Footnotes From The Unauthorized Version - Part 2

[tekuno]

Content warnings and description for this story accompany part 1.

Part 1

I forgot to mention last time: I didn't make up the words "neoteny" or "peramorphic". They're a real thing. And, as you would expect, I am far from the first person to use them in a story.

Oh, and St. Catherine of Siena is a patron saint of fire prevention and nursing homes. (The jokes last time kind of fell flat if you don't know that.)

Anyway, since I'm going to be busy tonight, I thought I'd get this out now to make sure I don't forget entirely. I really need to get to work on actually writing the missing part of this story...

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Footnotes From The Unauthorized Version
Part 2

{ On that final day, when the Morenos are said to have been disintegrated by the lying man in the hologram, insofar as the Morenos were engaged in any experimental work at all, they were pursuing their usual fascination, which their assistants reported, after that final day, to be the reversal of entropy. For various reasons, both of the Morenos were sure that such a thing could be done, and ever since they became the first peramorphosized men, they had pursued that goal with tremendous, single-minded energy. For various reasons, the government was happy to make use of the many inventions and discoveries they had produced, apparently with no effort whatsoever, but frowned on others pursuing the same goals, particularly if they used the same methods. The recording is not a memorial, but a cynical attempt to mislead future generations into accepting a totally false representation of the Morenos' motives. }

The hologram recording ends, and Agent Parc removes the tablet from the podium. "You are, in fact, undergoing peramorphosis in the very facility in which the Morenos discovered the process, some 170 years in the past. We continue to use this building as a memorial. Now, I think that's enough history. I will now pass out the nutrition delivery systems and we can get started."

{ Agent Parc's statement, on the other hand, is true. It is only roughtly 30 yards from where Agent Parc now stands to the place where, more than a century ago, the Morenos accidentally stumbled on the human peramorphic process, only later realizing what they had done. But the ambiguous phrasing suggests, incorrectly, that Miguel and Adrian were biologists who were seeking such a thing. In fact, their discovery was due to a combination of luck and a rare mutated gene. The latter reduced the odds against the discovery from the preposterous to the merely astronomical. }

{ To truly understand the sequence of events leading to the disappearance of the Morenos, it would be helpful to review their history; let us turn back the clock to the days before human peramorphism. }

{ The Morenos were left newly-minted orphans at the age of 13. Their parents had died, as so many people did before human intelligence was raised by neoteny, in a car crash. It is an inducement to cynicism to consider that before the Moreno process -- and the Moreno flying car -- humanity could not even safely control ground-based automobiles, which have only three essential controls and move in only two dimensions. An optimist, on the other hand, would point out that the elimination of car crashes by the Moreno process only proved how significant the increase in intelligence really was. The Morenos, being of a more practical bent, merely applied for a patent on an uncrashable automatic pilot for cars and did not pass comment. }

{ Since the Moreno parents had been immigrants, there were no relations in the country to take in Adrian and Miguel on the deaths of their family. But the boys had been born long after the Morenos had been naturalized citizens, so there was never any threat of deportation. Since the Moreno parents had been fairly poor, the legal system did not make a great effort to look for relations back in Spain, or possibly in South America, where the boys vaguely remembered that other relatives had settled. The two boys were ripped from their small, but familiar, home, and thrown to the mercies of the local government. }

{ Which was not, in an absolute sense, bad treatment. Naturally, the boys were not in a mood to find the orphanage congenial, being seriously bereaved, but the orphanage was spacious and warm, and run by people who were sympathetic to the needs of growing children without relations. Contrary to what the movie industry of the time would have you believe, the state had quite a few employees whose job it was to make sure that public orphanages were not, in fact, run like prisons. }

{ On the other hand, the kids at Nemor Sands County Orphanage were also not a tightly-knit loving family, as the other extreme of the movie industry would have you believe. If anything, the atmosphere hovered around that of a boarding school, with appropriate modifications in the direction of added affection at holidays and birthdays in recognition of the lack of families to visit. }

{ The management of the orphanage was extremely practical, if somewhat old-fashioned. The orphans, however well they were treated, were strictly segregated by gender. Carefully considered structural alteration to the original orphanage produced a building with two residential wings, completely separated at all points by classrooms, storage, kitchens, a cafeteria, and other non-bedroom facilities. At the time when the facility passed into public hands, this was considered entirely sufficient to prevent unauthorized sexual activity between orphans, at least on orphanage property, there being only one recognized and approved form of sexuality. }

{ The Moreno brothers, although they had not yet realized it, did not fit in that recognized and approved classification. This would turn out to be a regular feature of their lives, in more ways than one. The two were terrible athletes -- but had the best reflexes of anyone in the orphanage. They were terrible at academics -- but were invariably at the top of the class in mathematics and languages. They were highly polarizing figures in the complex social life of the orphanage; every seemed either to love them or hate them, and yet the two were aloof from everyone except each other. They loved all things having to do with Spain and Spanish culture, which reminded them of their parents, but were unable to tolerate Spanish, Mexican, or other Latin-derived cuisine. No simple description seemed to fit the two very well. }

{ The two boys were late bloomers, which was unfortunate. Despite their own (permanent) lack of interest in girls, the two were wildly popular in the female wing. They had very glossy black hair, slightly bronze-tinted skin, almost excessively white teeth, and eyes which flashed with energy but which were usually half-lidded as part of a knowing grin; a certain type of girl, of whom the orphanage had many, finds this combination irresistible even in a preadolescent boy. Their extraordinary facility with languages had given their English -- originally the ordinary nasal east coast American variety -- a round, slightly exotic precision which suggests an accent, and which is by itself like catnip to a certain sort of mind. Jealousy among the male wing reared its ugly head, and as their disgruntled associates were, to a greater and greater extent as time passed, larger and stronger than the two brothers, the two withdrew more and more from the social life around them, preferring to lurk in their shared bedroom. }

{ It was several months after the boys' sixteenth birthday that they finally began to show signs of encroaching adulthood. Naturally, being twins, the timing of their gradual change was very nearly synchronized. It was around this time that the two began to realize that, to put it euphemistically, the separation of the wings of the orphanage was not a problem for them. }

{ This only served to heighten the isolation of the two. The onset of puberty had only encouraged the females in the orphanage in their admiration of Adrian and Miguel, and careful observation suggested to the two that every male in their surroundings who they found remotely attractive would not only reject them, probably with a nasty dose of physical punishment, but take every opportunity to use the twins' orientation against them. }

{ At last, in desperation, the twins hatched a plan; if nobody else in the orphanage would assist them, they would as usual be each others' company. The two spent the better part of a year developing a strange, intense, but nevertheless fairly chaste relationship, behind the carefully closed and locked door of their room. As is so often the case for young gay men without access to an understanding and responsible adult confidant, they were terrified to actually perform a real sex act. Even as their bodies began, at long last, to develop muscle tone, the two went no further than mutual masturbation. }

{ Miguel, who was always the more adventurous of the two, was the one to break the holding pattern. It was Miguel who had been the first of the twins to alter his hair out of the institutional generic boys' cut, clipping and gelling it into spikes; Miguel who convinced Adrian to start taking advantage of the off-campus privileges offered to older orphans; Miguel who dragged Adrian off to take lessons in the Keysi fighting method -- much harder to find, in a gym, than oriental martial arts, but authentically designed in Spain -- when some of the other orphans attempted to move to physical attacks from more passive methods. }

{ On the twins' 17th birthday, as was customary in the orphanage, the twins were given their choice of meals, within the limits of the very good institutional kitchen. Miguel insisted on waffles, not that Adrian particularly objected to that choice. It was only that evening, when the two had returned to their room, that Miguel's motive became apparent. }

"Look, Adrian, at what I have brought for us."

"A bottle of maple syrup? Where have you been keeping that since breakfast?"

"This, Adrian, is MAGIC syrup. With a little sugar, one can swallow many things which otherwise might only be put in the mouth with extreme reluctance. We both have something which we have been avoiding swallowing lately, is this not true?"

"Hey! Stop that!"

"No, Adrian, you and I deserve a bit of a birthday present from each other, I think. I see you are already hard. Now, I will pour some of this warm and delicious syrup on you, and--"

"MIGUEL!"

{ Miguel's blow job was not, perhaps, one of history's great sexual escapades, but a pent-up seventeen-year-old virgin does not need a lot of assistance in getting off and so Adrian was not about to complain. After that, Adrian reciprocated. The celebratory atmosphere which prevailed led to a prolonged session of kissing and caressing, and finally to Miguel leading the way with a round of anal sex, once again reciprocated. The two boys -- sweaty, tired, sticky, and embarrassingly maple-scented -- fell asleep in each others' arms. }

{ The next day, the two felt wonderful. Everything about the world seemed brighter and gentler, and after the largest breakfast either one could remember eating outside of a holiday celebration, they went about their day's classes. Somehow, both of them discovered that physics did not seem as awful as it once had, and that their memories of history were considerably less murky than was usually the case. Gym class, usually a source of difficulty and embarrassment, was merely bad. Over a lunch even larger than breakfast, the two compared notes. Clearly, Miguel said, their activities of the night before had been good for them. All the more reason to repeat them that night, and perhaps every night. Adrian blushed slightly, but enthusiastically agreed. }

{ The afternoon flew by. If anything, Adrian and Miguel's spirits rose even higher, because their favorite classes, Spanish, Chinese, and Calculus, were all in the afternoon. Adrian was elated to find that he was now a full 30 hanzi ahead of the class. Miguel idly finished the last of the exercises in the back of the Calculus book. They completed all their homework in record time, and over an ecstatic and huge dinner, the boys grinned at each other helplessly and offered each other congratulations on the fortunate nature of the day. }

[muscl4life]

The best part of the multi-part presentation of a sci-fi story with complex settings like yours is that you can really take time to fully understand and consider the surroundings of these characters and the reasons for their upcoming incredible developments.

I really enjoyed knowing these two before their revoltuionary process, and any meaningful love story is worth to be told, so don't worry, these guys deserve each other's company.

Congratulations!