Multiversal Yarns

I wanted to challenge myself to write a 3000+ word short story with absolutely no dialog, purely narrative driven.  Here is the result.  Hope you enjoy, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Mental Prototype 

            In the late 20th century, we mapped the human genome it was a fantastic achievement. Who could have guessed what that would lead to? In the early 21st century in-utero genetic testing for defects and genetic diseases was the norm. There was however, a byproduct to this altruistic prevention of crippling disorders, there were other tools available in the human genome; This gave way to the so called “designer babies”.

It started with simple things like choosing your child’s eye colour, but it wasn’t long before someone found the genetic markers for metabolism and started to tweak resting musculature and body fat content. The paradigm shift however came when Dr. Arturo Blain found a way to alter the immune system’s response to wounds, diseases and even the effects of aging.

Only for the elite at first, the process became cheaper and cheaper until every new child born on earth had a nearly invincible immune system; Whole limbs could be re-grown and life expectancy extended to 200 years. 200 years was a hard line however, worried about overpopulation Dr. Blain embedded an expiry date so that humans still had a lifecycle.

Even with that deadline in place the world’s population soared to dangerous highs. Crime and violence dropped dramatically after people realized how long a life sentence would actually be. Strict global birth controls had to be put in place restricting families to only one child; some families don’t even qualify for that.

Sven Blain is the son of Dr. Arturo Blain. Being the archetype of the modern field of genetics, Arturo had affected a few un-authorized tweaks to Sven’s DNA. Sven was 6’5” tall, 250 lbs and absolutely lean. His face was chiselled marble, like looking at a piece of art. His mind was truly intimidating; he had Nikola Tesla’s ability to prototype designs and plan strategies without having to build them. His intellect did have a draw back however, he always felt as though he didn’t have any peers and wasn’t afraid to let people know that.

200 years into his life he realized yet another tweak that his now long-dead father had made, or rather not made. The expiry date gene was not present in him, he could conceivable live forever.

In his 367th year on this earth Sven met a woman with a mind sharp enough to keep up with him and offer him interesting conversation. Sven and Tabia wasted no time getting married and had a beautiful son to share their love. But then something happened, when their son James was only four years old, Tabia became pregnant once again. Sven was adept at eluding the suspicions of authority figures considering his age alone was illegal.

Age could be hidden in documentation, as Sven’s genetics gave him the appearance of a much younger man. It would be much more difficult to walk down the road with his family of four. That would raise a flag or two. Pregnancy out of wedlock was heavily discouraged as many women would then want to have a second child once they were married, so they couldn’t just pretend to be a single father and a pregnant woman. As it was, Tabia’s DNA signature was listed in her file as already having a child; authorities would be alerted the moment she showed up at the hospital for any pre-natal care. The birth of their second child therefore could not happen in a modern hospital.

They learned from James’ birth that Sven’s unique DNA had some hereditary effects, all of the nursing staff said he was the strongest boy they have ever seen. He seemed to recover so well from the shock of birth. Genetic manipulation over the years caused births to be quite a bit more complicated. By the time a baby was full term they were now larger, stronger and smarter. This added challenges to the birthing process.

The only way to avoid suspicion would be to escape the more developed city and abscond to the quiet countryside. There was issues with this plan as well, increased longevity had scaled up the population so much that the cities had swelled. Open swathes of unrestricted countryside were a thing of the past. All food was grown in massive compounds known as food towers.

They had the footprint of a farmer’s field but made better use of the space. Almost 100 floors high they managed to stack farm field upon farm field and grew a different product on each level. Water from the top floor would trickle down to share nutrients across the whole building, the water would then be pumped back to the top and start its journey once again, preventing most of the water waste. Sunlight was banked in using reflective mirrors like the solar farms of the early 21st century. These fully automated buildings could be installed on the outskirts of any major city to cut out the need for preservatives, as they don’t have to ship the food from half way around the world.

The rising population initially caused a panic for food but these towers solved the problem of food production and distribution in even the most inhospitable of places. With healthy sources of quality food, every civilization thrived and humanity spread to fill in most of the open space on the globe.

A major asset that Sven Blain had in his favor was extensive wealth. With his sharp mind and 372 years of life he had amassed quite a fortune. With his need for secrecy, his name wasn’t well known; in fact he had to actively monitor his net worth so as not to make any “worlds richest men” lists.

Sven took the longest time he had ever spent to prototype a single initiative, 7 minutes and 32 seconds. In that time his amazing mind ran through every possible outcome and came up with the best course of action he could conceive. Normally very private, he hired two aids, one for his wife and one for his son James. Never being one to trust strangers, Sven trusted the one thing he knew he could rely on, greed. He found capable people that were in need of money and offered them enough money to be set up for generations in order to buy not only their services but also their silence.

Peter was a skilled and successful stockbroker who had made a couple of wrong moves and lost everything he had worked for. He quickly accepted the offer considering how much he would be paid over such a short period of time. There was no question about what to do. He would be assigned to the care and transport of Tabia, his mission was to get her to the rendezvous point at the required time.

The care for James fell to an experienced mother, Grehta’s own son had already left the house and she found herself divorced. With no employment experience she was looking to escape her dependency on her ex-husband’s money. She wanted to have a turn as the parent who could buy big-ticket items. Help pay for school, buy a home.

Tabia wasn’t even two months pregnant when they had a family meeting and discussed the plan. At 4 years old, Sven’s intellect was evident in James’ ability to converse in an adult discussion. Sven laid out what they would each need to do, and sent them each an encrypted message that would unlock when they were standing in a specific GPS location. They shared a long hug and parted ways as a family, hoping to reconnect once the ordeal of transport was over.

The aids had already been briefed and handed encrypted instructions of their own. Peter was going to pose as Tabia’s husband, going on a couple’s vacation on the coast. Grehta would act as James’s mother, travelling to see family. This freed up Sven to tackle the complex job of liquidating his empire and solving the problem of their new child’s birth and where they will live for the next 18 years. Once both children are old enough to seem like adults, documentation can be forged and all four can return to civilization keeping their familial connection a secret.

He hired out a team of metalworkers and skilled tradesmen to build projects he had prototyped to exacting detail in his mind. Never giving one company a complete set of plans for anything, he had sections build in different countries. Time however was the more pressing factor. There was much to do and little time before his wife would need more intensive medical care.

Detective Wade Monroe received an anonymous tip that there was a rich family trying to escape across the country to have a second child. Violent crimes were essentially a thing of the past so the job of the police force was more to enforce regulations than apprehend criminals.

Every tip was taken seriously as civilians formed a strong part of the intelligence gathering network. The population had learned to be very compliant with the wishes of authorities. The government provided a blissful life provided you adhere to the rules. The biggest clue in the tip was that the family was wealthy. That kind of money being thrown around would surely show up on the police economic monitoring system. Sure enough he saw the personal accounts of two people receive vast one time payments totaling more money than they had made in their life up to that point. His suspicions were peaked immediately.

He pulled up the tracking system built into their personal electronics and quickly found Peter Thomas to be traveling northwest on a high-speed Mag-Lev train. The second suspect, Grehta Forn was headed in the same basic direction so he coordinated with local authorities at the next stop for each of the trains. Images of Peter and Grehta were forwarded along with the signature of their electronics so the authorities could zero in on them.

Wade then looked back at the transactions to find the source of the money. Each payment came from a company that opened and closed within days of the transactions. Following the money far enough he came to a small conundrum. Peter’s payment followed a path that led to a man named Sven Peters, while Grehta’s payment led to a Sven Grehta. A quick search came up with several hundred thousand people named Sven. Narrowing it down to the city of origin for both train’s cut that number into the ten’s of thousands. Adding up both payments and assuming much more wealth he narrowed his search to the Sven’s with sizeable fortunes. He came up with twelve men.

He projected the faces of the 12 men in question on the large wall display and instantly his eyes were drawn to one man. His chiseled features, height and musculature separated him from the other men. Intrigued he pulled up the file on Sven Blain, said to be the grandson of Arturo Blain, a definitive household name. There was however very little information on his father, apparently also named Sven, and nothing in the file at all about his mother. Finding this to be very peculiar indeed, with a few buttons he set up a countrywide watch for Sven Blain and forwarded his picture and file for arrest to every authority he could think of. Satisfied that his police resources had been effectively brought to bear, he walked away from his screens to get a snack.

Sven was still in the city, finishing work with a local company, he was having lunch on the patio of a local restaurant. I police officer was frequenting a food cart outside the patio and was immediately drawn to Sven. With genetic modifications, most people looked fairly similar, there were even identical twins born to different families at different times as you could implant whole, pre-made genetic packages. Sven’s size stood out but there were other tall people and other muscular people; it was his face, an artists expression of perfect symmetry that caught the eye of men and women alike. There was am immediate familiarity to the face, like he had recently looked at a picture of him. Wait! He had! Flipping through an augmented reality display of his morning briefing he found that same face, listed as Sven Blain with directions to arrest on sight.

Forgoing his lunch the officer leaped over the short patio wall and confronted Sven mid-bite. After a brief conversation it was clear that the officer wanted to take Sven in, since that wasn’t an option for Sven he evaluated what he options actually were. His analytical mind worked through every eventuality. He could distract the cop by throwing hot tea at him but he didn’t want scold a man for doing his job. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be arrested.

Decisions made, he stood up, at full height he looked down at the officer. With surprising speed he went for the officer’s radio, disabling it with one hand, while his other hand blocked the easily officer’s predicted reactions. Next Sven disabled the officer’s weapons; his meager attempt to defend himself was swatted away like a beach ball at a festival. The officer’s face showed the strain and panic of the situation, he looked at the disturbing calm of Sven’s face, which was even more terrifying. No matter what he did it seemed like Sven could counteract it, like he already knew it was coming. The man could easily kill or severely harm him if he wanted to but for the moment he seemed to be satisfied with disarming him.

Satisfied that the officer was sufficiently disarmed and no longer a threat, Sven apologized for the inconvenience and spun the officer around, when he recovered and turned back Sven was nowhere to be found.

Now aware that authorities were on to him, Sven had to modify his tactics and plan. He used a collection of disguises and fake names to elute authorities for months. He now found himself on the coast, having not seen or heard from his family for several months. The various companies that manufactured components for him had delivered them to a darkened warehouse in a broken district of waterfront. He assembled the device himself and deployed it. The task now was to make sure the authorities would never again look for him.

With the emotion control of a Zen Master he walked into a local police branch and let the scanners cue on his face. After his last police interaction every officer in the building came forward, ready for anything; or so they though.

He grinned devilishly and held up a sign that read: Catch me if you can. Throwing the sign at the crowd he sprinted out of the building. Twenty police officers tried to leave two doors at the same time and the crowd got stuck. This gave Sven a lead that allowed his sleek genetics to make some real distance. He wanted to evade them but forced himself to slow down and remain visible, as he didn’t want the police to completely lose him. Drones were launched to track him, and every officer in the city was put on alert and scrambled either to the area or to block every escape route from that part of town.

Sven’s ability to predict the police response and plot strategies to evade them made the pursuit almost comical to him. Here and there he would let a drone see his face, or tap an officer on the shoulder to get his attention and continue to escape, leading them inexorably to the Stenson Bridge, high over the river Kwat.

As the lead on the case, Detective Wade Monroe was alerted about Sven’s re-appearance and was coordinating the hunt from his desk half a country away. Plotting the sightings he saw a path leading to the Stenson Bridge and planned a trap. Organizing local authorities to allow Sven to get on the bridge they barricaded the far side. Once Sven was on the bridge they could seal him in and both side would simply drive together and close the trap.

With all his leading them on, Sven was almost disappointed to see the entrance to the massive Stenson Bridge was unguarded. He thought he had given the police every chance and he needed them to know where he was. Casually he strolled down the center of the road and onto the bridge. Taking a peaceful stroll down the northbound lane of the Stenson Bridge he looked over the edge to the perilous drop to the waters of the river Kwat below.

Reaching the center of the bridge he could see the far side now over the hump. He was relieved to see a massive police presence, he turned and looked where he had come from and saw that both sides were now swarmed with a police. He allowed himself a short grin and waited for both sets of police to close in on him. When they were close enough to see him he started to act erratic and panicked, like a cornered wild animal.

No officer wanted to approach him, having seen CCTV video of his last interaction with the law. They formed a circle ten meters away from him and one officer threw a small puck on the ground in the center. A hologram appeared of Detective Wade Monroe, taking stock of his environment he tried to talk Sven down and offered that no harm would come to him. With a look of sheer panic Sven approached the railing at the side of the bridge and climbed up to stand on the lip. Time passed with a stillness that seemed to slow down every action and make it more dramatic. The officers felt their heart rate slow down then suddenly quicken as the fugitive shouted that they will never take him alive and leapt from the lip.

The drop to the water was unfathomable. The surface tension alone of the water from that height was similar to concrete, not to mention the collection of large rocks that the river Kwat was famous for. The moment his feet left the edge, every officer knew Sven’s life was over. Genetic healing factors could regrow a broken limb and repair spinal damage but when you die, you die. There is no coming back from that.

They rushed to the edge to look down and watched as his body hit the water and shortly thereafter resurfaced to wash down stream. Divers were scrambled immediately to recover the body but the river Kwat quickly became a delta that emptied the body into a quick moving ocean current. Recovery was not necessary however as Sven’s fate was clear. Detective Wade Monroe was saddened by this turn of events, especially since his initial violation was simply a second child. He was a man of means, he must not have known that all he had to do was purchase a “birth token” from an eligible family and he could have had a second child while the other family became rich but childless. People who decided they didn’t want children sold these tokens for a lot of money but certainly nothing Sven Blain couldn’t afford. It is a shame really.

Eighteen years later Sven, Tabia, James and their daughter Estella resurfaced. Sven and Tabia are now known as Glen and Nadia Rayne. They had a successful business venture with their invention of undersea housing as an escape from the overpopulated cities. Their prototype undersea city was complete with residences, recreation places, fitness facilities and a fully functional, automated hospital and birth facility. Their two top executives were Taylor James and Charlotte Estella. The future looked bright.