The Unadopted Child

THE STRANGE ENCOUNTER

I felt a gun behind my head after getting out of my car. I started shivering from fear.

“Don’t move, or I’ll shoot you, says a male voice with an Astrian accent.

“What do you want?” I say, stuttering.

“Do you know who your parents were before you got adopted?”

“You must be confusing me with someone else. I am not adopted.”

The man instructs me to count to 100 before I turn around. I get into my car and make sure all the windows and locks are closed before heading to the closest police station.

At the station, they give me forms to fill out on their digital recording pad, and they tell me to sit. An officer will come and question me.

Surprisingly, it's a human one that comes to see me. 

“How are you doing?” the tall officer asks. “My name is Rodney Fields.”

“I feel shaken up. Scared.”

“We are already looking for this man. There have been over 150 similar reports across the country. Luckily, he has never killed anyone or tried to contact the people he approaches twice. It seems random.”

“That’s a relief.”

He sends me his coordinates in case I remember something directly onto my phone. I deduce that I am no longer needed.  And ask, “Can I go home now?”

“Of course, we have no reason to believe he will ever bother you again.”

As I drive home, I feel frustrated that I can’t check with my parents if I was adopted. My father passed away years ago from lung cancer and dermatomyositis. My mother is also gone. She tragically died last year, one day before Mother’s Day, being struck by a large tree branch. She died within hours in the emergency room. She was pronounced to be brain-dead by the neurosurgeons.

My parents had immigrated to Anada from South Ullia. I did not have any other family besides them. They never went back home because of the political unrest. In their country, each province wanted to separate, so there was terrorism between the provinces. You never knew when a bomb would explode in any of the regions.

ONE YEAR LATER

The fact that I might have been adopted was still an itch in my brain that I had to scratch. So, I took the youngest-looking baby picture of myself and emailed it using AI with a note to every adoption agency in the province, with the day I was born and parents’ names included. Most of them replied with kind notes. Unfortunately, they could not find a match for me in their databases.

I then sent the information to the other 8 provinces and territories. After two years, an adoption agency from Princess Glory Island sent me a text. She confirms that the agency had done the adoption, and she has my parents’ information. But sadly, her records are incomplete. There is no information on who gave me up for adoption. She apologizes because it’s against the law not to have that information on file. She also mentions that I could press charges.

I write back to her that I have no interest in pressing charges. I am 56, already. I tell her that I am just disappointed that I will never know my roots. She writes back for me to make a post on AI Biological Parent Connect. There are many happy stories of children and parents reconnecting on the site.

I do.

And every day I check to see if someone replies. It makes me sad that no one was looking for me. Even the stranger with the gun, I thought, had lost interest in me.

Surprisingly, I see a man with a gun put a note on my car as I leave work.

“Wait, please don’t leave!” I scream, exiting my office at 9:00 p.m. I help develop AI image generation functions. I used to be a photographer, and now I train AI to give the photos a human feel.

I ran to my car. I pant as I open the envelope. It is typewritten on what seems to be a typewriter, the kind you only see in technology museums.

The actual letter.

Catherine,

Your parents were your actual parents. The government threatened them that if they ever had a child of their own, they would be killed. When your mother got pregnant, she was so tiny that most people could not tell she was. She always wore oversized clothing, so no one was ever suspicious. Your mother gave birth on a pretend vacation at Princess Glory Island. They paid a young woman to bring you in, and she told them of a couple interested in adoption.

The woman and the agency received a large lump sum to be able to adopt you from your parents. She was a stranger doing a good deed for the immigrants back then, who were not allowed to have children ordered by the state. Luckily, you did not look like your parents. You inherited a red hair gene.

When your parents came back home, their friends and family were so happy that at least this young couple was allowed to adopt.

You must leave the country. They are tracking down genetically whether the immigrants had children of their own. There are about 160 of you. Your life is in danger. They will kill you on the spot if they find you. You will be safe in Astrian. He gives me the coordinates of where to go in Ydney.

Please burn this letter after reading.

ONE WEEK LATER

I hadn’t taken a vacation in over two years. I was easily approved to take one now for one month.

When I ended up in front of the motel in Ydney, it looked like a cockroach place. I passed the entrance, which was run down. So much paint was peeling off the walls. An ugly khaki green. I ring the doorbell. They ask for my name. Once I got past the steel doors, I entered another world. The motel is a luxury hotel from the inside.

At the reception desk, a blonde woman asks for all my digital IDs, including my phone. Then, I almost had a heart attack as she destroyed everything with the Digital Band ERASER. How will I get back home with no passport?

“You can now head to your studio 2025,” she says, handing me a digital key. “You will be briefed once inside.”

Getting inside my studio, the man with the gun greets me. I recognize his voice.

“This will be your new home. I already managed to save about 51 of you. You are our 52^nd guest.”

“Why do I need saving?” I ask angrily.

“You are the children of the pacifists. Did you know your parents founded a peace organization back home? They applied for asylum in Anada because they got tired of rebuilding their office after every domestic terrorist attack. In a few years, they lost over 60 volunteers. Some were in the bombings, and some were tracked and burned to death.”

“I don’t get it. How is it dangerous to be the child of pacifists in Anada.”

Because Anada was forced to buy defence contracts or risk being annexed. The defence industry, which has been banned internationally for over a decade, is back in business. Countries are fighting for territories. They have been secretly making weapons underground, even though it’s illegal. Countries are running out of resources.”

“Anada is planning on separating its provinces to sell them to the highest bidder. All Anadians will become slaves of another country.”

“But your country is separated from the SIAN continent and the rest of the world.”

“Yes, we have made our country self-sustaining. We are independent. No one can come in unless we let them. And with the world in chaos, no one wants to leave.”

I process everything. I believe him. Two of our other provinces asked for separation and received it. They became part of our neighbouring country, Inda.

“Why are you saving the children of pacifists?”

“Because we have discovered there is a gene associated with being a pacifist. In layman's terms, your brain structure is different. You care about abolishing wars once and for all. It is dormant until shit happens.”

“We need you to work for us within our country, educating new generations why peace is important, or we will all eventually be extinguished.”

“But your country is peaceful.”

“I am part of a Special Ops team to keep it this way. We still search for weapons and imprison people who try to make them. They stay in jail for life.

He notices that I am starting to close my eyes.

“My partner, Barbra, will brief you tomorrow,” he says as he leaves.

I get into bed and open the TV. It shows that the remaining Anadian provinces have declared war on each other. As much as the images are unbearable to watch, I fall asleep from exhaustion. It’s not easy knowing your homeland is gone forever.

THE NEXT DAY

I met Barbra downstairs in the morning. She will be training me as a peace facilitator. My job will be to go from high school to high school to present the values of peace and its benefits. As my mom would say, “Humankind cannot evolve if there is no peace in this world.” At least I now know where she was coming from to possess that kind of wisdom.

Barbra tells me that I am conveniently located, as the peace training center they founded is across the street. Their only signage says PEACE in green letters on the small two-story building.

The training is self-directed. She leaves me at an AI terminal desk, and she says, “It will take about six weeks to complete the program.”

I will get quizzed after I complete each module.

But Barbra senses that I feel uneasy.

“Feel free to wander around. We have a nice cafeteria upstairs. Help yourself, your food will be included with your remuneration.”

“Will you manage to get all the pacificists of out of Anada?” I ask, concerned.

“Yes, the ones with kids are already located in a compound for families. Your fake motel is for the singles.”

“Thank you, I feel better that you are trying to save us.”

“You will like it here, honey. We are the largest and safest country in the world.”

“I miss my studio and my friends.”

“Before you go on the road, you will receive psychotherapy customized to your personality.”

SIX WEEKS LATER

Disappointed, I get assigned an AI App Therapist named Luna on my last day in Yney, which is a bracelet that I cannot remove.

“Once you are better, we will give you the code to remove her,” Barbra says, leaving my studio.

I immediately test out Luna. Ironically, I find her very understanding. I know the answers are scripted according to my personality, but I oddly still feel that she has empathy.

When I show up to center packed, ready to go on my first assignment, Barbra asks, “Would you mind going to the teen jails instead?

“Your scores after each module were above average. They could really use a strong pacifist such as yourself.”

“Will I be safe in those places?”

“Absolutely, we just found that the teens were drawing ideas of how to build weapons. They never got anywhere with them.” 

“They don’t have any tools to hurt the staff there. Anyways, your presentation is only for two days,” Barbra reassures me.

TWO DAYS LATER

Arriving at the jail, it looks like a private school with a dormitory on the grounds. There are no gates.

A doorman opens the doors of the front of the school and tells me, “Just follow the signs until the garden.”

Outside, about a dozen teens are lounging.

“I think I am in the wrong place. I’m here to make a presentation of the values associated with peace,” I say.

A young man with a blue cap says, “Well, you’d be preaching to the choir. We are also from Anada and we are also the children of pacifists.”

“Is this a joke?” I ask distressed.

“No, Astrians are the ones who have actually been making the weapons. They lied to you when they said other countries were. So, they are gathering the peacemakers from all the countries. Defence is a huge industry. They did not want us to trigger protests among the masses,” a young woman with curly dark hair answers.

“The Astrians have been selling those weapons to the other countries to split them up,” the blue-cap teen says.

‘They want to own all the resources of the world. They want to create an empire.”

“I feel so stupid.”

“We all do,” the teens say in unison. “Our parents also thought they were saving us.”

“So what is this place?”

“Your new permanent home. If you try to leave, your therapist will zap you.”

“You can do whatever you want here,” the man with the gun says. “It’s the least we can do to stop all the demonstrations your gene would have caused.”

I turn to look at him with such disgust, but I can tell he is used to the reaction.

“You will be our on-staff photographer. You could start your session with the teens anytime you wish.”

I take my old camera out of my knapsack and start taking pictures of him. It’s the one that had automatic print after each picture. The pictures keep falling to the floor. He covers his face with one hand. But I got straight up to him and took more pictures. He finally drops his hand, and I take one photo of his eyes.

He finally leaves without a care in the world.

“You’re a cool lady,” one of the teen boys, says to me.

“Come with us, we’ll show you where you will be living in the dormitory. It’s in the adult section.”

I walk with them silently, knowing that for now there is nothing we can do.