Mdg 115 Reika - 12

She lifted her hand to the glass. The reflection did the same. She watched her lips move, forming words she didn't say aloud.

At school, the teachers praised her. “Reika-chan is so calm now.” “Reika-chan never disrupts class.” “Such a mature young lady.” Mdg 115 Reika 12

They had fixed the broken chromosome—the one that would have turned her muscles to stone by age ten. They had spliced in the corrective sequence, flushed her little body with nanites that rebuilt her from the inside out. The MDG-115 procedure was a success. The first of its kind. She lifted her hand to the glass

She was also empty.

Reika stood by the window of the hospital room, pressing her palm against the cold glass. She could feel the glass. The temperature. The slight vibration of the city beyond. But underneath that, where a pulse used to thrum with want , there was only a soft, white static. At school, the teachers praised her

Reika’s skin was perfect. Porcelain smooth, untouched by the acne or awkwardness of other sixth graders. Her hair fell in a dark, heavy sheet to her shoulders. Her eyes, when she bothered to open them, were the color of rain on asphalt. She was, by every clinical metric, a marvel of pediatric gene therapy.

The designation was . The doctors called her Reika . She was twelve years old.