Newhalem

Cascades National Park

Newhalem, September 2040

They weren't sure whether anyone had followed them after the attack and had only allowed themselves short rests and a few short sleep breaks over the last two days.

Although Seth and Ben knew the national park well, they were cautious and didn't want to rush off without thinking.

In between, Seth looked at his notes and the plan several times and tried to get Ben to memorize everything. Joshua knew a lot and recognized many of the names that Seth had discovered in his research. He was able to provide some good suggestions to improve the plan.

They now came towards Newhalem, the place where they wanted to look for someone who had apparently helped their mother a lot at the time and who seemed to be trustworthy.

Ramon Clemente, a now aging police officer.

He had been mentioned in the newspaper article as a helper of the transgenos and Seth had then tracked him down.

It hadn't been easy, because soon after things had calmed down around Terminal City and all of Seattle, Clemente had moved to the country with his family and taken a quiet job as a village policeman.

As far as Seth knew, he had a daughter who was about a year younger than himself.

Now he hoped the idea of knocking on Clemente's door wouldn't turn out to be a mistake.

They sat at the edge of the forest for a while and waited until dusk fell. They didn't want to be seen and used the hour until dawn to eat the last of their supplies and get some rest. You never knew what you might need the strength for.

When it finally got dark, the three of them packed everything up and wanted to look for Ramon Clemente's house on the outskirts of the town.

Seth had an address but you could never know what had changed, so they initially wanted to knock without Joshua so as not to be immediately recognized as transgenics.

Seth now approached the house. He looked pretty worn out, a little dirty and like a tramp with his big backpack.

He climbed the steps to the porch of the house somewhat hesitantly and looked around in all directions when a motion detector switched on the light at the front door and he was now quite clearly visible there.

Ben stood at the back of the garden gate and acted like the shy little brother.

Joshua was hidden behind a clump of trees across the street, but occasionally peeked curiously through the trees.

Seth knocked.

It didn't take long before he heard footsteps in the house and a woman opened the door. She looked at him skeptically but still seemed very friendly.

Seth started immediately:

"Sorry, we are passing through and one of our mother's friends lives here in Newhalem, Ramon Clemente, are we in the right place?"

She nodded almost imperceptibly, then turned around and called out:

"Ramon, can you come to the door for a second?"

When she turned around, Seth was startled for a moment. He could see a bar code on the back of her neck. For a moment he didn't know how to deal with it, she was the first person he met who seemed to lead a completely normal life and was still one of the transgenics.

"Honey, what's wrong, why do you need me at the door?"

Clemente came around the corner and came to her side, put an arm around his wife and looked at Seth questioningly.

"Hello Mister. Clemente, my name is Seth Cale-Guevara…"

He didn't get any further when Ramon Clemente waved him into the house as if he was afraid of something.

"My brother Ben too?" Seth asked quickly.

Clemente nodded and Ben jumped up the porch.

Clemente almost pulled the two of them into the house and, after looking out into the darkness, closed the door.

"Did someone follow you?"

Clemente seemed to know him and was already on his way to the door when his wife stopped him and pointed to the back door.

Clemente immediately turned around and opened the back door. He stuck his head out and took a step back because he was literally thrown around and a cheerful:

"Hello, little policeman friend!" revealed that Joshua had already been waiting to rush in the back and almost crush Clemente with a warm hug.

"Slow down big, I'm not the youngest anymore."

Joshua lowered him straight down and stroked his shoulders as if to smooth out the wrinkles he had left behind.

Clemente then pulled him straight into the kitchen and Joshua no longer seemed so contrite but immediately looked around.

"There's still dinner left, I can warm it up for you," came directly from Arya, Clemente's wife.

Joshua beamed. "Little mind reader," he said happily.

Arya immediately started getting various containers out of the fridge and getting the food warm.

"Let's sit down together quietly while we eat and you can talk about what's going on here," she said.

The boys helped to set the table and received some incredulous looks from Arya because she had not met many such polite young men.

They were all already sitting at the table hungry when there was another knock on the door.

Ramon and Arya weren't worried and went straight to the door and opened it.

"Sorry, I forgot the key," was the greeting the boys heard and yet they were already halfway to the back door.

However, Joshua remained calmly seated.

"Hey Joshua, shouldn't we leave?" Seth whispered to him.

The answer came from the hallway: "No, he's my friend, why should Josh go?"

Seth jumped in shock. Had he spoken so loudly or why could she answer him?

A girl shot through the kitchen door and almost flew into Joshua's arms. She was a petite but very energetic girl with black hair tied in a wild ball on her head. She was wearing a tight top and a short skirt and looked like she had just returned from a party. She was about 16 years old but at the moment she seemed very delicate and young in Joshua's arms.

"I missed you, big guy," and while she was still greeting Joshua, she turned to the boys, "By the way, I'm Yara and a Y, that's why I could hear you."

"What's a Y?" Ben asked, turning to Seth.

Yara answered instead of his brother: "Well, a mixed-race child or transgenetic successor, depending on which word choice suits you better, but it seems that the spectacled snake actually has something to do with snakes or where do the tattoos come from."

She pointed to the markings that appeared on his skin every year in the month before Seth's birthday.

"You know what that's all about?" asked Seth, dumbfounded.

"But sure, who doesn't?"

She looked at Seth as if she thought he was pretty backwards.

"Sit and eat".

Arya had a pretty firm tone and the young people didn't hesitate to comply immediately, both because they were all very hungry and because her tone didn't seem to allow for any further ado.

They sat down and began to eat and talk.

Arya asked Yara to explain the Y variants first.

Yara explained that she herself is a Y1, which means she has one transgenic and one normal genetic, i.e. human, parent.

Y2 are from two transgenos and their barcode consists of the codes of both parents, but only becomes visible or readable when they reach the age of 16, but some Y1s also only show their barcode at this age.

"I am a Y1 and my code is Y1 331845739452," revealed Seth.

She further explained that the X5 series pass on the numbers 331845 and the last three numbers are from the mother, which is 452 for Seth.

"Wait, 452 ?", she looked at him admiringly, a little excited and completely stunned at the same time, "452, is Max, the famous Max?"

"Yes, it seems so, I don't know my mother. Just a few notes, newspaper articles and now one or two stories," explained Seth contritely.

At the same moment there was a crash next to him.

Ben lay on the floor and was shaking.

"Shit damn, the idiot, Joshua get his backpack quickly, the idiot forgot his tryptophan again".

Joshua was there super quickly and together they got Ben up and gave him his pills.

Arya handed Ben a glass of milk as soon as he came to his senses, as if she sensed that the tryprophan content of the milk would help him recover even faster.

"How do you know…" Ben said with difficulty.

"I am an X5"!

Ben nodded and drank the milk, but remained sitting on the floor, leaning against the kitchen cupboard. When Ramon Clemente wanted to help him, he waved him off and signaled that he was fine.

He was also a little happy to be out of the circle at the dinner table because the whole thing had become a little too crowded for him. He wasn't used to these family rounds and wasn't very interested in them either because at the moment he had an idea what was going on with his not yet readable bar code, which confused him so much that he initially pushed everything away and preferred to be left alone.

"I have to go out, is that okay?"

He stood up suddenly and was already on his way to the door.

Clemente wanted to stop him but Seth knew his little brother.

"Let him go, he'll come back when his head is clear again," he said to Clemente.

Ben was out the door before anyone could say anything and after a deep breath of fresh night air he ran. He ran and ran, although he still felt some of the aftereffects of his collapse. He was so incredibly fast and driven by all of his pent-up emotions that he reached a hill outside of Newhalem in no time at all, over which they had come here. He paused there, looked around and tried to sort out his thoughts.

It couldn't be that only he had inherited the gene for tryptophan deficiency and that Seth had a clear barcode, but he had an unreadable one. Was it possible that so many discrepancies came together? Why didn't this confuse Seth as much as it confused him? Ben sat down on the meadow and looked over the small town at how quiet it was. He envied the Clemente family, who lived here quietly and peacefully despite their differences.

He and Seth only recently realized that they were very different from normal people. Yes, they were transgenics! Was that already clear to Seth? Ben realized up here in the darkness that there was now a lot to explain and he decided to stay in Newhalem until he had received enough answers.

And it was an opportunity for him to enjoy a bit of normal family life, although it was a pretty diverse family but he found that if he got a little practice with it, he might even start to enjoy it.