BREEDERS

Chapter 11

It was a cold walk home. The usual apprehension I would feel when walking the streets were clouded by the inexplicable rage I had within me. My mother was part of this mess. Something wasn't adding up. If Franky wanted her dead, she would be. If he wanted to throw her to P.I.P he could, and he's proven that. He took it all out on Sam instead.

That wasn't to say that my mom was untouchable by Franky, because she most certainly was. All this time I thought she was scared of Franky killing her, but I think I was wrong. I think she was afraid of Franky for other reasons.

I reached our apartment door and pressed my ear up against it. Silence. Cautiously I went through, catching my mom shoveling through some papers at her makeshift desk.

"Salice, you're home," she observed nonchalantly.

"And you're a lying bitch," I shot back. She looked up to me then, stone faced as ever, a proper welt on her lip as if she had been bitten. She waited.

"Tell me. Tell me right now why Franky would think you could ever get your hands on birth control. Tell me why do you have a platinum card? Tell me why instead of coming after you, they went after Sammy instead. Don't give me some crap about you not knowing anything."

"Sit down," she demanded gently. I was in no mood to do anything she asked but I did so anyway, just further than I knew she would have liked.

"Franky had asked me for help many years ago, for Darkside. The girls there that were getting pregnant were also getting killed, and sometimes the kids would end up getting killed, or at The Market." She ran a hand down her face and sighed.

"Why would he think you could help him with that?" I asked.

"Because one of the clients who would come to spend time with me back then had access to shit like that. Franky found out- eyes and ears everywhere- and he exploited it for a bit. It wouldn't do any good for tons of unregistered kids to be on Market- supply and demand. If you have more products to go around then the less valuable it is. And I owed him."

"So you had your... client give you the drugs..." I voiced it aloud. She nodded but winced, as if she expected the next question.

"Who were they?" I asked. She visibly flinched and nervously ran her hands back and forth on her pants.

"You have to understand. I was young. It wasn't ideal. In fact- I could have gotten killed-"

"Who?" I asked sharply. Was it someone I knew?

"Your father," she breathed out.

It was like the world went dark and I became deaf and blind all at once. "Wha-" I started and stopped, feeling the remnants of childhood stuttering on the tip of my tongue. "My- father? Wha-how? I thought you said the program made it anonymous? You know who my donor is?"

"You weren't a product of the program. Just two people- the old fashioned way. I got pregnant the same time I was starting up in the program. Your father and I met a handful of times and then you just happened." Her eyes darted every which way, avoiding mine like the plague.

"I'm a Market baby?" I whispered, horrified.

"Yes and no," she answered glumly.

Everything Sam had said suddenly fit into place and I was staring at my mother, really seeing her for the first time. A mix of awe at her resilience and cleverness, and devastation and anger from her selfishness.

"Franky is the one who gets those kids registered in the system," I said. I wasn't asking a question, because I knew. "That was what you owed Franky."

"It's more than that. Your father wanted to keep you. Wanted to run off into Sector A-"

"WHAT?" I squawked. She noticed her slip and looked away from me, rummaging into a draw and pulling out a handful of small shooters. She opened two and handed me one. I looked from her hand to her face incredulously.

"Trust me. We both need it," she ushered.

I took the shooter in my hand and tipped it into my mouth, fighting the urge to splutter the alcohol. It burned going down in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant. My mom tipped hers back in the same fashion.

"My father's from Sector A?" I whispered harshly.

"He came many years ago to look over the district. I caught his eye and then you happened. We both panicked. I thought he would have paid for me to move with him back to Sector A- to get the hell out of here- or maybe even into B or C. That wasn't going to happen because he was- is married- and the bastard had a reputation to uphold." She spat the last part out like sour milk.

I have a father. Not just a donor- well- all the same I suppose- but he had wanted me. The revelation felt like I was being engulfed in a heavy blanket, tears threatening me behind my eyes.

"Is he someone I would have heard of?" I was leaning closer now, more excited and mortified than I had ever been in my life.

"Just a fancy architect. No one of real political power. He engineered the buildings of Sectors A and B. He fought me over the pregnancy, wanting to take you with him. Told me to find someone who could forge certificates, and to keep him out of the loop in case I went up in flames."

"Sounds like a jerk," I mused disappointedly.

"He wasn't about to give up his married life in Sector A for a girl in Sector D," she laughed. "So every once in a while, he comes back here, gives me a platinum card, and then leaves."

"How was he getting birth control?"

"He has friends in high places I guess," she shrugged her shoulders but her tone was more dismissive than I would have liked. "Would come with bags of pills or shots and I would hand them off to Franky as payment. He only stopped recently bringing them to me- said it was too much of a risk to keep bringing them. That his debt was paid. Luckily his job requires him to come back and check the railways for improvements, and the walls for defects."

"If he's been giving you Units all this time, why couldn't you have just gotten us out of here?"

"I wanted to. To bring you to sector C at the very least. I passed you off as a program baby and could have let him adopt you from there, but that would've required me giving birth in a medical center, and we just couldn't risk it. It was much more difficult than we had anticipated. With you he was going to need forged documents retaining to your birth, and adoption documents. Whereas if I had kept you, I could get away with the birth and hiding you as a program baby. They weren't as wise about it back then."

"Wait... If you just passed me off as a program baby, why did you need Franky? Why couldn't you just have me in the center?"

She paused, her hands fumbling with the top of another shooter. After she managed to swallow it down she had this look of defeat to her.

"Because your father still needed documents procured."

"I'm so confused. If you passed me off as a program baby, then that would mean that all of my documents are technically legit. So, why would you have even needed Franky?"

"Salice- I"

"No. No more lies, mom. I can't handle any more lies. Everyone around me is falling apart. I'm about to be gone for months at a time. The least you could do is tell me what is really going on. Your story has so many holes in it. Things do not add up!" I felt warm, more brave than usual, more steady. It was probably the drink.

"Your father still needed the documents... for your sister."