Broken Things

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Josh Norton seemed just like all the other boys, he enjoyed playing sports and video games, playing with toy guns and swords, watching cartoons, and even had a small collection of vintage action figures. His parents had also bought him a new bike that put all of his friends’ old broken things to shame. In every regard he was as normal a boy as money could buy.

None of that made him special. All of his interests, right down to his personality, were individually chosen at time of purchase. A complex set of algorithms took those details and made it almost impossible to tell him from a real boy, a perfect kid designed to his owners’ specifications. His generation was highly sought after by would-be parents, thanks to the nearly infinite combination of personality traits, and they were available from infant to fifteen.

There hadn’t been a real child born for twenty years, the price the world paid for near immortality, so few knew what to compare a kid to anyway. Their own childhood memories were faint and lost to their hubris, and with it, their empathy for nurturing.

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