The Wanderer

The Wanderer
By Ahura


It has been over twenty years since it happened. At first the effects of what it produced were hailed as miracles, Mankind finally overcoming decades of limitations of our own biology. Mankind has been forever searching for the magic bullet, a cure all to end all sufferings imaginable. Overnight the possibilities seemed limitless. Cancer eradicated, Alzheimer's gone, and even those struck down and paralyzed were able to walk again. To every great advancement humanity has ever made there has always been a downside. Detractors started to pour out of the woodwork. Saying what this new technology allowed was for individuals to be more human than human. Some claimed these defects were built in by God to remind Man of his place on the cosmic totempole, others simply couldn't understand that the world was changing much faster than they were used to and so they tried to resist the rising tide.

Where my story begins is about five years after the breakthrough was announced to the world. My parents initially disapproved of the breakthrough especially my mother, she was always more devout than my father ever was. Whereas Father only seemed to pay lip service faith just to appease my mother. Either way everything changed when I was born, initially I was a healthy bouncing baby boy, ten fingers and ten toes. No outward appearance of anything wrong, that had changed by the time I was about five. My parents began to notice that I had difficulty walking when most children around my age are just starting to learn the basic things needed in order to become fully productive human beings.

At first they ignored it and in time I could walk on my own with some assistance but otherwise I was fine. My parents never put much stock in modern medicine. They believed that it was a by product of something that perverted the world God had created. So there were no regular visits to the doctor's when I was a child which is probably why the problem went unnoticed for so long. When I was about seven I could no longer hold a spoon in my hand to feed myself nor could I even walk to the bathroom without falling flat on my face after a few wobbly steps. The list of problems grew worse, my muscles seemed to wither beneath my skin. Eventually I had problems breathing, my parents prayed daily to God to alleviate the sufferings of their only child but God didn't seem to be too interested in listening. Eventually they were forced with a choice, bring me to a doctor to find out what was ailing me or simply continue to watch as I faded away. For my parents the choice was a reluctant one, but ultimately a choice I gratefully accept.

All sorts of tests were conducted on me, I honestly lost track of how many or even what they were specifically designed to detect but by the end of all of the needle pokes and meetings with men and women in white lab coats the prognosis was dropped onto my parents like a sack of bricks. I was suffering from Muscular Dystrophy. I remember the words meant nothing to me at the time, what kid is ever aware that you had basically been read your death sentence before your life can even start. At first such a determination would allow me to receive years of various therapy's designed to improve my muscle mass and allow me to at least live some facsimile of life before the condition eventually claimed my life due to heart failure. But now the doctors with the breakthrough things were different.

What was once a death sentence was in fact now curable due to recent advances in medical science. My parents must have felt like they had been on the worst roller coaster ride of their lives, first they find out their only son suffers from a rare genetic disorder only to find out that in order to cure it they would have to further place their faith in modern medicine rather than God. The miracle that they feared and that was causing so much controversy were the Nanos. Specifically nanomachines that were designed to attack whatever it was that they were programmed to do whether to destroy cancer cells or in my take repair my damaged genes allowing my muscles to develop healthy tissue. My parents simply would hear no more of what the doctors were offering instead they grabbed me and left the doctor's office without even paying the bill.

I cannot blame them for reacting in such a way. Despite the possibilities that medical nanotechnology offered people it was still a highly controversial science that made people fear what might happen if suddenly people could become what was later coined to be "Super human." These individuals who had undergone the treatment might start to replace normal humans in work settings where companies would hire individuals on a preferential basis rather than what actually qualified someone to work for them. Companies had spent years paying for their employees health care benefits now with what the Nanos offered them was a way to cheap labor costs by hiring people who had Nanos following through their blood because they were less likely to take a sick day or draw worker's compensation from on the job accidents which they never had to worry about with workers who were in their minds far superior to an average person. At least this was the fear at the time which is why the treatment was being limited to individuals who suffered from terminal illnesses or life threatening conditions such as mine.

I can remember them arguing long into the night. It seemed to last forever and I didn't get much sleep. Eventually everything became still and my parents entered my room. They could only hug me while sobbing. They had made their choice, I was to receive the treatment they long feared would touch upon their lives, but ultimately what were they to do? Their faith had failed them, God had abandoned them, and nothing on this Earth was going to stop them from watching their son grow up. The next day they returned to the same office they had left in a hurry and consented to have me undergo the treatment. My parents were told that soon I could live the life they had always wanted me to without fear of anything ever bothering me again.

I don't remember anything other than the beeping of the EKG machine as I went to sleep with a bright light beaming down onto me. After what seemed an eternity I awoke in the ward recovering from my treatment. My parents slept by my side and didn't notice that I had awoken. Things after that were very different. I could feed myself for the first time in years, I could walk again and even run to the bathroom when the need arose. I was a happy kid just as my parents always dreamed of me being but what the doctors hadn't told my parents were that their were a few side effects of the treatment. First, my brown eyes turned bright blue like tiny sapphires, I could run faster than any other child my age and I hardly seemed to tire from activities that otherwise might wear out someone. I always seemed to have an overabundance of energy. I could spend hours upon hours climbing all over the playground as my parents watched with a mixture of uncertainty and delight.

Once after getting in a fight at school I came home with a bloody nose, the thing was that wasn't what surprised my parents. What surprised them was that the blood running out of my nose wasn't red but instead was grey in color. What they learned next surprised them even more so. The note the school had tucked away in my backpack was that I had broken both the jaw and arm of the child who attempted to beat me up as well as fractured his skull in six places with a few punches. The school later expelled me because they felt I was a danger to every other normal child in the school, the true reason was as I later found out that numerous other parents had called the district office with panicked phone calls that they didn't want their child attending a school that allowed for an abomination to walk, eat, and study among their children. This was when I learned that being what I was inspired such an uncontrollable fear in other people. But this at the time was lost on me, so my parents simply didn't even bother to contest the expulsion but rather took it upon themselves to home school me.

They did an exceptional job at it as well, I was soon well versed in all things academic with a special interest in world history. I graduated from college with a B.A. in history and went onto earn my Masters in economics. My parents though had taught me to take steps in hiding what I was from everyone else. I wore contact lenses that changed my eye color back to its original brown color along with wearing loose fitting clothing that would make me appear to be unshapely as any skin tight clothing would reveal to the extent at which my body had developed into that of an Olympic athlete. At first things went my way, I got a great job with a company that allowed me to use my knowledge of economics and world history to travel around the globe to broker deals with various foreign corporations. Life seemed to be going my way after what seemed to be a rocky start. Things though were beginning to show signs of change and not for the better despite what was earlier hailed as a miracle.