In the near future...
Embryonic DNA modification has became widespread. "Designer" babies are rapidly growing in popularity, and a societal rift is quickly growing between the "designed" and the "naturals". Unlike in the past, "natural" is no longer a buzzword -- it has became a slur; a label that places you in the lower class within society.
Surrounded by this dystopia, a group of scientists at the American DNA Modification Research Agency (ADMRA) discovered the gene behind empathy often experienced between identical twins, between mother and child, and between two lovers. The discovery also yielded the fact that this gene has potential beyond its natural boundaries. Potential that reaches into what was thought as impossible.
The team of scientists, ignoring caution from their peers, and even ignoring the instinct within themselves, caused a series of births with this gene amplified. Its potential fully realized.
This resulted in a group of children deeply linked to one another. Each child is telepathically linked to one other child. This experiment was a resounding success, with one mar; there was an odd number of children born. They had not anticipated the strict pairing. When the last child was born, a boy they named chrmjenkins, the child found no pairing.
After only a few months, it died of what the scientists marked down as "unknown causes", even though each of them, unspoken amongst themselves, knew exactly what caused the infant death.
***
It is now thirteen years since the telepathic children has been born. They lived at the facility, in pairs, isolated from each other and constantly monitored, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Bringing telepathy into the world at large would bring world peace. Empathy increased a hundredfold would cause war and crime to be unconceivable. Intolerable.
This is what the scientists believed. Those who control ADMRA, however, did not share their optimism. They ordered the children isolated and monitored until a time when they reached puberty. When the human condition would be most apparent. When war and murder went from unknown to solutions. Then the children would be placed together in an experiment that would determine the fate of the ADMRA's -- and indeed, humankind's -- future.
When telepathy and sociopathy combine. When empathy and hate combine. When instincts and intellect, shared twofold, combine.
Will the result be peace? Or death?
We shall bear witness.
***
The deadline is [THURSDAY] 9:00 PM EST - [THURSDAY] 6:00 PM PST - [FRIDAY] 1:00 AM GMT.
scary, huh?
