Quinn woke up early and knocked on Priya’s bedroom door, which still had a poster of the latest boy band, the Celestial Mechanics along with a high-resolution poster of the familiar DNA double helix noting locations related to various diseases and traits.
“Pree, it’s time to get up.”
There was no reply.
“Priya, it’s time to—”
“Daddy, I’m in the kitchen making breakfast. Do you want some pancakes?”
“Um, sure. I’d love some with real maple syrup.”
He walked into the kitchen. Priya stood at the stove, making round fluffy pancakes with a light golden-brown crust on top.
“Pree, you never cooked before.”
“No time like the present Daddy.”
“But how did you —?”
“I figured it out. Sit down. Where’s Sanjay? Oh, sit down Sanj, I made ’em the way you like ’em.”
“Thanks, Pree,” Sanjay said.
Quinn watched in amazement as Priya squeezed some orange juice and set the glasses on the table.
“Um, why are you so, like happy? You must go to school today.” Sanjay said.
“Yes. That’s why I’m happy. I get to go to school today. I’ll meet my new teachers and they let me into the genetics lab class.”
Quinn and Sanjay glanced at each other in puzzlement.
“Pree, are you okay?” Sanjay said.
“I’ve never felt better in my life. I’m going back to school.”
“Why don’t you let the HouseRoeBot make breakfast?”
“I like making breakfast with my own hands. No law against that.”
“Dad, I think you better take Pree to the hospital,” Sanjay said. “There’s something wrong with her.”
“Enjoy her good mood while we can. We’ll find out how she is after school.”
“You’re right dad,” Sanjay said. “Thanks for the pancakes. They’re so good. Better than RoeBot’s. Sorry Ro.”
The RoeBot’s ego appeared unharmed. Priya ate and left early for her one mile walk to school. She met Sophie at her house. They arrived in school in plenty of time to get their assigned lockers for the semester and re-familiarize themselves after a long and eventful summer vacation.
They walked towards their first class, genetics 1a with a lab to follow. Priya smiled as she recognized her best friend.
“Hi Amy, how was your vacation?” Priya asked as she walked over to get a hug.
Amy stepped back.
“Fine.”
Some other students walked by and waved to Amy.
“Okay, well I gotta go. Uh, I’ll talk to you later.”
Priya glanced at Sophie and silently thought to her, “What’s her problem?”
Sophie thought back, “I’m not sure, but she acted weird. We’ve known her since kindergarten. I’ve never seen her act that way.”
They continued walking down the increasingly populated corridor.
“There go the mutants,” a group of students whispered as they sat on a bench awaiting class.
Priya turned around and stared at them.
“There go the whats?”
“We didn’t say anything,” one kid said.
“Yeah, you did, you—”
“Pree, don’t start anything,” Sophie thought silently to her. “It’s our first day back.”
Priya glared at the kids.
“Whatever.”
They continued walking, getting many awkward looks along the way. They walked into the classroom.
“That was too weird,” Priya thought to Sophie as they sat down. “It’s as though we walked through a flexible tunnel of kids which widened around us and closed back up as we passed by.”
Sophie agreed as the genetics teacher, entered the room. He blinked to activate his eyepiece and ‘Mr. James Watson’ appeared on the board in front of the class. They remembered someone else named James Watson was one of the two people to determine the structure of DNA back in 1953.
Priya looked across the aisle at Sophie and thought to her, “I always wanted to meet James Watson. He’s my genetics hero.”
Sophie smiled.
They glanced around. All eyes were on them instead of on Mr. Watson. He understood the situation.
“Let’s focus on the subject instead of on the people. This class is being taught at a fast pace. You might experience some difficulty keeping up if you don’t focus.”
He surveyed the distracted class. He chose one student who seemed especially distracted.
“Mr. Joe Kent, please stand up. Tell the class why you keep looking at Priya and Sophie.”
“Well.”
“Yes Joe, please elaborate for the class,” Mr. Watson said. “Be honest. I’m sure others are thinking whatever you’re thinking. We need to clear the air so we can get on with the instruction.”
“Well, I checked them out to determine if they were—”
“Yes, continue.”
“If they were mutants like people said.”
“Can you believe this loser?” Priya thought silently to Sophie. I want to get up and—”
“Calm down Pree, it’s going to be okay,” Sophie thought back.
They both gave Joe the stink eye.
“What do you mean by ‘mutants’, Joe?” Mr. Watson said.
“Well, um.”
Mr. Watson waited for his answer.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“No, it’s just— I wanted to find out if they were weird. Like how they are in those old alien mutation movies.”
The class laughed.
“Is something funny Amy?” Mr. Watson said.
“Well, yeah. I mean like, wouldn’t it be funny if they turned into mutants with three eyes and huge warts growing on their faces? It wouldn’t actually be funny, but I mean strange. No offense Priya.”
Priya gave a fake smile.
“None taken Amy.”
“I thought she was our friend,” Priya thought to Sophie.
“Do you notice any warts or tumors growing on them, Amy?” Mr. Watson said.
“No sir.”
“Class, I think we’re going to be having a lot of problems with definitions here. Let’s clear the air with our first lesson on mutations in Genetics. First, we’re all mutations.”
The students gave each other funny faces, reenacting scenes from an old zombie movie.
“Quiet down. The fact is around 320,000 years ago, one or more children were born who were different from their parents. Nobody knows for sure exactly when. They may have had bigger foreheads and smaller jaws than their parents. Perhaps they had less hair. They were rejected by their peers for being different, but those ‘mutants’ are our ancestors because the rest of them died off. They were mutations, which can be good. We’re all mutants. We have big foreheads and small jaws. Older species of humans might consider us ugly or at least creepy.”
“Can we call them mutants, nicely?” Joe said.
The class became disrupted again.
“Joe, if the term ‘mutant’ is used in a derogatory or humorous way in this class, the offender will be removed. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir,” Joe said, overemphasizing the word, ‘sir’.
Mr. Watson gave Joe a stern look.
“That attitude doesn’t belong in this class. You must leave if you don’t get yourself and your thinking under control. Do you understand now?”
Joe nodded his head and looked down at his desk.
“Yes.”
“Okay, now Priya if you would like, can you explain to the class what they did to you, from a genetic standpoint?”
Priya stood up.
“I don’t understand everything yet, because my genome is still being analyzed and this is my first day in a beginning genetics class. I know they modified the DNA in most cells in my body. In a way, Sophie and I are indeed mutations. However, I’m the same person I’ve always been. I’m healthy. I don’t have any weird diseases. I want to talk to my friends and blend in like anyone else. I want to have my normal life back. Also, I don’t want to be called a mutant. That’s a pejorative term. I’m a normal person like everyone else.”
She sat down and thought silently to Sophie, “How was that?”
“That was fine Pree,” Sophie thought back.
“Thanks, Priya,” Mr. Watson said. “You seem like a perfectly normal and intelligent person to me. So does Sophie. I don’t think this subject is closed. I’ll be paying close attention to all of you in class. I want everyone to be treated fairly. Now, let’s learn about genetics.”
The abbreviated lecture and lab went well and soon the class ended.
“I love genetics. It’s so easy. I want to do this for my career,” Priya thought to Sophie as they walked down the corridor to their next class.
“Me too,” Sophie thought back. “It’s the key to everything. We know what the Omanji can do. We can do anything too. You said, ‘Pejorative?’ You usually don’t talk like that.”
Priya smiled.
“I’m changing, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I acknowledge that a trivial number of my new assessments are antithetical to the old ones,” Sophie thought back silently in mock sophistication. They giggled out loud.
As they walked down the corridor thinking with each other, they felt the same sense of tunneling through a negative energy field, as the students would back away as they passed and then close in behind them.
“Yuck, Amy is following us again. I thought we were such good friends, but I guess not,” Priya thought to Sophie.
They kept walking but Amy caught up with them.
“You’re thinking to each other right now, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, so?” Priya said.
“Saw-ree, I just wondered,” Amy said.
They walked for a while in silence while Amy followed close behind. They both stopped, and Amy bumped into Priya.
“Sorry Pree, you stopped so—”
“What do you want from me Amy?” Priya said. “You obviously hate me now so leave me alone.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“So why did you act weird and say those things about mutants in class? Why are your hands shaking?”
“Because I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” Priya said.
“We were such good friends, and now I’m afraid you’ve been turned into a, um—”
“A mutant?” Priya said. “Take my hand. I’m a normal person. Go ahead. Grab it.”
“Amy reached out but couldn’t touch Priya’s hand.”
“Ugh, just grab it.” Priya said.
She grabbed Amy’s arm and forced Amy’s hand to grab her other hand.
“There, was that such a big deal?”
“Sorry,” Amy said. “Give me time to get used to you. I don’t want to lose you, or you too Sophie. It’s that, well, you were with the aliens.”
“So what? I’m fine now,” Priya said. “I didn’t contract any weird diseases. I want to figure out how they did that. I’m not a zombie and I’m not going to turn you into one. What else are you afraid of? Tell me now so we can talk about it. Don’t be afraid.”
Amy said nothing for a few seconds.
“Well, I think you can read minds. Can you read my mind?”
“Of course not, silly,” Priya said. “Nobody has ever been able to read someone’s mind directly from mind to mind without the assistance of electronics. Our mind is chemically based. Signals pass from an axon to a dendrite via chemical ions. You know this. The signals aren’t precise like radio waves. Only weak and vague muffled signals ever leave the human brain. They’re like white noise. No reliable signals exist for us to read as far as we know. My implant can receive transmissions from Sophie’s implant. I can read her thoughts only if she lets me. It’s in the software. You can think anything you want around me and I won’t be able to listen to it with my mind.”
“Okay,” Amy said. “Here’s another question. I hear you guys are super-geniuses. Is that true?”
“I don’t think I’m much smarter than before,” Sophie said. “You’re the genius, I’m not. You didn’t act like a genius in class though.”
“Sorry.”
“Perhaps I’m slightly smarter than before. I think I can memorize things a little better. We’ll find out what happens when I do my genetics homework tonight.”
“Yeah, we haven’t tested out our new brains.” Priya said. “Do you want to come over after school and study with us? You’ll find out how far behind we are. We’re four weeks behind.”
“I don’t know, I promised a friend I’d help her with homework.”
“That’s a bunch of—”
“Pree, stop.” Sophie thought silently to Priya.
“Sorry. Amy, I know you’re not helping anyone. Come over and study, okay? Nothing bad will happen. We’re supposed to be friends.”
“Well.”
“Okay, it’s settled then,” Priya said.
They agreed to meet just as they walked into their next class, biology 1a. Priya and Sophie got the same vibe they did at the start of the genetics glass. The teacher had the same discussion with a separate set of students. The discussion ended and they walked to their next class. The same thing happened there.
“Whew, it’s been a long day and it’s only lunch time,” Priya thought to Sophie as they walked into the cafeteria.
They picked up some sandwiches and sat at a table next to some other students. The students surreptitiously glanced at them, pretending to be oblivious. They picked up their trays and moved to a table further away.
“The day just got longer,” Priya thought to Sophie.
“Yeah, I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Sophie thought back. “What should we do, fight back?”
“I’d love to, but that’s not a promising idea. Let’s think, of something else,” Priya thought.
A group of students walked into the cafeteria and were startled to spot Priya and Sophie in there. Priya heard the word ‘mutant’ as they walked out. She turned around and they were gone. She peered through the window as they walked away. One student turned back and made accidental eye contact with Priya. He quickly turned away.
Priya glanced at Sophie and thought to her, “On second thought, fighting back might work. My mom has 875 million followers on Twitter. I’ll talk with her tonight.”
The rest of the day turned out to be as painful as the first half.
Priya and Sophie walked straight home after the last class ended. Amy caught up and arrived at the same time.
“Tell me about your day,” Quinn said.
“It was awful Dad. The kids are afraid of us. They called us mutants and they’re staying away from us as though we caught the plague.”
“Sorry guys. Do you think it’ll get any better over time? Usually things do.”
“No. This is going to be a long fight. Even the smart kids are afraid, and the not so smart kids are worse. They’re nasty and ignorant.”
“Well, give it time. I once read when AIDS first happened, people were afraid. After a while, people understood the people infected weren’t monsters.”
“Yeah, I know,” Priya said.
“How did you know that?” Quinn said.
“Oh, today I was looking for corollaries to our situation and read about it.”
“You’re a genius.” Quinn said.
“No,” Priya said. “It was a simple search. Anyway, okay dad, we’ll be patient about our situation,” Priya said. “C’mon guys, let’s go study.”
They ran upstairs to Priya’s room.
“We have a lot of catching up to do,” Priya said to Amy. “Can we take all of the tests to catch up?”
“Sure, here’s what we covered so far. You can take the tests every Friday including tomorrow.”
“That’s good,” Sophie said. “Mr. Watson said he would give you a month to catch up.”
They studied for a couple of hours. Afterwards, Priya and Sophie reviewed the three tests. Amy gave them the tests verbally and they wrote down the answers by hand on paper. They turned in the sheets so Amy could score them.
“Hmm,” Amy mumbled under her breath as she reviewed the answers.
“What is it?” Sophie said.
“Well, I can’t figure out how you did it. Hold on.”
Amy finished comparing their answers to the correct answers from Mr. Watson.
“Okay I’m done. I might as well tell you right now. You both got 100%.”
“No way,” Priya said.
“Way. How did you do it? Are you guys silently communicating the answers to each other or something?”
“No,” Sophie said. “And we both learned the material at the same time so communication wouldn’t help us. We scored 100%?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to say right now. You guys are scaring me.”
“What do you mean by scaring?” Priya said.
“I’m totally freaked out. I mean, how did you learn so fast? Maybe your brains are alien or something.”
“I’m not sure,” Priya said. “I don’t think I’m any different. I do remember things a little better, I think. The material is easy. Didn’t it seem easy Sophie?”
“Oh yeah, the material is super-easy. I thought genetics was a difficult subject.”
“It’s difficult you guys,” Amy said. “It’s the hardest class I’ve ever had. You guys are aliens.”
“You’re overreacting,” Priya said. “I memorized the stuff. It’s no big deal. I don’t think I’m not much smarter than I was before. I’ll admit I like learning more now. I’m not sure why.”
“Yeah, I’m the same way,” Sophie said. “Amy, please don’t tell anyone about what you think of us. Okay?”
“I won’t. I want us to be friends, like we were before.”
They studied until dinner. Afterwards, Amy and Sophie went home. Priya connected to Nisha.
“Mom, how are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m so happy to hear your voice. Tell me about your first day back at school,” Nisha said.
Nisha muted her Twitter broadcast stream for privacy.
“The day? Well, I can’t explain it.”
Priya became silent for a while. Nisha said nothing as she gathered her thoughts.
“Okay, everyone thinks I’m a mutant. They’re not speaking scientifically about mutations if you know what I mean. They think I’m a freak. The other kids avoid me like I caught some disease. Even Amy avoided me until we talked things over.”
“Sorry Pree,” Nisha said. “I hope things will get better once they get used to you.”
“They’re not going to get better. Even the teachers who defended me kept their distance. Here’s the weird thing. Sophie and I studied this afternoon with Amy. We learned the first three weeks of genetics in only three hours. We already almost caught up to the class. Genetics seems easy to me. It’s easy to memorize stuff. I’m still me though. I’m no different than before.”
“It’s okay Pree,” Nisha said. “It’ll take some time to get used to the changes happening to you. We’re continuing to analyze the extensive DNA modifications which they made to you. The second axon growing from each neural cell will affect how you think. You might not notice anything unusual because to you, this is how your mind should be. It’s a matter of perspective. To Einstein, the concept of relativity wasn’t too complex. Do you understand?”
“I think I do. When Amy studied with us, she freaked out when we learned so quickly. To me, genetics is an easy subject. I thought nothing of it. One last thing, what should I do when people call me mutant? I wanna kick their—”
“That’s not a promising idea.” Nisha said. “For now, it’s best to not engage them. Get the faculty on your side first. They’re also afraid of you, so prove you’re no threat. Start with the faculty and we’ll talk about this later. I’m not going to mention this to my followers until we understand how this is playing out.
Thanks for talking. I need to catch up on my other subjects. I’ll connect tomorrow.”
Rachel sat quietly with Nisha while she spoke with Priya. After a few more minutes, they ended the connection.
“What do you think?” Rachel said.
“It’s my biggest dream and my worst nightmare all rolled into one. That second axon is making a significant difference. Her IQ will be off the charts. I tried not to make a big deal about it, but this is serious. She’s in a good school but is still being bullied. I can’t imagine what these thousands of other kids are going to face when they go back to their schools. Some will be returning to lesser developed and poor countries. It’ll be more difficult for them. They want to go back to school if what we learned today is any indication. We need to plan for these problems.”
“Yeah,” Rachel said.
They turned to each other for a long moment.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Rachel said.
“I hope not. What are you thinking?”
“Well, school isn’t only a problem with bullying for the modified kids. They’ll experience the same problems with the entire world. And the world is going to have problems with them. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Absolutely,” Nisha said. “Remember reading about the race problems in history books? Those problems are nothing compared to this. The problem will be severe if the kids have a superior intellect. It’s one thing for a race to think they’re superior, but what if one race or even a new subspecies is significantly superior in some way?”
“I don’t want to think about that right now,” Rachel said. “We have 80 billion members of a superior race claiming the earth as their own.”
Nisha smiled.
“Right, I almost forgot about them. I’m worried about Bok. I tried to contact him this morning and I haven’t heard from him all day. That’s never happened since the first day we made contact.”
“Yeah, that’s worrisome,” Rachel said. “He’s our only hope right now.”
Nisha spent some time talking to Quinn and soon thereafter, they fell asleep.