“You distort its meaning, sir,” Father McCall said, quietly yet forcefully, almost like a parent scolding a child. “You left out the second part: ‘Shed for you, and for many, for the remission of sins. Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me.’ It is a passage of sacrifice, of redemption! Not a command to kill! How dare you—”
“—How dare you, Father,” snapped the attorney, “how dare you teach this sort of disgusting practice to your people!” he slammed the book shut. “If society had any sense, we would have outlawed such barbaric practices years ago!”
“It’s a message of hope!” Father McCall shouted. “A message of salvation! How dare you twist its intent, and accuse me of such a horrific act!”
“Order,” the judge called, slamming his gavel.
The attorney turned away from Father McCall, and faced the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “I think this book speaks for itself. This isn’t just an outdated guidebook; this is a dangerous weapon of brainwashing, endangering the lives of millions.”
“Objection!” shouted the defense attorney.
“Overruled,” the judge said, his eyes flashing hungrily.
“What kind of madness is this?” the prosecuting attorney brandished the book above his head. “It’s this kind of teaching that prevents us from moving forward. It’s this kind of teaching that divides humanity from each other.”
“You fool!” shouted Father McCall, jumping to his feet.
“Order!” shouted the judge.
But Father McCall ignored him. “It’s not a command to kill!” he cried. “It’s a gift of sacrifice! It’s a blessing for us to live! How can you distort the message of hope into such monstrous, evil madness! My God, my God! The whole world has gone mad!” he groaned, covering his head with his hands. “God help us! God help us, I beg of You!”
Lucy could not bear to watch any more. With her mind in a blur, she did not bother to turn off the television before she left for work. It was sickening what they were doing to Father McCall, what they were doing to the people as a whole. Declaring war on God, and on His followers. But why? Lucy often asked herself. Why couldn’t these people be content to believe, and leave other people alone? Lucy knew many people who did not believe in God, yet they had always respected Lucy’s religion. But this new wave of Disbelief was something very different—almost violent—in its ruthless, crushing desire to destroy faith.
~
The Population Center was located just two blocks away from the Security Center. It was a long brick building without windows or labels—only a single black wooden door. Most Pangaeans passed the center without ever noticing it.
But those simple walls were cleverly deceiving. Behind that wooden door bustled a multi-level complex of freezers and labs, stretching a full mile deep into the earth. The freezers contained cryogenic barrels packed with tubes of eggs and sperm, harvested from the Pangaean citizenry. It was more than enough to repopulate the world several times over, but most of it would never be used.
“Calling Unit 27. Unit 27, pick up the phone.”
“Unit 27, Nurse Winnie speaking.”
“Hello, Nurse Winnie. This is Nurse Livilla. A fetus has been found defective and must be terminated.”
“Which one?”
“Fetus 707-Smith.”
“Reason for termination?”
“Poor intelligence prognosis.”
“I see. Too low?”
“No, no…too far. IQ estimated at 149, possibly higher.”
7.
Clara could scarcely recall what had happened the previous night at that strange party of dolls. Yet one memory remained clear in her mind.
The land of the Outsider.
It had been so different than what Dr. Gilac described. All the houses of different shapes and sizes, instead of Pangaea’s identical tower blocks. Fruit trees in the front yards, with no penalties for unlicensed food.
Until yesterday, Clara had assumed the only truth was what Dr. Gilac had taught her: there could be no country more free than Pangaea, and it was selfish to hope for something more than what Pangaea assigned her. Her only duty was to the Benefactors. Freedom, they insisted, could only be achieved through equality; and equality could only be achieved through regulating the people.
But now Pangaea’s idea of “freedom” seemed more suffocating than liberating: as though Pangaea had confined Clara to a path, and she could do nothing to change their decision for her. Clara tried to discuss her fears with some girls apart from Bertie, but none of them understood her concern. Pangaea gave the people everything they needed to live; why, they argued, should Clara want something else? And so Clara kept her thoughts to herself, and spoke only to Bertie. She decided that those other girls would never understand her concern, because they simply were not interested. They wanted everything to stay the same: on every street the same towerblock, in every hand the same ration box. No chance to reach beyond it. No chance to hope for something more. All the same across Pangaea, content to remain trapped in their gilded cages, fed and tended by their overseers until death.
But not me, Clara realized.
I believe in something more.
I believe in something greater.
~
Geoffrey thoughtfully stared at the fireplace, watching the flames soar upward. That Clara is such a strange girl, Geoffrey thought. Indeed, she was nothing like the girls that Geoffrey knew; all those girls were well educated, wore designer clothes, and came from the proper families of the Benefactors. And yet, Geoffrey had a fascination with that odd girl, with her dumpy clothes and unfiltered speech. It was confusing, but it was honest! Why couldn’t the girls of the Benefactors be like that? Why did they have to be so…damned perfect? They ought to be more imperfect, like she was…
…Wait! What was this madness he was thinking?
You fool, Geoffrey thought bitterly. He smacked his head in disgust. You unappreciative, tasteless idiot! The Benefactors have worked for years to perfect their bloodlines. How can you disrespect their handiwork so? The Benefactors had long been the masters of genetic engineering, so they would produce only the brightest & most beautiful. Offspring were not naturally conceived, but carefully monitored in a laboratory setting; any defective embryo was promptly destroyed. Only the superior were allowed to remain. Geoffrey wondered why he, with his malformed leg, had been allowed to survive, but Grandfather refused to talk about it. You are superior in your own right, Geoffrey, Grandfather had said firmly. And don’t let any of those children tell you otherwise.
“I hate being superior,” Geoffrey growled.
~
Morris felt the cold concrete press through his thin pants, and against his tailbone. He had lost more weight, just in the past week alone.
A month had passed since his meeting with the old man. Morris had applied for other jobs, but had no luck thus far. So I’m going to fail again, he thought bitterly.
He should have accepted the offer when he had it, and just taken Pangaea’s career test. If they had brought him into their country as a musician, he would be playing right now—strumming their music for a cheering audience of billions.
I won’t ever succeed now, on my own.
His eyes drifted towards the subway tracks. Just a ten-foot drop to that electric rail…and his pain would stop forever. Every man eventually had to die of something, someday, somehow. Why not today? Why not now? Every moment Morris fought to survive this cruel world, it was pushing aside the final solution: the ultimate conclusion of all suffering and struggles. Why was he struggling so hard to live, when it was so much easier to just die?
An incoming train shrieked, and the people crowded closer to the edge of the platform. With his mind in a blur, Morris stood up and walked towards the crowd.
Ten feet down.
Just a few seconds of pain, and it would be over.
The headlights appeared in the far end of the tunnel.
When I jump, no one will
try to catch me. When I cry out in pain, they will hear, but no one will listen.
He could do it. He could take it.
The train’s scream sounded again—much nearer this time.
Morris edged closer to the drop, now just one foot from the edge. His left foot edged off the platform, and hovered in thin air. He could already feel the pull of gravity dragging him downward, as though the earth were preparing itself to accept him.
Now.
Suddenly something closed round his arm. The force was like nothing he’d felt before; it was electric, painful with its grip. He was jerked backward and hurled into the men and women behind him, just as the train pulled to a stop before the crowd of passengers.
“Idiot!” “What the hell!” “Watch where you’re going, punk!”
Dozens of feet kicked at him—some in anger, some in haste as they rushed onboard to the train. Morris covered his head and crawled back towards the wall where his guitar lay. After he had reached his corner, he uncovered his face and glanced towards the crowd. His arm still throbbed with pain from that grip.
Who grabbed me?
It might have been any one of those people: that man in the black coat, that woman with the cup of coffee, or even that little boy with the apple.
His life had been spared, spared from his own hand.
But why, why did they save me? I’m useless! I’ve failed at everything that I’ve tried!
~
As a special consultant for the Benefactors, Clara was given the privilege of ending her work session earlier than the other girls. She had more time to walk in the hallway, until the woman with the stick called them to lunch. So Clara would stand in the big window, and stare at the broken fountain in the courtyard. She longed to stand in the sunlight again, to stroll round the courtyard…maybe even examine the fountain to see why it had broken.
One day she was sitting on the floor beside the big window, staring across at the boys’ building. She was in a daydream, thinking back to her vision of the Outsider territory, and how much she wished she could go there. Suddenly, across the courtyard, a boy appeared in the window of the other building. He was not the boy she had seen previously; this boy was chubby, not thin, and he had curly dark hair. Clara waved at him, struggling to catch his attention before he left. And to her delight, he waved back.
How can I communicate with him? Clara wondered. If only I had a pen and some paper! She looked around, and her eyes alighted on a potted plant, just to the left of the window. She quickly scooped a handful of dirt from the plant, spat into it, and stirred it to create a mud paste. Across the window, she wrote in big letters the word: NAME. She rolled up her sleeve and leaned her arm against the letters, so the black words appeared more visible against her skin.
The boy smiled and nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black marker. In big letters on the glass, he wrote TIMMY.
She smiled and scribbled CLARA across the window.
Timmy laughed. He wrote, MEET?
HOW?
Suddenly Timmy turned around. He seemed to hear someone coming, because he instantly wiped the marker off the window, and dashed away.
Clara sighed disappointedly, and wiped the mud off her window. It had been nice to speak to someone else for a change, but she hated how these moments of freedom inevitably came to an end.
“What are you doing down there?” an angry voice yelled.
It was that awful woman again. “Why is there mud all over your hands?” the woman shrieked. “Dust that off right now.”
Clara crawled over to the plant. As she scraped the mud off into the pot, she noticed the other girls already lined up.
The elevator door opened, and Miss Dorrod and a man in a suit stepped out. He smiled charmingly at the row of girls before continuing forward along the hallway. He was about forty, with a full head of brown hair, and a wide smile. Clara guessed that he was one of the researchers, like Dr. Gilac, but this professor seemed far more self-assured—almost arrogant—as he walked. As the girls shuffled into the stairwell, Bertie muttered, “Damned bel-don.”
“What?” Clara sputtered. Her cheeks turned red as apples.
“Dr. Lucusta. A damned bel-don if ever I saw one.”
Clara rolled her eyes casually, hoping that Bertie had not seen her staring at Dr. Lucusta. “You might be wrong, you know,” Clara grumbled. “You don’t even know him.”
“Yes I do. I work for him.”
“You do?” Clara asked, a bit too eagerly.
Bertie scowled. “You like him, don’t you?”
“No!” Clara stammered. “Of course not! Why would you even—”
“—Just like all the others,” Bertie grumbled. “A bunch of idiots, you are. If you knew the truth about him, you would despise him as I do.”
Several minutes of silence followed as they entered the dining hall and received their bowls of soup, and Clara began to wonder if Bertie had forgotten her promise altogether. But as soon as they had knelt in the far corner, Bertie abruptly spoke, as though she had never even paused in her story: “Public thought, and life expectancy. That’s his research.”
“It sounds interesting,” Clara said hopefully. “I don’t see how that could be bad.”
“Of course you don’t. No one does. Everyone sees only the Good Professor, Noble Dr. Lucusta, trying to help the world out of the goodness of his heart, so diligently searching for the key to happiness. But it’s all a lie. He doesn’t care about happiness; he wants only control.” She plucked a bone from her soup. “And he’s pretty near got it. You would never guess, but in almost every Pangaean newspaper article is a kind of Control. Certain words and phrases—designed to bend people’s minds in a certain direction. Words like accept, grant, choose, follow, obey, receive, deserve…All these words draw people in, and get people to agree with you. But the trick is so subtle, so hidden, that people never even realize they’re being controlled. And…it’s even worse than that. His experiments…” Her face wrinkled in disgust, and she quickly tossed the bone back into her soup bowl. “Clara,” she began again, “you don’t understand just how evil he is. You don’t understand what he’s capable of doing…what he’s already done…”
“Then tell me!” Clara said irritably. “Tell me what’s he’s done that’s so horrible.”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“You don’t know that for sure unless you talk to me. Go on, Bertie. What has he done?”
Bertie shut her eyes, and her chest shivered—as though she were stifling a sob.
“For goodness’ sake, Bertie, tell me.”
“It’s…” Bertie whispered, struggling with every word, “it’s Drusilla.”
“Drusilla? Who is Drusilla?”
“The singer. The woman who always wears that black robe.”
This sounded somewhat familiar to Clara, but she still could not recall where she had seen such a woman. “I don’t understand—what is so terrible about her?”
“Clara, she’s not….she’s not human!”
~
Miss Smith had never entered the Population Center in her life until today. But now she had been overcome with a terrible sense of urgency.
“You’ve got to help me,” Miss Smith explained to the nurse at the lobby desk. “I am very concerned about my fertilized egg.”
“But we give you an update on your egg every week!” the nurse snapped impatiently. “Do you expect us to hold your hand for nine months straight?”
“No, of course not,” Miss Smith stammered, blushing ashamedly. “But this week, I got no update. You always give me an update on Monday.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it tomorrow. Go home.”
“But…but I’m worried,” Miss Smith pressed. “Please. Something is not right. I need to make sure my egg is safe.”
A loudspeaker boomed overhead. “Termination to occur in Room 132 in five minutes.”
“We’re very busy, Miss Smith,” the nurse sighed tiredly.
“Excuse me?”
“Termination. What does that mean?”
“Oh, that. Termination means there are several defective embryos, and they’re going to be eliminated.”
“Which ones?”
“That’s confidential, Miss Smith. I can’t share patient information with strangers! You know that!”
“Is my embryo on the list?”
“Um…I don’t know.”
“Is my embryo on the list?” demanded Miss Smith. She stepped toward the nurse, her eyes wild with rage.
“I told you!” the nurse cried defensively. “I don’t know!”
“Then look!” shouted Miss Smith. “If it’s my information, you’ve no right to keep it from me!”
The nurse frantically pushed a paper into her binder, and slammed it shut. “I…I don’t have the list…”
“Then what was that paper?”
“Nothing.”
“It was! It was! It was the list, wasn’t it?” Miss Smith tried to grab the binder, but the nurse shoved it into a drawer.
“That’s confidential information!” the nurse snapped.
Miss Smith did not reply. She had turned her attention towards the door to the left of the nurse’s desk. She grabbed the doorknob and jiggled it, but it refused to budge. She beat the door with her fists. “It’s mine, isn’t it?” she cried. “You’re going to kill it! I know you are!”
“Termination in one minute,” the loudspeaker announced.
“Murderers!” Miss Smith shrieked. With a cry of horror, she collapsed in a faint.
8.
Drusilla is not human, Clara.
The words relentlessly echoed through Clara’s thoughts.
Over and again, over and again.
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