The Others( Beginning)

This is the first two chapters of a story I amd considering writing. If you choose to rate or comment, please focus on whether the story has merit.
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Chapter I
“I just don’t know if I can justify the decision to cut off my own left arm.” “You can’t think of it like that, consider it as a trade. An arm for an arm, except that your new arm has the ability to punch through solid concrete and lift hundreds of pounds. Although, if you’re too afraid to go through with the operation you could get one of those shell suits that Icarus Industries claims is just as good. The only thing is, there are way more reports of malfunctions. The REP technology is near perfect, but Shell suits are schizo as fuck. Good luck explaining that one.” “I guess I’ll have to go with the REP, as long as they put me under for the operation. Excuse me sir, but I think we’re ready to buy something.” “Alright, we’ll put you under and in three hours you will awake an improved person.”
Mods, that’s what they’re called. It’s a reference to the modifications each has made to their body. The modifications they use are called REPs (Replacement Electronic Prostheses). Originally designed and patented for soldiers wounded in combat, the practice of replacing uninjured limbs with REPs started when it was realized that REPs allow average people to perform herculean feats. Of course, there were still a few to whom the practice of self mutilation seemed deplorable, and so Icarus Industries developed the Shell suits, which use the same technology as the REPs but surround limbs rather than replacing them. Two problems with Shell suits, though: there is a delay between when the user starts to move their own muscles and the suit responds, and they also add mass to the user, making even the slightest of frame appear as bulky as the most heavily muscled Olympian. Despite being bulky and unwieldy, Shell suits are immensely popular as a halfway point between normality and modification. Those who buy Shell suits lie to themselves and say they don’t want to be modded; that the suit is as far as they’ll go. They’re lying to themselves and everyone around them. Everyone who is interested in REPs becomes a Mod sooner or later.

Chapter II
“I’m telling you, I don’t have the spark. It’s been two years since I started my training and I still haven’t managed to lift even a pebble.” “We know you have the spark, there are people here who have dedicated their whole lives to seeking out Others. Trust me, you have the spark and all you have to do is unlock it.” “Is it true that those who take longer to access their spark tend to be more powerful when they finally succeed?” “Yes, that tends to be true. The most powerful Others always take time to access their spark. And, if it is assumed that the time taken to access the spark correlates to power, I can only imagine what that would say about your power.” “So if I never access my spark, I suppose that would make me the most powerful Other ever.” “Why, I suppose it would. It would also make your power next to worthless. I would say that in that case your power would be rather like sand; vast in quantity, but at the end possessing it all would amount to nothing.”
The spark was discovered sixty years ago, when a maintenance worker by the name of George Stinson survived the complete destruction of a skyscraper he was working in. When scientists analyzed the event their conclusion was that there was no way the Stinson could still be alive. As this was obviously not the case, and scientists had concluded that there was nothing exceptional about the situation that allowed Stinson to survive, another group of scientists came to the conclusion that Stinson himself must be exceptional. After performing a battery of tests, it was determined that Stinson was completely normal, but an interesting phenomenon occurred; every test done on Stinson was just the slightest bit off, no matter how many times the tests were run. In an attempt to devise a test to find what was unique about Stinson, scientists performed the same tests on more people in hopes of finding at least one other person like him, in the hopes that they could compare the differences to find what it was that made Stinson unique. Out of the ten thousand they tested in nine months, they found only one other subject who exhibited the same strange test results; a woman named Ava Tawanabi. While neither Tawanabi nor Stinson exhibited abilities like modern Others have, comparison of their genotypes resulted in the discovery that both exhibited a mutated PAX3 gene. This mutation would later come to be known as the spark, as others found exhibiting the mutation would eventually find that this mutation resulted in the ability to perform feats of magic. Once it was realized that this was the result of the spark, those possessing the spark were shunned by normal society and branded “Other Than Human”, or just “Others”. To protect themselves, they started gathering into small groups that shunned society just as they had been shunned. Less than twenty years after the discovery of the spark, society had neatly herded Others away from them, effectively creating two separate communities, complete with rules to deal with any new children that were born as Others. The tragedy of Stinson is that, while his possession of the spark allowed him to survive where few could, that spark also resulted in his death. For, not long after the Others were discovered, but a few years before civilization came to alienate them, REPs became available for purchase by the public. Stinson, having been told he was exceptional yet being unable to prove that to himself or others, was one of the first to attempt REP transplant. Unfortunately for him, the mutation in PAX3 that is known as the spark also increases the body’s ability to reject foreign tissue, such as REPs. He died a cripple, his reach for power unsuccessful.