The Rainbow Maker's Tale
Page 12
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My knees felt stiff from sitting cross-legged, but that didn’t make me move. I was still too shocked to think about doing anything productive, and so I stayed where I was. I was a statue, holding a test tube and questioning my life.
My personal mini-screen – re-wired and programmed to my own specification – was balanced on my legs, open at the page I had just discovered. I had never thought to look for urine analysis records before. As ever, new knowledge of my world brought only more questions. Today’s question was: why would my vitamin tablets contain oestrogen and dopamine?
I stared at the graph filling the screen. It told me that as natural testosterone levels in my body had increased, the changes were identified through urine samples, taken every time I visited the bathroom. Periodically, where changes had been registered, I had apparently reached trigger points – marked on the graph with red asterisks – and had more accurate blood samples taken to verify the testosterone levels. I recalled the blood samples being taken: donation days at school…iron level testing…general health checks. None of it was for what they said it was, and the results had been used to confirm adjustments to my daily vitamin supplements. The follow up reports, on the associated screens that I could click through to, told me that all of this was being used to fine-tune my body chemistry.
Oestrogen and dopamine…it was to reduce my testosterone levels.
“Damn it!”
My fist slammed into the grass beside me leaving a clear dent in the soil and crushed blades beneath my knuckles. Was all of this to control us…? Was it to stop us being self-destructive and real…? This was part of our very nature! And it was being taken away without our knowledge.
I wouldn’t be taking my ‘vitamins’ again, of that I was sure!
I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Was this any worse than knowing that someone could listen to our conversations and private communications?
Perhaps it was connected…?
Well, I already had a plan that would help me with this; I would just implement it sooner than intended. First I needed to change my urine results: according to the monitoring system, I was heading towards another trigger point soon. In a few seconds I adjusted my numbers back into the normal range and made a mental note to return to the system daily to keep them that way.
With that completed, I struggled to my feet, ignoring the stiff pain in my legs from sitting so long, and moved to the clearing behind the rock overhang. I reached into the branches at the base of a large bush growing there, and pulled a section away. A clump of soil clung to the roots of the small bush I held in my hand, being careful not to damage the roots I set it carefully aside on the ground.
The perfect disguise… I grinned down at the small bush. When I had been looking for a safe place to keep my secrets, I realised that literally burying them was not a bad idea. After digging a hole beneath the large bush, I had installed a waterproof box to hide everything away. The only problem was that, even though nobody else seemed to come up here, it was obvious the earth had been disturbed. I took a cutting from the original bush, nurturing it as a sapling, caring for it until it could be planted on its own, beneath the larger one. The roots of the smaller plant remained shallow, growing over my box of secrets, lifting easily in and out of place when I required.
Symbiosis. The bush needed me: I cared for it, fed it and gave it life. I needed the bush: it gave me security and camouflage. We were two living things, dependent on each other.
When I thought of this now, why did Cassie pop into my head…?
Because I was mildly obsessed, maybe…?
Probably.
A light sprinkling of soil covered the top of the box. I brushed the dirt aside with the back of my hand, so that I could lift the lid away cleanly. The soil felt a little dry. Moving back to the overhang, I returned a moment later with my bag and flask of water. After liberally splashing the roots of the small bush with the water, I turned my attention back to the box. Reaching into the hole, I opened the crate for the second time that day.
Placing the lid beside me, I looked down into the plastic case embedded in the ground. One metre by forty centimetres, it held nearly everything precious to me: every tool I’d stolen, every gadget I’d made…every answer I had found. For a few seconds my hand hovered over a large black box. It was a rainbow maker I’d made for a school science project. I smiled briefly, as I remembered this creation as my first attempt to talk to Cassie. Obviously, it hadn’t worked!
We were ten years old, and during a geography class on meteorology I overheard Cassie telling Ami how much she would love to see a real rainbow. When the science fair was announced a week later, I had seen it as my chance to make an impression. The rainbow maker had worked well, if not perfectly, and I won the competition. Needless to say, Cassie hadn’t come near my display and I had not made the impression I had intended. Perhaps, that was when I’d given up on the idea of following Scarlett’s instruction to engage with Cassie…?
Pushing the memories aside – I wasn’t here to reminisce – my gaze darted around the case looking for what I needed. In the far left corner was a small chilled cylinder: white plastic outer casing with a vacuum wall encasing a storage space, permanently cooling the contents. Gripping the cylinder securely I pulled it from the case, placing it onto the ground and settled down beside it.
The clasp on the flask was stiff, holding the lid tight over the contents, ensuring there was no gap between the two seals that might allow air to seep in. I had re-appropriated it from The Clinic that afternoon, not thinking that I might need it so soon. Inside was a single syringe, filled with a virus/gene-therapy mix I had developed myself and finally been able to put together today.
Our rotation in the labs this afternoon was the first time I’d ever gotten close to materials I needed, although not through lack of trying. I remembered a number of failed attempts to get into the virology area during “visits” to see Mother at work, but they had always been off limits, no matter what I tried. Today I had just walked straight in – it was the easiest thing I’d ever done – and it had all come about by accident, because Olivia was too lazy to do her own work.
Olivia had actually been given the easier task this afternoon, but “stock taking” obviously hadn’t sounded that interesting. Of course, I was happy to swap with her when I realised where it would take me. For the first time ever, I was grateful that she was my partner! Once I was inside the virology lab there was no stopping me. This plan had been six-months in the making…who knew that stalking a classmate onto an early placement rotation would throw up such good opportunities on the first day?
As requested by our Medic, I diligently undertook an inventory of the virology lab stock. It was here, among the existing stock of gene-therapies designed to help with specific conditions we treated in The Clinic, that I found the raw virus components I needed for my own project. Each of the vials contained the basic virus, which could be used in conjunction with any specified gene-therapy to deliver genetic changes to the person it was put into. Of course, you had to accept being ill as a side effect of whatever improvement was being made, but I saw that as a small price to pay.
Our technology was based on a technique that biologists on Earth had developed at the start of the twenty-first century. It had been used to cure genetic diseases initially – as we used it now – but on Earth improving quality of life was not where the money had been, and it was the military applications that developed most prolifically, according to the research I’d done. It sounded simple: new genetic material, attached to a virus, which could be delivered directly into a soldier’s system. Within days the body would fight off the virus, but the genetic enhancement – strength, intelligence, indifference – placed inside the body would remain as a permanent change.
It sounded simple, but it wasn’t. Delivering the right changes to the right areas of the body was the crucial part. The historical records I had access to exclu
ded any references to failures there had been during research, but I knew there must have been; it was a simple fact of science...few things happen as you might expect in your first experiment. So that had ruled out experimenting on myself: as much as I thought I knew about human biology, I just had no safe way of creating my own virus delivery system.
Now I didn’t have to. The perfect virus sat beside me, a gift from my first placement day at The Clinic. Reaching into my bag I pulled out another chiller cylinder, identical to the first. This was all my handiwork: the genetic material to be introduced. If my calculations were correct I would see a five percent increase in muscle capacity, which didn’t sound much, but the associated benefits: faster regeneration and repair; improved strength and flexibility, were what I was interested in.
For some unknown reason, The Council was changing us physically: suppressing our natural human chemistry and replacing it with one of their own. Well, two could play at that game and I was happy to give up a few days to sickness in order to take my life back. I would prepare the dose today and then inject it on Friday afternoon, I could hide being ill for a couple of days over the weekend. Who was there to notice except my absent parents?