“Everything is normal“, the doctor was saying, “just lie back and relax; you have a son.“
Earlier:
I get out of the GraviTax and walk down the busy halls of the Lune-a-Mall. It has been a while
since I've been here the last time. Looking up I see it levitating high above us.
Green-blue-white. So innocent from the distance, so ravaged by mankind if you take a closer look.
It has definitely seen better days.
The ferry took four hours and I spent a fortune to get a place on it. Too late to pussy out anyway.
Another look at the card in my hand. I can barely make it out – my hand is shaking nervously.
It doesn't matter. I don't really need to read it. I looked at it uncountable times lately.


Eugene and Kruger
Medical & Plastigenetic Services
Selene Avenue 146

There was a time when I would not even have considered it. I lively remember the big protest
marches to Capital City back in the days when the laws were discussed. Not that we could stop it or
even halt it for a significant amount of time. Times change, and ethics change with them.
But things happened. Life on the fringe of society was never easy, but these days it's downright
illegal.
He made things worse. He promised peace, but he did not mention the price.
One billion died alone in the first year of his dominion. Afterwards things settled. Resistance was
nearly battered – but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
After implementation of the new laws the genetic cleansing begun. The virus raged for a decade
until it died – it ran out of fuel.
I joined the resistance early. Living undercover, most of us even underground and making plans
how to end the madness.
We were fools to think we could change the world like that... But fate played in our hands.
On the ferry I permanently thought:
“What if? What if I had not met him at one of our childish missions? If he hadn't taken pleasure in
my body?”
I am not persuading myself to believe that it was anything else that made him fall for me. The
person I wanted to see dead for ages... and still I had to share the bed with him. I was disgusted –
even though I have to admit that he knows how to please... But marriage was just an excuse to
abuse me the way he wanted to.
Headquarters was right – I could not just kill him. It would make things worse. He decided to call
out a hereditary monarchy but there is no son yet. No offspring of any kind. Killing him would
break the world apart. We don't have much, but at least we have order.
But there is a way to stop him...
I arrive at Selene Avenue 146. I look in a mirror – probably the last time I will see this face. He
won't know what hit him in a few years. How could he suspect to be father? For him I will have
died 18 years ago. Killed by the resistance while pregnant with his soon to be first-born. His son
will be taught by us. Taught to lead mankind into a brighter future.
I enter the clinic, everything is prepared. Ten minutes later I drift into unconsciousness...
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