Untitled Story About Angels

When scientists first started experimenting with genetically programmed radical body plan modifications (which isn’t what they called it—they had a catchy acronym and a billion-dollar PR firm and everything you don’t), the first dozen generations did not go particularly well.

They jabbed needles into eggs and grew monsters: pathetic, mewling things with their bones on the outside or no bones at all, with the wrong number of limbs or the wrong number of hearts, things which were little more than bundles of cancer clawing at the womb that held them.

The next dozen generations didn’t go too well either, but at least some of them survived.

No one remembers them. With enough money, a PR firm will happily wipe out all traces of an atrocity. A billion dollars buys a lot of men with a lot of guns, and people love to forget.

No, what people remember is the 33rd generation (”the first generation of a new humanity!”). They remember the perfectly crafted trillionaire children, with their beautiful wings and long tails and faces like masks; they remember how they became the new standard for beauty, how they were what everyone aspired to be. What everyone wanted to have.

… no, I’d rather not talk about how that started too soon, before their engineered minds were really able to understand it. I’ve never been close enough to one of them to say what that did to them, and I hope that I never will be.

I’ve seen the bodies being hauled away from their parties. Only when they go slumming on the surface, you understand, not at their orbital manors; I’d rather die than go up there.

But that’s besides the point. Everyone knows about them. No, the interesting part here is you.

There are no more than a dozen surviving individuals from before the 33rd generation; people who somehow managed to escape the scalpel and the incinerator I should know, with how much time I’ve spent looking for them.

Not like that, no. I’d never hurt anything so unique.

Each one of them—including you—is fascinating: the ways their bodies branch and grow, fighting against the instructions written into your genome; the completely unintended features, traces of genetic material that was never intended to be included. It’s—you’re—beautiful. I can’t wait for you to meet all of them!

But I do have to say that I’m most intrigued by how you’ve managed to survive for so long, unnoticed, right under their noses. I’d love to find out how, once you stop cursing at me and struggling to get out of your restraints.

No, it’s fine, keep on trying. Get all that resistance out of your system. It’ll be hard to move you if you’re fighting every step of the way!

… I guess I could just break you, but waiting until you tire yourself out and give in is fine too. I’ve got all the time in the world.