Synthesis

Synthesis, original story from Michele E. Gwynn/ idea from author Brea Behn.

Part I
In 2039, the first green human was born.  It was a little boy, and he died within three days of birth.  After him, scientists tried again and again; ten more green humans who all perished despite the incredible care provided by specialized neonatal nurses.  By the eleventh, they figured it out (thanks to an intern who made an off-the-cuff observation). 
“Maybe the ‘greenies’ just need a little sunshine to thrive.”  She was right.  After that, they were kept in nurseries with skylights so they could have sunshine, and at night, they had special UV lights turned on overhead.  The nurseries became more like greenhouses, and the green babies grew like weeds, literally.
It would help to explain that green humans were a new hybrid created by biological scientists out of desperation for the continued survival of the human race.  Doctors and Botanists had come together to splice common plant genes that direct the process of photosynthesis into the DNA of a human embryo.  The experiments began after Co2 levels in earth’s atmosphere had risen to nearly suffocating levels following the collapse of the United Nations which allowed third world nations and others to pursue industrialization without any environmental regulations.  Pollution clogged the air, and the depletion of fossil fuels by greedy corporations had left our planet hollowed out, deforested, and destroyed as if a plague of locusts had come and devoured everything in their path leaving nothing behind.  
Unprepared, humans were left without a plan B to provide fuel, and people and animals began to perish.  All hell had broken loose and chaos and anarchy reigned.  This process of extinction was further accelerated as poison in the air fell to the ground in torrential rains thanks to radical climate change caused by industry.  The newly poisoned ground killed agricultural fields of wheat, corn, orchards, and farms that grew potatoes, lettuce, and more.  The world’s food supply dwindled fast, and emergency measures went into effect to grow food using hydroponics that used recycled and treated seawater in above-ground greenhouses.  The GMO industry stepped in; they claimed they could fix what was broken, but it soon became clear that it was these very businesses that were responsible for the massive amounts of poison that leached into the water cycle and killed our ability to grow food.  With no one buying their products, they went bankrupt.  It was really too bad this hadn’t happened much sooner.  Maybe then we all wouldn’t be where we are today; in a civil war between the endangered original humans and the greenies.  
I’m a greenie.  My name is Tiger Lily, and I’m twenty-three years old.  I’ve been living in a time of war all my life.  I’m a third generation greenie born of two second generation greenies.  That pretty much means I’m green.  As colors go, it’s a nice shade of green.  My eyes are a lovely swirl of brown, white, and orange, hence the reason for my name, Tiger Lily.  So what does it mean to be a greenie?  Just how are we different from original humans?
Well, for one thing, we breathe perfectly fine in the new earth atmosphere.  Like plants, we breathe in carbon dioxide and we exhale oxygen.  We can handle oxygen, too, but we’re acclimated to Co2.  We also make our food through photosynthesis which means we need at least six hours of sunlight a day.  The sun is the very best source of energy.  Yet again, it’s too bad humans waited so long to tap this source because a lot of needless deaths coulda been prevented.  
We do need water.  Just like a plant, we have to be watered to grow.  Okay, not watered.  We drink water like regular humans do, but water is scarce because it has to be treated to make it safe to ingest and Coca Cola and Pepsi both co-opted the business of treating water.  It’s expensive and not everyone can afford it.  Yea, that means water being a free commodity to all is now just another product produced by greedy corporations.  Greenies being so well-adapted to this new earth makes them employable and treated water is now part of an employee’s payment just like healthcare used to be.  
We can still eat like original humans, but we don’t need to.  It’s more like a luxury activity, and since food is so rare and so expensive, most greenies don’t bother.
But original humans are struggling, those that are still around to struggle.  They have to wear oxygen masks when they come up outside of their atmosphere-controlled dormitories.  All original humans that are left live in segregated dormitories built mostly underground.  They are dying down there, and their desperation drove a wedge between them and us leading to the Green War of 2078.  It’s now 2101 and I have no idea what old earth was ever actually like or how it is to live without war.  
In New World City, formerly known as Washington, DC, we’re surrounded by an army that defends the borders twenty-four hours a day.  Sometimes the borders are breached by the rebels who bomb city buildings so they can raid the hydroponic factories and steal water from Coke or Pepsi.  Other times, they organize and assassinate green leaders.  They used to use guns, but then discovered that some old-time weed killers were poisonous to our kind.  That’s when the war really heated up.
That’s where I came into it.  Trained to translate and interpret electronic messages intercepted from the rebel camps, I discovered one message from someone who calls himself “Stone”.  This ‘Stone’ referred to something called “Synthesis”.  No one at headquarters knows yet what this means, but it’s big.  It has to be because my higher ups are at this very moment in a closed-door meeting discussing it.  I can’t hear them, but I can see the major through the window gesturing wildly with his hands while the general just looks angry.   
“Lily!”  
Damnit.  I hate when my commander sneaks up behind me!
“Sir” Turning around and looking Commander Oakley in the eye.  Never let him see that he rattled me in any way.  “Any more intelligence to report?”  He seems to be saying more with his eyes, like “Well, did you read everyone’s lips while not actually working?”
“Nothing new to report, sir.”  I maintained steady eye contact.  He expects it although the fact that he never wins a stare-off with me really pisses him off.  Good.
“Your shift is up.  Clock out and head home.”  He dismisses me as quickly as he sneaks up on me.  I watch him walking away noting that he moves like someone with a large stick up his butt.  He has an inordinate amount of green pride.  That is, he thinks all greenies are a superior species.  Maybe we are and maybe we’re not, but either way, his attitude stinks.  He looks down on everyone which must be tough to do since he’s only 5’6” tall.  I’ve heard some of the older greenies say he has a Napoleon complex, but I don’t know who this Napoleon was so I can only assume he was a colossal ass.  
I log out of my computer, pick up my bag and head to check out.  As I clock out, I receive my key voucher for water.  I can fill up on my way home by driving through any one of the Pepsi or Coca Cola filling stations.  The sunshine on my skin feels like a warm, wet pool of wonderful as I walk to my vehicle.  I stop for a moment and stare up at the sky noting all the colors of the rainbow and then some.  Greenies can see ultraviolet rays.  There are no words on the books quite yet for the schism of colors beyond the rainbow that humans would understand, but greenies do.  
After a few moments of just soaking in the sun, I hop into my solar-powered hover-car with sun roof, of course.  Who doesn’t like to ‘eat’ while driving, right?  After pressing my thumb into the starter, the car hums and rises three feet off the ground.  I steer the left and right control grips towards the road home.  Traffic isn’t too bad yet, so it looks like it won’t be a long wait at the filling station. Angling into Pepsi-Co, I wait my turn.  Music fills the inside of my car as I toss my head back and absorb the rays.
“Keycard, Miss.”  The young teenage greenie working the line taps on my window.  
Rolling it down, I hand it over.  “Put it in the back, please.”  I reach down to pop the boot of the car.
Thankfully, he doesn’t take too long and loads the three large bottles of water in the boot.  It sure will feel good to bathe and drink up.
Ahead, three greenies are walking toward the station on foot.  What a ghastly shade of green they are!  They look sickly!  As they get closer, I see what appears to be tubes coming out from their noses, across their faces on the left and disappearing behind their backs.  Nasal cannulas.  They’re nasal cannulas.  What the hell?
Just then, the one in the middle throws his long overcoat back and pulls out a large gun.  It has a massive canister attached to the top and as he starts shooting, a fine spray arcs out raining down onto the teenage attendant and two other greenies standing outside of their vehicles.  They begin to gasp and reach for their throats, choking.  They go down.
The other two putrid-green men now have smaller handguns out and are shooting out the windows of the other cars in line.  The man with the big gun sprays through the broken glass.  It’s a slaughter.I try to maneuver my car around the vehicle in front of me that has paused; the driver is frozen in shock and horror as the rebels, for that is surely who they are – rebels in green-face wearing oxygen tubes so they can carry out their massacre – advance on the unarmed green citizens.
I make it around them and begin to drive away when one of the rebels jumps in front of my car and blasts a hole through my windshield.  What do I do?  
“Wait!”  The man with the big gun puts up his hand in a halting gesture to his compatriot.  I turn and our eyes meet.  He gestures for me to get out of the car. 
“No fucking way!” I shout.
“Get – out – of –your – car” he says slowly and deliberately.  His deep voice seems calm, but deadly.
Slowly and with shaking hands, I reach down and hit the door latch button.  It lifts up and I step out.  My legs feel weak, like they’ll give any moment, but I force myself to stand, lifting my chin in defiance.
The man walks to me seeming to grow taller than he already appears.  At about 6’5”, he towers over my meager 5’7” of height.  The sun glints off his dark brown hair revealing strands of deep auburn.  His eyes are blue and intense as he looks me up and down.  His jaw is strong, and cheekbones prominent; what one might call rugged, maybe even handsome if he weren’t covered in gross green paint and pointing a gun filled with deadly chemicals at me.
He reaches out a large hand and lifts a lock of my hair.  
“Red” he says.  “I always liked redheads.”  He walks slowly around and comes back to stand before me.  He has the nerve to smile if I can call it that.  It was more like a slight lift to the right side of lips.  Full lips.  What?  Wait!  So what.  Get it together, Lily.
“She’ll do.”  The other two men come up and grab my arms.
“Hey!  What the hell?  Let me go!”  I begin to fight in earnest, kicking and screaming, but there is no one to help me.  They’ve killed them all.  One of the men swings out and I hear the blue-eyed man yell at him to stop.  I catch a split second of a fist coming at me and then everything goes black.  
Part II
I feel sick.  “Where am I?” My words sound slurred and faint.
Available on Amazon.com“Sssh.  You’re going to be alright.”  A male voice gives assurance.  I slowly open my eyes and look around.  My breathing seems shallow.  I start to panic.
“Take it easy” says the deep voice.  I know that voice.  I turn my head and try to focus on the large blob standing about five feet away.  My eyes adjust and I notice there’s a partition of glass around me.  I’m lying in a hospital bed and as I try to raise my hand to my face, I realize I can’t.  My hands are restrained.
“Just relax.  We’re adjusting the atmosphere inside more to your body.  Take slow breaths.”
I try not to panic and begin focusing on my breathing.  After five breaths, I’m feeling a little better, breathing a bit easier.  A vent overhead is blowing and it feels wonderful; soothing.  Finally, I am breathing normally again.
“Where am I?”  I look and see the man who attacked me and my people at the Pepsi-Co station.  He’s not covered in green paint anymore.  His flesh is white and there’s stubble on his face.  He didn’t have stubble when last I saw him.  Time has passed, but how much?
“How long have I been here?”  I feel anger rising.
“About twelve hours now.  You gave us quite a scare.  I thought maybe Derek hit you too hard.  He won’t be doing that again.”  He stands with his hands behind his back and feet planted apart like a military general.
“Who the hell are you?  Why have you brought me here?  What do you want?”  The questions roll off my tongue faster than my brain can process it all.
“Woah!” he holds up one hand.  “That’s a lot of questions.  One at a time, okay, greenie?”
He paces a few feet away and picks up a folder.  He comes back and pulls up a stool on his side of the glass box.  Crossing his foot over his opposite knee, he opens the folder and lays it on his leg.  He pulls a pen out of his shirt pocket and, poised, looks at me.  
“Let’s start with some basics.  What’s your name, greenie?” 
“Why should I tell you?”  Yanking at the restraints, I glare at this man who has kidnapped me and murdered my people.
He looks unfazed.  “I can keep calling you ‘greenie’ if you like.  Matters not to me.”  He makes a note.
He looks straight at me, his blue eyes like lasers trying to see into my head.
I fall back on my training.  “Tiger Lily, Communications, two, five, seven, one.”  I stare at the ceiling.“Tiger Lily, eh?”  He smiles to himself and makes another note.  
“And what do I call you?  Murderer?”  Anger is rolling off of me in waves now.  My head hurts, I’ve been captured, and my hands are restrained while I’m trapped inside a glass atmosphere box.  I’m obviously in one of the original humans’ underground dormitories.  They are a controlled oxygen-rich atmosphere.  If I managed to get out of the wrist restraints and break out of my box, I’d risk passing out from lack of enough Co2.  I’d need a Co2 respirator just to escape.  Once outside, I’d be okay, but until I found my way out of their maze of tunnels, I’d be in danger.
“Stone.  My name is Stone.”  
I gasp.  It’s HIM.  “Stone?  What kind of name is that?”  I blast him with my anger.  Better that he doesn’t know I know anything about him; not that I know much. 
“What kind of name is Tiger Lily?  You know you’re named after a flower, right?”  He smirks.
“You know you’re named after a brainless rock, right?”  I add sarcastically.
“Redheads.  Love redheads.”  He chuckles, and then makes another note.  “How old are you, Tiger Lily?”
“It’s just Lily.”  I stare at the ceiling again so I won’t have to see his intense eyes looking at me.
“More like ‘Tiger’, if you ask me.  Feisty and fierce like a tiger, too.”
“I don’t know what that is.  Are you insulting me?”
“Insulting?  No.  A tiger is a large jungle cat.  Earth used to have many of them living on the continents of Africa and Asia, and also in zoos and wildlife rescues before climate change killed them.  Beautiful creatures.  No one messed with a tiger.  They were as deadly as they were lovely.”    His face changed from contemplative to vexed in a flash.  “That is, before oligarchs destroyed our world and, of course, before you greenies.”
“What do you want with me, Stone?”  I look at him again.  He stares back and my face heats up.  I can’t look away.
“You’re going to help save mankind, Tiger.”  Closing the folder, he stands up, looking larger than life.
“What?  What are you talking about?”  I begin to feel fear creep over me.
“Synthesis.  That’s what I’m talking about.  The combining of two elements together to create one new element.  I’ve been studying this for years now and we know that the offspring of a human and greenie creates a human that can breathe in any environment whether oxygen-rich or Co2-laden while maintaining human characteristics.  It’s the only way we have forward at this point.”
“What does that mean?  What the hell are you talking about?”  I try to sit up, but can’t manage it with my damn wrists tied down.
“It means, Tiger, …we’re going to make a baby.”  His words are ridiculous, but his eyes are dead serious.
“What!”  Panic grips me as I envision being forced to mate with some original human.  The fear must’ve shown in my eyes.  His face softens a bit.
“Don’t worry.  You won’t be forced to do anything you don’t want to do.  We’re not monsters.”  
“You just murdered about a dozen people.  Forgive me if I don’t trust in your assurances.”  My voice catches and gives away my escalating emotions.
“Your people murder mine every day on this new earth that they breathe.”  Shutters come down over his eyes masking his thoughts.  
“You just said you won’t force me to do anything, but you think I’m going to voluntarily ‘make a baby’ with one of your henchmen?”  My disgust and panic are clear.
He smiles.  “You misunderstand.  You won’t be doing anything with anyone ….except for me.  And yes, it’ll be voluntary.”
“How the hell do you come to that conclusion?  What makes you think I’d mate with you?”
The smile remains as he puts his hands on his hips looking quite confident.  “I’m charming.  No worries, Tiger.  I have every intention of seducing you.  You’ll be begging me to touch you.”
“That will never happen.  Never!”  I spit the words out, heat flushing my face as I stew in my anger.  I have to get out of here.  I have to get away from this man.  He’s dangerous.  Never mind that his voice is soothing while his gaze is exciting.  If he were green, then it might be a different tale, but he’s not.  He’s an original human, and they are not long for this world.  
“Never say never, Tiger.”  He begins to walk to a door that leads out of the room.  
“Stop calling me that!  You said earlier that you ‘knew’ that a human/greenie offspring could live in this world.  How do you even know?”
He turns back, pointing that steady gaze at me.  “Because we’ve already done this once.  It happened accidentally.  One of our people fell in love with a captive.  Stuff happened.  She got pregnant.  We didn’t even know our two species could mix.  The baby looks human, but she can breathe anywhere she happens to be.  That’s when we knew…”  
“If that’s so, then why not just let things happen naturally?  Why not just …?”  
“Because we don’t have the luxury of time.  Because your new government won’t let it happen ‘naturally’.  They’re killing us off.  Soon, there won’t be any original humans left.”  He’s angry.  Somewhere in the middle of his words, he walked back up to the glass and now looks like he might break it down with his bare hands.
I lay back and try to de-escalate his anger.  If he breaks the glass, I’ll suffocate before I can adapt.  
“That’s not true.  We’re not killing your kind.  You’re killing my kind!”   He shakes his head.  “What kind of crap are they telling you up there?  They’ve been slowly exterminating us for the past ten years.  They’ve been starving us, depriving us of water, oxygen, everything we need to survive.  We’ve only made it this far because of some smart folks we have who’ve managed to help us create an environment underground where we can live.  We’ve had to dig new tunnels and hide from your army of green thugs.  But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?  You wouldn’t know about the people down here just trying to get by day to day, breath to next breath.  We do what we have to in order to live.  Your people don’t have to do what they’re doing.  In our small numbers, we’re not a threat.  They could be helping, but instead, they’re killing us off with bunker busting bombs.  That’s why we’re so deep into the ground now.  Starving us didn’t quite do the trick so they sent in their weapons.  Well, honey.  We refuse to die just because you green bastards think you’re better than we are.  We’re going to survive and we’re going to do it by populating this planet with synthesized humans who will eventually outnumber the greenies.  Then your people will see what it feels like to be pushed aside and left for dead.  Oh yes, we’re going to make a baby, you and I.  And what’s more?  You’re going to enjoy the hell out of it!”  Stone turned and stomped off before I could think of anything to say.
It couldn’t be true, could it?  Were her people killing the original humans?  But why?  What for?  Damned if all this arguing hadn’t left me feeling tired.  Must be the after-effects of being punched in the head.  
That thought was my last as my eyes fluttered closed.  I’ll just sleep for now.  Gather my strength.  I have to think of a plan and get out of here before that crazy man tries to seduce me.  Seduce me!  Ha!  As if he could.
Part III
Eleven months have passed since my abduction.  I met Iris, the first original human/greenie hybrid child.  She’s a sweet little thing.  Looks completely human, but her internal organs – namely, her respiratory system – is a real piece of adaptive evolution.  She actually has two sets of lungs.  One that handles oxygen to carbon dioxide, and one that handles Co2 to oxygen.  Both sets are slightly smaller than original human lungs, but have larger individual alveoli – the sacs that fill with air.  Other, more complicated differences are involved at the cellular level where they can differentiate between the switch from oxygen to Co2, kind of like a fish being able to breathe out of water.  It’s amazing.  She can also photosynthesize even though she doesn’t appear ‘green’.  She still eats like a miniature horse, but if push came to shove, she could do without.  She really likes cookies.  
I met a lot of other original humans, too.  They’re pretty nice.  Their underground tunnels are an engineering marvel.  Artificial light has been strung in massive panels over man-made fields of vegetation, some of it food, and some of it various plants and trees to produce oxygen.  They water using underground streams tapped for irrigation.  It’s genius at work - a driving need to survive.  I’ve changed in the past eleven months, too.  I’m eight months pregnant with my first child.  Yea, Stone is more charming than I gave him credit for.  True to his word, he seduced me, but not like some hot, steamy romance novel.  No, sir.  He was just nice.  
He introduced me to the rest of the original humans residing underground.  He showed me how they survive, and taught me all about old earth.  He gave me books and magazines from the time before the Green War.  Old earth was cool! Why in the world did people let it be destroyed?  New York’s Times Square, apple orchards in Washington, Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  All of these things have disappeared either under water or burned down – casualties of climate change and war.
As I got to know about the world of original humans, and realized just what they lost, I could see Stone through new eyes.  He courted me – that’s what he called it.  We went on dates – of a sort.  We watched movies on some ancient relic called a VCR and television.  The Notebook.  Damn, that one made me cry.  We had dinners under the stars – artificial stars, but they were pretty.  We danced in the middle of the underground park filled with tropical trees and flowers.  In three months, we fell in love.  And you know what follows.  That was nice, too.  Really nice!  I admit I enjoyed it - do enjoy it, and as often as I can get him alone, but don’t tell Stone!  It makes his head bigger than it needs to be. 
Greenies and original humans are still having civil war, but it seems to have de-escalated since I came here.  With ‘Evolution’ being the new plan, war seems pointless.  Now, it just rests on time; the time it takes for green humans to be the new species populating earth, rebuilding society, cities, and hopefully not allowing greed to stand in the way of doing the right thing – namely, not further ruining earth.  In time, the environment can come back into balance, but it will take determination and focus on Mother Earth, not some oligarch’s wallet.  
As I look around, Stone is out in the wheat field with Fred and Rick, two original human farmers.  They’re assessing the crop for harvest.  It’ll be a good crop, one that will feed everyone and even have a surplus.  Nothing wrong with that because as soon as the field is harvested, it’ll be rotated, left to breathe a bit, and then replanted for the next round.  
Large fans circulate the air underground.  The breeze lifts my hair causing it to swirl around my face.  It feels good.  I take a deep breath, having become normalized to the heavier oxygenated atmosphere here.  Stone looks up and catches me watching him.  Our eyes meet, and he smiles that slow smile that finagled its way into my heart.  It’s the smile of love, of hope, and of a promising future.
This story is the result of “idea meets imagination gone wild”.  I recently ran a contest for the best original science fiction story ideas and ended up with not one, but two winners.  The deal was for contestants to come up with the idea, and I'd write the story.  Synthesis is the story idea from winner, Brea Behn, of Portage, Wisconsin.  Brea’s idea came from a dream she once had that was so cool, so compelling, she wrote it down in her dream journal.  Just goes to show how awesome dreams can be!  You can learn more about Brea Behn at her website, www.Breasbooks.com.  Her first book, a dystopian YA fiction is due out in May, 2014.  The story from winner number two coming soon…
Synthesis is an original story from Michele Gwynn.  It is protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced or reprinted without express permission from the author.  Synthesis © 2014.