End of Women: Part Four

Coup

'We will survive this. We will come out of it stronger, better than ever before. It is our destiny. It is... my destiny.'

Nate stared out of the open window in Wilkes' former office. The sun was setting over the horizon, making long fingers of light between the treetops. Behind him Ruth hung in an inverted harness, dragging air into her lungs with great effort, body trembling. He turned back to her and ran a couple of fingers along the blue plastic-insulated cables running from her bruised, scarred nipples down to the HyperPain power pack that was supplying her with a constant, low current. 

'You are used to it by now, eh?' Nate spoke softly to Ruth, his face so close to hers that he could smell the sweat on her skin and hear her ragged breath. 'So much torture... how many years have we had you now, Ruth? Its been... four years, I think. So long. Wilkes tortured you almost every day and I have striven to live by his example.'

Ruth's eyelids were half closed, her pupils behind them, only whites visible beneath. The joints in her arms, the flesh on her breasts, her crotch, her thighs and her torso were permanently bruised. Scars and welts were everywhere. 

'Wilkes saw fit never to let you live like just another Compound girl. Was he right to do that? Bluenorth doctrine dictates that there is no forgiveness on any level for feminism, none whatsoever. Open feminists, like you, have all suffered more or less the same fate.' 

Nate touched the blue-black skin on one breast and pushed in hard. Ruth barely moved.

'I know that hurts, but you don't react to it any more, do you?' He walked backwards, folding his arms. 'You don't fear damage to yourself. You aren't a... self any more. You're a thing. An object. Something to be used. To you being beaten, electrocuted or whipped is no different to being fucked, or being used as a stool. Hm.' He smiled to himself. 'I can almost admire it.'

Ruth continued to only breathe, passing in and out of consciousness. 

'That is what we must be.' He nodded, speaking more to himself now. 'Bluenorth must be like you, Ruth. We must be unafraid of being destroyed. In that way, we can take anything they throw at us. Now that Wilkes... now that he is gone, we are vulnerable. But we can take it.' He picked up the power pack, the latest in FemPain technology, a new line of products Bluenorth were just bringing onto the market. Despite the fact that - technically - any women alive in the country were legally property of the government and should be kept in a Bluenorth facility, the reality was not quite that. Arrowheads controlled roughly eight percent of all women in the U.S and - if recent reports from South of the border were to be believed - might be expanding into new territory. Fringe groups such as the Anti-female Society, the Wayfinders and, of course, Nova Femen (what was left of them) represented an estimated further 10 percent of females. Still, even now, another five percent remained free. Very nearly one in four women in the United States was not under Bluenorth control. 

'They're talking about cancelling our contract.' Nate said to Ruth, not sure, and not caring if she was listening. 'They want full governmental control. Can you imagine that? This sacred place being run by bureaucrats in blue suits? That's the kind of horseshit you hear after something blows up.'

Ruth twitched a little more violently as her breath became a wheeze. Her eyelids flickered and her face screwed up; she was regaining consciousness fully, feeling the pain again. Her legs shuddered against each other weakly.

Even if it was horseshit, Nate knew there was truth behind it. Since he had taken over, men were still coming to the compounds, girls were still being used. They were still being fed, guards were still showing up every morning and the world was still spinning. Pregnancy rates may have gone down but a new generation of girls was most definitely on its way, being raised in the Maternity Wing, females who would never once in their lives be anywhere but the Compound. By the time they reached sixteen they would be moved into the caging system and there they would remain, serving a useful purpose to mankind.