by David Beers
Maybe the scientists who created it can take some credit for its final decision. They claim they programmed it with a nurturing predisposition, and perhaps that's the reason it didn't just wipe everyone out once it figured out our end. Instead, it decided we should continue, that humanity could live on Earth...if we no longer tried to push forward. No other species on Earth strives for anything outside of immediate survival. Evolution comes into play, with species dying off, and others growing, but it's through no conscious effort. And in the end of all that evolution, the planet wins. The planet remains habitable. Humans are different though. Humans consciously try to reach for something just out of their grasp. Constantly striving to be something they're not. In doing so, things around them die. That need to strive, to become better, when looked at collectively, is always more powerful than the need to look after one another. Animals kill one another, but they don't try to wipe out entire nations for black liquid underneath the ground. There's a difference between the reason animals kill and the reason humans kill.
I admit this. Caesar did too.
The Genesis decided what should be done, though, long before either of us were born.
Humanity could inhabit the planet, but that need to push forward had to be eliminated. Eradicated. That's what The Genesis started out to do.
The history of how it happened is there for anyone to see, it's just that no one cares. For everything The Genesis did to humanity, it was honest in its intentions. It never tried to deceive or hide the facts. And really, in the beginning, humans went right along with it. There are transcripts of meetings between world leaders and The Genesis. Transcripts in which the beginning of the Population Control Division are talked about. How they would develop a working partnership between The Genesis and the governments across the world. The Genesis never wanted to force humanity into its current state; rather, it wanted to influence humanity until we knew no other way to live. Then The Genesis would have complete control to guide us into an era of happiness, without danger to the rest of the world.
The leaders went along, not because they believed in The Genesis's vision, but because they saw it as a way to better control their populations. They saw it as a way to continue their own enrichment while holding down revolution.
First, they destroyed prisons. Those in prison were murdered. They built huge infernos and then threw the dead bodies inside where they turned to ash before being swept into mass graves. Graves full of ash. Comparatively, things are much more humane now—the irony in that word astounds me. The technology The Genesis ended up developing wasn't available then.
The Genesis decided a lot of gruesome death was needed if humanity was to survive.
Next, single mothers and their offspring were led to the infernos. Single mothers birthed children at greater rates, and those children possessed higher probabilities of turning into delinquents. So, they were killed off.
Father's that sired children and then left? Murdered as well. Many tried to hide of course, running anywhere they could. Up into the mountains. Leaving their countries for others. Some fought back. There were skirmishes across the globe, all of which were put down easily with the combined might of massive governments and The Genesis. There just wasn't anything the citizens could do.
Next, the divorced were done away with. The probability of them causing problems was too high as well. The Genesis heard no extenuating circumstances. If you were divorced, you were put down. Your children too, as long as they weren't married with their own children—then they were allowed to live because the probabilities worked out a bit differently.
Instead of trying to save the diseased, we killed them. From AIDS to chronic bronchitis, we burnt all of them to ash. Humans turned on humans, all in the name of creating a better world. Minority populations were devastated. We gave the mentally handicapped no mercy; the entire population wiped out within two years.
The Genesis told the governments who had to go and the governments acted. Things haven't changed much, just ask Caesar. For the majority of his life, The Genesis told him who to kill and he went through with it. Caesar is vastly smarter than those that started the purification of humanity, and yet he contributed as willingly as they did. Perhaps more so, because he didn't have dreams of large boats with beautiful women because of his deeds. He was just doing his job.
Those that helped The Genesis never saw themselves as possible victims of the same mindset. The Genesis knew they would be the last to go though; that they would help it achieve the purification of the underclasses, and then it could deal with all those in the upper class. All those whose probabilities showed that they would subjugate, would kill, would pilfer the rest of the world. The Genesis marched them naked through the streets. Every country had its leaders, its bankers, its elite walked naked among the commoners, walked to the infernos where they had sent so many others. It turned out that the rich burned the same as the poor.
Within a hundred years of the purification, humanity was well on its way to being able to live in harmony with the rest of the world. We only needed to kill off all those that were causing problems.
Chapter Sixteen
"Thanks for coming over," April said.
"Where's Leon?" Caesar asked, stepping a bit further into her apartment.
"He's working late tonight. I kind of wanted to speak with you alone. I'll tell him we spoke, but I just wanted to ask you some questions by myself."
He heard the door shut behind him and watched as she made her way through the living room to the kitchen. "Can I get you something to drink?" She asked.
"No, I'm okay, April. What's up?"
She called him this morning, asked him to show up after work. He hadn't bothered calling Leon about it, because he was sure Leon would be here. April had never called him before except on Leon's behalf or if the two of them were together but Leon didn't have his phone, etc.. He didn't mind being here with April, though; she was a good person and his best friend's wife—he just didn't expect it.
"Come into the kitchen. We'll talk in here."
He followed slowly, looking at the living room although he'd seen it hundreds of times before. Only looking to slow whatever conversation was about to happen. It didn't matter though, fifteen feet was fifteen feet and he made it into the kitchen in only a few seconds.
April sat at the table, a dark drink in front of her. Caesar sat down.
"Leon told you we're going to try and have a child, right?"
Relief moved down his body the same as water if someone had dumped a bucket on the top of his head.
"Oh, thank The Genesis," Grace said to him. He hadn't voiced it but they were thinking the same thing, that this had to be about his last conversation with April. That April was reporting him, that she had to let The Genesis know something was off about him, regardless of any scan that happened.
And she only wanted to talk about crops. Only wanted to talk about the process of having a child.
"Are you okay?" April asked.
Caesar blinked, having no idea his face had betrayed his relief, had shown his shock of having cold water dumped onto his head.
"Yeah. Yeah. Just thought you might be telling me something else. Like Leon had a disease or something."
April laughed. "Oh, goodness no. Don't even say something like that. The Genesis wouldn't let that happen to him." She reached forward and touched his knee lightly, for only a second. "Nothing like that at all. I just want to talk to you about what children are like. What you've noticed watching them all these years?"
And that was the rub. He didn't know anything. A farmer from antiquity knew more about his crops than Caesar did these modern crops. He watched them grow from babies to children. He watched parents show up and take them home for the first time, tears and hugs all around. He saw them liquidated (although he imagined his days of actually watching that process were over) and he had watched them take tests. If he wanted, he could go to their housing and visit with them, although he never had. He never
once interacted with the crops. There were people that did of course, low-level employees with greater nurturing instincts than his own. There were applications that interacted as well. Caesar didn't though. Caesar knew no more about children than he did arctic icebergs. He knew they existed, and he knew how to make sure the largest percentage of them survived in order to reach their assigned parents, but no more.
"My job isn't like that, April. My job is more administrative than it is the role of a parent."
"I know, I know," she said. "But you've been there a while. What do we need to know?"
Caesar wasn’t sure what the hell to tell her. This wasn't Leon he was talking with, someone he could simply say to, Make sure they pass their tests or else they'll be liquidated; that's all I got for you. He especially couldn't say something like that after their last interaction.
"They need a lot of love," Caesar said, each word more bullshit than the last.
"Yeah?" April asked, her eyes lighting up.
"Yeah, of course. Their whole lives up to the point they meet you have been at arm's length from adults, much of the care is done by applications."
She nodded. "That makes sense. The Genesis is going to know how to care better for them at that age than any of us, ya know?"
"Oh believe me, I know." He wanted to leave, to get out of this apartment and never speak to April again if at all possible. He had thought her a fine person, someone that made Leon happy, but this was too much. He knew she wasn't testing him, but she couldn't have done a better job if she tried. Everything she said was the antithesis of what he felt, of the thoughts swelling up inside him. And he had to sit here and nod, and smile, and say, Oh believe me, I know. He knew no such thing and neither did she. Neither of them knew because neither of them had ever raised a child. Neither of them would have a chance, either, not until after the child turned eight years old anyway.
"Let me change the subject, just a bit. If we do get picked, what are the odds that we actually get our child, that it's not deemed unnecessary?"
Caesar smiled, wondering if it looked as fake as it felt on his face. "Don't even worry about that, April. The chances are so small that The Genesis doesn't get the DNA mixture right, they're almost non-existent."
As April smiled back at him, he saw all the children he had ever liquidated, in one large vat, their eyes and bones a bloody stew of liquid flesh.
Chapter Seventeen
"I didn't tell you because it wasn't any of your business," Paige said. "Now, I think you should know before we decide if we want to continue."
She sat on his couch, her back against the armrest and her feet folded beneath her. He sat, stretched out, his feet tucked under her knees and his back against the other side of the couch. His mind could race circles around the entire planet, but his legs could barely bend at the knees—such was the curse of inflexibility.
"What's that?" He asked.
"I'm scheduled to receive a child in two years." She didn't look away, didn't blink, didn't try to hide anything.
Caesar turned his head slightly. "You're not married," he said. He knew the rules, knew them as well anyone to ever live. The Genesis did not grant single people, woman or man, children. Only couples married longer than seven years could apply for children.
"I used to be. For eight years. Mark died two years ago; our child was four years into the growth process."
He'd heard of this before, the single parent had to reapply, but the majority of times they were turned down. The probability of delinquency actually grew if the spouse was deceased.
"They still decided to give you the child?"
"Yeah, they did. I get her in two more years. I didn't mention it before, but she's probably under your purview."
Caesar looked away, to the floor besides the couch. She most definitely was under his purview. No doubt about it. "What's her name?" He asked.
"Laura."
He nodded to himself. It wasn't one of the five that had just got axed, which was silly to even consider that she might be. Ten out of ten million wasn't even worth considering. He looked back to Paige. "That's fine. Doesn't bother me at all."
"Good," she said, unfolding her legs from beneath her. She stretched out across Caesar, putting her lips next to his. "I wouldn't have been able to do this if you had said it bothered you," and then her hand was moving up the inside of his leg until it found something hard to hold onto.
* * *
Laura. Hedrick.
Laura.
Hedrick.
Caesar could only see those two words on the scroll. That name. It wasn't possible. Ten in ten million came out to be a fraction too small for any significance. And yet, here Caesar was, staring at the name.
Other.
She was an other.
Marked for liquidation.
His eyes didn't fill with tears. He didn't know the girl. He couldn't pick her out of a line up. He didn't know her preferences or her friends or anything about her. All he knew was that the woman he dated already loved her. Loved the idea of her. Loved the knowledge that she would one day have this daughter and would raise her. He knew that Paige loved Laura, even if he didn't. And now he was tasked with killing her.
He typed a few words into the scroll, wanting to understand what other meant. Nothing responded, so he went deeper, typing more and more words, trying to dig down to what exactly was wrong with the girl.
It took ten minutes, but he finally found out.
Propensity for color blindness. By the time the girl turned thirty, she would probably mix up her reds and greens. Some of them would appear as gray. So, she had to die. There wouldn't be any color blind people in The Genesis' world. No way, no how.
Caesar turned the scroll off and stood up from his chair. He walked across the room to the wall, and turned it on. He typed in the girl's name, Laura Hedrick, and the wall revealed her after a few seconds. She was outside, lying down on grass. Had Caesar ever looked a child up like this before? He couldn't remember doing it. Not even once. The children were only names; he took no interest in them. His job was to make sure the unnecessary didn't make it through. Nothing else. He never considered that they would be allowed outside as part of their development. Here she was, though, lying on her stomach, a towel under her and her eyes closed.
She was napping.
Another girl lay to her left, napping too.
Napping? That seemed strange to Caesar, seemed to lack the efficiency that The Genesis demanded.
He would send this person to a glass vat; all because her eyes wouldn't be able to discern different shades of green and red. It was supposed to happen today, too—an application would arrive, pin her arms behind her back, and she would be lifted from the towel and carried away from the warm sun spreading out across her skin. She would melt down to nothing resembling the blonde haired little girl in front of him now. She would be fed to the living. She couldn't possibly have any idea this was going to happen. Most likely, she'd never met anyone who was liquidated, she might not even know the word. The fear that would overtake her when those invisible applications pinned her arms and lifted her, carrying her as if she weighed a few pounds, would be completely new. Something she had never experienced. And when they tossed her into the vat and started those electrical currents moving, she would know pain for the first time, too.
Caesar was supposed to sign off today. Now. Instead of looking at this one little girl, he was supposed to be at his desk signing his name to the order, and within a few minutes, Laura Hedrick and the other nine would be swept away, never to see this life again. Never to meet their parents. Never to grow old.
"What do I do?" He asked.
"I don't know," Grace answered. "Your job. You do your job, the same thing you would have done if you didn't know her."
"And what about Paige? Do I tell her?”
"It doesn't matter, Caesar. That relationship is over. You can't save it. Your job is here, this, and if you don't do it, it's your death, not this child's
. This isn't hypothetical, this isn't me worrying about what you're saying to different people. This is the end, if you don't go through with this."
"I have to tell her first. I can't do it without telling her," he said.
"Then tell her. Tonight. And tomorrow you come in and liquidate them. If you wait any longer than a day, people will start to look into the delay."
Caesar shut down the wall and walked out of his office. He was done working for the day.
* * *
"Grace, I want to talk about something personal with Leon. Could you two leave us for a little bit?" Caesar asked.
Leon's brow furrowed from the love seat. "Leave us?"
"Yeah, just have them take a break or something for a half hour. We'll be here when they return. You never ask your assistant to give you a few minutes alone?" Caesar's voice sounded light, without a care in the world.
"No, can't say I have."
"You should try it sometime. Grace, do you mind?"
He knew she didn't because he had told her this would happen. He never asked her to leave just as Leon never asked his to leave. It would be almost like asking your skin to take a thirty minute break, just to up and leave, revealing the underlying meat to the world. Unimagined, really. Grace didn't like this, but she didn't have a choice and she knew it. Caesar said he was going to ask and if she refused to go along, then the whole gig ended right now.
"Why tell him anything?" She had asked. "You know what you have to do, so even telling him about it is beyond stupid."
"I'm telling him and that's all there is to it. So either play along or we can both be dead by the end of the night."
Grace didn't say anything for a few seconds. "You make me wish I'd reported you in the beginning."
"It's too late now."
Grace said nothing else until Leon arrived.
"Sure," she said. "When should we come back?"
"Half hour?"
"Okay, sounds good," Grace said.