The Breeding Program

THE BREEDING PROGRAM

by

Aya Fukunishi

Copyright © 2012 by Aya Fukunishi
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Printing, 2012

A Bangkok Nights Publication

Chapter One

'I won't do it again,' Amanda whispered in the darkness. 'I won't. They can send me to a labor camp, but I won't do it again. Three times is enough.'

Amanda couldn't see Sam, but she knew she was there. The sound of her breath echoed through the vent and into Amanda's room, and hers into Sam's. Each woman always knew when the other was there. Sometimes Sam wished they couldn't, and especially when she heard those quiet, strangled sobs.

Sam sighed, fighting off sleep. 'Get some rest, Amanda. You'll feel different in the morning.'

Her words felt all the more hollow for the echo through the vent. She knew Amanda would feel the same way tomorrow, and she knew she was serious. The poor woman had lost her husband in the war. A lot of them had, of course, Sam included, but Amanda had also lost two daughters in New York. It was all too much for her to bear.

Like many of them Sam had petitioned for women like Amanda to be exempt from the program. They'd already sacrificed more than anyone could reasonably ask of them, she'd argued. They should be left in peace, left to mourn their crushing loss.

She'd been refused, of course, as she knew she would. There were just too few of them left. They sat on a knife edge, one generation from extinction, and this was no time for pity. This was no time for mercy or kindness.

If not now, she countered,
when?
What was the point in going on, if this was how they must do it? If the sacrifice of basic humanity was the only way to keep the race alive, she argued, it was already lost.

Amanda had been spiraling for days now, and Sam could hear the fragility in her voice, much as she tried to hide it with bravado. Hers was the voice of despair. Sam knew she couldn't go on, and she knew she'd have to report her in the morning.

Of course they weren't monsters, those in charge. If Amanda was as bad as Sam suspected she'd be taken from the program and give light duties for as long as it took to get her back on her feet. She'd work the farms deep down in the hydroponics levels. The labor camps were a myth to keep them in line, to remind them how good they had it and give them a little nudge when their sense of patriotism wasn't enough.

And they
did
have it good. Better than most, anyway. Sam's room was much larger than average, and she got only the best of everything. Her water was clean, fresh, and nothing like the filtered crap everyone else had to drink. Sometimes she got fresh fruits and vegetables, regular vitamins and anti-radiation supplements, and when she was pregnant she even got meat.
Real
meat, not vat grown. God knows where they got it, but when she was carrying she lived like a queen.

That was the draw, of course. That was what kept them going through the endless medical checkups, the breedings, the morning sickness and cramps. The little luxuries made it all tolerable, and made them feel as if they weren't simply baby factories; endless production lines for the manufacture of new versions of themselves.

It wasn't just for the taste of steak, of course. Even the taste of that delicious T-bone wasn't enough to compensate for the trials and hardships of pregnancy. No, it was for the fact that for just a moment, as they cut into that perfect, succulent steak they could, if only for the blink of an eye, imagine that everything was OK again. The Chinese hadn't attacked. The US hadn't retaliated. Their parents were still alive. Their husbands were by their sides, and their children played in the yard under a warm yellow sun. Just for a moment, everything was perfect.

It wasn't much, but it was just enough.

Sam was approaching her second pregnancy now. She'd given birth three months ago, and since then she'd been given free reign over the complex. She'd spent a lot of time visiting the lower levels where the really tough jobs were done. The engineers running the power plant, the miners excavating raw materials and the food processors growing vat meat in their stinking factories all reminded her just how lucky she was to be a breeder. The simple fact that she had a working uterus had saved her from the horrors of the lower levels, and every day she thanked God for that. It made the morning sickness more tolerable.

She looked across her large, dark room and saw her medal swinging from its ribbon. She proudly wore it every day, and looked forward to earning many more, but she knew they weighed heavy on the breast of Amanda. She knew those three pot metal discs reminded her of the two children she'd lost, and the three she'd never meet.

The sobbing resumed through the vent. Sam knew the poor, broken woman wouldn't stop until morning, and she pulled her pillow over her head to try to block out the sound. As she closed her eyes she thanked God once more that she'd had no children to lose, when it happened. Her one child, and the many who would hopefully come along, would all live to see the birth of a new civilization.

With a little luck, thought Sam as she drifted off to sleep, it would be a civilization that had learned from its mistakes.

Chapter Two

The alarm call roused Sam early, and she blinked away her sleep through blurry eyes.
That
was something she'd have to readjust to. In the three months since she'd given birth she'd been allowed to sleep as late as she liked, but now she was back in the program there were a hell of a lot of 6AM wake up calls ahead.

Before, in her old life, Sam had been a lady of leisure with a husband on Wall Street, and despite the poor economy the money had been more than good enough to allow her an enviable lifestyle. She'd been a late riser, allowing the day to build up a head of steam before she joined it for brunch. Not since she'd graduated college five years earlier had she needed an alarm to wake her, and those first few months in the program had been difficult.

That was the one thing she hadn't grown accustomed to in the two years she'd spent in the complex: the militaristic mindset. What did it matter if she woke up at 6AM or 10? It wasn't as if there was any sunlight down here, so there wasn't even a need to work by a 24 hour day. Why not sleep ten hours each night and just get going when everyone was good and rested?

The rules were set by the commanders, though, and they only seemed able to operate according to alarms, orders and rigorous, unyielding routine. There was a reason for it, of course. She knew that. She knew that without the rules the complex would quickly descend to chaos and anarchy. It was only the rules that kept the farmers from abandoning the hydroponics levels, the waste management crew from refusing to process tons of human waste each day, and the breeders from closing their legs.

It didn't make 6AM and more pleasant.

Sam showered quickly, listening to the pump beneath her feet that recycled the drain water back to the shower head. Shampoo dripped in her eyes, and she had to fumble around blindly to find the switch that shut off the recycled water and gave her a quick, ten second blast of clean water to rinse.

She drip-dried for a few minutes, enjoying the feeling of cool, conditioned air on her wet skin before dabbing away the excess and slipping into her clothes. As she pulled on her skirt she noticed a faint orange stain near the hem, and wondered for the hundredth time why all the clothing had to be white. It was a ridiculous choice for a dirty underground facility, impossible to keep clean for more than a few hours.

The screen by her bed beeped its alarm, and Sam rushed across the room excitedly. This was the moment she'd been waiting for since she was re-upped. All her weariness was forgotten as she switched on her computer and found the login details in her inbox.

The controllers of the program were strict, but even in the aftermath of the war they hadn't lost so much of their humanity that they demanded a woman completely give up her free will. They allowed, thank God, the women of the program to pick their own mates from the database. Every unmarried man between 18 and 50 was listed (barring the politicians and military commanders), and Sam got the chance to pick and choose from any of the 18,000 eligible candidates.

What's more, they'd even added a search program to the database that could be used to select for any number of attributes. Eye color, height, body type and even pre- and post-war job could be searched, which was a mixed blessing for the men of the complex. Even now, in a time when former CEO’s processed human waste and former garbage men ran whole wings of the complex, it was the formerly rich guys who still got the most tail. For some reason the girls in the program seemed to still want to breed with actors, singers and businessmen, despite the fact that their talents and skills counted for squat in a post-war world.

But not Sam. She only truly cared about one thing, apart from the requirement that she was physically attracted to the man she chose to breed with. She needed to know that
he
was into
her.

As a member of the breeding program she had the power to call any man she chose to her room, and he was compelled by law to sleep with her until she conceived or released him. Most of the women used this to their advantage, picking guys who were - physically, at least - well out of their league. She'd seen her share of men standing outside breeding rooms with pale, drawn faces, bracing themselves for an hour of unfulfilling sex with women to whom they weren't in the slightest bit attracted. Sam, though, just couldn't imagine sleeping with some guy who was there under duress. He needed to enjoy it. To enjoy
her.
That was how she got off.