Akropolis

The Rod (part 3)

Such privilege they'd known in those days...amenities. It was a fairytale life. What was asked for was given. Even the wildest requests were considered and in some capacity granted.

The city had not procured nearly enough breeders that year to sustain the growth of the human population. Despite their best efforts, Akropolis had seen a slow but steady decline of fertile citizens versus a steady incline of sterile ones. While this was not news to anyone, that particular year saw a plunge in the fecund population... and so they made concessions for those that they could draw away from the other settlements for coupling.

Advertisements sent far and wide promised such prosperity the likes of which no one had ever dreamed, perhaps not since before the war when civilization knew affluence for the famous and the wealthy.

Along with the 'perks' there was also absolution, not just for the breeders but for any existing family. That was what drew Mia away from Denver so long ago, not forgiveness for her but for her father.

And when Mia had arrived and met Tom she knew that she had made the right choice, hindsight notwithstanding.

They had four wonderful years together before the accident, before she lost her body and her baby and awoke in this Frankenstein costume wrapped around what was left of her soul.

There was no actual memory of the accident. Even though she had uploaded seconds before it all happened they had erased the incident from the Cloud. To spare her the trauma of reliving it was their explanation, and at the time it seemed a reasonable excuse, but she often wondered if there was another reason, one they kept secret.

Tom remembered, but then he had walked away from it all with only a punctured lung and a few broken bones, nothing that couldn't be mended at the clinic.

It was there he had demanded her retrieval, despite her never having signed the clause, and of course they had no choice but to comply. She had kept putting it off, never thinking for one moment that her life would end so abruptly, so young.

The first question Mia asked him when she awoke from the Cloud was what happened, and after he explained to her in a halting and gut-wrenching confession, the next question she asked was why.

Why bring her back to this misery, this grief? Why not let her float in the Ether with the soul of her lost child to keep her company? Why...especially when the reason for her whole existence had become moot?

The answer was simple and selfish. She both loathed and loved him in that moment, and when his hands reached out to her in supplication she chose the path that was most familiar to her...she chose love.

I couldn't live without you...

It was true. Mia knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth. He loved her and she loved him and though she was no longer capable of giving them the family that was promised, they still had each other. They would go on. They would carry their sorrow with them, together, and maybe someday they would find some form of happiness again.

But it hadn't worked out that way.

Something was born within Tom that same day something else was taken away, something parasitic. It grew, feeding off his guilt, his grief.

The changes were subtle at first, long still silences where he stared at nothing blankly, roused only by the repeated sound of her voice and a gentle shake of his shoulder.

They tried counseling but the sessions only made him defensive and angry, and so he decided they were done with them. He stopped going out, cut off all ties of friendship. Work began to disinterest him and so that too ceased.