My sisters are in the room. Beryl stands the tallest and the oldest of us. I'm the only boy, the middle child. She has her gun at her hip and her hair tied in a long twisted ponytail that goes all the way down her back. She was the fastest shooter in these parts and everyone knew it. We meet at the old Saloon. It reminds me of Scorpion tail. Beryl is the most dangerous of my sisters and that's saying a lot. They call my oldest sisters the stingers. Beryl, Pearl and Ruby have always been the law Enforcement and the protectors of New Florida. Right now, though...they had called the rest of us to meet and that was something that I wasn't used to.
"Thank ya'll for coming."
Diamond is the only one who speaks out against it, "If the Grandmother finds out we're here..."
"She's weak as fuck and old as dust. She's become useless. The Convention is coming and he will be gone. This will be our one and only shot. He's fertile. We need him. We need his sperm."
"This could mean war," Diamond warns.
She's pushing it. She's getting the eyes but that won't make her back down.
"We'll take his sperm. We will kill him after. Dead men don't tell stories..." Beryl lets us know.
The others are listening to her. Six of my eight sisters are in this room with me. We live in the highlands of what used to be Florida and parts of Georgia. The closest states are the Carolinas. There are no more North Carolina and South Carolina. They merged. Now they are just the Carolinas. Georgia doesn't exist anymore. Neither does Alabama. They were all blown off the fucking map with an atomic bomb. That doesn't matter anymore. That was a long time ago. Now this land is called something else and there's no more peace. The country is in civil war and Beryl knows it. I can see it in her eyes.
"This is treason," another one of my sisters says.
My younger sister Opal shakes her head, "I agree with the stingers. Sperm is the only thing that matters at this point."
"Let me talk to her first," I suggest.
They all look at me. I've always been the reasonable one. I have always been the diplomatic one. My sisters wanted war and they would stop at nothing to get sperm. Beryl isn't the type to change her mind about things but I can tell she knows that she hasn't convinced all the others. The silence wasn't something she expected when she brought up this plan to our sisters. She expected unwavering support. Maybe that's why she seems to reconsider her strong-armed stance.
"He comes tonight. If you can't convince our Grandmother by then, we'll take it...one way or another..."
I nod.
"I understand."
The others walk out of the room and I know that the fate of my family and my people are at stake here. We needed sperm and we needed it desperately.
==
Guess you wonderin' what's all this talk about sperm?
"There is a problem with our men..."
My name is Gem Zoe. I know Gem isn't the normal name for a boy but I wasn't exactly the normal kind of boy. I'm not sure where I should start. I guess at the beginning. The very first time I heard that there was a problem with our men.
I was 4 years old when the news came. My family lived in the country of South Georgia near Macon. My grandfather was a wealthy oil guy back then running for Governor of Georgia and we had all the luxuries money could afford. When you live like that, you think you're untouchable until you're touched. Until every man you know in your life is touched.
A strange disease took over America. America was quarantined from the rest of the world. Canada stopped trade.
Mexico closed it's boarders to us almost immediately. Funny how that shit happened huh?
