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 Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:01 am
 Obsidian walked into the library, her stomach turning itself into knots. She hated partner projects. Why did teachers insist on torturing their students by making them work together? She glanced around for the tall young man that had approached her after class the day before, but didn't see him anywhere. Sighing she slipped stiffly into a seat at a table in view of the door so at least one of them would see the other when he arrived. She glanced around one more time to make sure she hadn't missed him, then opened her bag and pulled out her biology book and spiral notebook. She hopped he wouldn't be late. She wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:13 am
 (ignore the silly hair and soft toy. ><) Ra entered the library for the first time in a long time. He thought it might have changed a little since he was first in there, but no still the same old stuffy library. Students sat around, some asleep on their homework, others gossiping in hushed whisperes. Very few were actually studying.
Stopping by the desk he let his eyes search the large room looking for the quiet girl he was supposed to be working with. He spotted her by the door and made his way over.
"Hi." He said smiling a little as he pulled out the spare chair and sat down. "I hope you weren't waiting long. I had club stuff to do that over ran."
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:23 am
Obie looked up from the page in her biology book she had been staring at blankly at the sound of a soft deep voice. She sat up a little straighter in her seat as he sat down and shook her head gently.
"No. I just got here a moment ago," she replied softly. As her deep blue eyes swept over his appearance the knots in her stomach pulled tighter. She couldn't help but think that he was really good looking. A slight blush crept across her cheeks at that thought and she quickly dropped her eyes back down to her book as she reached out to flip to the correct page.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:35 am
"Cool." He shrugged pulling out his folder, textbook and monster Scientific dictionary. He hated lugging the thing around, but there were so many words he didn't know.
"Uh, I'm Ra." He said pushing the dictionary to one side and opening his folder. "You're..." He paused to look down at his assignment sheet. It wasn't that he had forgotten her name, just that he wasn't sure how to pronounce it. "Obsi...dian? Sorry I probably pronounced that wrong." He smiled, wincing a bit. "So, where shall we start?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:42 am
"Obsidian," she affirmed. "You can call me Obie or Sid if you want," she said, flicking her eyes back up to look at him. Judging by his accent, English wasn't his first language. There was no harm in making his life a little easier, even if no one had called her by those names since Jonathan had died.
"I'm not sure. Where would you like to start?" she asked, glancing down at her notebook to re-read the assignment for the hundredth time.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 6:57 am
"O.k...Obie it is." He said fishing in his bag again to retrieve a pen. Yawning a little he glanced over the assignment. A report on the pros and cons of cloning. He had done a similar essay at the begining of the year but this one looked like it was supposed to be a bit more in depth. Absently he tapped his pen on his paper trying to think where to begin.
"Hmm, maybe we could talk about our own opinions on the subject." He offered. "That way we can assign sides of the argument better I suppose." He gave a small shrug and looked at her, hoping for an answer. "I mean, if we start with the basics. Are you for or against?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:03 am
"That depends," she replied, narrowing her eyes in thought. "Using it to bring your pet back to life seems wrong. But using it to help save a life makes sense." She cleared her throat nervously after she finished speaking. She wished she could do this on her own and be done with it. "What about you?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:15 am
Ra smiled weakly as he listened to her and flipped to the reading list. This was going to be difficult. He would have to get assigned to the quietest student in the class.
"Hmm, I agree. I think for medical research I agree with it. If there is a chance to give people better lives, cure diseases. But, I don't agree with this designer baby stuff." He looked down at the reading list again and started to circle books that looked like they might be useful. "I mean, don't you agree. That it's wrong for people to use it to create the perfect child?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:29 am
Anger flushed through her so quickly that she didn't have time to be nervous. "Wrong doesn't even begin to describe it," she said hotly. "There are so many children in this world who live their whole lives in institutions until their 18th birthday then they're booted out and expected to be able to survive on their own. They're never given a chance at a family. If you allow the parents to choose their perfect baby they'll never give a second thought to all the unwanted children, or the leftovers as they would probably become. They have no right to choose what they want when the other children in the world don't get a chance to choose the way their lives turn out," she said quickly, her perfect golden haired sister's cold eyes smirking at her in her mind's eye. Sure they hadn't gotten to choose her genes, but they might as well have.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:43 am
Ra raised an eyebrow and looked up, it would seem he had struck a nerve.
"I think you are right." He said putting his pen down and brushing his hair out of his eyes. "I mean I'm not particularly religious, but I don't think people have the right to mess with such things. They should be happy with what they are given by nature." He made a few notes in scrawly english and looked up at her again. "The world would be a dull place if we were all perfect. Like that movie....Village of the Damned." He gave a smirk.
"Hmm, so we are agreed, medical reasons are o.k, but genetic engineering in the form of designer babies is not O.k. Right?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:50 am
Obsidian gave her head a bit of a toss to flip her long hair over her shoulder. The anger that had swept through her at record speed was taking a bit longer to recede. She gave her head a curt nod in agreement, her eyes still flashing.
"What about hunger? Using cloning to produce genetically perfect animals for food purposes?" her agitation fueling her thought process.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 8:09 am
Ra smiled again, it seemed he had managed to hit the right button. This was more of the kind of discussion he had been counting on.
"No, I don't agree." He said plainly. "I mean why? There's no point to it. There are plenty of animals for people to eat, I don't see what we would gain from cloning them."
He made a couple more notes. "What about you? What do you think?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 8:16 am
"If that's the only reason for why, then you could just as easily ask why not? You could create animals that are higher in nutrients and leaner in fat. You could mass produce them for countries like the ones in Africa who are starving to death," she said, looking down. She reached out and started to trace the edge of her biology book with the tip of her finger.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:06 am
Ra gave a smirk at her somewhat idealistic statements.
"You think that mass producing animals will help people in Africa? For that the powers with the technology would have to be willing to give them the produce for free. Not to mention that their governments would have to allow such trade. And as for leaner more nutritional animals...it just doesn't seem right to make existing animals obselete because people want perfection." He wrote some more notes and resumed tapping his pen on the page absently. "A difficult debate." He grinned, raising an eyebrow.
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Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 9:16 am
By now the fire had left her. She looked up as he tapped his pen on his folder. He had made some very valid points. She looked directly into his eyes and saw a hint of amusement in them that made her stomach tighten again. She quickly dropped her eyes back down to her book. "Indeed," she replied, raising her own eyebrow.
"It doesn't have to be only animals," she said with a bit of timidity. "I've heard of genetically enhanced crops that are more durable to elements and pests. Do you think your argument holds up against something as useful as that?" she asked, keeping her eyes glued down to her book.
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