The Breeders

by Matthew J. Beier

  “Life is life,” Hilda said. “And you know what? Spending it with you guys doesn’t seem half bad. Better than the life I came from, anyway.”

  A moment of clarity warmed Grace, suddenly. Her friends were correct. This was an adventure to be embraced. What was meant to happen would happen. Maybe now she could be sure of that. She smiled, thinking of Marvel and Lieutenant Helio back in the ruins of Los Angeles, hoping they both had found some luck.

  Dex grinned. “I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to meet all these new babies. Isn’t it crazy to think that they’re all going to have their own unique traits? What was it Dr. Thrace said on Monday, Grace? That she liked to think we’re all God’s little puzzle pieces, or something?”

  “She liked to think that if you could somehow combine every trait of every person who has ever lived and every person who ever will live, until humanity’s end, you’d see the face of God.”

  The moment suspended itself as everyone, even Sheila, who claimed not to believe in any God, digested the idea. Then, the red-haired scarecrow woman grinned.

  “You know, that idea isn’t half bad. I like it. Makes me think of the baby they made me get rid of.”

  Orion lifted his mug of tea. “Here’s to breeding.”

  Grace, Dex, Sheila, and Hilda raised their drinks in solemn response. “To breeding.”

  They drank.

  CHAPTER 60 (HIM)

  THREE DAYS before Dr. Thrace planned to induce labor, Grace’s water broke. It happened in the bed she and Dex were sharing, early on the morning of July ninth. He was cuddling her, welcoming the new day. They were pressed together, warm under the covers, and he was aroused. He was kissing her neck when, suddenly, she jerked her head up in surprise and let out a sudden chirp.

  “Oh!”

  Dex felt the wetness on his thighs. Adrenaline rushed through him. “Is this it?”

  Their two roommates, Erin and Rachel, woke at the noise. They realized what was happening and sat up in their beds. Dex jumped to the floor, forgetting his erection, and pulled the covers off Grace.

  “Do you think it’s happening? Should I call Dr. Thrace?”

  Grace nodded. “It’s just like they told us in class,” she said. “I think this is it.”

  Here goes nothing.

  Dex ran from the room, toward the hospital wing. Grace had passed her due date by nearly two weeks. The wet bed sheets came as no surprise, as they had been expecting labor for nearly a month. Irregular contractions had become increasingly intense over the past three weeks, but their daughter, whom they would name Leila, was stubborn. It seemed she wanted to stay inside Grace. They had decided on her name two weeks prior, on the deck while watching the artificial sunset. Today, finally, Leila was ready.

  A nurse accompanied Dex back to the maternity dorm with a wheelchair for Grace. They brought her to Mount Tasman’s medical wing, which lay on the other side of the facility’s main hallway, just past the loading dock. Grace paced back and forth in the delivery room for the first three hours, while her contractions were mild. By the end of hour four, however, she had climbed into bed and was pressing her eyes shut with each one. Watching her go through this, Dex realized how powerful motherhood really was. It was a sacrifice of the highest order.

  “They’re coming in waves,” Grace told him, trying to keep her breathing steady. She was gritting her teeth in pain. The waves were growing higher and closer together, yet she continued to refuse medication to numb the pain. She wanted to experience a natural child birth. “It’s human to feel this,” she whimpered at one point. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”

  Two hours later, the waiting game was over. Grace was fully dilated—fast and lucky for a first birth, according to Dr. Thrace. She gave the directive. “You can push now, Grace. You’re going to feel like it’s all you can do anyway, so just follow your instinct.”

  “You’re doing great, Grace! Breathe like we did in class. Slow breaths now, slow breaths.” Dex grabbed her hand, and she batted it away in favor of scrunching her fingers into the bed sheets. But Dex only laughed, feeling such jubilation at her beauty that her refusal of his comfort failed to matter. “Come on, Grace! It’s our little girl knocking on the world’s door!”

  “When did you get so goddamned sappy?” Grace exclaimed, then screamed. “God, it hurts! It fucking hurts! OhmyGod—”

  She grabbed Dex’s hand now and crushed it in her own. He cupped her head with the other, letting the sweat from her hair dampen his fingers.

  Dr. Thrace and the attending nurse were waiting between Grace’s spread legs, peering intently upward. “I see the head, Grace,” the doctor said. “She’s ready to come out!”

  Now, Grace was sobbing, screaming, grunting, pushing with all her living power. “Dex! I feel her, Dex—oh my God oh my God oh my God ohmyGod—!”

  Dex kissed Grace’s hand, washing it in his own tears.

  This is why humans are so incredible. Not because they can breed, procreate, give birth, but because of this! Of love. Of having come from nothing and having the ability to embody a beauty that nothing else in this universe can.

  And Grace—

  CHAPTER 61 (HER)

  —CRIED OUT IN PAIN, AGONY, and absolute willingness to push this baby out of her body. The pulsating heat between her legs burned like nothing she had ever felt before, stretching every part of her over torturous licks of fire. All she could think of was to push, push, push, and there was nothing else, no other goal. This was the brutal ache her entire life had built up to. Nothing had ever or would ever again compare.

  She let out a guttural scream. Her entire body was tearing apart.

  “Her head is almost out, Grace,” came Dr. Thrace’s voice from behind the sheet spread over her legs.

  Dex kept her hand, but he leaned over. “Grace, she’s out! I see her face! Holy God, I see her face! Come on, baby, you can do it! Keep pushing!”

  Push push push push get her out get her out this is the most important thing you will ever do and you’re doing it here in this mountain when nobody on the outside will ever be able to do this again push push push push ohfortheloveofGodPUSH—

  And then there was emptiness and relief.

  Sudden, dazzling relief.

  The baby girl’s head was out, and the rest of her tiny body followed like an afterthought. The placenta came out next as Dr. Thrace gave Grace’s belly a gentle push, and the contractions accompanying it were mild enough to be inconsequential. Other fluids followed, but nothing mattered anymore. It was over, and the sudden respite from the anguish was pure serenity. Things were happening around her: Dex had let go of her hand and was cutting a long strip of flesh connecting her to the baby (the umbilical cord, what they told us about during class!), and then the doctor was wrapping the baby in a flowing pink blanket.

  Not just “the baby” anymore. She’s Leila. Our beautiful Leila.

  Leila was crying. It was the first effort of a new voice trying to find its breath. Dr. Thrace carried the infant toward her mother. In what seemed like no time at all, Leila was snuggled against Grace’s bosom, searching for a breast. This was normal; this was okay; this was good. Grace let her breast free. Leila found it, began to feed.

  Heaven. This is heaven.

  What was behind did not matter now. All that could be was forward.

  CHAPTER 62 (HIM)

  IT WAS THE SEVENTEENTH OF JULY and Dex was standing with an ink pen, in front of the Wall of the Future. Grace was next to him, rocking Leila gently in her arms. Like all the other women who had given birth in the past five months, she was about to disappear quietly from the hospital wing, without much ado. Their first week with Leila had passed unbelievably fast, and the hospital wing was already making room for more women, more births. This was the way of Mount Tasman, the way of the Opposition.

  Sheila, Orion, and Hilda had visited them every day, and now, they stood behind the new family, watching, waiting for Dex to write the goodbye. He wondered how many ot
her people who signed the wall had known what was coming. Judging by the enthusiasm in all the messages, it had been few.

  Dex had always been simple, to the point. Now, he marked the passage of his family in the same way, careful not to let slip the secret of the Sanctuary.

  Off to the final stop. Thank you for helping our little girl see the world.

  —Dex Wheelock, Grace Jarvis, and Leila Jarvis, July 17, 2385

  Three more women, none of whom were accompanied by a failsafe, had also given birth on the same day as Grace. Sally, Lacresha, and Elysia were their names, and they were accompanied by their infants Jos, Andrew, and Mary Ann. Each was standing near her own section of wall, accompanied by a small group of friends. This seemed to be the ritual: intimate goodbyes, as not to make much of a scene. Neither Dex nor Grace had ever spoken to them before today, but thirty minutes ago, while accompanying them to the blast door, Orion had encouraged introductions to be made.

  They’re going to be terrified when they realize there isn’t anything but a hover jet past this door, Dex thought.

  He was already preparing words for them, the same explanation as Sheila and Orion had given him and Grace. It seemed cruel to spring such a trap on new, innocent mothers.

  “We’ll see you when we see you,” Sheila said. “I hope it’s sooner rather than later.” She flipped her bushel of red hair back with a hand and looked at Dex. “Honey, I’m glad you got another chance. Really glad. Keep your woman safe now, will you?”

  To his right, Hilda was whispering to Leila in a gentle, childish voice. “Little Jane and I will be ready to follow you in a month, okay? Just a month! Remember to wait up for us, okay?” Leila’s blue-gray eyes were wide and round, like Dex’s own. She looked up at Hilda, who then glanced up at the new parents, grinning. “She’s beautiful, you guys. Just beautiful.”

  They shared hugs. Dex combined Orion’s hug with a handshake. “You’ll be fine,” Orion whispered. “These pilots work out of the Sanctuary, and they make this run all the time. They fly solid machines.”

  Soon, it was time to clear those who would remain out of the hallway. As was the rule, the door would open only when those left were the ones moving onward. Sheila and Orion could not stay, even though both were aware of what came next; controlling the blast door was not their prerogative. Sally, Lacresha, and Elysia, all three holding their babies, followed Dex and Grace to the door. Orion directed everyone else back down the hall, toward the sliding glass hatch that would lead them back into the maternity dorm. Far away, through that glass, as an alarm sounded and the blast door scraped open, the friends of the departing waved. Those departing waved back. Then, Dex turned to face what was ahead. The women followed suit.

  They were only breeders with their offspring now, five adults and four tiny babies, facing what lay beyond the wall.

  CHAPTER 63 (HER)

  IT WAS A DIMLY LIT, monochrome hallway, stretching into the shadows. A voice from some hidden intercom instructed them to step forward. Grace had to pry her own foot off the ground to take that first step; the fear was suddenly paralyzing. If it was a hover jet pad they were going to depart from, it was different from the one at the mountain’s entrance.

  “Let’s go,” Dex said. As usual, Grace was encouraged by the newfound hope in his voice. She could see by the way the other three women looked at him that they felt the same. She clutched Leila, who started to squirm as Grace followed Dex across the blast door’s threshold, into the darkness. She had so many questions, but it was not yet time to discuss Antarctica. The women next to them still did not know.

  “This looks like the loading bay,” Sally said once their eyes adjusted, sounding confused. Her baby, Jos, remained asleep in her arms.

  As the door closed behind them, Grace noticed a pile of multi-layered hooded jackets. Winter in Antarctica could sometimes reach a hundred degrees below zero, or colder, without wind chill. She had seen pictures and video of the Sanctuary countless times, and, just as Dex had told her repeatedly, it had a retractable roof for its hover jet landing bay. Nobody would be exposed directly to the cold.

  “Put the jackets on, please, for your own safety,” the intercom voice instructed.

  “Jackets? Why jackets?” Elysia said, but she found an adult sized jacket and put it on. Under it was a down body suit that would fit little Mary Ann. Sally grabbed a jacket and body suit as well, first bundling Jos, then herself. Lacresha looked uneasy. She picked up a jacket and body suit but did nothing with them.

  “Come on, ladies, we should walk,” Dex said. Perhaps it was the dim lighting or the eerie silence interrupted only by their footsteps, but he suddenly sounded nervous. At the end of the hall was another door. When they were twenty feet away, it opened. On the other side was a tunnel occupied by a chiseled man driving a motorized transport.

  “Throw your bags on the back, please.” He turned to Lacresha, who was simply carrying the jacket and baby suit the Opposition had provided for her. Andrew squirmed in her arms. “Miss, you’re going to want your jacket. Make sure your baby is covered as well.”

  Lacresha hesitated before getting on the transport. “I’m confused about the jackets. I thought we were staying inside the mountain. . . .”

  “Believe me, Miss, you’re going to want to put those on. The mountain is cold this time of year.”

  It would have been easier just to tell everybody from the beginning, Grace thought, feeling sorry for all those who would have to face the deception this late in the game. She glanced at Dex. Should we say something now?

  Dex seemed to have read her mind, and he shook his head. As planned, they would wait to discuss the truth with these women until they were on the hover jet, until it was obvious. With a mournful look of terror that suggested she had suddenly figured it out, Lacresha climbed onto the cart, set her baby on the seat, and donned the jacket. She grabbed Andrew again and put on his body suit.

  “This isn’t what I signed up for,” she whispered.

  Sally and Elysia seemed still to be in the dark as the transport zipped into the tunnel, taking them from the maternity dorm forever. Soon, they reached a final blast door, which looked identical to the one at the mountain’s entrance.

  It opened. Sally and Elysia gasped and descended into worried whispers. Lacresha remained stony faced as she stepped off the transport and walked forward, but Grace saw that her hands were pale, shaking. She was clutching little Andrew for dear life.

  It was a cloudy day, and the mountains were rugged spires of black and gray. Just as Grace and Dex had suspected, a hover jet sat on the platform. Unlike the red transports that had lifted them to Mount Tasman from Franz Josef, this one was solid gray and large: a military transport, like the Sanctuary ones she had grown up seeing on the news. It was a high-speed Z-44 Falcon. She had given Lars a model of one for Christmas two years ago. He had begged and begged for it.

  Oh, my God, it’s all real now.

  The landing pad was smaller than the one at the mountain’s entrance. Grace guessed it was on an entirely different end of the mountain, because it was built on a rugged outcropping overlooking a craggy plummet to the death. She wondered how rock and snow avalanches had not demolished it. Then, she looked up and saw her answer: the landing pad lay nestled under two tapered sides of a small ridge, which created a diversion for anything that might fall from the mountain.

  Two pilots dressed in tan uniforms were ready to help them aboard. One escorted the women, and the other threw their luggage into the cabin and began strapping it to the floor.

  “But where is the other part of the mountain?” Elysia said, suddenly gasping in panic. “Where are you taking us?”

  Grace and Dex exchanged troubled glances, then set the example by climbing onto the hover jet first. Seats with harness-like safety belts attached to the walls lined the length of the passenger cabin, and they took two spots near the rear, next to one of the hover jet’s few windows. Lacresha followed, and Sally and Elysia came last. The two pilots
ushered them aboard in silence.

  “Where are they taking us?” Elysia said again, this time turning to Dex and Grace.

  Grace buried Leila in her bosom to shield her from the cold air blowing through the open doors.

  “The Sanctuary,” she said. “The Opposition took it over almost ten years ago.”

  “That’s a load of crap,” Lacresha said. “There is no Sanctuary.” But there was a spark of hope in her eyes.

  Dex held up a hand to her. “Calm down. I found out through our friend Sheila before I came here, and your liaison Orion confirmed it. The Sanctuary really is in the Opposition’s hands now, and they have weapons ready to blow the NRO to kingdom come. There’ve been rumors about the Sanctuary, because the NRO wants to cause as much confusion as possible to keep people away from the truth.”

  “The Opposition is winning,” Grace added.

  “They’re bringing us there to wait for the world to recover,” Dex continued. “And then the heterosexuals come back . . . and nature takes its course. Humanity goes on.”

  As the hover jet rose into the air, they all sat without speaking, avoiding each other’s eyes, listening to its drumming rotors. It was too late for any of them to feel shame over being duped, to be afraid, or to speculate. They were sharing this last leg of the journey together, and they began it in silence. Grace looked out her window and saw the small landing pad disappear behind a cloud. Here it was: a new beginning.

  Within minutes, they were flying for open sea, on a journey south.

  CHAPTER 64 (HIM)

  SOMETHING FELT SOUR, and Dex was getting nervous.

  The moment the hover jet lifted off the mountain, a wave of horror washed over him. It was not simply the thought of flying for miles and miles over earth’s last gap of ocean, into the belly of Antarctica’s sunless winter, nor was it the fact that he would likely be stuck on a continent of ice until his dying day. It was the sudden, twisting realization he had been digesting for weeks, the one about which he had so tenaciously attempted to be optimistic: