Sins of the Fathers

The two women stumbled through the vines. Sweat poured, blood dripped from lashings by thorns and insect bites. Wiping the dirt and sap just smeared them into mud, mockingly like a pattern of camouflage fatigues. It coated the long red hair of Ava such that she looked brunette. Her locks had long ago gone from flowing to stagnant, Frankie, the woman with actual brunette hair, cropped short to above her ears to reduce the irritation of the humidity, slashed at the last of the groping tentacles and they burst out onto a field.

Massive fronds littered the field, heavy with assorted fruit of all varieties. Oranges, apples, peaches, they coated each frond, like ornaments on a tropical Christmas tree. “Finally!” Ava yelled, dumping her pack and skipping to the closest frond. “Wait don’t!” Frankie yelled. Ava rolled her eyes at her as she drew her Bowie knife from her hip sheath. “I’m not an idiot, checking it first.” She slashed the apple in half, revealing an inside as brown as the mud in her hair. “Damn,” Ava sighed disappointed, sniffing it, “this has more nicotine than a pack of smokes. Still, waste not, want not…” She ran two fingers lightly over the flesh and pressed them to her lips, miming inhaling a phantom cigarette. “Oh, I needed that” she exhaled, her pupils dilating to the size of a possum’s. “They’re getting stronger, a mouthful would probably kill you.” “May as well chase it with a drink” said Frankie, gesturing to the mounds of rotten fruit, the smell of alcohol stifling the air.

Too toxic to animals, the fruits fell and festered, providing nutrients to the next cursed crop. As a natural insecticide, nicotine had been one of the many genetic modifications added to other crops, but after the Season of Cyclones the seeds had dispersed globally, cross-pollinating and sharing their secrets with other plants.

Ava and Frankie looked past the obsolete orchard to their destination, a towering pyramidal steel building several kilometres away. Neighboured by buildings of crumbling concrete, the building was still in suspiciously good condition, barely rusted. Its angled windows glowed in the golden afternoon light, beckoning.

The two women slowed to a cautious pace as they reached the outskirts. The sinking sun threw long shadows from the remaining walls, which they slipped through. This place could be rife with traps, a welcome present hidden under any rubble. That is, if there was anyone still left here, or anything left to protect. There was no sign of light from the only intact building, despite the encroaching darkness. The small town was a graveyard of collapsed buildings. Some buildings only had one wall remaining, giant tombstones amongst the debris. The tower had survived through prophetic design. Unlike the ruined rectangular blocks surrounding it was a rectangular pyramid, with a flat roof. Fracking had been rife and unregulated in this region, Ava recalled. It was only a matter of time before the shakes began. Someone had expected this reckoning and constructed accordingly.

A sign hung outside the entrance to building, rusting on the edges:

‘Scion Dynamics: Nurturing the seeds of the future’

“Shall we knock?” Ava joked. “There’s probably a punji pit under the welcome mat, I’d hate for your hair to get any redder.” A voice crackled out of the intercom at the door, the female voice eerily calm and composed. “If we wanted to kill you, we would’ve done it a while ago, enter if you please.” The door buzzed, the women shrugged at each other and walked through.

Inside, the building blazed with fluorescent light. Thick curtains covered every window, hiding it. The ground floor was a reception area, with no visitors the chairs had been replaced with floating tanks of varying leafy vegetables, their roots trailing in the water as fish swam between them. “Hydroponics!” Ava whistled. The elevator light dinged and its doors opened. Frankie bowed to Ava and gestured mockingly “Destiny awaits, my rose”

The elevator opened onto the 21st floor and Ava and Frankie stepped out onto an equally brilliantly lit light. This floor was set up as if someone decided to combine a design studio with a laboratory. A dozen women in beige tunics worked over gleaming white benchtops, mixing test tubes while others lounged on futons next to Scandinavian wood coffee tables. Obviously designed to wow newcomer investors. They glanced up in unison, smiled, and went back to their work.

“Welcome to Scion”. The woman her platinum hair tied into a bun and her flowing white tunic giving her the illusion of gliding towards them. “Or as we like to call it, Zion” her serene smile projecting an aura of total calm. “I am Luna, the chief biologist here. And you are?”

“I’m Ava, and this is Frankie. I’m the daughter of Stephen Loche.” The woman’s eyes widened, her performance derailed. “One of our original pioneers! What a privilege. I should’ve recognised you from his portrait in the lobby. You have his fiery hair, hopefully not also his fiery temper,” chuckling. “Oh no, Frankie has enough for both of us.” Ava joked back. “Well let’s do this properly, I’m sure you’re exhausted. These women will escort you to the showers on the floor below if you’d like to clean off the outside world. There seems enough pollen on you to germinate another Turning.”

Ava finally turned off the shower, her skin as red as her hair. She was blissfully free of the mud. She fingered the warmed locket, shaped like a heart, around her neck, the one thing she had refused to take off. The escorts had said they were taking their items to be sterilised, and they were too exhausted to argue. Frankie had even seemed frail next to them. Guess protein isn’t lacking in their diet here, she mused. She changed into a pearl kimono and slippers left for her, smirking as she saw Frankie dressed in the same garb. “Talk about a fish out of water,” ducking a thrown slipper.

Frankie and Ava gulped down fresh coffee, pausing only to eat steaming bread, smearing it with a grey butter. Luna watched them in her default tranquil expression, she would seem a porcelain doll if not for her significantly tanned skin. “UV lights are on every floor” she had explained earlier, “Originally for our hydro farm, but raising the curtains every day is too Sisyphean, plus they take care of any stray bacteria.”

When Ava finally paused for breath, Luna seized on the moment. “So, what do we owe this honour?” “Ava reached into her kimono fold and pulled out her heart-shaped locket, yanking it off her neck. Opening it, she displayed the inside: a portrait of her mother. “Returning what he stole-” pressing a small latch inside the portrait swung open, revealing a small pile of seeds hidden behind. “Actual Genesis seeds, before the Turning ruined all the wild species. Male and females of all the primary crops.” “Carrying a tiny Ark on your breast this whole time!” Luna’s eyes gleamed. “My mother knew this would be the best place for them, with your resources.”

Luna nodded curtly, “she was right. You would’ve noticed our little farm downstairs. Hydroponics is currently the only way to avoid cross-pollination. Is it true the Genesis resist DNA alteration?” Ava nodded “CRISPR-modded.”

“You were of course welcome to stay here without this amazing gift. We are always welcome to another sister.”

“No brothers, I’ve noticed.” Frank said dryly.

“No, we used to have an open door to males too, but after a few… incidents, we had to change our policy.”

“You got rid of them?”

Luna’s allowed herself a smirk “Well, we kept one thing, we need a diverse gene pool if we’re to repopulate. My father was prescient enough to install IVF facilities here.”

“In case the males died out?”

“In case they survived, he studied enough downfalls of society to see what happens in a lack of rules. Come, I’d like to show you something.”

Luna led them into a darkly-lit lab. Mysterious tubes of blue liquid spun slowly on an elaborate carousel. “This is our most exciting program, a year ago we perfected synthesising male gametes from blood cells! The mitochondria for the foetus only ever come from the mother, now we have made sperm irrelevant! We like to call these our testes tubes.”

Ava was too fascinated to respond to the dark joke, entranced by the contraption.

“Just think, you can both bear each othe children, and they’ll be completely both your genes!”

“What if there’s a boy born? You cull them like roosters?” Frankie inquired.

“Heavens no. Lower temperatures usually produce females-”

“Usually?”

“-and keeping the eggs outside the womb and in an incubator during the initial period allows us to control this. Every foetus begins as a female anyway, saves us effort. A random male egg is merely disposed of before it matures. Welcome to the future ladies.”

Despite her exhaustion, Frankie lay awake in bed while Ava lay collapsed next to her, cuddling the pile of lab notes she had poured over until exhaustion took her. This was just too weird. Frankie was far from the biggest fan of men, she had the scars to remind her, but to exclude them completely? The relish in Luna’s tone had been too thick. She needed some air.

There had been a button on the elevator painted in red. Such a tantalising mystery had been gnawing at Frankie since she saw it. Everyone was asleep except for a few of the guards, and they were watching the outside, not inside. Frankie slipped into the elevator, pressed the button, and came out onto the forbidden floor.

Caution tape coated several lab doors, stating in no uncertain terms to not open them. Several were unmarked. Frankie went inside the door at the end of the corridor, red light seeping under the door. Large vats contained covered the benches, small animals floating in them. As she peered closer she realised: they weren’t animals, they were foetuses, unmistakably male.

“What did they say about curious cats?” Luna materialised at the doorway. “We used to keep this elevator locked to swipe card, but our sisters were too enthusiastic to see our progress, we thought we’d open it up. No secrets in our sorority”

“So you do birth and kill males.”

“These were deliberate, not a mistake. We had to find what made the Y-chromosome tick, so we could target it”

“Target?”

“Every woman here came to us bruised, broken, scared. Can you guess what their common factor was?”

Luna strolled to the closest vat, peering at the creature inside disdainfully.

“The age of mankind is over, they destroyed the earth. It is time for the age of womankind. We will start again without their mistakes, their ego, their violence. We were just waiting for the right omen, which came with you two. After we burn that mutated forest out there to the ground, we will sow your precious Genesis seeds, and a new age of peace and prosperity will begin. We will release the virus slowly, only eradicating the males once we have established our services in a region.”

Turning to Frankie, Luna’s eyes burned in the crimson light. “Some were… resistant to the idea. So, will you be one of the unfaithful, or will you choose life, a life with your beloved. We would cherish her genius here, but without you, well she probably would also lose faith in our crusade. Such a waste. Well?”

The bedroom door opened, the light waking Ava. Luna strolled through, “Sorry to wake you, I have some great news!” Ava looked at her puzzled, until Frankie strolled through after her, her face seeming ashen. “What?” Frankie looked at her, took a breath, and a smile slowly, stubbornly, planted on her face. “We decided I should bear our children first.”