Dying Perfection

The phone rang, I lifted my sleepy head off the pillow and stared at it, making sure that it was the phone, not the clock. I stared at the clock for a while expecting it to ring. The bright letters showed it was 11:52. I groaned, I had slept in another great day of summer. School would be starting again in a month, and I didn’t want to go back, I wanted to have fun on every precious moment of summer. The phone rang again and I picked it up.
“Hello?” I said sleepily.
“Finally, you’ve picked up the phone, I was worried you were having fun without me.” It was Kalyan. “What have you been doing for the last four hours? I’ve been calling you since eight.”
“I was drunk,” I joked, “I couldn’t hear the phone.”
Kalyan laughed, “I’ll head over there in a few minutes.” And before I could reject, she hung up. I put the phone back and groaned, a few minutes to Kalyan was half a second. I stood up and punched the button on the head of my bed. The sheets began to stretch to the top of the bed, and in a couple of seconds my bed was made.
I walked into the bathroom and looked at the shower, there was no time for that, Kalyan could knock on the door any second now. Instead I looked at the bottom right side of my PJ tops. There was the key pad. I stared there for a couple of seconds thinking of what I wanted to wear. Eventually I picked out my yellow top where the top half was yellow and the bottom half would change colour from orange to red. I pressed 17 on the keypad and my PJ tops transformed into my yellow shirt. I then pressed 42 on the keypad on my pants and they transformed into dark green shorts.
I turned around and looked into the mirror, my hair was a mess. I then looked down at the brush disappointed, I wish they could invent a way to brush your hair. But all the inventors have barely any hair and don’t have to worry about these things, so they don’t invent anything good for hair. I picked up my brush in disgust, and began to comb out the knots and tangles in my hair. After that was done, I looked in the mirror again, I still look bad. In the keypad in the corner of the mirror I typed 3 and pressed enter. I closed my eyes and smiled. “…7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” I heard the mirror say and I felt the laser go across my face. Then there were three beeps to say that the mirror’s work was done. I opened my eyes and saw cleaner teeth, eye liner, eye shadow and all the unwanted hairs on my eye brows were burnt off.
I smiled, I looked better, but I was still ugly. My wavy hair went in different directions, my face looked like a baby’s and I was fat. Note to self, lose ten pounds before school starts. This year was the first year of high school and there would be new people, new friends, new losers, new popular kids and new boys. I walked downstairs and looked out the window, it was summer, and I can’t spend all of my fun time trying to loose weight. Instead I’ll do more sports; I’ll lose weight that way.
The doorbell rang, and when I opened it I saw Kalyan. I looked at her head to toe. She was Indian, she had brown skin and black hair. Her brown eyes were kind and her hair curved around her face perfectly. She was skinny, and whenever I saw her stomach, I would look at my large one. I wish I was that skinny, that majestic, that beautiful. But despite the fact she made me feel fat and ugly, when we hung out I was happy and cheerful.
“So Hera, what do you want to do today?” Even Kalyan’s voice was beautiful. Hearing my name made me feel bad too. Hera was the queen of the Greek gods and was one of the most beautiful goddesses. I am nothing like Hera, so why do I have the same name as her?
“I don’t know.” I lied, I wanted to go to a virtual reality movie.
“How about the beach near the university.” She said, “If we get tired of the water, we can go over to the gardens where the test animals live. I heard they’ve made some type of dinosaur from a chicken.” Kalyan isn’t just beautiful, but smart too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she could make a dinosaur out of a chicken.
We both stepped outside into the sun, and closed the door behind us. Before I walked away from the house I made sure that the house was scanned for people, then all the doors locked and all the lights went out. I walked down to our landing pad in front of my house, where Kalyan’s hover car lay. It was a red Aoide 300, one of the most expensive and beautiful hover cars ever built. Kalyan’s parents were smart, they got good jobs and became extremely rich, and were able to buy Kalyan anything she wanted, as long as she got an A- or higher. She was able to do that every term, and continues to get whatever she wants.
I stepped into the passenger seat and put on my seat belt. “Ready?” Kalyan asked. I nodded and we went higher and higher into the air until we were above my house. The car then went forward towards the sea. When we were above the ocean the car stopped moving and we slowly descended onto the parking pad. When landed we looked around, there wasn’t any people, but many cars.
“I wonder where everyone is.” I said aloud, but I know we were both thinking it. We got out of Kalyan’s car and walked down to the beach. There were no sunbathers, there weren’t any kids running around, there wasn’t anyone in the water, or any signs saying the beach is closed.
I wanted to say we should go swimming, but couldn’t think of a good way of saying it. Instead I punched in numbers on the keypads on my clothing, and they transformed into a bikini. “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go have fun.” I finally said and headed towards the beach.
“No.” Kalyan held my arm. “No.” She repeated. I stopped and looked at her. She was looking around in caution. Finally she looked back at me. “Think about it, there’s a reason people aren’t here.” I looked at her and thought about her words. Of course, people are gone for a reason, there could be something out there that they ran from, or ate them.
“Okay.” I said and transformed my clothes back to normal. “Maybe there’s someone in the university.” I thought out loud.
“Good idea, if there is something out here, they might have ran into the university for shelter.” We began to walk towards the university and saw the fenced off garden. “Stay away from the garden, there might be something in there that people are avoiding.” Kalyan whispered in my ear.
We avoided the path that went to the garden, and had to take the long way to the back of the university. I took hold of the door handle and opened the door cautiously. I looked inside, it was clear, nothing was there. I opened the door more and allowed my foot to step in. The sound of my foot landing on the floor echoed. I then let other foot and the rest of my body enter the university. I sat there for a while waiting, waiting for anything. But there was nothing except the sound of my breathing. I continued to just stand there until Kalyan stepped behind me.
“Anything?” she asked.
I shook my head, “No,” I said softly.
She stepped in front of me and slowly began to walk more and more into the heart of the university. I followed her, not wanting to stay by myself. Why is it so quiet? Usually there’s someone working here, keeping it clean and showing off experiments. Even seeing a janitor would loosen my nerves.
We got to a corner and Kalyan stopped dead in her tracks. I suspected it was something horrible and got ready to run. But Kalyan stood there, frozen in time. I became stiff, whatever it is must be awful to make Kalyan just stand there. I wanted to look around the corner or for Kalyan to turn around, so I can see the expression on her face, but I was too afraid. After a couple of extensive moments, she spoke. “Do you hear that?” I was still unable to see her face, and her tone of voice didn’t give away if she was scared or not. I didn’t answer.
She walked around the corner and down the hall cautiously. After slowly walking behind her I could hear it. It was not a voice of a monster, but of a human. Hearing that soft mumble lifted the fear off my shoulders. Kalyan continued to go down hall after hall, searching for the voice. We finally came down a hallway and the voice was strong and proud, we could tell just by the tone. We opened door after door in the hallway, looking for the source of the sound. The last door in the hallway had what we were looking for.
Behind that door was a massive amphitheater. There were thousands of people sitting in thousands of seats. On the stage was a man with a micro-projector. It projected all these bugs running on rocks.
“As you can see, the MCMs are much like insects,” the man on the stage said, “They can walk, work together and can go through many different types of terrain. They are told what do through brain waves and are also smart enough to tell what is the problem and how to fix it.” Kalyan was interested. I could tell by how her eyes never left the stage. She slowly walked over to the side, near an empty seat.
“To ensure these small robots do not take over the world we have only put information of the human anatomy and biology in their memory. All other thoughts that enter them through mind waves are deleted from the memory within an hour.” I was now interested and sat down beside Kalyan.
“Now, to show you what MCMs can actually do.” The man dropped two pieces of grass in the box that contained the MCMs. All of the MCMs quickly crawled over to the two pieces and began to take the cells away. The MCMs looked like ants, carrying something ten times their size. Eventually every MCM had a cell that it carried. They then crawled together to slowly build a leaf. Each MCM was now attached to a cell and was one with the cell. The MCMs interlocked with each other.
The man picked the leaf up. “See? They can change the shape of any living object. They can also use advanced methods to recolor anything.” The leaf turned yellow then orange then red. “As long as the colour is natural for the being.” The man added. “And the best thing about all of this is MCMs can come in a simple pill and will be able to be in pharmacies.”
A shock of electricity came from the seat of my chair, indicating it was time to stand up and clap. Everyone else in the amphitheater stood up and clapped while the man onstage attempted to say “Thank you,” over the deafening sound of clapter. After he took the box, the leaf and the micro-projector he left the stage.
People began to leave, and because we were in the back we were able to quickly sneak out.
“What are MCMs?” I asked. I got the fact that they were a robot and that they moved cells, but what for?
“I’m really not sure.” Kalyan answered. I was surprised, she usually figures these things out really fast and can explain the most complex things in simple terms to me. “Just a second.” She said and ran off without me. I was used to this, she does it quite often, but she always has a good reason.
“Excuse me,” She went right up to a boy probably just a year or two older than us. “Can you help us?” I walked beside her, knowing I should stay by her side. “We didn’t hear the entire lecture, can you explain it?”
The boy smiled, “Sure, I’d love to.” I could tell he was attracted to Kalyan. “And by the way, my name’s Eric.” He reached out his hand.
Kalyan shook his hand, “Nice to meet you, I’m Kalyan and this is Hera.” She pointed to me as I shook Eric’s hand. Eric was tall, more than six feet and was muscular too. He had short brown hair that was spiked. But the thing I noticed the most was his dark brown, caring eyes. They sparkled making him look vibrant and full of excitement.
“Lets walk in the gardens while I explain this; it makes me more comfortable when I speak.” Eric said.
“Good idea.” I finally spoke. Knowing you’re with someone who appreciates nature made me more comfortable. If he wants to walk in a natural place and appreciates even the ugliest things like mutants, he can’t be that bad.
We headed towards the gardens. “The presentation started with the professor walking in and saying he has invented something revolutionary for all man kind.” Eric started. “He said that it can cure all diseases, make people live longer and make the ugliest of people beautiful.” My attention switched from the flowers to Eric.
“Then he said, ‘Behold! The Micro Cell Modificators!’” Eric began to imitate the professor. “These are little tiny robots that go into the body and attach onto a cell. When you want to change your form your mind sends brain waves telling them to move the cells in your body, changing your form. The MCMs will also kill any harmful things in your body, so you stay healthy and live longer.”
“Now it makes sense.” Kalyan said. “Thanks for giving us your time.”
“It means a lot to us.” I added. It seemed like a lie at first, but I realized I really meant it. Because of him telling us what MCMs are, I now know how to fix my problem: being fat and ugly.
We waved goodbye and walked away. I tried to play cool like Kalyan, but I had a sinking feeling in me. I felt a connection, friendship between us, and I felt bad just leaving him instead of spending the rest of the day in the gardens with him.
“So, back to the beach?” I asked. The entire thing with the university messed up our day at the beach.
“We might as well, we’re already here.” She said, punching numbers into her keypad and making her clothes turn into a bikini. I copied her and we walked over to the beach.
“So are you going to buy MCMs?” I asked Kalyan, I usually consider her decisions before I make mine.
“I don’t know. I like the health benefits, but if I wanted to loose weight, I wouldn’t use a computer, exercising is so much more fun.” Kalyan said. “Plus, I wouldn’t want to be half robot, then I wouldn’t be me, I’d be 50% me, but not completely me.”
I thought of what she was saying. “Also knowing you have tiny little robot bugs crawling all over your body and you can’t get rid of them is somewhat creepy.” I added. But all I’ve ever wanted was to be pretty, and this was the only way I could do so.
At the beach I met Ajax, my younger brother. My parents really loved ancient Greek mythology and most of all, loved the names, so they decided when they got married to name any children after a Greek hero or god. Ajax was with his best friend, Sam. He was the only one of us who had a normal name. We were all really good friends and always hung out with each other, I knew Sam just as well as Ajax did.
We all decided to go swimming first, then to dry out on the beach later. We ran into the water as fast as we could, Ajax sneaked onto the pier and was in the deeper water quicker than the rest of us.
We played until we saw a crowd on the beach, Ajax noticed it first. “What are they doing over there?” He asked instead of diving into the water again. Kalyan looked over.
“I don’t know, but it looks like people are having fun.” She answered. I continued to look at the ocean and saw Sam’s head pop up from under the water. He was facing the beach, and saw what was happening too. Finally I turned my head around.
“Volleyball!” Sam yelled. Everyone but Sam looked closer, since Sam was already heading back to the beach. Sure enough, we could see a net being put up and two teams passing a volleyball, probably practicing for the game. When we realized Sam was halfway to the beach, we went running after him.
When we got to the beach we found a nice place to watch the game. We were behind a large crowd, but because we were on a hill, we could see perfectly. Most of the people were lying down or sitting, perhaps trying to get a tan. We finally decided to do so as well, so that the other people behind us could see well.
When the game begun we scanned the players. Everyone was unknown except one person, Eric. I smiled and began to cheer and shout his name. Kalyan noticed what I was doing and joined it. It made me feel better that we saw him again, since at the university we had left him there.
Sam ignored us and watched the game, but Ajax spoke up. “Who’s Eric?”
“My boyfriend.” I lied, I have no clue why I lied, after today, me and Eric may never see each other again. But for some reason it seemed a good idea at the time.
“Really?” Ajax was really shocked. “I thought you would never get one.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re so beautiful and I never thought you would find someone good enough for you.” Ajax replied in a sweet voice. I smiled, he’s always so nice to me. When I was little I always thought it was a trick, something so that I’d give him something good. The real reason he does that is he believes in karma. For me karma is like an echo, you say something and the saying gets multiplied and goes back to you. So if you say something good, the good will come back but there will be more of it. So I guess, in a way, I was right all those years ago. He’s being good so he gets good back in return.
I returned to the volleyball game. On the scoreboard it was 6 to 4 for Eric’s team. I continued to cheer as Eric spiked the ball and got his team another point. I stood up and cheered louder, and noticed that Kalyan had done the same. Eric looked up and his eyes came upon us and he smiled. Me and Kalyan sat back down and stopped our cheering.
We all eventually got bored. The crowd around the court got bigger and none of us wanted to stand up every time Eric’s team scored, so we decided to get out of here. Who knows where, but as long as we were away from here.
I felt bad again leaving Eric, this was the second time we just went. I really wanted to stay there until the game was done so I could talk to Eric, but Kalyan, Sam and Ajax were leaving, and I wanted to stay close to them.
“Let’s get a snack.” Sam said.
“Sure.” Kalyan and Ajax said, one after the other. I then realized I hadn’t eaten since last night, and agreed with the others. I got a bene-dog first, because I was so hungry, then we all went to get frozen yogurt. We walked around, eating our frozen treats and looking for something to do. The volleyball game was still going on, so we stayed away from the beach.
We agreed to go to the gardens, since Kalyan and I had only been there for a short while this morning and the boys hadn’t gone in two weeks.
When we were heading there we saw Eric standing in the grass talking to his volleyball team. He saw us and headed over.
“Hi guys, I saw you watching the game.” He said.
“But,” I began, “you, I…”
“Why aren’t you playing volleyball?” Kalyan read my mind.
“It’s a tournament,” he explained, “our team won and are waiting for the next game to end.”
“I see.” Kalyan said. “When does your next game begin?”
Eric looked at his watch. “About 25 minutes.”
“So you can come to the gardens with us?” I spoke up. I really wanted to make up for the fact we keep leaving him.
“Sure.” Eric said. “But first can you tell me who your friends are?” I blushed, I had completely forgot about my brother and Sam.
“I’m Ajax, Hera’s brother.” Ajax put out his hand, Eric clasped it and shook it tightly. “And this is Sam.” He pointed to Sam as Eric took Sam’s hand.
“Nice to meet you.” Eric said and smiled.
“Come on,” Sam spoke up, “Let’s go to the gardens.” He started to walk to the gardens and everyone followed. It was nice to be with Eric and my friends, then Ericjust seems like another friend.
When we were in the gardens we didn’t talk much, but just enjoyed nature, the mutants and each other. After what it seemed like just five minutes, Eric’s watch began to beep.
“Shoot,” he said, “I need to go, bye.” He said as he ran for the exit of the gardens. I stood there puzzled for a while, but then remembered his volleyball game.
“What now?” Sam asked.
Kalyan looked at Sam. “We stay here. Just because Eric’s gone doesn’t mean we can stop having fun here.” I could see the disappointment in Sam’s face. I was also disappointed, I really liked Eric and for some reason I still felt bad being without him. Maybe because I felt we were all friends and being with all my friends but one seemed like we left him behind, even though he left us.
We walked around the gardens until we got back to where we had started. Once out of the gardens, we stood at the gate.
“What’s there to do now?” Sam said. Everyone was thinking it, but he was the only one who said it. We had done everything on the beach to do, swim, sunbathe, watch the volleyball game, get a snack, go to the university and the gardens. We all continued to stand there, wondering.
“Dang,” Ajax said, “We’ve done everything, and I’m not really in the mood to repeat it.”
“Well, what’s the time?” Kalyan asked.
Sam looked at his watch. “Six thirty.”
“We might as well go for supper, then we can figure out what to do then.” Kalyan said and began to head to her hover car.
“What about Eric?” I asked, everyone turned around and stared at me. “He’s our friend right? So why are we leaving him as we go eat?”
Sam smiled, I could see he liked having Eric as a friend. “Ya, we should wait until the end of his volleyball game and take him up with us.”
“Sure.” Ajax said. Finally Kalyan agreed and we walked over to the beach.
Luckily for us the beach was deserted, it was late and everyone was heading home. The game must have just ended because we saw Eric and other boys packing up the net and the balls.
“Hey!” Ajax shouted from the top of the hill to Eric. “Come here when you’re done!” Eric finished quickly, grabbed his shirt and ran up the hill.
“What?” He asked as he pulled his shirt on
“You wanna come eat dinner with us?” Sam asked.
“Sure, where are we going?” He asked.
“Just Coco’s Cliff.” Kalyan answered. “Nothing too fancy.” She began to press the keypad in her bikini, which transformed into a red shirt and some jeans capris. I realized that I too was walking around in my bikini most of the day, and I transformed my clothes back into my multicolored shirt and dark shorts. Ajax and Sam took a small shirt from the pocket of their pants and stretched it to fit, then transformed their outfits as well.
We headed to Kalyan’s car and got inside it but Eric just stopped. “An Aoide 300? How did you guys get this, it’s amazing!”
“My parents bought it for me.” Kalyan said as she put on her seatbelt.
“Wow.” Eric said and got in the back seat along with Ajax and Sam. Sam sat in the middle since he was the smallest. Kalyan started the car and we began to float into the air.
Coco’s Cliff is on a cliff just on the beach. Because it’s on a cliff, you can only go there by hovercar, there isn’t a ramp or steps or anything to get up there. On top there’s the restaurant and a landing pad, nothing else. There’s one area in the restaurant where it’s like a greenhouse, there’s windows everywhere. That way you can see the beach and ocean perfectly.
When we got up there Kalyan asked for a window seat, she loves the ocean. We were seated and the touch screen menu appeared on the table. “Who’s going to pay? Or are we paying for our own meals?” Eric asked.
Kalyan looked up. “You guys pay for half of your meals, I’ll pay for the other half.” She explained.
Eric’s jaw dropped. “Nice!” he finally said. We ordered our meals and looked out the window.
“Sure is a view.” Eric said softly.
“Ya,” Kalyan said, she was thinking. “I just hate how you have to wait all day to see a sunset.”
Sam was getting annoyed, he likes nature, but wanted to talk about other things. “So,” He began, “Did you win the volleyball game?”
Everyone turned around except Kalyan, she was still thinking. “It was close.” Eric said. “In the last ten minutes we were down by three points. We were able to score two, but then the other team scored another. We scored two more so it was tied. The whistle blew and we went into overtime. The next two minutes were insane.” Kalyan finally looked back over to Eric and listened into the conversation. “After almost getting scored twice on, we finally got a point and won the game. If we win two more games, we’ll go to the semifinals.”
Sam had a wide grin on his face. “Nice, when are the semifinals?”
“A week.” Eric said. “We’ll have a game everyday until then.”
“What else do you do in your spare time?” Kalyan said, she hadn’t spoken in a while.
“Lots of stuff, hang out with my friends, go to the university for biology. Actually, I was in the lab the same time they were testing MCMs on animals and was able to see some of the things they were doing there.”
“MCMs?” Ajax asked.
“It stands for Micro Cell Modificators.” Eric explained. “You can put them in your body and they attach to your cells, making you able to change your size, form and colour.”
“Cool.” Sam said.
“I don’t think they’re really that cool.” Kalyan said. “I wouldn’t want to be like our clothes, changing for appearance.”
“Ya,” Ajax agreed. “It would be extremely weird just bending in weird ways whenever you feel like it.”
“It would be like parasites.” I said. “But they’d be everywhere, not just in you’re stomach.” I said that just to go with the flow with the rest of the group, then realized what I said was true. It would be scary having thousands of little robots like parasites in our bodies.
Our drinks came. “Let’s promise never to get MCMs.” Ajax said and held his glass up. Everyone else held their glass up and tapped them together. We all took a drink as our food was brought to our table.