My name is Penny Bauer. I am 17 years old and I am a senior student at Leister High School. Everyone at my school looks almost the same; blue eyes, brown hair, and flawless skin. I have this perfect family which includes my parents, both scientists, and my little sister, who looks just like me. We live in Los Angeles so it´s almost always sunny, the streets are always crowded by teenagers doing their usual stuff but mostly, they just talk about themselves and their `perfect´ lives. There isn´t much difference between most people and they all act the same way. However, I am very different from everybody else.
Right now, you must be wondering why all of us look so similar. Well, I wondered about it too when I was a little kid but nobody would tell me why, until one day, about a year ago, my dad finally told me.
“Penny, come here please” my dad said
“Yeah dad, what´s up?”
“Do you still want to know why everyone around here looks so similar?” he whispered
“Sure, but why are we whispering?”
“Because your mom would kill me if she found out I am telling you this while you are still so young, but I think you are mature enough to know the truth. So anyways, we all look alike because of this thing called genetic engineering. It basically means that you go to a specialist and you basically determine your child´s genetics, you choose their physical appearance you make sure that they resist every disease. That is why we all look alike and why we never get sick. However, there is a part of the world that you don´t know exists and that all parents try to keep their children away from, but I think it´s time for you to know that not everything in this world is perfect”
After that small conversation, we got in the car and he drove for about an hour to a place that I had never seen before. Everyone was so different from each other and from our selves. They seemed genuinely happy even though their lives were so different from mine. They lived in small houses, with little comforts but their really seemed to enjoy life and they knew their place in society. Up until that moment, I had never wondered about the world outside of LA, and I sort of thought that everyone was meant to be the same way.
Once we left that place and returned home, my father told me that we were lucky compared to them, because we were considered the higher class in society and they were rejects. They hadn´t been genetically engineered, which was why they all looked so different and acted so differently; they could be themselves and not be exactly like everyone else. However, they were not accepted in society, they weren´t considered important and they were treated differently by everybody else, especially by the government. These people were given the name of Kiwis.
This trip to another part of the state got me really thinking about how our society works and how unfair it is. It made me realize how little I really knew about life and I started to think about how I could change all of this and end the different social classes. That night, I kept having the same strange dream. I was back in 2015, when genetic engineering was being developed, but no matter what I did I couldn´t stop them from finishing their jobs. I really wanted to change history and prevent the awful society I now knew existed but I didn´t know how.
That´s when it all started. The next day, I didn´t feel totally ok with myself but I didn´t know what was happening so I just decided to talk to my dad about it. We were very close to each other so I had no problem with talking to him. What he told me really changed the way I saw everything and I finally found a way to change everything up. I happen to have this special power that allows me to travel through time but that's not it, I can also alter the ways things were in the past or will be in the future. He told me that I should go back in time and fix everything. However, if I changed something that happened in the past, which I really wanted to do, everything that happened after would be changed or would never happen. So now I had to choose between erasing the difference between social classes but risking everything as I knew it, or leaving it the way it was.
I had to make a choice. I either changed history, or I just sticked up with how life was. I obviously couldn't take option two so I decided to do the right thing and prevent this major separation between people and the creation of these social classes. That same night I forced myself to go back to 2015, to the week before genetic engineering was completely developed. Besides going back in time 20 years, I also ended up in New York, where it all started.
During that week, I searched for the exact laboratory I kept seeing in my dreams, where the scientists were finishing their tests. After going through most of the city, I finally found the right place, just outside of the suburbs. I searched everywhere for a building that looked good enough for a prestigious scientific research, but it turned out to be held in the simplest house and it was right in front of me all along. It was a small, vintage house that looked like it didn't have anything important inside, just another house in a simple street.
After struggling for a while with the knob, I found the most strange thing possible about me. My mind was so developed for the year we were in, that I was telekinetic. I could move whatever I wanted by just concentrating on it and thinking about what I wanted it to do, so I started to use this to make things easier for me. I unlocked the door and entered the house without making any noises. However, being the clumsy me, I knocked a hand-made vase from its table and it shattered to pieces, creating a huge uproar. I was so scared that someone had heard, that I couldn't move. Luckily, after a few minutes, no one came down so I relaxed and continued my search, paying extra attention to everything around me.
A few moments later, I found the room where it all happened, but what shocked me the most was the people that were working in it. It was my own parents! I debated with myself for a while but I decided that the best was to just tell them the entire story and convince them that genetic engineering had been a big mistake. I entered the room and they both looked at me with confused expressions.
I cleared my throat loudly and then mumbled, “Sorry for interrupting”
“Don´t worry about it. Can we help you?” my mom responded
“Actually, I am here to tell you something that will shock you, so could you please take a seat and just give me a couple of minutes to explain myself?”
They led the path towards their office and I followed them in.
“Thank you” I said once we got settled. “Well first of all, let me start by telling you who I am. My name is Penny Bauer and I am your daughter. I know it sounds impossible and weird but I really am. I came back from 2035 to stop you from finishing your work on genetic engineering. I know you have spent a lot of time on it and you are just a step away from accomplishing your goal but unfortunately, this created a rift between people and two horrible social classes”
“I don´t understand what you are talking about” my father remarked
“I know but you will in just a second. You are currently trying to create this thing that allows you to determine your child´s genes and prevent them from getting sick, but in the future, this will not turn out right. Rich and powerful people will be determined by their looks, they will all have blue eyes, brown hair and flawless skin. However, the rest of the people will look different from each other, but will be considered less important and will be rejected by the government. I know that this is not how you want things to turn out, so that is why I came back and the reason why I´m trying to stop you right now before it´s too late”
They both discussed for a couple of minutes and then she questioned, “How can we trust you and know that you really are our daughter?”
“Well, I can tell you something only our family knows. My name is Penny because your favorite song from the Beatles is Penny Lane, and you have always dreamed about naming your daughter after it. Also, I have this picture of the three of us and my little sister”
After that short explanation about my name and showing them the picture, they finally believed everything I had told them and they understood that what they were trying to do was wrong and they should stop. At that moment I understood that my parents regretted what they had done and that was why my father told me the truth. When all of it was finally over I knew that I had to go back to the future where I belonged but it was very hard because during that week I had met the cutest boy ever, Ryan. We started talking and fell in love immediately.
He was perfect in every way, and he was so different from what I was used to see. He had blond, curly hair, and beautiful hazel eyes. He was sweet, a total gentleman, and he always made me laugh with all the little things he did. And to top it all, I could really by myself around him and not act like anyone else, and he truly loved me for being me. It made me realize that I had never been more happy in my entire life and it gave me another reason to believe that I did the right thing by changing what had originally happened. It also made me see that being different and unique was so much better than being like everybody else.
However, the day after I changed everything, I woke up differently. I now resembled my parents and I truly loved how I looked. I also realized that I couldn't stay there so as much as it hurt, I told Ryan the truth and returned home. Right now, we are in 2036 and everything was changed by what I did, we all look like our parents and there is no such thing as genetic engineering. The best part is that when I returned home, my parents were waiting for me with an old friend of theirs and his son. I immediately recognized who it was and I was shocked to see it was Ryan. His son was about the same age as me and his name was Nathan. He was just as perfect as his dad and I was totally mesmerized with him. We got to know each other and now we have been a couple for almost 10 months. So yeah, everything turned out to be more than perfect.