Author: Frank T. Sikora

My father’s favorite test subject, a 57-pound bio-genetically altered male piglet, Wilboar, AKA Willie, soars over the storage shed. Its broad wings rhythmically flutter; its eyes dart up and down, left and right. A GoPro camera with AI-level stabilization lenses sits on Willie’s sleek head. I track Willie from the landing site, holding my breath in anticipation of another disaster, my weak legs barely holding steady. Wille, though, is unaffected by my anxiety. He squeals with delight.

My mother and brother, Finn, also follow, riding in the three-wheeler, ignoring the stream of piglet poop trailing behind the silly beast, ready to transport him back to the lab. Microsensors in Willie’s tissues, organs, muscles, and bloodstream allow Father access to multiple physiological data points; the quantum processor calculates probabilities, certainties, and unknowns, all in real time. After one more circle around the shed, Willie descends. Father’s joyful whoops pour through our headsets.

Until today, Willie never traveled more than 150 meters and only a few meters off the ground, tumbling like an overstuffed anti-aerodynamic sausage. Thankfully, mother insists on proper protective ware including a helmet and cup. Yes. I said that. Got to keep his genetic line intact. Can’t start over. Too costly.

Willie is the fifth in line of Father’s flight-engineered miniature swine, having previously experimented on other mammals. Willie’s bones are hollow like a bird’s. His high metabolism provides sufficient fuel for flight.  Given their internal organs resemble ours, piglets are Father’s second experimental choice.

After Willie lands, I limp over and inject Willie with a small dose of Propofol. Once sedated, we will wheel him into Father’s lab, which sits behind the house and adjacent to the barn. We lift carefully, mindful of his wings, which span three meters across, plus his one-meter tail feathers.

In the lab, Father will examine Willie before placing him into his personal pen. If we kept Willie with the other hogs, they would tear him apart, jealous of his ability or just because he is different. So human are the swine: intolerant and cruel.

Inside, we pass a clinical history of Father’s failures. Failed experiments float in formaldehyde tanks — physical reminders of Father’s hubris: Poor creatures, bastardized and brutalized with eyes too human, and for what? Glory? Renown? It was Mother who insisted we keep them, hidden from the world but not from us.

I want to burn them all.

Father greets us, smiling and clapping. “Good work, my loves. Wonderful.”

It’s good to see Father happy. He comes over and wraps me up, “Big hug, my little Nova,” he says. I miss his hugs. Most days, he can’t even look at me.

“It’s guilt,” Mom said once. “He can’t forgive himself.”

“Can you forgive him?”

“No.”

It must be awful to live with a man you admire and yet loathe. I don’t loathe Father. He wants to change the world. He dreams of flight for all. I understand.

Mostly.

Me? I represent all that is good and bad about Father. He wants to fix me, but Mom insists that I remain as I am. No surgery.  No alterations. A harsh lesson.

I wish I could go to school like Finn. I wish I didn’t have to hide behind an online AI persona. Father thought he could design a wonder child — a marvel for the world to behold.

Father kisses my forehead. “I admire you, so. You have your mother’s strength and grace.”

I know Father loves me. I wish I loved myself.

Someday.

I smile back, holding my tears at bay. I spread my useless wings and bow.