Herstory

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. Well, it had been his room... once. It was hers now - the whole empty, echoing house was hers - and his face was getting blurry around the edges in her memory. She was beginning to forget what he looked like. Not just him, but all of them. And it was like losing a piece of herself.

Perhaps that was why Lori had signed up. She didn't quite have hope anymore. Not after the carnage she'd seen. But she had some hope for the future nonetheless.

Now, Lori had received a notification that the event would take place on the first of May. She’d read somewhere that the term May Day was from the French m’aider—help me—but wasn’t sure if that was true or another fiction from before the revolution.

May Day gave her a week to finish preparing, but she couldn’t think of anything else she needed to do. The furniture was already in place, the bedding and clothing washed and stacked in neat rows in the drawers next to the crib. Everything sat shining and new in her spare bedroom, now painted a soft, pale pink.

A sharp cramp rippled down her spine—she’d received a packet of pills each month that was supposed to mask the symptoms of pregnancy and help eliminate possible defects, but each month she furtively washed the pills down the lavatory. She knew that if they found out, her name would be put on a list for readjustment. She’d have to go to counseling for hours on end and watch video after video about the revolution. The thought of seeing those events again, even secondhand, was enough to give her nightmares.

She’d lived through the horror of revolution, and while she’d never been assigned to cleanup detail, no one alive could have avoided seeing the aftermath of the engineered, airborne virus. The bodies just lying on the street or trapped in stationary cars and locked houses, waiting for burial. The haunting smell of rotted discards . . .

Only one fact had allowed her to avoid the grisly service of cleaning up the streets. She’d been one of many in counseling, one of the masses who had not even seen the revolution coming. Others like her had been grouped into readjustment classes in the initial effort to consolidate Onenation and move forward from an inescapable past.

Lori had been too scared to say anything but “yes” back then to the questions she was asked, her eyes blinded by the countless bodies on the streets.

Unfortunately, her neighbor Isabelle was more vocal. Whenever they didn’t stopper Izzy’s mouth, she screamed about her murdered children and the killers of her spouse. But Isabelle had vanished from the counseling center after just two weeks of treatment. Lori hadn’t asked why, hadn’t asked after her neighbor.

Had never seen her again.

So Lori could picture in great detail what would happen if she were caught. The steps they would take if she protested. What might happen to her baby if she failed the tests.

“Don’t you want what’s best for your baby? Best for Onenation?”

This pain she felt from not taking the pills was a defiance, a personal secret she held tightly to herself. It was the only part of this process that seemed uniquely hers. Everything else was heavily regulated. There were even words she wasn’t allowed to say in the baby’s hearing—words from before the revolution.

Patriarchy. Boy. Man.

Husband.

To be fair, they’d warned her about the rigor of the procedure when they’d contacted her as a likely candidate. Her appearance and medical history was deemed satisfactory—no flaws, no blemishes, no history of cancer or heart disease. A perfect record.

The interviewers had stressed the honor of being chosen, and how it would impact her future job evaluations. That she’d get an extra day of unmonitored vacation added to her allotment each year, as long as the child thrived.

When she’d even hesitated at that bribe, the lead interviewer dropped her voice half an octave. “You don’t want to be seen as a sympathizer, do you?”

So she’d signed up. Lori hadn’t expected that in this aspect of her compliance, even her body wouldn’t belong to her anymore—instead, she was constantly monitored. The pills were the least of it. Each day, a set amount of exercise and a fixed diet. Any deviance would set off the alarms, and she’d be cautioned to adhere to the guidelines. All to protect the baby.

Although she’d heard horror stories about childbirth from twenty years ago—blood, ruptured parts, death—they didn’t seem quite real, didn’t seem immediate. Those things didn’t happen anymore, and the stricture of the government’s demands seemed excessive.

But, then again, a lot of things didn’t happen anymore. Life was peaceful, even if sometimes she felt there was a space waiting to be filled. She remembered her father, her grandfather, her uncles—not everyone did, but she was old enough to remember them. Her two housemates, twenty and twenty-two respectively, were only babies when the revolution took place. But she was in her mid-thirties now, and she had grown up in the old regime. No matter how hard they tried, her memories couldn’t be erased.

Since she’d become pregnant, she’d recently become wistful about doctors. Sometimes she wished for more than a blank screen looking back at her at the end of each checkup. From her childhood, she remembered lollipops given by Betty, the receptionist, and Dr. Henry with his solemn handshake at the end of each visit, the gentle gesture making her feel very grown up. The machines replaced doctors just a year or so after the revolution. Now, the process was safe, flawless. But it didn’t stop her from dreaming for something she couldn’t put a name to.

May Day morning dawned, and she left her apartment and walked towards the center of town. Electric trolleys hummed along the rails, but she much preferred stretching her own legs, even if her swollen ankles slowed her down. She exchanged awkward “Good mornings” with the few women out and about on the street, trying not to notice their eyes resting on her protruding stomach. Lori didn’t want to see envy, and she was afraid to see the same ambivalence she felt on someone else’s face.

If she did see someone who was conflicted, like her, would it change anything at all?

Women who aren’t behind Onenation cause Onenation to fall behind. The motto plastered on every government building—Lori could salute that phrase in her sleep.

From far away, she could see other rounded figures converging on the main road from side streets and pointing unerringly north. A bus passed by, and the women in it looked down at her as she made her slow, shambling progress forward. Some of these women on the bus were headed to the hospital, she guessed. They had passed Onenation’s tests, just like she had.

When Lori reached the hospital entrance, dozens of women were ahead of her, more quickly queuing up behind. They proceeded down the hall, and their footsteps echoed in the cheerfully bright corridor plastered with colorful posters. Lori saw the familiar government logo on half a dozen of the hangings: Women who aren’t behind Onenation cause Onenation to fall behind. Their slippered feet whispered across the tiles of the corridor with the shushing sound of rain falling on leaves.

At the end of the hall was a kiosk guarding a closed set of doors. Each woman stopped, punched in their identity code, and the machine spat out a plastic bracelet with a barcode. The woman would slip it on her wrist, wave the barcode at the door, and it would open to admit her.

Lori followed procedure, and passed through the door into a large room that looked like an airline hanger. But instead of airplanes, it held rows and rows of padded tables with stirrups already extended in anticipation. Below the stirrups was a rounded tray, almost like a punch bowl, only three or four times the size and tilted slightly towards the head of each table. Each tray was padded with towels and blankets.

Lori hadn’t realized there were so many of them who had volunteered for this next step in Onenation’s progress. She pictured a few years in the future, her child reading about this in a lesson book and being proud of her mother for being a part of it.

The thought was humbling. The ambivalence she felt—had been feeling for months—eased slightly. She recalled the slight anticipation she’d had when signing up for the procedure, the hope for the future of Onenation. She felt tinged by the same emotion as she followed the line of women, walked nearly to the end of a middle row, and stopped at a table.

Nothing personalized the contraption where she would give birth. She glanced left and right and saw the other women were paying no attention to her. Side by side, they were sitting down on their tables and wriggling out of pants, skirts, dresses. The woman five spots up already had her blouse rucked up to her breasts and had lifted her legs into the stirrups, waiting.

Lori looked away, sat down on the table, and pulled down her pants and underwear. It felt odd, being exposed in such a large space. She lay down and stared up at the ceiling, her legs propped up like the other women, and thought about the weight of history that had led them to this point.

A robot trundled up, toting a plastic box of filled syringes. Lori watched as it scanned the bracelet of the woman next to her, gripped her arm with one pincer, and efficiently administered a shot in the crook of her elbow. A second robot followed behind, collecting the waste into a biohazard box as the first robot moved towards Lori’s table. Before it was Lori’s turn, she heard a faint wail and turned her head. The first woman of her row was already holding a baby.

So fast, she thought, and tensed for the needle.

The sting of contact was followed by a wave of pressure as her water broke. The pressure continued, followed by an infant arriving with efficient timing. The baby rocked gently into the waiting tray, and Lori quickly bent over to give her a quick swipe clean with the waiting towels. The baby began to cry as Lori wrapped her in a blanket.

Lori stared down, entranced at the waving hands, the screwed-up eyes, and open mouth. Smiling, she ran a hand down the girl’s soft, fat cheek, as another series of robots came by to assist in cleaning up the afterbirth. But she paid them no attention—all her focus was on the little girl, the one who was hers. Taken from her genes, a perfect clone of what the government deemed a suitable candidate.

But, like the secret pain she had cherished, this girl was hers. Not theirs.

“Bracelet?”

Lori looked up. She hadn’t been expecting a voice, not after the wordless dance of the mechanical assistants. It was a woman wearing the bright yellow uniform of government special services. Lori automatically held out her wrist for scanning, protectively cradling her baby in her other arm.

The officer gave a brisk nod as she read the results of Lori’s scan. “Please place the infant back in the tray for inspection,” she said.

“Inspection?” But then Lori snapped to attention. This final detail had been in the notification packet. “Oh, yes.” She placed the baby in the tray.

The officer flipped open the wrapping covering her baby, and Lori bit her lip at the roughness of the gesture. She couldn’t help her abortive reaching out as the officer grabbed the baby’s legs in one hand and half-lifted her off the tray. The baby’s face turned red with the intensity of her crying as the officer flipped her over to inspect her back.

Finally, the woman shook her head and wrapped up the infant again. Lori reached out in anticipation, but instead the officer picked up her baby and turned away. It was at that moment Lori saw the robotic cart waiting just behind her.

“What . . . what are you doing?” Lori asked as the officer wedged her baby in between two other newborns, both screaming. The cart must have been holding a dozen, with room for perhaps half a dozen more.

“Defective,” the officer said. She glanced up over her scanner. “It happens sometimes, despite the testing and the medications. We calculated a point four percent fail rate.”

“Defective?” Lori shook her head. “No. No, she was perfect.” Her vision pitched sideways, as if she were drunk. Her arms were still outstretched to receive her baby, but she couldn’t feel them anymore.

“Get dressed,” the officer said coldly. Then, as an afterthought, “Thank you for your service.” She turned to go to the next bed.

“No,” Lori whispered, horrified. She tried to stand, but her legs failed, and she sprawled on the pavement. Her hands left bloody imprints as they slapped down to stop her fall, and the shock of the impact sent flashes of pain up her shoulders and into her skull. “No! Please, give me my baby.”

Lori heard it, then—the other mothers calling out, their voices echoing in the cavernous room. Just like her.

“Please—you can’t!”

“My baby!”

“Give her back!”

Their voices were weak with surprise and horror, like hers had been.

Lori drew in a deep breath. She released it with all the strength left in her, all the suppression she’d undergone since the revolution, all the times she had closed her mouth, bitten her lip, and turned away. Years of pain and loss found voice, and she screamed, “Help me!”

The mothers who had passed this final test by Onenation were carrying their babies out the door, but one or two turned back at Lori’s raw cry. They saw her, saw what had happened to her, and their eyes slid past her desperation. Hands clutched at their bundles. The fertility shuttles would soon be carrying these mothers home with their babies, the ones without defect. The girls who were unblemished, like their mothers.

After the clinically efficient robots during the birthing process, the human attendants who came at Lori’s cry were unwelcome. When she wouldn’t stand, they hauled her up by each arm. When she wouldn’t walk, they pulled at her until she had no choice but to follow.

Lori glanced back over her shoulder one last time as they dragged her through a door that led farther into the hospital complex. She had made her final protest. It had failed, and she doubted she would ever pass back to the other side.

At the far door where they had first come in, Lori’s last glimpse of the room was of the mothers leaving. Each of them cradled in their arms the new generation of Onenation—hundreds of babies born that morning. Girls identical in almost every way. Girls who were fatherless . . . and perfect.