Note: In case you haven't figured it out already, this story takes place at approximately the present, but in a different timeline from our own, one where computers and genetics took a very different development path. Enjoy!
Sasha gave me my new ID on the Friday of my first week, along with the new clothes she had bought me. The Washington state drivers license stated that I was Mark Winston, age 25. The same name appeared on my new social security card and birth certificate. Sasha also handed me a new leather wallet, with a bank card inside. "I got the agency to agree to a small allowance that will be automatically deposited once a month," she told me. "I still suggest you not go out of the house on your own."
I didn't think that there was any danger of that. My trip out on Wednesday had been more stress than I wanted to experience again just yet. I wasn't sure how Sasha could stand it.
I saw that the terminal was free, so I logged in to check my bank account, entering the name and password that came with my card. There was four-hundred dollars in it, more than I expected, and that set my mind working. I needed to do some research first, though.
It was my day to do the laundry, so I gathered the cloth sacks from the rack by the stairs and brought them up. Sasha's washer and dryer were not quite commercial grade, but they were large and looked expensive. She had left instructions taped to the top of each machine for what settings to use and how much detergent. As I passed her office on my way back to the basement, she asked me to look in on the tomatoes and zucchini in the green house to see if some of them were ready to pick.
I was starting to think that Sasha had actually made a request with the agency to get me stationed here. There was an astonishing amount of work involved in running her household, and I got the impression that she was only easing me into my role as her assistant. I allowed myself a moment of indignation at the workload being thrust on me as I stripped for the shower at the greenhouse entrance. Wasn't I as much a refugee as any of the others? But no, that was hardly fair. With my responsibility came additional freedom. Wendy had likely not seen the outside of those four walls in the year-and-a-half she had been there.
At dinner, Tilly quietly joined us, sitting on the end next to Wendy. Nissi sat across from me. We didn't touch or even talk much during the meal, but just having her there, casting smoky glances across the table, electrified me. I almost missed something Stan had said. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah, it's all over the internet," Nock said. "Nothing on mainstream media yet, but they're probably waiting until the McCain administration gives them the go ahead to run the story. It was a rural safe house with over twenty genemods and a husband/wife running it. It looks like one of the mods went and turned himself in."
"That's awful," I said. "Did anyone get out of there?"
"Nope, looks like the feds found everyone. Damn it, what could make a person do something like that?"
"Believe me," Stansy said, "I've thought about it from time to time. I know they would revert my mod, but I'd do it in a heartbeat if I thought that it could get me my son back. As it is, the courts would probably never let me see him, let alone have custody, so it's a moot point."
"I'd never give up what I've got," Nock said. "Do you realize how much time you waste sleeping every day?"
"You never have to worry about getting sick, old or fat," Nissi added. "I love who and what I am."
"I plan to live forever, if that's possible," Stan said. "Things suck right now, but the world's going to get better, even if it takes a century."
I looked over at Tilly. She gazed at a spot three feet in front of her. Her mouth opened each time her spoon neared it. She chewed each bite exactly ten times before swallowing. I had counted several times to be sure. Was she even aware of the rest of us and what we were talking about?
"What about you?" I asked Wendy.
She smiled. "All of the benefits of immortality, but they stuck me in this pint-sized body. I actually don't mind it as much as you'd think. It's part of who I am and I'm not sure I'd like to be different. Though I've always wondered about sex."
"Oh God," Stansy said, putting her spoon down with a clatter. "I didn't need to hear that. My son's going to be fourteen soon. That's nightmare fuel."
"No, really," Wendy said. "The hormones aren't there, so I have no libido, and even if I did, well, my physiology just isn't developed for it. But most of the human race seems to think sex is pretty fun. Not to mention falling in love. People get uncomfortable at the mere suggestion that a stunty might want those things. I don't like feeling left out of the experience."
"I would think it wouldn't be too hard to get your body to age to adulthood," I said. "Couldn't you just take hormones?"
Wendy shook her head. "No, hormone treatments won't work. My body won't respond to estrogen like most women. It would have to be at the level of the cell nucleus to work, reprogramming cell receptors, though I'm sure it could be done with the right equipment. Not while we have the Ban, though. And if I turned myself in, they would just take away everything. There's a lot about me I don't want to give up. So I guess you're all safe from me."
When the others began to get up from the table, Nissi and I were still talking. I had just admitted to her that while I enjoyed music, I didn't have the knowledge to keep up the kinds of conversations she wanted to have, delving into theory and topics like how much rock had been influenced by gospel. That's when I discovered her other great love, movies. We both thought that Spielberg's craft had gone to shit when he quit making movies with Disney, but where she thought that Seth Michael was under appreciated, I agreed with the critics that everything he had turned out since Titanic had been special effects drivel.
"Okay, Cyberbots III was pretty bad," she agreed. "But I only think he did it because everyone thought he could revive the franchise after Verhoeven killed it."
"Couldn't be saved," I said. "But Leonid Minksy is a genius," I said.
"Why, because every single damn movie he directs has a twist ending you 'never saw coming'?" Her fingers made quote marks around the words. "That formula is going to wear out eventually. When it does, people will stop taking him seriously. It was already starting to wear pretty thin in 'Birthday Girl'."
