Chapter 2 #2
I wasn’t about to argue. It was the only way to convince my brother to disobey the Counsel. Though I’d always held my own pretty well, in my opinion.
“Sure. That would be really helpful.” I nodded to his satisfaction. I waited to release an irritated sigh until he’d fully disappeared into the only locker room on the right hand side of the training gym. I resigned myself to the bathroom to clean up and change into Madam-acceptable clothing.
Vann and I reconnected outside the gym. This large, unpainted, metal training dome was located in the outskirts of the station, and it was a long walk back to the Medella campus.
We’d picked this location specifically so we would be less likely to encounter any classmates.
Gyms like these had become notably less popular when training became mandatory, and these sessions needed to remain discreet.
We started down those usual metallic walking paths toward our next appointments, and I let my eyes wander along with my mind.
Beneath the walkways, Protectorate 005 was carpeted in plush green turf, similar to the living grass they had on earth, allegedly, and trees and flowers were speckled about artistically throughout the landscape, while the processed air of the station carried a natural perfume with hints of iris flowers that kept the atmosphere tasting clean instead of stale.
Overhead, the metal ceiling was painted in a light blue, and a projection of clouds wafted around the singular skylight that surged and faded to represent different times of the artificial day.
Our station had been built over two-hundred years ago by a designer who was Earth-born, and he’d made a point to mimic the natural habitat of humanity’s origin planet in all public areas.
Our plant life didn’t require water or nutrients to stay alive, but it emulated the real thing in every other way.
Track lights glowed gently on each side of the walkway as we moved from one panel to the next.
I’d set mine to an aquamarine, while Vann’s were grey, and both colors ushered us along, trailing forward in consistently timed pulses.
The lights were perfectly synced with both our calendars and the navigation module in our CHRONOs, while the speed of the blinking signified how quickly we needed to walk in order to make our next appointment on time.
“So, looking forward to your first match?” Vann segued directly into the topic I did not remotely want to discuss. He seemed to be finding all of those today.
“What do you think?” I let my shoulders slump, hoping my body language could fill in for the words I didn’t want to say. I’d ignored every message from a week’s worth of matches, and I didn’t know how that would go over in this coming appointment.
Vann nodded, damn near telepathically understanding that answer.
“You know, Bart was asking about you the other day.” He added next, as we both robotically followed the light pulses.
“What did I just say about your dating advice?” I shook my head, trying to come off as playful despite my irritation. “Going out with my brother’s friends has zero chance of not being awkward. I’d rather take my chance with Madam Elladena’s picks.”
“Better to be awkward with a guy who’s been vetted by someone you trust, than risk getting assigned to an abusive asshole who fooled everyone with his best behavior.
” He squeezed my shoulder, but that attempt at comfort didn’t stop my insides from constricting.
“I’m not trying to scare you, but I know how guys act when girls aren’t looking, and I don’t want you to be trapped with someone who doesn’t treat you the way you deserve. ”
So reassuring…
“I still have a year before they’ll force assignment. I have plenty of time to vet my own matches.” I muttered, trying to disguise the small ways my voice was already breaking.
“Because you have so much experience with men?” He pushed. “Trust me on this. You’ll be happier with someone I pick than anyone on your matchmaking module.”
“I’m not going to be happy with anyone I end up with.” I hugged my arms around my chest and kept my gaze fixed on the pathway.
“Don’t say that. You’re fun, capable, talented, and brilliant when you want to be.
There are plenty of men out there who would trip over themselves for a girl like you.
This is going to work out way better than you think it will, I promise.
” His smile was genuine, and that shouldn’t have put me off even more.
He would never get it. While men were put in the system for the draft, the matching system was entirely voluntary for them.
Somehow, there were always enough men available who wanted a wife and child-bearer.
There were too many compared to our 39% female population, actually, so there was no reason to force a man who wasn’t interested in a relationship to take one of the available uteruses from a man who was.
I was a prized treasure and they were just the desperate buyers.
Not to mention, he had always wanted a family since the day we’d lost ours. The difference was that he was in a position that he could choose to do so, while I was in a position where I was being forced to give those things to someone else, regardless of my feelings.
I would have done anything to trade places with him.
He continued on, while I continued to wish he wouldn’t.
“I’m just saying you’re going to graduate and be walking down the aisle before you’ve had your first kiss at the rate you’re going, and I don’t see how you’re going to find someone decent if you’re not happy with the choices you already know.
It’s not like there are millions of options in our age range on Zircon. ”
“Protectorate 005,” I corrected him. Normally I spoke casually with Vann, and we didn’t worry too much about references to the past, but as we were getting closer to the main university building, it was better to err on the side of caution.
“R-right. Protectorate 005.” He cleared his throat, then quietly shook his head to admonish his own misstep.
“Regardless, if you don’t find someone soon, you might not get a choice at all, and I think we’ve both heard enough about what kind of people attend those auctions to know you don’t want that. I don’t want that for you.”
I shook my head. I wanted to say “if we’re lucky, a full blown war will break out,” then maybe they’d start worrying more about keeping the nation safe than using the female populace like livestock, but instead, I just bit my lip and trained my gaze on the floor.
Though I loved Vann dearly, he would never understand how much I hated the fact that we even had to talk about this.
On my insistence and his taking-the-hint, our conversation moved on to books we were reading, shows we were watching, and lighter, easier things, and I tried to distract myself from the heaviness of my thoughts on this idle afternoon.
When we reached the crossroads, the walkway branched into six different paths, some towards the dorms and residential districts, others towards markets and businesses.
His grey lights split from mine, sparking towards his Biology lab.
Mine flashed towards the matchmaker’s pod.
“Good luck,” he said, and I simply tipped my chin.
We parted ways, then I followed the lights toward my next appointment with the deepest of breaths.
Etiquette training dragged as Madam Elladena went off on some rant about table settings, and napkin folding.
We could have moved on to the next topic at some point, but I’d zoned out around the time she claimed that you needed more than one fork.
That just sounded wasteful. I’d been using one spoon to rule them all since Mom and Dad died, and the thought of using a whole cornucopia of utensils to eat a single meal was some old world shit that I wanted no part of.
“Do you now understand the difference between a woman and a lady?”
Whoa what? What the fuck were we talking about now? That was definitely a trick question. I resisted the urge to cock a brow and cleared my throat instead.
Saying one was literally a synonym for the other wasn’t going to end in my favor, so I opted to take a wild ass guess as to what kind of philosophical play on words she was going for.
I nodded, and dutifully said. “Yes, that makes perfect sense, Madam. I’ll strive to be a lady and not a woman.”
“You will strive to be both, Miss Callan. And you will learn to switch between your many faces at the appropriate times.” The matchmaker corrected me with a scowl, and I probably should have actually listened to what she’d been saying.
Maybe they were both good things? I could ask for further clarification, but to be honest, I didn’t actually want to know what that meant.
I ventured a guess it was something like wearing pretty dresses and pulling up my bootstraps at the same time, but knowing Madam Elladena, it was probably something along the lines of looking elegant during childbirth.
“Apologies. That’s what I meant.”
She continued on with the lesson, critiquing how I poured tea and correcting my posture at every phase of sitting and standing up.
Apparently saying ‘fuck’ when you drop a plate on your toe is something a woman would do but never a lady.
And making polite conversation that wouldn’t stress my partner with my selfish wants or demands was something a lady intuitively knew how to do, but a woman couldn’t be bothered with?
It was really hard to keep track of which one I was supposed to be at any given moment, mostly because I was still unsure of the difference.