At first no one had any idea that it was starting, and by the time anyone realized what was going on, it was too late to do anything to stop it. Some cause candidates for the start of the changes include certain unexplained medical phenomena which started to be observed in the first few decades of the 23rd century, in which children suddenly recovered from what should have been medically fatal injuries, their bodies adapting to circumstances in impossible or scientifically incomprehensible ways. Others theorize that the changes simply became observable only towards the latter part of the 23rd century, implying that the ability to sustain core enhancements had always been a latent aspect of human biology. Regardless of what began it, the first awareness of the oncoming shift came too late for anyone to intervene.
Awareness spread rapidly, however. A change that happened to occur in one individual, however small or seemingly inconsequential, would suddenly replicate in countless others thousands of miles away. Before long it was happening to entire cohorts of children, birth by birth, so that eventually no human family could remain unafflicted, anywhere in the world. After a while they started referring to the "core", the central part of the body where the alterations occurred. But coming to even a basic grasp of what was going on and why took a very long time.
The world readjusted, the way it always did to meet new challenges—to the extent that it became nearly unrecognizable. Infected people were registered and designated with official aliases, while whole city districts were converted into Quarantine Areas for the Reeducated, a new class of modified humanity that could be trained, educated or quarantined for observation.
Those with the gene drifted to the top of the social ladder, their subordinates looking up with a mixture of resentment and avarice. Some regions of the world endured few disruptions to their structures and daily affairs. Others quickly descended into chaos, their institutions and social fabric crumbling as those with few abilities or any that diminished the others lost whatever standing they had. Eventually there was no fight left in the world to resist the Changed.
The world adjusted to its new state and it learned to accept and accommodate the mutations that made everything different—and irretrievable. And in a world where people were judged by the strength of their arms and the glow of their faces, those with no strength and no shine were thrown away like garbage before they were ever given the chance to breathe.
In the distant alleyway, a long way off, a cry echoed, pure and tiny and shockingly real in the sleeping city. A hood was pulled up, and head lowered as the figure hastened into the brighter light of the street at the end of the alley, without a look back. For a second, all that was left was the sound of the cry - a sad and haunting thread linking time and space.
Then, from the opposite end of the alley, two shadowy forms emerged. One was rushing towards the end of the lane, its movements a caricature of speed and urgency. The second form trailed behind, smaller and easier to lose in the gloom. Kneeling by the lifeless bundle of clothes scattered in a haphazard pile at the side of the alley, the woman picked up the wailing baby. Her face flushed with love and affection as the child was calmed by her presence. The girl gazed on, unmoving.
Years passed and their turn did not come. When the boy was four the alley was no more than a distant and largely forgotten memory; since then he and the others had grown up in a seemingly endless stretch of derelict streets and battered sidewalks made from worn concrete, lit by flickering street lamps that cast bizarre and frightening shadows everywhere in the night.
Now, the three of them made their way through one of the city's no-charge districts; places where the city authorities had given up all pretence of controlling the action that took place there and the only currency was whatever could be collected from the ground. Anwyll, Yuri and Maki dressed in the same tattered and dirty clothing as the many mendicants that haunted the roads and verges of the city, their faces permanently smudged by the dirt, ash and smoke of the world about them.
They were just a couple of dozen among the hundreds who strew the edges of the streets hoping for small change from passing strangers. More than once a day Maki would send the children off to wait in a side alley close to one of the large drop-in centres, where she would go with a few other women to be paid by men who were also seeking to feed themselves in a hard and barren world.
The children never asked or were concerned by her disappearances; and she never said anything to them about her visits to the centres being a part of a world from which the others were thankfully excluded. For most people this life was just life—unchangeable, unremarkable and endured.
For Anwyll it was different. Even when he was only four years old there had been a constant ache in his chest and a deep-seated determination in him that had not yet subsided. Unlike the other children in the settlement he had not yet learnt to accept his lot in life. Instead, every night he would gaze up at the sky, where the lights of the higher levels of society twinkled like stars in the distance. He longed for them. Not for food, or warmth or shelter. But for more. More than life on the streets, more than the endless struggle to survive.
More than anything. In the furthest corners of his young mind Anwyll felt that there was more to life than this. By the time he was five, Anwyll wasn't hiding in the shadows. He was living in the streets. The streets didn't change — they were still dirty, dangerous, and cold — but he had managed to find a place. A way to survive.
He knew every camera on every corner, every flickering streetlight over every door, every patrol route and every hot zone. And the current that ran through him, whenever he sought it out, was real. With a twitch of his fingers, the CCTV cameras would blink and blackout. And while the others — bigger, stronger, nastier — would go in and scavenge, Anwyll would wait outside. For one reason: to bring back whatever they got.
Whatever it was, it was always enough. It hadn't always been like this. A year ago, he'd had no idea what this feeling was. He remembered this night too well. Cold pavement, Yuri standing in the doorway, the man stumbling out and adjusting himself while Anwyll caught his eyes on the prolonged stare.
He didn't quite get it all yet, but he was starting to piece things together. The way Yuri shifted her weight, the way she quickly averted her gaze. The man's self-satisfied smirk. Anwyll stepped in front of her. He was small. Too small. The man barely hesitated before striking him aside.
The world blurred into pain—sharp, overwhelming, endless. He tried to stand, tried to swing back, grabbing whatever he could. A glass bottle shattered against the man's head, but it only made things worse.
The blows came harder after that. Faster. Each one heavier than the last. His body gave out, but something inside him didn't. It built itself, incrementally. Pressure and heat and vibrations that shouldn't be there.
And then a sudden snapping. A sharp crack split the air. His body spat forth electricity with no more warning than a snap of the fingers, and his skin erupted with sparkling threads of static.
The man was caught mid-step, his pupils bugging and his muscles rigidifying under an unseen constraint. Without thinking, Anwyll reacted as his arm flicked out, propelling him toward whatever charge burst from his body. In an incandescent blur, a bolt of lightning erupted between them. The man didn't even scream. The air was thick with the acrid stench of smoke as it burned away.
The body landed with a wet splat on the ground. Yuri stood there, staring as if rooted to the spot. Anwyll's gaze dropped to his shaking hand. The sparkling current between his fingers began to fade out, trailing behind it an eerie silence. That was the first time.
In the here and now, the job was clean. The cameras were dead, everyone else was gone and Anwyll had managed to keep them all from being caught. The leader of the team handed him a wad of cash—the take was higher than normal this time. Anwyll didn't so much as glance at it before he caught it and tucked it away and spun round his back to them.
He trudged home in silence. As he made his way deeper into the ruined sector, the scenery looked more and more familiar: empty and ruined buildings, shattered windows and unending wind. His feet finally carried him to their home; a ruined structure that barely stood and was riddled with structural cracks.
Inside, Maki was slumped against the wall. She looked frail and was struggling to breathe. Yuri was skinny, but as soon as he looked up at him, he saw that her eyes were still alive. Anwyll drew his knees in, sat cross-legged on the floor, and straddled their meal, putting it between them. He had portioned it out before he came: more for each of them, less for himself.
Now Yuri sat there, not reaching for her meal, her gaze flicking to him.
"You should eat more," she said quietly.
"I already did," Anwyll replied, not looking at her.
It wasn't true. Maki gazed at them for a moment. Her tired eyes looked softly and deeply tired. Her gaze floated down to her plate. She took another small, more deliberate bite of her food than she used to and began to talk.
"You don't have to keep doing this, Anwyll." He finally looked up. " Doing what?"
"This," she said, waving her hand in a listless motion toward the table, toward him, toward everything, "this and this. You being in danger."
Anwyll's expression didn't change." We need it."
"We need you," Yuri said hastily, her voice taut. "More than we need that."
Silence followed. Anwyll looked down at his serving. It was almost laughably small compared to the quantities everyone else had. There was the faintest glimmer of reaction in his eyes, but it was there and then it was gone.
"I'm fine," he said simply. " I can handle it."
Outside the tumbled walls and lead-smashed glass it lay motionless, quiet, patient. It did not need sight to monitor the happenings within the structure. It felt. Felt the three tiny human life forms crouched together in the core of the wrecked building, their lights flickering wildly like candles in the breeze. And one light was different from the others. Smaller, less refined, but it was there. A nascent core pulse that spoke of future energy and potential. The thing lay still, focusing all its being on the tiny human that carried that core.
Watching.
Waiting.