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Jensen’s mother has worked her entire life to try to save him. He knows this as well as anybody. Cursed with multiple illnesses and defects, he had gone from being a bundle of joy to a bundle of debt within seconds of his mother’s first appointment with her obstetrician. But his mother wasn’t one of the foremost geneticists in her field for nothing, and she refused to allow her baby to die.
Jensen also knows that he inherited her stubborn will. It is the only explanation that he can come up with for why he is still alive. Some of the treatments he has been subjected to could be labeled as nothing but torture. What is worse is the pain that he brings his family. They all know that someday he is going to die on them. He isn’t ever going to attain that ideal life that they all want for him, and he has wondered on occasion if it wouldn’t be better if he could just find it in himself to wish for death instead of life.
What has always sucked about his situation is that there are hundreds of artificially created humans walking around without a single, solitary thing wrong with them. Their bodies are perfectly hale and hearty. They’re gorgeous and athletic. They also have no inspiration inside of them. For as flawless and living as their bodies are, their brains and identities might as well be computer boards.
They aren’t clones. No, clones still have to be birthed. Clones have souls. Testonic humans don’t. They get their name from the fact that at the earliest stages of their lives, they are grown in test tubes. They graduate to larger cylinders as their bodies mature, but those are still nothing but giant test tubes filled with amniotic substitute. Their brains are filled with random electrical impulses that tell them who they are and what they are supposed to like or dislike.
Testonics have limited creativity and are incapable of becoming hostile. Originally created in a weapons laboratory, they were considered useless until the open market got ahold of them. The military might not have any use for them, but there were plenty of rich people that could come up with some good uses for a lab created human.
They’re mostly used as companions although some of the richer types also have them created for housework or babysitting services. There are strict controls on ownership of a Testonic. Ownership is for life, selling is not allowed unless you become mentally disabled or die. At that point your family can either take custody of your Testonic, or they are put into a foster home for placement. You take responsibility for any of their actions. Abuse is not tolerated, nor is mutilation or programming a Testonic to like or crave such treatment.
Jensen knows all of this because his mother is one of the few geneticists who is licensed for their creation. She is also the best. She had to be because she needed to pay for all of Jensen’s care and treatment, and she needed to secure as much money as possible.
Dr. Ackles is also notoriously picky about her clients. She doesn’t like making Testonics. If she makes them, she wants them to have the best homes possible. Those rules help her sleep at night. They help her soothe her conscience.
The most painful thing of all is that if the government allowed some of the procedures used on Testonics to be used on humans, Jensen might’ve been cured ages ago. The process would have been painful, but it would have also been worth it. Jensen would gladly bear any pain to ease that of his family, and he is certain that he could have talked his mother into it.
She might have even tried to experiment on him herself, ignoring the liabilities and the legalities, if she could have afforded it. But the restrictions on the supplies for growing a Testonic were astronomical. They were tightly controlled, and the black market for them was so exorbitant that three of his mother could have barely afforded the prices.
Then Jared Padalecki sent in a letter of inquiry.
Jensen knows that his mother is stringent about her clients, but he’s never known her to grill them before. Jared’s interview lasts almost four hours, but when Jensen watches him leave, the man is smiling. Jensen almost asks his mother if Jared is actually a Testonic in disguise when she comes to sit by his side, but the look on her face keeps him quiet.
“He wants green eyes,” she whispers to Jensen’s frail, malformed hand that she clutches between her own.
Green eyes are virtually impossible to recreate in a Testonic. Jensen’s mother is the one scientist to ever even come close.
“Did you tell him that there weren’t any guarantees?” Jensen rasps, proud of himself for being able to get the sentence out without having to gasp for air.
“He wants somebody gentle and kind. Smart and witty. Pale faced with freckles and, and…” his mother starts sobbing. She never cries about the good clients, and Jensen is usually very good about picking those out. Jared had seemed okay from the window view.
The sight of his mother distresses him, and Jensen wheezes in the middle of his basic inquiry of, “Momma?”
“You could finally walk. See the world. Grow hair,” she cries, stroking a fingertip over the only tuft of hair that Jensen’s ever had grow on his head. It’s right behind his left ear, growing raggedly and always breaking off whenever it gets over an inch long.
For all of his handicaps, Jensen isn’t stupid. If anything, being confined to beds and breathing machines since he was born has offered him ample opportunity to study. He knows what his mother is offering him. He knows that he is going to say yes before he even thinks it all the way through.
Whether he likes it or not, he is a burden to his family. Each year something else fails, and each year his healthcare payments go up. His muscles wither, and his bones twist. He has no quality of life, but he could.
Faking his death is astonishingly easy. His body already has a certain corpselike look to it, and the uncaring medics that the hospital sends don’t even bother double checking his mother’s findings. Jensen’s family pays off the coroner, but the coroner is a good family friend and has seen enough dead bodies in his morgue that could have been prevented. It is likely that he would have helped them smuggle Jensen out for free.
Saying goodbye to his family is hard. As much as he has never been able to participate much in their world, he still loves them. They still love him. Once he goes out that door with Jared, Jensen isn’t going to be able to see them again. It is almost like he’s dying, but he has to think more positively than that.
When all the crying is done and all the goodbyes are said, his mother puts him in her largest test tube and starts the process.
Jensen wakes up what seems like minutes later. Only it can’t be because he can breathe. For the first time in his life, Jensen can draw a long, filling breath and let it go. His fingers are straight and healthy. A nearby mirror shows that his head is covered in short, golden brown hair. His body knows how to stand and move. His mother must have patched in some of the learning modules because he has never once in his life felt what it was like to put his weight onto the balls of his feet.
Jensen is busy starting at himself in the mirror when the door to the recovery room opens. He smiles at his mother automatically, but is surprised when she doesn’t do anything other than give him a tremulous smile in return. He is about to open his mouth to ask her what is wrong when a large shadow falls on her.
“Hello, Jensen. This is your new owner, Jared,” her introduction is a little awkward, but Jensen doesn’t think that Jared notices. His eyes are roaming all over Jensen.
“He’s perfect,” Jared breathes out.
Jensen can see his mother bristle at the words, so he moves smoothly over on his new feet to stand next to Jared. “Hi,” he offers shyly. It isn’t an act. Jensen hasn’t met a new person that wasn’t a nurse or a doctor in years.
The pause gives his mother time to recover herself. “There is a change of name form attached to the back of your ownership papers. You can, of course, call him anything you’d like, but…” she trails off. Jensen can see her tears starting, so he tugs on Jared’s sleeve a little to get his attention.
Jensen knows it is a flirtatious behavior. He just doesn’t know if it’s part of what he has learned from watching years of television or if it is part of the packaged program for a companion. The sexual knowledge in his head is definitely not his own. He was born deformed down there more than anywhere else on his body. If it weren’t for the programming taking up space inside his skull, Jensen doesn’t think he’d know what to do with his new thing.
In any case, the motion works, because it gets Jared’s attention away from Jensen’s grieving mother and onto him. Jared beams down at him for a moment, but the reprieve isn’t long enough this time. When he glances back up, Jensen’s mother is openly weeping.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, “my son just…”
“I know. I’m sorry for your loss,” Jared instantly offers. It makes Jensen feel better about the arrangement. It seems like the sympathy is genuine.
The whole scientific community knows that his mother names all of her Testonics, “Jensen.” It’s always been what keeps her going. She does it to keep him and his wellbeing foremost in her mind, and now she doesn’t have to worry anymore.
“I like the name anyway,” Jared continues, his smile soft for her.
Jensen doesn’t care if Jared is lying or not. He can see that Jared’s words are the right thing to say, and he shoots his mother a quick smile behind Jared’s back before going back to looking suitably adoring. His smile means that he is going to be okay, and being okay is a far sight better than he’s ever been.
With just a couple of signatures and the swipe of his credit chip, Jared is ready to leave. He bids one last farewell to Jensen’s mother, and then Jensen is following him out the door to a fancy sports car. For the first time in his life, Jensen gets to sit in the front seat instead of being strapped into a special chair that loads him into the back of a specially made van.
It isn’t good, but it’s nice.