juice. It is, in fact, not really a juice and certainly not natural, so why drink it at all you might ask?”
Chiah looked embarrassed at being used as a classroom example as he stared sadly at the now-empty bottle in front of him.
“Well, we need fluid to survive. And although there are certainly other options that might be more favorable than that red drink that Chiah has, that amalgamation of a drink could possibly save one of your lives one day. Understand?”
I can’t imagine the things that must have happened to cause these massive changes in the way we live. What will the world be like in five years… ten? Will mankind ever taste real fruit again and eat real foods again?
Professor Keiran paced the front of the room and spoke again. “Here is another example. How many of you have Biolimbs?”
A sudden rush of nervousness overcame Geon and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He began to slouch down in his chair when suddenly a number of students in the room put their hands up. Geon was shocked. Nearly half a dozen students in the room had their hands up and he couldn’t tell that any of them had any type of Biolimb. Feeling more assured, he too slowly raised his arm halfway as Sabien looked over at him with a slight nod.
“All right, there you are. Those Biolimbs were created by gene modification as well. To make the limbs as real as possible, scientists had to engineer them by first understanding how the genetic behaviorism of the real limbs worked, and then creating a code that mimics the real DNA, and incorporating that into the artificial limbs. Nano skin—same thing. It’s not a living and breathing thing, but when you break down any living thing to the most basic pieces and parts, they can be essentially duplicated by science. Those limbs act as if they are alive, because the code that runs them and the blocks that built them act exactly as your real limbs do. Quite remarkable, really. And although our technology in this field advances every day, and the gap between artificial and living lessens, there is and will always be, a true separation—an indefinable and unexplainable inequality between the two. The question is, ‘Will the margin be so small that the difference is even noticeable?’ Something to think about for next class.”
Geon nodded to himself, thinking about the professor’s words. She seemed to have a deep understanding of her material, but also seemed skeptical of all changes and progression. He was also reassured to know that so many other students had Biolimbs like him. He looked around the room and saw that no one seemed to be judging him or any of the other students who earlier had their hands up. They must have gone through so much while I was in a coma, he thought to himself. They must have seen horrible injuries and now it’s just a part of life. Suddenly, he caught the eye of Shiv Barron, who was sitting two rows behind Geon and staring directly at him with a menacing smile. Geon felt instantly uncomfortable as his ears became warm and flushed and he turned back forward again. For the rest of the class he tried to pay attention to the professor, but he felt the eyes of Shiv staring at him from behind and found himself anxious, upset, and distracted. After class he and Sabien walked out together.
“Sabe, what do you think about all of this gene manipulation?” Geon asked.
“Look, G. Gene manipulation, more like brain manipulation. This is all CARE propaganda and conspiracy! No real fruit in the world? GIVE ME A BREAK! There is fruit. CARE eats it all! They probably have fruit that is so smart it makes more fruit or something. What I mean is that it doesn’t make more fruit, I mean that it—”
Geon interrupted Sabien’s rant. “Sabe. I mean, it’s so unnatural, you know. I know that we need resources to
survive right now, and that probably the only way to get resources is to make them, like Professor Kieran was saying, but don’t you feel like something is wrong with all of this? Don’t you feel like we’re tampering with something that we shouldn’t be? I dunno, I—”
“So! It’s Sabe the Great and his Biolimbed Buddy!” Shiv suddenly interrupted, as he and another very large student walked up to the two of them. He stood looking at Geon while his large, stout friend stood staring at Sabien through extremely squinted eyes, set widely apart on his large, round, and fat face. “I knew there was something off about you,” Shiv barked. “You’re a partial, huh?”
“EXCUSE me?” Sabien exclaimed, his face flush with anger and his fists both tightly clenched. “You got my name right but my brother’s name is Geon, and even with one real arm he can ride laps around you in the water, so back off, Shiv. And take your stupid friend Tarro the Terrible with you.”
Shiv’s large friend suddenly grunted and moved closer to Sabien, but Shiv put his hand up against Tarro to stop him. “Whatever you say, Sabe,” he said. “We’ll see… on the water.”
Geon was hurt and embarrassed and found himself pulling his sleeve down again to cover his arm.
Sabien noticed and leaned toward Geon, speaking with gritted teeth and in low tones and still staring at Shiv and Tarro as they bumped their way through the other students down the hall. “Don’t give them a second of thought and don’t feel bad about anything. Look around you, G, we’re all partials in one way or another. Some physical, some emotional, some mental.”
Just then Chiah walked by them, empty canister in hand, heading for the Commons for a refill of his drink.
“And some of us just aren’t complete until we’ve got that full thermos of red drink to sip on!” Sabe finished with a laugh. Geon appreciated Sabe’s effort but found himself thinking about JetSurf and wanted to figure out a way to get back at Shiv on the waterways.