The Gates Of Heaven. Pablo Martínez Burkett
This apparatus is our previous Commandant’s invention. I also worked
with him on the very first tests and took part in all the work right up to its
completion.
Franz Kafka, In the
penal colony
I was a poor
man. And the wonders of biomolecular medicine were never available to poor
people. Over the decades, an abyss had opened among those who still get ill and
those who are healthy by genetic manipulation. We, the humans and they, the
so-called novohumans.
At that point in time, I was recovering from a disease. I don’t mention this as
an excuse nor do I want to exonerate my betrayal, but it would seem the worst
day of one’s existence is when you learn you have terminal cancer. On the other
hand, you cannot fathom how difficult it is to bear the news that you have, in
fact, healed and live with the possibility of a relapse gnawing your will until
you go mad. Chemotherapy is not for everyone; it poisons both the bad cells and
the brain. I was seriously considering suicide when I received an offer from a
Dr. Prendick whose Heaven’s Door Program promised something forbidden to
humankind. Totally unaware the process of DNA recombination is atrocious, I had
no scruples about abandoning my mortality. At first, the body resisted the
cannulas and enriched serums. But, in the end, I emerged purified and
accustomed to a new appearance, aseptic and hairless. Next, I joined the new
religion and became the most severe of the commissars in the Eugenics Project.
It was in the large medical centers of each quadrant where all those patients
selected by massive lotteries, received the latest biotechnological
applications. And where we also heard the advent of the galactic community was
imminent. Alas! a solar storm affected the communication satellite. By mistake,
I read a message that revealed the whole lie: there was no improvement plan in
progress. On the contrary, the medical centers were reservoirs of
extermination, devious apparatus of systematic annihilation. Diseases, no, no;
all who were ill would be eradicated from the face of the planet before the
return of those who in ancient times, came down from heaven. It was at
that point that I rejected the inheritance acquired over the martyrdom of so
many. It was difficult, yes but months of ignominious treatment restored my
humanity. All tyranny begets the seed of its poverty. Now I'm poor again. Now,
I am the leader of the rebellion against the novohumans. And all the while
we wait, fiercely, for those who will come from outer space.
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