The Other by Marilyn Peake Read online

  The image of a young boy with skin as white as snow and blue eyes and another image of a woman with pure white skin and red eyes flashed before our eyes.

  Dr. Molyneux said, “People in certain East African countries believed that albinos like this carried special powers. They believed that albinos were ghosts or demons, and that using their body parts in potions would bring great luck. People hunted the albinos and hacked off parts of their bodies—arms, tongues, genitals, any kind of part—to make their potions. There was good reason to hide the first generation of green-skinned photosynthetic babies away in a secret location. The mothers were all told that their babies had been born dead. It was believed to be the best way to protect the generation designed to save the human race. Maybe it was. But scientists failed to set up adequate mothering conditions for these babies. Many had impaired cognitive development and emotional problems, which became apparent in childhood and plagued them throughout their lives. You’ll all see this firsthand on your initial mission, so that you can advise on the babies born from our new gene-splicing experiment. Babies won’t be taken away from their mothers, but there may be other important things to look out for. Your second mission will be to go to different locations and time periods to gather blood and tissue samples for gene-splicing. You’ll need to do this in ways that are humane. Further instruction will follow on this. For now, I’m going to notify each of you as to where you’ll be going for your second mission. Take a picture of the time and place when it appears on your lenses. Your assignment for tonight is to research that time-place location. You’ll receive more precise information on your exact destination in the next few days.”

  Roswell, New Mexico—Early 2000s appeared in front of my eyes. The land of the famous UFO Incident. At least it wasn’t the year 1947. I didn’t want to be the green-skinned human mistaken for an alien and dissected for science. That was not what I had in mind when I decided to become a time traveler.

  Dr. Molyneux threw her long blue hair over her shoulders. Folding her hands and smiling, she said, “Good luck with your studies. You’re about to embark on the most important missions we’ve conducted in a long time.”

  Chapter 11

  Waylon Quill was my assigned time travel partner. We participated in quite a few bonding exercises before takeoff. He was a good match. We got along well and our skill sets were complementary. We were both Medical; but he was History while I was Anthropology division.

  We arrived at the launch pad wearing the tight green suit and helmet that would monitor our bodies’ systems and send the information back to TTA. They would bring us back if we ran into problems where both of us could no longer work the controls.

  We strapped ourselves into our seats, did a preflight check, and drank a vial of the blue potion that would help us deal with acceleration beyond the speed of light and movement through the curved fabric of space-time. All our missions before this involved infinitesimal space-time distances compared to this one.

  I napped while the computers and robots spoke to our pod, making sure that all the systems were in working order.

  Finally, the countdown began. 60…59…58…57…All the way down to 1 while the chatter continued between machines and vehicle.

  Then the words: Cleared for launch!

  The pod accelerated faster and faster, eventually moving beyond the speed of light. As it broke the light barrier, a display similar to the Aurora Borealis surrounded our vehicle. Our pod became a metal fish swimming through liquid rainbow. I knew that back on Earth, observers would witness a ball of light bursting out of the sky much like an exploding sun.

  The experience of accelerating beyond the speed of light is difficult to describe. I felt nauseous and developed an intense headache. That part’s easy to report. But my mind flooded with strange thoughts and languages, bits of events and conversations happening all around us in the space-time fabric as we sped through it. No doubt our empathic radar was working like an antenna, trying to acclimate us to points in space-time that we were only hurtling past.

  When we landed, the screen attached to the pod hull relayed 360-degree views of our surroundings. We were relieved that we’d landed in the exact place we had planned: an empty field in the middle of a forest next to the birthing center for the mothers bringing the first generation of green people into the world.

  A chill went up my spine. We were actually here, at that moment in time that had radically changed the appearance of the human race and improved our ability to survive on an increasingly hostile planet.

  The pod had lots of room. It held several bedrooms and a kitchen, a library and a medical unit. The medical unit included two surgery bays. The pods had been designed for extended stays.

  We spent two days resting, drinking potions, and allowing our bodies and minds to adjust to our new location.

  As soon as we’d recovered from the flight, it was time to accomplish our mission.

  We put on the medical protective suits meant to disguise us. When those first babies were born, no one knew for sure if bacteria and other natural pathogens we all have inside us might mutate along with the babies’ genes, so medical personnel wore the same kinds of hazmat suits used in the care of patients with highly contagious, deadly diseases such as Ebola.

  Waylon and I painted our faces and hands with tan pigment that bonded with our skin to such a degree, we’d need to use special fluid to take it off. Then we put on the hazmat jumpsuit, apron, boots, gloves and hood. Since we couldn’t wear our usual large black neural-connective lenses over our eyes because they hadn’t been invented in that time period yet, a similar type of screen was built into clear plastic goggles that were sometimes worn over the hoods. We were warned not to leave them behind, as ours had modern technology built in. Information displayed on the goggles would only be visible to the person wearing them, not to anyone else observing them. We didn’t have to do anything to disguise our eyes. All modern people had green or blue eyes and those were common back in the time we were visiting.

  We strapped on our goggles; then walked the short distance to the birthing center, making sure no one saw us step out of the woods. The outfits were cumbersome. We knew if anyone saw us, we’d be in trouble. At the hospital, these outfits were supposed to be kept as close to sterile as possible. They weren’t allowed to be worn for a hike through the forest and across the grounds. We knew from the history books, however, that no bacteria mutated within the babies in any kind of dangerous way. We had special spray we’d use on the bottom of our boots when we got inside the hospital. Otherwise, we posed no danger to the moms or babies.

  We knew exactly where we were supposed to go. We followed the maps etched across our goggles to the room where Baby #24 was being born. Mother’s name: Natalie Jenkins. Room #: 459.

  Entering the building through a back door, we walked through empty hallways until we reached the main part of the hospital. Then we took an elevator up to the Maternity Ward on the fourth floor. When we entered the elevator, we were alone. Just as I was about to press the button labeled 4 to ascend, three nurses entered the enclosed space. One greeted us by saying, “Hello. How are you?” We just nodded our heads as we’d been instructed to do. Don’t speak unless you absolutely need to, except in regard to your pregnant woman once you get into the delivery room.

  I blinked my eyes to have my pulse rate appear across the inside screen of my goggles. As it climbed, I worked to control it. Breathe, breathe. Calm yourself. Remember what the pulse rate medicine did to my body, how it felt. Try to repeat the effect.

  I worried for nothing. The nurses didn’t care about us. They had more important things to discuss about their patients and their personal lives. After talking briefly about a patient who had delivered a set of twins at 4:00 AM, they discussed where to go out to dinner before going on night shift.

  When the elevator stopped on the third floor, they got out.

  I sighed with relief. I quickly pressed the 4 button, befor
e anyone else had a chance to get on.

  The next Ping! let us know we’d reached our destination. The doors whooshed open, and we stepped out into our biggest challenge so far.

  There were a lot of doctors, nurses and visitors walking around the maternity floor and sitting behind the main desk. Thankfully, there were quite a few wearing personal protective suits. I figured we’d blend in just fine.

  We found Room #459 and peeked through the glass window. There was an obstetrician dressed in less protective clothing than us, as it would be very difficult to deliver a child while wearing that cumbersome an outfit. However, there were also two nurses dressed exactly like us.

  We knew from our records that the pregnant woman would have complications in about five minutes, breech birth, so the staff would become too busy to pay much attention to exactly who we were.

  Waylon pushed the door open. He said, “We were sent here to assist.”

  Dr. Owen Reynolds said, “Hello. We’re getting close to delivery here.” He smiled at the woman laboring in the bed, her long brown hair spread across the pillow. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead. Her hands clenched the bedrails. She was moaning and seemingly oblivious to everyone in the room. Her thoughts had turned inward, focusing on her contractions and pain and the new life she was bringing into the world.

  I blinked to decrease my empathy. The pain the woman was experiencing was almost too much to bear. I had to ratchet down my mirroring response in order to protect my own health and emotional stability.

  In my own time period, pain control implants in the brain are accessed as needed to control pain. But back here in this more primitive era, medication was used to manage pain. Some of the genetically modified babies were being born with insignificantly developed lungs and other problems. A medical decision had been made to avoid giving these mothers any pain medication that might affect their baby’s lung function or ability to survive the birth process. Natalie Jenkins was one of these women.

  As Dr. Reynolds studied the monitor, his bushy gray eyebrows slanted downward with concern. He stood up to address the laboring woman. He said, “We’re going to push on your stomach, Natalie. Your baby is trying to turn himself around. We don’t want this to become a breech birth. Do you understand?”

  Her voice was weak and shaky as she replied with one word: “Yes.”

  Dr. Reynolds told the nurses: “Call Angelina. STAT.”

  A nurse pressed a call button on the wall. Speaking into the intercom system, she said, “We need two more nurses in here. STAT. Possible breech.”

  Almost immediately, two nurses wearing the same kind of protective gear we had on entered the room. They applied cold compresses to the woman’s forehead and held her hand while the other two nurses pressed on the woman’s stomach, trying to keep the baby from turning around and presenting his feet to the birth canal.

  Waylon and I busied ourselves helping out in ways that wouldn’t change the outcome of history in this particular situation.

  The woman let out a series of bloodcurdling screams every time someone pressed on her stomach.

  It was odd to see what these people looked like close-up. I’d viewed photos, of course, but this was my first time seeing the actual earlier version of human beings in person. In the room, there were the four nurses covered from head to toe in personal protective gear, so they didn’t look much different than Waylon and me at that particular moment. But the laboring mother had light tan skin and the doctor had dark brown skin. Their eyes were brown. They had hair on top of their heads, the woman long brown hair and the doctor short curly gray hair. Everyone had arch-shaped hair above their eyes. The doctor had a thick growth of hair on his upper lip and shaved hair on his cheeks, chin and neck. We don’t have facial hair or any type of body hair. It isn’t necessary, so our genetics dispensed with it.

  The woman screamed and moaned in agony. Despite the best efforts of the medical team, the baby continued to turn completely around until it was obvious that this was going to be a breech birth.

  The obstetrician gave sharp orders for everyone to prepare for C-section. Natalie was put under anesthesia, her stomach cut open and the baby delivered.

  I teared up. I hadn’t expected to feel so emotional.

  I was witnessing the birth of one of the very first babies of our kind anywhere in the universe. This was the beginning of a new era.

  The infant was tiny: only four pounds six ounces. He was pale green and covered in mucus and blood. The paleness is true of all newborns, as the pigment comes in later. No one knows exactly how green a child’s skin will be until later in its first year of life. The eventual shade has absolutely no connection to the strength of the photosynthetic process.

  After the delivery, Waylon and I were to go to the baby nursery and peer through the window at the newborns.

  It was a bit overwhelming, standing there observing the first generation of photosynthetic children. They were absolutely beautiful with their soft green skin and baby blue eyes.

  All the mothers had been told their babies died in childbirth. Natalie had been told that her son died when the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and strangled him. The baby had been whisked away before she woke from anesthesia.

  I wasn’t there for that part.

  It seemed unusually cruel. Prejudice based on skin color was so extreme back then, scientists believed the only way to protect the first generation of green children was to raise them in total isolation on a secret island far from the rest of civilization. No one outside the scientific community, not even their birth mothers, were to know that they existed.

  Chapter 12

  Our first mission had been designed to show us the beginning of our kind. It was meant to show us what we were time traveling for: to protect the entire future of the human race from extinction.

  The next mission was meant to make an indelible impression on us, to teach us that we needed to be extremely careful. We were TTA time travelers. We’d be time traveling until we were too old to continue. However, in every instance where we journeyed backward to eras before our kind came into existence, we were going to be viewed as aberrations. There was no limit of aggression in people’s genes back then. Anyone perceived as too different, as strange, became a threat that unleashed dangerous levels of aggression, often leading to violence and murder. This happened even in circumstances where an unusual person was believed to have extraordinary powers. In the case of the albinos of East Africa, for example, people wanted to own parts of them for magical potions. Their skin was pure white. Personally, I could barely tell the difference between the albinos and people with pale skin. Many of the pale people were featured in fashion magazines of the time, and yet albinos were considered freaks. The message was drummed into our heads: If albinos were freaks, anyone with green skin would be considered subhuman at best, non-human at worst. Once you were deemed non-human, anything could be done to you. If we were caught by the wrong people, we’d most certainly be tortured, mutilated and killed.

  The location of the mission to which Waylon and I would be assigned was the landmass that had been named the United States of America, also referred to as the U.S.A. or U.S., shortly after their Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Other teams would be going to East Africa and other parts of the world where they’d learn the same lesson as us.

  Waylon and I would be traveling back in time to the state of Mississippi in the southern U.S. We were to show up a few days before the hanging of several people with dark brown skin. We were to see up close the kind of thing that could happen to us if we weren’t careful. We were also supposed to use our empathy to figure out if we could reveal ourselves to anyone in this particular moment of time and, if so, to do it. On future trips, we’d be interacting with people in medical procedures designed to get their DNA. None of this was to be done by force. We’d need to make them our allies working toward a common cause. We’d need their cooperation.

  This second trip back i
n time was as difficult as the first. Once again, we traveled through many locations where our ship folded space-time to make coordinates from one era touch those from another era, so that our pod could hop across. Nausea was so bad this time, I feared I’d throw up. So many sights and sounds and languages flooded my mind, I could barely stay oriented as to where I was and what I was supposed to do. I made myself concentrate on the letters TTA—to remind myself that I was on a mission from there, that that’s the place where I had a deep, ongoing connection. I was just passing through the other points in space-time.

  Finally, we landed. The instruments and outside cameras showed that we had ended up exactly where we had planned: in an isolated forest next to a lake. Back then, it was much easier to find uninhabited areas right next to settled ones. There was a lot of wild land where people weren’t as likely to show up and discover our pod. We turned on the camouflage cover, so that no one would see it from a distance.

  We spent two days recovering, same as we’d done on our first extended mission. Then we ventured out. We dressed as ourselves. This time, we were supposed to hide and observe, so we didn’t need any kind of disguise. We were green. We’d be wearing our form-fitting green suits. Our instructions were to try to blend in with trees, plants, anything green if we were in danger of being caught.

  Waylon and I walked around the lake. It was a beautiful place. The sky was bright blue and filled with enormous white clouds. The water sparkled with the light of the sun. Every once in a while, a fish broke through the lake surface, then splashed back down into the watery depths. The world was filled with sound: birds singing and calling to each other, insects buzzing.

  Waylon walked to the edge of the lake, dipped his hand into the water and splashed it around. He said, “You should try this. It’s refreshing.”