Genesis Protocol

From her earliest memory, from before she even knew what numbers were, she could see them. At first, she perceived them as auras, blending into an unresolved glow hovering around the heads of people around her. The reason why each glow differed was a mystery to her as well. She could only guess at the reason why some were orange and why some were blue, and why some seemed to shine brighter than others. Her initial theory was that adults just looked like that, that it was something you acquired once you were no longer a child. 

And, although her infant babblings about "how pretty Mommy's colors are" were initially either misinterpreted or dismissed, after her first visit to a child psychologist who began asking concerned questions about exactly what she could see, she realized that it was something best not to mention. The theories about it being limited to adults proved false once she started going to school. There weren't many, but a few children had those numbers floating around their heads in her kindergarten class.

She didn't learn the truth until her parents took her into the city for her twelfth birthday.

This was special because her father viewed the city as uniquely awful. "Just a bunch of people being fired or being worried about getting fired" was his description of it. The thought of going into it to see a Broadway show was like going into the office to get a cup of break room coffee. But her mother, who loved telling Cassandra stories about how she would spend her only paychecks on half-price tickets to see shows, was in tears from clapping by the first intermission. 

After dinner, she pretended to be asleep in the hotel room until both her parents were asleep. She took one of the room keys off the nightstand and took what felt like several minutes closing the door as quietly as possible. 

Her goal—if she had one beyond getting to say she was finally in Manhattan on her own—was to practice staring up at the buildings. Skyscrapers gave her a disturbing sense of vertigo that she could only describe as being afraid she might fall upwards, to the extent that even proximity to them made her uneasy. 

She was training herself to look straight up at the sky when a man spoke to her.

"Hey, kid."

She eased herself back onto her feet and turned around to face him. She was not yet old enough to be able to describe people in detail or to reason about their age beyond being older than her.

"You lost?"

"No," she said. "I'm just going for a walk."

"Are you from around here?"

"Westchester," she said. 

"Lot of rich families there."

She had to squint. The other benefit from staring up at the sky, besides its usefulness in training her vertigo away, was that it meant she didn't have to see the people. The crowds of passersby, each with their own glowing numbers like LED headlights, was physically painful to look at for too long.

"My family's not rich," she replied indignantly. 

"Really? Mine neither. You have something any rich person would kill for, you know?"

For an instant, she thought he meant her power. How could anyone want this?

"I do? What?"

"Youth," he said. Then he laughed and began walking with Cassandra, a hand on her shoulder.

"Where are your parents?"

"Nearby," she lied. "They're parking the car at the hotel right now."

"Which hotel?"

"The Hyatt."

"Mm. That's a nice hotel."

Somehow, she had already acquired the knowledge that numbers were not something she should be seeing. Somehow, she knew that if someone knew she could see their numbers, it would hurt them, even though she still didn't understand what they represented. So, whenever she did try to look at them intentionally, which was rare, she did so quickly, stealing a glance before it could be noticed. His numbers indicated a date approximately a week earlier.

"So, what brings you to the city?"

"It's my birthday."

"Well, happy birthday! We should celebrate. How old are you?"

"Twelve."

"Twelve, huh? Interesting age. I get that you're only twelve, but what do you want to be when you grow up? You have to start thinking about that early."

"I don't know," she said. 

Who was this man? Was he talking to her because he had noticed something about her—like her power? Why else would he be so interested in what she wanted to be when she grew up?

Sometimes, reading stories and seeing movies, she would end up imagining some secret agency arriving to explain the meaning of her power and recruiting her to help save the world. It was stupid, but she wondered if she was on the precipice of the answer, finally. 

"I'm not sure," she said carefully. Remembering that when people asked you a question it usually meant they wanted you to ask them the same question, she asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" She realized only once he laughed that it was silly to ask an adult that.

"You're a very funny girl," he said. "Do you know why you're funny?"

"No?"

"Because you don't realize what you have. You're so beautiful and you're only twelve. Beauty is something that makes adults very happy. And, as you get older, you're going to get to make so many people happy and you won't even have to do anything. Just being beautiful and existing where other people can see you will make adults happy."

He stopped and turned her so that she was facing him. Her back was against a wall. 

"And I want you to understand how happy you've made me," he was saying.

In an instant, she perceived something out of her field of vision. A slight flicker of light, coming from above. A bus passed by and suddenly, in the watery reflection of the windows, she saw something she had never seen before above her head.

An unformed glow.

Not numbers.

But numbers about to be born.

And then she understood. With a quick twist, she was running. The man called out after her but she didn't stop until she reached her hotel. She slipped silently back into the room and stared at her parents' numbers until she fell asleep.