THE VOID

Tempéra wakes up sweating. Another nightmare, another blue door that leads into the void. He can't help but think of the Karims and this baby that is due in a few months, and his work that remained unfinished. The Babel gene seems incompatible with the genetic heritage of certain ancestor peoples. To implant the gene in those people, their genetic heritage would have to be completely reprogrammed, in a word, the individual must be totally genetically transformed. This is why he would like to understand what happened with the Karims' child. He must know how they did it, how the Babel gene suddenly appeared in the fetus, so that he can reproduce the same thing here. Until he completes this task, he and his daughter will remain prisoners of this crazy place. For now, they are safe, but the Supreme Goddess has been showing signs of impatience. And what if he fails? They could easily eliminate him and his daughter. No one would know. No one knows anything about this place and what is going on here.

His team members and him are almost there. Yesterday, they succeeded in implanting the gene and keeping it alive for three days in a living cell. Today, they must check if the gene is still there and the cell is still intact. Until now, the gene has always mutated, sometimes even destroying the cell. From an early age, the whims of genetics have always intrigued Tempéra. One event in particular has marked his memory and his experience of human genetics forever.

***

A seven- or eight-year-old boy dressed in a school uniform was standing in the middle of a large room with a marble floor. The little boy was looking around anxiously. Distracted by the pictures on the walls, he had lost his parents and was searching for them. He had taken the wrong corridor again and found himself in the same place. He wanted to shout for his parents, but his mother always told him to be a good quiet boy and never ever make any noise.

'Where are you going, my boy?' a quiet, firm voice asked behind him.

The child turned around, frightened. A man in a security uniform was standing inches away from him. He was so tall that the boy could only see his long legs and torso. The man crouched down and offered the child a broad smile as if to reassure him.

'Are you looking for your parents?' the man asked.

Intimidated and moved to have finally found help, the child just nodded.

'Tempé!' a male voice rose behind them.

'Tempéra!' his mother exclaimed reprovingly as she saw her son talking to a stranger.

The boy's face lit up at the sight of his parents, but as he was about to run towards them, the security man stopped him by gently holding his shoulder.

'Wait a minute. Is this your child?' he asked dryly to the couple who were still walking towards the child.

'Yes, he is ours,' the man began. Short, stout, skin as dark as ebony wood, full brown hair, almond-coloured eyes.

Without a word, the woman at his side commanded her son with a firm wave to get out of the hands of the security man and come to her. The boy immediately ran to hide behind his mother. The woman was rather slender, taller than her husband by a few centimetres, skin darker than oak wood, bright dark eyes, hair elegantly styled in braids.

The security man stared at the couple for awhile, then telling himself that after all it wasn't his problem, he nodded and waved to them that the matter was settled. He was just the boarding school security guard and these two people seemed very respectable to him even if the child didn't look anything like them.

'Mum, why did the man earlier believe that you weren't my parents?' the little boy asked a moment later as the couple was about to get into their car.

Tempéra's mother gave her son her usual look when he asked questions: a terrifying glare that seemed to reproach him for not knowing or for not going to find the answer on his own. Smart people like them didn't rely on anyone to get ahead in life, and no one should ever rely on them either.

'Because he's an idiot,' she replied coldly, then her face softened a little before saying to her child as she crouched down to adjust his tie, 'Okay now, you're going to be a good boy. You'll listen to what you're told and you'll do as told. Okay?'

Tempéra nodded, smiling.

'Okay, we're going now,' she said, straightening up to walk towards the car.

Tempéra sadly watched the car driving away, holding back the hot tears that were coming to his eyes. Crying either, he should never ever do. The little boy ran to the toilet. As he pushed open the door behind him, he saw his reflection in the large mirror like a shadow. He turned to the glass to stare seriously at his own face. Understanding a face was serious business. He had learnt this by observing adults around him. He wiped his tears and took out of his pocket a small wallet with the identity photos of his parents inside. He placed it with the two photos still inside, right against the mirror beside his own reflection. The little boy looked long and hard at their features and skin colour against his own.

***

Why did the security guard believe that his parents weren't his?

It was only much later, during his university research in genetics and after having found his family tree alone (as his mother had always told him to do everything) that he had found the answer to his question. Tempéra hasn't been adopted or conceived through egg, sperm, or embryo donation. He is indeed the biological son of both his parents. A mother of Caribbean origin born of the marriage between a man of African origin and a woman whose mother was born of an affair between a Caribbean indigenous woman and a white man from England. A father of African and black American origins with a grandmother on the paternal side from India.

But why did his great-grandparents' stories stick to his face? Why come back to haunt the surface of Earth in this body in this generation at this specific moment in time when there are a multitude of so many other possible combinations? This is the secret that Tempéra has always worked hard to discover. His clients had no other interest than to bring perfect children into the world, but Tempéra couldn't care less about perfect children. Why would anyone want to bring perfect children into an imperfect world?