BREEDERS

Chapter 1: What Matters Most

I got to the D train just in time before it departed. I knew my mother was not going to chase after me- she had people to do. I knew what I had said had been harsh, but it was the truth. Sooner or later we were going to have to sit down and talk about it. The train ride would be fifteen minutes at least, and I actually managed to get a seat despite the overcrowding. I looked out the window, my eyes following the top of the wall that divided Sector's D and C. my eyes spotted a modest blue house, small but perfect, and I wondered if Sandra lived there. In the distance I could see the towering skyscrapers of Sectors A and B. The words PANGEA glowed on the tallest building. Commercials for the EVE project flashed across passing billboards.

I wanted to talk to Samuel. Samuel Ryker had been my best friend since first being genetically tested at the start of puberty. We met at the Clinic, our mothers being mutual friends (growing up I had not realized they knew each other from sleeping with the same clients.) He had been to the Clinic three times that year, and he never wanted to tell me how they tested him. He had always been embarrassed.

Samuel was the person I would talk to about this- not my mother. For some reason it felt comforting that someone else I was close to had been going through the same things as me. But with my mother... she could never understand. I did not want the same things as her.

I wanted freedom.

When the train came to a stop I could see the messy brown hair that belonged to Sam. Of course he would be waiting for me, he knew how frazzled I would be. We greeted each other with a short, passing hug, neither of us truly comfortable with physical contact.

"So did they put a baby in you?" He said with a grin. I hit his side and blushed.

"No, but they put other things in me and it totally freaked me out."

This peaked his interest. "What kind of things?"

"You know that video we watched at the clinic a couple months ago? With the girl on the table and-"

"Oh God. They did not stick that thing in you," He cringed. I appreciated his reaction, because it was the same as mine.

"It's called a speculum. They gave me an ultrasound. But it was different from the video. They just put a screen over my belly and it was projected above me. I didn't see anything, but the doctor looked impressed."

"That video was on a DVD, so it was old. Can't believe they are still using that duckbill thing though."

"My mom and I got into a fight..." I looked up at him to see he didn't react.

"What about?"

"What would happen after I gave birth. She just assumed I would keep it."

"It is hard to imagine raising a baby in this Section," he answered. We walk down an alleyway, the sewers steaming. There are a few drug addicts littering the ground, passed out or possibly dead.

We didn't stop. You could never stop walking in Sector D. I know it was wrong, but I am so desensitized at this point. We had seen worse than this.

I live in a world where my mother prostitutes herself, and women are used as cattle for children. I live in a world where men are milked and we are bred- like show horses. There is not much room to feel anything else. I look at Sam, walking passed the Lion's Den and ignoring the catcalls from the lonely men. I never walked home alone for this reason. Even though these men are sterile it does not mean that they can't use it. Sam has a blank expression on his face, and I spend the rest of the walk home wondering what he is thinking.

"Do you think you have fathered any children yet?" I asked carefully. He raises his eyebrows at me in surprise.

"I was rejected again, they did not accept my sample. They said something about low sperm count, and my great-great grandfather having Lupus. And something about a great-great-great uncle who was imprisoned for homicide and determined to suffer from that thing- Schizophrenia. "