In a futuristic society where people are differentiated and valued based on the purity of their genes, can a person define for themselves who they really are? Or does The Gene Test provide the answer for them?
Depression... Addiction... Criminality...
I approach the blonde girl sitting down who looks like she's never seen an entire cafe cleared out for a meeting like this before.
She stands up when she hears my voice, and turns to me in surprise. "Oh, um, Miss Rosamund...?"
"Just call me Kera. We're cousins, after all."
"Right."
We both take a seat.
I can see the resemblance between the two of us. We have similar features — plump lips, feline eyes and shiny light blonde hair.
She's just the more outdated version while I got a quality upgrade in the six-year gap. I have this sense of... class, which she happens to lack. Can't blame her though, the poor girl lived as a measly Border most of her life. This refined layer is something that needs to be cultured from young, and it only subsists in an environment that is completely pure.
I'm suddenly reminded of certain blinking pink spots, and swallow thickly, quickly putting on a rehearsed smile. "It's crazy to think that I had a cousin in the city this whole time and I only found out recently!"
"Yes, well, I'm pretty used to crazy circumstances. My whole life is full of them: Perfect Mother elopes with a Border and gets disowned, I defy the logics of nature by being coded as a Perfect in The Gene Test despite being the child of a Border, and a grandmother who I'd never met agrees to allow me to work in the very company my mother was supposed to inherit, under the condition that my relation to the Rosamund family is kept a secret." I can tell that there's an underlying tone of bitterness beneath her seemingly passive words, I just can't bring myself to care. I have more important things to worry about than my long-lost cousin's personal grudges, as long as they don't affect my plan.
I take a sip from my drink and raise my eyebrows. "Crazy circumstances must run in the family, then..." I place my glass down on the table and look at her with my sharp green eyes that mean business. "Which brings me to the reason I invited you here today. I need your help shedding some light on mine."
Adela watches me, seeming to weigh my words cautiously.
"Please elaborate."
"Look, Dela, can I call you Dela? Yes, anyway, it's simple — all I need you to do is run a few tests for me and get the results back ASAP, without my mother ever finding out that any of this happened."
"Kera..."
"Just do me this teeny tiny little favor and you get to walk home with a free Vuitton handbag," I give her a once over, and hold back my scoff at her sense of style that screams 'hobo not-so-chic', "which you seem to be in dire need of."
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"Kera—"
"Okay, fine. Do you prefer Fendi? Though I don't see why anyone ever would..."
