The Last Red

Chapter 4: Department

3 days left.

It's the first thought that runs through my mind as I'm woken up by Omnia.

"Good morning, Kayla," the screen lights up. "It is day 7.296. How may I be of assistance?"

"Morning, Om." I repeat my morning routine in silence.

Clean hands. Insert contacts. 

"The capsule will be dispatched to ground level in one minute."

I place a shoulder-length wig on my shaved scalp and close the safety deposit box with now an almost empty bottle of tanning lotion. I need to get my mineral oils from the Cosmetics Dpt today after work, because my tan needs to be renewed every other day.

My pod sets into the open space and before I know it, I reach ground level.

"Good morning, Kayla," Kevin smiles the moment we leave our capsules.

"Someone's feelin' good today," I lift a curious eyebrow and we head straight to work. "Spill the juice."

"I got laid last night," he says as the mass pushes us toward our IT Genetics department.

I make an impressed grimace. "That engineering girl?" He's been drooling all over her for years. "Where?!"

"The showers," he shrugs as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Yeah, I guess there's not many options. Pods are too small for such endeavours," I tease as we approach a big grey door marked IT Genetics.

"Well, there are other options. If you don't mind being filmed," he chuckles, then we scan our wrists to enter. The entire block's camera-monitored, besides the showers and our pods.

"Morning!" Korina yells from her cubicle the moment we step in. We share our office with 2 other people - Korina and Kyle. "I'm so glad you're here," she nervously runs fingers through her straightened long hair.

"Why?" I frown.

"Oh, 'cause s**t just went down and we gotta fix it," Kyle cuts in, leaning onto my desk - the first on the left. 

"Fill us in."

"Ahh, there's the boss we love," he says with no enthusiasm, then shoots up a hologram projection in the middle of the room. 

Kyle's the newest addition to our team and he's not much of a hard worker. 

"We got negative feedback from the Head Office," Korina walks to the middle of the room. "Remember that project we worked on ten months ago?" she rearranges the projection to show the entire DNA structure in a simulation we had carried out. 

"We did an alteration that would hypothetically change a caucasian embryo's eye color from a predetermined 'Golden Azzuro' shade to 'Midnight Sun'," she quickly explains. 

"We modified the DNA in 16 different genes, including ECA2 and HERC2," she gestures at the main two genes responsible for the color of people's eyes.

"Don't remember?" Kyle teases. "It took us 8 days to create that exact formula."

"Chill, Kyle," Korina rolls her eyes. "He's super annoyed with the Head Office," she slants her lips looking at me. 

"Of course I am!" Kyle insists. "They're wrong."

"The Head Office's never wrong," I walk closer to the hologram, looking at the DNA alteration we performed in the digital embryo sample to obtain the shade requested by the Head Office.

Every time we finish a project, we submit it to them for feedback. This time, they say we failed to obtain the correct formula.

"What did they say we'd get?" I ask.

"They claim our formula would result in the sample ending up with 'Dark Ocean' shade instead," Kyle crosses his arms.

"What's our deadline for submitting the corrected formula?"

"Ten days," he scoffs. "If we didn't do any alterations, the embryo'd end up with 'Golden Azzuro' eyeshade. We changed it to 'Midnight Sun'. How the hell did they reach the 'Dark Ocean' shade?" he shakes his head going through our eye color catalogs. "Doesn't even make sense."

I narrow my eyes, brooding at the ECA2 gene. "Apparently, our hypotheses were wrong."

"Or they're wrong," Kyle mumbles. "I mean, it's possible," he looks at Korina who nods. 

"Yeah, it's not like they can prove it."

I exhale, a little irritated. "Slandering them won't get us any closer to fixing our mistake," I give them a cross-eyed stare. "You both know the Head Office's always right. They already have the correct formula and now we've gotta match ours with theirs unless we all want to lose our jobs."

The Head Office has only the best of the best. It houses top performers from all the blocks in the world - they never make mistakes.

"Fine," Kyle collapses into his chair, lifting his feet on his desk, then crossing them at the ankles. "But they could've at least given us a hint," he mouths to Kevin.

"We'd never be this good at our field if we were just given all the answers," Kevin takes my side. "It's the grind that made us brilliant, bro," he taps his shoulders.

"Okay, I give up," he raises his hands. "But they better reward us, y'all."

"If we step up our game..." Kevin looks at me, "you might even be promoted to the Head Office after your A.S.," he winks.

"You got invited?" Korina exclaims. "When's the big day?"

"I'm not getting promoted," I blurt, almost sounding angry.

They look at me with puzzled faces.

"Not... unless we find our mistake in the given deadline!" I quickly add lifting my brows. "Chop, chop, off to warming your chairs!" I clap my hands and stand behind the clear little desk in the middle of our workspace. 

Korina goes back to her seat and Kyle brings his feet down. I am the team leader after all.

"Om, show us the original DNA structure on Simulation Sample E11C256-AM56GB."

Omnia spreads a new hologram above the desk into a neat three-dimensional ball, separately showing the original 16 genes before we've altered them in one way or another.

"Desk number three, show us the results that came from the Head Office."

The space above desk #3 lights up and we all stare into the dissatisfying shade result.

"Crap," Kevin frowns. "Even the genome Adam25 looks good."

I stare at the same gene simulations and can't figure out the output. It simply doesn't match our inputs.

"The inputs are all correct," Kevin gives a final conclusion and none of us seem to be able to disagree. "We make the tiniest change in any of these genes," he shows the space above desk number 2, "and we'll never get Midnight Sun."

He's right.

Korina nods. "Changing Bmpr1a to receive less protein would give us 'Ocean Wave', not Midnight Sun. We mustn't change anything there, it'd just mess it up."

She's right as well.

But I started to connect the dots.

"You're both right. The changes we've made are all correct," I confirm, an amused smirk now escaping my lips. "Our mistake, is that we didn't alter any genes in chromosome 16."

"What?" Kyle frowns, "those aren't even meant to affect eye color."

But Kevin's mouth is now opened as he follows my train of thought.  "Neither were Eve25 or GYU66. Until we found out that they do."

I nod, so very proud of him. I was Kevin's mentor when he first joined. And now he's Kyle's.

"Oh my God," Korina rubs her temples, her elbows glued to her desk, "so now you're sayin' we gotta discover a completely new gene that affects the eye color? All in under ten days! Impossible," she shuts her eyes.

3 days.

Damn it - I won't be here to finish this assignment. I was really looking forward to it.

"It won't be like searching in a million genes," I mediate, trying to resonate with them. "This is an embryo. The genes aren't multiplied. Besides," I stand with my legs spread, palms on my hips. "I have a lead."

I look at their lovely faces observing me intently - as if I was their savior or something - and I realize this might easily be the last time they gift me with such stares.

I'm going to miss them so much. I've never realized just how much I enjoy leading this little genius team of DNA-obsessed freaks until now...

"Helloo?  World to Kayla," Korina waves her hand. "What's the lead?" 

I guess I got a little carried away with my thoughts. "Ahem, remember that sample from 3 years ago, Kevin," I narrow my eyes, "the one we named Rita Keys?"

He furrows his brows, trying to recall the case - we've worked on so many.

Then his eyes pop open. "But of course!" he claps, almost jumping a little off his feet. "We altered embryo genes to get the darkest shade of skin possible, but enlightened the eyes to light grey."

"Grey River," I nod. "We needed to remove all melanin from eye pigment but leave hordes of it in the skin."

"We virtually had to dissect pins," he shakes his head. "And this is what we'll do this time as well."

Exactly. "Well done, Kevin," I lay a proud hand onto his back. He'll surely replace me as the team leader once I'm gone.

I will miss this man. He was my partner for so long - we've done so much together. It'd be awesome if we were reunited after our Screenings, at a better place. But I'm Ginger - I have to run as fast as my pale legs can carry me.

"First step," I turn to the other two, "is to find the genes for skin pigment which we altered into a darker shade."

"Sure," Korina mumbles. "Let's start from there..."

"Gonna be a long-a*s night," Kyle rubs the inner corners of his eyes, and I smile watching them complain. They've progressed so much since they'd first joined our team.

"Hey," I jump in, "I'm proud of all of you." I just want Korina and Kyle to know it - in case I haven't been saying it often enough.

They look at me with puzzled faces. "Have they mixed your diet pill with someone else's, who's on depressants?" Kyle teases. 

I go back to my little cubicle and take a seat. This is one of the last times I'll ever sit here. "Om..." I smile, "light this b***h up."

My desk laser sends bright light up in the air and I use my hands to arrange the projection to my liking.

#

After work, I barely manage to reach the Cosmetics Department - I'm exhausted. Still haven't found anything promising, but the team's on a good track.

I stop in front of the door marked 'IT Cosmetics' and knock. Omnia never lets me in - it's one of the KTL's restricted departments. 

A guy working there already knows what I need. He thinks it's to treat my insomnia. 

"Oh, hey. I hadn't expected you today," a tall dark boy in his late teens opens the door.

"I came for one of your magic fixes," I stretch my pouty lips.

"You got it," he closes the door to grab my necessities. I give him training lessons in exchange. He was literally near the bottom 10K when we first met. Now there's at least 200K people behind him.

"Hey, Red." 

A deep male voice freezes me in place.

I abruptly turn to find a handsome guy grinning from ear to ear.

Him. The guy from the gym.

He confidently strolls toward me. "What're you doing here?"

I frown suspiciously. "You work here?"

He chuckles. "Hell no."

"Then a better question is, what are you doing here?" I squint as a bad feeling envelopes me.

A corner of his lips curls. "Something tells me we know the answers to both those questions."

"You're stalking me," I make a convinced statement.

"Yep," he places his hands in his pockets, no remorse whatsoever. "And you're here to get some shady s**t for a low-quality... lotion, I guess? Or is it something to make lenses?"

I swallow hard.

He doesn't know what he's talking about. He can't...

"Chill," he nudges me. "I only noticed 'cause I'm an expert," he comes close to my ear. "And 'cause that lotion's so last century."

My nostrils widen, but I'm unable to take a breath - he knows my secret.

I put on a nasty face. "I've no idea what you're talking about," I step past him, kicking his ribs in the process. I'll get back for my oils later.

But he follows. 

"Aren't you forgettin' somethin'?"

"Like murder?" I hiss.

He doesn't laugh. "No," he sticks something up my hand, "like this."

I slowly look inside my palm and find a pill there.

I lift an interrogatory eyebrow.

"It's much better than what you're using," he assures me.

What. Is. Happening. Right. Now.

"I'm not hungry, but thanks," I stuff the pill back into his hand.

He grabs my underarm and pulls me aside. 

"Hey!" I protest. "Let me-"

"You can trust me," he cuts in, turning his back to the crowd. "Look," he lifts his hand to his left eye, covering the view of strangers with his palm. Then he quickly presses his eyelid and I see it...

A glimpse of blue.

Then it's gone.

"Oh my God!" my heart drops to my feet as I try to get away from him. "Don't follow me!" I order, dizzy as I've ever been.

"Meet me here tomorrow, Red," he whispers. "Same time, same place," he slips the pill into my pocket, then lets go of me.

I shake my head as I rush toward my pod. This can't be happening.