Balding Security

After pre-natal genetic customization became commonplace—albeit at a steep price—the beautiful became far more beautiful, genetically flawless in fact. The wealthy had their health, their looks, their brilliance, athleticism, and ambition all guaranteed from birth while the rest of humanity was forced to rely on the traditional crapshoot that had been genetic heredity for the past dozens of millennia. With every genetic and monetary advantage stacked against them, the lower class became more resentful than ever, until soon the world existed in a state of precarious balance, just barely avoiding civil war. The Beautiful People paid their guards and servants in single genetic enhancements for their children. Of all genetic modification, from eye color and skin complexion and bone structure and teeth straightness, the hardest to perfect—and the hardest for the poor to fake—was hair. There were too many variables. Sheen, shape, shade, volume, bounce, density. The odds of someone being born with “perfect hair” without genetic manipulation were astronomical. As such, security systems on both sides no longer cared to pinpoint faces anymore. Instead, they pointed their cameras straight down on the hair, searching for receding hairlines, implants, dye jobs, or split ends. The natural part could tell friend from foe better than any interrogation.

- Originally mailed to S. Sartin in Atlanta, Georgia