The year 2121 has brought many changes to the world. Technology has not advanced as far as one might have hoped. The understanding of DNA and the human body, however, has progressed beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Still, this future is not much different from our own world today. Life goes on, people have jobs and families; emotions run wild and people strive to be the best that they can be. Along with all good, however, must come bad. Discrimination is at a height yet again. However, social status, race or the color of your skin no longer have anything to do with it. Rather, humanity has discrimination down to a science.

There are the normal human beings, that is those created by being genetically altered before they're actually born. Parents choose the sex, the looks, the skills. Scientists remove any chance of getting any disease or any problems; addictions are impossible. They are the elite, super-humans of genetic creation. Everyone who's anyone is born this way. It is natural and expected of members of society.

Then there are the 'God Children', those who were put in the hands of fate and conceived naturally. They are like we are; their looks, habits, gender, everything is left up to chance. These people, unlike their genetically perfect counter-parts, are the lower class. Janitors, crew men, they take the jobs that no one wants. Extremely weak compared to the superior, there is no chance that they might get their dream job or ever become a respected part of every day society.

How is it, then, that employers know of their genetic weakness? Urine tests, a strand of hair, spit... It takes only the slightest bit of DNA to determine the superior from the inferior, from one human being to the next. Job interviews consist of some sort of DNA sampling. Personality no longer matters; if you were born the normal way, chances are you'll get the job you seek.

Still there are those who sneak among the norm, invalids that manage to slip through the fingers of authority and pose as normal people. There are those who are genetically superior whom, although still alive, have grown weary of their lives and offer theirs up for others. They live in confinement, providing urine samples, blood and other remains for the invalids that leave their names behind and take up these new identities. These imposters rid themselves daily of as much hair, nail and the like as they can so that they might not be found out by mistake. Their numbers are few but the imposters live among the superior. These invalids have weaseled their way into the lives of their dreams.

Slowly society is honing in on these rare and few imposters, striking a strange fear into normal, every day people. To think that they have been hood-winked for so long is a terrifying thought. Invalids, after all, are nothing but imperfect, capable, no doubt, of horrifying tasks that no Genetically perfect person would ever consider.

Perhaps it would do them all some good to remember that there is no gene for the human spirit.

Invalid