The Alpha Girl's Mate

Chapter 1

In the middle part of the twenty-first century, most first-world countries in the West cooperated in adopting a policy that aimed to simplify an increasingly unstable society. The system assigned every person below the age of 25 with a social rank based on genetic and mental factors. At the top, the Alpha rank, then Beta, Gamma, Delta, and at the bottom, Epsilon. This was most controversial in America, where everything is controversial - but masses of people from all walks of life opposed this measure, claiming it to be harmful and moralistic.

Despite the backlash, it was clear to see for everyone (including the United States legislature) that radical change was needed. When Congress officially integrated the system into American institutions, people saw that it was there to stay. There were riots, and the general outrage was hard to contain, but the years went by and the American masses moved on to the next big outrage. Even so, as in all times of great change, acceptance came slowly. In time the practice was dubbed the "Huxleyan Law," and it carried the same weight as the first amendment, and the Civil Rights Acts - a monument in history, unchanging, written in stone. Within a generation, children accepted this new America as fact. But there was a group to whom the effects of this radical social change were detrimental: a "generation" of people born in about a ten-year window. These were those people who, as children and adolescents, had been fully socialized in pre-Huxleyan America.

I was sixteen, in my junior year of high school (eleventh grade) when I was called out of school for my exam. I remember the moment vividly. It was during mythology class, in the middle of my presentation.

"There are several versions of the myth of Tantalus, but in just about every one of them his punishment is the same. He, uh..." I clicked to the next slide. "He's sent to Tartarus, and he's standing in a pool of water, as you can see... and there's a tree with fruit hanging above him. But whenever he bends down to get --"

I was interrupted by knocking on the classroom's door frame: inside it stood one of the office aides. "Ezekiel Paczkowski?" She said, and I glanced at the teacher.

"You can finish tomorrow, Zeke. No worries." I remember the wondering stares of my classmates as they watched me. We had been told on the intercom that morning, as we had the previous three mornings, that people would be pulled from classes periodically to take the test. I had witnessed a couple of people pulled from class myself. Students reacted differently. I felt that the only correct response was to be terrified. After all, nobody knew what was in the test, and there were strict punishments for telling another student what was in the test - including a year of jail time. For three days I had watched as everyone who hadn't taken the test clutched their clammy palms in anticipation, and stared with some kind of supernatural fear at the kids who had.

I was a pretty good looking guy, or at least I'd have liked to think so. I was fairly confident in my abilities and in my physique. It was nothing extraordinary, but with the ordinary comes security. From a Darwinist standpoint I had been dealt a pretty good hand in life: fair skin, a round-ish slavic-anglo-saxon face with a bit of loose fat hanging on my neck but which was easily hideable with the right angle. Considering that I never worked out, it was a lucky thing that I was as handsome as I was. When they called me I knew I had nothing to worry about. I would almost certainly be placed in Beta, and if not, then surely Gamma. Maybe - just maybe - by some miracle I could end up in Alpha. No, I had nothing to worry about. Yet I was scared shitless.

There were some who didn't seem to care at all when they were summoned. I don't know if they really didn't care, or if they were good at putting on an act, or they were overly-confident that they'd ace the "test" (I noticed this behavior in people who were athletic and generally good-looking, who had good reason to suspect they would be placed highly on a scale of genetic wellness). All I knew is that I envied their iron will and their unbreakable spirit. I looked at them and I wished I could be like them.