God's Country (inspired by The Handmaid's Tale)

Talia, the Dying

Talia watched the little green circle spin as it processed her upload. 10% complete, the screen said. She leaned back in the creaky chair to wait.

When Talia was growing up, no one would have expected an old woman like her to know how to work current technology. But she had a degree in computer programming. She was of a dying breed, people who had a college education but weren't part of the government. In a decade, all of them would be dead.

43% complete.

Dead. Everyone Talia knew was dead. Her friends had been the first to go--and of course, when she said friends, she meant her friends from college, decades ago, because one couldn't have real friends when you never knew who would report your words.

The Department of Health and Human Services had come out with a "vaccine" to help control overpopulation (because obviously the general population wasn't moral enough to use abstinence). According to the bubble-gum-colored ads, the shot would temporarily stop young people from having babies. Like passing out condoms in high school, except this method was fool-proof. A second shot would restore a person's fertility. The vaccine was required for all students entering middle school.

Since Talia was in college, most of her friends had been part of the protests. But she'd sensed something dangerous brewing and hung back. Eventually the protests died down in response to the stabilizing birth rate.

Seven years later, the first round of vaccinated children began asking for their reversal shot. And they were denied. It seemed there was no reversal shot. Talia's friends took to the streets again, but she'd had her baby by then. Single mothers don't risk their lives. Then the protesters were fired from their jobs, and people started disappearing. Before she knew it, all her friends were gone.

78% complete.

Her parents died of old age, which happened a lot in those early years. No siblings. Just Talia and her daughter, Charlotte. She remembered the day Charlotte had been vaccinated. How can you comfort a child about a new school when you know the "routine" shot will make it so that she can never have a family?

Charlotte was not born with her mother's sense of self-preservation. She was more like her reckless father. She joined the 2217 Rebellion, against her mother's wishes. They sent Charlotte's death certificate in the mail.

96% complete. Talia's heart jumped; almost ready.

Now, at the end of things, she wished she had protested with her friends, fought with--and for--her daughter. She did not want to end not with a bang but a whimper. So she had pulled from memories of her Catholic school days, and--

100% complete. A red box flashed onto her screen, just like it was flashing onto every screen in America. It said,

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

--The Bible, Unabridged

It was done.

A few minutes later, They came for her. Her door burst open with a bang.