The three private school girls sat closely huddled together on the train, laughing and sharing pieces of hard candy. With an emptiness in my heart I watched them from the corner of the seat, thinking back to my own childhood; days that blurred into a palette of dreary grays. I was a twin, born second, a fact that equals imprisonment. Wherever my twin was, wherever the rest of my family, they are ignorant of my existence; but then, who would ever give a second thought to a government test specimen.

"Sumimasen."

I blinked quickly. There was a Japanese woman standing over me with an apologetic look on her face. I waved her off. The girls were gone. I shifted in my seat to check the map of the train system. Five stops to Acribo. The practically deserted town that would lead to a life. I scratched the bar code on my left wrist that spanned from the fork of blue veins to the middle of my forearm. 04615291. The digits were fading on my skin, but the sequence was forever ingrained in my mind along with the memory of a needle tattooing my computer generated identity into my arm. The operator had worn earmuffs to block the sounds of a young boy's cries. The bars were only an inch across then.

"Acribo. Acribo Station."

Pushing through the crowded train, I plunged into my first breath of freedom. I no longer had to scan my barcode and therefore my whereabouts to the specimen control center every hour. Since the day I was born I was enrolled into the government human test specimen project, the HTSP. Animal testing having been found inadequate and discarded sometime around 2015, all new chemicals were tested on this special population of humans, found at birth to be unequipped to handle an independent life in society. Multiple births increase confusion in the determination of identity. Those who were blind, deaf, diseased or birth defective created unnecessary societal anguish. Neither of these types of people would further the world goal of serenity. No, instead our status as humans was stolen in all but name.

I was the first of these special people to be released into society in 29 years. The last discharge had been too noticeably deformed and had been rejected. He committed suicide rather than return to the HTSP. Having most chemical reactions on my chest and back, I was considered a safer bet to make it. Even in my freedom, I remained an experiment. I snorted and drew the attention of a red pig-tailed girl with a pink Barbie backpack.

"Mommy, his eyes are weird."
"Shh.."

I smirked. So much for a safer bet. Mental note: Invest in sunglasses and color contacts. My indigo ink eyes were already drawing unwanted attention. They were the result of the Iris Experiments of 2112. The biggest year for testing chemical acidity of market products for improved safety measures. My eyes had been infused with cocerbigens, samples of chemicals used for eye-washing fluid. The burning sensation lasted only a few days, but the product left my dark brown eyes bleached.

I studied my new home. The dusk orange light disclosed a hospital, and royal blue signs pointing to a residential area, park, and business district. I strode toward the park. A man lay curled up on a bench, a patched comforter over his body, and headphones on his ears, the cord twisting like a piece of thin black licorice and disappearing under the blanket. I walked over.

"Is there a body of water nearby?"

The guy squinted up at me, then waved his hand over to a thicket of maple trees. "Thanks," I muttered, walking where his finger had pointed.

The park was the place to be. A group of high school kids sat around a flashlight passing around some small smoking object. Judging by the purple smoke and laughter, it was a glass blower, a pip about the size of your pinky finger and filled with synthetic flammable sand. Others played with a glow in the dark Frisbee. At least there was no one on the lake. The water reflected the bluish white glow of the stars and rippled in the slight breeze, each ripple appearing as a scale on a snake.

Crouching down, ignoring the lulling effect of the lapping water and the fact that I had yet to sleep after travelling for three days, I pulled out a red vial and fulfilled my promise to Maggie. She'd known I'd be a candidate for release and had asked to come with me. To allow her to become free one more time. Mags had been an unusual test case. At fifteen, she had been deemed useless to society, a no good glassblower who had been deserted by her parents. Since she was already an addict, the HTSP scientists tested side effects of the drug and reactions to various doses on her. By the time they tried to wean her off the drug, the withdrawal shakes killed her. She'd become too dependent. So there I was with her stolen ashes, left out overnight at the crematorium. It took me longer than expected. I was sent to isolation for two days for not checking into my room by 10 p.m.

"It's not the way you wanted it, Mags, but you're free".

I sprinkled her ashes into the water. The vial hung on to a few ashes so I held the tube under water until they bubbled out and floated after the others in the lighted trail of the moon. 1