Gini's Island

Gini’s Island

By Jerry Wible

Copyright 2012

Published by Be eRead ePublishing

Smashwords Edition

Chapter I

My name is Griep. It comes from a Russian word that means the flu, because people say I make them sick when they see me coming. Nice name to call somebody, huh? I had a different name when I was younger, but they dropped it when I was too young to remember. I live on Gini’s Island—Gini pronounced with a hard G.

Gini’s father was Russian and his mother was British. His true name is Valeri Kaminsky, with emphasis on the second part of his first name. The name Gini comes from the Russian word, genius, and he liked the flattery, so the name stuck.

We live on an island in the Pacific Ocean, near the equator. Until recent times, the island was deserted and unclaimed by any country or jurisdiction. That’s why Gini moved there, so he could experiment unhampered. I won’t describe all that went on earlier, but rather I’ll start my story just before things started to go wrong.

Anna and I were Gini’s first experiments, so we’re the oldest of his genetically controlled offspring. We’re both half chimpanzee and half human. Someone like Gini had to be the first to try it. It was inevitable, I guess. I don’t know if there were others before like us or not; but we are the only two here, now. Apparently, he didn’t find us too utilitarian, so he switched and started making gelpers. Gini’s helpers became Gini’s gelpers, I think because it rolled off the tongue easier that way.

Gelpers were sort of made from leftover parts. He took strands of DNA from various animals and strung them together to make what he thought would be the perfect helpers for his Perfect Children. So gelpers have long snouts; thick, rounded, deer-like ears; the eyes from owls; hearing from some insect or another; and a thin protective cartilaginous plate on their backs, sort of like as is found in turtles. If he had put plates on their bellies, they couldn’t have been able to bend over enough to work. He just went ahead with a thick, turtle-like tail for them, too. Most importantly though, he gave them enough human brain that they would be smart enough to help around the island doing chores, and not just barking all day long or something like it. I was told they have ten percent human brain.

The gelpers have thick, scaly hide; and they have paws that have long, sharp claws. One of their favorite foods is the boa constrictor, a species thought to have been brought to the island by boat at some time in the past from Central or South America. I still curse whoever brought them here a century ago. They only live in the rainforest of the island, which is basically the whole island.

Perfect Children were Gini’s ultimate purpose for living. He wanted to create an advanced human subspecies that wouldn’t take millennia to evolve. He apparently didn’t see it so much as creating a new type of human, as simply replacing bad genes with better ones. So, the human parents would undergo a procedure wherein Gini’s doctors would remove a part of the woman’s ovaries and store the eggs in case the parents wanted more children later. Most of them already had other children. Then, he would give the woman the right hormones for her womb to accept an embryo without competition from naturally fertilized eggs. Gini controlled the DNA that went into creating each being.

Who would want to undergo all that? People who wanted a prime minister in the family, or a Nobel Prize winner, or a world-class scientist, for instance. The parents were all extremely wealthy people. But that’s not the worst part. They had to be willing to give up their brilliant offspring for seventeen years, so that the Perfect Children could be raised receiving world-class educations under tightly controlled conditions.

Still, I haven’t come to the worst part, which is this. Gini wanted his children to each have a servant/protector. Hence, the gelpers he developed. But what pair of potential parents would want to bear a horribly ugly animal? That was the non-financial sacrifice each set of parents had to be willing to make in order to receive a future world leader. The woman had to undergo the same procedure to bear a god-awful, ugly gelper before she could receive a Perfect Child embryo the following year. The woman wasn’t even allowed to see the newborn gelper as it was delivered. The shock might have been too much. No, the shock definitely would have been too much.

Since gelpers were raised to serve Perfect Children, they were kept on the far side of the island for training until they were about thirteen years old. I never ever saw a young gelper, just the older ones; and I’m eighteen. No Perfect Child ever knew if he was related to the gelper that accompanied him. Gini always told them he hadn’t paired up siblings.

So, what do I look like? I stand about four feet tall, up on just my legs. I think you can imagine what a half-human/half-chimpanzee person might look like. Not all that bizarre. Since it is so hot here, Gini didn’t give me much hair, and just a stub for a tail. I’ve got long arms and I’m pretty flexible. I walk on either all fours, or just on my legs; but I go lower and faster when I’m down on my knuckle-pads. Given that Anna is like me, but a girl, we look a lot alike. Except she got little titties, for which I’m still grateful to Gini.

Since I was the only one who looked like me, and because it made people sick to see me coming, I stayed in a grass hut on the beach about a mile from town. Out that far, people and gelpers, alike, left me alone. Anna was more sociable than me, so she lived in a grass hut on the beach near the port, and close enough to town to suit her.

Town consisted of a variety of buildings that Gini had constructed when he first moved here. It lay about a quarter-mile inland from the beach, behind dense forest which sheltered the town from hurricanes. Town was strung with a system of loudspeakers, and Gini liked to hear himself talk.He always had some new construction process going on.

There were a hundred Perfect Children, so a hundred gelpers, give or take. Gini’s human staff consisted of about thirty regular people, and another twenty batch of teachers brought in for three-month-long tours for teaching the Perfect Children. Gini kept a high teacher-to-student ratio. And, of course, there were the young gelpers still being raised on a satellite island, but they don’t count.

Chapter II

Since I wasn’t very utilitarian, Gini kept me around for his pleasure and amusement; but I didn’t have to work. Same for Anna. So, I whiled away the days around my hut; but I had to walk a long way for a good meal once a day. The rest of the food I needed I could get by plucking fruit right off the trees near my hut. There weren’t a lot of the types of trees to shed leaves there; more about that later.

Sometimes, I swam around in shallow water and watched the goings-on. Occasionally, I spotted a lobster in the daytime; but they usually got away. I had to be careful to not step on a stingray. I saw colorful little fish, jealously guarding their niches of coral. Barracuda slithered in and out of sight. Angel fish were everywhere, and yellow jacks, too. But the ones I most liked to watch were the scorpion fish. They fascinated me with their wavy fins and rippling lines of color; but their sting was deadly—just like Gini’s. There was always something out there bigger, or smarter, to get you.

Sometimes, I caught a couple crabs on the beach and put them to war against one another. The victor got eaten second. If I didn’t feel that enthusiastic, I just hung around. I had a little hammock strung where the trees on the beach started. I believe it was the sea breeze that lulled me into complacency as a way of life. I’m sure that if coconuts had had whiskey in them instead of milk, I would have drunk myself to death, right off.

So, when did things first start to go wrong? For me, it was when my thatched roof blew off my hut. Gini had told me that a bad storm was on its way. I hadn’t heard that it had been upgraded to a hurricane because I had finally caught one of those damned lobsters, and I hadn’t walked into town for supper. But that wasn’t the worst part, still yet.

Perfect Children were raised to be worshipped and served, even by Anna and me. If something ever happened to a Perfect Child, the nearest party would be held responsible. Just my luck, on the way to town for shelter, I saw that a tree got blown over and landed on a Perfect Child. The wind was blowing me sideways, and saltwater was stinging my eyes and getting inside my nose. I had been loping along, late for something again; but I rose onto my legs to better see as I approached. Just my luck again, it had landed on his leg, and I would have to do some real work.

My leg’s broken! he yelled hatefully at me as I walked over too slowly for his taste. Help me, Griep!

I was able to move the tree off his leg despite the wood being slippery from the driving sheets of rain. The chimp half of me can be pretty strong, but I didn’t have much endurance. I told myself I wouldn’t wait so long the next time a storm came through, but I knew I probably would.

After freeing him, I found a straight limb and bound his leg with the belt off my shorts. I had heard about doing that in one of the lessons I had listened in on, one time. Then, I started dragging him.

After about a hundred feet, I had to stop to rest. I looked down the beach. The distant, port warehouses still looked tiny.

What the hell are you stopping for? the Perfect Child yelled. He got angry and picked up a stone and threw it at me.

I grabbed both his arms again and started dragging some more. Another fifty-feet, and I was exhausted. Town didn’t look any closer.

I don’t think I can drag you all the way! I said in my squeaky, non-completely-human voice.

Then what are you dragging me for? he screamed. You’re killing me!

He picked up another stone and threw it at me, but I ducked. Then, he looked even angrier, so I let him hit me with the next handful of rocks. In the meanwhile, limbs were flying around as if motorized and stinging any exposed skin. None of them seemed to hit him, down as low as he was.

I’ll go for help, I told him politely.

Then get your ass in gear!

Yessir.

You’re smart enough to go for help, aren’t you? he hissed at me. Do you think you can remember me that long?

I didn’t answer him. My legs wobbled at first as I headed for town.