Unnatural
Selection
Victor could see the streetlights from his window, their
yellow glow picking out a white cat that ran out between two houses and quickly
out of sight. He rolled over until his feet hit his carpeted floor and he could
pull out the back pack he’d hidden under his bed. Grabbing his favorite blue
sneakers from the wardrobe he put them on as silently as he could.
With bag in tow, he snuck out of his room into the hallway
outside, listening carefully for any sounds. The house was quiet. Charles’ door
was the second on the right and as he passed it Victor paused. Some nameless
urge forced his hand to turn the knob. He opened the door as quietly as he
could and looked in on his younger brother. He could hear him breathing softly
in his sleep with a blanket laid over his head. Charles was his younger brother
and had been perfect since the day he was born, as perfect as modern genetics
could make a child. He stood at six foot two with a chiseled jaw and a three
digit IQ. All of which explained why he’d become the star of the track team and
student body president while his older brother’s successes on the chess team
had barely drawn their parents’ attention.
Victor couldn’t even blame them for calling the Proctors to
take away a failure like him. After all he could only manage to get in the way
of their perfect son. Victor closed his brother’s door as quietly as he could
and turned around. When he was in the living room, he grabbed a framed picture
off the mantel and put it in his bag. It was the only thing he was taking with
him aside from a change of clothes and some money he’d saved up from working a
job at the mall. Grinding his teeth together, he slowly punched in the alarm
code, each beep shaving off a year off his life and when it finally flashed
from red to green Victor opened the front door and walked out. He picked
Charles’ red mountain bike off the lawn. Standing by the house’s chain link
fence he paused and took one last look at the house he’d grown up in. He turned
his back on it and opened the gate wheeling the bike out into the street.
The roads were usually deserted around midnight so there was
no one around to see the sixteen year old ride his bike all the way to Mountain
View High School where the others were waiting. Victor saw Laurie’s eyes nearly
bulge with terror behind the silver frames of her glasses when he rode up. She
visibly relaxed when she recognized him and standing next to her was Chase, his
freckles invisible in the darkness but Victor knew they were there. The last one
was Roger who shared the same red hair as Laurie, which made sense since they
were brother and sister and who probably had an inhaler somewhere in his
clothes and that was the entire crew. Each one of them had a reason to be
despised by their families and each one of them was in danger of being erased from
existence by the all powerful Black Proctors.
The others had brought their own bikes and carried a bag
with them.
“Is it time to go?” Victor asked.
“Yeah. The people from the shelter said they’d pick us up in
the next town,” Chase said.
“Laurie, you okay?” Victor asked noting the way she was
hugging herself.
“Are we really going to do this?” she asked.
“Well me and Victor are but if you two want to wait for the
Proctors to come get you that’s fine by me,” Chase said.
“No way, we’re going,” Roger said looking at Laurie.
Laurie wouldn’t meet his eyes letting her hair fall in front
of her face. Laurie had never been able to say no to her brother so Victor
wasn’t surprised when she eventually nodded her head and got on her bike. Chase
took off first and one by one they joined him. They had no idea where they’d
end up but Victor knew, they all knew that they could never go home again.
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