Project Achilles

Noah People always talk about the thrill of performance. I suppose I’ve been performing for so many years of my life that I’ve never truly understood it. Though I highly doubt this is the type of performance they’re talking about, as I’m standing behind a stage, being fitted in my formal uniform. I hear the CEO addressing the audience. “Ever since Texas gained its independence, Hastrod Industries has been working to earn its place as the ruling company of this fine nation, with many scientific discoveries and projects, but our pride and joy is Project Achilles. For thirty years, with the help of selective breeding, genetic engineering, bionics, and medicine, we have created near-perfect soldiers. These individuals could be the key to the next stage of human evolution. You have all volunteered to be this year's candidates and then chosen to carry the next generation of Achilles Soldiers. We thank you all for doing your part in the evolution of science and offering your bodies to create the perfect humans.” My mind skipped the rest of the speech as Dean Phillips approached me, placing a hand on my shoulder, “Nervous?” he asked. “No,” I’m being honest, I don’t like to lie, it’d be pointless to do so, really, “I’ve done this every year since I was ten, to be honest, I can’t help but pity those volunteers. The thought of going through a pregnancy seems like a nightmare to me, and many of those women only came here cause they were poor and they were promised a large paycheck to carry a child.” “They chose to be here,” Dr. Phillips said, his tone stern yet gentle, “and it’s because of that choice that there will be a new generation of Achilles Soldiers such as you, Noah, maybe this batch will be as good as you” his other hand was placed on my other shoulder as he turned me to face the mirror “when I look at you, I don’t just see our brightest student, or our best fighter, I see the next generation of human, Project Achilles exists for specimen such as yourself” I don’t flinch as he leans in closer before whispering into my ear “all you need to do is prove that to them” “And without further ado, I welcome to the stage, the greatest of our Achilles Soldiers, here to give you a demonstration, Noah.” I finally hear the CEO say. “Go make me proud.” Dr. Phillips says, before he lets me go. When I step onto the stage, I scan the audience of women. Half of them were dressed like they were attending a church service, their heads hung high, smiles reflecting patriotic pride. The other half looked as clean as one could manage without indoor plumbing, their eyes reflecting uncertainty. It was easy to tell who was here to serve her country and who was here cause she needed the money. “Noah was born in Generation 11, making him 20 years old. For the past ten years, he has consistently ranked top of not just his generation but all of our other soldiers.” The CEO explained before he turned to me, “Noah, I have a couple of rapid-fire questions for you. How many times did the Republic of Texas succeed?” “Three times,” I answered without hesitation. “And what year was each of those?” “We succeeded from Mexico in 1836, we succeeded from the union in 1861, and then we succeeded from the USA in 2069.” “What is the capital of Iraq?” “Bagdad” “Could you recite the first 100 digits of pi?” “3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679” The CEO smiles before he continues, “but soldiers like Noah aren’t just good for answering random trivia questions,” as he spoke, two assistants entered the stage carrying a metal block, the CEO points to it, “this is 65 hundred grams of solid gold.” he knocks it to show just how real it is “no regular human could break this” he said before he turned to me “luckily, Noah is no regular human” I approach the block, as I position my body, and with one punch, the block is broken in two. The audience applauds the show. As soon as I hear a gunshot ring, I raise my hand, catching a bullet just two inches before it hits my head. I then open my palm, showing the bullet resting on my hand, with only a large cut and a nasty bruise as injury to the audience. The cheers continue as the CEO approaches me, before handing me a rifle, “How about you take your own shot?” Employees push people to the sides, clearing a path for me, opening the double doors, showing a target sitting in the middle of the other room, which must be at least 15 feet away from me. I hold the rifle in position, taking a deep breath and closing one eye. Behind me, there is live footage of the target projected onto a screen for the audience to get a better look. I pull the trigger, and it hits the bullseye. The audience roars in applause. I take a bow as the CEO is clapping as well as he approaches me, “Give him a hand, everyone,” he calls, which is my cue to return backstage as he continues with his speech. And with that, my performance is over. Hours later, I was back in my training uniform, and I was in the shooting range, along with everyone else. “I saw your presentation tonight,” I hear from behind me. I don’t turn around as the voice I hear belongs to the last man I want to see. Instead, I take a deep breath and try to focus on the target instead of the handler closing in on me. “You are incredible as always,” he said, resting his hand on my upper back as always. I fight every urge to move away, “you showed them what a true soldier looks like.” his hand traveled down my back, my body was frozen waiting for him to be gone. “I would know cause I was the first to see you become a man.” “Carl!” an authoritative voice belonging only to Dr. Phillips interrupts, making everyone turn to him. The man stood in the doorway. His arms behind his back, two guards standing behind him, as he stared down at his subordinate, his face unimpressed, “I thought I asked you to oversee the volunteers, make sure they know where to go.” Carl jumped. His face was pale before he turned to face Dr. Phillips, standing straight. “My apologies, sir, I must’ve gotten sidetracked,” he said before leaving the training hall. Dr. Phillips turned to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, “You did well today,” he said before leaving. “Alright, we’re moving on to hand-to-hand combat,” the commander exclaimed. A couple of minutes later, we were all in the sparring room. We all stood in a circle after watching many other pairs spar. The commander stood in the middle. “Alright, final two of the day, Evan and Noah.” Evan and I walked up to the platform. Before Evan spoke up, “Sir, I must voice my concern; Noah was born female; therefore, a fight between him and me would not be fair.” The commander crossed his arms. “Evan, how many wins do you have on the floor?” “389, sir,” Evan answered, his voice shaking, knowing full well he wasn’t gonna win this argument. “Noah has 12,532 wins; he has remained undefeated for two years straight, and in all tests, he ranks above not only this whole generation but every other Achilles Soldier.” The Commander spoke, “This isn’t a fair fight, cause any fight between any of you and Noah is unfair.” Evan’s face was unlegible as he looked at me. “But this could be your chance, maybe this fight could prove you are more deserving of that top spot,” the commander said. “So how about it, Evan? You wanna be the new golden boy” Evan didn’t answer with words; instead, he turned to me with new determination. “Alright, boys, ready to fight?” The Commander spoke as we both got into our fighting position. Evan rushed towards me, going directly for my injured right hand. He threw a punch, but I immediately dodged. At the start of the session, I focused on dodging each of his attacks, throwing him off balance. Finally, I landed a hit of my own with my left arm, punching him square in the chest, before shoving him down, placing my foot in his chest to keep him in place. “Five. Four. Three-” the commander called as Evan remained on the floor, right before Evan grabbed my ankle and knocked me down, before he got on top of me, strategically holding down my left arm, leaving free only the arm I used to catch a bullet earlier. “Five. Four. Three. Two, the commander called before I shoved my right elbow into Evan’s chest, causing him to back away. I took the opportunity to sit up and flip him before pinning him down with my right forearm. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One! Noah wins the fight,” the commander calls before I get up, letting Evan go, as he looks at me bitterly as he gets up. “Alright, and with that, training is over. Return to your dorms; curfew approaches,” the commander announces. And just like that, my day of performance is over. Felix The best part of my job is collecting herbs and mushrooms. This neighborhood, resting in what used to be Boca Chica Village, is my favorite place to go. For one, all the shit here is either dead or rotten, so it’s the best place to find mushrooms. Second, I like seeing what people left behind after the explosion. Cameras, old phones, lockets, jackets, paintings, I can always tell which houses were left behind during evacuation and which ones are the ones where the owners weren’t so lucky. By principle, I don’t steal from the dead (at least not the confirmed dead), so I only take shit left behind by those who are (probably) still alive. Third, there’s a beach nearby that I love wasting my time in. After about thirty minutes of collecting mushrooms that were growing around the neighborhood library, I decided to take a break, before down at the steps, and drink the water in my pail. I stare at a glitched-out ad from right before the explosion. Your future is with us, the fucking irony. After my break, I go back to collecting mushrooms, and then once I finish, I head to the nearby beach. The place is pretty, though it was probably even prettier before it had all these now-abandoned testing sites. However, I like coming to these. It’s very satisfying sights, seeing these once tall buildings now turned to ruins, claimed by nature and whatever rando with a spray paint can passes by, one of these randos being myself. I walk towards the site and start taking polaroids of my own handiwork, as well as everyone else’s masterpieces. Once I finish, I walk towards the ocean and take one picture of the water. After resting, I walked back to the road and hitched a ride back to the Sanctuary. I let my mind wander as I stare into the passing trees of the forest area that leads to my home. Once we arrive, I thank my driver and start walking back to the clinic, passing by farmers and engineers returning from whatever it is they do with those solar panels. I eventually arrive at the clinic, it’s a small building, about the size of a pool house (or at least what I imagine a pool house to look like). I push the door open, “Hey Oscar,” I greet my mentor, he’s known me since birth. Milo and I are the only ones in the entire community who don’t refer to him as Dr. Gaytan. “Felix, I need your help with something.” his voice is serious, which means this is bad. I look up to see a dog on a table writhing in agony, the injuries over its body indicate it was run over by a truck, and somehow wasn’t lucky enough to die instantly. “Someone brought him, I tried everything to bring him back,” he said, “the only thing we can do is ease his suffering.” I nodded as I walked straight up to the scared animal, each whimper another knife to my chest, “hey, buddy,” I said softly, “it’s okay, it’s okay,” I whispered softly as I pet its head. I felt its tongue weakly lick my hand, making much harder, yet I didn’t let it show “it won’t hurt anymore” I said softly “I promise, you’ll be in a better place” I fought back any tears as Oscar injected the door, and the creature’s body started growing weaker, nevertheless I kept petting him “rest well, buddy” Once he was dead, we went outside to bury him. A few hours later, my shift was over, helping Milo with dinner. “You brought back all these mushrooms. I assume you went to that neighborhood I keep telling you not to go to,” he said as we separated all my findings. “Perhaps I did,” I respond in that tone I know annoys the shit out of him. “You know why that place is abandoned, right? Cause there was a chemical explosion in one of the testing sites. It could be dangerous,” Milo argued. “Well, I’m still alive and not glowing,” I responded, “either way, there’s plenty of useful shit growing there.” Milo sighs, “There are plenty of good mushrooms growing around this forest, I don’t know why you need to wake up at the crack of dawn and hitch a ride an hour away from here for” “Because it’s fun, you can’t see fuck in this forest, and you’re not my dad,” I replied. “I’m your older brother,” Milo quips. “That’s still not my dad,” I sing, “besides, I’m eighteen now, so you can’t tell me shit.” Milo rolled his eyes, “Just be careful, alright?” he said, “Last thing I need is to lose you too,” he said, as he took the pot with the edible mushrooms and filled it to fill with water. It was then that I felt someone coming up behind me and screaming, causing me to jump out of my own skin. I turned around to see that the two assholes who snuck up on me were Noel and Maya. “Fuck you, guys!” I complained as Noel stood there laughing his ass off. “He made me do it,” Maya pointed at Noel defensively, barely able to hold back her own laughter. “You should’ve seen your fucking face, dude,” Noel said before mimicking my scream, and I responded by flipping him off. “Anyways,” Maya said, “I was wondering if you wanted to start heading to the lake.” “Actually, I was about to help Milo with dinner,” I replied, “I can catch up once we’re done.” “Go ahead,” Milo called, “I can handle dinner on my own.” I turned around, only slightly surprised, Are you sure?” As much as I wanted to hang out with my friend, I still felt bad for leaving him alone with dinner. “Yeah, don’t worry about it”, he said. “Sick, let’s go,” I replied before grabbing my messenger bag, and my friends and I raced down to the nearby lake. As soon as we got there, our two other friends, Eric and Celes, were already waiting for us. “The fuck took you guys so long?” Celes replied as they and Eric were floating in the lake. “We were trying to get this one out the door,” Noel replied, pointing at me as he stripped down to his underwear. “Last one in owes everyone a soda,” I said as I started kicking off my combat boots, followed by my hoodie, and cargo shorts. “Wait, you’re not seriously getting in with your binder on, are you?” Maya asked halfway through changing. I rolled my eyes in response, “I’ll be fine, Maya, I’ve done this before. Besides, you should be more worried about paying for all our drinks.” Before Maya had time to react, I ran off to the lake. Maya rushed to pull off her shirt and ran after me. Eric, Celes, and Noel were all cheering for either one of us to win. Eventually, we both made it to the water with Maya just a few seconds after me. After a couple of minutes of swimming around and floating, we got dressed again, and we sat beneath the nearby tree, talking and joking around the way we always do. At random moments, I pulled out my Polaroid camera and took pictures of everyone. At one point, Celes was showing off their necklace they made. “Is that real?” Eric asked in reference to the snake skull that hung around their neck. Celes nodded in pride, “It tried to attack my sister, but she shot it. I asked if I could use it, and now I have a new necklace,” they said as they showed it off. “I think it’s pretty sick,” I answered. “How do you even do that?” Maya asked, both disgusted and fascinated. “Simple, you skin it, and then you separate all the parts. My mom’s using the venom sack to make anti-venom, we fed the meat to our dogs, the skin’s going on the wall, and the rest of the skeleton will be used to make more of these things,” Celes explained. “Well, at least you’re using every part of it; most people just throw away the shit they kill,” Maya responded. Noel checked the time. “shit! Guys, we need to head back. The concert’s starting in ten minutes!” All of us quickly scrambled up and started running back to the Sanctuary. We rushed back to the sanctuary, and we rushed all the way to the amphitheater. Don’t let the name fool you; there is nothing grand about it. It’s just what we call it. It’s an outdoor theater right in the middle of the park, about a quarter of the size of whatever you’re thinking, but it’s perfect for punk concerts every Saturday. We arrived just in time as the band was setting up, our hype very quickly matching the rest of the audience. I took pictures of the theater, the band, everything. What I didn’t know was that I was documenting the last normal day of my life.