Ambition

glass windows and from the door I’d left cracked open to offer relief from the summer heat. All the lower windows were boarded up to prevent intruders which also made it kind of dark and moody.

  Just the way I liked it.

  Katie bent over her poster board which lay on the floor, scribbling out her words of protest, then held it up for me to see.

  “What’d ya think, Noah?”

  It had the word GAP in large block letters inside of a red circle and a big red X was marked over it. It lacked imagination, but got to the point.

  “It’s good,” I said.

  “Dude,” Dexter said, holding up his long, skinny arm. His read, Transhumanism is un-natural. I nodded my approval.

  On mine I scratched out, Science is not a true religion.

  Brian held his up with a beefy hand. GAP policies SUCK.

  I grinned. “Nice. Short and sweet.”

  I tapped my ComRing to check the time.

  “It’s almost five, guys,” I said. “Time to rock and roll.”

  We didn’t have far to go. Sleiman Center was one of the glass and steel buildings that crowded around my church. The normally full square was teaming with extra people curious to get a glimpse of the who’s who of the Sleiman world. The crowd swelled noticeably as the protesters began to arrive. My blog announcement got over a hundred hits and I’d expected a good turnout.

  Limos arrived one after the other delivering attendees. Self-important men dressed in three-piece suits and women in slinky dresses exited the glamorous vehicles like they were showing up at the bloody Oscars.

  The protesters started a low chant of Down with Gap Crap, growing increasingly louder until it crescendoed, to an ear piercing volume. Down with Gap Crap!!

  New arrivals to Sleiman Center shot us sour scowls.

  Dexter chanted the loudest and I worried he was so high that he’d float into the air like a helium filled balloon. He yelled in my ear, “This is fantastic!”

  The news reporters finally realized that we were the real news here. One of them pushed in toward us and thrust a mike in my face. The setting sun was blinding and sweat dripped down my temples. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.

  “Why are you here?” he said.

  “We’re here because we are against the injustice brought to the average citizens of America by those who think they are better than the rest of us.”

  “Meaning Genetically Altered Persons,” he said.

  “Yes,” I shouted above the roar of the crowd. “GAPs have unfair social advantages. They have the wealth and opportunity allowing them to leap ahead of poorer naturals. They have the best of the best of all things, including real estate. Look at Sol City. It was built on land that once housed lower income citizens. GAP status allowed them to push the poor off their land after the Quake so they could build their walled, GAP-only, utopian city.”

  I pictured my dad, and the times he stood in front of reporters and said much the same thing. It stirred my zeal.

  “They fund the government and shape unfair policies. And most importantly, they have time. They have artificially expanded lifelines. They have no right to play God in this way. The alteration of human genetics must be stopped!”

  Sirens pierced through the noise of the chanters and interrupted my speech.

  Dexter grabbed my shoulder. “Hey dude. The authorities! Let’s bolt!”

  We elbowed our way through the crowd, held back by “fans” stopping me to pat me on the back and to shake my hand.

  I smiled and thanked them for coming, but inside I was antsy and eager to get back to the church.

  I slumped onto one of the pews, slid down onto my back and let out a long breath. I pressed my hands over my beating heart. My boney shoulder blades pinched as they dug into the wood.

  Dexter bounced on his heels, his whole body jittering with adrenaline, his arms flailing like one of those old blow-up men that whipped around in the wind. His eyes bulged out of his head reminding me of a cartoon.

  His voice exploded, “That was so ultimate, man!”

  I didn’t share in his euphoria. In fact, a dark despondency had settled on me, weighing heavily on my chest. I found it hard to breathe and pushed back up into a sitting position, tempted to drop my head between my legs. I would’ve if Dexter weren’t there to witness it.

  My head spun and blackness pulsed in the corner of my eyes.

  “Dude? Are you okay?”

  I told myself to calm down. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  It was a lie. At my core, this wasn’t me. It wasn’t what I wanted to be. Sure, I was opposed to GAP policies, but I didn’t want to lead a movement. I didn’t want to be the leader.

  “I’m heading back out,” Dexter said. “You coming?”

  “No, you go. I’ll see you later.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, later dude.”

  I leaned back against the pew and folded my arms relishing the relative quiet. The din of the noise outside bled in through the walls and windows, but at least I was alone.

  I stared up at the cross that hung on the wall above where the pulpit used to be. I’d sold most of the church stuff, basically stripped it, just keeping a few pews that we’d set into a semi circle. Wooden floors, wooden ceiling, wooden pews, wooden cross.

  Lots of wood.

  There was something about it that comforted me.

  My mind went to an earlier memory, when there were two rows of pews running from the front to the back, filled on a Sunday morning with parishioners. The lower windows were always open, not only for air but as an invitation to those passing by to come in and satisfy their curiosity. Maybe they’d like what they heard. Maybe they’d stay. Maybe they’d come again.

  The meetings opened with music played by a small band consisting of a guitarist—many times me—a bassist and a drummer.

  Then dad would give his sermon. It was often about the importance of family, blood and otherwise, and how imperative it was that we took care of each other. Toward the end, the focus of his preaching was increasingly about the importance of justice and how to deal with the prevailing injustice. He didn’t have a problem with science when it was used to heal sickness and disease but he had a big problem with science when it was used to alter the core of who man was made to be. His opposition steadily grew as did his following—people who listened to his teachings and admonitions and believed them as strongly as he did.

  Not everybody loved him, especially those who found his words and influence threatening. All it took was one gunshot to end it.

  I felt a lump form in my throat. I missed my dad. And I was afraid of disappointing him.

  Dad, I don’t know if I can do it?

  Leading the protests and taking up Dad’s cause seemed like a natural thing for me to do. I was his first born son. People expected it, especially once I turned eighteen and graduated from high school. There was no one more surprised than me at how popular my blog had become in such a short time.

  This role seemed to be my destiny, but there was a part of me, a big part, that didn’t want to do it. I just wanted to live my own life my own way.

  I picked up the guitar that was propped up in the corner and started to play, but the tunes that usually calmed my soul didn’t work their magic this time. My legs jittered and a growing restlessness pushed me back outside, toward home.

  The authorities had broken up the protest, but many of the protesters still loitered around the square. I didn’t feel like chatting and didn’t want to be recognized. I kept my head down as I walked to the pod transit.

  Ma was sitting in her recliner watching the news when I got home. I startled at the sight of my face peering back at me. I was spouting off as a large crowd pushed in behind me, the iconic clock tower in the background.

  The ticker that ran under the scene said, NOAH BRODY,GRANDSON OF LESSER KNOWN GENETIC SCIENTIST MATTHEW BRODY, CO-DEVELOPER OF THE PROCESS OF HUMAN GENETIC ALTERATION.

&n
bsp; The better known scientist was Dr. William Vanderveen, the current Senator of California, Democratic presidential candidate, and Zoe Vanderveen’s grandfather. He was the one everyone credited with the extension of the human life span, primarily because my grandfather was against implementing the science once it had been developed.

  It was hard to imagine that Zoe’s grandfather and my grandfather had once been good friends and professional colleagues.

  “She saw it air live,” Ma said.

  My eyes snapped to her. “What?”

  “I was cleaning the great room when the news aired your protest live on their TV. Zoe Vanderveen was there. I thought I was going to have to sweep her jaw off the floor.”

  Several emotions slammed up against me at her words. Pride? Anger? Indignation? What did I care if Zoe Vanderveen saw me rant about her GAP status? If I disrupted her parents' night out? Maybe she’d remember my name now, next time she saw me. Maybe I’d be more than a cleanup guy to her.

  Whatever. I didn’t care what she thought. She lived in a make-believe world.

  I sighed heavily, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t alone in the room.

  “Just because it was your father’s fight,” Ma said in a raspy voice, “doesn’t mean it has to be yours.”

  My eyes settled on hers, surprised at how she constantly managed to read my mind, to know what was going on in my heart.

  “I know, Ma,” I said.

  But I didn’t know that. Not for sure. What if it were a calling or something? What if taking up this cause was my destiny?

  I kissed Ma on the cheek and went to my room, settling into the desk chair. My blog was opened up on my monitor.