The Advancements

We all have them. Tattoos on our thumbs. No one has ever figured out the codes; dashes and dots. But we suspect its on our thumbs not only for identification, but it details what we are ‘allowed’ to do, according to the new legislature. Plus, makes it nearly impossible to replicate. They are much smarter than us, that’s for sure.

“Children. We can’t call them that anymore, can we?” asked Tim, my husband, for this year. He is angry. He tries every single day to understand. Ok, at least every day that I've known him. Tim is tall and slender with dirty blonde hair and has an IQ of 180, or so he says. He was a quantum physicist at Z, the Marsshot factory. He worked on break through innovations, he was brilliant. Now, he works in a lab, in a no name company. Everything is ‘no name’. There are just buildings with letters on them. I suppose they put a letter so the dumb adults could find where to go. There is no government, like we had before. I’m not sure he even knows what he does. They just disclose what they want done on a weekly basis. The workers do not get more information than needed for the moment. To them, his intelligence is subpar, so his questions are left unanswered. I suppose that contributes to his daily anger fits. He, like most of us, is required to get a certain amount of exercise, mental stimulation (his work), and sleep, so his body is at optimum function. They control what we eat and drink. There are no herbs or vitamins, just the 'non-everything' diet. It usually tastes like plain rice cakes but its supposedly packed with all necessary nutrients, and it’s plant based. Again, who knows. They need his sperm to be healthy they say. All efforts go towards procreating with the exact genetics they choose.

“I don’t get it. If they are so smart, and I know they are, why can’t they figure out how to get the DNA sequencing or whatever they need correct and in a petri dish instead of using us to make more babies. It just doesn’t add up.” None of it adds up. Tim doesn’t realize that. They are highly intelligent. I’m not sure we can try to rationalize what the agenda is with our tiny adult brains. I never answer anymore. We have been together 6 months, and, in the beginning, we were all trying to figure out how this happened and so quickly. Seems inhuman almost. We are basically baby machines. They do need some of us to work in factories or labs. They are making strides in science and technology quicker than our adult scientists ever could. They need us to do menial tasks and make love naturally. I don’t understand it yet. Why making babies, creating new life is basically the only thing they want done naturally. All I can see is that they want to control all the continents and grow more in intellect alone. Knowledge is like a drug to them. I wonder what will happen once they grow up.

It feels like a dream still. I remember when it first started. Chaos. At that time, I wanted so badly to have a child. I would have done anything. All the talks about the problems with the environment, food shortages, child vaccines, conspiracy theories regarding the government trying to make people infertile and no one saw this coming. We laughed it off, my husband and me. “Things like that are conspiracy theories and will never happen” he would say. My husband, my real husband, the one I chose, was amazing. Craig was the kindest, gentlest soul who could make you pee your pants laughing and at the same time make the butterflies in your stomach flutter. We were rudely told by an 8-year-old, that we were not fitted for the best genetic outcome, and I was ripped out of his arms by the brut force of the Advancements security team. That’s what they call themselves, The Advancements.

We noticed the change in our friends’ children and in my niece and nephew, early on. They drastically grew in intellect with the vaccines. We assumed the vaccines were the normal ones we all had as children. Somehow the new batches did something. They changed the structure of their DNA somehow; made them recall information, rationalize, and deduce complex situations way more advanced than anything we’d seen. These children absorbed everything, then sought out more knowledge online, in libraries, in universities. I just couldn’t figure it out. It happened so quickly. At 2 years old, my husband’s niece had an IQ of 155. I mean… everyone thought the doctors, scientists, psychologists, and labs were all making mistakes. All the children given their regular childhood doses started becoming intellectual machines, essentially, superhuman. Soon they began taking over government facilities, tech companies, universities, Congress, and the Senate. Washington was overrun first with multiple large cities following. Its like they would telepathically communicate with one another. Some adults thought they were being smart and offered to help with the Advancements agenda, whatever that would prove to be. Those became brut force, the security. After all, these were still little children, in little growing bodies and they needed some protection.

I never saw my husband Craig again. That was 5 years ago. I heard he had issues with the female they placed him with. I’m not sure he’s even still alive. Craig was always standing up for people’s rights. I don’t think about it. I can’t. I have had 2 children since then. They were taken the second they were born. I didn’t hold or see my children. I was never given the chance to bond, or breast feed them. I was transferred to a new ‘husband’ after each child. They just want to use the genetic combination. All the adults had genetic testing done in the beginning. It just still seems off. Country after country leaders were forced to step down. No one could believe children as young as 2 were taking over. It started in the US and then spread to Canada and then Europe. The day they separated my husband and I, they took everything from me. My clothes, my art, my jewelry. The heart-shaped locket my husband bought me had his picture on one side, and the other side was left blank. We were trying and he was certain we would make a baby soon. The 8-year-old child, a boy, stood before me, asking for the locket to be handed over. He seemed like one of the leaders. Although, they never called themselves that. They say there are no rankings. They are all the same. The tears just kept rolling down my face as I tried to plead with an 8-year-old child to please remember the love he had for his own mother. It’s a piece of memory from my husband I was so desperately trying to hold on to. “Love cannot help feed all people, it cannot help build ships designed for space travel, it cannot fix our environment, the oceans or lakes, you have all tried and failed. There is no place for love now, only science. Therefore, adults no longer work. There are too many memories, too many attachments, it doesn’t work!” His little voice roared. Just as I put my hands to the back of my neck to unhook the heart locket that was so dear to me, he grabbed it, tore it from my neck, threw it on the ground and stomped on it. The other children, Advancements, all stood behind him and cheered. I remember thinking to myself how I loved hearing the sounds of children, screaming and laughing and playing. That once brought so much joy to my heart. Now that was gone too. There was nothing left to hold on to.

“You can’t kill yourself, you know,” mumbled Tim. He knows me well enough that when he sees my eyes glaze over, he knows I’m remembering, and that I am not sure how I can be anything anymore. The children have taken everything from me, from everyone. “We aren’t just science experiments you know. Those little monsters need us,” he screeched. Anger does not help. Tim thinks it does. No, I won’t check out. My ovaries can’t check out. The tattoos are encoded in us. Somehow one way or another, some adults are trying to figure it out. Tim doesn’t know I belong to the Agers. They are a resistance group that came to me approximately 6 months ago, just as Tim was assigned to be my new husband. The Agers are led by a group of pre-teen children (twelve-year-olds) that somehow do not believe in the Advancements ways of conduct. They are working with adults underground and I was asked to join. Tim isn’t aware because I’m pretty sure he is an ally for the Advancements and is here to spy on me. I have a meeting tonight and Tim is suspicious. It is my weekly knitting circle, and he is starting to ask more questions.

“I’ll be back by curfew Tim.” I yell as I grab my knitting bag. “I’ll walk you out.” Tim was suddenly right behind me. “Jeez, where did you pop out of? Weren’t you just in the basement?” I asked slightly annoyed. “Yeah, but I need air.” He smiled and instantly reminded me of the cat that ate the canary. Was I going to be the canary? He walked me out and starred while I unlocked my bicycle. “Okay, bye” I scurried off and looked back. Tim seemed almost amused, seemingly happy. Tim is never happy. Oh well. I couldn’t concentrate on him. I was to meet the head of the resistance tonight to learn my part in our mission to overthrow the children.

I walked into a trap. Tim was in the basement of the church, where we held meetings during knitting circle. I was immediately put in zip ties, just as all the other women in our circle. “You seriously think the Advancements don’t suspect a resistance?” I know that voice. Tears roll down my face as he steps out from behind Tim and his stupid grin.

“Craig?”