Connection Part I: Perfectible Animals, #2

By Thomas Norwood

Shy and Harvey are twin brothers, separated from birth. Shy was genetically modified as part of the Homo novus project — a trial conducted by a secret organization to make human-kind friendlier and more cooperative.

Years later, at the age of twenty-one, Shy and Harvey are reunited. But by then they are completely different.

Shy is part of a group of hackers responsible for the creation of Youtopia -- an online virtual reality world where everything is free and people work together to create a harmonious society.

Harvey works for The Corp, one of the largest corporations in the world, responsible for taking over almost every country and determined to see Youtopia, a threat to their profitability, completely wiped out.

Can the brothers work together to create a free and prosperous society for everyone, or are humans, even brothers, doomed to fight one another to the bitter end?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Norwood
• Release date: Nov 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498958165

Book preview

One

Sarah Monaghan had been working for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) for the last twenty-five years. Once upon a time, as the name suggested, it used to be a research body, conducting studies into anything which might better the future of the Australian population, and humanity in general, but in the time she’d been working there it had become more and more an instrument of profit. For Sarah, this represented a downward slide into barbarism, a path the world seemed determined to go down—as if someone had reversed time. But she was incapable of doing anything about it except complain, which she did to just about anyone who’d listen, including the old lady in the seat next to her of flight 529 to Guatemala.

On the other side of Sarah sat Shy, her adopted son of twenty-one years. He was asleep, as the old lady was pretending to be, and out the window of the plane Sarah saw below them the wide expanse of Lake Peten Itza in the highlands of Guatemala—a dull turquoise surrounded by roiling green rainforest. Surrounding the lake like a rash was the city of Santa Elena, its tentacles spreading far and wide into the surrounding forest.

Despite the huge population culls in the last thirty years from both natural and man-made disasters, humans insisted on continuing to procreate at ever greater rates, especially in rural areas of countries like Guatemala, which due to its isolation and relative poverty had not been as afflicted by the civil wars and corporate takeovers as the wealthier nations. No point in taking over villages of subsistence farmers, the big corps seemed to think, unless these countries had resources, of course, in which case the corps didn’t so much take the countries over as relocate their populations entirely—relocate being a nice way of saying get the hell out of here.

"Damas y caballeros, por favor aseguren sus cinturones y regresen sus asientos a sus posiciones." Sarah fastened her seatbelt as the announcement was repeated in English.

Then Sarah heard the undercarriage of the plane groaning, a sound that always freaked her out. Despite the fact there hadn’t been a plane crash in thirty years, her body still told her that being ten thousand meters above the earth in a plastic bottle powered by hydrogen and oxygen was not natural.

Are you okay? Shy smiled as he woke up.

Yeah, fine, she said.

You’re freaking out!

I am not. She gripped the handles of her seat tighter and tried to keep her face in order.

Repairs were going on at the Mundo Maya International Airport and they had to disembark directly into the hot, humid Guatemalan air and make their way down a flimsy staircase to the tarmac, where an old, petrol-powered bus picked them up. Sarah wondered if the region had their own oil well out there, as petrol was no longer cheap.

With relief Sarah and Shy arrived inside the air-conditioned terminal.

Purpose of your trip? a customs official asked them in English, a young boy who seemed to take his green uniform very seriously.

Medical research, Sarah said.

The boy looked at her, scowled, looked at their digital images on his screen, and then ushered them through.

Good thing we got those satellite modems, Shy said. I’m already getting slow speeds here. Not even 100Mbps.

Shy was fascinated with technology, and spent almost his entire life logged into the virtual world known as v-space. He lived mainly in a place called Youtopia, a virtual world created by Homo novus—a sub-species of genetically modified humans of whom Shy was a member.

Sarah was glad Shy had Youtopia at least. She worried about him constantly, because he seemed to struggle with an almost debilitating sensitivity to the real world that had kept him living at home with her despite the fact that most kids his age had already moved out, and had prevented him from ever getting a job. Ever since his father had died, eight years ago now, it seemed to have worsened.

Sarah knew the cause of his over-sensitivity were his genetic modifications and sometimes she wondered at their usefulness. Sure, he was very loving, very caring, very generous and very cooperative, like all Homo novus, but if he could never integrate with the rest of the world, then what was the point? Still, she loved him like crazy, and devoted herself to his well-being. Probably almost too much. Maybe if she left him alone, then he would toughen up a little. But she already saw him struggling with severe depression at times, and the last thing she wanted was to lose him.

The whole airport smelled of a mixture of car fumes, humidity, fried food and drainage, and Sarah activated her favorite smell: natural mountain stream.

To protect against possible muggings and killings, Sarah had arranged a chaperone to meet them at the airport, and before them on the concourse, just after they’d rescued their bags from the carousel, stood a smiling Guatemalan man with a sign that had her name on it.

Sarah held out her hand. Carlos, I’m Sarah, nice to meet you.

Carlos shook her hand enthusiastically.

And you must be Shy? Carlos held out his hand for him as well, which Shy shook.

Carlos’s accent was a little strange. Sarah wondered if it was simply an out-of-date program or if he had learnt English the slow and natural way—with imperfect results.

Sarah had secretly hoped that Carlos would be a dark, handsome Bruno Regoletta type, so she was disappointed to find him short and balding. Never mind. She wiped her disappointment away with a single thought. She needed to concentrate on her work anyway.

As they walked through the terminal, Sarah was surprised at how short even young people there were. Back home, nobody born in the last thirty years was under a hundred and seventy centimeters thanks to genetic enhancements.

Carlos loaded them into an armored vehicle and drove them through streets crowded with people, rubbish, cars and donkeys. They reached the edge of the lake that Sarah had seen from the plane. From there they crossed a long causeway and went through guarded gates to a small island, which was entirely taken up by the town of Flores. Bumping over cobble-stones in the narrow streets, waiting as pedestrians moved languidly aside for them, they eventually pulled up at their hotel—a large, Spanish colonial mansion overlooking the water.

Sarah and Shy went inside and were greeted by young women in blue suits and white hats. Sarah noticed one of them smiling at Shy with bright eyes between jet black hair, and she thought how nice it would be if her son finally found himself a girlfriend.

After Sarah had left her bags in her room and freshened up, she met Carlos outside. He drove her back across the causeway and out through the shanty towns surrounding the lake. People stared at them as they went past. Sarah noticed a few of them had weapons. She wondered where they had gotten the money for weapons, considering they looked like they hardly had enough to eat, but she imagined, as back in the de-reg zones outside Melbourne, that the