Horror House Presents

False Hope

The year is 2052, human genetic experiments have resulted in smarter, stronger and faster humans. The army has its super soldiers, men capable of running all day and night and still have the energy to fight. Doctors are engineered to have a lighter touch and better eyes to operate. They even went as far as to engineer shopkeepers to be better at maths, a bid to stop them short-changing people. Let's just say the last one was a failure, a perfect example that some people don't change.

Your life is picked for you when you are in school, I remember the day I went to see the careers doctor. He looked at my grades before giving me a physical examination. He concluded that my intelligence was above average and my body and fitness almost perfect. Naturally, at sixteen I was proud of this, it would be the perfect tool for attracting the ladies, but my happiness was short-lived. I was giving three career choices; spy, special forces soldier, or the last of which I choose genetics enforcing officer.

I had no clue what a genetic enforcing officer was until it was too late. As soon as I made the choice I was taken out of school to a lab and injected three times a day for a week before I was allowed to go home. By the time I was released from the institute my thinking power was vastly improved, I was able to read a book and take in every word. I could see details in the world that only days before I couldn't dream of seeing. As for my physical fitness, well I had gained three stone in the week. I gained a six-pack, and my legs and arms were five times their original size. I looked like an athlete from the Olympic games. I loved my new self and couldn't wait to get back to school and show off the new me, I completely forgot about the new life I had picked when I finally finished school.

When I got home that night my parents couldn't believe their eyes. They stared at me with their mouths almost touching the floor. To you and me they are normal, they missed their chance at the genetic programme because they were too old and missed the compulsory age by years, and never had the money to pay for the treatment. But at that moment, they saw what the new world could bring them when it was given a chance. There in front of them stood their sixteen-year-old son with abs that you could grate cheese on and arms that looked like they could crush you like an egg in seconds. I was in heaven, and as for school, the girls loved me, and the guys hated me. I spent the next year dating nearly every girl that would and getting jumped by every guy that dared. And that brings me to now.

That was years ago before I knew what my occupation choice meant. At the age of thirty genetic manipulations is far more advanced. I am still one of the best examples of what it can do, don't get me wrong. I am the poster guy for the advertisements they put in school. "You can be this guy" The poster reads. I am sure though no one would pick my job if they knew what it was. At the time no one told me, it was only when I turned of age they did. And now I am stuck with it, my job is to hunt down those who turn down this service, which the government now insists on. Many parents try to stop their children from having to go through with it. Most are those who hold on to the old religions, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, to name a few of them. They won't take it science is all they need, so that's where my team and I come in. We bring them in with force to the institute, and they are improved in whatever way they see fit. But not all genetics is to make the body or mind stronger, some are to fight diseases. This is why we hunt a one-month-old baby. It flashed up on the computers as carrying a gene believed to be capable of curing cancer if manipulated currently. If it works, it will beat the last known illness that mankind suffers. This baby is worth Millions.

"I enjoy these moments, it is so... Peaceful," I say to my partner as our ship flies through the sky, getting ever closer to the last known location of the baby.

"I know you do Mac, enjoy it. All hell could come down on us for this one."

This is the first baby we have had to collect; we have heard of others been seized but it's the first for us. It's only been a week since the law was passed, all because of this baby we hunt. The hope that cancer will be beaten finally. The closer and closer we get, I feel my hand twitch, a trait I developed when starting the job when I get nervous, by the time we get there it's in full swing and I have to fight it to stop it.

Quietly we sneak up to the door of the last sighting, and our GPS confirms we are on top of it. Quickly I kick the door down and burst in, the room is dark, but my genetically modified eyes adjust instantly to the dark. Four men are sat around a map and as soon as they see us, they reach for their guns and I shoot them all. Bang one down, bang two, bang three, bang four. They're all dead, in mere seconds with a bullet square in each of their foreheads. The baby is gone though, and so is the hope to cure the last sickness which can kill a man.

Searching the place, we find no trace of a baby, and then it hits me. We have been given false hope,there is no baby. It was a trick for us to kill a group of protesters. There never was a miracle baby the cure of all cures was a trick that turned us into murders. Never again, never again.