Dear Dolores,

We are delighted to inform you that your appointment to join the Revolut RevolutionTM has been booked! (smiley face emojii) (party balloons emojii) (thumbs up emojii)

We look forward to seeing you at your family doctor's office at the time and date below. If you did not have a family doctor on file, we have booked your appointment at your nearest walk-in clinic for your convenience.

Please arrive 45 minutes prior to your appointment time with your government-issued Health Card and your appointment card. All recipients of Revolut will be offered a mild sedative before their procedure as well as a relaxing (and well-deserved!) spa treatment*.

Patient Name: Dolores Abigail Hill

Your implantation will be performed by: Dr. Eve Franco, Women's Health Centre, 333 Sherbourne Street, 6th Floor

At: 2:30pm

On: Monday, September 18

*Note, spa treatments are offered courtesy of Janus Klein Pharmaceuticals and may be withdrawn if daily limits are reached.

I'M NOT THE type of person who keeps mementos. I don't have a box jammed with ticket stubs or old love letters squirrelled away under my bed. In fact, I'm more typically the type of person who tosses things away that, it turns out later, I should have kept. But I've kept this.

I'd brought it with me to my appointment, folded in half and stashed between the pages of a book I wasn't reading but carrying around at the time in case the urge ever struck me. I'd shown my appointment card, handed over my health insurance and, after they'd signed me in, they passed it back under the shatterproof glass that separated me from the medical centre's receptionist.

"Thank you, Dolores. You can head over to the Revolut lounge across from the elevators and take one of the massage chairs. Someone will be along shortly to settle you in."

She smiled at me brightly for a quick moment before turning her attention to the woman behind me in line.

"Dolly," I said, a touch nervously.

"Sorry?" asked the receptionist. Her eyebrows were scrunched. I noticed she was due for a wax, which emboldened me a little.

"My name. I know it says Dolores on the card, but I don't go by that anymore. I prefer to be called Dolly."

She unscrunched her imperfect eyebrows and exhaled. "I see... that's fine then. Doesn't really matter, as long as we've got the right person on the file."

She paused to take a sip from the teacup that sat, tepidly, beside her keyboard. She leaned forward and said conspiratorially, which, looking back on it now, I wonder if she meant to be or was just joking:

"They keep track, you know."

I WAS 25 when I got my Revolut. Prime fertility years. The twenty-somethings got the first wave of implants, and in a lot of ways, we felt lucky. I doubt there were any massage chairs, manicures, or sedatives when they got to the fourth or fifth wave. Those were the older women. The ones who were on the wrong side of their fertility window, were the most established, moneyed and opinionated about the whole program. They were the most likely to be brought kicking and screaming under a legal injunction to their implantation appointments.

"The older a woman gets, the more insistent she becomes of her rights."

That's a quote from the last article Rebecca Thompson was ever credited for in the Toronto Star:

"Heck No, They Won't Go -- How Women Over 40 Are Digging in Their Heels and Resisting Revolut"
by Rebecca Thompson, Staff Reporter
June 27, 2031

She's written plenty of articles since then, but women don't get bylines anymore. That's just another thing we lost along with our fertility.

I've known Becks (Rebecca) since college—a few years before all this started. We were undergrads together at Ryerson. She was in the dying Journalism program—most of the traditional media had folded up by that time in favour of instavlogs and a general opinion that the only news worth reading could be summarized by a hashtag. There was a steadily decreasing appetite for learning the rigours of a dead trade, so she was one of only a handful of students in her year.

I, on the other hand, had competed aggressively for a place in the booming Criminology program. There were nearly 400 students in my year alone, so great was the enthusiasm for plumbing the depths of the criminal consciousness among a generation brought up on true crime docuseries and podcast legends. Most of my classmates would go on to work in law or law enforcement, including the girls—at least, until women started getting pushed back down into desk jobs across high profile professions.

I wasn't sure back then what I planned to do with my degree. I had only a vague idea about wanting to right the world's wrongs and protect the vulnerable. I'd seen evil lurking in what should have been safe spaces and wanted to throw the lights on. 

I still have that desire, although I have a little less power than I'd hoped to make any real change. I've ended up in social work—which is an allowable profession. Most of the 'caring' professions are. The money is poor, and the emotional tax is heavy. Men aren't traditionally attracted to jobs that take more than they give. That is a woman's territory.

But here I am lollygagging in the past when I should be in an Uber and halfway across town by now.  Becks and I are meeting for a drink, something we do every Thursday evening—tea and sympathy, she calls it. Vodka shots and bitching is what it normally turns into.

This time, she'd asked me to bring my old appointment card. She knew I still had it. Most of us do. When something gets left inside you, you hold onto the receipt.

BECAUSE THERE'S CONSTRUCTION blocking the north turn lane, the driver lets me out on the southwest corner of Avenue and Bloor, in front of the museum. As soon as I'm on the sidewalk, I press the 30% tip button to prove to the driver that, even though I'm a lone female passenger, it was worth his while responding to my ride request.

The pub is still a few short blocks up on Yorkville but I don't mind the walk. We've been enjoying a dry, crisp fall in Toronto. I clutch my scarf around my throat and step carefully to avoid the subway vents in my heels. The vintage corduroy jacket I found at Value Village is flapping in the bit of wind that's coming up from the lake.

I step into the pub and turn immediately up the stairs toward the ladies' bar. Women are still allowed in the lower bar area, but only when accompanied by a man. Becks is already seated at our usual table in the back, by the fireplace. She's impatiently flipping through one of the complementary women's magazines.

"Can you buy this horseshit?" she scowls at me, having sensed my presence without looking up from the glossy pages. "10 Ways to Wear a Red Lip. 40 Things Your Man Wishes You Would Do in Bed. 3 Must-Have Winter Accessories. It's like they think all we care about is fashion, fucking and nice, orderly lists. Complete horseshit."

I groan in agreement and swing my stretch denim-covered legs (4 ways to dress up jeans this fall!) under the round cherry wood table.

"What's that you're drinking?" I nod at the pinkish cocktail in front of her.

She puts on a snooty accent and mimics the French barmaid, who is our regular server. "The signature cocktail this evening, madame: vodka, Campari, macerated raz-berry and a dash of twat juice. We call it le French Orgasm."

She drops the accent. "It's good, actually. But then I always was partial to an orgasm. French or otherwise."

I deploy a series of hand gestures into the air, catching the barmaid's attention and indicating that we'll have two more of what Becks has. The barmaid nods and I turn my attention back to our table.

"Things are still a little chilly between you and Roger, then?"

Roger is Becks' longtime boyfriend who, up until recently, vowed that he would be happy never to have children so that Becks could continue to work, albeit as an underpaid, uncredited, journalist. Her career is important to her. By the new population-control laws, if a couple decides to apply for a pregnancy (assuming their genetic tests clear and their bank approves), the woman is required to give up her job immediately. Some women have their implant out, fail to get pregnant and find themselves locked out of the workforce without even a baby to show for it.

"Positively arctic," she confirms. "I can't understand how a person can swerve from never wanting children to being so insistent about having one that they'd threaten to walk away from a 10-year relationship over it. It mystifies."

I reach my hand out to cover hers and grip it.

"I'm sure he'll get over it."

She just shakes her head as our drinks arrive. The barmaid places the pink froth-filled glasses on the table and drops a bowl of wasabi peas in front of us.

"Lay-deez," she says in both greeting and goodbye, stalking off to serve another table of women across the room.

"Did you bring it?" Becks asks, eager to change the subject.

I reach into my bag and retrieve my old appointment card, which looks as good as new except for the crease down the middle where it's been folded for the past 5 years.

"Are you going to tell me why you wanted to see it now?" I ask.

She'd been cryptic earlier and hadn't wanted to explain by text.

"Turn it over," she instructs. "There'll be a 12 digit code in the bottom right corner. Read it out for me?"

I flip the card over, careful to avoid the condensation ring forming around the base of my glass. She's right. There's a long string of letters and numbers. Strange, I'd never noticed it before, but I suppose it wouldn't have meant anything to me. It's a serial number of some kind.

I squint at it—I'm just a little bit farsighted and the gloom of the bar isn't helping.

"Looks like... D99-46HT8–"

"—goddamn." Becks cuts me off. She doesn't need to hear the rest.  She pulls a file folder from her tote and sets it on the table between us. "There's something you need to know."