Page 49 of G8
“We call them birthdays,” Ingrid said. “And everyone has a different birthday.”
“Everyone?” F8 echoed.
“Pretty much. Of course, there are some people who are born on the same day. It’s inevitable, given the billions of people on this planet.”
“Wait! Wait!” G8 held up a hand. “Did you saybillionsof people?”
Ingrid gave them a small smile. “Yes. Billions. There are billions of people living on this Earth. Remember, that nuclear war you were told about never happened.”
“So I guess July first was a date they just pulled out of their asses?” G8 sarcastically concluded.
“It could be,” she admitted. “Then again, maybe it’s not.” Turning around, she pointed to P8. “You said you were the youngest of the group?”
“Yeah. I’m twenty-one.”
“And you’re twenty-two,” she repeated, indicating F8, then turned and addressed G8. “And you’re the oldest at twenty-eight.”
“Right.”
“How old are K8, N8, and T8?”
“K8’s twenty-four, T8’s twenty-three, and N8’s twenty-five,” G8 answered.
Ingrid got that look on her face that told him she was thinking. “Hmm. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, then a break of two years until twenty-eight.”
“What are you thinking?” F8 queried.
“Do any of you know if there were supposed to be others born to your group that maybe didn’t make it?”
“You mean like, died?”
“Yeah.”
“We weren’t told anything,” P8 noted. “But now that you mentioned it, are you thinking there should be someone else who’d be twenty-seven, and another person who should have been twenty-six?”
“Hey, P8?” G8 looked to his siblings. “I seem to remember something I overheard a long, long time ago. I can’t remember exactly when, but do either of you recall something about a J8 or a Y8?”
P8 held up a hand. “And I think I heard about a Z8 once, but it was just in passing, and that was also a long time ago.”
G8 cocked his head at Ingrid. “Do you think those were names of people like us, other Chimeras, who were born but died?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, although I haven’t seen anything with those names on them,” she confessed. She suddenly brightened. “But there might be something about them in those files I downloaded.”
“But I still don’t understand why they told us we all had the same… What did you call it? Birth day?” F8 requested.
“Yeah. Birthday,” G8 answered instead, and picked up the question. “And, yes, I want to know, too.”
He saw Ingrid bite her lip. Between that and the troubled expression on her face, he wondered if he really wanted to hear her explanation. “Ingrid?”
“You guys know you weren’t actually born from a woman’s womb, don’t you?” she cautiously asked.
“We sort of got that impression, but no one’s actually told us directly,” G8 admitted.
Ingrid nodded. “You gestated in an artificial womb. You were conceived in a lab, in a Petri dish or test tube, and once you became viable, you were transferred to a large decanter-like incubator.” She looked at each of them. “It makes sense now, knowing you’re all exactly one year apart in age.”
“How doeswhatmake sense?” P8 insisted. Like G8 and F8, he was growing impatient.
“Because that’s the date you all were decanted. Born,” she almost whispered. “That’s probably also why, because you all had the same birth date, you were made to believe everyone else did, too.”
