[Original Novel] Brainchild, Part 1

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I no longer mind waking up early for it. I know what will happen, but by now there’s an element of tradition to it, and it’s always a spectacle.

“Hurry, it’s already launched!” My sister Elena shakes me violently even though I’m clearly awake. It doesn’t stop until I relent and, rubbing the accumulated crust from my eyes, follow her up to the roof.

She’s young enough to have seen only two prior attempts, so there is still hope in her. Part of me wishes she could stay like this. I remember what it was like when I still believed. Mom and Dad are already up there in folding chairs, hair tossed about by the wind. Both look on wistfully as the unmanned warship climbs into the sky.

Our home is one of the higher platforms, positioned just about perfectly to spectate. Other homes, offices, parks and so forth spread out below on their own interconnected triangular and pentagonal platforms, as clouds roll lazily past far below. I could see small fireworks going off above some of the residential towers. Waste of money, there’ll be nothing to celebrate soon.

Intense green light bursts forth from the warship’s engines. I raise a hand to my eyes a bit too late. It really is a marvel of engineering. Propelled by the same technology that holds up the platforms, but geared for speed and maneuverability. The abrupt, muscular lines of the hull suggest brutality, excess, and confidence. Misplaced, sadly.

Above it, the blue star. Ever present, at least so far as I’m concerned. I’ve been told there was a time before the blue star, but I cannot imagine a world without it. Hanging overhead, radiating its piercing blue rays. Silently, uncompromisingly orbiting our world.

“Same as it ever was”, Dad muttered. “As ever”, Mom echoed back. Both of them waiting complacently for what I also knew would occur. The warship began to fire fearsome volleys at the blue star. Weapons so new, the televised announcer struggled to pronounce them correctly.

Spiraling green beams leap from the side of the ship, almost instantly traversing the distance between the warship and the blue star. No reaction. Missiles launch, in twos and threes at first. But soon, they seem to fill the sky. The blue star emits those familiar wispy arcs of blue energy, destroying the missiles before they arrive. Finally, a larger arc than the rest reaches out and connects with the warship.

The shields hold out longer than any prior attempt. But the arc intensifies, penetrates the shielding, and the warship erupts in a magnificent fireball. Dad chuckles. Mom pinches him for it, noticing Elena’s devastated expression. She descends back into the house to agonize over it, but the rest of us stick around watching the tangled wreckage burning up in the atmosphere.

In the kitchen, the announcer’s face looms large on the wall. Feigning the appropriate dismay, as if he didn’t know what would happen despite making a career out of reporting on the last dozen attempts. “Now, many will take this latest failure as reason to abandon the dreams of our Founder. But the performance of the new kinetic reversal shielding technology, the highlight of today’s ambitious assault, justifies renewed hope.”

Dad descended the stairs and set about preparing breakfast. Mom came down as soon as the smell reached her. Elena sulked at the table, head in her hands. I didn’t know what I could say to comfort her that wouldn’t be a lie. So I lied. Brushing the long red hair from her face, I whispered “You just know they’re gonna destroy it one of these days.”

My devious grin sold it. She looked skeptical for a moment, but has always been too eager to believe. “You really think so?” I doubled down. “I know it. Life can’t just go on like this forever, trapped like rats on a dying planet. Our weapons just get better and better. Our warships larger and more sophisticated. Eventually we’ll blow the blue star to atoms, then finally venture beyond the sky…and claim the cosmos in the name of the Founder!”

Nailed the delivery. Positively nailed it. Part of the big brother repertoire. Nobody teaches you how to do it. When your little sister is on the verge of tears, instinct kicks in and you do whatever’s necessary to restore her smile. This time it worked. But I knew the day would come when she realized it was a bluff. I was 16 when I gave up.

“-By hope, determination and ingenious technology, it is all but assured that someday, the tyranny of the blue star will come to an end. The Founder’s dream of voyaging to other worlds, to spread our race to every corner of the galaxy, must certainly be realized. It is our destiny.” The special announcement ended, and the usual morning news resumed.

I tapped a spot on the table and the aeroponic gardening column descended from the ceiling. Taking a few strawberries from it, I rolled one over to Elena. Now in good spirits, she deflected the shot as a goalie might and angled the plump red morsel to score on me instead.

“For Founder’s sake, you little monkeys! I can see the shuttle coming in! No more than a minute out! Move your butts!” Mom stood by the door, looking like death warmed over although of course I wouldn’t say it. Coffee had already put some life back into her, though. “Listen to your mother” Dad chimed in. “And Elena, don’t let me hear that you’ve been passing notes again. Get gone, you two.”

The wind had really picked up since breakfast, and the sun was now clear of the horizon. Elena’s mop of red hair streaming wildly to one side as she clutched the handrail, just in front of me on the walkway to the landing pad. I slipped on a pair of sunglasses. The single long, curved black lens obscuring my eyes from the unfiltered UV.

“Bet you think you look like a badass”, the shuttle driver joked as I climbed aboard. “Just trying not to fry my orbs. But maybe one day I’ll be badass enough to pilot a shuttle full of kids?” He scowled, and half-heartedly swatted at me as I struggled through the chaos of laughter and gossip, searching for an empty seat.

Elena had already found Natalie. No surprise there, the two are honorary conjoined twins. Natalie was clipping some kind of colorful animal shaped beads to Elena’s hair. A bunch of the other girls on the shuttle had ‘em. Nobody keeps me apprised of fads, I just do my own thing and occasionally that comes into fashion by coincidence.

Over Elena’s protestations that she didn’t want her friends to see or talk to me, I took the seat opposite hers. She continued to froth for a while but I drowned her out, watching scenery pass below through the modest porthole. Geometric white platforms, supporting sharp, faceted white buildings. All terminating in a point at the top, symbolizing the Founder’s dream to expand our society upwards into space.

Everything I know of is designed according to his ideas. Architecture, the platforms, the structure of our great society. A good third of our class time is devoted to learning about the Founder’s life, his teachings, his ambitions for the future of our race. I can recall his face more readily than my parents’ now, burned into my brain nearly from infancy.

The Academy looms large ahead. Its own self contained floating structure, one of only a few built that way rather than on the standard platform system. Breathtaking, every time. The outer hull coated in reflective bits, representing the stars in the night sky. Absolutely dazzling to look at as rays from the rising sun play over it.

The underside is a stacked skeletal mesh of shiny metal ribbons stretched between thin black rods. I rarely visit low enough altitudes to see it, but a similar structure can be found under every platform. Ionic lifters. Responsible for the constant wind, but also what keeps the platforms aloft.

I remember building a small working model of it for a science fair. A simple triangular balsa wood frame, coated in thin metal foil. The rods at the corners suspending a triangle of thin ‘corona wire’ just above. I’d built a little paper diorama of a typical suburb atop it with carefully detailed paper houses, trees and so on. Didn’t win, too common a project. “Trite”, one of the judges said. After all, every child builds a crude ionocraft at some point, simply to learn what keeps the platforms up.

The shuttle heaves, groans and shudders as the engines pivot in preparation for landing. Harrowing for me, but for the younger students it only adds to the excitement. Their laughter and shouting grow louder until finally the great ungainly craft sets down with an impact I can feel through my seat, and the door slides open.

Inspectors await us. Checking to ensure our uniforms are in good order, that our hair is clean and kempt, our faces spotless. “On point as usual” one remarks, checking today’s box on my sheet before handing it back to me. I rejoin the herd on their way towards the front doors. Solemn now, as expected. The doors have that effect.

Immense and ornate, bearing two beautiful portraits of the Founder. On the left door, he is seen personally building the Academy, first of the modules to ascend. On the right door it can be seen rising from the tortured landscape of the ruined Earth, up into the clouds.

I’ve never been a reliable judge of male beauty but if the portraits are anything to go by, he was a perfect specimen. Chiseled features, square jaw, wind swept hair a richer shade of red than any of ours. Wearing a smart looking outfit recognizable as the basis for fleet uniforms worn today.

Long black boots nearly up to the knee, a shiny black strap from the left side of his belt up over his right shoulder, uniform as sparkling white as the Academy itself. Standing proudly atop it all, gazing down lovingly on our ancestors who built this great society under his direction, following the thousand year war.

Lately nothing else manages to stir the same intense feelings in me. When I gaze upon his face I feel like a small but important part in the tapestry of our peoples’ history, buoyed up by my ancestors, in turn giving all I have to lift the next generation yet higher. Until the dream is achieved.

Nothing squashes such soaring daydreams quite like the indignity of measurement day. I vaguely recalled a notice about it, sent home with us in a packet sometime last week. The biometricians are waiting for us in the gym, calipers at the ready. I sometimes wonder if they don’t take some kind of sick joy in their work.

I reveal more of my irritation than I intend to, an exasperated sigh slipping out. A few stern looks, but nothing more severe. I’ve escaped punishment this time, as the adults present are too busy wrangling grumpy children into lines. Just as I recall from the last measurement day, a labcoat wearing stranger hands me a paper gown, then directs me to a booth enclosed by white curtains to get changed in.

I complained about this once to Dad, but only once. Usually Mom’s the one with the temper, Dad just sits back and lets her take care of business. But anything that could be taken as critical of how things are done pushes Dad’s only button, hard. After the shouting died down and I assured him I was simply curious, he did finally explain.

“When your mother and I were paired by the reproduction authority, it was because we had traits they determined were complimentary by biometric evaluation. I went through the same poking and prodding as you, kiddo. But it’s for a higher purpose. You see, we are all made in the Founder’s image. From frozen stores of his genetic seed.”

It took me a few years to fully understand what he meant. And to recognize the wisdom inherent in the system. “There do not need to be any debates as to what constitutes a perfect human. The Founder already showed us” Dad insisted. “Our task is simply to prevent any deviation from that ideal. To keep ourselves and our society perfect, as it is now, forever.”

I found it hard to argue with, as he and Mom love one another dearly, and I could hardly ask for better parents. Elena doesn’t always agree, but she’s young. The reproduction authority must really have pairing down to a science if they put Mom and Dad together. In more sense than one, I owe my life to them.

This respect, instilled into me by my father since my earliest memories, balances out somewhat the embarrassment I feel as I reluctantly emerge from behind the curtains in full view of the other students. Of course, they quietly snicker. As if they won’t have to do the same thing after me.

I’m seated before a woman whose perfectly red hair is tied up in a tight bun, a pair of rimless spectacles perched neatly on her stubby little nose. I hand her my sheet, she punches the ID number into her little computer and soon begins the measurement process.

Height, weight, heart, lungs, endurance, and most importantly, cranial dimensions. It is never adequately explained why. My questions are deflected until I’m simply hushed. “Flapping your jaw can throw off the caliper readings”.

Nothing in the way of bedside manner. To be honest, I find that endearing. Listening to someone you’ve never met before and will likely never see again pretending to care about your life for the few minutes they have to interact with you is agonizing. As she placed and then replaced the instrument, marking down each value, she grew visibly concerned.

“What is it?” She glared at me. Me and my flapping jaw. I gestured as if zipping my mouth shut. To my surprise, this elicited a smile. “That’s a good boy. Probably nothing to worry about. You’re normative or better in every other respect. Not surprising as your profile says you come from good stock, it’s just...Your cranial measurements are somewhat unusual. Have you been experiencing headaches? Visual or auditory hallucinations? Can you….move things? By thinking about it?”

I assured her I would alert my parents or school officials immediately if such a thing occurred, and assumed the last bit was a joke. She looked at me for a time, brow furrowed as if inwardly deliberating. “No matter. I’m going to schedule you an appointment with us for a month from now to see if it’s progressed.” I inquired as to what she meant but it was predictably useless. I was sent back into the curtained booth, dressed myself, and was relieved to finally be done with the ordeal.

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^{Stay tuned for part 2!}