It’s another morning at NucleoChoose orphanage. The whitecoats have us standing in formation, tallest to shortest, snaking around at person number five and six on the left end. I’m standing at the front-right, my brother behind me, a full foot taller than I, but we’re only thirteen; give it some time. Someday, my mitochondrion will get the message and elevate me to new heights.
They rearrange us in different sequences: eye color, hair color, tendency towards addiction, mental illness, and acne coverage. I’m trying to imagine the girls going through the same ordeal, maybe with some subjective beauty standard added on top. They’re always looking for the most acceptable, if not perfect, subject.
I figure the inspections must’ve ended because Miss Sunshine-and-Rainbows is back, calling our names one by one to get dressed for the ride back to the commune. The commune staff tells us this year is special, the milestone year thirteen, when we get to meet our parents “for the first time.” This is only true in conscious memory; I think it would be natural to conclude that we’ve met during the whole C-section ordeal, although definitely not as equals, more human-to-alien.
I also know they are liars, the whole lot of them. Only two of us — one boy, one girl — will actually meet the biologicals. The rest of us 67 kids are sent to work in the mines. It’s expensive to raise kids and find out they’re failures halfway through a million-dollar college tuition. The special eggs go elsewhere, to the maternity ward upstairs, although I’ve never been bold enough to hop on the freight elevators upwards. I’m sure they’re keycarded as well.
I could blabber on about the morality of lying, especially lying to children about their futures, but right now, I’m more concerned about my survival. That’s how they get us; they trap us in this competition we’re doomed to lose from the start and drag the unlucky many into the workers’ barracks.
I feel confident. For me, competition is anything but stiff. There’s Baller Pete, who has a head of Jello; he keeps showing up at the wrong places at the wrong times, doing all the wrong things. Once, he was caught behind the reception desk around two in the morning, rifling through the drawers for anything resembling Grape Yumptious Fun Dip — his drug of choice. Someone had tipped him off toa sugar high so sweet, it would let him fly his way into the hoop, unstoppable. He ended up taking around ten laxative tablets and spent the entire next day in the infirmary restroom. Needless to say, he missed the next few pick-up games.
Then there’s Droolin’ Pete. He spends his days slobbering on whatever sheets of paper or electronic matter is fed into his hand. The debris that leaves his mouth seems to be caustic; a handler lost two of her fingertips handling the residue. No one dares to approach him without nitrile gloves nowadays. I’d reckon his prospects aren’t too bright for the near future.
Psycho Pete spends all his days locked up in isolation after earlier incidents, and only gets out for rec time with the rest of us boys. Not that he’s very social of course, he prefers kicking over anthills by the bleacher-side. If he wants to clock out early, he’ll scoop up a handful of fire ants and chase the staff around the halfmile-track until an orderly nails him from behind with a hypodermic needle and he falls to the ground, hands in his face. He usually comes back the day after with his head puffed up like he caught a bout of smallpox.
Those three are the standouts, the cream of the crop. Everyone else in between is simply not remarkable. Gossiping, consuming, play-fighting, I don’t even consider them to be in the same league as myself. They’re normal, simpletons, and on paper they will not stand out in any meaningful way when mom and dad tick the checkbox next to their favorite kid and shake hands with the NucleoChoose manager.
Miss Sunshine-and-Rainbows excitedly calls for Baller Pete and he pokes his head up through his Pete-entourage. She tugs onto his big man-hands and leads him into the front office.
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It’s a long and brooding bus-ride back to the compound, despite the short trip duration of only 5 minutes.
I expected Baller Pete to come along with us on the bus-ride. Instead, Miss Sunshine-and-Rainbows came back and herded us all back onto the bus, alone. The paranoia began to build when I took the steps up and gave the bus driver a curt nod. As I took my usual spot in one of the middle rows, I looked around for Baller Pete. I found his empty seat staring back at me. The doors closed and the engine cried into a start, and then the backdrop of the inspection office grew smaller and smaller through the back window until we made a turn at a stop sign and a group of firs moved in to block my view.
Oh my God—They chose Baller Pete. Sugar-addled, narrow-minded, dumb-as-bricks Baller Pete! Was it his height? It must’ve been his height. My brain ceaselessly searched for reasons as to how this could have happened, and it could only find one: my parents must be shallow and idiotic themselves. They picked an oaf of all people!
—E. Song
