The Breeders

by Matthew J. Beier

  Parsons was growing more and more passionate, as if he was thrilled to his bones that Grace and Stuart were offering him this opportunity to make a speech. But there was logic in it. The man’s face was red and breaking a sweat.

  “So, here we are today, forgetting that sexual orientation has nothing to do with the logistics of running the world, of defining people’s value. Humanity would be controlling population regardless. People are forgetting this, and the NRO is using sexual orientation as a concept to blur people’s perceptions of what is right and humane. But sexual orientation itself and the humane resolution to the population control problem are no longer even related, because engineering solved it long ago!”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Stuart said, looking flustered himself. He turned to Grace and widened his eyes slightly, as if he were about to let slip the big news. But he held back. “Mr. Parsons, I am a homosexual like most other people, but I absolutely do not support what is happening in the world, and I think there are other homosexuals like me out there. At the same time, it’s becoming more and more dangerous to step up and take a stand.”

  “Oh, there surely are others like you,” Parsons said. “The problem is that, for homosexuals, society has come to rest in a rather peaceful place. Economies are once again becoming intercontinental. Quality of life has improved vastly since the first few decades after the Bio Wars. People are comfortable, and taking a stand means risking that comfort. I don’t think many people are willing to do that.”

  “I’m willing to.” Stuart pounded the table with his fist.

  Just then, the waiter walked in to take their orders. They all adopted cheerful expressions. For effect, Stuart even waved his wrist and lisped while ordering. The waiter seemed none the wiser, and he even flirted slightly with Aiden Parsons (who simply returned it with a nod and a tight smile) before swinging through the curtain and leaving them alone once again.

  Until the food arrived twenty minutes later, Parsons continued poking holes in the government’s social rationale. He was a brilliant man, Grace realized, the type who carved his way through the world around him, forming his own channels and tunnels through life’s socio-economic fabric. He had grown up a middle-class failsafe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the son of Kevin and Kirk Parsons, who owned a bed and breakfast on the Mississippi River. He had been an only child, the result of his fathers’ choosing to be surprised by the engineer. As in Grace’s own family, there had been one open-armed parent and one not-so-kind parent. The latter, Kirk Parsons, was the only one to survive past Aiden’s fifth birthday. His husband had drowned that day when their sailboat capsized on the Mississippi, and he had swum after Aiden to keep him from drifting into the current. Kirk forever blamed the boy for it, often telling him in drunken bursts that they were no longer a family, that he, Aiden, should have been the one to drown instead. Once Aiden was old enough to clean rooms, keep track of guests, and direct the cook, Kirk would often leave the bed and breakfast in his hands and disappear to circuit parties for days at a time. Contrary to what could have been, Aiden used the responsibility to learn the ropes of business and economics. By the time he finished high school, he was top of his class, with honors. He attended the University of Minnesota on a full-ride scholarship, double majoring in premedical engineering and business administration. He went on to bioengineering school from there before establishing himself in the hierarchy of Minnesota geneticists.

  “And here I am now, a lonely president of a snuffed-out not-for-profit.” Parsons brought his fingertips to the table, resting them with the posture of a pianist on either side of his medium rare steak, which had just arrived.

  Stuart glanced at Grace, straightened his glasses, then coughed. “Now, I hope this is not too straightforward, and if you would rather not discuss this, be honest. You mentioned last time we spoke that a colleague once accused you of genetically sabotaging the NRO’s biological agenda. We—my daughter and I, that is—are wondering what exactly this refers to. You see, we—”

  “We’re wondering if you might know of any engineers who could have made it possible for heterosteriles to get pregnant,” Grace interrupted, speaking in a whisper. Outside the nook, far away, the restaurant clanked and clattered. “We were just thinking that, if this was the type of biological ‘sabotage’ you were accused of, then you might be able to give us some insight.”

  It was a dangerous step to expose this secret so blatantly. Grace’s entire body was rolling with a nervous heat.

  Aiden Parsons stared into her eyes. “Why are you asking me this? Are you—?”

  Neither Grace nor Stuart moved.

  Parsons, frozen in his chair, studied them for a moment, his gaze fixing first on Stuart, then on Grace. “And you chose to tell me this here?”

  “We’re not telling you anything, as you can very well see,” Stuart said in an overly cheerful manner, looking toward the curtain again to make sure the waiter had not slipped back into their nook. “Now, with that in mind, what might you be able to tell us about this topic?”

  Parsons appeared for a moment as if he was considering dismissing them completely and walking out, but then he grimaced, shook his head, and leaned forward. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “We just need something. A name. Somebody who can help us. Grace’s engineer died almost thirteen years ago, and even if he were alive, it wouldn’t be safe to just prance up to him and ask crazy questions.” Now, Stuart looked desperate.

  Parsons leaned back and pressed his palms to the table, as if it might keep him in orbit. “I guess it would mark me a coward if I ran from your question. And it’s technically no secret what happened. My operations have been watched closely by the NRO since they removed me from my engineering practice. Still, they never had any proof, because my name was never officially attached to the project.”

  Adrenaline tingled in Grace’s chest. “The project?”

  “Tell me, assuming we’re talking about what I think we’re talking about, were you engineered locally?”

  Grace turned to her dad. Realizing the platform was now his, Stuart blinked his eyes rapidly and fumbled over the answer. “Oh, um . . . it was the Minnesota Bioengineering Clinic over in St. Louis Park. Strict NRO supervision, just like all the private clinics. The engineer was Bozarth. Theodore Bozarth. We met with him three times. The BGR referred us. But only for you, Grace.” He turned to her. “We made Abraham at the university.”

  Parson’s eyes widened, and with the slightest exhale, he brought his fingertips together in one silent motion. “It worked,” he whispered.

  “What worked?” Grace asked.

  Now, Parsons spoke even more quietly and quickly. “First, and let me be frank, I suddenly appreciate this meeting more than either of you will ever know. Second, today is the only time we will ever speak of any of this out loud. None of what I’m willing to reveal to you is anything the NRO doesn’t already know about, but I’ve spent the last thirteen years avoiding any sort of resistance or sabotage activity for fear of being incarcerated, or worse. I purposefully let this case slip my mind. I don’t want to die a victim. As for what I’m about to say, I’ll let you surmise the parts I don’t make obvious. How is that?”

  “Perfect,” Stuart said. “Continue.”

  Parsons took a sip of water. “Theodore Bozarth was in charge of all heterosterile engineering in the Twin Cities from 2354 to 2369, at the request of Sam Janken, who was head of the Minnesota branch of the Bureau of Genetic Regulation. They were friends, and Janken pulled strings to get Bozarth solely in charge of heterosterile engineering. Grace, you are, what, twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Good enough. You were one of the early ones, then. There were only eight thousand heterosterile females bred during the fourteen-year period Theodore Bozarth ran that branch of engineering. He was an engineer for seventeen years before that, but those fourteen years were key. Rumor had it that he had found a way through protein engineering and
gene sequence manipulation to introduce delayed fertility into his heterosteriles in an attempt to fight the continually suppressive ideals of the NRO. Rumor also had it that I was the outsourced geneticist he had worked closely with on this endeavor. It’s true that the Bureau of Genetic Regulation once outsourced much of its fringe research divisions, and I was one of those divisions. I had my own engineering clinic at the time and was permitted by the Bureau to engineer two thousand homosexual females per year. That was my profession, but, as suggested by the rumors, I may have had a penchant for side research. Also, perhaps, an interest in restoring natural order to society. These rumors, then, ended when Bozarth was assassinated at the end of his run. The year 2372, it was. I say assassinated, because, from what I gathered, he was found with bullets in his chest and head. They never held a proper funeral, because they cremated him immediately.”

  Parsons’s face was burning red, and the anger in his voice hissed out in sharp, warm breaths. “Of course, none of this was publicized, because it would have made people think. None of it was even proven. According to a source I had inside the Bio Police’s walls, all of Bozarth’s com and hardcopy files were removed and probably destroyed at some point before he was found dead. They thought he had destroyed it all himself to cover his tracks and keep the project intact. All the research gone, except the walking specimens he had released into society.”

  Specimens, Grace thought. She was nothing more than someone’s little science project.

  Her dad grabbed his water to take a sip, and the ice floating in it clinked steadily against the glass. His hand was shaking. When Grace looked at him, she saw it was not fear causing him to tremble, but scarlet-faced anger.

  “Didn’t you both think about the danger you were putting these young women in?” he hissed at Parsons.

  Grace placed a hand on his shoulder. “Dad, please. Mr. Parsons can’t—”

  Stuart shook out of his daughter’s hold. “No. No.” He pointed a finger at Parsons, who neither shrank under it nor appeared altogether proud. “This is unacceptable. My husband and I put the life of our child, knowing she would be heterosterile, in Theodore Bozarth’s hands, and he did nothing less than mark her for banishment or death. You helped him do this! Not just my daughter, but thousands of women like her as well!”

  Parsons nodded. If it was guilt causing his face to contort with anxiety, his words did nothing to address it. “Mr. Jarvis, what you first must understand is that the NRO had not yet put in place the mandates that are now all but causing an extermination of heterosexuals, sterile or not. Theodore and I suspected such edicts were coming, and—again, it was rumored—we did everything in our power to fight it. And yes, that included trying to secretly engineer women who could successfully breed with failsafes and potentially, when the time came, offset the frightening path the NRO was setting for itself.”

  “When the time came?”

  “I’m talking about now, Mr. Jarvis. As I said before, I’ve done my very best to avoid anything related to this resistance effort, including finding out whatever became of all these women, but I know Theodore had friends on the inside helping him see it through. We weren’t the only ones working against the—”

  The nook’s curtain scraped open, and the waiter pranced in. The prissy expression on his face suggested nothing out of the ordinary. Unless he was a great actor, he had not heard a word. “Are we all finished?”

  “We were just leaving, and I’ll get the tab,” Aiden Parsons said, standing and holding out his wrist to the waiter, who scanned it with the restaurant’s credit reader before thanking them and walking away. Parsons grabbed his coat and threw it over himself, then adjusted his collar. “I suggest you both keep this meeting to yourselves, for all our sakes. I may be able to offer you more at a later date, but not here. If you’ll excuse me.” He ducked through the curtain, leaving Grace and Stuart alone, shocked, and with plates still half full.

  CHAPTER 16 (HIM)

  WHEN DEX ARRIVED home from work that afternoon, a purple police sedan was sitting outside his apartment, fifty yards up on the street’s opposite side. Through the dim window was a chiseled fag dressed in uniform. A Bio Police officer sipping on something, watching Dex with cool alertness.

  Walk to the door. Don’t look suspicious.

  As he held his wrist to the door key to scan open the lock, he glanced quickly at the police car. The officer was looking down now, into his lap. Suddenly, a second officer rose from that spot, wiping his mouth. The first officer, looking preoccupied, jerked his gaze to the street again, as if he had let his subject slip. Dex turned away and stepped into his apartment door. Was he under surveillance? It was impossible to know just yet, but if his sudden association with Grace Jarvis had already alerted the police to possible illegal behavior, they were definitely quick on the draw.

  Just do what you normally do. See if they’re outside again tomorrow.

  It was only when he was safe inside his apartment, however, that he noticed one of his kitchen cupboards, which he had used only to store cat food while owning a cat, was ajar. It was a cheap apartment, and the cupboards all stuck shut with magnetic hooks. Dex made a close examination of the door, then shut it. The magnetic hitching sound was cold and sharp, like a period halting a sentence. He glanced at the floor and saw the outline of a shoe, left by a trace of winter dirt.

  Someone had been inside his apartment.

  CHAPTER 17 (HER)

  GRACE ARRIVED at Deephaven Elementary at 2:30 p.m. She walked past classroom after classroom, seeing the perfectly gelled hair of all the little school boys, who appeared to outnumber the girls at least ten to one. She was no longer sure which classroom Lars was in, but he was in the sixth grade, most likely on the school’s upper level. Grace wondered how many of the boys here were failsafes in the process of learning their lives would soon be meaningless.

  “Hey there, dear,” Linda said when Grace stepped into the empty gymnasium. The bright LED lights seemed to flatten everything in it, save for Linda, who jumped up to get a hug. “You actually showed up! Now you can tell your nephew Lars that you really do care about his school decorations. God, I’ve been almost sure lately that you were trying to disappear on me or something. Chalk it up to all this Mandate 43 crap.”

  “What, you think I don’t want to help you make the decorations these kids should be making?”

  “Please. We all know it’s the parents’ job to do it. Kids these days don’t give a shit about silly things like holidays. Besides, my decorations will look better.”

  Grace chuckled. “How’s the wife? Any progress?”

  “Oh, acting like a bat from hell. She got so drunk two nights ago that I had to take her to the emergency clinic. That was a first. And you’d think she’d take that as a hint, you know?”

  Linda’s wife, Celine, was the more rugged lesbian in the pair, almost twice the size of her spouse in bone structure. It never failed to amaze Grace how Linda could have fallen for Celine Melville, the dyke who had been senior quarterback of their high school’s varsity football team when they were just giggling freshmen. The rough and cocky lesbian jock had grown into a woman who left Grace on edge every time their paths crossed, and she had recently developed a full-blown addiction to alcohol. The arguments resulting from this had led to violence exactly twice, but Linda was tougher than she looked. Not to mention stubborn.

  “I keep telling her that she needs to keep the weight off, or the law firm might fire her, but will she listen? No, not at all.” Linda unrolled a massive sheet of paper and spread it like a banner on the gym floor. “So, basically, the wife is causing me hell, and little Rita isn’t exactly feeling the love. She said last night, ‘Mommy, are you and Mom going to get a divorce?’”

  “Oh, no.”

  Linda had hunched over the banner and was outlining the phrase Bred By God! in pencil. “She’s only eight, for Christ’s sake, and now she’s having to deal with two dykes who don’t have their shit together. Not to mention al
l the boys in her class are telling her she’s going to Antarctica for being a girl, and it’s scaring her half to death. Oh, well, just in time for Christmas, right? Say, can you fill in these letters with red?”

  Grace opened a container of red paint and began following Linda’s progress with her own. Linda was a talker, the mile-a-minute kind. Even though she always made room for other people to speak, part of Grace hoped she would talk through their visit today and save her from having to face the thorny truth that any meeting now could be their last.

  But no such luck.

  “So, what’s this I hear about a boyfriend? Tammy Grekko said your father told her dad that you’re seeing somebody. Is that true? I’m going to kill you if it is. You didn’t tell me!”

  Grace forced a smile, but inwardly, a snake was wrapping around her heart. If I think too hard about saying goodbye, I’ll cry. If I don’t say goodbye, I’m going to be the worst friend in the whole world.

  “His name is Dex,” Grace choked out, hoping it would sound to Linda like a dry throat. She coughed to cover the wave of grief washing through her.

  “Dex? That’s kind of a hot name, no?”

  “If you saw him, even you’d want to jump his bones.” It was a weak joke. Juvenile, like during their high school days. And nothing in Grace’s tone sounded cheery.