Perfect Flaw
"Chancellor? Doctor Maitan wishes to speak to you, sir. He says it's urgent…"
"Very well, show him in!" The Chancellor growled, most annoyed at the interruption during his sacred mealtime.
An older distinguished looking gentleman entered the office, paced quickly to the chancellor's desk and bowed deeply. "Milord." His hands were nervously fidgeting with the hem of his white coat.
"Maitan, spit it out already!" The Chancellor promptly took his own advice, spraying little unidentifiable bits of food in his annoyance.
"Of course, Milord." Doctor Maitan nodded and then blurted out what had been weighing heavily on his mind since its discovery this morning. "We've found another Flawed One in the West District…"
The Chancellor’s only visible response was the raising of one perfectly sculptured eyebrow. “Well, you find, what is it again, about one every month in the City alone? Just get rid of it like all the others!”
He viciously attacked his roasted meat.
“But…” Doctor Maitan swallowed with difficulty, obviously not very comfortable with contradicting the supreme ruler of the planet. “… But this one is special… it… it’s - well - beautiful…”
The Chancellor raised his other eyebrow as well, but he first swallowed the last of his main course before coldly replying: “Does it pass the Standard?”
Wordlessly, Doctor Maitan shook his head.
Satisfied the Chancellor dug into his Minjah fruit. “Well then, it’s flawed and must be destroyed as is appropriate procedure… a fact you undoubtedly already knew, Doctor."
The glacial look made the doctor wish he could evaporate right there and then. But somehow, he managed to struggle the critical words past his shaky, uncooperative vocal cords: “I wish to request your permission to keep it for further study…”
The Chancellor waved one hand dismissively, while he swiftly spooned down the last of his Artac ice cream with the other. “We have decided to end the Eden project half a year ago already because of a distinct lack of results, and I don’t ever wish to hear anything about it again…”
The agitated Chancellor so vehemently speared one of the precious Ladarian chocolates on his fork that it broke into two, all its sweet interior cream bleeding on the plate.
“Kill it!”
He meticulously scraped all the spilled cream off his plate and licked his lips for good measure.
“And make sure to remove the remains…”
Doctor Maitan recognized the dismissal, bowed and exited. His last hope had just been consumed by the Chancellor’s greed, like the last crumbs of Ladarian chocolate on the Chancellor’s desk.
-
Slowly, he approached the glass container which held the specimen. His heart was racing, cycling the oxygen through his brain so fast it made him dizzy. Unbidden, his eyes became moist, the lump in his throat threatened to choke him, his heart constricted painfully at every step he came closer to It.
Steeling himself, he peered down.
A soft gurgling noise greeted him. Two huge sparkling dark brown eyes blinked up curiously. Tiny fingers reached out, longing to touch something else than the cold, impersonal glass.
Fumbling a little in his haste, he removed the upper covering of the container and gently answered the tentatively reaching touch.
One of his fingers was gleefully grabbed and disappeared moments later in a soft, still toothless mouth. Happy suckling, It looked so content, so peaceful, so utterly harmless… so extraordinarily beautiful…
His other – not confiscated – hand briefly caressed the glossy dark brown tufts of hair before gently picking It up.
After wrapping It securely in a blanket, he held It close, allowing himself the luxury of cuddling It for a moment.
The little heart beating so close to his own, the little fingers playfully grabbing his own, the little eyes peering inquisitively into his own.
So alike…
And, yet, so different…
Flawed…
But beautifully so…
Its eyes dark as Ladarian chocolate, unlike his own pale red eyes. Its fingers a healthy pink glow, unlike his own ghastly pale fingers. Its heart…
Would Its heart be truly different?
Would Its heart be really Flawed?
Or could it possibly be just as beautiful as his own?
That little heart beating just like his. Why was only his heart allowed to beat? Why did this little heart have to be stopped?
His voice was hoarse and wavering, but clear, when he spoke softly to the little bundle in his arms.
“I have read the forbidden texts from the time before the Impacts. In that time, humans looked just like you do, little one. They could have dark or blond hair, blue to green to brown eyes and various shades of skin pigmentation… But then, the Great Cataclysm disrupted evolution profoundly… After the Impacts, the sun became obscured by heavy clouds, the earth changed and so did its inhabitants. The only humans capable of surviving in this new world were those previously named ‘albinos’. Their genes, though deficient in the production of sufficient pigmentation, a trait now no longer essential, had been carrying other, hidden, traits that were previously not vital but soon turned out to be the only means of survival. And humankind survived… at least the albinos did. But survival had its price, and the genes were damaged and altered ever further by the toxicity of the new world. Many Flawed Ones were born, most horrifically disfigured. These Flawed Ones were termed ‘inhuman’ and are still, to this very day, killed –murdered- supposedly for their own sake. The gene pool has to remain pure, untouched by the world’s influence, unchanged by time… We think that minutely controlled science triumphs over the raw forces of nature. That we can create a perfect world and keep that so-called perfection from changing. We are so wrong…
Change is the stepping stone of progress. Change drives evolution. Only by change can there be survival…
The world is changing, slowly but surely.
Our genes will not allow survival in the next world…
But yours may…
Evolution has found its rightful way. In you, the hope for the future of humankind lies. Another gene alteration, another ‘flaw’. Yet, this flaw may be perfect...”
As he whispered those last words, a strange fuzzy feeling was born in his heart and spread throughout his entire body. Warmth replaced the eternal chill of the underground city.
And his resolve strengthened.
With his jaw set and his red eyes flashing defiantly, he resolutely faced the corner of the sterile room where he knew a security camera was registering his every word.
“I am taking this little ray of hope to the Outside. Perhaps some of you who see this recording may find your own little ray of hope one day. One born with the Perfect Flaw. Then, you must choose wisely. Seek beyond the mirages the government creates, seek behind the approved laws of science or the common opinions, seek inside your own heart. If we all add our tiny rays of hope, then we’ll end up with a blazing sun… A brilliant new dawn for humankind…”
Angry voices and rapid footsteps grew louder as security agents approached the lab. A red light started flashing and certain strategically placed doors became locked. A giant mousetrap snapped closed. But this time, the mouse was well aware of the trap, as well as of a way to circumvent it. Doctor Maitan, ex-head of the Research Division, slipped into a secret passageway leading to the century-old and long forgotten maintenance network, taking with him the bit of extraordinary ‘cheese’ he had just nicked from the trap…
-
The Supreme Chancellor of the planet lay in his exquisitely decorated bedroom, feeling thoroughly enraged with the entire universe but too sick to do anything about it. His stomach was complaining, rather sensibly although the Chancellor would never admit it, about being forced to digest one too many a Ladarian chocolate. When his Chief of Security entered the darkened room to inform his –at best times cranky but now livid- boss about their head scientist’s escape, the man was incredibly lucky the Chancellor was even too ill too speak those famous three words (‘You are fired!) everyone of his personnel dreaded yet longed to hear at the same time. As it was, only one word made it past the Chancellor’s lips: “Out!”, before his breakfast obeyed as well and made a fast reappearance.
The Chief of Security broke the speed record leaving the Chancellor’s chambers, an idea already starting to form in his –in his opinion- brilliant mind. By the time he had arrived in the control centre, from where the hunt for the missing scientist and his Flawed One was being coordinated, it had taken on full, ingenious form.
“Deacon!” He yelled impressively at his second-in-command, making the poor unsuspecting man, who had been staring intently at a computer screen, jump up as if struck by lightning.
“Sir?”
“Cancel the search. Let them both rot Outside, it’s not as if they would be able to survive. Let them have a taste of freedom before they die.” The Chief of Security smiled maliciously.
Deacon looked confused. “But the Chancellor…”
His superior interrupted him, looking distinctly gleeful. “The Chancellor has fallen grievously ill. Mayhap he even won’t recover this time.”
The smirk told Deacon something more than a simple indigestion might have happened, say some Ladarian chocolate spiked with the deadly drug that had mysteriously vanished from one of the heavily secured labs last week. But he was a reasonably intelligent man that hadn’t made promotion by talking before thinking. So he merely nodded, and stored that little titbit of information away for future use.
The Chief of Security huffed and puffed his chest up, perhaps imagining how incredibly handsome the Chancellor sash would look on him. Neither he nor anyone else ever noticed a certain security tape disappear into Deacon’s vest. No one was ever any wiser to the culprit causing an abundance of copies of said tape appearing miraculously every once in a while…
-
By Maitan’s watch, it was around dawn when he had finally passed the last barrier between him and freedom. Somewhat miraculously, he had made it out safely, meeting far less resistance than he had anticipated. In the Outside, the world beyond the controlled environment of the colonies, days had always been a perpetual gloomy dusk since the Impacts, due to the dense clouds obscuring the sun’s light.
But slowly, those dark clouds were fading. To great astonishment of all scientists, tiny rays of direct sunlight had been registered by their surface detectors. Water and air samples had shown ever decreasing amounts of toxic substances. It looked like Mother Nature was once more showing her amazing resilience.
Maitan smiled as those thoughts were tumbling through his mind. Resilient indeed. It even looked like She was willing to forgive humankind once more, granting one more chance.
He peered down at the small bundle cuddled safely within his embrace.
Idly he commented: “Maybe we albinos will become extinct, maybe some of us will live on in the new world to come. Maybe the memory of this world will fade into nothingness, buried away deeply under the Sands of Time, as a new humankind evolves again from the stone age on…”
After a small moment of reflection, he whispered: “You need a name…”
Suddenly one small ray of sunlight fell across the blanket. Maitan eyed it apprehensively, since even small amounts of UV light could be very dangerous for his sensitive eyes and skin.
A happy gurgle emitted from within the blanket made him smile again. Huge beautiful brown eyes were sparkling with joy, unlike his own not needing to squint at the sudden increase in brightness. Tiny rosy fingers were stretched out and caressed the sunray, without flinching at the direct UV exposure.
The baby cooed a welcome to the light.
Awed, touched in the depth of his soul, Maitan whispered: “May you be the dawn of a new era… Adam…”
