Project One Fifty-Four

(Ah, fuck it, I'll never be able to format this banner in such a way it will fit into this column. Just click the blasted thing, because he has a cool earring and shit.)

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I guess I should begin by introducing something I will probably talk about a lot lately for the next few months until it is finished. It is a novel in progress called Project One Fifty-Four, which will finish anywhere between 30k and 50k words in length. Imagine something the size of Nineteen Eighty-Four, perfect size for a good novel in my view.

Project One Fifty-Four is a dark, depeche mode-driven science-fiction taking place in San Francisco Bay in the 2030's-40's, about a man named One Fifty-Four who learns about what it means to be free.

To have an understanding of what One Fifty-Four is, understand that he was not born within a uterus. In 2017, a sperm and an ovum were collected from anonymous American donors who have never heard of each other. (They're not the 'mommy' and 'daddy' and had no idea what they were donating to.) The genetic information of each gamete¹ was extracted and replaced with one half of Project 154's genome (after being carefully proofread by a team of geneticists), and the modified gametes were allowed to conceive, and the resulting zygote was multiplied through various techniques to the point where there were hundreds of them. Each individual zygote was placed in its own little 65cm endometrium-lined² cell, and nine months later in 2018, Project One Fifty-Four was born.

A complicated process, isn't it? It had to be, if they wanted hundreds of copies of the same hominid³ with all the genetic traits they spliced in or created. With a process like that, they could make whatever the hell they want as long as it's a complete lifeform, kinda like computer programming. They could give 154 blonde hair or ginger hair or even the ruby red hair they spliced in from a cardinal to readily demonstrate their abilities. (Yes, the bird.) They gave One Fifty-Four an animal's tapetum lucidum⁴ so that he could see in the dark. They gave him agile, nimble fingers so that he could handle firearms with ease. They gave him the quick thinking and resourcefulness necessary to gain the upper hand in any situation, in any environment. They even gave him indigestible muscle mass so that he would starve and die rapidly if he ran away from his handlers.

Now, who would do such a thing? The age's medical and computer technology multi trillion-dollar American-based global monopolist, Systems Corporation. A board of big, fat, selfish rich people full of money, and full of ideas, with the US government all penned up right where they need them, and a whole seething mass of innocent, blissful civilians ready to fork out their money for new hip shit and work dead-end jobs for them; that's who.

'Course, One Fifty-Four himself is blissfully unaware of his purpose, or that the place he lives in is really an obscure underground UV-lighted facility⁵ and that there's more to the world than that, thanks to all the drugs they put him on for the past twenty-something years. But some way, some how, sometime in 2039 when he's an adult, he manages to break through this barrier, improvise an escape, and see the sun and trees and sea water and all that is good in this world for the first time in his life.

This story is about how One Fifty-Four builds his life after that day, the day of his true birth. It is about how he transforms from a project numbered One Fifty-Four into a man named Jack, how he discovers the concepts of family, friends, love, sexuality, responsibility and everything that makes a human human.

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For those of you who have played Weasel's flash game Thing-Thing 4, yes, it is indeed where I got the inspiration for this story. It's very different from the original plot, I'm afraid, but I won't be parting with the original name any time soon after having worked with it so long. (not to mention it happens to be Fahrenheit 451 backwards.) You won't find any OMFG SUPER KEWL GREEK GOD MECHAS here. Just a load of sap and philosophy and biology and shit that cannot be appreciated by pasty-faced 14-year-old gamerfags.

Also, it is always pronounced One Fifty-Four. Never One Hundred Fifty-Four or, god forbid, One Five Four.

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¹ 'Gamete' or 'germ cell' is the name for a sperm or an ovum (egg). Its function is to carry on the process of sexual reproduction.

² 'Endrometrium' is the anatomical term for uterine lining. An embryo must implant in the endometrium (or a similar rich tissue) in order to grow. This endometrium was harvested from the uterus of a sow.

³ 'Hominid' is the taxonomic term for any of the bipedal primates, including not only Homo sapiens, but also Homo neanderthalis, Homo erectus, and others. Hominid is used here because Project One Fifty-Four isn't quite our species, his genome is that different.

⁴ The tapetum lucidum is the membrane in the back of an animal's eye that reflects light and allows it to see better in the dark. But in total darkness, it can't see at all because there is no light to reflect. For some reason humans don't have them.

⁵ Fluorescent lights shine using UV radiation from mercury vapor. Usually mercury vapor, but other gases are used as well.