"He's started planning already, Jeff. I'm pretty sure he's going through with it."
Jeff felt a familiar wave of anxiety trample over the garden soil he was tilling. The dirt beneath his fingernails distracted him. "Alice, he's fifteen. He's... I mean he's not exactly a normal fifteen year old either. I mean, it's not against the rules."
She watched him continue to drag his fingers through the loosening soil, noticing him try to remove himself from the situation. After a few minutes, she crouched down beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine, what's the worst that could happen? He gets a new body?" She spoke, chuckling in an 'as if' manner.
Jeff nodded, returning his attention to the soil at hand, burying the roots of his seedlings, and burying his worried and uncertainties.
-
Alice was back inside the house, coming around a doorjamb to see Alexander writing feverishly in a composition notebook with his left hand. "Hey sweetie, did you want to help me with dinner again tonight?" After a long silence, she stepped into the room. He was engrossed with detail, it seemed. She walked up behind him, propping her chin upon his shoulder affectionately, looking over his shoulder. "How's it coming?" She offered, disregarding how he had ignored her a moment before.
"Oh, it's fine mom. I just want to make it perfect, you know? I only have a year, and you know? I want to win. I can win, can't I?" He spoke with the eagerness of a nine year old. So hopeful and excited and clueless,. she thought. Her lips formed a bittersweet smile, which she accompanied with hopeful eyes. "Of course! Anyone can win, you know." He seemed to notice something in her that stirred a tiny bit of doubt. She redirected. "You know you're still winner no matter what happens." He was once again encouraged, and nodded eagerly.
"I want my Me to have extra muscles, and be really tall. Me's gonna have eyes that can see in the dark, and be able to hear when someone is running a mile away. Me's gonna be able to like... jump high enough to reach tall tree limbs, and be able to grow back limbs.-- Wait, is that against the rules...?" Alexender was talking to himself in the studio while his mother was making dinner. It helped him think, talking out loud.
From the kitchen she could hear the holo-DV click on, replaying the rules, regulations, and tradition of The Genetic Fair. As if she had written it out herself, she mouthed the words as it played, having heard it so many times in the past few months. A man would appear on the screen, average in appearance, and in voice:
Welcome to The Genetic Fair HDV. In this program you will learn about the traditions, rules, regulations, and winners of the Fair in the past.
When you were born, you were cloned. This was done in case you fell ill, and needed a new organ like a heart or spleen. Thankfully, due to enhancements in medical technology and gene therapy, people rarely need to use these clones, so they are usually assimilated and reabsorbed or 'reincarnated' into the Great Amass that can breed more clones for your friends, family, neighbors-- even your pets!
With this genetic material, we can mold it to survive longer and learn as much possible about our body and how it works.
Thanks to the advances in medicine, we can now take better care of ourselves. We've been doing such a great job, as a whole, that we are now rewarded with The Gene Fair!
Each year we gather people from all over, whoever wants to join in on the festivities, to test their genetic know-how.
Since the dawn of Man, we as a race have tested our bodies and pushed ourselves as far as we could. We still do that today, hoping to become the ultra ultra humans that we've always longed to be. One big difference is that we don't use our own bodies. The clones that we have in storage are waiting, typically reincarnated, and mostly unused. Our reward is in using the clones, and if they win, you win that body.
We begin the games each year with entries. You must be at least twelve years of age, and may not re-enter if you are a previous winner. You can't win two bodies, now can you? -Laughter.-
The primaries begin with anywhere from 50 to around 500 entries, the latter more of an average. These individual's clones are placed in a rather normal terrain, some forest or desert, and they must survive. They are presented with extreme conditions, extreme natural disasters, and if they live, they go on to secondary level.
Level two begins with another test of the human body and survival ability with whatever attributes and traits the competitor chooses, within reason. We put the clones in space, deep sea trenches, subterranean caverns, or something similar to test extreme living conditions. After this, level three, the final level, begins.
Level three is always a mystery, but some of the level threes of the past have included psychedelic travels, mental transplant into an animal's body, and survival of an event horizon.
The rules of the Fair are as follow:
-No killing other clones.
-No one may know of the level genre before the day of the event.
-No clones may surpass an evolutionary level of our own by more than 50 generations. (This is outlined in the rulebook.)
-All attributes and modifications are only listed on Leaderboards after the Fair.
These rules are further outlined in the Rulebook upon applying to the fair.
When all is said and done, the winner is rewarded the body of the clone which they have created.
Winners in the past have gone on to live and prosper and even have children which have survived with some of the clone attributes that their parent's new body had.
We hope that you are excited for this year's Gene Fair, and hope to see you in the stands, or better yet, in the Fair.
The HDV clicked off and Alexander was finishing up his note-taking, nodding quickly, excitedly. His mother had been calling after him for a while now, and was now in the doorway, tapping her foot. He caught her eye, and hopped up, walking quickly to the dining room for dinner.
-
Months passed, Alexander worked. Between going to school and aiming to win this coming year's Gene Fair, he was perpetually crammed into the spine of a book. Although his mother was perfectly keen on the thought of him winning or at least trying, his father was becoming distant and resentful of Alice.
After dinner one night, while Alexander sat in the studio finishing up the blue-prints of his clone, his parents lay in bed arguing softly. The whispers almost made it more vehement.
"I'm getting sick of it. He used to actually sit with me in the garden. He used to enjoy going outside and talking to people-- did you see his social skills comments from his teacher? It's only getting worse. He's becoming reclusive. And we haven't taken him to the doctor in months..."
Alice interrupted, hissing some. "Excuse me? He's fine! He's just trying to win something. He isn't as bad off as you think, Jeff. He's no mongoloid. He's a kid with a mental handicap. His shrink even suggested that he was a savant-- don't just take ignore his talent. The blueprints he's doing are looking great!"
"Okay, whatever you say, I'm sure his blueprints are coming out well. The thing is... what if he turns into one of those beautiful-mind kids. You can't come back from that... That could create more work."
Alice scoffs and rolls over, turning off her lamp. "Goodnite."
Alexander was in the studio, taking images of his Genetic blueprints, packing away his gene manip-simulator, and submitting his application via the cloud. He would know of any required changes by morning.
-
It was August 14th, 24 hours before the beginning of the Gene Fair. Alexander was in the hotel room purchased by his mother-- his father stayed home, claiming to have work at his agriculture firm that was too important to pass up. Alexander was used to this lack of fatherly presence, and basked in his mother's hopefulness.
The first Level passed so swiftly that by the time Alexander went to bed, he had nearly forgotten that he had won. When he woke up the next day, he had to talk to his mother about what had happened.
"Well, they say there were 400 people, but I wasn't counting. You were number 137, and your clone looked so good. His extra muscles really worked out when he was trying to lift the building off of number 56. I think it only took four hours for the numbers to get knocked down to 45. There were twisters, forest fires, and I think some kind of hurricane was tossed in as everyone's clone ran for the coast. There are only 45 clones left. I bet you're so proud."
Alice looked a bit worried, wondering why Alexander didn't remember a thing about the day before. He didn't remember the natural disasters, the winners, how his clone looked or worked. Either way, she was proud of her son, who looked exhausted. "I'm so very proud of how far you've come."
He almost scoffed, nodding, not exactly celebrating the victory. With a pensive gaze, he stared at his toast and wondered how his clone was regenerating in stasis-- only four hours to go until Level two. "It's not over yet, mom. I've gotta win it all. There's no point, otherwise."
He went to his room and back to sleep. Coffee didn't help Alice's nerves. She sat and thought, wondering what had sparked his interest in the Fair to begin with. Wondering why he was so intent on winning. She knew about the prize as much as he, but it's not as if he was even old enough to know what to do with that kind of bodily privilege.
She pushed the worries aside and took anxiety medication, relaxing in the dying sun. Level two was about to dawn, and she needed to be well-rested in the operations room with her son. For some reason, she worried, he needed looking after.
-
Alexander was dreaming. In his dream there were clones all around him, staring him down, judging him in his frailty.
Each step that Alexander took was faulty, stumbling into the looming figures around him.
The setting would change, leaving him alone in a dark room, or some sort of enclosure. He wasn't sure if it was a room. All he was certain of was that he was falling, and unable to gain any drag. Theories, proofs, formulas all floated around, disembodied scribbles of chalk.
He landed, or at least stopped falling. Floating now, he was experiencing something. His hairs all felt as if they were melting off of his body, his skin rippling with life. Upon further inspection, he began to see a wide array of colors changing violently upon him. As if flags, is earlobes flapped wildly in this windless environment.
He came to, feeling his mother's hands on his cheeks, staring down at him. Flashes of light and loud chattering had filled the operation's room where contestants controlled their clones. He was on the floor, laying on his back.
It looked like all of the other control terminals were empty. He wondered what happened, and how much longer he had to restore control to his clone.
"How does it feel, Mister Alexander? Are you his mother?"
"The mother! Hi! Tell us how he did it!"
"Oh, I don't know, I think he needs some rest."
"Tell us how he was raised, will he donate the body to science?"
"How did he know that he needed biotic propulsion?"
"Where did he learn these techniques--"
"Stopit!! Now! Let us leave!"
Alice was lifting her son, more frail than he needed to be, and guided him to a side room to sit at an unused desk. As he became more aware of the situation, his eye grew wide at her.
"thid... I win?"
"Yes you did, sweetheart. I'm very proud-- but are you okay?"
She felt him over, trying to figure out if he had broken anything from his fall, watching his eyes, wondering why he was still trembling and why his tongue seemed swollen in his mouth. A doctor was on the way, but she wasn't sure that they would be of much help.
The doctor arrived and made it clear that he had a seizure. This was unheard of in the past fifty years, so treatments were few and far between-- archaic at best. She was recommended to merely sit it out, and wait until after the awards ceremony to determine what to do.
"You never know, this win could save his life. New body, new brain, right?" The doctor offered obliviously, but hopefully, before leaving the office.
-
Paperwork followed, and a few television interviews after that. Before long, the two of them were already in the Transcendence Hospice. He was in operation, and she was on the phone with his father, who was cursing her for such bad parenting.
She found out that he had left for Rio, but he would write. All she knew was that her son was a winner, and she was so proud.
The operation was a success, just like her son.
Months passed before anything happened. But in her gut, she knew something would.
On February tenth he woke up without his sight. He didn't seem too worried, all of his extra abilities making up for this.
It was when he began to rely on his body the most that his mind failed him.
-
He decayed into human vegetation in a hospital housing less than fifty patients. She wouldn't remove the life-force that kept his form breathing. He was still in there, somewhere.
It was then that she began to wonder what happened to the bodies of the winners. The original bodies, that is.
It was then that the commissioners of the Fair arrived, and 'regretted' to inform her that her son had been ruled a cheater. He would be removed his clone body, and title of winner.
When the media caught wind of his condition as well as this upheaval, it was a free-for-all.
During the trail period, she was informed, and unwittingly admitted that her son was mentally handicapped with signs of being a savant. This was the clincher-- for this gave him an unfair advantage against the other contestants.
The trail ruled that they could do what they wished with his clone-- even if it housed his mind. There was a day dedicated to explaining that he was brain-dead, which really ruled in the favor of mercy.
They would pull the plug, and they would retrieve their body.
---------------------------
"That was a close call, Boss."
"Yea, well... It was only a matter of time before some kid learned how to survive it. Now is our chance to apply it-- even if he wasn't brain-dead, he wouldn't know what to do with a body like that."
"Mmhmm, the whole point is breeding out the dumb and breeding in the genetic wealth. Who would want to breed with some mental idiot?"
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