Hayden felt the heat bloom in her cheeks. It was only when she felt the heat elsewhere that she knew it was not shame. “Why?”
“You’re carrying my child,” Anders said, “honor demands that I care for both you and my child. Also, life will start to get hard here without the machines that maintained the city. I would have you living somewhere safe.” The only sound for a long stretch of time was the arrhythmic melody of water falling as Hayden scrubbed herself. At last, Anders finished, “And I have grown fond of your presence.”
Hayden opened her mouth, but Anders shook his head and said, “No. I am a man, not a Penitent. I will speak like a man. I have grown to love you. You cared for me as I struggled with what I saw inside the Schola. You have proven yourself a brave and courageous woman in a land of sheep, and I would have you for my wife. We will have brave and strong children who will greet the world with their heads raised in defiance.”
She shut off the water but did not push aside the door. “Tell me,” she said to the fuzzy shape of Anders behind the door. “Tell me what you saw inside the machine’s home.”
The shape of Anders turned away from her and hung its head. “I would not.”
“If you truly think me that courageous… ”
“It is a terrible thing.”
“Many of the truths of the past are.”
“History,” he corrected.
“Much of history is,” she said.
“The Secret History of the World Gone By,” he said, “is secret even from you and yours.”
“If I am to leave with you, they are no longer mine.”
Anders’ shape nodded. “We are your Offended. There was no invasion. The machines under the Schola were of human provenance, parts clearly labeled in the tongue of the World Gone By. I was confused at first, but as I stood in the wreckage of the central machine, I began to put together the True History of the World Gone By from what I had read that day. There was a second machine-brain there, and I confirmed what I suspected through the machine. It talked to me,” he mused, “and answered my questions very helpfully.
“The Penitent culture was not forced on us by invaders from the stars. The penitent culture existed always inside of humanity, like a tumor.
“Like a tumor, it grew from something good. At some point we realized we’d treated other human beings very poorly. The World Gone By repented of its ways and allowed those marginalized peoples to be part of the culture. But for some, that was not enough. They insisted that we should shame the culture who did it, even hundreds of years after the offense. Every concession, every justifiable apology was met with a demand for more. When women were scorned, it was not good enough that they be given the same rights as men. They demanded to be the same as men. Even though they are not the same. Even though they deny what they are by pretending to partake in the form of man.
“So it was in all of the final days of World Gone By. For every concession, righteous or not, there was a demand for something greater. In the end, a cult that worshipped a bland and homogenous equality gained the upper hand in the politics of the World Gone By. We stopped going to the stars because it was shameful to do something that wonderful. We stopped because it made people uncomfortable that some people could do it and others could not. We stopped excelling because not everyone could excel. The educated became sheep because they did not want to hurt the feelings of the students they taught and did not make them think difficult or painful things. We—no, the elite—became penitents who had neither men nor women because it was hurtful to affirm differences between the two, and that there are ways that men and women are expected to couple and ways in which they are not.
“The penitents are all that is left of the World Gone By,” Anders said, “because the World Gone By could not bear to be anything special any longer.”
Hayden pushed aside the door and wrapped her arms around Anders. She was still wet from her shower, but he did not protest. “Is the city truly going to die?”
“The penitents cannot maintain it,” he said. “They will be forced to abandon their city and live with the tribes. They will be forced to be men and women again.”
“So that we can excel again?”
“So that we can excel again,” Anders confirmed.
“Take me to your people,” Hayden said. “I will be your wife if you will treat me well.”
“I would not be a man,” he told her, “if I did not.”
Anders left the Penitent City in the spring of his manhood, with his axe, Raider’s Bane, at his back and his wife at his side. Her belly and breasts were not yet swollen with child, but in due time they swelled and her hair grew long. In the course of things, a girl was born, and Anders and Hayden begat more children and raised them as proud men and women.
And when the Penitent City finally fell, the children of Anders and Hayden welcomed those refugees into their tribe and the future with their heads held high.
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
By
David Hallquist
The customizable perfect child delivered straight to your door!
It was time to change the sex of their child, again. William sighed.
Jess was still playing with her trucks and blocks and other toys from before. Her dolls, forlorn, waited in the corner largely unused. She continued to be as rambunctious as ever, thought that might just be a condition of being two.
This was not how things should have turned out.
Initially, William and Georgia had wanted a son. Their single child was, naturally, not directly conceived between them. The purpose of sex was for recreation and identity, not procreation. Their donated eggs and sperm had been tested and then combined into hundreds of embryos in the first phase. Since they had desired a male child, half of the embryos, with the undesirable XX chromosome, had been discarded. In the second cull, embryos with chromosomal errors, as well as ones with markers for possible genetic defects had been culled as well. Additional removals had taken place later, as the happy couple had decided upon the desired height, weight, eye, hair and skin color. They had wanted the perfect child, of course, and only one of the developing fetuses would be brought to term. In the final cut, they got to see projected images of what their son would look like as an adult. They spent hours together over coffee selecting among scores of images and features; it had been just like buying a new car. Eventually, they had agreed on what the perfect son would look like, and the remaining developing fetuses were then disposed of, out of sight.
They had gone to see the little squirming infant that was their son in the clinic. Wrinkled and wet, straight from the tanks, they could not hold him yet for his skin was still too delicate. Networks of tubes, for maternal immune treatments, blood sugar balance and a whole host of other complex chemicals were flooded into and out of his tiny body by this replacement umbilical cord. He remembered the frowns of the staff: it was unseemly to view their child so early, most people waited until they had the finished product delivered.
The happy moment of delivery had been a ring of the doorbell. Their child had arrived, sealed in a small life-support unit wrapped with thermal padding. Opening the cocoon, they embraced their new son. The same cocoon would also serve as a mandated child seat while driving, and handily fit into a recess in their car. So from time to time, their son went back into the cocoon, as they traveled, while he was amused by the interior screen to keep his cortical development engaged.
His early learning and development had taken place at the Development Center, of course. Who had time to raise a child? Still, in their time with him, they had also used downloaded enrichment activities to help his development along, and bought toys for him as well. Every element of growth had to be properly tailored to properly socialize young Jeremy.
Recently, they had changed their minds, and decided they wanted a daughter instead. Daughters were trending, after all. The process had been simple: they had packed Jeremy into his now larger cocoon, and the clinic had picked him up, and then
delivered their daughter a few days later. It had been exactly like returning a defective product.
There had been no need to witness the actual process, where his external genitalia were removed via surgical lasers, a vaginal urogenital slit was cut open, and artificial estrogen glands were implanted. She would then be able to develop all of the secondary sexual characteristics of womanhood as she grew. That she would never be able to bear young with the artificial organs implanted was irrelevant, since who had live children anymore? Educational and enrichment training would focus on her new feminine orientation and she would know nothing of her prior life as a boy. After all, gender was simply a social construct.
Still, both William and Georgia watched with growing concern as their child did not change as she was supposed to. She continued to love her trucks and blocks; and the racing game remained her favorite.
They discussed the matter over coffee in the kitchen, while their daughter was away at the Development Center.
″We can send her back to the clinic for a reversal.″ William brought up. ″I understand the process is simple. They just need to switch out the glandular implants and create new artificial organs. It’s all a pretty standardized procedure for a child of her age. Gender’s a social construct: we can change her back now, and then later if he wants to become a girl again, he can switch back. It’s not a big deal.″
″You always wanted a son, I get it.″ Georgia scowled. ″This is all about you, isn’t it? You want to control the destiny of our child, and make her a copy of you. You just cannot accept that she is really who she is.″
William sighed. ″I don’t know who she really is, yet. She’s two.″
″That’s not what we were promised!″ Georgia slammed the table. ″The clinic, the Development Center, everyone said that the sexes are fully interchangeable. They said human personhood is a social construct. So, we should be able to have Jess as a girl.″
″Ok, Georgia.″ William smiled. ″We can wait. Maybe the enrichment training will take hold and she’ll be happy as a girl. If not, she can always change back later, when she wants to.″
″No. No more. They promised us we would have the child we wanted.″ Georgia looked away. ″I want an abortion.″
″Isn’t two a little late for an abortion?″ Will asked delicately.
The verbal explosion that followed was epic in scope. The argument raged on throughout the night, and reached a crescendo of breaking glass that painted the interior of the kitchen with the contents of beverages and preserves. When the police came, Georgia had graciously declined to press changes for verbal abuse.
The next day, young Jess was packed into her cocoon for return to the clinic. She was told she was going to meet new friends, and not to cry. The white truck from clinical services arrived and picked up the generic cocoon, and the men in white coats loaded her into the truck with a number of other cocoons, most smaller, a few larger. And, just like that, she was out of their lives, forever.
AT THE EDGE OF DETACHMENT
By
A.M. Freeman
What if you were not alive, but the executioner was at your door?
Thirteen years. Only one year more and he would be thirteen. Finally he’d be considered alive.
The official papers would be filled out, and he could become his own person. He had only to wait one more year, then he would be Detached. He would officially choose his name, he could celebrate his birthdays, he’d have his own papers, his own rights, and his freedoms. He had been so sure, positive, that he’d make it.
Just like so many other kids at this stage, he dreamed and hoped for that moment. He imagined what it would be like to be a real person. He had even planned what he wanted to do: go to schools and learn new things, go on adventures and see the world, and be certain he’d have a future. All had been going well: Mother had been happy, he was being more of a help than a burden to her, freedom and humanity had seemed within his reach. But now, this broken arm might cost him more than just climbing trees for a while.
He wished he could be in a tree now, out in the woods behind his neighborhood. He liked it out there; it was much better than this cramped house. It was out there where he and his friends would meet—out there where he could say what he liked—out there where he kept his secret. He’d never told Mother, since it was something he shouldn’t be able to do, but he had learned how to read.
This had happened some time ago, while spending the day in the woods with his friends. On that day, they had found a vault half buried in the ground. There were many strange and old things in that vault, but most of all, there were books. Having not been allowed any formal education, none of them knew what the books said or meant. But over time, and with any information they could glean from home and the books themselves, together they learned to read.
Some of the books were boring, to him at least, but others were full of stories. Wonderful, incredible stories from times far past. And on these stories, he and his friends had thrived.
They were fascinating stories. But to them, almost unbelievable. He and his friends argued over whether such a time could have existed, where most children would have a mother and father at the same time. Or if it was true that back then, kids started learning in schools only four or five years after birth. Of course, there were rumors that richer families paid for private tutoring for their children—before they were fully developed. But there was never any evidence. They had enough money to keep things like that quiet.
Could there really have been a time where everyone lived like that? In a big family, going to schools, living and working where and how they wanted?
While he believed there was truth in these stories, not all of them could agree or decide what was real or not, and it troubled them. So together they’d built a dream and a promise: they’d make it to the age of Detachment, they’d learn, and they’d find the truth. He wanted to find the truth so badly; he hated being kept in the dark, pushed aside like he wasn’t even there. But he had ruined any chance of that. All because he’d climbed a tree a little too high, fallen, and now was stuck with this.
The crippled arm hung heavy against his chest in the homemade cast. It was something he’d learned in one of the books, something called a splint. However, having only one hand and the materials in his room to work with, it was a lot sloppier than the picture in the book had been. But with two sticks, thick paper, and some string, he’d managed to pull it together enough to support his damaged arm. Plus, the many hours he’d been stuck in his room had numbed it some.
He looked at the cast. With all the names crudely scribbled on, it looked like a grave yard. He had put them there himself, for his own sake. If he was going to have to leave, he wanted to remember his friends who’d gone before him.
Donna, she’d stayed out too late.
Ricky, he’d kept forgetting his chores.
Little Jim, he was too much of a stress and wasn’t healthy.
And then there was Emme.
Everyone said Dependents, like him and all his friends, didn’t really have life until they were Detached at puberty. It was said they couldn’t really feel or understand things yet. But if anyone had life it was Emme, and if there were any feeling to be felt, he knew he felt them.
Emme was the nicest, sweetest, kindest, most beautiful girl ever. Or at least, she was.
She had asked too many questions one night, when her mother had gotten home drunk.
But Emme was always like that, curious about everything. She’d been one of the first to figure out how to read. Then had been able to help the others, especially him.
Her mother owned a gun, so at least it was swift for her.
Sometimes he wondered where the kids went when they were Disposed. Can the un-alive die? He wondered, as his finger traced Emme’s name. He hoped he wouldn’t find out, but he had seen the look on Mother’s face when she’d seen his broken arm. He had seen that look before, when her career demanded she eliminate stress and focus on her wo
rk.
That stress happened to be his two-year-old sister.
She was on his cast too. Lucy the Cutie, that’s what he’d liked calling her.
Mother had that same look when she’d seen his arm that morning. But what scared him more was that it had stayed even as she’d left for work.
She would be back anytime now. He worried what she would say, what would happen next. Worried that his arm would never get a chance to heal.
He knew she needed rent, not to mention those shoes she’d had her eyes on, and he was already cutting in on expenses. He knew, he’d seen the bills.
If only he had been able to make it one more year. He was so close...
He heard footsteps. There was the clicking of heels, but also the stomping of serval pairs of boots. He froze, realizing Mother wasn’t alone.
His heart jumped in his throat as all his worst fears flashed before him. The rush of panic made him jump towards the window. But the sudden lurch sent a stab of pain through his broken arm. He bit his lip hard to stop himself from screaming and tasted blood in his mouth.
Tears filled his eyes and blurred his vision as he cradled his arm and looked frantically for an escape.
The footsteps were closer—he could hear voices. Something was happening to his head. He was suddenly hyper focused on analyzing the closet, the window, the door—looking for the best way out. Because all he could think about was running, escaping, not dying… staying alive.
But how can I die if I’m not alive? The thought cost him a precious few seconds, and by then it was too late. The footsteps stopped, keys jingled, and the doorknob turned.
Through the partly open door, Mother’s head poked in, a sweet smile on her face.
“There he is. Come on in gentleman,” she pushed the door open, and five burly man in white coats walked in. One of them was holding a brief case. Mother stayed outside.
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