by B C Woodruff
I was on a part-time shift out in the Farming Tower in Brisbane and she, well, there wasn’t much call for technical assistants when she graduated from the Kong Academy at thirty-two. I mean, I couldn’t blame her for her education decisions; everyone needs a degree. If you got caught without one in E-Ender (or any of the Ender buildings across the boundless cityscapes of America), you got shipped out to one of the unaffiliated settlements (like one of those independent floating fiefdoms).
There was a time when we thought – well, that they were basically prison camps. But as I’ve personally experienced, that rumour is mostly untrue. Mostly.
I can remember taking the Causper, gut filling with dread and fear, wondering what Jean had done to earn it. There were only so many ways a person could be guaranteed a place in a Megapolis, and of all the ones I knew, only one surfaced. Darkly.
“You didn’t!” I tried to hold back my emotions, but they all exploded at once – first uncertainty, then anger, and finally fear. “What do you mean by that?” Her face inverted itself. “It’s my body. I can do what I want with it.”
I wasn’t caught off-guard by this, but I let my anger make the point badly. “I wasn’t suggesting that I should have any control over your body, Jean. I was just–”
“Just what? We needed this, Tim. I mean, isn’t this what you want? To stay here in our lovely little home and be close to our lovely friends? Your father? My mother?” She had this all planned, I had no doubt.
“Stop it. I don’t want to argue. I just... I thought this would be a decision we could make together. I mean, what would have happened if you arrived home after a long workweek and found out that I’d... that I had gotten with the Program?”
She scoffed. “You’re still on about that old ad? It’s not about fitting in anymore. I did this for the future.”
“Not our future.” I tried not to sound melodramatic but failed miserably.
“We knew what this was. I assumed we did at least. If you had any complaints, you should have stated them in our marriage agreement.”
“I mean... I didn’t, but I still thought that these were things we would be able to talk about before one of us just jumped ahead and did it!” I went from calm to yelling in a heartbeat. It came from somewhere primal, a cornered animal that knew only anger and betrayal. But as righteous as my fury was, it couldn’t silence the small voice inside that agreed with her.
“I don’t believe this! We couldn’t afford one even if we wanted to.” Her arms went wide. “And I never said I wanted one.” Her finger pointed right between my eyes. “You would never be able to afford one, either – and I sure as hell won’t be stuck supporting all three of us.” She started towards the parlour. I followed, but I could see that forgiveness wasn’t going to come easily for me, if at all.
New York’s spacescrapers were twinkling in the dimming light behind her.
“I did this for us,” she said. “We only had a few more credit points left and then, well, what would you have us do? Move to the colonies or the farms if we refused to leave Earth?”
I sat down. “I don’t know. I just wanted you to let me be part of the decision.” I looked to my feet and felt about as low as I thought possible.
Things didn’t improve from there. Fights turned into full-blown marital warfare that fired on all frequencies. In the end, Jean opted for a dissolution based on incompatibility. She claimed her points from joining the Program, and within five months, I was evicted from our sunny spot on the one-hundred and seventeenth block of Fairfield Towers.
I found myself in New Bethlehem after that, working the same job and maintaining myself but empty inside.
Ten years it’s been. I think about her often. Today is one of those days that my hypocrisy comes ‘round full swing, and I can feel a lifetime’s worth of self-disappointment at once – as though all those memories have come to life and, in a chorus, are screaming at me now.
Decisions that have marked each and every day of my life. Today, though, there is something else missing. No – something has been taken, and the cornered animal that roared to save it in Fairfield is back. Only this time, it’s screaming at me.
A flurry of images come back. Slowly, inevitably, the neural implant that captured the events is stitching the memories across the black spaces that the synthexahol created.
It went like this: I was out with the others from our weekly meetings, drinking away time. Long hours of hard work marked off with sips of technically illegal but surprisingly affordable mind-altering beverages, consumed in dingy dive bars that could have passed for a Prohibition-era speakeasy, if it weren’t for the monitors.
These friends-against-convention and I laughed and watched the NeuroNet elections as new Government One policies went from concept to law.
Did we miss Order 22, or was it intentionally kept from us? I don’t really know. I want to think I would have fought against it if I had known what it really was. Politics, eh? At 12 midnight on February 6th it went live. They’d already rigged New Beth’s filtration systems for it, and that’s where I get skeptical about whether we had ever been free. If our thoughts mattered at all, or if they had always been too heavy to reach the top of Tower One, where the President and his cabinet of genofuturists dreamed of a nation that went to sleep one way and...
I awaken with the notification at the end of the playback, flashing like a firefly in the front of my mind. Like an old petroleum-powered vehicle that’s running out of fuel. Like a tell- tale digital clock begging to be reset after a power outage.
With only small accommodations made to those with exceptional influence and power – and understand that this means an almost immeasurably tiny number of very special people – none were spared from the final draft into the Program.
There will never be another that shares in the genes I had to offer. There will be humans under Government One, but with Eugenics Order 22 in effect, only those favoured few will ever have the pleasure and the privilege of producing offspring. The morning of February 7th, we enter a brave new world where humanity takes an unprecedented step towards sustainability... and yet all I can ask, selfishly, is what my son or daughter would have looked like if only life had been fair and nature true.
I think, selfishly, what life might have been if I had chosen this fate back when Jean had tried to convince me it was the right thing to do.
Was I not human enough?
THE DAYS
Miranda looked at the dial ahead of her, obscured by condensation from recycled breath and sweat. It gave her a 10 minute window before the caustic atmosphere outside found its way into her lungs. Her instincts told her the sensors must be broken, because it smelled like that had already started. Something had to be broken, or she hoped that was the case – because it would be an understatement to say the smell in the cabin wasn’t already reaching her personal limit.
Moments like this forced her to consider whether it was worth the paycheck. Not that there was a whole lot of opportunities considering the state of, well, States back home.
What was it that Emersong said after L-Day? That this was the twilight of the human empire. That the dawn was far and away. That the world was due for its next dark age.
Was this it? Asphyxiation aside, this was one of the better options, if not the best, that someone without a degree or a commission from the Program could hope for.
She placed a tab of synthetic mood – a Symood – under her tongue and plugged the ridge of her nose with a painful, though effective hair clip.
“Shit!” A ship grew large on the viewport as it careened through the clouds at dangerous speeds. She threw her hands to the left, detached from her tethered course, and narrowly avoided the vehicle heading in the opposite direction.
“Asshat.” She spat and logged the event before coupling back to the original flight plan. At the end of day, Venus wasn’t all that bad if you discounted the sulfuric weather patterns and the tendency for the thermometer mercury (not to be confused with
the planet where Miranda had one unfortunate friend stationed) to go up as far as 460 °C. She wasn’t getting a tan here unless she wanted to be barbecued or frozen in the process.
Okay, well, maybe it did suck a little being on Venus. She wondered why the old myths associated Mars with men and war. The metaphor holds up at first; with its harsh, rusted appearance, the Red Planet was a stark contrast to the bright golden colours and light blues of Venus. But with corrosive air and scorching heat, the real war was here, and Mars was a veritable paradise in comparison. The Martian terraforming trials would only take a few generations of carefully-timed carbon bombs and polar melts, whereas Venus... Yeah. We’d never stop fighting her.
The comm flared to life. “Do you have any last requests?” Commandant Waller asked with a tone that suggested he couldn’t care any less about her answer.
“Just get me the numbers for the lottery, Jules.” “Not going to win.” “A woman can dream.” “Can you? News to me. Do you want anything to eat? The Market will be closed by the time you’ve landed and gone through Contamination Control.”
“I’ve got some snacks in my bunk. I’ll pick stuff up tomorrow.” “Believable! Just... totally and entirely believable. Every-damn- time. I ask you every time and you always have some answer like that. Are you a squirrel? Where are you keeping all these goodies?” “Nowhere. Just forget you heard anything about my treasure, you pilfering pig. And if you think I’m prepared to share with you, Grasshopper, well, you’d have a much better chance of winning the lottery. This ant works hard for her creature comforts. Plus, I just don’t need much.”
“Alright Aesop. I’m just surprised to hear you plan to eat at all. I thought you closed your eyes, plugged in, and recharged like the Billybots.” “Har-har.” “Nothing else then?” “Not this time, thanks. Say, can you tell me who was casting down a few minutes ago? They were using my line to get to the worksite. I almost had a head-on collision.”
“Only other operator in your sector right now is Alvar.” “Him? Christ, I thought you were firing him! Preferably into open space, if you’re taking suggestions.”
“I was. Got a notice from Foreman Quilt. Apparently the kid’s got some pretty deep connections, and they’d rather have him here to be our problem than to deal with him themselves.”
“Pissant bourgeois incompetents... No understanding of the proletariat. It’s no wonder our society is falling apart.”
“Watch it.” “Bah, you’re about as Bourg as you are skinny.” Waller’s laugh echoed across the comm. “Alright, Miranda. That’s enough for now. I’ll see you after you get through the scrubbers.” The line went dead a moment later and Miranda went back to carefully piloting through the heavy sulfur clouds. As expected, they were already wearing through the outer hull. Bits of the exo-shell dripped off of it in a stream of partially realized vapour. She squinted, which was unnecessary with a polarized window that blocked the intense Venusian light and kept her retinas from baking.
Hard to fight one’s own nature, though. A sign appeared on the viewscreen that signalled she’d reached the upper limits of the Class S miner’s flight capabilities. Much of the fuel tank had been damaged during a previous shift when the ship was attacked by marauders, reducing its operating range.
The others had not been so fortunate. None of this, however, was information Miranda had been entrusted with.
They weren’t meant to know about the war. Or what fate was casting a shadow across time, back to them. The ship would need repairs, which was fairly common, so why should she be expected to ask questions? The Billybots would get to that as soon as they retrieved the ore from the mining camp at Venera Co. Site Thirteen.
Something shimmered against the scenic background of the blazing sun. Miranda smiled, knowing she was almost free from the suffocating aromas that were nearly coming to life in the back of her mouth. She set the autopilot, eased her line, and transferred the data through the Stream to the archive on the Aarth- Clan Cloudrunner. It was appropriately named, for a station, hovering above the calamity below. Like a pebble in the sky. It was home, too. That’s what mattered to her most – and when it was in sight, her muscles relaxed and her feelings of discomfort seemed to melt off her body like so much exo-shell.
She landed and disrobed, and was cleaned, decontaminated, and through the scrubbers in just under twenty-five minutes. It was a record that suggested (to those entitled to such facts, at least) that the Billybots had finished their repair rounds, and had moved on from the vital systems that had been damaged during the last siege.
Standing at the entrance to the commons, Jules presented her with a plate of cooled food and a smile on his face.
“Look, I know what you said, I just didn’t want to risk you getting sick just because you’re too damn stubborn and trying to save a few bucks for that trip back Earth-side.”
Miranda took it without complaint. “I want to see my kids. It’s been... years.” “I remember. Jean must be in her thirties now.” “Something like that.” “Has she found anyone new?” “Not since she left Tim. He was a nice guy but, well, you know what Earth is like under those dick Genarchists. They want everyone to fit into their paradigm.” She held out her hand. “Do you have a smoke?”
“Really?”
“Yes, fucking really. I almost got myself splattered because some novice piece-of-crap wasn’t paying attention to his casting line. I need to relax.”
“You could just use a mood stabilizer.” “Could, and did. That was practically why it happened. I didn’t have my nerves ready to deal with the situation.” Jules looked her over and sighed, giving in to her demands.
“When is the next shipment arriving from HQ?” “It was scheduled for next cycle, but between you and me, I’ve been hearing rumours of raids across the planet. I swear, if we can’t get those freelancers in line, we’re going to have a full-out war on our hands – and I don’t want to clean up the Commission’s mess.”
“Bourgs, Genarchists, and freelancers are all setting pretty shitty examples for the next generation.” Miranda lit her smoke and sat down with the plate of food on her lap. “I swear, the last century has proven the point for people who went on the Nexodus.”
“They’re not going to be settling anything for another... I don’t know how long... but that generation ship is no better, I can bet you.” Jules sat down next to her. “We’ve got to get our hens in order today and then we’ll focus on what to do tomorrow, right?” Miranda blew the purple smog out of her lungs, and filled her mouth with a piece of vatsynth chicken. She shrugged at the point. “Did you consider my proposition?” He leaned in and rubbed his nose against her full cheek. “If we were to bond formally we could get a nice little bungalow on the aft deck, probably get a few options for parenting. Wouldn’t you like to actually be around for your...” He stopped, thought hard, and retraced his words. “Wouldn’t you like to give your kid everything you can offer without worrying that some government fuck is lurking around the corner waiting to pick her up, draft her into the Academy, and convince her to join that damned Program?”
“Dat wouf b’e ice.” Pieces of the synthetic food hit Jules in the eye. Miranda swallowed with a playful smile. “Look, it’s not like I didn’t fight to get her back. I just wasn’t credible back then.”
“Well... You are now. I could vouch for you, and we could start our own life here. Together.” He smiled. She was at least twenty real-years older than Jules, but the way the rejuvenation treatments worked she could have easily been his daughter. Some people just didn’t respond as well to the process.
“I won’t lie. I want exactly that. I just can’t shake the feeling that I left things rough with Jean. I didn’t get to see her during those developmental years and when they let us reconnect in her teens, well, she was so different and they were really pushing the backlash against bio-parents...”
“Brainwashing is a bitch.” “No. I was the bitch. I could have gone back and finished my degree and they would have
at least let me see her. I was just... lazy. She knows it. I know it. You know it.”
“That doesn’t matter out here. The corps want us to have kids.” “Then what? They grow up and pilot the next wave of gas or mineral seekers. What kind of life is that? They’ll never be allowed on Earth. They’ll never know the feeling of grass under their feet. That’s not what I want for our kids. For all the things I did wrong, at least Jean got the chance to breathe real air on a real planet.” She placed her hand on Jules’. “I didn’t mean any offence. I love everything you are. I just... If you could watch the seasons change, feel the rain on your face... you would understand what I miss every minute I’m out here. It’s home.”
He wasn’t offended. There was a lot to find beautiful about Venus. It was different, sure, but in the same way Miranda was incapable of appreciating Venus like a native, so was he unable to accept her image of Earth as the true meaning of “home”.
“If you need to go back...” He sighed. “I’ll help you in any way I can. Just be sure that you don’t get yourself too caught up that you won’t come back to me, eh?” His smile was sincere and he reached for the smoke.
“Do you think I could convince her to come here? Could she come here and start a family, too? It would be weird at first, but maybe we could make the connection we never had during her childhood as we raised children side by side.” It was an odd concept, but not entirely unheard of on the floating cities. Lifespans were routinely lengthened to well over a century, thanks to technology like the CPS and telomere extension treatments. It was expensive at first, but a healthy, perpetually youthful workforce was in everyone’s interest. The Venusian corps understood the need to provide family support, because while longevity wasn’t a problem, there was a growing mortality rate to contend with among surveyors, miners, and the new (and sorely needed) crop of Interceptor pilots. Not that many people knew about them.