New Ones (eBook)

1

Felicia handed Grolf the paperwork, looking him in the face with confidence. He seemed to always look for the holes in it, and this time was no exception. But she knew her work was accurate. She was created for accuracy. She was intelligent and unusually pretty for her class. Women in her class tended to be plain and nondescript, nothing out of the ordinary. They were there for their ability to complete the genetic workings and improve the DNA sequences, removal of anything that could be negative. She knew her people were continuously looking for improvements. The main problem was that with this improving, it was harming them drastically. She had the proof on the table in front of her. She knew what needed to happen: they needed to find the original DNA they came from. Are there any even out there anymore? she wondered to herself.

Felicia knew she was different from the rest of her class. She wasn’t interested in the things the other women were: go to work, get home, change, back outside to the town center to meet with the rest of their people from their class (for you didn’t meet with other classes) and just let the bodies meet with abandon. She had this need inside to find someone or something different to herself. She had this incessant need to explore, to go beyond the outside of the city. She would catch herself staring out into the beyond while taking the train to her office. She almost missed her stop a few times recently doing this. That would have brought her straight to the superiors for explanation. No one ran late anymore; it was unheard of today. That part of the DNA that caused distraction had been found and altered already. Knowing the eyebrows of the superiors were already raised enough when it came to her, she kept her head down and tried to stay out of the spotlight.

Felicia stood there, her dark blonde hair pulled back in a low bun, her shoulders back and straight, while Grolf looked over her report. She had a slightly full figure, not a large frame but curvy. She blended in the majority of the time with the other women of her class. It was only when someone from a higher class looked at her did they see that she was different. The higher class had the eagle eyes of yellow, while the lower classes had a browner hue. When the classes were being divided, the engineers said that those who did any scouting or leading should have the better eyesight. So the DNA was altered to accommodate this. The lower classes still had great eyesight; no one needed to have what they used to call glasses anymore. Felicia’s eyes had flecks of green instead of brown, so when looking at her you could see her eyes were closer to the eagle’s but not in that same class.

Over the decades from when the DNA first started being altered and the classes were being created, the different levels of classes had changed. There were the Superiors: they oversaw the city. Their work and positions were passed down from generation to generation. There were the Engineers: they changed the actual DNA sequence of the new generations. Then there were the Alters: they would change any DNA that needed to be changed in the adults, making sure that the illnesses of before weren’t coming back and that the older ones remained healthy until they died of just old age in the “Older Homes.” They also oversaw “Research,” and going to Research was never looked at as a positive. There were the Scouts: they were the ones that used to go out and look for the Runaways, the people that had run from the change in the world, those that felt that changing the DNA would be wrong. The Scouts stopped looking at least ten years before. Felicia somehow knew they still looked for the Runaways, but it was done differently. She was trying to find that out on her own time but had to be careful to not get caught in doing so. She could get into major trouble that way.

Then there was her class, the Researchers: they reported on everything. Anything that could possibly be checked on—traffic or commuting, food consumption—there was someone to report it. Most of their food was synthetic now with all the DNA alterations. They could eat almost anything and survive, getting the bare nutrients out of whatever was given them. The list of reports went on and on. She was researching why the population was not increasing. There was the usual rate of death with the elderly, and with accidents in the work environments. The lack of new births was getting concerning. She had found the reason, and it was in her report. With all the alterations, they had stretched too thin the strand of DNA that assisted in creating fertility. All the drugs that had been given generations ago for this same issue had since been used or destroyed. Even the original DNA structures had been lost over time. She knew this must be why the Superiors were starting to look for the Runaways again. They needed to get hold of the original DNA sequence to bring some of it back to their people. She overheard it a couple weeks ago in the hallway near her office. They needed to see if they could recreate the sequence, or maybe even start mating with them to bring in fresh genes. Knowing this would take much time, time that the Superiors knew they didn’t have. She would need to speak with her only friend Jiah about that.

Jiah was a lot like Felicia. She was also looked at differently, built the same as Felicia, and she had the browner hue in her eyes. But she had a face that was different. To Felicia, she was beautiful, clever and had a quick wit. Jiah worked on the reporting of New Gene Issues. She knew what the Superiors were worried about with time. It wasn’t so much that they were falling apart, but that the alterations were beginning to make them lose their minds. They were beginning to become more aggressive, more physically violent, hallucinate with a tendency toward a paranoia that the Runaways were going to come to the city and take over. The Superiors were a class that tended to be more on the Totalitarian side, but they hid it well. You knew your class and where you belonged, and it was fine and well. If you stepped out of class and created trouble, you were taken to the Alters in Research and tests were run to see where your gene sequence went wrong. Jiah and Felicia both knew this and kept what they found between them.

Over the years, Felicia and Jiah had discovered their differences from the others in their class and had begun to confide in each other. Finding comfort in this, they grew closer. Instead of going with the rest of their class into the town center in the evenings after work, they would meet at their lofts and be together. They would talk of adventures of going into the beyond, what they would encounter out there. They would laugh about the other classes that thought they were better but were beginning to fail. They both understood what was needed in the civilized world: they needed new blood. There were too many alterations of the DNA and too much inbreeding to be able to continue this way. When they would talk too long about the negative side of what their world was coming to, they would lay themselves down on the bed and just hold each other, falling asleep in each other’s arms.

Felicia grew up as most did in her world, hearing about the positives of what they were. Always one to question things, she was brought to the Alters in Research a couple times by her parents. They didn’t understand why she would ask so many things—they never did. Things were this way, and that was it. The Alters couldn’t find an answer, and Felicia, seeing this as a warning for getting in trouble and not wanting to be brought to the Superiors, stopped asking questions. She would instead look for answers elsewhere. When confiding about this to Jiah years ago, she found that Jiah had the same experience. Feeling relieved, they both grew immensely close. Soon, when the option arose that those in their class that had not been arranged with a mate could co-habitat with another of the same gender, they jumped at it. No one was interested in either of them, and they had not put in to be in the mating selection. They then moved into the same loft and had been roommates since.

Jiah would talk some evenings of wanting someone that she could create a life with. Felicia, understanding what she meant, agreed she would also like this for herself, but didn’t see herself ever finding someone from their class. Jiah had replied with “Oh I know, we’ll find them when we go into the beyond. We’ll find real original DNA men” That’s what Jiah would call them, “Original DNA Men,” and the way her eyes would light up would make Felicia swoon to the idea. They would then talk for hours what one would look like, would they look the same as their class or how different would they be. Felicia would lay there on the bed and dream of what her man would look like. He’d be taller than her and built larger. Unlike her class here, they would all be about the same size there. She just had curves; the men didn’t. He would be darker skinned since he would be outdoors all the time. Did they live in buildings out there? She would then drift off to sleep and dream of meeting this man, waking up feeling a need she didn’t know how to fill.

Snapping Felicia back to reality, Grolf stood up. She realized he had been watching her for a short while. Her mind wandering over to her roommate, she really needed to get back to reality here and quickly. “So now that you are back in the office Felicia, what exactly are you saying I am to go to the Superiors with?” Grolf asked. Felicia looked at him. “From my findings...