“Growth is never continuous, it happens in stages. The first one is embryonic: it is exponential. If we kept growing at that rate we would be a hundred feet tall by the age of ten!” said Mr. Jeremy, the principal and also a biology professor.
Mr. Jeremy had decided to prepare his students for what was about to come. His face always displayed a toothy, friendly smile that betrayed his aggressively argumentative nature. He was concerned about the Supreme Court decision, which was about to change the landscape of the neighborhood ... all neighborhoods actually.
“Look how fast how a fetus develops… in nine months I can't even finish a book! While nature can shape an entire brain in all its complexity in a couple of weeks. It is not surprising that the T-Rex gene can change T-Animals and T-People just as fast. It is not magical, it is just radical.”
Mr. Jeremy stopped. He had just noticed how silent the class was, only hearing the beats of rain drops on the large glass windows.
Perhaps, he thought, it is because of the looping video of one group of T-Girls on the projection screen behind me.
On the screen T-Girls seven-feet tall and muscular as world-class female bodybuilders were pulling down a twenty-story building with thick ropes in a fast demolition.
Actually, all classes paid full attention when he came to talk to them about the T-rex gene. Impressionable as teens were, the T-Rex gene was a lottery in which everyone had a ticket, regardless of whether they wanted one. And everyone had a chance to become superior in every way, better than they presently were, almost like superheroes. Even if the chances were a million to one, it felt achievable to them, making some thrilled, others apprehensive.
“The T-Rex, the dinosaur, had two-stages of puberty. During the first stage it grew like any other dinosaur, not much taller than the velociraptor I am sure you have all seen in the movies. The eggs from a T-Rex were comparatively small compared to the mother. After puberty was finished - let’s say around 16 or 17 T-Rex life years as the T-Rex had half of our lifespan - another phase of growth would activate. And then it was not an ordinary dinosaur anymore, growing more than a thousand pounds per year, seven times its mass until finally reaching maturity after eight more T-Rex years. Imagine that - all other animals growing relatively smaller to it over nearly half of his lifespan, becoming increasingly easier to hunt, to kill, and feeding it, allowing to get even bigger.”
Christin, sitting in the front row as always, adjusted her thick frame glasses around her carefully tied blond hair, ready to object to anyone.
"Wasn't the T-Rex a scavenger?"
"Well, I guess you've never met a T-Rex skeleton, Christin. You'd never forget those immense jaws, able to generate the strongest force ever created by any animal on Earth. You just need to be in the presence of such a scary creature and your instincts would tell you that they were the apex of apex predators, not just some gigantic vulture."
At the back of the class, Priscilla, or Pris as she preferred to be called, wrote down a note to Liam:
“Are all men becoming weak schmoes for T-Girls now?”
Pris pointed to the principal talking in fascination about the drastic recent changes in society. Liam nodded in agreement and he kept looking at her.
Liam noticed that Pris' child-like chubbiness had begun to melt away, leaving her face anew, enhancing her dramatic eyebrows and her intelligent sharp eyes. Her face was less round and her thin dark hair was longer. Pris was starting to remind him of a teenage Natalie Portman, even when she spoke with her usual tough-girl, Ellen Page vibe. Liam never thought of Pris as attractive before, but he was beginning to think that might become a problem in their no-nonsense friendship.
“Besides armor-piercing bullets, only T-Humans can deal with T-Animals. But more importantly, T-Animals tend to accept T-Humans as alphas. So, thanks to the T-Men and T-Girls living with us there are less problems taming those stray T-Cats ...”
“T-Women, Mr. Jeremy…” said Christin.
Liam could not help noticing that Christin was also maturing fast, looking less like a girl and more like a young woman. She looked just as smart as Pris. Unlike Pris, Christin had an easy, delicious smile that Liam often found himself looking at. He guessed her beautiful smile was a result of her Norwegian heritage.
“T-Women, of course. Would you like to be one, Christin?” Mr. Jeremy asked, idly wondering how the blond bookworm teenager would look in Amazonian form.
“Being healthier, stronger, able to see in the dark… yeah, sure. But that part about being freakishly tall and too muscular to fit in a car … I'll pass. Besides, I don’t want to leave my family or the school.”
“Well, that’s about to change. The government has ruled in favor of ending the Quarantine. It has been two years and made no difference. However the change is spreading, it is not due to a virus or anything that can be contained. So it doesn’t make sense to separate families and friends anymore.”
Tommy raised his arm from the last row.
“Why hasn’t anyone in our school been affected?”
“Well, we don’t know ... we don’t know what activates the T-Rex gene. We all have the gene … alligators have it, birds have it, insects have it. We are lucky that only mammals have changed so far. The unlocked gene is a very primordial, arising more than a billion years ago, and has been found even in very old fossils. There are many theories, but we can discard a few. For example we do know that it is not man-made or due to overpopulation, pollution, or radiation. Every week a new theory is debunked. The truth is that no one really knows why it is happening … perhaps we are all living in someone’s perverted fantasy dream ...”
Pris leaned close to Liam’s ear and whispered, “That would be Tommy’s.”
They both knew and talked about Tommy's porn habits, which had increasingly shifted towards the Amazons that were scarcely populating the planet.
“If we see the maps …” Mr. Jeremy pushed a dotted world map on the projector, “We can see that there are many occurrences across the world, in countries like Brazil, the United States, Australia, and Japan. The ratio of T-females to T-males is more than 10 to 1. T-Females tend to grow taller and stronger than the T-Males, which was something that occurred with T-Rex as well.”
“That’s so unfair…” a girl beside Christin griped.
“Well,” said Mr. Jeremy, “There is nothing we can do but to accept the natural law. Whatever differences we have, the best we can do is to welcome them and find harmony. They didn’t ask to be like this. And anyone of you can become one of them … and yes, being so much stronger, faster, more resilient, etc, etc, feels unfair to others … but what is fair? Is it fair that we kill and eat cows?”
Many students in the class rolled their eyes as Mr. Jeremy began his vegan rant.
Christin interrupted him.
“Marion was talking about big men being fewer than big women, Mr. Jeremy… a girl might look like a goddess but life won't be easier for her.”
Other girls nodded with Christin, as they were all after the same school prince, Johnny.
“Well, if it is any consolation, for some strange reason it sprouts in groups. I mean, it is rare for a T-man or a T-woman to grow alone. It is also rare for them to come out in both sexes. In Penda High, they have a group of six T-Men, no T-Girls …”
“T-Women, teacher!” Christin protested again.
“T-Women… in Colasdora High, five T-Women sprouted, no T-Men, and so on. Isn’t it intriguing? So perhaps we might have a pack of Amazons here? Or the next boyband attraction for you girls to dream about.”
The joke did not resonate well with the young women.
The principal jumped to another map.
“This is our state. There are about two hundred occurrences of the T-Rex gene across its borders. That hole with no dots is our district. So sooner or later, some of you might be the first dots on that board.”
“Only teenagers are getting it, right?” Tommy asked, his voice marked with a hint of concern.
Tommy had read one of his older sister Summer's texts on her phone. She was a senior, but she was bragging that she grew an inch last month. Tommy used to tease Summer about her short stature.
“Well, most of the people affected have just passed through puberty. But there are some rare exceptions to the rule … lucky me, some attractive moms are getting it, too!”
The class did not like this joke either.
This is a tough crowd, Mr. Jeremy thought.