by Nat Kozinn
I suppress my anger and pour myself a bowl of Manna Bites. I can make it taste just like oatmeal, but that's not the point. Oh, the joys of having a roommate.
I finish eating and purposefully leave my dish out. I know it pisses Nick off even though he lives like a pig himself. All part of some healthy roommate passive-aggressiveness. I turn my stomach on to get the Manna Bites all mashed up and the acid flowing. Even though it was a big bowl, it was only three hundred calories. I'll have to eat again when I get to the lab.
I head out of my front door and hit the button for the elevator. It comes right away, and I get to go straight down. I'm sure the other Differents waiting to go to work are wondering why the elevator just skipped them. While I head down, I go on think.Net and call the elevator Strong-Man to say thanks.
<<
>>>Yeah, you're my first stop of the day.
<<
Making friends with Gary the elevator operator was a great decision, not that I did much to make it happen. Gary saw me walking around the employee housing courtyard one day and just started talking to me as if he’d always known me. He said he recognized me from his deliveries at the lab. Now, I have my own personal express elevator.
I head out of the lobby, past the Walter doing his cleaning, and make my way to the Slug station. Nita kept her word. I'm not sure how she knew when I'd get here, but there's a 3C train waiting for me at the station. The doors close moments after I get on. The car is almost empty, and I get a seat. I never get a seat. I bet she ran extra Slugs just so this one would be empty.
The ride usually takes around thirty minutes, but it's been taking longer and longer every day. Everyone knows it’s the P-Trains, private mini trains for the wealthy who do not wish to mingle with the masses. They’re clogging up the system, but they raise a fortune for the government in fees so they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
According to my dad, before the Plagues, most people had cars, not just police and firefighters. People drove themselves wherever they wanted to go, whenever they wanted to go. It sounds great.
We make good time to Wilshire. I suspect Nita is giving me a hand with the signals, too. Sure enough, there's a 16A train waiting for me at the Wilshire Station. I hope she needs favors more often. I end up getting to work twenty minutes early and have plenty of time to get some food.
Ultracorps keeps the lab kitchens stocked with food. Not great food, most of it is Manna products, but lots of food nonetheless. People would freak out if they saw how much food we have. The truth is we need it. Most of the Differents who work here are metabolic. It takes massive quantities of food to keep us going. The average human needs two thousand calories a day. There is a Strong-Man in the lab who needs to eat upwards of five hundred thousand calories a day. No wonder there are anti-Different riots every time there's a food shortage.
I could use a few hundred calories myself. I can get by on almost nothing if I have to, but I'll be eating a lot today, and it will go more smoothly if I can get my metabolism ramped up ahead of time. I head towards the kitchen, but stop when I get a whiff of perfume. It's Sarah, and she's in the kitchen. I'd remember her smell even if I didn't remember everything. Now I would have gone into the kitchen even if I didn't need food.
"Hey, Dummy," I'm not being a jerk; Sarah's nickname is Crash Test Dummy.
"Oh, hi Gavin," Sarah answers.
She puts two different kinds of Manna Cold Cuts on the table and grabs some bread, continuing to make her sandwich as she talks.
"What they got you working on today?" she asks.
"They're still trying to perfect that iron fortification for the Palm Fries. Sixty-five percent of children in the country are anemic."
That has to make her like me more. Who wouldn't like a guy who is helping kids?
"That's good... except they have to eat fries,” she says even though she can eat whatever she wants and count on her metabolism to keep her body perfect. Well, maybe not quite perfect. I'd add another one, maybe one and a half, percent more body fat if I controlled her anatomy like I do mine. But I should try not to think that way. I don’t think it makes me pleasant.
"Yeah, I guess. They're having problems getting non-lethal amounts of iron to stick to the fries. Luckily, I can stop my body from processing it," I say.
"Good luck with that,” she says. “I have to get back to the range. They're still working on the changes to the collision systems on the new P-Trains. I hope it doesn't break my spine again, that takes forever to heal. See you later."
She shoves one of her two sandwiches in her mouth and heads out the door.
"See ya!" I yell at an awkwardly high volume.
By taking forever to heal, she probably means forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour. That's her Differentiation, she's a Regenerator. They use her as a crash test dummy to test out new train designs. She gets hurt and the lab techs take notes, she's also on call as an organ donor. She makes a lot more money than I do.
That pathetic little interaction is why I've been eating in the “Big Kitchen” for the last month and a half. I call it the Big Kitchen to justify why I’m here, even though there’s another kitchen much closer to the lab that's the exact same size. I’ve even been trying different combinations of pheromones to try to get her interested. Nothing is working. I make a sandwich and eat it as I walk to the lab.
I see Dr. Cole and Dr. Wilson talking in Dr. Wilson’s office. I give them a half-hearted wave and head to the file room. I know better than to ask them if they have anything ready yet. They don’t. They spend their mornings bickering about inane biological theories and then get to work at about ten-thirty. It's as routine as everything else in this place.
While I wait for them to make samples, I file reports and make the time fly by as fast as I can. Even at a blur, it takes too long. I pause when the ground starts to shake. A thousand-pound man tends to do that. Gary is here.
Aside from running my apartment elevator, Gary works as a delivery man for Ultracorps. He carries around multiple tons of food, medical supplies, metal, whatever Ultracorps needs moved. He's also the one real friend I have at work, and he only makes deliveries twice a week.
"Hey, Gavin, just dropped off two more tons of Manna. Hope you enjoy."
"Thanks. I'm going to use it to generate some gnarly farts I'll leave for you in the elevator."
"Maybe you'll be taking the stairs for a while. You see Sarah this morning? She was looking particularly fantastic."
"I saw her. I made a pathetic showing of myself in the kitchen."
"What happened to 'I don't get nervous unless I want to get nervous'?" he asks mockingly.
"I didn't get nervous. I just took a poor approach."
"If you were a normal person, you know, with normal emotions, I would tell you that you have to give up. It’s crushing you. You need to expand your horizons, there are a lot of fish in the sea,” he pauses. “Me and P-Dub and Jason are going out on Thursday, you should come."
I swallow the urge to correct his grammar. People don’t like that.
"Where are you guys going?" I ask.
"The K-Spot. It's a human bar, but they're Different-friendly. The ladies are very friendly, I hear. A bunch of Cabotists, you know what they believe," he says and gives me a wink.
Cabotists believe Cabot was right, that Differents are in fact destined to inherit the earth. They think Cabot made the Plagues in order to prepare the world for the glorious rise of Differents, or the Chosen Sons, as Cabot called them. Women who follow this religion believe it is their duty to help propagate the Different race by being… friendly to Different men and having their children. Cabot taught that serving the Chosen Sons is the one way for humans to get into heaven.
I always say no to these offers. The one time I went out with Gary it was awful. He's fine enough, but Peter Warsall, or P-Dub as he demands to be called, is terrible. All he does is make rude comments to w
omen and talk about how awesome he is.
He's an Energy Producer, a Heater to be exact. They use him to provide the activation energy for some chemical reactions. Being an Energy Producer means he has more money than he knows what to do with. Jason is not much better. He's a Cooler, a personal one for some Ultracorps bigwig who doesn't want to get too hot in the summer. I hate being with Jason because you can just tell he's being watched by Ultracorps. I stay off think.Net when he's around.
"Hey Gavin, you're doing it again. Us people with a normal sense of time are getting bored. Are you coming or not?"
"I'll come. What time you guys meeting?" I hear myself say. I had resolved to be more social. I guess I'm holding myself to it.
"You will? All right, this is going to rock!" Gary yells. I already regret agreeing to go. "Nine o'clock at my place. Don't wuss out," he adds as he heads out the door
How pleasant. Although, to be fair, I have wussed out on him before. I don't do well in groups. There are too many people to keep track of, too much to analyze. I tend to lose track of time. I'm going to keep being a freak if I don't learn to handle groups better, though. As Larry taught me in Section 26, everything takes practice. Everything.
I spend a few more zoned out hours filing before Dr. Cole comes to get me. Am I making myself younger by forcing myself to experience time more quickly to get through this boring work? Normal people have to live through the tedium. They sit and contemplate or twiddle their thumbs. I fly through the tedium as if it doesn't really happen. They live a more boring life, but it is still a life.
"I said, Mr. Stillman, we are ready for you in the testing room. Please come along if you're feeling up to it," Dr. Cole says slowly and sincerely.
He knows I was once classified as a Zeta, so he treats me like an invalid. Never mind that I've corrected him on the synthesis of organic compounds.
"Sorry, Dr. Cole. I'm coming," I say subserviently.
I follow him into the testing room and sit down at the table. I see Dr. Wilson working on a sample so I get my salivary glands and stomach pumping. I have to get ready for what's coming. It's the same thing as every day for the last month: Palm Fries and tons of them.
Palm Fries are the most popular product at Oasis Burger. The fries are a mix of 80% Manna, 15% potatoes from the Fertile Belt, and 5% a blend of a dozen different spices. Then they’re deep fried in vegetable oil and covered in a mix of salt and sugar. They are sweet, savory, delicious, and I hate them. I've already eaten 32,795 fries and will eat another thousand today.
When I was a child, I remember eating at Oasis Burger with my parents. My mom would always say that we shouldn't go, that it was unhealthy, but we usually went twice a week and mom always got a double Oasis Burger, large Palm fries, and a vanilla Manna Shake. She was never happier than when she was dipping her fries in her shake.
"Mr. Stillman, I think we're getting close. I don't like the alkaline levels, but everything else is just about there," Dr. Wilson says. He is humoring me. They are still weeks away, and we both know it.
"I'm sure you are getting close. You're both doing such great work," I say. Scientists like having their egos stroked, and these two are my bosses.
"It's all thanks to the data we're getting from you. I hardly remember how we worked without you. I haven't had to turn on a Bunsen burner in months," Dr. Cole says.
"I better get to giving you that data then."
Dr. Wilson puts a plate of fries down on the table in front of me. I turn off my olfactory sense. I can't stand the smell anymore. I grab a handful of fries and shove them in my mouth. I close my eyes and imagine that I'm eating baked clams. I had those once when my parents took me out to dinner on my birthday. I'm not sure if I'm remembering the taste correctly, but it's better than fries. Once I finish the plate, it’s time to start spitting out the data.
"Blood sugar level 2.2%, sodium level .015%, iron levels .094% and rising." I say as Dr. Cole and Dr. Wilson carefully write down everything I say.
I spend the next fifteen minutes providing blood levels at thirty-second intervals while the doctors listen with fascination. How they can be interested in the iron levels of fried Manna is beyond me. I can literally force myself to be excited, and I still find it difficult. Ultracorps knows how to place their personnel.
After a thrilling fifteen minutes, they bring out another plate of fries and we repeat the process, then another and another. I end up eating twenty large orders of fries. We have to be sure some moron doesn't kill himself by switching to an all-fries diet.
I give my final data analysis and Dr. Cole and Dr. Wilson head back into their offices. They keep telling me we are almost there. We are almost there if every Oasis Burger customer weighs six hundred pounds. I don't know why they're having such trouble getting the iron levels down, but they can't seem to do it.
They won't let me in the back to work with them on the recipe. I've tried to show them what an asset I can be. I can recall and process the data almost as well as the Librarian they use, and they won't have to wait in a queue with all the other Ultracorps researchers to use me. The Doctors are just worried that if they let me help them do their job, they'd soon be obsolete themselves. They aren't wrong. I bet if I wanted, I could do this job better than they can. I'd be more upset if I cared about the job at all.
As it is, I'm just ecstatic that another work day is over, even if my stomach does feel as hard as Maceo Steel. I head into the kitchen anyway, the Big Kitchen, just to see if Sarah is there.
She’s not. I smell the air and can make out just a few molecules of her perfume. I missed her by five, maybe six, minutes.
It's probably for the best. If she was in here, I'd have to force myself to eat something just so I didn't look like a weirdo. I already have enough calories I need to burn off. I have my metabolism working overtime to digest those fries. I can make myself burn calories quickly, but the energy doesn't just disappear. If I don't do some sort of physical activity, my body temperature goes through the roof and I start fidgeting like a madman. Time to spend my evening the same way I always do: in the lab's gym, running on a treadmill while I watch the nightly news on think.Net. Thrilling.
6
I have given my Chosen Sons more than I ever gave the Forgotten. I have given them more of myself. I have given them a taste of my power. From that power, the Chosen will know my love.
Chosen Sons: 25
The Beast is tired, but he cannot sleep. What the pastor said is stuck in his mind. The Beast feels empty because he is alone. The pastor tries to be a friend, but The Beast can smell the fear pouring off the man. The poor old fool can't help it. Like the pastor said, he does not know what it is like to be a Chosen Son.
The Beast has been chosen by God. Not only was he blessed to be born a Chosen Son, God has picked him to do His holy work. The Beast gets to hear the voice of God. He is just like Moses or Cabot. If only people could know. If only The Beast had someone who knew that he isn't really a monster, that he is doing the Lord's work. But there is no one to tell. There is no one to be proud. The Beast is alone, but that wasn't always so.
He was not always The Beast.
#
He was born Thomas Calhoun in the Houston Metro Area. He grew up in a well-to-do neighborhood called the Fish Market, named for the wealthy fishing tycoons who inhabited the homes there.
Tom's father, Oren Calhoun, owned and operated a single fishing boat before the Plagues. He struggled to eke out a living. That all changed after Cabot wreaked his destruction. With crops failing around the globe, fishing became the main source of sustenance for what became the Houston Metro Area.
Cabot designed one of his Plagues to devastate life in the oceans and lakes. Many fish died of disease, so the Plague worked in the short term, but the other Plagues devastated the human population and destroyed ship fuel, causing human fishing operations to all but cease for a time. The drop in the fishing industry worldwide more than made up for those fish killed by Cabot's Plague.
After Calhoun Fishing rose to prominence, Oren married Lilly Banks. Lilly's father owned the company that constructed Oren's boats. The match was perfect, and the two had a rapid courtship. Not long after they were married, Tom was born.
Tom's parents paid little attention to him growing up. His father spent his time at the office, trying to grow the Calhoun Empire. Tom's mother spent her evenings socializing and acting as the public face of Calhoun Fishing. A series of nannies and tutors raised Tom.
As a young child, Tom displayed no particular skills or abilities. He was not smart or athletic, and his art looked just like all of the other children's art. Tom's parents considered him a bit of a disappointment and didn't attempt to hide their thoughts.
That all changed a few months after Tom turned fourteen. Puberty hit him like a ton of bricks, or so it seemed. He grew a whole foot taller in just a year. With the growth spurt came a newfound athletic ability. A once clumsy kid became graceful and powerful, seemingly overnight.
Texas had always been known for its high school football, and as soon as they could, the leagues restarted after the Plagues. By the time Tom was fourteen, there were over thirty schools competing in the Houston Metro Area. The high school in the Fish Market was a perennial powerhouse. Oren Calhoun led the team to a championship as a running back in the 1960s. After the Plagues, the school resumed its winning ways. They had won the championship two of the last three years before Tom tried out for the team his freshman year.
