The Breeders Page 3

  “The protestors are adamantly opposed to Queen Vincent’s efforts at human progress, voicing concerns that the new breeding laws passed in the last two years have already filled the Sanctuary beyond capacity, and the quality of life for illegal carriers and failsafes who have been deported with their offspring is dwindling. Some even claim the quality of life doesn’t exist at all.”

  The hologram cut to a red-haired, bearded man who was screaming at the camera in fanatical bursts.

  “There never was a Sanctuary, and they’re just killing the carriers ’n’ failsafes they bring down there! Vincent Metzer is a Satanist who wants nothing more than to rid the world of everything natural! It’s a conspiracy! God’s Army had it right during the Bio Wars! We need to fight the homosexuals!”

  Spit flew from the man’s mouth just before the hologram cut back to the reporter.

  “A conspiracy indeed, and boy, could he use a brow wax,” came the gaysian’s sum-up. “While myths concerning the Wilkes Land Sanctuary have been running amok since the Queen’s term was extended after the terrorist attacks in Salzburg three years ago, this demonstration is a first for the territory of New Zealand, the gateway through which illegal breeders travel before final departure for Antarctica. For the past seventy-six years, despite the significant political polarization it has inspired, the Sanctuary has been a stimulus for the territory, whose economy previously relied solely on tourism, hetero pornography, and exports. Now, both Sanctuary staff and future residents pass through the country, providing an ample backbone for the local economy. But contrary to what these protestors are arguing, the number of reproductive criminals has been reduced significantly since Queen Vincent passed Mandate 42 two years ago. From Christchurch, this is Erik Milam with WorldCom.”

  The gaysian disappeared, but his report triggered an entirely new brand of alarm in Dex. After nearly a century, it seemed the Sanctuary’s original purpose was starting to fizzle. What frightened him most was that it did not come as a surprise. On three occasions since Diana’s disappearance, he had woken in the dead of night to the drumming of fists on doors and harsh but muffled male voices—the Bio Police, making their rounds. If they had begun arresting and disposing of innocent heterosexuals, it was still happening in the shadows.

  Maybe Diana knew something I didn’t, Dex thought. Maybe she’d want me to disappear, too.

  A line of preschool children, tethered by a rainbow-colored leash and led by two smiling and flamboyant teachers, passed him as he reached the corner of West Grant Street. He took the opportunity to glance back down Spruce Place to see if the police car was rolling behind him. But no, it was gone already, which suggested an even worse life development:

  The Bio Police officer had been there because of him. For whatever reason, he was now under their scope.

  CHAPTER 5 (HER)

  BY SUNDAY EVENING, thinking ahead became Grace’s only option.

  Dinner with the family was a weekly tradition, despite simmering tension over value differences regarding the Queen’s looming agenda. Grace had become the unacknowledged elephant in the room over the past thirteen years, since everybody (though they never mentioned it) had realized her place in society was slipping through the cracks. It would come soon now, considering both her bleeding and Mandate 43: a reckoning, a fight to save her—or let social progress snuff her out.

  Her thirty-two-year-old brother Abraham, now once divorced, once widowered, and sporting a pale, eleven-year-old son named Lars, was bringing his new boyfriend Daryl to dinner. Lars had taken a liking to Daryl, a copywriter, snobby as they came, who worked for the Bureau of Sexual Progress. Abraham claimed Lars liked Daryl more than he himself did but that it was good for the boy to have a second father figure in his life. Grace knew her brother better than that, however. Daryl filled a psychological gap for him. Abraham did not enjoy being alone.

  With a creepy son like Lars, I can’t blame him, Grace thought.

  She walked out of the guest house, past the pool, and up the brick sidewalk toward the patio. The crabapple trees—her dad’s favorite—arched over her, gliding behind with each step. Stuart Jarvis had a passion for tending gardens, and during summer, this one was a spectacle to behold. Now, it was barren of color, swallowed by the growing cold of autumn. Grace slowed to savor each step as she realized the plants might never again bloom in her presence, if banishment truly was a risk she now faced.

  During dinner, the bleeding happened just after Abraham had taken a scoffing Daryl into the kitchen to slice dessert (Daryl had deemed the fruit torte too fattening, to Stuart’s face). Lars, who was sitting with his usual shrewd expression across from Grace, was wearing a subtle but unmistakable grin.

  “You like fruit torte, don’t you Lars?” Stuart said.

  “I agree with Daryl,” the boy said. “Too fattening.”

  “You could use some meat on those bones,” Stuart muttered, ignoring the warning eye from his husband.

  Grace decided to inject some neutrality into the conversation. “I’m going to go wash my hands. Got some olive oil on them.”

  She stood up, turned, and started walking. Suddenly, Stuart whispered, “Oh, my God, honey.”

  Blood had soaked through the rear of her brand-new skirt and smeared on the plush dining room chair seat. Dark red, no mistaking it. There had been no pain to warn her, and her latest stuffing of sanitary wipes had failed.

  “James, give me that extra napkin!” Whispers, all whispers, because of Daryl. On the other side of the table, Lars was staring, calculating.

  “Honey, she’s bleeding! Give me that napkin!” Stuart hissed at his husband. James’s eyes widened in confusion, and he grabbed the extra napkin. Stuart slammed it onto the chair, then jumped up and rubbed it into the seat’s fabric. He pointed a sharp finger at James, but his eyes were flicking in a concerned manner toward Lars. “Grace cut herself on the steak knife, and it got on the chair. We have to go look at it. Keep that blood covered, and cancel dessert. Too fattening after all. Honey, if you question me on this, I’ll regret I ever took your name.”

  James nodded, but there was a nagging disapproval in his expression, just as there had been in the hospital, the night Grace had been attacked by the Dyke Patrol. She caught a glimpse of it just as Stuart ushered her out of the room, blocking the view of her skirt from Lars.

  “She wasn’t using a knife,” Grace heard her nephew say.

  THEY WERE RUSHING down the hall, toward the bathroom.

  “I don’t know, Dad, I don’t know, I didn’t want to tell anybody—”

  “When? When did it start?”

  “Four days ago, only a couple times, but it hurt—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I’m a doctor, for God’s sake! You’re sure it’s been bleeding from your vagina? Like menstruation? Christ, that isn’t even possible.”

  But they both knew it could be.

  He slammed on the bathroom lights, opened the toilet, and forced her down. Grace’s breaths were sharp, her tears running with fear and humiliation. “But Daryl! He’s here! What if he sees? Lars already knows I didn’t cut myself on the knife! I could have made up something else!”

  “What, an anal fissure?” Stuart growled, not out of anger but out of absolute concern. “Actually, that could work. Say you were experimenting with regular sex and it got a bit rough. I can cover Lars. I’ll tell him I made the knife excuse so you wouldn’t be embarrassed.”

  “But will Daryl buy that? Fissures wouldn’t make me bleed like that, would they?”

  “He doesn’t have to see the blood, and neither does Abraham. Christ, Grace, this is just the type of thing that’ll give the Queen an excuse to start his genocide!”

  It was the first time either of them had used that word about the Queen’s agenda.

  Stuart put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. For some reason, Grace’s gaze was glued on his wedding ring as it moved toward her. “Now, let me ask you, and be totally honest with me! I won’t judge you, even thoug
h it would make no sense since Metzer is about to pass Mandate 43, but have you been menstruating? Did you get the gene switch procedure to become a carrier?”

  Grace buried her face in her hands, too frightened to shake her head. Her dad gaped at her, wide-eyed.

  “Did you get the procedure? Honey, it’s okay if you did! Just tell me so I can know how to go about this—”

  “No!” Grace choked back a sob. “No, I didn’t get the gene switch! I just started bleeding!” Now, a stab of pain in her abdomen made her wince and double over.

  Stuart caught her. “Jesus Christ,” came his whisper.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “Morning sickness?”

  “I was throwing up for a while in the morning.”

  “What, Grace? Did you think it was a disease? Diseases don’t happen anymore! What did you think it was?”

  “I didn’t want to think!”

  She hoped her father had followed through as inconspicuously as possible and kicked Abraham, Lars, and Daryl out for the night. Even if it worked, they would still wonder what happened to her, and she would be lucky if Lars had not already piped up that smart little voice of his.

  No, this definitely wasn’t menstrual bleeding, Stuart told her, but—here came the shock—it might not be a miscarriage either. It very well could be, but unless this was something other than a pregnancy, it was possible the baby was still alive.

  “In the olden days, you’d have been in the hospital right away. I’m no expert in bioengineering, but I know the basics. I’ve had pregnant carriers visit my clinic before.”

  “Like Bonnie Henderson.”

  “Yes, like Bonnie Henderson. She had bleeding when she was carrying for Bill and Don, and it actually was quite heavy. Her engineer was the primary caregiver, but I saw her file. A number of things can cause bleeding. In her case, it was a partially detached placenta. That’s the part that connects the baby—”

  “To the carrier. I know.”

  “In any case, I’ll have to examine you at the office. We’ll say it’s just a routine checkup for non-pathogenic abnormalities, because you’ve been having headaches.”

  It was embarrassing to hear her dad’s questions. Had there been any signs other than morning sickness? On what occasion was it likely she had conceived? Could there be more than one possibility? Had she ever taken any strange drugs?

  And then the answers: yes, apart from the morning sickness, there had also been fatigue on and off. (“Classic symptoms of pregnancy,” her dad muttered as he checked her pulse.) It could only have happened that one night during the orgy, with Salt and Pepper. And the drugs? No, they had been standard, as far as Grace knew. Just typical party drugs that would not cause unpredictable genetic problems. Virus-based mutating solutions came in syringes; there had been no syringes, and even so, no street drug could perform the zinc finger switch that activated a female’s ovarian Lrh1 genes. That happened with vectors, Stuart explained, altered viruses that carried genes engineered to produce the zinc finger proteins. These then bound to DNA in a woman’s ovaries to activate the Lrh1 gene responsible for ovulation. The process was extremely complex, nothing a woman could instigate on her own.

  Breathe, Grace. Breathe, Dad.

  But this was quite the quandary.

  The Lrh1 gene switch could happen only once in a woman. It was a one-way procedure to trigger fertility in a heterosterile. Geneticists had yet to find a way to reverse fertility after gene switches, because the DNA manipulation it required always caused severe or deadly mutations. Furthermore, it would be impossible to pass her off as a carrier in any official sense, because the TruthChip identification plate in her wrist was clear. Grace Emilia Jarvis was registered as heterosterile, and only an unforeseen genetic mutation or a zinc finger switch could have made her otherwise. If she had somehow been born a genetic mistake, the option of illegally switching her from fertile to sterile was also riddled with obstacles. As a general practitioner, Stuart Jarvis was not qualified to authorize experimental gene switches, even when they were legal. As a genetipsychologist, however, his husband James was.

  “But even if your father could authorize an experimental procedure like that,” Stuart said, “the decision would have to go through a hundred different people, both at the clinic and in the local and intercontinental branches of the NRO. They’d know you were a genetic mistake, and you’d be banished. I don’t know how long we can hide this!”

  Grace had seen her dad panic only once, the night of her attack. To see it again was unnerving.

  “What about tampons or pads, those things carriers use?” she asked, feeling sick with worry. “Is there any way for me to get them? If I did miscarry, doesn’t it mean I might start menstruating all the time, like a carrier?”

  “Once a month, give or take. And tampons and pads are only sold under strict supervision by the BGR, and you, my dear, won’t have the proper identification to receive those from any clinic.”

  “Your clinic, though? Do you have access to them? Does Father?”

  “Neither of us would. It’s not part of my Wellness Care Jurisdiction, and your father doesn’t have clearance to prescribe them to carriers. He just . . . picks their brains to make sure they’re good candidates. Besides, each pad or tampon package is tracked by the Bureau, so it’d leave a trail of red tape. Damn it, Grace!”

  “I didn’t try! I didn’t know, Daddy!”

  But he had not meant it as a scolding. A moment later, he grabbed her into a hug and whispered, “Well, you can always keep using sanitary wipes.”

  Grace chuckled, burying her face into his slippery silk shirt. “You’re not going to turn me in?”

  Stuart Jarvis squeezed his daughter extra hard. “Not on your life, Pix. But we need to find you help, and fast.”

  He let her go and began pacing back and forth. Grace sat back on the toilet, then folded her hands and looked down at the limestone floor tiles. It was a creeping mixture of uncontrollable selfishness and lonely dread that brought Salt and Pepper’s face to mind.

  “If it really is a pregnancy, should I try to find the father?” she whispered.

  Stuart stopped. He looked at her with a wary expression. “Would you really want to put a failsafe in that sort of danger?”

  What frightened Grace most, right then on the toilet, was that, for this all-important question, she had no immediate answer.

  A MEMORY (HIM)

  THE WORLD IS AN EASY PLACE for little Dexter, because all he has to worry about is what and who he’ll play with on any given day. He loves the sun, and he loves it even more when his mothers take him to the community center in Nowthen. It has a bright and shallow pool with a large, mushroom-shaped umbrella where water rains down onto him and the other children.

  Today, his parents have him in the women’s locker room, and they are changing into their swim-suits. His mother Karen is fixing her hair and checking messages on her com with a frown. As always, something is making her feel to Dexter like a rainy day. His mom Roberta is busy socializing with Susan and Jessica Claiborne, both of whom are naked and drawing Dexter’s three-year-old eyes.

  “He’s getting so big!” Susan says, beaming down at Dexter, who hides behind Roberta, neither confused by the fact nor noticing that he is watching the spot between Susan’s legs, where it looks different from his own and there is hair. It pleases him, somehow.

  Her boy Tommy smacks Dexter on the head.

  “Tag, you’re it!” he screams, but Dexter doesn’t understand the game, so tears form in his eyes.

  “Tommy, play nice!” Susan says. “Go find your brother!”

  There’s something about all of this that makes Dexter want to keep hiding. Susan leans down, and her breasts tumble into his face. She is oblivious that Dexter is for some reason noticing them. “Honey, are you okay? Don’t mind Tommy. He’s not as well behaved as you are!”

  She has made it all okay. The swat on his head is forgotten.

  Tommy’s other
mother Jessica is just as beautiful as Susan. Red hair falls over her face in a way that sends a warm feeling through Dexter. The woman smiles, but he can tell (the way he can with his mother Karen) that it isn’t the same kind of smile his mom and Susan have.

  Jessica says, “I still can’t believe you guys let him be a surprise. Doesn’t it make you nervous?”

  An ant on the floor catches Dexter’s eye, and he runs from his mom’s side and follows it down the length of the changing bench. He passes his mother Karen just in time to see her look up at Jessica and let out a sigh, the same one she does when she has helped him build a tower of building blocks, and he knocks it over on purpose.

  His mom Roberta, however, looks at Jessica and stands a bit higher. “I’m being optimistic,” she says. “Call me a dreamer, but I think the world was better off when things like who a child was going to be could be a surprise.”

  “Yeah, but won’t that do a number on his mind, once he gets older? Finding out he’s only here to be . . . a backup plan?”

  The ant has disappeared. Dexter listens to the conversation, but it is made of grownup words, so he settles next to the bench, watching a group of older boys by the door who are waiting in uniform patience for their mothers. Some of them are touching each other’s swimming suits and giggling. All Dexter can think of are the pool sounds and bright sparkles coming through the door, and he wants his mothers to hurry up, because it is sunny and hot outside, and the cool water awaits.

  CHAPTER 6 (HIM)

  “IT’S THOSE FUCKING FAGGOT MEN,” Fletch drunkenly spouted to Dex before taking another sip of whiskey. He had bags under his eyes and, for the first time since Dex had known him, smelled slightly of body odor. “Men have always had the upper hand of power, but since the homo ones took over the world, mothers like yours had to get the short end of the stick! First they engineered bisexuals and trannies right out of society, then they cut out almost all the heteros, and now they’re going after females! The whole lot of them! How the fuck do they expect humanity to survive?”