A week after Priya’s 26th birthday, she and her friends gathered around a video monitor in Priya’s lab to watch the US Supreme Court decide on a case that would determine whether the 25 million new species people in the US (out of 70 million in the world), have the same rights as native humans.
The native humanist movement came about as a way of differentiating people with original human DNA versus those with modified DNA. Many native humanist supporters believed that original human DNA was code directly written by God less than 10,000 years ago. Therefore, any being with alternative DNA could not be human and should not be given the rights of humans.
“What do you think it means to be human?” Sophie said.
“Ask the 9 plus billion humans on this planet, and you’ll get 9 billion answers,” Priya said. “That’s the lunacy of the native humanist movement. Each person has significant differences in their genomes. It’s not like some super powerful God hard-coded the DNA of every person on this planet. God would have to do that on every conception. Yeah, they’ll say God allowed an insignificant variation, but there’s no data supporting any of this. Still, about 25% of the US population think humans were created in their current form less than 10,000 years ago. That number has only dropped about 15% since 2000. Another 30% are unsure. At least the percentage that accepts natural evolution on a 4.5-billion-year-old Earth has risen from 8% in 2000 to about 40% today.”
“True, but that’s the technical argument. What about the human argument? Do we feel the same as humans feel?” Sophie said.
“I think so. I feel happy on some days and depressed on other days. I get angry, sad and have the full range of human emotions. I do think I feel them less strongly than the average human though. When old species people describe how they feel about different topics, I don’t find myself feeling as strongly about them as they do. Mom notices that too. I’m more of a logical person than average, or I’m emotionally evenly balanced.”
“Same here,” Warren said. “People get excited about sports teams. Their emotions go up and down with the fortunes of the team. I like sports as much as the next guy, but I don’t feel that rush of adrenaline, or whatever it is they get when they watch sports.”
“Typical guy response,” Priya said. “What about how you feel about other people? Do you feel strongly for or against them?”
“Sure, I can feel strongly about people, but I don’t know if I could fall madly in love. You have to put someone on a pedestal and idealize them in order to fall in love. You have to be mad. You have to feel anxiety and tension and a full range of other emotions to be in love. That’s not me.”
“Typical male response,” Priya said and smiled. “Don’t you think Sophie?”
“Oh yes. He’s human. We should’ve used him in this Supreme Court case to prove we’re human. Also, I’ve seen you get anxious. Around certain people.”
They laughed. Warren tried to smile.
“I think we’re humans with a few improvements,” Pablo said. “Legally, human rights were given only to members of the old human species because they were considered the highest life form, the most sentient. In other words, humans have the most rights because they’re the most advanced species.”
“But that doesn’t apply in our case,” Priya said. “We’re at least as sentient, if not more so than the average human. We’re not a lesser species. If anything, according to that paradigm, we should be getting more rights than humans.”
“Tell that to the native humanists who think they were created in the image of God,” Pablo said. “You can’t get more perfect than that. They don’t think we should have the ‘God-given rights’ that original humans have. Some of them think we’re like biological androids. Like we’re an artificial life form.”
“Over 99.8% of our genome is untouched,” Priya said.
“Yeah, but that 0.2% are in crucial areas for intellectual development,” Sophie said. “You have to admit we have an edge.”
“We have a small edge, but we still have human feelings,” Priya said.
“It’s a big edge,” Warren said. “We can do things most average people can’t do. We still have our human faults, but most of us are a prodigy at something. Some of us are prodigies at many things. We have emotional intelligence too. Also, we don’t buy into pseudoscience or urban legends as easily as regular people. We don’t rush to judgment based on little or no valid information. We don’t fall prey to hoaxes. And we’re more compassionate to all people compared to old species humans. Pree, when we were in danger, you could have killed specific groups of humans in the hundreds of millions with your organisms, based on their genetic characteristics, but instead, we went underground for seven months with no hope of ever coming out again. Fortunately for us, V exploded at the right time. We were within our rights to defend ourselves. It could’ve been genocide.”
“It could still happen if we don’t get our rights back,” Priya said. “70 million sounds like a vast number, but it’s still a small minority. That’s less than 0.8% of the global population but look at the numbers. All we have to do is wait. 60% of all babies born each month have our DNA. That percentage is rising slightly every month. People want us as children for their own families even if they don’t want us as adults in society. Eventually we’ll be the majority, so we just need to survive until then.”
“Ugh,” Priya said. “Survival won’t be easy. We just lost the case.”
“Yeah, by a 7-4 margin,” Pablo said. “They keep stacking the court with native humanists, so we never had a chance. Even if they didn’t force-add those extra two justices, we still would have lost 5-4.”
“We need to get our people on the Supreme Court,” Sophie said. “Since justices have unlimited terms, our people could serve for over 100 years, even 200. Pablo?”
Don’t look at me. But yeah, just by our long lifespans, we would always have a majority. Of course, before that could ever happen, they would impose some sort of a handicapping rule against us to erase that advantage.”
“We lost,” Priya said. “We’re not human. What does this mean for us?”
Pablo shook his head.
“It means they can do anything to us. Hate groups can protest and destroy our buildings and only get a scolding. Even though there are laws against that, the police won’t strongly enforce it. They could put us back in the salt mine again. Take away our voting rights. Kill us. Who knows?”
“I’m thinking of those kids we saw,” Priya said. “They have no rights. It will be a long struggle for them.”
“And for us too,” Sophie said. “If we live to our life expectancy, we still have over 250 more years to go.”
“Yes,” Priya said. “But fortunately, in about 90 years, at the rate the births are going today, we’ll be in the majority. Let’s figure out a strategy to survive until then.”
“We’re running out the clock,” Warren said.
“What do you mean?” Sophie said.
“It’s like in sports when you have the advantage, so you slow down the game and let the clock run out in order to survive and win.”
“Yeah, something like that,” Priya said. “The problem is the team with the disadvantage usually gets desperate and tries all sorts of crazy things to win. Occasionally they do win.”
“This is simple arithmetic,” Sophie said. “Everyone knows we’ll become the majority if things continue as they are. They’re going to try something desperate.”
“They did already,” Priya said. “Fortunately, there aren’t enough prisons and money to keep us all locked up. Though there are salt mines.”
“I mean something more desperate than that,” Sophie said. “Check out this article I read this morning. I found it on a native humanist website.”
Sophie put the article on the video screen for them to read.
“Why are you reading this bologna?” Warren said.
“You know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Sophie said.
“Isn’t that quote from that ancient Chinese general? Or was it Machiavelli?” Pablo said.
“No,” Sophie said. “It’s from the old movie, ‘The Godfather.’ Regardless, we all need to study and understand what our enemies are doing. That’s what Sun-tzu, Machiavelli, Kabirdas, and others observed.”
“Look what the article says,” Priya said. “We were created in God’s image. Therefore, anyone altering our DNA is trying to be above God and was driven to act by Satan himself. We cannot allow anyone to think they’re above God’s law.”
“What about correcting birth defects? Are they saying the Omanji were driven to act by Satan?” Warren said.
“Yes,” Priya said. “The same goes for parents who have new species children. Look here where it says Satan must be resisted and rebuked with every ounce of our being. And here, where it says mutants are the result of the devil’s work.”
“It gets worse,” Pablo said. “Further down, it says we must erase Satan’s work from this world. If we don’t, we’re colluding with Satan. Then it says those who collude with the devil, are going to hell for eternity.”
They eventually finished reading the 10-page article. They found many others like it.
“People take this stuff seriously. They really think God wants us dead,” Priya said.
“And it’s their duty to make us dead, or else,” Raven said. “How can the human mind get so twisted? These are otherwise intelligent people I would assume.”
“I don’t know, but we need to do something about this,” Priya said. “A deluded human is, well you know.”
“There are laws against killing people,” Sophie said. “These aren’t the dark ages, but on second thought.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Pablo said. “Fortunately, there are laws on the books regarding animal torture and abuse. We’re at least animals.”
“I don’t think it will be clear cut,” Priya said. “Some of these people are crazy. We need to have bodyguards and more physical security where we live and work.”
“That won’t help us against Supreme Court decisions,” Pablo said.
“True,” Priya said. “We need to do other things to defend ourselves legally. That’s your job.”
“The good news is, the families of our children will be more likely to vote in favor of our rights,” Pablo said “You know how it is when an anti-gay family has a gay child? Sometimes that makes them change their minds.”
“True,” Priya said. “That should shorten the amount of time before we get our rights. More of us are born every day.”
They walked out onto the fifth-floor balcony with a view overlooking the park across the street. Hundreds of protesters walked about, holding signs urging people to remove Satan’s work from the face of the earth.
“There’s our enemy,” Raven said.
“Yeah,” Priya said. “Ignorance.”