To Dream in Color
The smell of
Dinuguan—pork blood stew—meant only one thing in my home: Grandmother had news
she was dreading to tell me. The last time she served it, Uncle had beat up a
Genserv in front of the U.N. building at Kan Loan. And now, the cost of pig
stomach had tripled. Plus, Grandfather avoided looking at me, too. So, I knew
it was something big.
A Genserv11a, the latest improvement of modified servants—half human, half machine—appeared, filling up the screen of our GNT—our Global Network Terminal. Thomas King was his name, the government representative for Calle Quarta, a two-block square of apartments. King’s face appeared soft and slightly radiant, a mesh of skin and circuit, an opaque white. Just like all engineered Genservs, he’d been designed to appear similar to their makers, the Enhanced Ones, for likeability and trustworthiness. A mandatory visit was what the message said.
§
Atop Grandmother’s white-laced tablecloth was mix-matched dinnerware of varied colors, both plastic and ceramic, adorned the table. My eyes drifted to the extra setting on the table. Of course, King got the china setting Grandfather found in the trash outside the Big Houses, the one Grandmother didn’t even use for their anniversaries. I wanted to smash the stupid plate into a thousand pieces.
“What’s going
on?” I asked my grandmother. “Why is King coming here? Did we do something
wrong? Is Uncle okay?” The questions hurled out of me like vomit. My
grandparents ignored me as if doing so brushed away whatever they avoided
telling me. Irritated, I stomped into the bathroom, a four-by-four-foot toilet
and shower blend, which separated the only other room in our one-room,
government-issued flat.
No sooner had I
snapped the makeshift door closed, nearly pulling the rag down, that my
grandmother yanked the curtain back. Without a word, she walked over to me,
pinched my ear between her fingers, and dragged me back into the kitchen.
“Tsk, tsk. Sit
down.”
Of course, I did
what I was told. When Grandmother curled her lips inward, I knew I’d better do
what she said. I clasped my arms together and set my own mouth in disgust.
Grandfather,
sitting at the table in the midst of our tiny apartment, reached over and
patted my hand and said, “Be patient, hijo.”
“I’m not a
child,” I snapped, pulling my hand away.
Sixteen years old
and they still treat me like I’m six. “Just tell me what’s happening.”
“You will know
soon enough.” Grandfather still didn’t meet my eyes. He never looked anyone in
the eyes when he felt bad about something. Instead, he continued to look
through a book of old paper-printed advertisements he’d created, a
cutout-and-pasted collection of all things he dreamed about having one day. The
book was opened to a picture of the first generation of fancy GNTs, outdated
terminals that weren’t even made anymore. He tapped on the picture. “We can
afford these now,” he said.
I just shook my
head, but I didn’t dare say anything more. So, I sat at the table, resigned to
wait for our ‘guest’. Despite my anger, my belly raged for the pork stew.
§
Thomas King
arrived on time. He wore the same black suit he always wore. Unlike on the
screen, however, his lips were pitted and redder in person, a strawberry-wine
color, and his skin shone a milky opalescent, like the vintage plastic dolls
Grandmother collected.
We ate our stew
in silence. I tried to eat as he did: slow, rhythmically, timing each
impeccably proportioned bite. Partly to mock him, his stiff demeanor, his
machine-like qualities. Partly to see if I could be like him—exact, perfect.
But my clumsy hands revealed the inaccuracy of my natural mind, the
imperfection of my kind: too much soup or not enough, the cut of the meat
jagged and sloppy spilling from my mouth.
Grandmother
nudged me with her foot. Then she pinched my thigh and glared at me with her
‘you-better-behave’ expression, so I stopped mimicking King. Grandmother didn’t
eat. Her attention now turned toward King; she eyed him warily. Grandfather
never looked up at all. He simply hunched over his bowl and slurped his soup,
eating it slowly, with bits of pork belly nestled between large lips in an ‘O’.
Finally, I’d had
enough silence and slurping to fill a lifetime. I slammed my spoon down in my
bowl, splattering brown liquid across the table. “Will somebody just tell me!
What is going on here?” I scowled at King.
“Tsk, tsk. Aye
nako.” Grandmother instantly got up from the table, pulled her bleach water
from atop the cabinet and sprayed the watery mess I’d made. She squinted at the
droplets of blood stew dotted on the table. “Wasting food. No, not good.”
My grandparents
were old world. No enhancements. No modifications. For them, our one-room flat
in the city was acceptable, even though it was too small for three of us,
suffocating at times. No privacy. No space. We owned a table and four wooden
chairs, three single-sleeper mats that lined the floor, one tattered green
sofa, and nothing else. Adorning the walls, on the other hand, were
Grandmother’s dolls and family pictures and paintings of the Blessed Mother,
and of course, the single government assigned GNT as required by law. Rosaries
and crosses filled any white space left.
Grandmother, too,
adhered to Papal law—natural born was God’s way, she always reminded me. The
only way. To defile nature, to modify our genes into perfection, to augment our
skin, our brain, our cells—to become an Enhanced One—was the way of the demons.
The pope had declared any unnatural changes officially against the Catholic
Church even before I was born. Besides, enhancement modifications cost a lot of
money. I think Grandfather was glad my grandmother held to this belief. One
less bill to pay. And if either of them had chosen to be modified, they would
have had to indenture me for five years with some company, just to pay off the
lowest level of enhancements. So, like them, I grew up ‘a natural’, sequestered
and separated, educated in dilapidated schools. And like all naturals, we were
no better than a Genserv, just uglier and more stupid. Sitting there, I thought
back to what our school counselor told each of us before we broke for summer.
“You have no classifiable skills, no way to compete with Genservs, let alone
the Enhanced Ones. You all are obsolete, the last embers of a dying race.”
I’d seen an
Enhanced One once. Grandfather and I were cleaning one of the Big Houses. A
rare assignment for natural borns’, an assignment issued to us because the
Genserv caring for the home malfunctioned. The home was expansive, almost as
big as Calle Quarta, or it seemed that way to my eleven-year-old mind. There
was a large terminal so cleanly built into the wall that it was hard to know
where the wall ended and the terminal began. And it hung over a large
fireplace, something exclusive to Enhanced Ones. Next to the fireplace sat a
girl who looked about my age then. She sat on a plush rug. She glimmered in the
light, but not like the Genservs, who were polluted by machine glow or
circuitry veins. Her skin glowed like an opalescent pearl with various subtle
tones of pinks and browns and yellows, varied colors barely noticeable to the
naked eye. She had not a blemish in sight. She was beautiful. Her hair shone
bright like the sun, dangling gently into unspoiled ringlets. She greeted the
GNT like it was a person. “Hello, Margarito. How are you this morning?” the
little girl said as she twirled her hair between her fingers.
The most
beautiful woman I had ever seen appeared on the screen, her smile infectious,
and her eyes a radiant violet. “Hello, Nela,” she said, “I’m doing well. Thank
you for asking. How may I serve you today?” The girl rattled off her breakfast
order.
I didn’t linger
for too long. Any behavior considered too bold for a natural born would not end
well. Besides, I had heard that an Enhanced One could rip your soul from your
body if you stared too long. A neighbor once told me that that is how they
lived forever.
Grandmother and
Grandfather continued to ignore me, and Thomas King just sat there, eating his
soup.
“Grandmother, are
you really going to make me wait? Is Uncle okay? Did he protest again? Tell me
something. Anything. Grandfather?”
Grandfather
stopped a spoonful of soup midway to his mouth, but just for an instant, then
continued with his slurping. “So many words, Truair, but no thinking. No
patience.”
Grandmother
tapped her temple with two fingers. “Now eat. Finish your stew. Very expen….”
She stopped and looked at our guest.
Thomas King only
sat smiling. Which infuriated me even more. Why did he deserve blood stew?
Didn’t he know how many hours we worked for the little bit of meat we had? Did
he care? Grandfather brought me back to the moment.
“We’re moving,”
he blurted out. I looked over at him, but he didn’t look at me; he just
continued to eat his food in the same manner, slurping meat down like worms.
“What?! Where?”
Where could we
possibly move this time? We’d already been downgraded to a one-room flat.
Thanks to a mandatory relocation in order to make room for the growing servant
population of Genservs. It was only fair that city workers shared the space
with the Genservs, in the hope for greater community and equality. At least
that was what had been told to us. But I saw ‘The Natural Born Conundrum’ vids
shown on the GNT, the way our own kind—our natural born teachers—spoke to us,
the way my ‘no classifiable skills’ status left only the most objectionable
jobs. We were nothing more than a nuisance, no longer needed.
“Does it matter?”
Grandmother’s voice was different now, no longer annoyed, but defeated.
“Yes, it
matters,” I said, “we matter.”
“Mars,”
Grandfather said. He finished his soup, got up from the table, and placed the bowl
in the sink, still never once meeting my gaze.
§
“Hello, citizens,
my name is Thomas King.” He smiled wide, showing large white teeth. He stood in
front of our GNT. “I am pleased to make you an offer on behalf of the Council.”
He bowed slightly
and waited for a few seconds before he continued. We sat on our sofa, packed
together like sardines, and listened to Thomas Kings’ canned speech.
“One free parcel
of land of your choosing. A limited time offer. Some restrictions apply. Please
read your ‘Welcome to Mars’ information for rules and regulations.”
Thomas King
reached over and extended a brochure to Grandmother. I slapped it away from
her.
“We’re not
leaving,” I said.
“I do not
understand,” Thomas King said. Then he began his same spiel again. “I am pleased
to offer you on behalf—”
“We have chosen,”
Grandfather said to Thomas King. He got up from the sofa, walked a few steps to
the GNT, and turned it on. Thomas King turned toward him. Grandfather selected
a map on the screen that was filed in his personal folder. He pointed to a
small parcel of land highlighted in orange. It was inside one of the many,
newly built track domes that lined the first colony sector of Mars.
“You’re taking
their offer?!” I jumped up from the couch and looked back and forth at my
grandparents. “How could you? Why do think they want us for these first
colonization trials? They’re getting rid of us. Don’t you see that?”
“Of course not.”
Grandfather was looking at me now. His eyes bore into mine like lasers, as if
he were trying to make me understand something, something that couldn’t be said
in front of Thomas King. In front of someone who worked for the government.
Ignoring Thomas
King, my back to him, I tried to make my grandparents understand exactly what
was happening. “We’re guinea pigs at best. But you know as well as I do that
they are just sending us— their undesirables—away. Depopulate the Earth. Get
rid of us. Two burdens with one stone. Don’t you see?”
“Enough.”
Grandfather raised his hand.
I looked over at
Grandmother. She agreed with me. I knew she did.
But it was her
turn to cast her eyes downward.
“Excellent,”
Thomas King said. He’d stood there stoically as we argued, no doubt recording
everything. “Your transportation arrangements have been made. A car will arrive
first thing in the morning to take you to the shuttles. Good day, citizens.”
Thomas King,
wide-mouthed, nodded his head, turned on his heel and left.
§
In the late hours
of the night, the flat was dark, except for the light flickering from the GNT.
Grandfather stayed up late, flipping through the Mars catalog, which showed
four flat designs. The only ones we were allowed to choose from. I saw that
spark in his eyes, the one he always got when he had some freedom to create a
little something of his own. Like his stupid book. The sight of him dreaming
like a child filled with hope made my heart ache. The light from the GNT made
his wrinkles fold deeper, rippling into more folds as the wrinkles hung from
his face. My grandparents were getting old. They were old. We couldn’t even see
the stars from our cramped home, from anywhere in Calle Quarta. I got up from
my mat and walked over to Grandfather.
“Aye, Truair,
you’re awake. Come here, hijo. Look! We get to pick our own wall colors.”
“I want to stay
with Uncle,” I said. The last echo of my protest. “For what?” Grandfather spat.
“To fight the inevitable? To live out
your life here on
Earth as nothing more than a mere whisper in the ear of a giant? To die here an
undesirable?” He sighed, then his voice softened. “At least, hijo, on Mars we
have a chance for hope, to build something, something to be proud of! And to be
out from under their foot!” Grandfather stomped his own foot for emphasis.
I knew he was
right. I didn’t want him to be right. But I knew he was. I sat down next to
Grandfather and looked at the flat designs.
“I get my own
room?”
“Yes, hijo. Your
very own room.” Grandfather put his arm around
me.
“Okay,” I said.
He squeezed my
shoulder. “OK, then,” he said. “What color do you want your room?”
I flipped through
the colors on the GNT.