Written By: CJ Erick

Reginah stared at the crystal vial her friend Twylea had laid on her desk. A gentle light bloomed within the desk’s frosty surface, illuminating the liquid sealed in the vial in shades of lavender.

“Go on,” she prompted. Twylea could be annoyingly slow in disclosing useful context.

Reginah’s friend, like all Socials, was divine-like in beauty, carved from alabaster and gold. Every pose, tiniest movement, or inflection in her voice was precisely tuned to thrill and disarm the observer. Even knowing this, Reginah often fell under her friend’s spell. And today Twylea bore a gift.

“Imagine if you will,” Twylea said, in the purr of a femme fatale, “a world where everyone could be a Two-Percenter.”

Twylea was also intentionally vague, which she knew was frustrating for Rationals like Reginah. And she knew Reginah hated the commoners’ label for her kind. It demeaned the Gifted’s genetic superiority.

“That’s been studied by hundreds of researchers,” Reginah said. “The physiological and genetic inhibitions for those in the general population have never been successfully overcome. At least ten million commoners have died or been disfigured attempting it.” She purposefully ignored the pretty ornament. “The council sponsors continue the research, but the consensus is it will never be done. Discussing it further is pointless fantasy.”

Even for a “Two-Percenter,” a genetically enhanced humanoid, Twylea was a stunning wonder, with enhancements focused on outward beauty, voice, posture, emotional expression. The perfect host, actor, debate panelist, politician. Inches taller than Reginah at nearly two full meters, body fit and toned with little or no work and built along Vitruvian mathematical proportions; flawless skin and golden hair framing her perfect heart-shaped face; eyes the color of the vial’s lavender liquid, the color of wisdom, royalty, and first love; lips and cheeks and ears mathematically perfect; chameleon skin tone adapting to ambient light, mood, and purpose. Cleopatra or Helen or Aphrodite would pale in comparison.

Twylea’s pianist’s fingers tipped across the desk, and the inner light from the desk’s surface sparkled from her golden nails. Her fingers stopped inches away and retreated. “Humor me for a minute.” Reginah found she could do nothing else. “How many of us are there?”

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