Prompt: Dystopian future

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Amanda

Before the Second Enlightenment, the most common euphemism for the act of procreation was making love, and that was more puzzling to Elise than anything else. Making love carried an implication of passion. But passion led to murder and crime, not procreation.

She asked her literary professor about this seemingly positive connotation once following a lecture on iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's sonnets had so much about passion. What did he mean? How could a writer so ahead of his time, so brilliant at critiquing the irrational actions emotion led people to take: how could he also write so seemingly in favor of passion's existence?

Elise's professor had thought about it for a long time, so long that Elise had almost had to say forgot it just so she could make it to her next class on time. Waiting didn't make any difference. When at last her professor spoke, she only said that for all his virtues, Shakespeare was a writer from before the Second Enlightenment, and there was no use puzzling over the illogic of someone from that time.

Needless to say, this was hardly a satisfying response.

Through two more classes and the walk back to her dorm, the uncomfortable prickle of dissatisfaction wouldn't leave her. It was like an army of tiny ants had taken her skin for her marching ground. It was not a sensation she was very familiar with. Generally her teachers answered her questions gladly and simply. There was only one logical answer, and often it was just a yes or no.

But while Elise knew her professor had tried to use logic in answering her, something about the resulting response didn't sit right. The logic didn't seem quite logical.

It was that curiosity that drove her to experiment. Surely, if she felt for herself the acts of passion that past writers had so fondly described: surely then she would understand, and finally put a logical solution to this puzzle.

But she was disappointed. Experiencing it for herself didn't add any kind of sudden influx of understanding. Instead, Elise was left to admit that maybe her teacher's first answer was the most logical one.

Once the heaving feeling entered her stomach, she only had seconds to dash to the bathroom. She thrust her head over the toilet just in time for the contents of her stomach to empty out of her mouth.

"You okay there Elise?" Gera asked. Elise hadn't even realized she was there.

"I- I think so." Elise braced one hand against the sink for support.

Her mouth felt disgusting. She hadn't gotten sick like that since she was a child. It must be the flu going around, but still. What an unlucky time to catch it, if there were such a thing as luck.

It must have shown in her face, because Gera's softened. "Wait here a second."

Gera was gone before Elise could muster up a reply. It wasn't like Elise would be going anywhere anytime soon. All of her professors had twenty four hour health requirements for attendance, and her legs were too shaky to support her anyway. Instead she hugged herself and tried to breathe deeply while waiting for Gera to return.

Gera didn't take long. She did keep Elise waiting longer than a second, but it was still less than a minute when she reappeared in their shared bathroom. She held a clear cup in one hand, and placed it firmly into Elise's palm.

Elise rinsed out her mouth and throat, savoring the sweet relief cool water brought. She expected Gera to go on her way, but when she looked up, her roommate was still there.

"Thanks," Elise said. She should have said that before.

Gera shrugged. "The benefit to you outweighed the trouble to me." She paused. "How long ago did you take your capsule? If it wasn't too long ago, you should take another one."

Elise frowned as she tried to remember. The last time she'd taken her capsule, the twice daily pill every American took to get rid of the body's production of pesky estrogen and even more importantly, violent testosterone, had been at breakfast this morning. That had been... six hours ago?

"That was early this morning." Elise pulled herself to her feet. "I should be fine."

Elise got sick seven separate times in the next three weeks without any other sign of illness. Despite that, she felt better than she could remind feeling in a long time. More lively. All her emotions were more vivid, and even verging on irrational sometimes. One time she nearly teared up at the ending of a movie she'd seen a hundred times over. Another she nearly screamed at Gera for just using her alarm clock.

The growing strength of her emotions held one logical facet: that it was a symptom in line with unexpected illness. Thus, it wasn't a surprise when her menstruation did not occur at its expected time. The logical conclusion, that she was pregnant, was confirmed with a quick test in her bathroom.

She sat cross legged on the cold white tiles, a pink test gripped in one hand, and her thoughts running wild. Logically, she knew this was practically a nonissue. She would finish her graduate program within the next three months, and she could have the freedom to deal with this issue afterward.

Still, in the meantime, law dictated her pregnancy be communicated to her doctor immediately so her capsule intake could be adjusted to account for the growing hormones. That would be the next logical step.

But unexpectedly, she thought of the mystery of love poems. Of the mysterious good passion that logic had never been able to explain.

For the first time in her life, Elise knowingly made an illogic decision. She decided not to tell anyone.

No one so much as commented on her weight gain or the way Elise was certain pregnancy made her shine. But then, one year ago, Elise wasn't sure she would have noticed her own physical changes in appearance. Her reflection had been irrelevant, just as all forms of beauty had been.

It wasn't just her own perceived beauty that appeared more pleasant to her. From the red and blue flowers that grew outside her dorm, to the flowing wordplay in poetry, everything pretty seemed just a bit prettier now. It almost made her regret that her poetry class was coming to a close.

For the final, a class-wide discussion was to be had about the reason for the existence of poetry. She walked into the classroom with her mind spinning with ideas of ways the conversation could go. But any hope of an intellectual stimulating discussion ended when one of her classmates broke into a bashing of the Bard.

"How it that the man wrote 154 sonnets and not one of them is sensical?"

"It doesn't have to be sensical," Elise said. "They're poems."

He shook his head, red curls bouncing in the air. "They barely fit into the standardized categorization of a sonnet, and their coherence goes from bad to worse."

"Examples?" A blonde girl asked.

"Sonnets 18, 29, and 147 are some of the worst offenders," he supplied from a sheet of notes on his desk.

"Sonnet 147 is one of the best sonnets." It was one of Elise's personal favorites. "You just don't understand it right."

"But there's nothing to understand," her red haired classmate insisted. "Shakespeare even mentioned madness: the only thing to conclude is that he must have been suffering from madness when he wrote it."

"The only person suffering here is me, from your madness. Leave logic behind and reread the poem but with your emotions."

The professor scratched her nose beneath black rimmed glasses. "That's not really part of the curriculum..."

"Well, it should," Elise declared, growing bolder by the minute. "What is poetry but emotion and beauty captured in words? Don't ask logic to explain it. That's like asking a shape to explain a hue, or a star to explain a plant. It can't be done."

She was met with blank stares from her classmates. Her professor's face was slightly more animated, but only in the furrowed brows of confusion. Then a gasp emitted from across the room, and Gera sat bolt upright. Elise started to smile, thinking that at last she'd gotten through to someone.

"You're off your capsule, aren't you?" Gera exclaimed. "I saw one in the sink the other day. I thought you must have just dropped one, but you've been throwing them down the drain instead of taking them, haven't you? It's the only thing that makes sense!"

"So what if I have?" Elise was standing now. She folded her arms across her chest. "I've been off for weeks now, and I feel better than I ever have!" She'd actually only stopped the pills one week ago, but since her hormones had been influenced by pregnancy long before that, it hardly counted as a lie.

The effect on her classmates was immediate. They raced away from her as if she had a weapon. Some fled into the halls, others leapt under their desks, and others still cowered against the walls.

"I'm not dangerous," Elise proclaimed. "Not everything is logical, but I'm not crazy. Without the capsules, everything is beaut-" She was cut off by a sharp force to the back of her head. She crumpled to the floor.

"911, we have a 789- a student off her capsule."

In the hospital, the doctor stopped in to view his patient. She was younger than most, and the white hospital gown made her rounded belly exceedingly obvious. An IV connected her hand to one of the many machines at her side. Her eyes were closed, but at his entrance they opened and her mouth broke into a brittle smile.

"How are you feeling, Elise?" He asked. "Everything feel normal?"

"Yes," she said faintly. "I feel... normal."

There was a strange note in her voice that bid the doctor to look twice at her when he would not otherwise. He noticed then a detail that seemed most illogic given Elise's smooth recovery. It was a single tear trailing down her cheek, irrational and out of place.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shane

Five hours before the Pairing ceremony, Noah sat in the hospital level of the ship and watched his grandmother die. Her hands were thin and lined with veins, with skin the colour of dirty paper. She'd been young when Utopia II launched, and she was one of the first of the women called to be Paired once the plan had been put in place. She had had eight children, and she had watched five of them die in the arena. Another had chosen to walk among the stars. He was glad she would be gone before it was his turn to go.

"What if I can't win?" he asked, his hands twisting in his lap. "I'm not the fastest, or the strongest. I-"

"You must do what you've always done," she replied, her voice as sharp and bright as her eyes. Almost ninety, but she clung to life with the determination that had seen her through so much already. "You do your best, and then there can be no shame in the outcome, and you know that there is nothing more you could have done."

"But maybe one of the others deserves to win."

She smacked his leg, the blow light, the reproof behind it sharp. "No-one deserves to win more than any other. All men are equal in the arena. And as they will all be trying very hard to win, I suggest you do the same. A man who gives up before his Pairing ceremony may as well go walk among the stars and give some other man the chance to win."

Noah flushed and bowed his head. "Yes, Grandmamma. I understand."

I don't want her to die. And I don't want to die either he thought. And yet here they sat, surrounded in wilting flowers from the garden levels, her body failing a little more with every breath, and the chances of him dying inching closer every second.

"You understand nothing, silly boy. Look at me." And again, kinder, when he couldn't meet her eyes. "Look at me, Noah."

"Yes, Grandmamma."

Her shaking hand fumbled for his, and gripped it as tightly as her failing strength allowed. "Listen to me. It is hard to see, but whatever happens tonight, you will have done a good thing. Winning is always desirable; every fool knows that. But every man that fails to leave the arena gives hope to another. And after life, hope is the greatest gift."

He squeezed her hand gently. "Thank you, Grandmamma. You're right, as always."

She coughed twice, the sound a loud bark in the silence of the ward, but made no effort to wipe away the dark red that flecked her lips and chin. When she spoke, her voice was faint and cracking.

"Noah. Noah."

He pressed her little hand between his two big ones. "I'm here, Grandmamma."

She looked at him through dimming eyes. "Remember, do not go gentle into that good night, Noah." Her favourite poem. He couldn't count the number of times she had recited it to him over the years. When he went to live with her after sickness had taken his parents, she would sit beside his bed before he fell asleep and murmer the words until they became a lullaby to him. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. She had raged, through plagues and the grief that had threatened to take her as she watched her children die, and now she was going at last. Her red stained lips moved and he leaned in to hear the words.

"Let me see it, Noah. One last time."

He got up and crossed the room to the wall, pressing the button that opened the shutters. Far away below them, the Earth hung against the blackness, all glittering blue and green. From up here, it looked peaceful and beautiful, with no signs of the deadly radiation that had driven the launch of Utopias I and II. Even the dirty clouds of pollution the photographs in schoolbooks showed had long since dispersed. The universe had its ways of restoring its balances.

Noah turned back to the bed and the body of his grandmother. He folded her hands atop the blanket and wiped the red from her lips for the last time with a spit-dampened tissue. He left her eyes and the shutters open and left the room to prepare for the Pairing.

***

Three hours before the Pairing, Amira stood in the preparation chamber and let the attendants scrub her body. Another curled her hair with a pair of hot irons. Soft music played in the background, carefully chosen to encourage relaxation and a calm spirit. She did not need the music.

"You must be so nervous, dear," said the old woman in front of her, who was now buffing at her nails. Amira had worked in the garden levels until she bled and was called to be Paired. The dirt was deep in the creases and cracks in her hands.

"Not particularly." It wasn't a lie. She was excited. Tonight she would be with the one that she loved. She had no doubt that they would be the victor. The night before, they had sat together and shared a meal and she had looked into the eyes of all five of those competing for her, and she knew which four would die. The thought did not worry her. Death was a necessity aboard Utopia II. And there were always plenty more men. "Were you Paired, like me?"

The old woman smiled, sad and bitter all at once. "Yes, dear, I was."

"Would you tell me about your children?"

"Child, dear. Just the one. A baby girl." She looked into Amira's eyes. "The sickness took her when she was two weeks old."

"Oh. I'm sorry." She meant it. To carry a child all those months and have it torn away would not be an easy burden to accept.

The grip on her hand was tight and urgent. "No. I was glad."

"I...I don't understand."

"Don't you see? I would rather my baby girl be dead than condemned to live this half-life we cling to," she said, and her voice carried with it all the hurt and pain and bitterness of her years. Something fluttered in Amira's stomach. A moment's pause, then she took a deep breath.

"I will never have a child. I could not bear to waste a life like that."

The old woman looked up, her gaze sharp and hard. "You can't be sure of that, dear."

Amira bit her lip and set her jaw. "I can be sure." She shrugged. "They may Pair me, and trade my body and my womb, but they cannot make me bear children. Only the one who wins me in the arena tonight can do that."

A sad smile creases up the old face in front of her. "I fear you underestimate men."

"No, you underestimate me. I am no pawn, and I will not be bred like some...animal!" There had been no animals aboard Utopia II for decades now, but she had learned about them in the school room. Strange creatures, all of them, and none had lasted like the humans had. The arena had been built in what had been the habitation levels, and now a different breed of animal lived there.

The old woman grasped her hand again, eyes urgent in the lined face. "You would never..."

"Never what?"

A shake of the greying head. "I have lived a long time, and it takes much to scare me anymore. But right now, you are. You cannot walk among the stars, dear. I beg you," the old woman appealed, her eyes searching Amira's face.

Amira laughed. "I have no intention of doing any such thing. I intend to live a long life with tonight's victor. I just do not intend to have a child as well." She squeezed the old hands between her two strong young ones. "You said it yourself. No child should have to live like this. And they can take many things, but they can't take this choice. Or some others," she added as an afterthought.

The dress was bought in then; the fabric worn from the dozens of other Pairings it had seen. She would go into her future in the same garb an unknown number of other girls had been Paired in, for a resource as rare as cloth was not wasted aboard Utopia II. Pale blue, as was suitable for a girl's first Pairing, and heavy, it hung off Amira's skinny body, making her look small and lost amongst the folds of excess material. They stood her in front of a mirror, and she hardly recognised herself. They'd painted her lips and curled her hair, and she knew she should be nervous.

She wasn't. She was just excited. Only three more hours.

***

Five hours after his grandmother died, Noah stood in the arena and killed a man. Then he killed another. The stink of sweat and dust clogged his nose, and his mouth was bright with the copper tang of blood. There was only one more man standing in the arena with him. The knife was heavy in his hand, the hilt slick with gore and sweat, the blade dripping red.

His name is Indo he recalled. He had been absent from the last Supper the night before, where those men hoping to win the Pairing had met the woman they'd spend the rest of their lives with. Noah had sat there with the others in the painful silence while the attendants had bought trays of food and wine before fading back into the shadows of the ship. Amira had been silent and veiled at the head of the table. They said sometimes there were fights at last Suppers. Noah would have almost welcomed one, if it had broken the breathless tension that had soured every bite of food and every sip of wine.

Indo's dark eyes glittered dark and bright under the ridges of the helmet. The others had challenged him with words before he killed them, taunting, daring him to make a mistake. He had not replied, except with the song of his blade that left them bleeding out on the sand.

His helmet had been knocked aside by a blow from Ming-Lu's mace. The blood from a scrape across his forehead kept trickling into one eye. He was tired, and his body called for him to quit, but he cannot. Not yet. To give up would be to go quietly, and the promise he made his grandmother drove him on.

They closed on each other in a swift, violent exchange of blows. All around them, the crowd roared. Indo carried a long knife, but he fought with his hands, arms and legs too. Dark spots scattered across Noah's vision as an elbow drove into his temple, and he his knees hit the sand. The noise of the crowd suddenly seemed a long way away.

He pushed himself onto one knee. A second later, the arm locked around his neck, squeezing. The knife tumbled from his fingers and his nails clawed at the limb choking him, but the pressure only tightened more, implacable.

In that moment, he knew that he was going to die. The arm tightened around his neck. The edges of his world went dark, the shadows rushing in towards the middle of his vision. His eyes went up and caught a glimpse of her behind the nets, her dress a spot of blue amongst the grey. Amira he thought, then grandmamma I'm sorry I have failed you followed close behind. His hands beat uselessly at the unrelenting arm choking the life out of him.

Suddenly, he was breathing again.

Air rushed, hot and fierce, into his throat. It burned his lungs and spluttered out in the cough of one who had been a second from choking. His ribs felt like they were cracking. Saliva dribbled unbidden from his lips. Noah collapsed onto the sand. Each breath hurt to drag through his bruised throat. The sand slowly came back into focus an inch from his face; he'd fallen face down onto the arena floor. The roar of his heartbeat thundered in his ears. I'm alive, then, again, incredulous: I'm alive!

He risked a glance up. Through the dust, he could see Indo advancing towards Amira's box, paying him no attention. If I could... If I was on my feet... he thought. He could barely breathe without coughing, let alone stand, let alone find the strength to creep up on Indo and slash his throat. And there was no honour in killing a man from behind.

"What is this?" snapped one of the stewards.

Indo inclined his head towards the stands. "I beg the lady for mercy for this man!"

Noah's mind whirled. I'm him. I am the man he thought. He had never heard of a fighter asking for mercy for another. His head throbbed.

Amira leaned forwards, her face a study of curiosity behind the net. "This man? But why?"

"He has fought well!" Indo cast a look over his shoulder, back at him, Noah, just about managing to balance on his knees. "I have shed enough blood for you, lady. Let this one live!"

There was no room in his head for surprise; only relief and fear and hope. He almost threw himself back onto the floor to beg. Only the understanding that this would show him for weak, therefore not worthy, stopped him. Get up! Grandmamma would want him to get up. It tore at his chest and ribs, but he struggled to his feet and stood there, wobbling, while Amira pressed a finger to her lips in thought. There was a dance in her eyes.

"You could kill him," she said to Indo.

Indo shrugged, a swift, graceful movement. "If you wish me to, I will." The crowd roared at that, a hungry wave of sound and fury that almost send Noah back to his knees with its sheer force. His shoulder throbbed from a distance, as if it was happening to someone far away. He rubbed it absently as Indo continued: "But I have no will of my own to do so. He has fought well. He may win another woman one day."

And do this again? He almost laughed. It might have been the end of him.

"That is true," Amira tapped her finger against her chin. "But yet. This is unprecedented, Indo."

"I am unprecedented, lady."

Noah's armour felt too heavy, and his tilted helmet was dragging his head to one side, threatening to tip him over. I must look a sorry state he thought, the arena swaying before his eyes. The audience rumbled around them all, uncertain.

"Amira," he said. It was little more than a splutter. "Mercy."

She wasn't looking at him. She hadn't taken her eyes from Indo. Noah hadn't been granted even a look, though she'd seemed happy to talk to him at the Supper. Her attention was all for Indo. Lucky for her that he won, Noah thought, not without a little bitterness.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Indo nodded. "He would be a good husband to some woman. But not for you."

"Very well, then. Since you plead so nicely, and he has fought well. Noah Kenree, as it is in my power, I grant you mercy."

He almost sank back to his knees as relief coursed through his veins. Mercy, mercy, mercy... He managed to stutter out thanks without sobbing. A slow applause started to ripple out of the crowd. The sound of it was how he imagined the sound of rain; he tipped his head back and drank it in, savouring every drop. It could have lasted a minute or a thousand years.

A steward ran forwards to see him off, but he shook him aside, insisting that he could stand and that he would watch the formalities from on the arena floor. How many could say they had done that? The winner is any who survive, he thought. I fought well. I did not go quietly! And I'm still alive! He had raged and the light had not died. Not today. Grandmamma would be proud, he thought, and wished that she was there to see this.

There was nothing left in his legs. One eye was glued shut by the crusting blood from the gash on his forehead. It would have been insulting, if Noah had been the sort to be insulted, that Indo looked as if he'd done nothing but stroll to the garden deck and back. He seemed to have barely broken a sweat. A worthy victor. Grandmamma would not have liked that thought, but it was true. A worthy victor and, he added, in another blast of relief, a good man. He hoped one day they might be friends.

"Thank you, lady." Indo bowed his head to the box. He'd dropped his weapon, now that the fight was over. Only the script was left now; the same words and formalities written for the first Pairing that they had all seen exchanged countless times. Noah knew the words by heart, though he'd never expected to be watching the performance today. Grandmamma would have said these words too, he realised, and then, with a jolt, mother too, and father. He wondered if they would be proud of him today too.

Amira stood up, small and swamped in blue.

"Reveal yourself," she said, and she sounded happy, "and claim your reward."

Indo glanced back at Noah and his dark eyes glittered under the bright arena lights. He smiled, a smug grin. Then, in one swift movement, he yanked away his helmet and tossed it onto the ground at Noah's feet. It bounced against his boot.

The crowd went silent.

Indo was tall and lithe; Noah had known that already. He'd known he had dark, glittering eyes. He hadn't expected the mass of glossy black hair, or the high, sharp cheekbones.

Noah blinked, his mind thick with fog. If he had been still holding the knife, he would have dropped it. The crowd was on their feet, noise swelling into the shocked silence, and Noah stood there and gaped while Indo grinned and grinned and grinned.

With a swish of her long hair, she turned back to the box. A faint little smile danced across Amira's face.

"Amira," the woman who was Indo said, according the script used at countless Pairings. But which had ever gone like this? Mercy was rare; this was rarer. The crowd were in uproar, pulsing and pressing against the barriers, shouting all at once, but it was all muted by the shock. Noah's head was spinning unpleasantly. He's a woman! And now that he knew, he could hear it in her voice and felt all a fool. "I am Indola Marina and I am your victor. Will you be Paired with me?"

She won't he thought, because she couldn't. The victor had to be a man because it had always been a man. Men fought for women and were Paired with them to have children – many boys and the rare gift of a girl-child to be fought for in her own time. It had to be. They'd made it that way. This was some mockery of all of them, of the sacrifice all the men that had gone before had made. She cannot.

Too late, he realised that Amira was the only person in the arena who hadn't shown any sign of surprise, and Noah knew then that this had been their plan all along. The arena blurred and he realised he was crying.

"Indola Marina," Amira said, pushing the net aside so that she could descend the steps to the arena floor. The blue of her dress trailed behind her. The face of mercy, Noah thought, and of what else? She was smiling as if she were about to burst with happiness. "I will."