You run the polishing brush one more time over your front teeth. Sable always told you that if kept on polishing them the glare alone would count as a driving hazard., but you hardly gave the jest any credence. Your fangs where the most distinctive aspect of you, and today was a day you really needed to stand out.
Satisfied with the shine, you grab your deodorizer and spray a quick burst under each pit. Then glancing conspiratorially to each wall of the empty bathroom, you quickly spray a single burst right underneath your tail. Never know when the interviewer might be a dog.
Right, that should be it. Checklist time.
Breath? You breath quickly into a cupped palm and breath right in. Check.
Whiskers? You playfully flick the white strands surrounding your muzzle. Check.
Hair? You whip your long sixty centimeter hair around, ending with it hanging perfectly between your shoulder blades... aside from one cowlick you give an irritated puff of air to get out of your eyes. Check.
Perfect good looks? You flash the mirror a smile, the glint from your fangs probably blinding an observing angel and sending them plummeting from heaven. Check.
Rock hard bod? You lift your left arm up and strike a side serratus, showing off how your exposed ribs clashes slightly with stripes, your stomach was so flat and lacking definition it was threatening to implode, and your arms so thin you would qualify as in danger of starvation. ...let’s call this one, in the mail.
Yeah, your body wasn’t going to win you any championships, but Raphael encourages you not to have a negative body image. Which is why you started taking up bodybuilding poses as a secret hobby. You still only wear long pants and shirts in public, with as many layers as the heat will allow to keep from looking too thin, but in private you like to dream...
In any case, speaking of clothing, you’re fussing over yourself today more than usual because today is the big day. You’re actually going out for a job interview! A real job, with real coworkers, in a real office... if it wasn’t biologically impossible, you think you’d spontaneously combust with excitement.
As you head out of the bathroom and into the bedroom to get dressed, you reflect on what it took to get here.
Your name is Mist. Legally, your full name is Mist D Narang. But in truth your name is just plain old Mist. It’s short for Mistakenly Integrated Sabertooth Tiger DNA. You’re one of the first twenty children born from an artificially womb, and as far as you know you’re the only one that came out... wrong.
Stork Tech, the now multibillion dollar corporation responsible for the artificial womb technology once had much more humble beginnings. Once they were just some researchers trying to scrape together the few million dollars for their research, and donors willing to have children in such experimental means. The former was less abundant than the latter, and they shared some of their lab space with other research firms. One of those firms was Solomon Bio.
Specializing in prehistoric to merely ancient DNA reconstruction, Solomon Bio was working on a sabertooth project when the artificial wombs were being grown. One little mix up with a womb who had at least one tiger donor, and you were conceived.
Stork Tech was furious once they found out, and they quickly mixed up another womb without any contaminated prehistoric DNA. As for you, though... they didn’t want you to be discovered, but they knew that if you ever were discovered it would look better on them if you were alive rather than dead. So they allowed you to be born and swept you under the rug into Solomon Bio’s care.
From there, you grew like a weed. Almost literally. Something in the sabertooth DNA, or it’s interaction with modern DNA, had you aging twice as fast as you should have been. Being physically a ten year old at five years old was one thing... but going through puberty at age seven was awkward for all parties concerned, especially you.
Worst of all was drama about how long you would actually live; you cried more about that than you’d ever admit to anyone. Thankfully at age ten you stabilized into a healthy twenty year old. Skinny as a rail from all the rapid growing, but still healthy. They don’t want to jump any guns, but at the very least you have a full life ahead of you... possibly a long one, but there you go jumping those guns.
Somewhere during all of this Stork Tech went multinational, bought out struggling little Solomon Bio, and relocated them (and by association you) to Brazil where all of you would be out of sight and out of mind. It drove most of the company crazy having to learn spanish (well, a different dialect of spanish in Raphael's case), but you didn’t have much of a problem.
It wasn’t just the flexibility of a young mind. Growing up, you devoured knowledge as fast as you did food. By the time you were nine you qualified for your GED just with homeschooling. Once you had stopped rapidly aging Somon Bio set you up with some false documentation claiming you were eighteen; the first thing you did with it was actually take the tests to get your GED. That was quickly followed up by trade school to get yourself a job.
And here you are, adjusting the black and white striped tie on your white dress shirt, almost ready to head out and interview for that very first job at age twelve. Eleni sometimes questioned your eagerness to get a job, but Hubert understood and encouraged your drive for independence. Solomon Bio brought you into this world, but you were eventually going to have to stand on your own two feet or the world was going to chew you up and spit you out.
Honestly, you don’t think you’ve ever seen the old man look as proud as he did when he found out your first job was (hopefully) going to be the same as his; secretary at a pharmaceutical company.
Heh... proud.
Closing your eyes, you silently put your hand up to the mirror and do something you do less and less these days. You try and imagine THEM behind you. Aside from the fact that one of them is a tiger, you don’t really know anything about your parents. Stork Tech recruited from all demographics for those first twenty wombs, and the records were sealed; especially to you, the one black sheep they want to forget. They could have even been two woman since the Y chromosome could have come from the sabertooth contamination.
Still, at the very least you like to think they loved each other deeply. And that they would have loved you. And, of course, your two thirds sibling. He or she would be hitting the awkwardness of puberty any year now... possibly any month, with all the hormones in food these days. If they are anything like you than it will be nothing but drama.
You smile melancholically at the image of your birth family being proud of you, before dismissing it. You’ll never know who they really are, and if there is any justice in the world they would never know who you are. After all, if they ever found out about you it would put Solomon Bio in danger. They were your real family.
With a slightly bigger smile, you fill in the blanks again.
Hubert, the stern yet wise grandfather who made sure you walked the right path.
Raphael, the crazy uncle who showed you how to tightrope walk over the wrong path without actually touching it.
Eleni, the dutiful aunt who sometimes seems only there out of obligation only to surprise everyone with how much she cares.
And Sable...
“Mist! Breakfast is getting cold.” Calls an all too familiar voice from downstairs.
Opening your eyes, you respond, “I’ll be right down, Sable.”
And with that you make a quick double check to make sure all your zippers and buttons are properly done before rushing out your bedroom door and down the stairs. It wouldn’t do to make Sable upset with you on today of all days. After all, in your foster family Sable is...
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