No Longer A Mystery

By Laura Montgomery

Science fiction.
Seventeen-year old Molly’s parents have a secret, and it's about her. They've had Molly geneered beautiful and healthy. But, like all parents, hers have gotten one thing wrong, and it isn’t what she thinks it is.
A short story of the twenty-second century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ground Based Press
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386544371

Book preview

NO LONGER A MYSTERY

Molly wore make-up.  It helped with the whole under-age effect she woke up with.  Every morning she carefully applied Cave Black to the invisible sandy-red eyelashes her parents, in a fit of cuteness, had had an artistic geneer provide her.  Molly’s parents were really pleased with her coloring:  vintage redhead.  Molly’s mother used to undo the cornrows in her daughter’s hair when Molly was little, and bury her face in the floating hair, giggling and telling her daughter she was a cloud of beautiful fire. 

Molly refreshed the Cave Black now, in preparation for the evening ahead.

She would have settled for brown eyelashes and eyebrows that showed.  But for all the money her parents had spent on her coloring they had missed something big.  A little genetic testing might have been in order, maybe a peek through the expensive lab equipment, maybe a walk down the double helix that produced a seventeen-year-old girl ready for college who was flat as a board, hipless and looked, on a good day—one with make up—like she was eleven. 

It was parenting by criminal negligence.  Molly’s parents had paid a lot of money for Molly’s good looks, but left out something more important.  Look for diseases, guys, Molly thought, not for whether my freckles are artfully dusted. 

She picked up the next tube and fed microponds into her pores.  The freckles vanished.  Ciao, babies, she muttered.  Her voice didn’t sound eleven.  It was mellow and low and would have worked on a fict star.  They got that right, at least, but she would have traded high and squeaky for a few curves and a couple more inches of height.

Molly, her mother called from downstairs.  Are you ready?

No, she wasn’t ready.  She needed more hormones and a menstrual cycle and a body that didn’t look ridiculous in a serious dress with long sleeves and a skirt below the knees.  Maybe she’d be ready in a few years.

Then the alumni of the college she wanted to attend wouldn’t look past her, assuming she was someone’s little sister.  Maybe in a few years the thought of a reception for the students who had been accepted wouldn’t fill her with dread.  Maybe in a few years she wouldn’t still look eleven, but she had thought that at fifteen and been wrong.  There was no point in waiting.  Eternity lasted forever, especially during adolescence.

She didn’t answer her mother, but that woman had given up long ago on waiting for a response, and was already in the auto.  Are we talking today? her mother inquired when Molly settled in.

Did you get me the appointment? Molly asked back.

Her mother sighed and turned on the radio with a pass of her hand.  She let Molly drive, but kept the parental controls on the radio so they always listened to her mother’s music.  The cops had stopped pulling them over and asking to see Molly’s license.  She was in the system now, but not as a child prodigy.  Just a stunted teen.

We aren’t getting you implants, Molly, her mother said, not having gotten the message to be