www.me

Jimin sometimes wished they had chosen another name for him.

It felt too similar to the name of the boy he was in a life that now could only be described as a past one.

Geremy.

Gerei.

Gemmy.

Gem.

Ggggggggg.

He tried not to think of it so often.

Still, whenever he wrote, this felt impossible to ignore.

He wished he could just see her.

Right now, in fact.

Always.

He was back in Montana. Billings, today, regrettably.

It wasn't looking like it was going to happen.

He wasn't alone. So it was almost a relief, because he didn't like to share her.

When the memories of the past life had begun to emerge, she was the one he wanted to tell him they weren't true.

This woman, Madelein, that he and his band mates were all watching.

The timelines were intentionally confusing for most. Around the time she had turned 18, he was about to be eleven.

There were systems designed to predict outcomes that were biotechnologically connected to the two of them, as well as many others.

These systems were privately linked with operations shrouded in secrecy by trusted individuals with investments that ran deep.

An agent entered a command asking if the two would be a good match recurrently.

After many years of positive response they were asked individually; the responses were not in alignment.

The system which existed primarily with Jimin's data responded positively and enthusiastically.

On it's own, Madelein's was reluctant due to the differences in recorded age and culture.

Plans were adjusted accordingly.

---

When they had know one another, in the life before, things weren't much different. Jimin (Gerei, then) was younger than her, although his exact age wasn't known.

His parents were old heads that lived a hedonistic lifestyle and openly practiced Satanism.

It was the eighties and a lot easier to get away with this type of lifestyle undetected.

Geremi, too, was often encouraged to imbibe alongside of the adults in elaborate rituals.

It was during one of these celebrations he met her. But back then, her name wasn't Madelein. It was Cleo, he thought, but she said it like "Chio"

She didn't say much, but when she did speak it was either in a garbled accented tone or like a recording of someone else.

Geremi thought she was the only thing that mattered in life. He followed her everywhere until she became agitated, then waited until he could engage her again feeling like life was on hold all the while.

The next time he saw her, it was like no time or event had passed since.

He tried replacing her, with dance and art and music and work and even other women.

Nothing got her off his mind completely.

His father had drunkenly tried to explain why it was pointless.

She's way out of your league, Gem.

The name she would call him when it seemed like she was actually speaking to him, instead of saying what someone else wanted her to.

Hearing it out of this man's mouth made him seethe.

He hated almost everything about Gerei. Gerei was a longtime contracted employee of Hybe. He was also Jimin's biological father, although there was really no way of proving this.

The medical mysteries that kept the charade afloat never ceased to amaze.

It was an ancient tradition, Gerei explained. Jimin knew he meant business because he was speaking a dialect of Japanese only Jimin understood, as far as they were aware.

A girl was often useless to a family. She would be kept and fed only to be married under another family's name.

The privilege to keep a daughter was one that was publicly degraded for this reason.

The royal families designed this amongst themselves to preserve a specific type of purity.

The girl would be created with cooperation of many, oftentimes, outside of a bedroom.

The way that Madelein had been destined to be conceived was to be cultivated and then planted into a chosen surrogate that would carry her to term and rarely touch her after. She would have many attendants and servants, a specific diet, and be lucky to see the light of day. This knowledge had helped guide her fate. It was a much disagreed upon tradition, for the girls rarely lived past early childhood. They were kept like fragile museum pieces, and sometimes used for parts.

But for those that upheld this tradition, believed it truly necessary for the survival of the human race.

So you see, kid. Gerei went on. She has a bible full of boys and men people think are gonna have her.

So you better do something outrageous if you think you have a chance.

It was a mild day in June. There was a festival happening, but Jimin didn't feel like going.

He was parked outside of her dorm, waiting to see if she emerged, watching diligently a hacked feed of the surveillance cameras on campus.

He could see inside, too. She wasn't doing much. She arranged her room a little, took a shower, had coffee, ate.

He thought how sad her life had become, how sad it had always been.

He knew she had been thinking about the festival, thinking about going, and it seemed like it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

Still, he hoped she might change her mind. He thought of all of the times he would be within range and employ the many strategic sorceries Gerei had explained to him over the course of their relationship as father and son.

Holding onto something that belonged to her, a piece of clothing or lock of her hair and practically praying.

And he knew this was why he had been deployed as an agent of the military to monitor her whereabouts.

The United States Coast Guard had detained Afete, a young refugee from an island not far from domestic waters. The Yugao family immediately contacted ambassadors to ensure his release.

This was all being done in the name of national security, because it seemed he possessed some kind of device which was broadcasting very loud, graphic signals during a time when television and radio were still new.

During his detainment, Afete passed the embryo he had consumed and collected it diligently.

This was part of the plan Yi Lin had predicted and a practice passed along among their family. The "seed" would be swallowed by a male member of the family in order to bind the DNA without sexual intercourse.

Afete was only somewhat aware of the effect this would have on his life, because for all intents an purposes it made him the father as his had been the only male to physically access her physical form.

The embryo, much to the disappointment of agents assigned to the case, was not a mechanical weapon. To the naked eye it appeared to be just that: an embryo in early stages of development.

When asked, Afete could only say it was "Siberian".

Was it human?

He didn't know.

Animal?

He didn't know.

So they plunged it into a vial of saline and labelled it as such.

The vial was stored in a forensic lab with the highest clearance while something like a custody battle ensued.

But now that all of this had happened, everything changed.

No one wanted her now.

Still, to the shock of all who witnessed, she continued to grow.