Synopsis:
A mutated gene, resulting from a recessive allele triggered in random second generation coordinators is all that separate the Scindogen Coordinators from their Unigen Coordinator kin. With no where else to turn, young Scindogen seek safety and are given instead an ultimatum: fight or die where they stand. These young people, thrust into a cycle of events they have yet to comprehend, may bring about revolution or universal holocaust.
Whispers, fluttering like the wings of a dove are passed between us. We are birds. Our wings clipped. Our freedom taken. We speak a language of silent lips and shifted eyes. Eventually our new tongue will be discovered, and we will then be one hope less. But now we are still able to communicate as we pass, head lowered and eyes straining to the side.
Only two of us are allowed out at a time to the lavatory, and even there we have no privacy. Passing each other- one returning and one leaving- we move our lips and form wraithlike messages in our own nacreous language.
In C.E 70, when I was only fifteen, they discovered it. The Forstein Gene. Named after Dr. A. L. Forstein. The man who discovered the recessive trait in first generation Coordinators. Studies have discovered that the bodies of Natural women combated the foreign structure of the implanted coordinator fetus. The mother's body triggered chemical changes in the womb as it tried to assess and alter the fetus.
That was the reason for a strange number of miscarriages in the early days of coordinators. The body simply rejected the fetus as something foreign. While many died, many more were born and brought to maturity- with no knowledge of what slept in their genetic makeup.
Then my generation was born. Somehow the trait was triggered in first generation Coordinator women during pregnancy. Perhaps the imbalance of hormones, or the new stress put upon the body. I really don't know. But chemicals activated in pregnancy did something to our volatile genes as we were formed. Altered, mutated, changed, corrected.
And we were born with it. That one gene, that one insignificant trait, altered us entirely.
F1053, the new girl in the 'cell' next to me, said that something happened. Something terrible. But she quickly passed and returned to her cell, her message unfinished. Now, as I lay on my cot, I can only wonder. Something terrible. Her eyes had darted upwards- not down. That meant something terrible happened at PLANT. No matter the point of reference. Even in space, upwards meant PLANT. Down meant earth. How ironic... like heaven and hell. No, not ironic. Not even coincidental. The PLANT was created to be a heaven for those who wished to leave Hell. That was simply the way it was.
PLANT was once my home. But oddly, I don't seem to care as I should. All connections to 'home' have been burned away. The word remains like a dead husk. The connotations of warmth and family stripped from it. Home is simply a place of residence. This base is now my home.
My thoughts always drift. Now they haunt that day when everything changed. There were rallies, no, mobs in many of the colonies. They protested our existence. Yes, the Coordinators were now the ones to protest. When ever something superior stumbles towards the light, still afraid and naked and covered in birth blood, those now considered obsolete become afraid. Fear, it is what is driving this war. The Naturals were afraid of becoming obsolete, and lashed out at the Coordinators.
Now the Coordinators fear us- the Scindogen- the divided race. Humanity walks such a foolishly cyclical path.
By all reasoning, we are no longer humans, as humanity sees itself. The Homo Sapien branch has fractured once again. Years ago it split to facilitate Coordinators and Naturals. Now the Coordinator branch has split into Scindogen and Unigen Coordinators.
The Unigen were, in essence, the prototype for us. They proved ineffective and therefore our superiority complex was triggered. A set of related feelings, ideas, or impulses that may be repressed but that continues to influence thoughts and behavior that make us physically and mentally superior. Or so we have been told. Part of me resists this idea. Ever since I was young, I was indoctrinated into the mindset that Coordinators were superior to all else. Our empire stretches from earth to the stars, our technology would make many a natural head spin, our very genetic structure is a wonder of science. Or so we have been told. There is no universal truth. Words spoken become tainted by the speaker and print becomes influenced by the typist. No words can be trusted other than your own. And even your truths are influenced by your Freudian skeletons.
Religion. The greatest mistake and the greatest accomplishment of man. Religion is something that has been abandoned by many Coordinators. To them, God has been proven inaccurate and uneeded. That is only to be expected. We are children of science; that which allows man to take God's power in their hands and do with it what they may. However there are still some who cannot deny their beliefs, and for that, they have been shunned from PLANT.
The discovery of a sub-race of Coordinators sparked fear in PLANT. Anyone of any religion found themselves facing hostilities from fearful citizens who were beginning to grow paranoid and strike out at anyone who didn't fit the mould. It is one of the great ironies of the century. A people who were once the paladins of the repressed became like their oppressors. That proved Coordinators human. They were making the same mistakes and giving into basic human instinct- fear.
But the government was our friend. They found us and took us somewhere we could be safe.
Safety was relative. The military praised us for our abilities and quickly took us under their wing and rifle. That is where we are. In a wing at a military base, built special for us. No one from the outside is allowed into the Scindogen Wing. It is possible that the Unigen fear us. But we are their greatest asset.
Our uniforms are like the inverse of the elite's crimson. The jackets are black as space. If only I could see that endless expanse one more time. Stiff shoulders, trim, and large cuffs are made of dark crimson, always appearing as if blood is perpetually dripping from us and our morbidly hued uniforms. It suits our young race, whose birth blood of innocence has yet to be washed away by time. I feel I am an aborted fetus- hated before I had a chance to live. We are the children of a botched abortion. Old enough to survive though too young to exist on our own. However I digress.The same silver belt sits just above the waist, giving us at least something in common with the others. For the females like myself, we have a white pleated miniskirt that reaches just above mid-thigh. Durable grey nylons pulled to mid-thigh strike a contrast with the inverse of the white, black toed and heeled boots worn by the Unigen elites. Our boots are dark ebony with white soles and a white stripe up the toes. Like those worn by the officers.
I've seen some of the officers before. Just fleeting glimpses. They wear white. How ironic, or perhaps coincidental. They wear a holy color, and yet their duty is to kill. If God exists, I suppose that he gets a laugh out of that... of course that all depends if he's the humorous type. Obviously he can't mind too much, as he hasn't appeared to smite them yet. Smite. What an archaic term. A transitive verb meaning to affect somebody strongly or disastrously, or afflict somebody with something. I would very much like to smite some people. But I keep my obedient silence. No, that was stated incorrectly. It is a silence of self-preservation. Our existence depends on self-preservation.
Because of how the Unigen treat us, it is now our sacred duty to survive and continue on. We will lower our heads and act as the right arm of the military, who is in essence the right arm of the government. These institutions have an endless number of other agencies acting where they cannot. The government alone cannot stand. It needs the security agencies, the military and social agencies to keep the people at peace. Likewise, the military cannot function without the intelligence agencies, and us. The Scindogen. Their greatest asset. We do the dirty work of the military and her associates. We wear the uniform to give us legitimacy. But when this war is over, I doubt that the Unigen will remember our contributions.
After the war between the Naturals and Unigen Coordinators is over, I can foresee nothing but more war and hatred. This time it are the Coordinators who will be ripped in two by civil war.