The Biometrics-Destabilised

An imaginative composed by Alana (Year 10, St Joseph’s Catholic College)

By the year 2200 human anatomy had evolved and the delicate human nature that was once inherent was now lost to time and the name of progress.

Iridescent flora danced, glistening to the curl of the wind, as colossal, green giants gathered - living pods - the equivalent of modernised skyscrapers from the old world. Within, embryonic humans slumbered in bio-crystalline incubation, born to be adaptive and powerful.

Levitating roads snaked around the living pods, buzzing with life- a dazzling spectacle to take in. Across space, billions of memories, hopes, and timeless achievements of all mankind are downloaded into each star, light-years away.

Flocks of biomechanical birds modified to suit this rapidly regenerating landscape fly past, chirping symphonies towards the twilight of dawn and dusk; they whisper of what was once but they look like the future. A sakura-pink and violet glow pulses from my arms. 

‘The Golden Generation’, they called it; an era where every aspect of life was orchestrated through molecular resonance and woven with threads of bioluminescence. People were bound, literally, to the genetically modified DNA that pulsed beneath their skin, a living circuitry connecting them to their surroundings.

It was a meticulously engineered biometric coexistence, a world where the so-called natural environment blended seamlessly with the man-made: forests that breathed with programmed rhythms, cities that glowed like living organisms, and humans who were no longer just inhabitants, but integrated components of the system itself.

I close my eyes and focus on the dispersing energy. A swirl of colours - cherry-blossom pink, violet purple, and midnight blue - explodes across my limbs as I push through the training drills. Good. Now more. Despite decades of all types of training, I still didn’t qualify.

The greater the bioluminescence and cosmic energy I controlled, the closer I was to potentially joining the elite Biometrics, under the Global Intelligence Organisation (GIO).

If only Miss Calipso Vayne could see me as one of them…

As I breathe in the succulent air, I sense the streams of bioluminescence flowing through my body like a river, awakening every nerve. The strong pull of the star-dipped blue gathers behind my eyes, pressing outward, ready to spill into the world. This hue-deep, electric, impossibly luminous-is rare; only a select few can summon it, let alone control it.

For a moment, I worry the colour will falter, that I’m not as attuned as I believe myself to be, but the pulse settles, steady and sure, and warmth floods my fingertips. The resonance answers me.

Surely, I was ready.

“Lock-in Azura, this is no time for dopamine,” I utter.

~~~

I walked home on my usual route, crossing through the misty, neon-coloured haze exuding from the ‘Chromavine.’ There’s always information, illegal experiments, and modifications of wildlife exchanged, as GIO surveillance doesn’t reach this outer district. I narrowly dodge some hovering ramen, if it weren't for the magnetic fields and holographic tech here. As I passed the infamous ramen shop of rogues, rebels and cyberpunks, a shadow from the alley lunges at me.

“Nice try, you almost got me,” I exclaim sarcastically, as I spin around and hold the figure firmly to the ground.

Martial arts prepped me for every kind of situation. For what, I’m not sure. Decked in cryptic, techno patterns, dark hair in waves with a streak of electric blue, Akira Kairox was a cyberpunk, or a walking thunderstorm of chaos and cockiness.

“Still the hypercautious Biometric-wannabe, huh?” he fires back, as a grin appears.

I roll my eyes. “I see that you're as annoying as ever,” I chuckle as I release him.

“I found something big. Things that you won’t believe. Apparently, the GIO’s hiding certain documents under classified bio-lock levels. It's on Calipso. The Biometrics. Everything,” he states solemnly.

“What kind of documents?” I whisper fleetingly.

Akira’s eyes softened, from a dark navy to an oceanic blue.

“The kind that explains the real reason why you weren’t admitted into the Biometrics.”

His words were bullets through my soul, the world shook around me…

As we ventured for the truth amidst the masquerade of lies, we found ourselves at the Bioforge Grove, a forest of living pods. Each incubating and monitoring Biohumans as they grew with the minds and capabilities to serve the GIO. That’s if they were skilled enough. They were stemmed from life, grown, and pruned to perfection. With a flick of his hand, he inserts the GIO chip he traded at the Chromavine. The fortress emitts chlorophyll; vines move aside.

We moved inside stealthily, ready to discover the secrets within…

“You ready?” he asks.

I nod, my eyes locked on what lies ahead.

~~~

I gasp at the bio-locks of classified documents. Multiple screens burst from the Grove’s Centre- a steady flow of information, genetic diagrams, research, embryonic development, and neural systems.

Soon, I find it: a file named ‘PROJECT ELEVATION.’

As Akira decoded the data, I noticed my patterns creating sakura blossoms, radiating a galactic charge, while Akira’s flickered. Text appeared on the holographic screen:

BIOHUMAN: AZURA VIRELLE
GENETIC SPECIES: ASTRALOMORPH
POTENTIAL BIOMETRIC LEVEL: ULTRA-OMEGA
RISK INDEX: CATASTROPHIC
POD NUMBER: UNKNOWN
STATUS: BIOMETRIC INTEGRATION TERMINATED — EXAMINATION ONGOING

I felt the air evaporate from my lungs.

“I’m… an ultra-omega, and so much of a risk that no one knows what pod I was born in?” I whispered.

Akira weighed my words.

“Azura… you're not like the others. You weren’t grown in the pods.”
“If not, then I’m-”
“A Naturalborn,” he finished.
“A phenomenon in an era that believed natural birth as a mystical thing of history, the lifeforce of the old world from centuries ago.”

I don’t understand. The bioluminescence within me, my capabilities, my connection to this world at a remarkable molecular level is stronger than most of the Ultra-omega tier Biometrics. Why was I classified as a threat, a danger, a poison to society?

The file continued:

ASTRALOMORPH ABILITY: EXPANDING
Multicellular absorption of cosmic photonic energy. Potential to disrupt planetary molecular equilibrium. Uncontrolled power overload could result in a universe destabilisation event.

“What?” I choked.
“I could… be the ruination of the universe?” Tears welled up as I felt myself breaking.

Akira shook my shoulders firmly, his eyes locked on mine with a flurry of emotions of anger, sadness, and comfort, from a deep, dark ravaging sea of blue to a warm sapphire wrapped in solace.
“That’s not true, Azura, look at me! You're one in a million. They’re scared of you. Scared because you weren’t designed in their precious little pods… You evolved.”

His patterns emitted static as anger took over.

My mind was bombarded by a cyclone of questions:
Why hide my abilities from me?
Why reject me instead of training me?
Why hide this from me?

It was the fluorescent lights blinking that first registered the shrilling alarms, alerting the GIO of our infiltration. Akira was dragging me away with his hand gripped in mine and his electric currents. We hurtled towards the Archives, an antique monument where GIO officers clad in khaki green chased after us.

“If we don’t do something now, it’ll only get worse!” I hollered.

“Agreed, time to show the GIO what the true abilities of astromorphs are,” Akira bellowed with a grin.

Energy compacted with my shots, a mix of cosmic violet and festering rose, creates neon rose in techno patterns; a streak of purple bursts from me. I aim this at the two GIO officers. In the blink of an eye, they crash together.

Akira crafts a cryptic gadget that shoots directly at the three drones, paralysing them.

“How was that?” Akira gasped.

“I have been training on controlling my cosmic energy–but I wasn’t expecting that!” I shout.

~~~

We find ourselves in the woodlands of the old world, once a blooming city, now forgotten and wasting away in the undergrowth. Akira’s body connects with the door and as it slams open the room is flooded with fluorescent lights which bounce around the room like laughter. It is a lab filled with human bones tucked away in time.

“Let the truth be revealed,” he states.
We dig through the files. Each one filled with endless lies and secrets.

THE GIO ENDED THOSE WHO WERE INTENT ON STARTING WAR.
THE BIOMETRICS WEREN’T BUILT TO PROTECT.
THEY WERE WEAPONS TO MAINTAIN CONTROL,
AND PREVENT THE RISE OF INVINCIBLE BIOMETRICS.

The Biometrics were government control, yet they were weaponised, ensuring no one crossed the line. The fabled naturalborns were to be “monitored.”

A holographic screen hovers gracefully mid air as Akira scrolls through the data.

. “Azura, look at this,” Akira exclaims.

Miss Calipso Valyne’s mark with the ominous words emanates from the screen:

“Azura to be monitored unless order is given for elimination.”

The air leaves my lungs. If I rebelled, I was to be killed. Eliminated. Before I could register it, I was knocked to my side by the blow of a force field. This had to stop. Power surged through me as pain lingered from the hostile blow; in seconds, an expanding white light of translucent colours enveloped us.

“Azura, your power, it's growing!” Akira, his voice rose with concern.

“It's not stopping!” Cosmic wavelengths pulse and swirl through me, preparing to rain destruction. The sound of heels clicking slowly  towards me resounded in my ears, and despite the unfolding commotion, a clear, practised voice echoes throughout the Biogrove…

“Diffuse your cosmic energy at once.” Mist swirled as Calipso emerged from beyond the cosmic fog. “I heard that the universe hadn’t seen a naturalborn astromorph in eons. The rumours of the power they had. How the sheer quantity could make or break the universe.”

“Why,” I began, “Why did you hide this from me all these years?” My voice boomed throughout the Biogrove.

Calipso looked at me with her piercing golden eyes and states with a practised composure,

“Azura, I know this must be upsetting for you, but we didn’t want to trigger an irreversible event, in case your potential exceeded our expectations.”

“I can control myself, thank you very much.”

I close my eyes and lock in on the cosmic energy and let it set ablaze my patterns. I breathe in the earthly aroma of greenery just within my reach and suddenly a suppressed memory takes over me:

My body is a conduit for my indestructible power.
My mind is the hand that shapes it.

The familiar voice centres me, despite my not knowing who it came from. I begin to feel it at a molecular level-the fleeting song of the flora. The warmth of Akira behind me. When I open my eyes, I sense a sweeping state of serenity, a gold halo mixed with violet rushing down me like a waterfall.

“I’m impressed that you stabilised yourself,” Calipso clipped. “You may be the most powerful person to be alive…” she trailed off, lost in thought.

“I would expect no less from a Biometric wannabe.” Akira’s eyes are lit up with amusement as he whispers these words as a compliment.

“As you both have incredible abilities, and you, Azura, are the only natural-born, joining the Biometrics would overcomplicate things. Instead, I was wondering if you both would like to officially join Project Elevation,” Calipso proposes.

I heard about Project Elevation, the starting point for humanity to achieve ‘Civilisation 1’ status. To draw raw energy from stars other than the Sun. Previous attempts killed even the strongest Biometrics, but they hadn’t tried me. If I joined, I could make a real change, understand my past and move with the present, hone my abilities to make a world of beauty. 

A world free of the GIO’s molecular control.
A world where disparities between the classes didn’t ripple as widely.
  A world so advanced that we would be the age of a new species: Superhumans.

I smiled. Around me were Akira, Calipso, GIO soldiers, and drones recording this interaction.

“An evolution of the world we know? Count me in.” Akira announces cockily.

“I’ll do it.”
The revolution began with three simple words.

I want to find the truth, discover the unknown, and make my mark. I send a chain reaction through my body and the wavelengths respond to my emotional resolve, painting an aurora across the skies. The Golden Generation of Biometrics was nothing more than an orchestrated fairytale to keep the nefarious intentions of the GIO under wraps. I will do everything to ensure that this world grows to be a beautiful one, not a broken void between the past and present.

The Golden Generation wasn’t what they made it to be, but Akira and I will change that. The universe will yield to me, as proclaimed centuries ago.

“This girl, Azura Virelle, has the power to bring the universe to its knees…”