Designated Survivor 1

The next few minutes were filled with questions about his life. Some aspects, he found, lacked outside influence. These natural events were the extreme minority.

The extent of those events that lacked influence were extremely minor in regard to their effects on his life. His tastes in color, food, and fashion were the only 'pure' subjects, everything else was manipulated in some capacity to make him more effective in his role.

"What about my family?" Don wasn't particularly fond of them, and they never really contacted each other, but he wondered just how deep the manipulation went.

"There is more to it than just mental manipulation I'm afraid. Even I was implicated with that plot, and it had nothing to do with where we are currently." Despite her energy, Diana seemed to get a bit depressed at this subject.

"Are you sure it is a good idea to tell him about that experiment?"

"He needs to know."

"Know what? What do I need to know?"

"Your family was not at all related to you by blood, but that was not because of this operation. There was a separate experiment done in an attempt to solve one of the primary issues restricting our technological progression."

"That was a lot of words. What does that mean?" All this smoke and mirrors was making him a bit light headed.

"You were raised by a family that was not your own, and you - we - were the result of an experiment meant to enable our technology to progress beyond the current limits."

Donovan was still wondering what that meant. "Could you elaborate, please?"

"I'll tell you the details later, when you are more stable, but I think you could understand what I meant if I said you were a test-tube baby."

"Ah, so I was born in a lab. I thought my real parents died or something like that. Does that mean you were too?"

"No. The fact that I am three months younger than you has a good reason. After viability in a controlled environment was confirmed, my mother was made a surrogate. I say surrogate, but the egg given was my mother's own, just genetically modified."

"Got it. Should we move on to a debriefing then? I trust you won't renege on your promise to explain later."

"Okay." Diana started messing with her hair. "Let's start with what you know."

"I know we are on some monster of a ship called the Oberlux, that there is this thing called Split, and that humanity is basically gone. I think that sums it up."

"Then let's start from the beginning. Recall my grandfather was a psychologist. Roughly ten years ago, he was performing a study on psychedelics and their potential uses. He used himself as a subject wanting to test a theory, and in one of his trances he came into contact with the Leader of the Oberlux, his name is the Captain, or just Captain. You will be meeting him shortly.

Now, it took a while to verify that the Captain was indeed a real person and not just an isolated delusion through contact with different people, but once we were sure of their existence we worked under the assumption we could trust them.

This was because they taught us to make limited use of Split, atomizing a small chunk of salt. The shield and reactor aboard this ship make use of the learned principles.

Admittedly, there was a lot of apprehension over whether or not Earth would end up being destroyed, but a large scale sensor array very clearly showed that a wave of split was coming. If what little we were able to make use of could rip apart the ionic bonds of salt, that level would have no problem doing the same to Earth.

Worse news came in the form of the information that they would be late, maybe only by hours, but that was more than enough time to tear apart the weaker covalent bonds that tissue tends to e made of.

From there it was a race, with our leadership trying to map out exactly what skills, personality traits, and capabilities would be necessary to provide the best chance of our species' continued survival. Don't take offense, but you were not the only option for the 'male' in the Designated Survivor program.

Besides the people required for this task, the tools would also be a struggle, especially constructing the shield to prevent split from killing us. That was an extremely expensive endeavor, and as you can see it still had imperfections.

ARC was the solution to the information and administration problem. Two people could only know so much, but a computer is not limited to the same degree. It can also take care of the construction of infrastructure and maintenance of necessities while we work on pressing issues.

In case you were wondering, you are in control of matter related to violence and how best to apply it.

Are you keeping up with me? I'm almost done." Diana took a break from her lengthy explanation to ask if Don was retaining this information.

"For the most part."

"Good. Now, I have to warn you on a few important matters regarding diplomacy. First, while our benefactors appear very close to humans, you will understand on a subconscious level that they are not OUR definition of human.

Try to hold back any feelings or expressions of disgust, fear, and apprehension towards them. They understand that it is an instinctual reaction in us, but I would prefer it if we didn't push their goodwill and patience beyond what is needed.

Second, you will notice that you will be able to understand what they are saying, but most of them will not be able to understand you. The exceptions are the Captain and the Scholar, and their comprehension abilities in English are not the best. If you can, please keep your words simpler.

Finally, and I know you might struggle with this, try your hardest not to give away ANY information about our society and our technology. As it stands, every little bit of knowledge we have that they don't is an advantage that we can use in our favor, and we need it. Everybody who has conversed with the Captain, myself included, have come to the conclusion that they are not nearly as advanced in the realm of science as we are, they haven't figured out rockets.

Can you promise me you will try to follow these rules as best you can?" Her eyes were locked with his, completely focused.

"I will try, but I have a question. How could they possibly exist in space without having figured out to use rockets?"

"I don't get it myself, but the theory is that Split or something like it enables them to do very energy intensive tasks without the use of tools and machinery."