Ki

Eh! Isn’t that the K57S Center there?

Mi

The what center? K57S?

Bo

Yes. This is the residence for the excluded, as they are commonly called. You know, for the people with K57S syndrome, a condition that makes them incapable of connecting emotionally with others.

Flo

K57S refers to a mutation in a critical protein required during brain development. Those people develop an outgrowth in the cortex. These days, they are surgically removing it, but it gives only limited improvement.

Ben

It is said that they are very talented in quantum informatics.

Ki

Yes, but they cannot make themselves understood. No one can work with them!

Ré

It’s not so black and white. My brother has been there since his late teenage years.

The poor guy, we were quite a pain to him. He could not bear being teased. He would believe any story we were telling him, and then he would get into such a rage after realizing it was made up! I couldn’t resist teasing him; even my sister would do it. Our father was so disappointed in him for not realizing what was happening. The teenage years finished him. He would not go out anymore, staying glued to his computer. My father couldn’t accept seeing him so incapable of functioning in society.

Ki

Ré, you’ve never mentioned this to me before.

Ré

With time, I forgot about him. I tried visiting him, but it never worked out. He would ignore me as if I didn’t exist. I would have liked to help him. He was smart. But this is all biology; nothing I could have said would have changed him.

Mi

What do they do with them at the center?

Ré

They are isolated from the stress of relationships. It is said that they are well there.

Ben

There is also some research: they are trying different approaches to integrate them into economic life.

Mi

They should try to make them more Zumien! Flo, could they not correct the gene?

Flo

It’s too late. Their brain developed in an aberrant manner after birth. But don’t ask me too many questions; I am a quantum systems engineer, not a medical researcher.

Bo

One thing for sure: they’re keeping them far from civilization!

We’re arriving in the virgin territories where we will put our canoes into the water.

▼