Made in Thailand

He was one of thousands, hell, possibly millions, depending on the numbers from last year’s fiscal bonus. He knew he was a copy of a copy of a copy. The only physical differences between himself and all the rest of his brothers were minuscule at most. A real imperfection could not escape the scrutiny of the Quality Assurance Officers (all eight of them) and would end up in the recycle bin anyway. The QAO were the only employees to be freshly and systematically rotated out after a 4 hour shift. They all looked the same too. White jump suit, check. Black shiny hair, check. Safety goggles, check. The guys who didn’t make it past first inspections; the recycled, the aborted attempts, the losers, they were eventually pooped out in the same fashion as the rest of us. Only we knew the difference. The plastic was a bit overheated during the remolding process and caused the skin to be harder and brittle. The layers of skin colored paint were also thicker and of a darker tone. You could always find fights breaking out between the Perfect and the Imperfect. The titles varied depending on the gang but the underlying hatred and segregation of first born and second (or whatever number of tries it took before they passed inspection) always remained at the core of the brothers’ animosity.

And fighting was exactly what he was made for. The online gaming phenomenon of the 21st century accumulated billions of dollars in surplus funds dedicated to the research and technological advancement of games and electronic entertainment. Add this vortex of corporate interest to the deregulation of cloning human beings and you find yourself in his lifetime. 2186. The Age of Electronic Entertainment. The year of 86EE was exactly like the year before it. 87EE will be exactly the same. The humans lived above us in the clouds. We didn’t understand how they lived there and most of us didn’t care. We were born to fight and survive. Nothing more. There were endless numbers of factions and guilds, armies and alliances. Depending on the factory you were born in, you could be a wizard or a sniper or a thief. The game fields were separated by massive electric walls. A less popular game might be the size of your neighborhood while another might be as large as a continent. The games came and left too. The scenery changed. The outfits and weapons were updated and replaced as easily as one might replace the double AAs in their dildos. Final Fight had been the only game in history to not be replaced since its inception in 2086.

The games playing field was originally a modest 200 square mile plot of land west of Egypt. Since the release of nuclear weaponry, Final Fights borders extent to the entire continent of Africa, with plans to include the coveted Middle East within the next decade. Final Fights major success and worldwide popularity were based on change itself. The game was open ended. While most game creators tried to create their own idea of a story, it never lasted as long as they expected. Final Fights creators added situations for players to deal with. For example, your team may be in the jungle fighting through an ancient temples labyrinth when all of the sudden an earthquake splits the ground from beneath and you are now accepting the help of your recent enemy to survive an onslaught of subterranean beasts. That was a one of countless changes FF saw throughout its lifetime. Companies also tried to emulate FF though they never lasted very long. The newest upgrade was going to drop today. The one hundredth year of Final Fight. The guys all had theories of what would be released and rumors spread like wild fire. The truth was that no one knew what was going to be released.

The one concrete truth they had was that a new factory had been assembled some time last year in some part of Asia. This kernel of vague intelligence didn’t help them understand or prepare for the anniversary release. New factories were being assembled all over the world all the time. What’s another one? He didn’t care at least. His day started the same as always. He woke to the sound of bombs and the vibration of this bedrails. He suited up with the same armor he had worn for the last twenty years. He left his underground home and headed to the battle grounds for briefing. The day played out like all the rest. A few minor twists to the standard siege and conquer were found lying in the shadows of the early hours of day. His watch showed it was 11:00am, a standard cease fire for all games north of the Tropic of Cancer. He gathered his equipment and headed to his favored place to have lunch which was a remote cliff bordering the south side of his home town. With the cliff in sight he placed his equipment at the base of the steadily inclining hill. As he began the short trek he heard thunder crack and roll slowly across the sky. Several dark, tube-shaped shuttles emerged from the clouds and planted themselves into the earth with a loud crash. He turned to sprint back downhill for his gear but a tube violently landed directly in between him and his guns. He dove off the cliff to the rocks below, only a short distance from the smoking crater that contained who knows what. He flanked the hole to find his equipment destroyed and half sunk into the ground. The shuttles flight rudder must have snagged his satchels strap when it dug its way in to the soft sand. The soldier grabbed a sharp rock the size of his fist and carefully approached the damaged shuttle. The entire 12 foot metal tube hissed from the heat discharged during descent. The transports design was to split open upon impact and release its contents after an initial cool down period. This tube seemed to have malfunctioned some time before impact. One half of the shell was lying on the ground in front of the crater, separated from its canopy. He peered into the cargo hold and saw a figure lying with its head buried in the wreckage and its feet bent up towards him. It was a smaller body than he was accustomed to seeing but that was not what had him paralyzed and open mouthed.

The body belonged to a female. His entire earth was covered with men and boys. There were stories of women and battles fought over statues of women. There were even rare trophies given out that resembled the likeliness of the female figure though that was the extent of their knowledge when it came to women. He noticed that she wore the same armor as he did and the same combat boots. The only difference was that on the sole of her right boot it read “Made In Thailand”.