The subject we are considering is called Simone.
From what I know he was one of the first humans to be born without parents. Not in the sense that he was an orphan, but in the sense that he was artificially created in a laboratory.
He was born in an experimental cultivation site monitored and authorized by both the European Union and the World Health Organization, which made him one of the first human beings to be legally created.
Those like him were recognizable by a very simple detail: they had no navel. A detail that many ignored however, because no one was yet used to that new reality. This technology was brand new after all, no one expected to be able to create a human in the twenty-first century, and when the Divine Tech Company had made it known that it could do it many did not believe it … initially.
The technique used by the DTC was kept secret, and was also impossible to replicate. This has led to many things, including the fact that individuals and corporations have not been able to abuse this new technology, only the richest and most powerful nations in the world have been able to exploit it.
Various rules and laws have arisen to be respected, there has been a little talk about it in newspapers and on television, there have also been some humanitarian and religious protests … but then everything fell silent. Between a terrorist attack, a half environmental disaster, a global pandemic and other more “interesting” and “current” events, people have quickly forgotten about this topic.
Governments, however, do not.
Italy, for example, was the European government with the highest number of elderly among its population. This was a big problem at the time, which gave it the right to request a legal cultivation of humans from the DTC, so that it could solve the problem by creating new young people without necessarily having to import immigrants from other places.
It was perhaps the first nation to have done so in such a direct and open way; it was certain that other nations were already doing this, but in secret.
After a long negotiation Italy has ordered a number of humans equal to ten million individuals: five million males and five million females, to be distributed equally throughout the Italian territory over 25 years, for a total of 400,000 new (not) born per year.
These humans would have been placed inside orphanages created specifically for the occasion, orphanages managed in part by the Italian state, in part by the European Union and in part by the DTC.
The orphanages in question gave great freedom to the children they hosted, they were always clean and well kept, the food was different every day, and the structure was technologically advanced.
Video games, televisions, water beds, swimming pools … it was all in there. And Simone spent his childhood in one of these.
Having given the opportunity to do so, the children were adopted just like those placed in normal orphanages … but from what we understand the adoptions were almost never “happy”, almost everyone wanted to return to the orphanage , not only to continue being with those they considered brothers but also because these orphanages were great places to live, equipped with every luxury a child could want.
Simone is one of the “lucky ones” who avoided adoption.
At the age of eighteen he was introduced to the world of work, and from that moment on he had freedom and privileges that other children could not have, such as a private bedroom and the possibility of sleeping out at night.
It was shortly after his twentieth birthday that things changed.
It was an ordinary day, and I’m reliving it through his eyes right now.
Simone is in the garden, chilling. He is chatting with three of his friends, another adult and two minors. Nothing strange is happening, and there are no big news on the horizon. It is a normal day passed in a normal way.
Children who stroll through the orphanage garden often greet him. He is one of the best known boys, he is taken as an example and model for many, he is seen as an older brother by the little ones and as a source of inspiration for the older ones: he is one of the best in sports and educational activities, and he is also the one who has the best stories to tell as he often goes out for both work and fun with friends outside the orphanage.
Suddenly his gaze falls on a figure that seems familiar to him. A tall boy, apparently slender-looking and with dark hair … a boy he hadn’t seen for years.
Simone gets up from the chair he is sitting on, says that he will soon return to his friends and walks curiously towards the now sixteen year old boy who was adopted at the age of twelve.
His name, Elia Gumiero.