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Man was created in the image of God

And God is a perfect being. 

Therefore, it is the obligation of man to become such perfect beings.

There were few words that could be brought in description of Ramon’s quarters as effectively as simply dull. The walls were barren, dry, and empty from the myriad of frivolous iconography of desires, and only filled in part by a small holo screen he used as a calendar and an old world mirror that hung a perfect few inches from the screen. His bed was tidy, as neat as one would expect fresh off the factory floor; the sheet tucked and folded at the perfect angle and measurement with the blanket and pillow laid upon the top as if it hadn’t seen the touch of a living being in its lifespan. Such was the perfect state as all things should stand. And although, as he saw in the mirror a face that grew wild with a sea of tangled whites, browns, and grays of a shaggy beard, and overalls marred to the ends with ashen marks of black powder and oil stains, many tenets of his old life were not lost.

It was a habit he couldn’t kill, even at the far reaches of space, even on this dreadful rock they docked that reminded him more and more of his “home” than any before it. Ramon’s head had turned from the mirror's pristine visage to face the scratched and scuffed view from the window of the ship. And while his eye hadn’t caught any inhabitants out on the surface, he remembered some from the docking. It was a rock uniform in its people, a colony of miners whereupon they waded through the dusty shafts for but a hint of material and toiled upon the surface in their free time. It was a sight too familiar to his eyes. It was homogenous, a society of one people, with one job. A land he had hoped he long escaped from, yet it seemed in some way man always fell into castes.

His eyes shifted away from the mirror, a wistful breath of air trailing from his lips with a turn of body and a short walk over to the cramped desk in his quarters. Well, if the slab of sheet metal could be considered a desk anyway. The rickety metal clicked and whined under Ramon’s weight as he sat before the desk, and his hand of true flesh and bone swiped the opaque bottle of conditioner from its neatly aligned row. The caste had it’s benefits, the arm he held laided out and pressed against the cold steel he could barely feel was a testament to that. With the free hand, he damped a little cloth stained with overuse in the conditioner and slathered it upon the surface of his arm. It was leathery, rough, porous, yet from afar it looked real. When standing away, one couldn’t spot the slight discoloration as it melded into real skin; they couldn’t spot the faint lines where modules connected to one another. As he slid the cloth further up his arm, it wasn’t simply one big mass of artificial skin; some were worn, more leathery and discolored than the others, some were more fresh, more skin-like. Such were the perks of his service. Those from his home who worked jobs like the ones on the rock where they were docked weren’t afforded such luxuries as synthetic skin. Yet AGIs cared for their own. They still had new arms, new legs, yet ones that attracted the dust of the mines like a moth to a flame, wherein they rusted under the conditions they were thrown into. Ramon had the luxury of only needing to condition the synth-skin on his arm and leg every so often for care. He didn’t need to oil or wirebrush his joints; he lacked the need for the constant replacements that came with modularity. Yet nothing came without sacrifice. While those in the mines toiled under rock, he toiled from the front lines. Space takes, it always takes. And the AGIs give. They gave him life. They gave him a spine. They gave him limbs. But they also take.

Once again, he dampened the cloth. With a swift roll of the overall, he repeated the motions from his arm onto the synth-skin of his leg. Few ever leave Magna Centuari. The generation they are now on, the value of which always slips his mind, is comfortable. And increasingly “perfect,” that loftly goal the AGIs spew forth. And while his time in Centauri space has been limited in these present days, he’s seen the flyers, the flags, hell, even when they step foot upon the sparse Specula-4, it was there. He saw it in the eyes of the emissaries who greeted them, like twins the both of them stood. And in moments and even now, he found disgust in their revelry: of the flag and what it stood for, of the badge on their chest, of him. First generation is few and far between, and the barbarity of their upbringing is only held in their minds and the servers of the AGIs. The first perfect few, they were called; the gene-seed of what is now the entire modified population. His mind can’t help to feel it as vile, how they acted as if he was god-borne due to his birth. The whole lot of them needed more time in the birthing chambers, he thought, more intellect from his academic brothers.

And how he let that grass-green colored boy convince him to sail under the licenses of these folk again, he would never know. Ramon rolled down the pant leg of his overalls as he finished with the last swipe of the conditioner. And with that, he rose, grabbed the stack of manuals off the same desk, and packed them into the bag he had received off the back of the chair. Today was gun inspection, and while the young crew ran off on this rock doing who knows what, that is what he will be doing. He may have been out of the service for a long time, but some things? They just stick with you.
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