26 / 145
26
Her memory has been unusually excellent from the day she was
born. She remembers the first time she opened her eyes, seeing
bright lights, adults crowding around, cooing at the beautiful baby
before them. And perfect she was, with her big blue eyes, soft tufts
of jet black hair growing on her small head and flawless porcelain
skin. This was obviously not left to chance. Nothing about her had
been left to chance. Everything had been carefully chosen, from her
IQ of 234 to her mysterious name. Clandestine, because she was a
secret.
However, there are no secrets that time does not reveal. This
one took ten years. Her parents wept, begged to be released,
promised that they wouldn’t be involved in the production of any
more designer children, but the remaining officials shook their
heads no and sentenced them to death. New Earth couldn’t afford
to accommodate people like them bringing superficial lives into the
world, especially in a time when everyone else was trying to return
the globe into its pure state again, free of anything artificial.
They let the offspring survive, though. Perhaps that was their
biggest downfall. Because when you allow something to survive, it
doesn’t just survive. It thrives. In 2130, a debate began, an argument
concerning the ethics of designer children, a debate which turned
into conflict, conflict which turned into war. A war that the people
three decades ago, in 2099, had already predicted would occur.
They knew that designer children would be manufactured after
the medical crisis that would wipe out almost all of Earth’s 11.2
billion people worth of population. It was inevitable, something
that would definitely happen, because humans would be forced to
find some way to sustain life on Earth without endangering the
lives of those who survived the crisis. They also knew that human
nature would precipitate some people to continue producing
designer children after the law declared manufacturing of these
children illegal, which would unavoidably result in a war.
What they didn’t forget was that designer children were the
future of survival on New Earth. So with the limited but advanced
technology they had, they designed an outside world christened
with the name Extramural to protect the children during the war. It
would be located underground and be readily equipped with all of
the resources required for human survival. They mapped it all out,
on an old and tattered piece of papyrus, made to stand out against
Clandestine
Renita Yang
Isobelle Carmody Award
For Creative Writing
Highly Commended
7